Ted Lasso – Mom City

By: Kelly Kearney

Season 3 has been an emotional ride since the opening minutes when Henry Lasso boarded that plane back to Kansas and left his typically chipper father in a funk. From Ted managing his mental health and post-divorce blues to Rebecca moving past her heartbreak and processing her anger, to Nate’s downfall and redemption, and finally, the friendship between Jamie and Roy, the fans have been through the ups and downs of these character’s lives but we still have many unanswered questions we need to be resolved before those series ending credits roll. In the show’s penultimate hour, we get some of that clarity when Ted’s mother shows up for a surprise visit just as team Richmond is gearing up to face Man-city, and she isn’t the only mom giving us a peek at how some of these characters operate. We also pop in on Jamie’s mother, who is as supportive of her son as she is obsessive about the star he’s become. Moms are the driving force behind this episode that manages to tie traumas from the past to an epic game of some of the best football moments of the series. It’s all heart, maturity, truth bombs, and legendary moments on the pitch in this week’s kindcore comedy. So, go grab your lavender fresh kit and your box of happy tears tissues, because we are Manchester-bound, Mama’s boys! Oiy! This was a good one, football fans.

Tartts, Kebabs, and the Comeback Kid

We open with a smiling Ted (Jason Sudeikis) walking through the town of Richmond on his way to work. Instead of the typical name-calling he was used to getting from the locals, the American coach has proven himself as a competent team manager and now everyone in town is happy to see him. . He turns the corner and runs right into his mother, suitcase and all, sitting on a bench trying to find her way around town. She never called Ted to say she was coming for a visit, and right away we can figure out why. These two are not close. In fact, for a mother and son, they couldn’t be more different. Dottie Lasso (Becky Ann Baker) loves to be the center of attention and she gets there by exaggerating all her stories to make her life, but mostly Ted’s, seem more exciting. She turns up the charm to overcompensate for the tensions between her and her son, but those white lies don’t interfere with her likability. She’s the life of any party and is excited to bring her vibes to the Greyhound’s locker room.

Speaking of the Richmond team, the guys are heading into the biggest game of the season against the first-ranked Manchester City and, while their coach is dealing with his mom, Sam (Toheeb Jimoh), Roy (Brett Goldstein) and Jamie (Phil Dunster) go solo for the pre-game press conference. Unfortunately, their star player seems a bit off. Sam and Roy are excited about the next two games but Jamie is in a mood and it’s hard to ignore. If they can pull off a win against Manchester, they have a shot at taking home the Premiere League Championship. So, why does  Jamie look like he is about to cry? It’s just not like the typically overconfident player to be so down on himself. He just won Premiere Player of the Month and now he’s telling the press he might not have earned it? What is going on?

Speaking of stars in the sport being a bit off, we see Colin (Billy Harris), Isaac (Kola Bokinni) and Will (Charlie Hiscock) go to Taste of Athens to ask the newly employed waiter, Nate (Nick  Mohammed), to come back to the team. He is wasting his skills there and, as Isaac alludes, seeing him off the pitch and dishing out hummus is just sad. The guys took a vote and the team wants to give the Wonder Kid a second chance, but when they admit they didn’t tell Ted about this visit Nate is no longer smiling. He politely declines their offer and instead whips up seventy-five thank you kebabs for them and their teammates to enjoy. When they arrive with the skewered meat, Dottie is holding court in the locker room with stories about her precious boy and all the amazing things he’s accomplished. Sure she confuses Ted with Courtney Cox, but the team loves her walk down Lasso memory lane, and Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham), with a mouth full of kebab, can’t help but agree. It’s Ted that’s struggling with her half-truths because he is the only one who knows that this relationship is filled with traumatic moments and ignored feelings. Ted is still respectful to his mom though; he smiles and nods through every bit of praise his colleagues give her, but deep down he is convinced she is in London for some other reason than missing him.  He cuts story time short and tells the team to get ready for practice. Van Damme (Moe Jeudy-Lamour) was born ready, but ever since Dani Rojas (Cristo Fernández) broke his nose his readiness now requires a face mask that some of his teammates can’t help but make fun of him over. Not Jamie, though. He kills all the joking buzz by telling Van Damme he’s smart for putting his safety first. This new attitude catches Roy’s eye and when he corners Jamie in the cleat room, the man breaks down in his arms. Jamie doesnt know why he’s so upset but he can’t sleep or eat and all Roy can do is stand there equally confused as his friend sobs all over his shirt. Roy has no idea how to help Jamie, so he goes to Keeley (Juno Temple) for help. He asks her to come to Manchester with the team and try to work her magic on Jamie and get him talking. Whatever it takes to get their best player out of his funk and into a winning mindset because going home to Manchester, where he is reminded of his father, is only going to add to whatever misery he is in now. None of this is good for the game.

