Ted Lasso – La Locker Room Aux Folles

By: Kelly Kearney

Get ready for a lesson in friendship and loyalty, Ted Lasso style, because this week Colin and Isaac’s relationship takes a tumble when the team’s captain almost risks their game against Southampton over a bigoted slur hurled at them from the crowd. After last week’s accidental coming out, Isaac seems to be in a mood and going out of his way to avoid his friend and teammate. Everything comes to a head in a violent outburst that has everyone on the Richmond team learning what it means to celebrate diversity and how important it is to cherish our differences. The title for “La Locker Room Aux Folles” fis in the nose and at times can feel a bit preachy, but the of theme kindness and acceptance has never been more timely.

“Heartbent”

Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) hates to admit Ted (Jason Sudeikis) was right to change their entire philosophy mid-season but now Mr. Grump is loving all their wins. He is even complementing the men on a job well done and for Roy that’s huge. Out on the pitch the mood is mixed. The team loves their new plays but the dynamics between Colin (Billy Harris) and Isaac (Kola Bokinni) are way off and it’s starting to affect their training. Isaac keeps giving Colin the cold shoulder after discovering a different sort of nude photo on his phone last week and now that cloud of acceptance is hanging over Colin as he waits to see which side Isaac lands on; supportive ally or homophobic ex-friend. He asks Isaac out for a beer and a chat but the Captain declines indicating he might be uncomfortable discussing Colin’s sexuality.

While the team is working out their issues on the pitch, Keeley (Juno Temple) is upstairs cuddling with Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) and talking about her relationship woes with Jack. After last week’s argument over the data leak and Jack’s shaming Keeley for that video, she has been sending the billionaire nepo-baby a slew of unanswered texts. “A sea of Blue” Rebecca calls them, with no response and it doesn’t seem like they can come back from this. Maybe forty quid would brighten her mood? Ted snuck it into an extra pink box when he dropped his usual shortbread delivery off with Rebecca. He saw Keeley was there and didn’t want her to feel left out. Scottish-baked delights aside, Ted is also in Rebecca’s office hoping he can skip out on today’s press conference for an online PTA meeting. Keeley chimes in with the idea that Roy could stand in for Ted. Sure, he hates the press but he’s good at charming them with his gruff demeanor and gooey insides. The idea sounds like a solid one to Rebecca, but they’ll have to convince Roy to do it first. The women corner him and after a few F-bombs and growls, he has no choice but to agree. The women pull a full-court press on him and it’s clear they won’t be taking no, or a Roy Kent F-Off! for an answer.

Over at West Ham, Jade (Edyta Budnick) shows up at her boyfriend Nate’s (Nick Mohammed) work where she meets Rupert (Anthony Head) and his slimy wandering eyes. He packs on the compliments and turns up the flirting because if there is a woman in the room, Rupert instantly wants her. Through their introduction we learn that not only did Jade’s mother name her Jadis after her favorite recording artist, but she also taught the waitress how to spot a creep when she sees one because the woman is not swayed by Rupert’s charm.

Meanwhile, Higgins (Jeremy Swift) finds Rebecca and asks her what happened to the press conference. When she heads downstairs to the press room she finds Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt) berating the press over their lack of Led Zeppelin knowledge to the point Rebecca has to step in to save the day“ by pushing Beard into the background and telling the press pool they can ask her anything. They wind up asking her to settle the Beard argument once and for all by revealing her favorite classic rock guitarist and she chokes out “the guy from Queen.”  After that embarrassing debacle of rock Gods, Rebecca hunts down Roy and barks out, “OiY! Kent! Get your hairy arse into my office… NOW!” She is furious over him skipping the press conference when she ordered him to do it.  Now it’s time for the boss to be the boss. Roy follows her upstairs but not before he tells the team he’s angry they didn’t stand up for him. They know his rear end isn’t hairy!

While Rebecca prepares to wax Roy’s backside ignoring her request, we check in with Colin who fills Trent (James Lance) in on Isaac. Now that Crimm is Colin’s coming out mentor, he offers the footie player some advice: give Isaac some time to process this. Upstairs in the boss’s office, Roy does a bit of his own processing of what Rebecca tells him his biggest problem is: it’s his attitude. “Get out of your own way, man!” she yells, as she verbally undresses him up and down about his casually wayward life. Her rant sinks in and Roy starts to question what he’s doing with himself. Ever since he and Keeley broke up, Roy seems to be in some holding pattern. Rebecca is right, he needs to get over himself.

A Lesson Learned From the Denver Broncos

Back at West Ham, Rupert lurks around Nate’s office and swipes some of the Wonder Kid’s favorite Baklava from A Taste of Athens. He’s putting the pressure on Nate to win their next game but he is also sniffing around his girlfriend, who he mistakenly calls “Kate.” He is so interested in her that he can’t even remember her name. Rupert then invites Nate to a guy’s night out after the Southampton game. While the invite does make Nate happy, the meeting sounds a bit ominous. Rupert doesn’t do anything without some poor unsuspecting arm candy and NAte does not fit the profile.

Over at Mae’s (Annette Badland) bar it’s bottoms up as always as the Greyhounds take on team Brighton. In the stands watching the game from their usual box seats, Keeley shares Jack’s text with Rebecca and Higgins, and things do not look good for the couple. She is away in Argentina and will be for months. This is a breakup without the finality of the words, and while it was expected because the woman ghosted Keeley, Higgins is the only one who seems thrilled.  He never liked Jack or her aggressive handshake; Keeley deserves better.

