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May 3, 2023·edited May 3, 2023

I saw a lot of vaguetweeting from Myles and other critics about how off the rails this episode gets and boy did it live down to expectations. At this point the show is just pulling a full on Rise of Skywalker and trying to gaslight its audience into thinking that the middle installment didn't happen and a whole different story occurred in its place. I get that backsliding is a thing, but Ted's main focus has long been on his relationship with Henry and not on rekindling his relationship with his wife, and this episode shows him sacrificing time and focus on the former at the expense of the latter. Even if it only lasts as long as "Hey Jude", it's still a huge betrayal of his character as we saw it develop last season. And then the end of this episode makes it look like he might have a shot at getting back with his wife, like that's something we have been led to think we should be rooting for? His entire story with therapy has taught us we should be rooting for him to move forward even if it seems difficult, not settle back into the comforts of the past.

Nate's story continues to only make sense if you skipped season 2 entirely, or maybe if you cut up all of his scenes from season 2 and drop them into this season. Him softening up after seeing Ted in the stands should be the turning point for his redemption arc, and his deleted text afterwards should be where he realizes what Rupert's influence has done to him. From here we should see him starting to emulate Ted and assembling his ersatz Diamond Dogs, realizing he doesn't want to date an uninterested model, being himself at the restaurant and around Jade, etc. But instead the keystone moment comes after all the rest of it, making it seem like he became enlightened without actually having an earned moment of enlightenment or learning anything from his past actions. And as far as Jade goes, the only way I can make sense of her thing is if she's like that girl from the episode of New Girl where Jess and Nick kiss for the first time who is sexually attracted to sadness. Otherwise I've got nothing.

But at least Nate's story has the familiar contours of a redemption arc, even one that being handled in a baffling way. I still have no idea what is supposed to be going on with Keeley. What this episode crystallized was something I felt for the past few episodes, which is her story is about things that happen to her but that we never see her actually react to. Not only does that completely infantilize her and regress her arc, but it passes up on any number of ways to tangentially or thematically connect her to the goings on at Richmond, instead stranding her in the world's worst and longest backdoor pilot.

Roy breaks up with her off screen and we never delve into how she feels about it. She hires Shandy but Barbara is the one who has to point out what a bad idea that is and Jack has to push Keeley to fire Shandy (even writing a "you're fired" speech for Keeley to deliver). Jack refers to her as a "friend" and slut shames her, but then *Jack* is the one who walks out on *her*. Hell, even this whole traumatizing story about her video being leaked is more about contrasting Jack's, Roy's (who also has his character entirely betrayed here), and Jamie's reactions to it than it is diving into how she feels about it. Which is doubly disappointing considering Keeley Hazell has a writing credit on the episode and this incident is (if I recall correctly) based in part on something which actually happened to her!

The stuff with Richmond as a team is still working well enough (always nice to see Isaac acting like a captain and Will has been a surprising source of comedy the past few episodes), but every time it steps away from the team it starts taking the worst imaginable route to get to a place it probably didn't need to be going anyway. At this point I'm watching for the occasional moments when it remembers it used to be a half hour sitcom about a soccer club and to be consistently baffled by all the bad decisions on display.

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I felt like I was going crazy this whole episode. Keeley is a PR person. She runs a PR company. Why on earth would she need anyone to write her a statement? Even if you buy that she somehow thought Rich Lady could control the internet, surely she would take control of a PR disaster given that is her entire existence???

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There is no point, Myles. The show is lost, and I feel bad for the people who were under contract to make it when they had reason to expect better. Or, in the case of the actors playing actual footballers, reasonably expected more to do. I'm only watching it now out of some mental commitment to see it through. Keely was such an interesting character, and the writers started her on such a great journey in earlier seasons, and they were blessed with a wonderful actor in the part. Now she's sidelined doing Lesbian AbFab -- badly. All the women, really. Rebecca had a handful of good episodes toward the end of S1, and that made Hannah Waddingham a big star in the USA, but her character has been horribly served ever since then as just the girl looking for romance. I get no sense of Rebecca as the owner of a financially imperiled major-league sports franchise. No male character in that job would be treated this way. Yet another good female character has been booted off the show completely (although maybe because the actor had to go to school): Roy's niece, who may have enjoyed showing Henry around London on his extended visit.

My favorite part of the show has always been the football squad itself -- the scenes in the locker room and on the pitch with this wonderful group of young international actors who seem to have real TV chemistry together. The directors and editors understand that even when the writers don't. Every individual actor always steps up and delivers when they get a real chance to do so. But they've all been sidelined. I truly don't get it.

