By: Kelly Kearney
After last week’s premiere jogged our memories about where we left off with Ted and the London crew, this week Kansas City is officially in the rearview, and we’re heading back to London to meet the Lady Greyhounds. Along with the salty and stone-faced Alice Chilton, Coach Lasso is facing obstacles he never did with the men’s team. “Curiouser and Curiouser!” puts Ted back in familiar territory but with new faces and a goal to make women’s sports the talk of the town. Coach Lasso has his work cut out for him.
Same Old London
The episode opens with Ted (Jason Sudeikis) waking up in his, might I say, rather large and bougie apartment. He turns on the television, where he catches This Morning with host Alison Hammond, cementing his new daily routine in the UK. In his equally large kitchen, he pours himself a bowl of Shredded Wheat. Unlike last time, he notices they’re Mini-Wheats and not one giant brick he has to break apart. Maybe things are changing for the better, he thinks, until he walks downstairs into the Crown & Anchor, where Mae (Annette Badland) greets him with a pint of Guinness for breakfast. It’s basically a full meal, but Ted’s more of an after-hours drinker, so Mae downs the morning beverage, her second of the day, while Ted thanks her for renting him the apartment above the pub.
Ted leaves Mae to her morning pub crew, including a few familiar faces who are happy to see him back, even if it’s to coach the women’s team. Outside, he notices some construction and thinks to himself, “Nothing stays the same.” Of course, that idea is wiped from his mind the second he’s greeted by Mr. Mann (Tom Cotcher), the human middle finger who never misses a chance to call Ted a wanker. He’s genuinely happy to see Ted, but that doesn’t mean he won’t insult him for coaching the women’s team. Things change, but they also stay the same, and all Ted can do is smile and take it all in, happy to be back in London.
At the Greyhounds training facility, Higgins (Jeremy Swift) enters Rebecca’s (Hannah Waddingham) office carrying a thick binder of assessments he’s been compiling about the viability of the Lady Greyhounds. After a rival team folded under financial strain, Rebecca put Higgins on the case to dig up everything he could about whether moving into women’s football would be financially wise. Higgins admits he hasn’t actually read the entire binder because he was too busy putting it together, but he’ll offer Rebecca a summary when he’s finished.
When Rebecca notices he’s holding a second binder, she asks about it. He says that one is for Keeley (Juno Temple). As we learned last week, Rebecca hates to squash her best friend’s enthusiasm, so she takes the binder and says they don’t need to bother Keeley with it until Higgins has actually read the contents and come up with a final answer. This is the second time Rebecca has shielded Keeley from the truth, but sooner or later she’s going to have to let that little bird fly from the nest. She can’t keep her bank account open to her partner while keeping her new venture’s financial reality closed off. Sooner or later Rebecca is going to have to see Keeley as a partner beyond their friendship.
Before Higgins leaves, he tells Rebecca that Coach Alice Chilton (Tanya Reynolds) is waiting outside to speak with her. As we know from Episode 1, Rebecca thinks Alice hates her, but Higgins made it clear that Alice hates everyone. When Alice walks in, there’s immediate friction between her and the boss lady. Rebecca is all fake smiles while Alice is stone-cold serious, although she does thank her boss for the opportunity to be part of Richmond’s first women’s team. That being said, she’s resigning, and her last day with Richmond is Friday. Alice explains that she took the job hoping it would lead to a bigger role with the team, but now that Ted Lasso is back, she’s looking to pursue other options in her field. The only thing she asks Rebecca for is a letter of recommendation, and while barely containing her enthusiasm over the coaching change, Rebecca agrees.
But as Alice walks toward the door, she turns around and asks whether she was ever considered for the head coaching position. Rebecca is caught off guard and quickly says “no.” Alice follows that awkward slip of the lip up by wondering if Rebecca ever considered a woman at all. Rebecca didn’t, Ted was her first and only choice and as Alice looks at her with pure judgment before walking out of the office, Rebecca is left feeling uneasy. The question landed like an accusation about Rebecca’s feminism and she does not like the implications at all.
After Alice leaves, she explains the situation to Keeley who is outraged that Alice essentially called Rebecca a woman-hating monster and not a feminist. The brave Higgins interrupts Rebecca’s rant to point out that Alice never actually said that, but to Rebecca, however, it certainly felt implied. And according to Keeley, implications mean everything. Being the ride-or-die Keeley is, she’s always going to support her bestie, so she tries to soothe Rebecca’s fears by pointing out how obviously feminist she is. After all, she started Richmond’s first women’s team and plans on spending whatever it takes to make it successful. Rebecca cringes at the mention of spending as Keeley seems to think she has unlimited funds to casually throw around. Those expenditures and promises Rebecca isn’t entirely sure she can keep. Not that the boss lady is going to tell her that. Rebecca just smiles, nods and quietly cringes, as she once again, protects Keeley from the worrisome truth. But Keeley sees hiring Ted as proof that Rebecca wants what’s best for the women’s team. Who better than Ted Lasso to bring home a championship, and that’s what will put women’s sports on everyone’s mind? It’s also a pretty cheeky observation about the predominance of male coaches in women’s sports. BUt I digress, just as Keeley is blowing Ted up as the best thing since cleats, he walks in and hears her refer to him as “Ted f*cking Lasso.” His response? “The middle name is actually Fricken.” Tomato– tomahto, it’s all the same to smiley Ted.
