By: Kelly Kearney
After that bittersweet and heartbreaking New Year’s Eve episode, that familiar heartwarming coach is back and we have missed him. With the holidays behind them, the gang are back to doing what they do best: playing football while trying to manage the pressures of life off the field. Unfortunately, it would help if the Lady Greyhounds were paid what they’re worth. As we watch each player struggle to make ends meet while facing increasingly costly problems, the show once again shines a light on the very real pay disparity between men and women in sports. Filled with laughs, jokes, and more “Tedisms” than your brain can unravel, Ted Lasso is finally finding its footie-footing after a slow start to the season.
Money Talks
It’s a rough start to the day for the Lady Greyhounds, as we watch each of our star players drown in financial and life worries. Lizzie (Faye Marsay) is trying to get her kids ready when her ex- husband flakes out on his responsibility to pick up their youngest, interfering with her team practice. Meanwhile, Gemma (Abbie Hern) learns about an internship she wants to interview for, only to realize it conflicts with practice. Siobhan (Rex Hayes) and Niamh (Aisling Sharkey) get hit with another dose of bad news when they learn their rent is going up, which is especially brutal for the already underpaid women’s players, and that includes Boots’ broken truck, none of them are bringing in enough cash to make ends meet. Then there’s Margy (Mercedes Assad) and Mady (Annelise Heywood), the team’s favorite on-again, off-again couple, who are officially off again. Naturally, they both join a dating app and, because apparently the universe has a sense of humor, immediately get matched with each other. We also catch up with Shannon (Shannon Hayes), who’s supplementing her measly football check by working a second job as a food delivery driver. Basically, the women are playing with their hearts on the field and their wallets on life support. The financial struggle is hitting everyone differently. Alice, meanwhile, pulls up to her first day back at work while listening to a motivational speaker who encourages her to always say yes. The universe seems to agree when bird poop lands on her windshield, prompting the universal response: “Shit” and all the teammates agree.
Say “Yes” to the Bantr
Over at the team offices, Ted (Jason Sudeikis) is sitting in front of his computer, mulling over his new Bantr profile. When the app asks him to describe himself in three words, he’s completely stumped because our Ted is many things, but succinct is not one of them. How exactly do you boil Ted Lasso down to three words? He’s still hoping to find someone who’s interested in connecting with him when Alice (Tanya Reynolds) arrives back after her suspension, interested in making a connection with the team. Conveniently, every answer Ted gets from her is yes. She even writes it on a Post-it and sticks it to the coach’s wall as a reminder to “say yes more.” When Alice also spots a new sign on the wall: “Believe,” the one Michelle made over New Year’s Eve and a replica of the sign hanging in the men’s locker room, Ted clocks her reaction and asks if she’s okay with it staying. Alice grits out a yes through clenched teeth, but Ted isn’t sold on its current location.
That’s when Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt) walks in, looking bronzed, relaxed, and unusually blue-eyed–and fully committed to some kind of self-realization journey. Or maybe he’s filled out his Bantr profile, too. After being friend-zoned by Zelda’s young microdosing mistress, Beard appears to have found his zen.
Up in Rebecca’s (Hannah Waddingham) office, Dani Rojas, the beloved “Football is Life” star player’s deeply unlikable agent, Derrick Tarp (Luke Norris), sits down with the boss lady and Higgins (Jeremy Swift) to renegotiate his client’s deal. The always-smiling Dani is apparently frowning over his paycheck and is now tempted to leave Richmond for a bigger club willing to pay him more money. Which club? Derrick can’t say. How much money? That’s also a secret. What he can say is that the potential move would make headlines across the football world. It all feels a little scammy, and it only gets worse when Derrick alludes to leaking the news if Richmond doesn’t offer Dani a good enough contract. If another team is poaching Richmond’s players, Rebecca wants to know about it. The proper protocol would be to start negotiations with the owner, not go behind her back and manufacture a bidding war she doesn’t even know exists.
Before the meeting is adjourned, Derrick leaves Rebecca with one final thought: If Roy, who is also his client, were to renegotiate for a higher price, all this talk about Dani leaving Richmond would magically disappear. On that note, he leaves Rebecca and Higgins cringing in their chairs.
Say “Yes” to Everything
While Rebecca attempts to air out the stench of Derrick’s greed, Ted is downstairs asking Beard for his thoughts on online dating apps. After that boat party Ted skipped, Beard downloaded all the apps, and his online presence might explain that tan and those very blue contacts he’s sporting.
