Ted Lasso – Signs

By starrymag | April 17, 2023

By: Kelly Kearney

 

 

After last week’s embarrassing loss to Nate and his West Ham club, we jump ahead to get ready for another rival, Man City. The Greyhounds–including their coach, can’t seem to shake the blues over their sudden losses after a series of big Zava wins. What worked before isn’t working anymore and they all need to head back to the drawing board for a new strategy. It seems everyone is at a crossroads of some kind in this episode and whatever direction they choose to go in could cost them more than a couple of goals. Everyone in Richmond–even the fans, could use a spoonful of that Mary Poppins sugar to help the disappointments go down, and the guy who’s usually doling out that feel-good medicine doesn’t really have it in him this week. Ted Lasso’s heart, like his mind, is thousands of miles away in Kansas City and it’s a problem that’s impossible to ignore.

 

Looking For That Win

 

It’s been a month since the Greyhounds lost to their rival team, West Ham, and the mood swirling around Richmond feels bleak. They’re on a losing streak and even Zava (Maximilian Osinski) can’t get them over the slump. In the office, everyone but Ted (Jason Sudeikis) seems to have an idea of why the team can’t win, but Coach thinks it’s just one of those things and everyone should “goldfish” it and look forward to the next match. Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham)  isn’t as easily convinced things will improve and comes into his office screaming, “Are we ever going to win a f**king game again?” We all know when Rebecca curses she means business and it also means Ted’s gentle demeanor gets a little rattled. He hasn’t seen that anger directed at him in a while, so he promises her they’re working on a winning strategy. After all, they still have Zava!

With that tirade out of her system, Rebecca heads to that enlightening coffee shop where she dumped the terribly chatty John (Patrick Baladi) whom she briefly dated. She actually runs into John–who is rudely sporting a Man City scarf and a new fiance on his arm, and he fills Rebecca in on how the two met. In another paranormal twist, the fiance has a slip of the tongue and calls John her, “shite and nining armor.” That malapropism is exactly what her mother’s high-priced psychic told her she heard in her vision–the same one that predicted Sam’s green matchbook and the possibility of a family in Rebecca’s future. With the fated matchbook in her hand and her last failed attempt at a relationship staring her in the face, Rebecca is a little unsettled and can’t even believe these little hints keep blindsiding her, especially when none of them are making sense. It puts her in a mood for the rest of the day, and she’s not the only one down in the dumps. The team is back in the locker room in their own style of funk after hearing the news about the other, and far more treasonous, “shite in nining armor,” Nate Shelley (Nick Mohammed). It seems their former assistant coach and current manager of Rupert’s (Anthony Head) team, made the news with his supermodel date. The guys are shocked and maybe a bit jealous that their former Kitman is now the “it man.”

Little do the guys know that Rupert set Nate up with Anastasia (Elee Nova) and the Wonder Kid forgot to get her phone number. They aren’t dating but Anastasia is surprised he didn’t ask her out. The assistant gives Nate her number but he calls his mother first to practice his pick-up lines. The woman must give good dating advice because later we see her son escorting the supermodel into the Shelley family’s favorite restaurant. Sure, “the Baklava is divine” as he says, but Nate is really there to impress the hostess, Jade (Edyta Budnik), who has never once cracked a smile or seemed dazzled by his newfound celebrity. Anastasia is equally unimpressed with the food and ambiance that she snobbishly refers to as “dumpy.” When she asks if Nate can take her someplace else more Instagram-worthy he explains how important this restaurant is to his family and how all the wonderful moments in their lives were celebrated there. This quaint little Middle Eastern restaurant might not be up to her elite standards but it means something to him and he had hoped to share that with her. While he’s trying to explain all of this, Jade overhears the entire conversation and it’s the first time we see her crack a smile. Unfortunately, Anastasia refuses to share his joy of homemade hummus and pita so she just walks out on their date and hops into a convertible filled with her much cooler friends. Jade watches as Nate gets kicked in his ego and can’t help but feel bad for the guy. So, when his baklava order is ready she sits down with him, and the two get better acquainted over the sticky dessert. Who cares about elitist models when your ultimate hostess crush is finally smiling at you from across the table in your favorite restaurant? It’s nice to know Nate hasn’t gone totally evil.