Some Traditions Are Meant to Be Broken
Like the start of any day at work, Ted brings Rebecca a pink box, only this time, it’s not his famous shortbread cookies but a “little brisket with the boss” box. A man after her own heart, Ted brought barbecue, and Rebecca cannot get enough of it. She dives right in, slurping up the brisket as they discuss the dossier under his arm. Alice may have permanent RBF, and a problem with Rebecca’s patriarchal picks for coach, but she’s excellent at gathering intel. She put together her own binder that rivals Higgins’ and, thanks to all that information, Ted is already ahead of the game when it comes to getting to know his players. He can’t wait to work with her and that’s when Higgins delivers the bad news: Coach Chilton just resigned. Trying to soothe Ted’s worry, Rebecca says he could always ask Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt) to join him. Higgins quickly reminds them that Beard is still under contract with the men’s team and working with Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein). Yes, Ted and Beard are the dream team, but when it comes to coaching a women’s football club, Ted thinks there should be a woman on the staff. So much for the bromance ending in a messy custody battle with Roy getting the spiraling and unstable Beard. But we will get to that later, because Keeley tells Ted that it might be for the best that Coach Chilton decided to resign. When Ted asks why, she and Higgins both stutter and struggle to come up with an answer until Rebecca, swallowing down a mouthful of brisket, chokes out that she’s an absolute… The scene cuts away, but we know she meant “punt” but with a hard C.
Next, we pick up with Ted speaking with Caroline Seward (Lauren Hendricks), the head physiotherapist who takes care of all the women’s bumps, bruises and muscle aches. She offers to get her hands on Ted, who politely declines, especially how happy handsy she was about digging into those glutes. Ted then heads to the offices, where he meets with Roy and the old friends hug it out. Roy notices Ted looking around for Coach Beard and wonders if he wants him back, but Ted couldn’t ask Roy to give up his coaching partner. Still, he lingers hoping to catch sight of his bestie, as it’s clear the thought of teaming up is already dipping its toes into his mind.
After making the rounds, Ted heads down to his office with Coach Chilton and introduces himself. Alice is cold toward him, but Ted’s warmth slowly begins to defrost that icy exterior. Throughout the episode, we understand exactly why Ted is so beloved. Alice puts on a stone face, but the occasional smirk brought on by Ted’s warmth and terrible jokes slowly puts a crack in her steely exterior.
After meeting with his assistant coach, Ted heads out to introduce himself to the team. He’s used to walking into the locker room, but Alice stops him first. She needs to make sure everyone is decent before their male coach just wanders into the dressing area. It’s one of the many differences between coaching men and women they’ll have to get used to, and Ted is glad Alice is there to show him the way, even if it’s only until Friday. Once inside, Ted is shocked by how small the women’s locker room is compared to the men’s. They don’t even get their own space and what space they do have is more like a closet–all the women are practically on top of each other. It’s another glaring example of the lack of funding for women’s sports.
After meeting the team and checking out the locker room, Ted heads to a press conference where Rebecca is holding court and making sure everyone knows how supportive she is of women. It’s cringey enough that even Keeley struggles to smile through Rebecca’s ramblings, but the press is really only there to talk to one person: Ted. Every question is about his opinion of the men’s team, with barely a mention of the women he’s actually there to coach. Ted plays nice with the press but keeps reminding them that he’s the coach of the women’s Greyhound team and those are the questions he’d like to answer. Unfortunately, those aren’t the questions the media thinks its readers want asked, and they disregard Ted’s request like they do his players.
While Ted is holding court in the media room, Roy asks the heavily bearded Coach Beard if he’s going to watch his bestie speak to the press. Beard shakes his head no, but then we see that the book he’s reading is actually hiding his phone, where he’s keeping track of Ted’s press conference. He just hopes Roy doesn’t notice. Of course, Roy must know because the Lasso/Beard bromance is carved in stone, and neither of them is particularly good at pretending otherwise.