As the two go back and forth about modern dating, Lizzie’s son Archie (Orion Ginsburg Chan) bursts in, hoping someone will read Charlotte’s Web to him. He’s only four, so reading is still a struggle. So is staying out of the adults’ way while his mom is trying to train. Lizzie follows him into the office, apologizes for the situation and asks the coaches if it’s okay for Archie to stay during practice. Of course, Alice says yes because, at this point, that’s the only response she has for every question that comes her way. When Archie points to the “Believe” sign and says, “Some pig,” Lizzie corrects him before dragging her illiterate four-year-old out of the office.
Gemma trades places with Archie when she walks in and asks if it’s okay that she’s late to practice because of her internship. She’s been late before and normally Alice never misses a chance to put Gemma in her place. Shockingly, she agrees with another yes. Even Ted and Beard are stunned and must be wondering how long it will take before all these yeses result in one very big no.
Roy Kent is a Legend
Next, we catch up with Roy (Brett Goldstein) riding his scooter through the halls and into his office, where Derrick is waiting with some very good news: The meeting with Rebecca went well and Roy can ask for whatever he wants. It seems all Roy really wants is Keeley (Juno Temple). Right on cue, Keeley interrupts the coach and his agent to deliver some news of her own: Chelsea wants to put Roy Kent on their Wall of Legends. Always the complainer and never interested in being in the public eye, even when he is an actual football legend, Roy does not love the idea. Keeley, who is trying to protect both her heart and Roy’s reputation, removes herself from his tirade of complaints. She doesn’t have time for him to get with the program. He’s going on that wall. What’s good for Roy is good for Richmond.
In the middle of their argument, Dr. Erin Beaumont (Laura Haddock) arrives to check on her patient. That’s Keeley’s cue to leave, assuming the couple is happy and in love and doesn’t need her brokenhearted self hanging around. This could not be further from the truth. Before she leaves, Roy attempts to introduce them, since he has no recollection of their previous meeting or his declaration of love.
Once Keeley is out of sight, Roy and Erin exchange kisses and hellos. He seems to be doing well after his dance-off mishap landed him in the ER and he has the good doctor to thank for it. Too bad the post-op knee conversation somehow keeps circling back to Keeley. She has officially annoyed Roy to the point that he cannot stop talking about her, and Erin knows exactly why. This isn’t about the Wall of Legends Roy wants nothing to do with, it’s about his ex and the fact that he cannot get her off of his mind. If Keeley is taking up this much space in Roy’s head and possibly his heart, where does that leave Erin?
Zelda Joins the Team
Back in Rebecca’s office, Higgins is worried Derrick might have been telling the truth about Dani’s contract and the nefarious negotiations of rival teams. Rebecca doesn’t exactly consider Derrick a trustworthy guy and blows off his threats, but Higgins isn’t so sure. If someone is poaching their talent, they are crossing legal and professional lines.
Enter Zelda (Tracey Ullman), who walks in carrying merch bags left over from the boat party Rebecca and Keeley skipped. She’s still a little in her feelings about getting bypassed for the emergency room, but she offers up the swag bags anyway, including a harness and not for a donkey Higgins misunderstands. Zelda must think Rebecca’s bedroom attire could use some straps that fit the boss lady’s personality perfectly. She makes sure to remind Rebecca to give Keeley her bag, too, and the whole scene plays like one big sapphic, tongue-in-cheek joke between the punk-rock millionaire, the doer and her dreamer.
After that awkwardly hysterical icebreaker, Zelda gets to the real reason she’s there. She wants to join the team in a professional capacity as an advisor. Higgins sees the unscrupulous woman as the perfect weapon to take down Derrick and any opposing team trying to poach Rojas away from Richmond. If there’s one thing Zelda is good at, it’s sidelining the rules to get things done.
Yes, AND…
Over on the pitch, Alice is growing frustrated with Gemma, and her promise to say yes all the time is starting to be tested. The team keeps asking for increasingly peculiar permissions: from Boots training barefooted, to Mady playing blindfolded, Alice has nothing else to say but “yes.” Ted watches the entire interaction unfold while asking Archie for three words he thinks best describe his mom’s coach. Archie responds with “strong” as Ted rips open a bag of crisps and takes a few as tax for the effort.
