Watch Ted Lasso now on Apple TV +. This live episode blog is updated weekly
RECAP
Following last season’s triumphant promotion to the Premier League, AFC Richmond, led by head coach Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis), is widely predicted by the media to finish last, which is greeted with uproar by the club’s owner Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham). If that wasn’t enough, Nate (Nick Mohammed) has jumped ship to become head coach at West Ham United, owned by Rebecca’s ex-husband Rupert (Anthony Head). In the wake of Nate’s exit, Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) steps up as assistant coach for Ted alongside Beard (Brendan Hunt). Meanwhile, Ted continues to wrestle with personal issues back home involving his ex-wife Michelle (Andrea Anders) and his son Henry (Gus Turner), and Keeley navigates the trials and tribulations of being the boss of her own PR agency. Can Team Lasso deliver the fairy tale story as underdogs, or will it fall apart? Developed by Jason Sudeikis, Bill Lawrence, Brendan Hunt and Joe Kelly, Ted Lasso is based on Sudeikis’s character first portrayed in a series of promos for NBC Sports’ coverage of the English Premier League.
EPISODE ONE: Smells like Mean Spirit
“I can’t tell if it’s more crazy or less crazy that we’re still here.”
And so we return to AFC Richmond for the third and possibly, but unconfirmed at the time of writing, final time, following an emotionally cathartic second season that delved into mental health and African politics whilst maintaining its mature stance on the intricate nature of human relationships. Crucially for a show formally grounded by its unbounded optimism, it unveiled our lovingly cheerful coach Ted to be a rather broken figure underneath his usual happy surface as he opened up about a lifelong traumatic wound from his childhood with the help of sports psychologist Sharon Fieldstone (Sarah Niles). It was an ambitious development but one that proved successful as Ted lifted an emotional weight off his shoulder and learned that in order to heal others, he must heal himself.
So it’s more than fitting that Season Three of Ted Lasso doesn’t begin in the bowels of AFC Richmond but with Ted and his son Henry (Gus Turner) parting ways at the airport after a much-needed summer holiday together. It’s clear that Ted has been dreading this moment as he delays the inevitable by engaging in light small talk with the flight attendant. But what I admire about this quiet opening is that it re-establishes the mature growth that Ted underwent during the last season whilst displaying that he is still the same happy-go-lucky man as he was when he first arrived at Richmond. As he gets in the taxi from the airport, he has a therapy session over the phone with Sharon, expressing guilt for leaving his son to fly alone that traces back to his dad forgetting to pick him up late from school. Instead of bouncing these thoughts away with toxic positivity, Ted understands the importance of therapy as a tool for confidentially alleviating his worries, even if his son is living thousands of miles away across the pond. Simply put, this is another example of how the writers beautifully articulate therapy with nuanced complexity.
But despite this, Ted’s time with Henry has given him doubts about his purpose in Richmond – “I knew why I came, but it’s the sticking around I can’t quite figure out”. Sharon thinks it’s down to perseverance, but throughout this episode, Ted’s mind drifts back to that nagging question: why am I still here? If this is to be the final curtain, the writers have established a potential endgame.
“Bloody hell, all of them have us finishing last!“
Ahh, the pre-season predictions. For football fans, this is when everyone from pundits and journalists to, as Rebecca describes it, “lonely middle-aged sports blogging losers” conjure their own crystal ball of footballing knowledge and team bias to predict the upcoming season. For our beloved Greyhounds, everyone has predicted they will finish bottom. Naturally, Rebecca is furious, and it doesn’t help that her ex-husband Rupert’s West Ham is predicted to finish in the top four. In addition, Rebecca’s mood has seeped into a tetchy dressing room, and team morale is sinking fast. So to help with their worries, Ted organises a motivational day out, a trip to the London sewers. I adore these moments in Ted Lasso because they harness the show’s familiar warm tone and demonstrate how you can uncover motivational lessons in the unlikeliest places. Whether it’s the diamond dogs or the cheesy “Believe” sign in the dressing room, this is where Ted Lasso finds its resonance in unexpected ways, and I hope this continues throughout the season.
“Nathan Shelley, you are a killer.“
If there’s any character storyline I was most looking forward to this season, it was Nate. We first met him in Season One as a shy, timid kit man with low self-esteem who gained confidence under Ted’s leadership. But Season Two showed Nate as a product of a lifetime of anxious ambivalent attachment problems thanks to an emotionless father who casually neglected him. He wants to be feared and respected – to become Nate the ‘Great’ – but deep down, he wants to be constantly coddled. Now, he seemingly has everything he wants as head coach at West Ham. He barks orders and enacts harsh punishments during a military-like training session; he is given a snazzy supercar as a present by cold-hearted Rupert, who spoils him with praise (Anthony Head). When his anxiety kicks in, he bottles it through verbal hatred. Although this episode is establishing the parameters of the season, the show is not hiding where Nate finds himself through Rupert’s rather menacing office bearing the aesthetics of a tyrannical emperor’s throne room. This is a hell of his own design, even if he doesn’t know it yet. It could be a long road back for the ‘wonder kid’.
- Bar West Ham’s kits, the London stadium and some Premier League-sponsored mics at Ted’s pre-season press conference, it looks like we’ll have to wait until next week before we see the fruition of Apple TV+’s licensing deal. Although the trailer teases a trip to Stamford Bridge and the Etihad Stadium, will we be getting any real player/manager cameos? If so, then Pep Guardiola vs Ted on the touchline could be a spectacle.
