I was absolutely floored by the suggestion it *wasn’t* supposed to be a dream - or, at the least, ambiguous bet-hedging so they can erase it all as fantasy in case of a spin-off.
Similarly - I don’t really care either way, but my honest reaction to a close-up on someone waking up, is that the preceding sequence is in their dreams. That’s a pretty long-established cinematic language.
Me firmly on Team Dream. It not make any sense to show future events and then cut back to Ted on airplane, *waking up*. It way dreams are nearly universally presented in TV and film, and it defy every narrative convention to present realistic things that unfold over weeks and months after Ted get off of that plane as happening while he was napping on plane. Therefore only alternate explanation me can accept is that direct London-KC flight takes six months, and all of these things happened while Ted was very slowly flying over Kentucky.
This is not a nice thing to say, but if you have to defend the character dynamics of your Happy Ending Montage with additional explanations after the fact, you made a bad Happy Ending Montage. It should be all nods, awwws, and chuckles. I should not be asking "wait why isn't ted there"
(When they cut back to him waking up I thought, "Was that supposed to be a dream or something?" but I didn't care enough to make a mental commitment one way or the other.)
Also, the AMA is kinda funny, mostly for all the people talking about how Jane was abusive and the show played it for laughs, with Hunt having to defend their relationship. "She's just passionate!"
Haha, I haven't read it yet, but I agree with them! All we see of Jane is a mix of behavior I'd describe as "severely jealous and possessive" and "severely bipolar." If the writers wanted us to see that relationship as healthy, they could have shown us even *one* scene of her acting any other way.
For the record, while I stated I did not see it as a dream but a narrative kludge, I never saw your interpretation as invalid. Indeed as a proponent of The Author is Dead, I agree with you that we each have to come to our own conclusions. I don't want a critic who agrees with me all the time, I want one that challenges me in interesting ways
My initial impulse was "dream", but then quickly corrected myself. The language is there for it to be a dream, but much of the logic of some scenes, as you pointed out, says not. It is either deliberately confusing or carelessly so. It's either not a dream to be series finale and close things out, or dream that allows a new Richmond FC series do whatever it wants going forward with an easy out if it contradicts this ending. It had its cake and ate it too...or was it a mud pie?
I just wish they would make and announce a decision about the future of the show / universe. So many choices in the back half of the season seemed explicitly designed to say "This is the end... or is it?" Stop dicking around with us, Ted Lasso.
It seems clear that whatever happens next Sudeikis doesn't intend to be a major part of it. So in that sense using Henry as an excuse to end Ted's time at Richmond works. But I was annoyed that being separated from his son while coaching at Richmond was presented as an impossible conundrum, and I was glad that Rebecca at least voiced the possibility of Henry and Michelle moving to the UK.
This whole thing is really reminding me of that season of Archer (was it Vice? I think it was Vice) where the first episode ended with a lengthy trailer presented as an in-universe daydream by Archer of all the cool stuff that was sure to happen in the coming year, and there was a ton of debate if it was a trailer with a weird framing device, or an elaborate cut-away that had nothing to do with the rest of the season, and it ended up being a little of both, with most of the earlier shots being from upcoming episodes (or worked into them), and the later ones being totally unrelated to how the season ended up unfolding.
I'm guessing this has a bit of a similar thing going on, especially with a reliable in-universe psychic establishing it's possible to sense the future in the reality of the show; they can incorporate anything they want into season 4/a spin-off, and ignore anything they don't, since it was presented in such an ambiguous way.
The greenscreen Stonehenge, on the other hand, reminded me of the Doctor Who Confidential where they talked about how incredibly difficult it was to be able to film at Stonehenge, to the point where they storyboarded every sequence that was going to be set at Stonehenge in the episode in advance, and only filmed the exact shots and angles and moments where you could tell they were actually at Stonehenge, and every close-up or other angle where there was just a night sky or a single rock in the background was shot in the studio, so the finished episode is constantly cross-cutting back and forth between location and stage filming.
Yeah, the Amsterdam man meet-up negated any notion this could be Ted's dream for me.
That said, I did find the entire sequence oddly placed as it made the "when in time" of things extremely f*ed up. I'm guessing this was the result of the rush edit to finish the damn thing while the entire internet exploded about why the finale was 3 hours late.
Like I said in your main review, a dream never occurred to me. But I just shared this interpretation with my wife and she was like "well obviously it was a dream. That's why Ted wasn't at the wedding."