Meanwhile, on the field, the women keep asking for more exceptions. Alice, who is slowly unraveling, continues to agree to all of them. Ted knows it’s only a matter of time before his recently suspended coach winds up benched again, so he and Coach Beard step in with one of their life lessons, hoping she actually finds some use for it. It all comes down to options, like his old college coach he and Beard had who taught them an invaluable lesson they call, “yes, and baby.” The baby Beard added later on, but it all boils down to saying ‘yes’ to whatever someone asks you but then adding an “and.” “Yes, opens up the door, but ‘and,’ well, that allows people to walk right through it.” Beard likens it to Sun Tzu’s hidden manuscript to the Art of War, which he assumes is titled “The Art of Collaboration.” The idea appeals to Alice and she tries it out when the team asks for a water break. She agrees but then tosses in the “and” to include a race to the water and the last 5 teammates back on the pitch have to run sprints. The team seems to like this new “yes, and baby” and Alice does too.
Back to Roy, who is still complaining about Keeley, her new hair and her insistence that he land on Chelsea’s Wall of Legends while Erin wraps his knee. He is fully invested in his ex, while missing the fact the woman he is currently dating is starting to realize his heart is not free.
Speaking of Keeley, Ted stops by her office to ask for help with his Bantr profile. The two pop a squat on her pink couch and go through the profile and ask one question at a time. Ted has a long-winded answer for every single one, and somehow his explanations reveal far more about his personality than the actual answers ever could. It’s the lovable, silly Ted we’ve been missing since the first episode. Even when he breaks into the theme song from The Greatest American Hero, we can only hope these ridiculous answers attract the right woman as much as they are attracting laughs. What we do learn is that Ted is a Hillary and Kamala fan, he’s partial to the crossed-fingers emoji and any drugs he’s done came from the earth while taking him well beyond it. He’s a rational guy who can cry on cue, is comfortable with his sexuality and, most importantly, Ted Lasso is “more than one thing.” It’s a lot to swipe on and he knows it, so he holds off on launching the profile into the dating pool until he is sure.
Chicago: 1, Derrick: Zilch
Upstairs in Rebecca’s office, she, Higgins and Zelda play a little phone game, pretending to be an American soccer recruiter named Dolly Partonburg. Zelda takes on the role of Dolly and, because Derrick is the fake schmoozer that he is, he immediately acts like the two are old friends. She plays the interested recruiter, hoping to lure Dani to the Chicago team, then casually backtracks and wonders if anyone else has shown interest in Richmond’s star player. That opens the door for Derrick to admit that the mystery team is Newcastle and Rebecca is livid. Now that they have their answer, they quickly hang up before Zelda’s Chicago accent fades (Tracey Ullman would never!). To reel in an unscrupulous agent like Derrick, they needed the talents of an equally unscrupulous woman like Zelda. Higgins knows someone at Newcastle and immediately rings him. The man loudly proclaims Derrick a liar and says he plans to report him to the FA immediately. Derrick might be the agent for legends, but with tactics like these, he won’t be an agent for long. With the call a success and the threat of Dani leaving Richmond officially off the table, Zelda has sold her talents to Rebecca. Let’s just hope football advising is really all she’s after.
Down on the pitch, “Yes, and baby” is working wonders for Alice and the team. It even helps Shannon make quick and successful decisions during the practice game. Apparently, saying yes to everything has its perks, and with Ted’s help, his assistant coach is finally working well with the players.
While the team practices, Ted wraps up his Bantr session with Keeley. He lands on “hopeful, resilient and kind” as his three words, but then realizes they don’t actually describe him, they describe her. Before he leaves her office he gives Keeley some advice to keep her head up and her heart open. It’s exactly what she needs to hear now that she assumes she’s lost her love to the beautiful and talented Dr. Beaumont.
Scorpions and Bridges
Back with Rebecca, she’s enjoying a celebratory drink with Zelda, who comes with a parable chaser about the battle of the sexes. Zelda compares men like Derrick to scorpions, telling the story of the scorpion who convinces a frog to carry him across a river, only to sting the frog anyway and drown them both. Rebecca assumes they’re the frogs in this story, but Zelda has a more profound response:
“Until we realize we don’t have to be.”