Downstairs in Ted’s office Higgins (Jeremy Swift) informs his fellow Diamond Dogs that he was the one who gave the go-ahead to approach Nate with an offer. Everyone in the room likes the idea except for Beard (Brendan Hunt), who says, “If you bring that Judas back I will burn this place to the ground.” He cannot drop his grudge against the guy who tore down their BELIEVE sign and then stabbed them in the back to go work for their competition.

After practice the guys plus Ted’s mom head to Mae’s for drinks and Wizard of Oz pinball. Dottie and Beard get along well and she asks him how her son is really doing these days. Beard tells her the usual – he’s Ted, so no big surprises there. But considering her son is actively avoiding her and chatting up Mae (Annette Badland) instead, she must know something is off. Speaking of Mae, she has some sage advice for Ted in the form of a poem. It’s about parenting and the inheritance of trauma we pass down through the generations. It’s a truth that hits Ted hard, and only gets harder when later his mom asks about those panic attacks she saw on the local news. Apparently, his mental health struggles have crossed the pond but thanks to Dr. Fieldstone we see that Ted is no longer embarrassed about them. He tells Dottie he is seeing a therapist and then asks her if she has ever considered it. He isn’t surprised, she hasn’t; it’s just another disappointing admission from Mrs. Lasso.

There’s No Place Like Home

As the team boards the bus to Manchester, we see the newly appointed head waiter Nate having trouble staying focused on his job while the TV is tuned to the big game. Jade (Edyta Budnik) notices how distracted he is and how overqualified he is for the job. She tries to convince him into quitting, but he refuses. He does admit he is planning to get a coaching job next season, but it won’t be at Richmond. Nate knows he burned that bridge and doesn’t think he can go back.

Later that night the team arrives in Manchester and they take in a movie as a way to bond before their big game. It’s a Ted Lasso rom-com favorite You’ve Got Mail and all the guys are bawling their eyes out by the final scene. All but Rebecca and Sam, who can’t help but trade glances at each other when Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan finally end up together. The couple who hasn’t let the romantic vibes get to them is Roy and Keeley. Even after they hooked up last week they’ve decided to just remain friends…with the occasional benefits. After the movie Keeley fails to get through to the depressed player, so she and Roy secretly follow him on a late-night run. Once the stalkers are outed, it seems they are headed to the home of Jamie’s mother. Once there they get an invite from Jamie’s mother (Leanne Best) and a front-row seat to the hysterical relationship she has with her “sexy bay-bay” Jamie. The look on Roy’s face as he watches Jamie cuddle the woman like a toddler is truly the stuff of comedy gold. Jamie and his mother are awkwardly close, but that must be going around because upstairs in his childhood bedroom Roy and Keeley find posters of their younger selves on the wall like pin-ups for Tartt’s teenage dreams. The two quietly have a laugh over how important they both are to Jamie and that leads Roy to tell Keeley just how important she is to him, too. He doesn’t want to be her friend because he is in love with her! He grabs her hand and, just when Keeley is about to respond,. Jamie walks in so she removes herself from Roy’s grip. The moment is over, but what was she about to say? We find out the entire visit wasn’t to catch up with his mom as much as it was to ask her about his dad (Kieran O’Brien). He hasn’t seen the guy since their fight after the game in Wembley and he is afraid without the man rooting against him in the stands he won’t have that anger pushing him to win. He feels emotionally impotent and doesn’t know how to fix it. She gives Jamie a bit of truth about his dad, explaining how that man won’t ever change, but that toxic streak isn’t what pushed Jamie to greatness. That’s all him – his talent and hard work. The pep talk from Mom helps and so does the fact Jamie has Keeley and Roy watching his back. He feels the love, but is it enough to pull him out of this depression?