The Lady Greyhounds
With the press taken care of, Ted joins Coach Chilton on the pitch for a practice session and gets his first real look at the team he’s going to coach. The two briefly discuss a few of the players, but one woman in particular catches Ted’s attention: the goalie, who goes by Katie “Boots” Quinn (Jude Mack) and refuses to wear gloves. Ted wonders what her story is and why she’s so adamant about not wearing something that would presumably make her job a little easier. There has to be a story there. Alice has only one explanation: goalies are insane. And honestly, that’s as good a reason as any.
While the ladies are on the pitch, upstairs, Roy knocks on Rebecca’s door, with his own daily routine of delivering homemade biscuits, just like Ted used to do. Only Roy’s aren’t buttery and sweet, he isn’t so why would his treats be? He has been perfecting his healthier, no-taste, hard-as-a-rock alternative, and Rebecca doesn’t have the heart to tell him to stop. He’s quite proud of himself for emulating Ted and turning Rebecca into his guinea pig.
The mood changes when Keeley arrives to ask Rebecca to fund a new locker room for the women. The one the ladies are in is too small and depressing. It doesn’t fit into Keeley’s dreams for their team. Rebecca tries to cool Keeley’s jets and tells her they don’t have the budget for a new locker room, but the team can take over the visiting team’s locker room instead. That seems like a compromise Keeley can work with.
Later that evening, Coach Beard turns up at Mae’s pub and hides in the corner until Ted spots him. The two finally come face to face, or face to beard–as the coach has really let himself go since his friend last saw him. After a few awkward moments, Ted says he can’t ask Beard to leave Roy or the men’s team, but they should still be able to hang out, drink a few beers and catch up. After all, they’re best friends. Beard agrees, but as soon as Ted brings up Jane, the woman he married in the Season 3 finale, Beard shuts down and bolts out the door. What’s going on there and does Jane have anything to do with this woolly mammoth look Beard’s sporting these days? Ted will get to the bottom of it, just like he does with his players. He figures out what makes them tick, and uses it to the team’s advantage.
The next day we see that in action when Ted monitors his players’ energy while watching how they interact with each other on the pitch. He starts with Boots and why she doesn’t use gloves, knowing that catching those balls must sting. When he asks her to explain, it turns out, that’s exactly why she likes it. The sting is how she knows she’s in the game. When Ted seems confused, Boots puts it in male terms by asking whether he’d prefer having sex with or without a condom. After a long pause, Ted shakes his head and goes back to Coach Chilton, agreeing with her assessment: goalies are insane.
Together is Better Than Longingly Apart
As the practice continues, Ted notices some rivalry between twin sisters Niamh (Aisling Sharkey) and Siobhan (Rex Hayes). He wonders what’s going on there, but Coach Chilton sighs and rolls her eyes, reminding him that he doesn’t need to know everything about everyone on the field. Ted keeps trying to chisel away at the iceberg that is Alice Chilton, but everything comes to a quick and painful halt when one of their star players, Josie (Stevie Abrahms), gets injured on the field. Coach Chilton goes from iceberg to warm, comforting coach in an instant, staying by her player’s side all the way to the ambulance and hospital. Ted watches the entire scene unfold and gets a new perspective on what makes Chilton tick. If Ted is interested in people’s stories, he knows Alice has one, and her reaction to Josie’s injury proves it. There is a reason she’s so caring with her players despite her usual cold and emotionless demeanor, and Ted is determined to figure it out.
Speaking of a cold with a capital C player he figured out, Roy finds Keeley in the visiting team’s locker room, the same one Rebecca said the women could use. While trying to get some inspiration for the decor, Keeley notices the bench she’s sitting on seems a bit uneven. The pen in her hand keeps rolling downhill. Roy finally reveals that he booby-trapped the visiting team’s locker room to keep opponents on edge. Bench by bench, he fixes them, even lifting the bench Keeley’s sitting on without making her get up. The move definitely excites his ex, who can’t help but look at him longingly before looking away every time their eyes meet. It’s actually the first time they have been alone together since they broke up on season three. Their sparks are hotter than ever, even if they are determined to remain friends.
With all the benches fixed, there’s one last issue making the locker room unusable and that is a giant column separating the room down the middle. It will make it impossible for Ted to address the entire team at once. Again, it’s psychological warfare against the visiting team, so Roy knocks down the column giving Keeley a view of what she’s been missing. Once all the sabotage is removed, Roy confesses to Keeley that he’s afraid of losing Coach Beard to Ted. The whole scene consists of the two talking around their relationship when Keeley tells Roy he shouldn’t keep two people apart who want to be together. Yes, she’s talking about Beard and Ted, but everything about this interaction says Roy and Keeley want to be together, too. Subtlety has officially left the building.