Down in the locker room before the match Isaac won’t even touch Colin’s hand for the traditional pre-game cheer. His off mood makes its way onto the pitch when he starts screaming at Colin for giving up a goal. His attitude shocks his teammates and coaches, but only gets worse when the team heads into the half one goal behind, and the fans in the stands scream abusive gay slurs at them as they walk off the pitch. Isaac can’t handle it and charges into the stand, roughing up the loud bigot. That’s when Roy steps in to try and pull the team’s captain back, but it’s too late – the referee red cards him and Isaac is ejected from the game along with the abusive fan. Inside the locker room, everyone is stunned into silence. They know something is up with Isaac but nobody wants to be the first to say it out loud. His reaction to the gay slur was hard to ignore which gets all his teammates wondering why it hurt him so much. Yes, it was crude, hateful and uncalled for, but he took it so personally. They’ve heard that nonsense before so why not forget it and move on? Isaac freaks about that and screams he doesn’t want to forget it because what if one of their teammates was gay? Then he tosses his captain’s armband at Sam and storms out of the room crying. Roy finds him in the equipment room and sits next to him. There is no yelling– just quiet support, which is exactly what Isaac needed. Meanwhile, everyone on the team can’t help but think he is gay and that’s why he lost it. Colin listens to all of their reactions and, unsurprisingly, they are all supportive. This prompts him to be brave and shut down the Isaac rumors by coming out to the team. He and Isaac are close and this explains why their captain lost it on that guy in the stands. It explains the meltdown but not why Isaac was giving him the cold shoulder.  Roy gets to the bottom of that when he realizes Isaac is angry over something else–not Colin’s sexuality or even the bigot hurling slurs, and whatever it is, if he doesn’t fix it, it might ruin him and maybe the team too. After all, now they are one man down on the pitch because he allowed his emotions to get the better of him. This is something Roy Kent knows a lot about.

Inside the locker room the team is cool with Colin’s admission and says they don’t care, but Ted says they do care and tells a story about his friend who was a Denver Broncos fan in deep Kansas City Chiefs territory. The guy spent every game alone and Ted realized much later, and after one embarrassingly preventable moment, that he should’ve supported his friend–Bronco fan or not. They all care about Colin– who he is, and what he’s been going through but more than anything, they appreciate what makes him unique. Those differences are what makes him who he is–their teammate, and the guy who steps it up on the pitch and wins the game against Brighton! With Sam (Toheeb Jimoh) sporting the Captain’s band, the team puts total football and Richmond on the map. Unfortunately, their win was overshadowed by Isaac’s meltdown, and the press and pundits are now calling him a psychopath. Even former coach turned TV personality, Catrick (Bill Fellows), is claiming he is not fit for the role of team Captain. All the locals have their own opinions too, but none of them know the real story.

Friendship Trumps Hate

After his team wins Nate shows up for his guy’s night out with Rupert, who is unsurprisingly accompanied by two models – one for him and the other for Nate. This guy’s night is looking more like a double date, which doesn’t sit right with Nate, who canceled a date with his girlfriend to spend time with his boss.  Nate is not a cheater but he is a bit disillusioned with Rupert – the man he hoped would be a good stand-in for Coach Lasso. Now he knows Rupert only cares about one thing –himself – and he will casually ruin Nate’s life if he follows his boss’s every whim.  He makes up an excuse to leave because he is not going to let this twice-divorced serial cheater rob him of his relationship, no matter how important Rupert is to his career.

Over at Richmond the Diamond Dogs toast their victory before Roy–not Ted, heads out to the press conference. Rebecca, Keeley, and Higgins are shocked to see him walk out, but just like Keeley predicted, Roy Kent nails it. Known as the F- bomb-dropping grump, Roy opens up about a lesson he learned about bullying, while the press gets an eye-opening view of his secret sensitive side. He ends storytime by agreeing with the public on Isaac being wrong to attack that fan but offers him love anyway because nobody ever really knows what someone else is going through. In the back of the press room, Rebecca is beaming with pride at not only his response to what happened on the pitch but also at the obvious fact he finally listened to her and took control of his life. He is good at these press conferences but he is an even better coach and it’s about time he realized that.

After peacing out on Rupert’s double date, Nate shows up at Jade’s door with a hug and a grateful look. He knows what’s important now, and it’s not impressing toxic men like Rupert. Jade isn’t the only one who gets a late-night pop-in. Issac is at Colin’s door with a question his friend never saw coming. The reason why he was so angry wasn’t because Colin is gay. It was because he lied to his friend about who he was for years. “What is it about me that you could not tell me?” Isaac asks while holding back tears, and that’s when Colin realizes this secret he kept wasn’t just hurting him, it hurt his friends too. Isaac does care about him, and Colin allowed his fear to cloud over that truth. Colin admits he was 99% sure his friend had his back, but that 1% chance he wouldn’t was too hard to face. The two make up, with Isaac priming Colin he will make sure nobody says anything hurtful to him now–especially with those fast hands in his corner. The episode ends with the two friends laughing and playing video games. They are back on track thanks to Colin’s truth, his teammate’s loyalty and the love shared between friends, always being the glue that binds this group of men together.