I'm actually not a fan of her as a critic in general but I loved Emily Nussbaum's take that the series finale of Breaking Bad "Felina" makes the most sense as a dream/wish fulfillment for Walt, not that it was consciously envisioned as such by Gilligan and the writers, but that it could be read that way and make more sense than a conventional interpretation. Perhaps something similar is going on here? I have no idea I didn't watch Ted Lasso.
I’m not a fan of authorial intent but I will say that the fact that the dream interpretation hinges so heavily on wonky CGI is probably a point in the author’s favor. A dream sequence would be a writing/direction decision and in this case, I don’t think that some glaringly bad (and evidently highly rushed) effects work negates intent.
Absent the immediate cut to Ted waking up, I’d buy that. But I’d argue it doesn’t hinge on the dodgy effects - the dodgy effects just support the logic implied by the framing.
Finally caught up with this last night after our main TV was repaired after being out of commission for a couple weeks, just wanted to say that my wife asked "wait, so was that real? Why wasn't he at Beard's wedding?" the moment Ted woke up on the plane, so I don't think either of you are crazy for interpreting it as a dream.
The thing that makes it weird for the wedding to have supposedly been on the same day as Henry's soccer game is that they show the wedding while Ted is still on the plane.
Which, I get that necessity may have forced them to go a-chronological a bit with the montage and the "present," but it's weird to cut back to a moment *before* the entire montage took place when it's over if it wasn't all meant to be Ted's dream/wistful hopes for the people of AFC Richmond, if you have a later scene that's supposed to be concurrent with it.
If you're meant to interpret the wedding as being simultaneous with Henry's game you would naturally expect the two events to be cross-cut instead of showing the wedding entirely before Ted lands / arrives at Michelle's / presumably multiple days pass before the soccer game. They could've showed Ted getting a text from Beard and shooting back a "wish I could've been there" or something while at the game and it would've been much clearer and more effective while not leaving you wondering about the nature of the entire montage.
Simple answer: if they had ended the episode on the entire group, it explicitly reads as a series finale, but leaving it on Ted alone enables them to return to the rest of the show more readily if they so choose.
I think they simply made the choice they did because they knew it would send Myles over the edge.
I was absolutely floored by the suggestion it *wasn’t* supposed to be a dream - or, at the least, ambiguous bet-hedging so they can erase it all as fantasy in case of a spin-off.
Similarly - I don’t really care either way, but my honest reaction to a close-up on someone waking up, is that the preceding sequence is in their dreams. That’s a pretty long-established cinematic language.
I think they did a stylistic choice and it backfired. Not even in the top 10 dumb choices they made this season.
Me firmly on Team Dream. It not make any sense to show future events and then cut back to Ted on airplane, *waking up*. It way dreams are nearly universally presented in TV and film, and it defy every narrative convention to present realistic things that unfold over weeks and months after Ted get off of that plane as happening while he was napping on plane. Therefore only alternate explanation me can accept is that direct London-KC flight takes six months, and all of these things happened while Ted was very slowly flying over Kentucky.
This is not a nice thing to say, but if you have to defend the character dynamics of your Happy Ending Montage with additional explanations after the fact, you made a bad Happy Ending Montage. It should be all nods, awwws, and chuckles. I should not be asking "wait why isn't ted there"
(When they cut back to him waking up I thought, "Was that supposed to be a dream or something?" but I didn't care enough to make a mental commitment one way or the other.)
Also, the AMA is kinda funny, mostly for all the people talking about how Jane was abusive and the show played it for laughs, with Hunt having to defend their relationship. "She's just passionate!"
Haha, I haven't read it yet, but I agree with them! All we see of Jane is a mix of behavior I'd describe as "severely jealous and possessive" and "severely bipolar." If the writers wanted us to see that relationship as healthy, they could have shown us even *one* scene of her acting any other way.
For the record, while I stated I did not see it as a dream but a narrative kludge, I never saw your interpretation as invalid. Indeed as a proponent of The Author is Dead, I agree with you that we each have to come to our own conclusions. I don't want a critic who agrees with me all the time, I want one that challenges me in interesting ways
lmao what on earth Myles
My initial impulse was "dream", but then quickly corrected myself. The language is there for it to be a dream, but much of the logic of some scenes, as you pointed out, says not. It is either deliberately confusing or carelessly so. It's either not a dream to be series finale and close things out, or dream that allows a new Richmond FC series do whatever it wants going forward with an easy out if it contradicts this ending. It had its cake and ate it too...or was it a mud pie?