Rebecca doesn’t have to be anything–not a frog or a scorpion. She has no interest in carrying anyone, and this may be our first real clue that partnering with Zelda could shake up Rebecca’s very sturdy foundation. There’s no doubt both women are successful, it’s how they reached that pinnacle of success, is where they differ. Rebecca believes in building bridges, and Zelda seems perfectly comfortable setting them on fire if it gets the job done. It’s helpful to have someone willing to do the dirty work, but at what cost??
For now, Rebecca is just happy to have the help, and the two clink glasses before downing another rather spicy bourbon. That’s when Higgins walks in with good news: Derrick called and is backing down from his earlier threats. Dani is happy where he is, and Roy is fine with his current contract. The threat of the FA flipped the script and sent Derrick scurrying back into the shadows, where sports agents apparently do their best work.
Thanks to her help, Zelda is officially AFC Richmond’s special advisor. Rebecca can build all the bridges she wants, and Zelda will keep drowning the scorpions. Keeley is thrilled about the new addition, even if it means jalapeño drinks in the office in the middle of the day. What’s a little celebratory spice between co-workers?
Believe and Win
Speaking of spicy co-workers, Roy finally finds out what all that ranting about Keeley actually means when Erin lays it all out for him. She can fix his knee, but she can’t fix his heart. That’s going to require Keeley’s special touch. And the longer Roy keeps standing in the middle of the inevitable, the more likely someone is going to wind up with a broken heart. That will not be the good doctor’s.
Roy looks genuinely confused, as he would never hurt Erin, and really likes her, and the feeling is clearly mutual. It’s also painfully obvious that he’s in love with Keeley, and he can’t deny it, even if he hates admitting it.
Before she leaves, Erin asks him to be honest about why they started dating if his heart was somewhere else. Roy explains the challenge Keeley gave him: date other women until he finds someone who truly sees him, and someone he truly sees in return. Erin can’t help but wonder if that means she was just part of some grand experiment. Nothing could be further from the truth. Roy actually cares about her, and that’s something he never expected. She wasn’t part of his plan, which makes Erin wonder if maybe she simply wasn’t enough. Roy makes sure she knows she’s more than enough.
In fact, he calls her “a captain.” On a football team, the captain makes sure everyone is heading in the same direction. They stand up for what’s right and put the team and its well-being before themselves. From the way Roy has seen Erin with her patients and with him, he knows she can hold the center.
“I see you,” he tells her, and Erin sees him, too. Roy has officially completed Keeley’s challenge, which means it’s time to let her know how he really feels and clear up all of the heartbreaking misunderstanding. Erin reminds him that he’s worthy of being with the person he loves before giving him one final kiss goodbye.
With his Bantr profile still unfinished, Ted heads back to his office and finds Coach Beard finishing Charlotte’s Web with Archie. That’s when he notices the “Believe” sign hanging over the office door is gone. Beard points him toward the locker room, and when Ted walks in he finds Alice hanging it where the women can see it and, hopefully, feel inspired. Unfortunately, the message doesn’t land quite the same way it did with the men. These women have a lot going on in their lives, and believing in themselves doesn’t exactly pay the bills. They’re playing football for very little money while juggling rent increases, second jobs, childcare and personal problems. They don’t need another inspirational message telling them to believe, they need a paycheck that reflects what they’re worth.
Ted listens as the women explain everything they’re dealing with and realizes that belief alone isn’t enough. So, Alice, channeling her newfound “yes, and baby” philosophy, grabs a Post-it and adds a little something to the message, “Believe, and Win.”. They’ve got the belief down, now they need to believe they can succeed. Yes, and baby, works again.
Even Archie gets in on the action, reading the sign and his mom promptly dropping an F-bomb over her precocious four-year-old’s determination and belief in himself. Cursing aside, these women are fired up, inspired by Ted, Alice and apparently one tiny kid who learned to read in approximately a day.
After the practice, we find Ted at the pub taking his own advice. He deletes his Bantr profile and heads straight back to the theater where he met the stage manager. One whistle gets her attention, just like before, and this time Ted asks her out. Unfortunately, she’s already dating someone. The good news is, if she weren’t, she absolutely would go on a date with him.It’s a bummer that the first woman Ted has genuinely been interested in since his divorce is out of the dating pool. Not only does she let him down with disappointed ease, but Ted never even got to know her name. The entire experience does give him something even more important than a date, it gives him hope. Maybe there really is someone out there for Ted. He just has to believe.