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This is probably going to sound ridiculous and mean-spirited, but as someone who never got the Ted Lasso hype and found everything about it utterly insipid, watching it go down in flames is oddly satisfying

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Well, I liked this one, with a few asterisks.

I've never been a fan of the Keeley-Jack relationship, but this seemed like a pretty good ending to it. Jack having a secret streak of conservatism was both surprising and not at all surprising so it worked for me. The Great Awankening scene in locker room was fun, even if I too am unsatisfied with how little it moved the Colin story forward. And I liked the bit with Roy; I think the point of it is to acknowledge amid all these scenes of "enlightened" men that even "the good ones" let sexual jealousy get the better of them.

Nate... I dunno. He wanted to apologize at first match. He regretted throwing his Ted action figure around. He almost stood up to Rupert today. He's trying to emulate some of Ted's tradition and is being nicer to his employees. I realize that's a lot of almosts, but personally I can identify with knowing there is someone you need to make amends with and not being able to pull the trigger. If you think he's too far gone for the steps we see him taking to matter, that's fine, but it's working for me.

I don't understand the Jade stuff at all though.

I buy Ted working through his ex and Dr. Jake and I liked the scenes with Rebecca and with Beard and Henry in this ep, but I have kind of had enough of sad sack Ted. And they really do need to start to commit to an endgame soon. Ted and Rebecca? Ted and the ex? Ted and May? Ted and Jake? Just when I think I know where they are going they change course.

Stray Observations

* I understand that in context we are meant to take it as a slight, but I think a lot of people do introduce their SO that way because they think girlfriend / boyfriend sounds juvenile or because they think it's just none of the other person's business.

* I wanted more Colin stuff, but the scene with Isaac was pretty strong for what it was.

* I don't think Rebecca ever called a PI.

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May 3, 2023·edited May 3, 2023

Agreed that Rebecca should have immediately called bullshit on the statement Jack's team drafted. It felt so weird to see, on one hand, the players having a much more enlightened and empathetic reaction to the mass leak than you'd ever expect from a group of professional male athletes, and on the other hand, Jack's reaction/the suggested statement feeling like it was at least a decade out of date. I can't imagine a female celebrity apologizing for a situation like this today, much less when she's not the sole focus of the leak but instead one of many. Particularly not one like Keeley whose public image has never needed to be squeaky clean - she's not a mid-00s Disney Channel star.

Same with Jack being so upset that Keeley thought it was okay to send nudes/sexual videos at all. Are they not sexting? Has Keeley never sent Jack anything? How has this never come up? I could buy a story where Jack is personally unconcerned but decides she doesn't want to be publicly associated with Keeley after this, but the way it played out made no sense.

Edited to add that I've since learned that the episode was cowritten by Keeley Hazell and this story was presumably inspired in part by her own experience with revenge porn in 2007 - that explains a lot to me about why it felt like some of this was based in that era.

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The thing that annoyed me the most about this episode (and the storyline in general) is that Ted doesn't even seen that interested in Michelle, or wooing her back in any way; there's no scenes where he's charming her, or sharing a moment, or anything - he doesn't seem to see her as a person, but as a possession of his that someone else took away. And wasn't the "Hey Jude" discussion (telegraphed and obvious as it was) just the show's way of saying, "Hey, divorce happens, and you're going to be OK"? So what's the point?

I was actually fine with the Nate stuff because I've resigned myself to the fact that it's happening and the actress who plays Jade is likable enough - I'm just waiting for the return of Rupert where he shows up and insults her or force chokes her or shoots lightning bolts at her from his hands and Nate has to throw Rupert down a reactor shaft in order to be fully redeemed.

Colin not wanting to delete his pictures was so that Isaac could see all the dick pics on his phone, so that Isaac can suddenly and randomly become homophobic in next week's episode and we can all learn a valuable lesson.

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At this point, it's hard not to think that Sudeikis' personal issues (and greater creative control) are feeding into this season's faultlines somehow. Before the season started I was under the impression that they'd already fleshed out a 3-season plan, so was hopeful that the behind the scenes shakeups wouldn't impact the story much. Wishful thinking I guess.