 

You Have To Open Your Eyes First to See The Signs

 

Back at the Greyhound’s coaching office,  Roy (Brett Goldstein) and Beard (Brendan Hunt) debate strategies to turn the team’s losses around. Their “give the ball to Zava no matter what,” plan hasn’t really been working but every idea they come up with seems worse than the last. Even Trent Crimm (James Lance) tosses out an idea but none of them seem like they are zeroing in on why the team is so disjointed. Roy points out the big Zava elephant in the room, saying they should charge the team ticket prices if all they are going to do is stand around and watch Zava kick the ball. He’s not wrong, and Jamie (Phil Dunster) brought this up before. The cult of Zava is killing the team’s dynamic and ruining their hope for the season. The conversation on how they solve a problem like Zava hits a skip when Ted gets a message from Michelle (Andrea Anders) saying that Henry (Gus Turner) had a bullying incident in school. She doesn’t go into the details and now Ted has other concerns, ones he can’t easily fix from 10,000 miles away. The other coaches can read the room and when he tells them about the bully, Beard is ready to board a plane and ruin that kid’s day. Roy is a bit more creative with his vengeance and tells them his way of dealing with little punks like this and the mood in the room goes dark as we are greeted with a peek behind the curtain of Roy’s demented mind. He tells Ted to sneak into the kid’s house at 4:00 a.m. –the time of the day when people are less likely to defend themselves and beat him with a belt covered in red paint. When the kid wakes up dazed and thinking he’s bleeding, that’s Ted’s cue to laugh maniacally and continue the beatings. Let’s hope Jamie Tartt keeps his front door locked and that fleshy backside of his covered because if 4:00 a.m. is their training hour,  it could easily turn into backside beating hour if Kent brings the belt. Ted declines all brilliant and psychotic ideas until he can Facetime with Henry, but his focus is once again divided and his focus is not with the team, Ted’s kid wins out over the Man City game planning because ever since he said goodbye to his son at the airport Ted has been consumed by the idea that his absence– and now Dr. Jake’s influence has something to do with this bullying news. He is struggling to separate his work and family life and it’s looking more and more like the reason why the team can’t come up with wins. The Greyhounds do not have their coach’s full attention and Higgins (Jeremy Swift) can’t help but notice that too–as much as he hates to admit it. It’s why he approaches Rebecca with the stuttering and staggering possibility–one he carefully prefaces with never wanting to bring up, that if Ted can’t deliver a win against Man City it might be time to send him back to the United States. Rebecca can’t even think about that, she is not in the proper mindset for a painful talk, and it’s not like Higgins wants to hear the words “fire Ted” out loud either. He loves Ted as much as anyone but business is business, and losses on the scoreboard are losses in everyone’s wallet. As the Director of Football, he is only mentioning it because it’s his job to protect everyone’s investments. Shelving the Ted- talk for another time, Rebecca asks Higgins his thoughts on psychics, and unsurprisingly the “whimsical” as she calls him, Leslie has an aunt with paranormal abilities. Apparently, the woman predicted his marriage and their gaggle of sons, so who is he to argue with those who have “a touch of the shine?” Rebecca can’t move past that woman’s predictions any more than she can map out where they might be leading her. It’s why she does the proactive thing and starts crossing things off her list of possibilities–starting with her gynecologist.