As for subtlety, Ted Lasso has none when it comes to getting what he wants. When Coach Chilton returns from the ER, she tells Ted that Josie tore her ACL and will be out for the rest of the season. Then she gets a message from Higgins reminding her to send him her replacement choices for coaches. Friday is her last day, and they still do not have a replacement. After everything that happened on the field, and after a full week of Ted tapping into her expertise and making her feel important, even from the passenger seat of this coaching team, she’s no longer sure she wants to leave. Ted Lasso has officially lassoed the ice queen into warming up to him.
Someone who is never going to be warm and cuddly is Rebecca’s mother, who joins her for lunch and the two talk about feminism. Rebecca needs someone besides Keeley, who’s always on her side, to put her mind at ease that she’s a woman who supports other women. Her mother, of course, is never going to be that person. Instead, she rattles off all the reasons neither of them are feminists and finds the entire conversation ridiculous. Then she orders an equally ridiculous meal because, for that woman, everything is about vibes and optics and nothing is about substance.
The Ice Queen Cometh
It’s officially Friday, and that means it’s Coach Chilton’s last day with the Lady Greyhounds. After the tragedy with Josie, Ted thinks it’s a great idea for Chilton to take a look at the new locker room with the rest of the team. She’s hesitant at first, but when she walks into a room completely decked out like a professional locker room, practically identical to the men’s, the players are thrilled and Chilton struggles to hold back her tears. As someone who has dedicated her life to women’s sports, she knows how rare it is to see this kind of investment. The lack of funding and enthusiasm is something she’s spent her entire career fighting against. Now everything points to Chilton changing her mind about leaving. What better place to land than somewhere Ted, Keeley and Rebecca are pouring their time, effort and money into making the team a winner?
Ted isn’t the only one who manages to change some attitudes. Roy knows Beard is unhappy and would rather coach with Ted, but Beard is no quitter. If anything, he’s more into torturing himself. Roy can’t stand to watch it anymore, so he digs up some obscure regulation Beard broke and fires him. After a back-and-forth over regulations Beard has practically memorized, he realizes Roy is right. He did break the obscure rule, and he’s devastated. That is, until Roy reveals the real reason behind the firing: he’s now free to join Ted and the women’s team!
But the team is never getting out of that locker room without a competent coaching staff. Ted needs to find a new assistant coach to replace Alice but unfortunately, none of the applicants are what he knows his team needs. So he sends them all home and starts digging into Chilton’s background instead. Maybe something in her history will help him convince her to stay. He discovers that she was a promising player who tore both ACLs. She returned after surgery, only to tear one of them again, ending her playing career permanently. Suddenly, her reaction to Josie’s injury makes sense. It also explains why Ted’s arrival initially felt like a slap in the face to someone who had dedicated her entire life to the sport. Ted knows how strong Alice is, and he knows the team needs a strong female coach who can also be soft when her players need her to be. He tells her that while she wasn’t chosen for the head coaching position, he hopes she’ll stick around and help him build a winning team. Knowing he looked into her background and even with her attitude, still wants to build this team with her, means the job offer to stick around and be his assistant is hard to refuse. It seems like she’s going to stay!
That is exactly the moment Coach Beard comes tearing into the room and jumps into Ted’s arms, announcing that he’s back. Where that leaves Alice remains to be seen, but Ted isn’t about to let her feel pushed aside for the second time. There’s plenty of room for all three.
With a solid coaching team, well, two solid coaches and one bearded man with a firm grip on the rules and a loose grip on his sanity, Higgins returns to Rebecca’s office with his summary of the financial reports. The verdict is grim: women’s sports isn’t a money maker, and Rebecca’s investment in the Lady Greyhounds might not just bankrupt her, but potentially hurt the men’s team if her wallet takes too big of a hit. It’s a terrible financial report, but that doesn’t mean these women and Ted aren’t worth the risk. Higgins thinks they are and gives Rebecca his thumbs up approval.
Which brings Rebecca back to Coach Chilton. With the recommendation letter in hand and a week of angry defenses of her feminism behind her, Rebecca has some parting words for Alice. She admits she got defensive when Chilton questioned her about the women’s coaching staff, but Alice should have spoken to her boss with a little more empathy. Rebecca is a feminist, and that means giving it to female coaches who get out of line the same way she would give it to Roy Kent or any man who barked at her the way Chilton did. She says her piece, assuming she’ll never have to deal with Alice again.
Then Chilton completely ruins her upper-hand moment by announcing that she’s accepted Ted’s offer to stay as assistant coach. Awkward again! Alice Chilton is keeping Rebecca Welton on her toes as she reels in her attitude and pastes on an exaggerated smile, Suddenly the owner of the ladies team is thrilled to work with the woman who doesn’t just hate her, thankfully, she hates everyone equally.
Except maybe Ted. He’s growing on her and thanks to that budding work relationship, these female footie players are off to a winning start!