Everyone's sort of said what needs to be said, so I only have a few comments to contribute:

1) I don't like the Dr Jake thing, although it's completely unclear whether that's what the show intends. Ted Lasso has played fast and loose with how much it cares for power dynamics, between the Rebecca-Sam and now Keeley-Jack of it all, that there's no real way to read it in my mind. But "dodgy therapist ethics" have been a bit of a TV pet peeve of mine so this would've felt weird regardless. It's also why I'm finding a hard time getting into Shrinking. So losing Bill Lawrence on Ted Lasso has been a bit of a double whammy.

2) Jade is such a cipher character it was always frustrating trying to get her deal (was she being bitchy? Apathetic? Drawing healthy boundaries with overly friendly customers?). But she still feels like a cipher now although you'd think she'd be "shields down". Genuinely can't tell if it's a writing, acting or directing choice (or all three).

3) The shoe's never been shy about getting the plot from A to B as it needs, but the football story this season has done that so egregiously it's really discouraging. The Zava era, post-Zava funk, Total Football resurgence have all been so transparent you have to wonder if the endgame will feel worth it. The seams showing is one thing, but the garment isn't much to look at either, which is the real tragedy. Everyone's mentioned how the core team dynamic has been the heart and strength of the show so it's depressing to see them sidelined so much (and I suspect is why folks loved the Amsterdam ep so much).

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Agree with all the comments here, and with Myles's post of course, that this season is off the rails and the show has lost all the good will from the first season (and the somehow Emmy Award–winning second season).

The thing that's so mind-numbing about all this is that these episodes we're seeing are the result of rewrites that Sudekis demanded. So there were "worse" scripts before this?! Apparently the Amsterdam episode was one of the revisions. I wonder if in the alternative universe where Warner Bros/Apple TV refused to allow the rewrites the show was better for it. Perhaps all the terrible Ted plot lines that clearly is Sudekis working through his personal life wouldn't have happened?

https://www.slashfilm.com/1012065/heres-why-ted-lasso-season-3-has-been-delayed-for-so-long

I also had the same thought Sepinwall did about how weird it was for Trent to have not witnessed a Diamond Dogs meeting. I could've sworn he was part of one already! Maybe it was just a similar conversation in that office that didn't get the official barking?

Anyway, do any critics or commentators online actually like this season? I'll still watch it until the end, but more out of a completionism mentality rather than any genuine interest in the current version of the characters. I really hope they get back to the soccer elements in the remaining four episodes.

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Are we at the point where this show is actively doing harm to the concept of couples counseling and mental health in general? I don’t think it can be overstated how unethical Dr. Jacob’s actions have been. He started as Michelle’s therapist, encouraged her to enter couples counseling, took on that role himself (which I’m pretty sure is a huge no-no), and then pursued her romantically after her divorce? I’m pretty sure the appropriate amount of time before your therapist can date you is “never,” but it sure isn’t less than two years. This is lose your license-type stuff. It’s every bad stereotype and negative portrayal of therapy rolled into one, and it’s going to be ammunition for people afraid to enter couple’s counseling. Especially after mental health was such a focus of the past few years, and the role Dr. Sharon played in helping Ted confront his demons, this storyline is deeply frustrating and even upsetting.

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May 3, 2023·edited May 3, 2023

Watching this one, I realized a lot of my issues with this season stem from the lack of subtlety. It feels like nearly every storyline is missing the nuance the first two seasons were often so good at, and Keeley and Ted's stories this week really drove that home.

Keeley’s story was just SO heavy-handed in this one, particularly Jack's response. And with Ted, it continues to feel like they're just treading water until the finale and whatever decisions he makes for his future, romantic or otherwise, not bothering to make any real, believable progress in the meantime.

It's a bummer because this episode had a lot of meaty one-on-one scenes with some of the show's strongest pairings (Keeley/Roy, Rebecca/Ted, Keeley/Jamie, and Keeley/Rebecca) that I enjoyed a lot and made it feel more "classic" Lasso than much of this season has. But it really is hard to get past all of the other issues at this point.

On a separate note, my take on Keeley’s convo with Roy was a bit different. To me, it didn’t read as jealousy on his part - I took it more as he wanted to know so he could potentially confront the person about it on her behalf, more like a misguided attempt at chivalry than outright jealousy. Sort of wondering if that will become a point of contention in his friendship with Jamie, though it feels like a step back for Roy if so.

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founding

I want to start off by saying that after finding myself somewhat disappointed with season two and wondering if I was the only one, I am grateful to have found this outlet!

I agree wholeheartedly that I felt the 2 previous episodes were bringing the show back around but this latest episode really tanked it for me.