Being the take-charge woman that she is, has Rebecca heading to the doctor to see if it’s even possible for a middle-aged woman like herself to have a child. There were some concerns in the past and if nothing has changed since then she can put this prediction to bed and move on with her child-free life. if the doctor says otherwise then maybe there is still hope for that family she’s always wanted. The feeling must come from her disappointing father and her narcissistic mother, and it could even be why she had such guilt over losing contact with her god-daughter. The idea of a child has always been a thorn in her heart and Rupert pushes and twists it deeper into her every chance he gets. If this prediction is true then this doctor will confirm it. Right away the friendly white coat lets her know it is possible; he has helped many women her age and older conceive. It’s the first piece of good news she’s had, and after failing to come up with a name for her emergency contact on the medical paperwork, just the possibility of having someone seems to calm her nerves. The doctor agrees to run some tests to know where she stands in this baby issue once and for all.

Nerves are on edge everywhere as the team is still drowning in the bog of their murky moods. They don’t think they can’t beat Man City but Jamie disagrees and gives a little speech about the team being just as good as the other guys. He says they’ve earned their right to play them. That’s when Zava stands up and steals Jamie’s thunder–and also his speech, when he says basically the same things but something about his pep talk is different. The guy who normally steals every spotlight and shadow simultaneously just said the team is going to win with or without him.  Everyone cheers thinking Zava is finally one of them and they are about to beat Man City. Jamie, on the other hand, sits on the bench rolling his eyes and shaking his head because this showboat hasn’t really done the work this season to get the praise he’s so freely given.

In Richmond, everybody is talking about the Man City game–from the team to the pubs, Zava is the name on everyone’s prayer list. The one person who isn’t focused on the game but who should be, is their coach, Ted. He is at home debating between pouring a glass of water and a glass of whiskey when the rye wins out because Michelle calls to talk about Henry and the bullying incident. Apparently, the kid can’t talk since he is at the park with Dr. Jake, but Michelle has a minute to fill his dad in on the situation. It wasn’t Henry getting bullied, he was the bully. Of course, this just adds to Ted’s bottomless pit of guilt for not being there to fix this, on top of the fact his ex’s new boyfriend gets to step into the father role in his absence.  This does nothing but further the divide between Ted’s loyalties to his family in Kansas City and his dedication to the team in England. Both hold a piece of his heart but right now he is singularly focused on Henry.

 

A Crappy Situation

 

It’s game day and Zava Is nowhere to be found. Everyone from his avocado specialist to his fecalist (how is that a thing?) says he’s missing in action minutes before the team heads out to the pitch. This means Colin (Billy Harris) is back in the starting lineup and he’s the only one that’s happy about it if the boos from the home crowd are anything to go by. If Zava left he took the hope of a big win with him. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when Man City slaughters them and even their fans are screaming obscenities as they walk off the pitch. Upstairs in her office, Rebecca gets an incoming notification from Higgins with a retirement announcement from Team Zava.  It seems like his little speech about the Greyhounds winning without him was a clue that he was bailing from the sport. She barely has time to process this news when her phone rings and it’s the doctor with her test results. We never hear what the doctor says but the emotions that play out on Rebecca’s face take the viewer on a roller coaster of pain, finality, acceptance, and something that looks a little bit like hope. Maybe that green matchbook wasn’t leading to the type of family she had in mind or maybe it is leading her to the type she never even realized was possible. It’s even possible it could remind her of the one she has now– the one who she forgot about when panicking over that emergency contact question. As soon as she hangs up with the doctor she dials up Keeley (Juno Temple) to tell her what’s going on but at the offices of KJPR things are out of control and messy.

