Ted Lasso recap: Big speeches, bigger shake-ups

If Ted Lasso has been built on the conviction that belief in yourself is all but a superpower (teetering close to serving up pat platitudes about self-esteem and self-care), the series and its titular protagonist have nevertheless hoped to present a more complex vision of what it means to trust in yourself. It’s why that “BELIEVE” sign, torn a few episodes back, seemed so important to the team. It stood as a reminder of what Ted had brought to Richmond. And yet, as this latest episode (“Signs”) suggests, maybe show and characters alike needed a reminder that fanciful rhetoric like that will only get you so far.

Exhibit A: Zava.

Richmond’s golden boy this season has been the limit case of Ted’s philosophy—actually, a more grating version of it, as well. (Cue Jamie’s many eye rolls whenever Zava speaks.) But at his core, Zava was a walking example that such empty mantras would always necessarily need to backed up by practice. By talent. By commitment. By work, really. At some point, it’s clear that Richmond’s players (bar Jamie) were all too happy to rest on Zava’s laurels instead of believing in themselves. That, as they all found out in that match against West Ham, is not enough.

Zava’s belief in himself was obviously comical. And intimidating. There had to come a time when his ego, so built on ridiculous sayings would only last so long in the world of Ted Lasso. (Example: “I don’t care about moving pictures. My favorite thing to watch is…my wife.) His was such a precious individuality that the sensibility preached by Ted could make no room for him. (In a way, you wonder how much better he would’ve been matched over at West Ham where Rupert clearly so values such raging individualism—sorry, I mean narcissism.) Sure, Zava’s disappearance—after telling the team that they have what it takes to win!—was a shocking development, but even if we didn’t know he’d all out quit the sport, we knew his days in Richmond were numbered.

If Ted’s final speech of the episode resonated with the players at all, it was because it tackled the central question they’ve been asking themselves this season: Do they really belong in this league? Are they really good enough (on their own) to go the distance? Which, of course, is the wrong approach. This is why Ted’s speeches are so rarely about winning or losing. They’re about how to move through the world together. “To believe in yourself, to believe in one another…man, that’s fundamental to being alive,” he tells his players. “If you can do that…can’t nobody rip that apart.”

Note how he stresses not how they’re going to win or how they’re about to turn the season around. As ever, Ted (perhaps because he’s clueless about soccer) can only approach his coaching prowess in terms of how to nurture the men these players can be. It’s why he wishes them to let go of those negative feelings that have so characterized their lives and their games as of late. (Did you catch how the camera stayed on Colin while Ted mentioned “shame”? Yeah, we didn’t miss that either.)

Exhibit B: Shandy.

Self-help truisms, as we should all know by now, can be quite easily weaponized by any and all narcissists. For every Keeley who feels motivated to take a bet on herself with much needed humility in order to succeed, there’s a Shandy who arms herself with little else than her own ego. As soon as she started taking initiative on things that gave Keeley, Barbara and Jack pause…well, we all knew where it was all headed.

And yet, there was something deliciously satisfying about watching Shandy—and actor Ambreen Razia—truly chew the scenery in what I can only describe as a Jerry Maguire-gone-haywire “I quit!” meltdown moment. For, despite Keeley trying Jack’s “compliment sandwich” on her friend, Shandy, as we knew, does not have a good relationship with rejection (“or her ex, or the workplace, or most nouns, really”) and seeing her process in real time how much she thinks of herself and how little she thinks of Keeley, yet how much she wants to belong and how little she wants to be fired (and back and back and forth), was easily one of the funniest scenes of the season so far.

Which helped because elsewhere we got quite dour if not outright sour storylines. Nate got dumped while trying to impress that nice hostess at his favorite restaurant while Rebecca got some news regarding her seemingly-coming-true psychic predictions; and even Keeley got herself embroiled in a workplace affair whose repercussions may be harder to suss out just yet.

Are we at a turning point this season? We’re not even halfway through Ted Lasso’s final season and, perhaps given the length of these most recent episodes, it feels like we’re both covering a lot of ground (I didn’t even mention Roy’s amazingly terrifying bully speech) all while leaving so many B/C plots dangling (Colin! Jamie!). I hope now that Zava’s out of the picture we can maybe return to what made Ted Lasso such a breath of fresh air a few years back before its own messaging began to feel stale even within the show itself. Otherwise, I worry I’ll find myself writing compliment sandwiches for the rest of the season, ignoring, as it were, the needless lamb poop jokes it nevertheless felt intent on telling.

Stray observations

• “ARE WE EVER GONNA WIN ANOTHER FUCKING MATCH?!?” That’s it, that’s the line reading of the episode.
• Were you also left hankering for baklava after Nate’s date-gone-wrong-gone-right? Because I sure was even if I was left aghast at the thought of that serving being for two (for TWO!).
• Dani Rojas truly may be the one Ted Lasso character I cannot stand. In a show that’s skillfully turned one-note characters like Keeley or Roy or even Ted into fully fledged characters, I remain frustrated that Dani is always the butt of the jokes. (Yes, I rolled my eyes hard at the Pygmalion/pigs joke transition; get it? He’s simple! Hardy har har.)
• I didn’t like it when Coach Beard and Ted howled like dogs the other day and I cared for it even less when they howled like hyenas this time around. (Are non-toxic men really so exhausting?)
• Henry’s bullying story. So brief. So neatly resolved. So tangentially related. So structured as a Very Special Episode, with a kid owning up to what he’s learned. Am I the only one who could’ve done without it? I get that Ted’s entire storyline rests on his anxiety over having left his family behind, but I can’t say this one landed for me.
• Can we talk about the bad green screen happening behind Keeley at her office?
• Speaking of Keeley’s office: What is in Barbara’s desk drawers?! Inquiring minds want to know!