After what happened with Nate last season, how the character was written to be so disrespectful to everyone working for him for his own need to build up his self confidence, I just can’t be happy for him and I have no real interest in his character being a major story arc other than for his on field competition with Ted and to see Ted’s nice guy coaching approach to best Nate’s in the end and to have that perhaps be Nate’s lesson. I do feel like the writers dropped the ball on this though. There is no doubt that Nate’s disrespectful attitude and lack of self confidence come from his relationship with his father and had the writers decided to make that the main focus of Nate’s storyline, to see and understand more about why he acts the way he does, maybe that would have allowed him to be more redeemable in my eyes. But it hasn’t. Also this story with Jade confuses me. We see him constantly attempting to get her to like him and to try to work up the courage to ask her out but she never gives off a vibe of being remotely interested in him or even liking him at all. In fact she comes off to me as disgusted by him. With all of our societal awareness these days, I feel like this story arc has basically become the old fashioned one of “if they’re coming off as not interested, just stalk and harass them until they are.” It’s just a terrible narrative to perpetuate and this on top of Nate’s awful behavior, is just one of the reasons that I want to believe have most people watching this are feeling disinterested if not disgusted by their relationship.

At this point, the story is so far removed from the team and their quest to win a championship, that if it follows through in the formulaic way I’m predicting it will, I don’t think I can be as happy once they do win, as I would have been if the show had stuck more to the original idea of Ted’s unique style of coaching and Rebecca’s roadblocks as a woman new to the business, running the franchise team alone. They had me rooting for her since she had the added pressure of having a public messy relationship with Rupert, now trying to embarrass and best her with his own team, stealing away one of her coaches and to add salt to the wounds, his new pregnant wife If the focus had remained on those things, I would be more invested in the outcome of the teams season but even the show no longer seems invested in their season, so I shouldn’t be surprised that I am not either.

I plan to finish watching just to see how it ends but at this point, I’m expecting to be as happy with the ending as I was with the ending of How I Met Your Mother.

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Really enjoying these reviews even though I punched out of actually watching this show after not connecting at all with season 2. Thank you for your service

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Just glancing at this review makes me so glad I bailed on the season several episodes ago. What a mess.

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Just a thought, but were Roy and Keeley broken up due to Brett Goldstein’s stretched availability?

This season, Keeley has had far more screen time so maybe it made sense to keep them seperate. It’s a shame, because like you say, she’s in her own, far less interesting show.

I feel like Bill Lawrence and Brett Goldstein’s success that translated into Shrinking (which I really enjoy) maybe hurt the production of S3 here? I feel what missing is a lighter touch, clarity and an efficiency of storytelling that I associate with Bill Lawrence from Scrubs through to Lasso/Shrinking.

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This is a very disappointing season for me on many levels, building on a bit of disappointment from storylines last season.

I have too many thoughts to articulate here about how repeatedly, the lead women on the show are often portrayed as the "bad ones" when not aligned with the Ted worship: 1. Yes, Rebecca go to Ted, despite power imbalance. 2. No, Rebecca, you are awful for dating Sam because of power imbalance. Was Sam ever called an idiot? 3. Michelle sucks for being in a relationship caused by a power imbalance by dating therapist (as if she is colluding as opposed to a victim (not sure right word) along with Ted for having unethical therapist). 5.Keeley being an idiot for getting into a relationship with Jack where there is a power imbalance and she is subordinate. 6. Jack of course. Just seems to be a theme that no matter level of relative power, the lead women in the show are wrong. Exhausting.

Beyond that two thoughts on episode:

1. I don't buy the Isaac cliffhanger the show is 'telling'. After looking at pics, I felt like he gave a nod to Colin that he understood why he left locker room and was deleting pics in private and then respected Colin's privacy while walking away. I fully admit how it could have affected Colin and been interpreted differently by him.

2. I don't buy that Ted at end was thinking about reconciliation with Michelle. I think the whole episode he was jealous that she was moving on happily without him and assuming she was hitting a new relationship high before him. Kind of gross the hanging on to the bag. Then looking out the window, he saw perhaps not all was as he had imagined, a fairytale family formed with him out of picture. I think that brought him out of his funk, rather than him pining for her at the end there. I think he was happy she wasn't as happy as he thought.

I don't like thinking some of these things about the show, but, yikes, this season is so off the rails as to what the heart and soul of the story was that enamored us that, well, I don't know how to conclude sentence, so I'll stop.

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