The Tao of Ted Lasso (Or How an Apple TV+ Show Can Make You a Better Person)

There’s a scene at the end of the first episode of Ted Lasso, the opening show of the series.
Ted has come through a humiliating, disorienting first day on his new job, in his new country.
We’ve spent the episode laughing at (and cringing at) his down-home homilies, his dogged good nature, and endless optimism. He’s almost a cartoon character.

As Ted enters his new flat in London, he excitedly phones his wife and son, back in Kansas.
Still bouncing with optimism, he’s telling his wife about everything, asking her to come and visit him, when she stops him.

“But… I am giving you space,” he gasps.

And we realize, as he stands alone in the emptiness of his new flat – they are separated.
This guy – this hopelessly optimistic goofball – is facing the end of his marriage.
And suddenly, you realize: This is not the show I thought it was.

*          *          *

It’s similar to the twist at the end of Season 1 of The Good Place, where Kristen Bell and her lovable misfit buddies realize that they’re not actually in heaven, but in hell.
And as with that masterful show, the writers have raised the stakes.

Ted Lasso and The Good Place share some of the same heart.
At the root of both of them is the question: What does it mean to be a good person?

Both shows are so well written.
The Ted Lasso writers are particularly adept; they pack more into a half-hour episode than most shows do in an hour.
In each of the ten episodes in Season 1, there are at least three laugh-out-loud moments.
And one jaw-dropping moment of heartbreak.

And the writers know their sports, and their pop culture.
You watch Coach Lasso admonish one of his players for not practicing, and you suddenly realize: he is cribbing the famous Allen Iverson “We’re talking about practice!” speech.
Word for word.

The character of Ted Lasso was created by Jason Sudeikis in 2013.
NBC had just taken on the English Premier League in the States, and they called on Sudeikis to help promote it, with a series of videos.

Sudeikis expanded the character for Apple TV+, with the help of friends Bill Lawrence, Joe Kelly, and Brendan Hunt. (Mister Hunt also supports the show with his portrayal of Ted’s loyal assistant coach and sidekick, “Coach Beard.”)
They kept a lot of the original flavor of the early promos, but emphasized the silliness of the character, along with his good-hearted, boundless enthusiasm.

Ted is so obviously set up to fail.
The owner of the Richmond soccer club has hired him to be a laughingstock, so that the team will be humiliated. (She won the team in a divorce from her philandering ex-husband, so she wants to bring him eternal pain by “burning it to the ground.”)

Ted endures the taunts from the press: “I have one question: Is this a fucking joke?”
He endures the derision from his players: “I didn’t plan on being coached by Ronald Fucking McDonald.”
He endures the mockery from the fans, who chant his nickname, “Wanker” at him.
(Ted adroitly explains to his young son, “A wanker is somebody who spends a lot of time with his own thoughts.”)

But by the end of the second episode, it dawns on you: Ted’s actually smarter than any of the people around him, and probably most of us.

*          *          *

You see it in the way he gets people to “flip” from their usual disposition, and they come over to his side.

Starting with his boss, Rebecca Welton (played with wonderful strength and nuance by Hannah Waddington).
On Day One, he bounces into her office, uninvited, with breakfast goodies and plans for an everyday “biscuits with the boss.”
Her eyes are blazing with desire to destroy her ex-husband’s team, as she says flatly, “Coach Lasso… I simply do not have time for ‘biscuits with the boss’ today… Or any other day.”

He happily accepts that, and high-fives the fake tree on his way out of the office.
“You’re coming back tomorrow, aren’t you?” she asks, wearily.
“Oh, I wouldn’t bet on it,” he gleefully replies. “Not unless you wanna win a boatload of money!”
Of course, biscuits with the boss becomes a daily thing.

Then there’s Jamie Tartt, the prima donna forward.
He has zero interest in working with the team, at all, and zero respect for his new coach.
But when Ted pulls Jamie aside for a talking to, it’s not the expected tongue-lashing.

His first words are, “You are the most incredible athlete I have ever coached. Your talent is one in a million.”
But now that he has Jamie’s attention, he softly adds, “But you have to remember: On the pitch, you are one of 11.”
Jamie steps back, disarmed by Ted’s approach.
He buys into it.

Next is Trent Crimm, a hard-nosed reporter.
Rebecca has sicced him on Ted, hoping he’ll write a hatchet-job piece on the coach.
But Ted wins him over, when Trent asks, “Why did you even take this job? For the money?”

Ted laughs, and asks, “What do you love, more than anything in this world?… I bet it’s writing! You’re very good at that. What I love, more than anything, is coaching. And – I’m gonna say it again, so you don’t get it wrong – I don’t care about wins and losses. What I care about is that these young men are the best people they can be – on and off the field.”

As Trent writes in his glowing review of the new coach: “I can’t help but root for him.”

It’ll remind you of the magic of Mister Fred Rogers, the way he took the most confrontational situations, the most belligerent people – and totally disarmed them by boiling things down to the simplest statement:
I’m on your side.

*          *          *

Here are a few of my favorite nuggets from The Tao of Ted Lasso:

“Taking on a challenge is probably a lot like riding a horse…. If you’re comfortable while you’re doing it, you’re probably doing it wrong.”

That’s what Ted replies, on the cross-Atlantic flight when his loyal, stoic sidekick, Coach Beard, asks, “Are we crazy for doing this?”
There are many things to love about his trusty assistant: his love of chess and wordplay, his nonplussed face as he stops Ted from walking into traffic (coming at him the wrong direction), or how he reminds him, “Your fly’s undone,” as they’re about to enter the field for a big game.
But most lovable of all, we never learn if this heavily-bearded gent has a first name.

