Also want to give a shoutout Hannah Waddingham who plays team owner Rebecca. Her acting is brilliant and she is incredibly expressive with her face alone. I didn't know it until just today is that she was Septa Unella on GOT Also that she actually was waterboarded for a scene on GOT. Just shows her range that she can play rigid and joyless Septa to the brittle and very funny Rebecca.
I finished season two last night and very good and well deserving of the accolades the show has gotten. I went back and read some of the recent pages on this thread as I hadn't wanted to get any spoilers until I finished and here are a few thoughts. Spoiler Yes the ending with Roy and Keeley is very ambiguous and I get the feeling that is meant to set up a conflict in the next season possibly involving Keeley developing feelings for Jamie Tart again. I'm curious about the segment between Roy and Phoebe's teacher if that is setting up something between them. Either way it looks like Roy and Keeley's relationship is going through a major change. I think it's the right move from a dramatic point as their relationship was starting to feel too perfect. I'm not sure how the situation with Sam will play out and personally I'm not that taken with that story arc. Sam is just too nice of a character and frankly found him too bland with Rebecca. I'm pretty sure we haven't seen the last of Edwin Akufo. Really enjoyed the character chewing up scenery and I'm guessing he'll show up again as a villian, possibly doing something to Sam's family. I think the scene with Trent Crimm is a set up for him playing a bigger role in next season. Possibly as Richmond's director of PR. Although it seems like a weird switch for someone who was a hardnose sports reporter to switch to being a mouthpiece for a team but that might just be part of the Ted Lasso magic. Ted's anxiety is likely going to be a major feature of the next season. After two full seasons both in actual and league time he's no longer a fish out of water but is no part of English football. It's the right move to give a different conflict for him with the rest of the Football Establishment than just that he's an American Football coach. This is where the move of Nate to being the main vilian will really come to play as Nate will find ways to specifically trigger Ted not just on the pitch but in other ways too. At the same time Rupert will be undermining Rebecca and finding ways to trigger her. Getting Nate as his coach is one big way of doing so. For both this show and Cobra Kai I've appreciated it for different reasons than many others might. Having been a college coach, of a non revenue sport, that had minimal support from the institution I really identified with a lot of what happens to Ted. The dealing with higher ups, the expectations of players and such. Like Ted I looked at my role as not about wins and losses and but how I could improve my students to be the best that they could be. Since Judo generated no money for the school, offered no scholarships there wasn't an expectation to win from the school but there were players, parents, and even myself who did have the pressure to win. I had to balance that with what I saw as trying to both grow the sport, grow the club, and help guide my students through a difficult time in their lives. As such I couldn't run my team as a full on competition team with the sole focus of winning but also not as a social club. I can see Ted grappling with the same issues, especially in the first season. It's very clear he means what he says when he doesn't care so much about wins and losses but about improving his players. Part of the tension of the show is that other characters do care about wins and losses and want Ted to care more about them. That is a tension I well understand. One of the main messages of Ted Lasso is that making your players better people and winning is one and the same. That players who are good people, who care and love their teammates will end up winning more. That is a nice belief but not really supported by reality. As we've often seen the best players in any sport are often not good people. They are so consumed by winning they sacrifice meaningful relationships and manipulate others to improve their chances to win. The show doesn't avoid that and while "Believe" is a great message it doesn't always lead to victories and I'm glad the show doesn't just wallow in that just feel good message that if you believe enough you'll win. I can't discuss this next part without spoilers so will go ahead and put in a spoiler Spoiler The situation with Nate while it is jarring I fully understand and I think it's a brilliant move by the writers to change his character in this way. I've dealt with similar situations of an assistant undermining my coaching. More than that someone that I trained who did believe that I was both not giving them enough credit but giving them credit in a way that was setting them up for failure. The story idea of the student who ends up destroying the master is so common that it is cliche yet it does actually happen. The change in Nate is one that I've seen happen and I think how the show has handled it is about right. It comes as jarring as it is primarily done from Ted's POV and the writers are trying to portray Ted's shock at it. The build up though for it has been there from the very first moment that Ted listened to Nate's ideas. The initial idea with Nate was as a lovable loser who is given the chance to prove himself. Yet what is good about this is that the show considers what happens when you take someone who has been a loser all his life to suddenly putting him in the position of being a winner. Nate actually hasn't changed just the circumstances around him have. What made him a loser, his uncertainty, lack of confidence, domineering father, are all still there. Also given that his path to success was from seemingly a fluke of hiring someone from outside who as we know was hired to fail has to be even more galling to Nate. Nate's resentment of Ted is that Nate his success is all predicated on a joke that even though he is a brilliant tactician it took a fluke to get him to where he is. Nate knows how fragile his success is and because he's so uncertain and second guessing himself he can only deal with that by resenting others especially those responsible for his success.
This show has great writing. ******** on england and soccer, all the while being so subtle about it. The positivity, at first, I thought would be too much, but it's won me over and is infectious. I approve of this show. Highly.
What makes you think they’re doing something negative against soccer and England? If anything, it’s the opposite. Soccer has historically been so terribly portrayed in movies and tv as there just aren’t many actors who have played. But this is one of the most accurate portrayals of how the game is played I’ve seen (outside of the plays they ran in the Season 1 finale). I really don’t see how they’re portraying England negatively at all.
Maybe "sh!tting on" might be too strong of a term, but the jabs are all over the place in the first few episodes.
https://tvline.com/2022/02/07/ted-lasso-season-3-premiere-date-delayed-new-episodes-returning/ Might be 2023 until we see S3. Buuuut more Dr. Sharon and Trent Crimm!