Man City and the West Ham Quitter

The following day at the world-famous Etihad Stadium the crowd is jam-packed into the stands and ready for the return of their Judas. Jamie’s Tartt is back in Man City and this time wearing a Richmond jersey. It’s downright football blasphemy, and the fans are spitting mad…literally. A few local ten-year-olds got a gold star courtesy of Roy Kent for dragging Tartt from London to Surrey [Rebecca’s hometown in Bristol] as any tween hooligans should and now the adult fans in the stands are giving him a taste of their anger. The boos and insults do nothing but push the Greyhounds harder in the fight against these legends of the sport. In probably the best football montage we’ve seen on the show, the team dominates Man City and shocks the country. Van Damme is a beast at the net and Jamie, much to the crowd’s dismay, scores his first point of the game. Unfortunately, without his dad bullying from the stands the star player is distracted and winds up twisting his ankle in a play that lands another point on the board for Colin. Jamie is carted off the pitch and Ted decides to play one man down until Jamie determines if he can go on. It’s a risk in an already tight matchup, but he is willing to take it if Jamie can get over whatever it is that caused him to lose sight of the game. When he checks in with the star player, he is in pain but most of it is over his dad skipping the game. He played football to prove that man wrong. He wasn’t a loser. But since he stopped caring what James Tartt thinks, he’s lost his way. Ted gives him a piece of advice that inspires him to go back in the game and it is a winning move for everyone – including the hometown fans. They can’t help but cheer for their local boy who manages to limp his way to the winning goal and send his team to the Premiere Championship Game. Everyone is thrilled, especially Jamie’s dad – who we see cheering on his son from inside a rehab center. Jamie was right; he didn’t come to the game because of their last fight. That was the moment he realized his life was a mess and he needed to clean himself up. Well, that and probably getting pummeled by magic mushroom-crazed Beard, but mostly Jamie. After the game he ends up texting his dad hoping he is okay. It’s the first time they’ve spoken since their fight and it seems like things are looking up for Jamie and his emotional impotence.

Back at Richmond the team gets ready to celebrate. Jamie is stuck with his leg in an ice bucket, but Roy and Keeley make sure to bring the winning party vibes to him. The three share a bottle of champagne and Ted, who spies on the friends through the glass door, can’t help but smile. They’ve come a long way and, whether he knows it or not, it’s mostly thanks to him and his style of coaching. Ted is set to have dinner with Dottie before she flies home the next morning so he is skipping the party. Before he leaves he shows Beard the extended version of the video of Nate tearing up their sign and the aftermath of that decision is why Ted can’t hold a grudge. We see Nate stuck under the desk for hours as the team almost catches him in the act. After hours on his wobbly legs he tries escaping, but by then the cleaning crew has come so he heads back to hiding. After they leave he is back on his wobbly legs only to find out he is locked inside the office and is forced to toss himself out of the window. Ted tells Beard he hopes they are all judged not by their weakest moments but by the strength of their convictions and whether or not we give others a second chance. That hits home for Beard, who owes his whole life to Ted and one of those second chances. Beard goes to see Nate where he explains that he and Ted met playing college football and after going their separate ways Ted became a coach and Beard turned to a life of crime. After serving a prison sentence for drugs, Ted was the only one to offer Beard a place to stay after he was released and, in return, Beard stole his car. Then came the third chance when Ted saved him from returning to prison and gave him a job that turned into the career he has today. That chance stuck and the rest is history. Nate assumed Beard was at his door to kill him, not hug him with an apology. It seems that is what it took to get Nate back home with the Greyhounds. He could also use a job since Jade convinced their boss to fire him knowing his heart is not in bussing tables, but with Richmond and the game.

Back at Ted’s apartment he starts up a tough discussion with Dottie about the real reason she showed up on his doorstep. She’s taken aback because can’t a mother just want to spend time with her son? Ted knows that’s a lie and thanks her for  making him dinner, but follows that with a “f**k you for not wanting to talk.” He goes down the list of many thank yous and F.U.’s, with most of them having to do with never helping herself or Ted to process his father’s suicide. His mother is stunned by her mild-mannered son’s unrelenting anger but his honesty forces her to admit something so many children cannot see when it comes to their parents: she is human and didn’t know how to handle that loss. Instead of getting help for herself and Ted, she ignored it and her son’s pain right along with it. This is why he is in therapy now and dealing with panic and the entire reason why the two are not close. Dottie listens to his anger and then cuts him off at the knees (or maybe the heart) when she says she came to London to let him know that his son Henry misses him. This takes all the furious wind out of Ted’s sails and he quietly holds back tears as he says he misses Henry, too. It’s hard getting close to that little boy knowing one day he will grow up and leave. Dottie hugs Ted and tells him that sometimes parenting isn’t about the wins. Sometimes you win, but mostly it ends in a tie, and that’s not a bad place to be. The next morning Ted wakes to a freshly baked loaf of his favorite sunflower seed bread and a note from his mother thanking him for the visit.

Next, he heads into the office where he sees Rebecca staring at the triangle poster that always seems to prelude a big change for some character. It makes sense because not only is this the day for their yearly truth bomb conversation, but the night before Rupert’s wife Bex (Keeley Hazell), and his former assistant and mistress, Ms. Kakes (Rosie Lou), were seen knocking on her door. Something is in the works, not that she says what it is because she tells Ted she doesn’t have a big announcement this year. She makes it seem like he will have to wait until next year to receive his ground-shaking truth bomb and that’s when he looks her straight in the eye and says he’s dropping one on her this time.