“You know what the happiest animal on earth is?… A goldfish. It’s got a ten-second memory… Be a goldfish.”

That’s the first piece of advice Ted offers a member of his new team, after a young player is discouraged after missing a play.
As goofy as it sounds – it makes sense to his young charge.
And it’s the first indication to us: Maybe this guy actually does know something.

“You know how they say, ‘Youth is wasted on the young’? I say, ‘Don’t let the wisdom of age be wasted on you.’ ”

In his first real challenge as coach, Ted’s trying to iron out a rift between his young prima donna forward, and his grizzled old captain.
He asks the gruff veteran Roy Kent, “Do you remember what you were like when you were 23?”

“You know what you do with tough cookies? You dip ’em in milk.”

That’s Ted’s retort to Rebecca, when she warns him that the hardboiled reporter is “a tough cookie.”

“Be curious – not judgmental.”

Ted pulls out the Walt Whitman, in a showdown with Rebecca’s ex-husband, Rupert.

It’s nice to see Ted step outside his persona, and peel off his nice-guy skin to show a little toughness.
His wide eyes narrow as he becomes protective of Rebecca, especially around Rupert.
Rupert is an expertly-written villain, silkily portrayed by Anthony Head, and he supplies a little yang to Ted’s yin, always submarining Rebecca one way or another.

In a turning point of the series, Rupert appears in a pub with his new flame (half Rebecca’s age). He’s given her money to buy shares in the team, allowing him access again.
Ted steps up, challenging him to a game of darts: If Rupert wins, he gets to pick the starting lineups for the rest of the year.
If Ted wins, Rupert doesn’t come near the owner’s box ever again.
The contest ends with another heartbreaking revelation about Ted that lands like a gut punch.
Again, you realize, this guy is incredibly good-natured, despite everything that has happened to him.

In a lot of ways, Ted Lasso is very much an update on The Good Place.
It is truly a study of what it means to be a good person.

Kristen Bell was one of the driving forces behind The Good Place, one of the two main characters.
Her husband, Dax Shepherd, describes her as one of the world’s genuinely good people – so much so that he had his doubts about her when they starting dating. (He was a self-described “ex-addict dirtbag” at the time.)
But over time, he came to realize how she created her own reality, and really, her own happiness.

As he tells photographer/director Sam Jones in this fascinating interview: “I just slowly, through time, watched what fruit she bore, out of the way she lived her life. I looked at the results of how she lived, and they’re pretty undeniable.”

He adds, “I just couldn’t deny the reality of how her life unfolds. There’s something charmed about it. And I think it’s charmed because it starts with her being just endlessly generous, and loving, and giving people the benefit of the doubt, and believing in people, and believing the world’s a wonderful place, and all these things… and then down river, it proves to be all those things.”

And that is the secret of Ted Lasso.
That is why, at the end of every episode, you have a smile on your face, and a good feeling in your bones.

*          *          *

Season 2 of the well-loved show dropped last week.
If Season 1 passed you by, like it did me, don’t wait any more.
It’s worth the monthly Apple TV+ fee, just for Ted Lasso.

They are releasing new episodes every Friday – episode 2 has just aired, at the time I write this.
And I am bound by duty to note: Season 2 is not getting off to the races like Season 1.

It’s just… different.

Where they turned Ted from a cartoon character into a full, multi-dimensional being in Season 1 – all the characters are more cartoonish in Season 2.
In the first episode, their blithe spirited, “football is life!” star, Dani Rojas, has his game-winning penalty kick intercepted by the team mascot, a dog – and his shot kills the dog.
Poor Dani (Cristo Fernandez) is distraught, unable to function – necessitating the entrance of a team psychologist.

Where nuance and subtlety was behind everything in Season 1… Season 2 hits you over the head.
For example: Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) the grizzled old captain, has retired. To fill the void, he spends his time coaching his young niece’s soccer team.
So we get to see him accost a bunch of nine-year-old girls with curses, and we’re supposed to think it’s “cute” that he’s hitting them with F-bombs, and calling them “pricks.”
[It all somehow leads to Roy walking in on his girlfriend, Keeley (the sweet & saucy Juno Temple) “having a wank” with herself, inspired by a video of Roy breaking into tears at his retirement. I wish I was making this up – believe me, it’s nothing close to Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Fleabag.]

Where the camera would linger in Season 1, just long enough, on a character’s facial expression, or a misspelled word… now lines hang in the air after a stale joke, and we’re waiting for it to move on.

Where Season 1 was a non-stop treasure trove of pop culture and sports references, Season 2 has Jamie Tartt, the young prima donna (Phil Dunster) in a state of retirement, appearing on a oh-so-lame reality show, Lust Conquers All.
Jamie is kicked off the show, so his obvious choice? Return to Ted, much to the consternation of his old team.

The bottom line is, it’s hard to find one good laugh-out-loud moment in either of the first two episodes in Season 2.
And not one heartbreaking moment that the series was known for.

It’s the same writers and directors: Declan Lowney, who directed the triumphant victory at Liverpool episode, with the dizzying scene of Ted’s panic attack at the karaoke bar (one of the real moments of Season 1).
The first two Season 2 episodes were written by stalwarts Brendan Hunt and Leeann Bowen (who crafted the crackling dialogue in the witty “Diamond Dogs” episode).

Maybe it’s the pressure.
Maybe it’s Jason Sudeikis and company believing their own press clippings.
Maybe it’s a sophomore slump.
Maybe it’s running out of ideas.
Maybe it’s being rushed to come up with another success.

But we may be looking back longingly at the wonders of Season 1.

Here’s hoping that it’s just taking time to get rolling.
There is just too much good karma in Ted Lasso to fail, and we just have to, as the sign over his door says, “Believe.”