S03 E01 Smells Like Mean Spirit
purpose, dogs, and imposter syndrome
Hi everyone,
Season 3 is launched!
I got to watch the episode while on retreat with some friends and colleagues, then I downloaded it to listen to on the drive home.
Spoilery talk appears below the GIF. Proceed at your own riskā¦
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Disjointed thoughts follow:
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Ted gets the coveted first closeup of the season. Not surprising, and it will be wonderful to watch.
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Could that office of Rupertās BE more like the Death Star? [chefās kiss]
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One of the people I was watching with noticed that Rebecca seems to have regressed in her emotional development. I think sheās right, and weāre going to see why in this season. Rupertās emotional manipulation and gaslighting of Nate are excruciating to watch, precisely because we know itās all a proxy for how he treated Rebecca when they were married. You donāt just bounce back from that. That said, sheāll find her way.
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Phil Dunsterās line reading of āpoopehā was SO much funnier than the āshitā we were all expecting, right? And what a wonderful object lesson, so much richer than season oneās ābe a goldfish.ā
Canāt wait to see Jamieās arc this season. A friend postulated that he was going to be the one to help Roy and Keeley find their way back to each other (see the scene in the trailer when theyāre in his childhood bedroom).
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As a child of divorce, Iāve taken that plane ride. I appreciate this show taking the trauma of divorce seriously. I think I underplayed it when I was younger, telling myself that it wasnāt that big of a deal because it was so common. But it is a big deal.
Incidentally, all three kids on this show are children of divorce: Henry, Phoebe, and Nora. (Will revise my remarks if the Higgins brood gets more air time.)
Relatedly, a wise-beyond-their-years kid is a controversial trope in TV and film. These kids all seem authentic to me. They arenāt egregiously precocious, but have a wisdom that can come from a) child of divorce and b) their caregivers not talking down to them or overly shielding them from the world.
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I had occasional panic attacks when I was a teenager, especially in social situations. I didnāt know thatās what they were until I started parenting teens with their own anxieties. I didnāt have the heart-attack flavored ones like Ted does; instead I felt like I was going to throw up (and did on occasion). So when Nate ducked behind the table in panic, I interpreted the spitting in that lightāexpelling bile from his mouth. The āpower moveā has become tied up in his own abject terror at being found out.
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Speaking of which, lots of imposter syndrome going on here. But the characters deal with it differently:
Nate: acts abusive and cold
Roy: pushes people away (as Keeley says, heās worried about measuring up as team strategist)
Keeley: cries and hides (just Google āCFOā for heavenās sake!)
Ted: plays the clown in the press conference (an excellent PR move to counter Nateās public attacks, but then he starts downplaying his abilities as a coach?! We know heās a good coach; he knows heās a good coach; heās said heās a good coach).
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Three dogs referenced in this episode: underdog, top dog, and Ted calls Nate a junkyard dog.
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I was hoping for a woman in Sharonās bed, but oh well. Thrilled for her. I found myself wondering whether the rugby season overlapped the football season and whether sheād return to Richmond in time. Hope so.
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Ted is looking for his purpose, which bolsters my prediction/hope that he and Trent Crimm will team up to do some work around sport and mental health. And did Henryās offhand comment about his countryās politics signal that he might want to come live with his dad?
Discussā¦
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Have people seen Hannah Gadsby's one-woman show Nanette? It was going through my mind during Ted's press conference. It highlights how complicated and problematic it can be to make oneself the butt of the joke. There is some self-loathing in it. The jokes about his panic attacks, for example. Humor can de-stigmatize, but it can also be cruel. He would never make jokes about someone else's struggles, but he will joke about himself. Partly because he puts everyone else first, always.
The story about the janitor seems like a throw-away thing, but it's central to Ted's character. The janitor gives him money, but Ted uses it to buy the janitor something instead? Just accept the kind gesture! That's a pathology--not being able to receive gifts from others.
In fact... OMG. What if THAT is Ted's mission in England? Not to win the whole thing, or not solely that. But also to learn how, when appropriate, to put himself first.
Really good first episode of the new season. I've watched it twice. Here's a fun article I read on Rupert's office: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ted-lasso-modeled-ruperts-office-230928761.html
Also, I thought this CNN opinion piece on the villain being "the past" was spot on: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/15/opinions/ted-lasso-season-three-new-villain-perry-gabriele-ctrp/index.html
Thank you for your analysis and observations, really solid. A few more things that jumped out for me:
*Jamie stepping up as leader in the locker room, telling the team that Nate's comments are poopay and you have to let it flow. Mirrors Season 1 when Ted doesn't intervene in discord in the locker room and gives space for Roy to step up. This time, Ted was eager to go fix and Beard and Roy held him back.
*When Roy is working on strategy and talking about the film Hoosiers, Beard is reading "The Miracle of Castel di Sangro (and as we know, Beard's books aren't random. They're always intentional clues). The synopsis on Amazon:
"Master storyteller Joe McGinniss travels to Italy to cover the unlikely success of a ragtag minor league soccer team--and delivers a brilliant and utterly unforgettable story of life in an off-the-beaten-track Italian village.
When Joe McGinniss sets out for the remote Italian village of Castel di Sangro one summer, he merely intends to spend a season with the village's soccer team, which only weeks before had, miraculously, reached the second-highest-ranking professional league in the land. But soon he finds himself embroiled with an absurd yet irresistible cast of characters, including the team's owner, described by the New York Times as "straight out of a Mario Puzo novel," and coach Osvaldo Jaconi, whose only English word is the one he uses to describe himself: "bulldozer."
As the riotous, edge-of-your-seat season unfolds, McGinniss develops a deepening bond with the team, their village and its people, and their country."
Sounds familiar, eh? lol
* The "Hoosiers" reference. Foreshadowing or confirmation of what we already strongly expect: AFC Richmond is going to have a perfect or winning season and face the giant West Ham in the championship. Also Roy asks, "What's a hoosier?" Hoosier is an inhabitant of Indiana but the name comes from the American South and implies that one is uncouth....which is how AFC is being viewed by the UK sports world and Nate who calls Ted a shitty coach.
* Language is always key in this show and it was interesting that the traditional cuss words we expected to hear from Jamie or Phoebe (being Roy's niece) were benign: poopay and stupid (Phoebe asked Roy if she could say a bad word) whereas Nate who previously never cussed, calls Ted "shitty"
*The Paddington reference was very funny--that Paddington gave them 0 marmalade sandwiches on Twitter and Dani discovering that someone else writes Paddington's tweets. Ted Lasso is very much a Paddington type character, especially with the biscuits he brings Rebecca.
*Also the talk about underdogs, top dogs...AFC Richmond are of course the hounds. And West Ham United, which is a real team, has a log of two hammers--iron work, ship building history--West Hammers. Rupert and Nate are trying to hammer, slam, dominate, beat Ted, Rebecca and AFC Richmond.