I just wish they would make and announce a decision about the future of the show / universe. So many choices in the back half of the season seemed explicitly designed to say "This is the end... or is it?" Stop dicking around with us, Ted Lasso.
It seems clear that whatever happens next Sudeikis doesn't intend to be a major part of it. So in that sense using Henry as an excuse to end Ted's time at Richmond works. But I was annoyed that being separated from his son while coaching at Richmond was presented as an impossible conundrum, and I was glad that Rebecca at least voiced the possibility of Henry and Michelle moving to the UK.
This whole thing is really reminding me of that season of Archer (was it Vice? I think it was Vice) where the first episode ended with a lengthy trailer presented as an in-universe daydream by Archer of all the cool stuff that was sure to happen in the coming year, and there was a ton of debate if it was a trailer with a weird framing device, or an elaborate cut-away that had nothing to do with the rest of the season, and it ended up being a little of both, with most of the earlier shots being from upcoming episodes (or worked into them), and the later ones being totally unrelated to how the season ended up unfolding.
I'm guessing this has a bit of a similar thing going on, especially with a reliable in-universe psychic establishing it's possible to sense the future in the reality of the show; they can incorporate anything they want into season 4/a spin-off, and ignore anything they don't, since it was presented in such an ambiguous way.
The greenscreen Stonehenge, on the other hand, reminded me of the Doctor Who Confidential where they talked about how incredibly difficult it was to be able to film at Stonehenge, to the point where they storyboarded every sequence that was going to be set at Stonehenge in the episode in advance, and only filmed the exact shots and angles and moments where you could tell they were actually at Stonehenge, and every close-up or other angle where there was just a night sky or a single rock in the background was shot in the studio, so the finished episode is constantly cross-cutting back and forth between location and stage filming.
Yeah, the Amsterdam man meet-up negated any notion this could be Ted's dream for me.
That said, I did find the entire sequence oddly placed as it made the "when in time" of things extremely f*ed up. I'm guessing this was the result of the rush edit to finish the damn thing while the entire internet exploded about why the finale was 3 hours late.
Like I said in your main review, a dream never occurred to me. But I just shared this interpretation with my wife and she was like "well obviously it was a dream. That's why Ted wasn't at the wedding."
I'm actually not a fan of her as a critic in general but I loved Emily Nussbaum's take that the series finale of Breaking Bad "Felina" makes the most sense as a dream/wish fulfillment for Walt, not that it was consciously envisioned as such by Gilligan and the writers, but that it could be read that way and make more sense than a conventional interpretation. Perhaps something similar is going on here? I have no idea I didn't watch Ted Lasso.
I’m not a fan of authorial intent but I will say that the fact that the dream interpretation hinges so heavily on wonky CGI is probably a point in the author’s favor. A dream sequence would be a writing/direction decision and in this case, I don’t think that some glaringly bad (and evidently highly rushed) effects work negates intent.
Absent the immediate cut to Ted waking up, I’d buy that. But I’d argue it doesn’t hinge on the dodgy effects - the dodgy effects just support the logic implied by the framing.
Finally caught up with this last night after our main TV was repaired after being out of commission for a couple weeks, just wanted to say that my wife asked "wait, so was that real? Why wasn't he at Beard's wedding?" the moment Ted woke up on the plane, so I don't think either of you are crazy for interpreting it as a dream.
The thing that makes it weird for the wedding to have supposedly been on the same day as Henry's soccer game is that they show the wedding while Ted is still on the plane.
Which, I get that necessity may have forced them to go a-chronological a bit with the montage and the "present," but it's weird to cut back to a moment *before* the entire montage took place when it's over if it wasn't all meant to be Ted's dream/wistful hopes for the people of AFC Richmond, if you have a later scene that's supposed to be concurrent with it.
If you're meant to interpret the wedding as being simultaneous with Henry's game you would naturally expect the two events to be cross-cut instead of showing the wedding entirely before Ted lands / arrives at Michelle's / presumably multiple days pass before the soccer game. They could've showed Ted getting a text from Beard and shooting back a "wish I could've been there" or something while at the game and it would've been much clearer and more effective while not leaving you wondering about the nature of the entire montage.
Simple answer: if they had ended the episode on the entire group, it explicitly reads as a series finale, but leaving it on Ted alone enables them to return to the rest of the show more readily if they so choose.
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how much of that montage is retconned if they do a spinoff series