We catch up with Keeley in the middle of a meeting with Barbara (Katy Wix) and Jack (Jodi Balfour) about what could be next for the company. Jack likes Keeley, and so she backs her idea to keep the firm small instead of Barbara’s plans to expand it to make them all more money. It seems Jack is very interested in what Keeley has to offer and not just because she believes in BANTR; she also seems to want to guide Keeley towards being the best CEO she can be. There is just one thing holding her back and it’s her heart. Shandy (Ambreen Razia), who is working overtime to nab the “Worst Employee Ever” award, has had a rather annoying attitude ever since Keeley reprimanded her for stepping out of line when she changed the BANTR app’s banner. Keeley needs to start facing the fact that her friend just isn’t cut out for the professional world and a good reason why comes from Barbara who just found out Shandy got drunk and called up one of their biggest clients at 4 AM to pitch her an idea for testicular condoms. That call cost them the account and this is after she interrupted a meeting with Keeley and Jack to announce her new app that’s basically a copy of BANTR but with the celebrity hook-up angle Keeley squashed. Jack listens in as Shandy breaks every employee-boss rule imaginable and once the meeting is over she offers Keeley some advice on how to sack the woman. Jack calls it “a compliment sandwich,” where you stuff the firing of your friend in between two compliments. It’s a sort of emotional whiplash that’s just confusing enough to make the walk out the door less dramatic. Only, Jack doesn’t know Shandy like Keeley does, so later, when she does fire her for losing that client, Shandy pulls a Half-Baked moment (not Jerry Maguire because he was competent) where she freaks out and tries to take Keeley’s employees with her! She promises outlandish things like massage tables in her nonexistent office for an app that hasn’t even been created yet and unsurprisingly, none of it works. After all the drama dies down she hits Keeley with round two and unleashes a free-range lamb with possible IBS into the office and the mess is revolting. Jack sticks around to lend a hand with the clean up and afterward the two share a bottle of vodka Keeley nabbed from Shandy’s desk. They take swigs from the bottle to close out the exhaustingly weird day but as the lights dim and the scented candles burn (mostly to cover up the smell of sheep excrement) the conversation turns to the heart. The two women compare terrible dating stories but when they land on Keeley’s most-recent breakup she decides the Roy topic is too sad to discuss when she’s having so much fun with her new drinking buddy. There is a moment where the two lock eyes and Keeley say she hasn’t had this much fun in a while. Then proves it with a kiss! At first, she regrets it and tries blaming the booze but when Jack responds with another kiss the two fall to the couch and into a heavy rebound make-out session. Of course, now is when Rebecca needs her and we see her face light up on Keeley’s phone’s screen. Normally she would be right there for her best friend and soulmate, but not tonight, and not when she’s blocking out the office windows to get naked with Jack.

 

It’s Just a Sign

 

Just like Rebecca needed to talk to someone, Ted is down in his office spiraling over missing his calls with Henry. Feeling helpless and a victim of time zones is weighing down his mind and a panic attack starts to rattle on down through him and into his shaking hands. His internal chaos hits the brakes when his phone rings with a call from Kansas City; it’s Henry, and the two have a good conversation about owning up to one’s mistakes. Henry says the next time he gets angry he will try to remember Ted’s lesson about counting to ten before acting on it. Henry is a good kid because as Coach Beard said earlier in the episode, he is Ted’s son so he has to be. It’s a kindness that is both a part of the Lasso men’s nature and something Ted nurtures in everyone he cares about. Now that he knows Henry made a rap song apology to the boy he bullied and everything is ok back home, Ted feels much better and is able to breathe through the early signs of his panic attack. It’s a good thing too because he needs that clarity to inspire the team with one of his famous pep talks.

When news about Zava’s retirement makes the rounds, the beaten-down team is even more in the dumps. To make matters worse, when Ted tries to cheer them up by saying Zava didn’t quit them as much as the sport entirely, their precious good luck BELIEVE sign falls off the wall like a curse. The guys scream but Ted reminds them it is just a piece of paper and then tears it to bits to prove his point. Belief doesn’t come from a sign on the wall, it comes from the same place hope lives–inside of them. Oftentimes people can get bogged down with disappointments and it gets in the way of that belief, but Ted says “I don’t want to mess around with that crap anymore. He is going to focus on believing in himself whether the team wins or not, and he wants them to do the same. If they can believe in hope, then nobody, not West Ham, not Zava, and not even the expectations of the fans, can take that from them. His speech inspires the team but let’s hope it does the same for their coach–who seems to be struggling with his worth while ignoring the fact his family in Richmond needs him too.