- One of my favourite aspects about Ted Lasso is how it incorporates real-life members of the English footballing community. Step forward James McNicholas, real-life Arsenal correspondent for The Athletic, star of Horrible Histories (CBBC) and now a journalist at Nate’s press conference.
- There were some excellent one-liners throughout the episode, but Rebecca’s “Crying is an orgasm for the soul” offered wisdom and a loud cackle from me.
- Henry handing a Lego miniature of the Premier League trophy to his father is adorable but potentially sets up the unthinkable: could AFC Richmond win the Premier League?
- Of course, Rupert will be off on holiday with the Sacklers!
- Nick Mohammed’s performance as Nate is going to be a highlight this season, particularly if moments like his quiet bubbling rage at Ted’s press conference offer goosebumps.
- So Roy and Keeley broke up, which feels like a shock, but I really like how they revealed it through having a sit-down with his niece Phoebe as she will be the one most impacted by it.
EPISODE TWO: (I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea
So after last week’s bombshell that Keeley and Roy broke up, the writers have decided to tackle some of the themes left hanging (this is only episode two, so we’re still very much in the setup). Meanwhile, we had plenty of transfer talk involving the destination of an arrogant superstar striker, Zava (very much the Zlatan Ibrahimovic of the Ted Lasso world).
“Maybe you and I can see how good it feels to believe in someone else, yeah?”
Let’s start with Keeley, whom I didn’t mention in last week’s recap, as the focus was on Ted and Nate. But in episode one, we did get a brief glimpse of her PR firm KJPR and her rather stoic CFO, Barbara (Katy Wix). This week offers us a more detailed exploration of Keeley and Barbara. One is learning to be her own boss while trying to bring her introverted team together, and the other is acting as a semi-mentor but equally lacks social skills outside of the workplace. We got a classic Ted Lasso moment between Keeley and Barbara after the former bumps into her old friend Shandy Fine at an advertising shoot (Ambreen Razia) before hiring her as ‘Client Relations Co-ordinator’. After Barbara rudely chastises Shandy via an on-the-spot interview revealing her lack of experience and higher education, Keeley storms into Barbara’s office and rightfully challenges her snobbish attitude. Arguably, there’s a similarity to be drawn from Keeley’s belief in Shandy and Ted’s belief in Nate in season one. What’s clear is that Keeley’s arc in season three will be fascinating.
“I was 17 years old; this fucking wrecked me!”
And so we come to Roy “FUCKING” Kent, who had quite an eventful episode as the news of his breakup with Keeley surfaced. Firstly, his biggest peeve Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster), offers him a genuine hug which Roy outright refuses due to their well-established animosity, leading to a fantastic punchline as Will Kitman overhears their conversation (he always seems to be accidentally in the room when private matters are discussed!). The AFC Richmond dressing room finds out, which then leads to a yelp from Coach Beard and Ted briefly passing out, perfectly timed with Roy sauntering in and being greeted with a deafening silence. Brett Goldstein’s much-bellowed “TAAAARTT” is similar to Superintendent Chalmers yelling at Principal Skinner in The Simpsons, and it had me in stitches. Finally, he has to share an office with former Independent writer Trent Crimm (James Lance), who has been commissioned to write a book about AFC Richmond, leading to Roy informing everyone not to discuss anything football-related around the plucky reporter. What a lovely welcome!
But if we’ve learned anything from the show, everything will eventually be laid out for discussion. So after Ted quietly tells Roy to explore his differences with Trent for the team’s sake, we learn he has had a long-term resentment of the reporter since he published a hatchet job regarding his Premier League debut at seventeen years old. This reconciliation does not entirely convince me. Roy uncharacteristically accepts Trent’s apology quickly (“It’s alright”) before saying that they “had a lot in common back then”. It’s all a little too forced, especially when Roy has kept a paper clipping of his report neatly tucked away in his wallet all this time. Still, I suppose the writers didn’t want Roy’s self-ego to sabotage the season and any potential development between the pair. Who knows, maybe Roy might give Trent a hand of balloons with kindness instead of aggressively bursting them by episode twelve!
Chelsea Away Day
So Richmond snatched a late draw against the Blues from SW6 (hooray!), but aside from that, was anyone else a little… underwhelmed? As much as Apple’s licensing deal with the Premier League has allowed the show to use Stamford Bridge, the club’s shirt from last season and some of its image rights, I expected a bit more than the name and Harry J Allstars’s “The Liquidator” being played before the second half (which to my knowledge rarely happens at Chelsea). It’s possible the vast upheaval in the club’s ownership in real life following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led to a more reserved involvement than previously planned, but still, a brief current player/ex-player/manager cameo couldn’t have gone amiss.
- I might be reading too much into Barbara’s snow globes collection. Even though Keeley saw it as a visual display of how much the firm believes in her, I thought it conveyed how she has been unappreciated in her role, bounced from firm to firm and country to country with only the snowglobes to show for her efforts. Just look at Katy Wix’s nuanced performance as her downtrodden expression conveys Barbara’s guilt for her snowglobes and the accompanying Hammond Organ in the soundtrack, further implying a tinge of melancholy underlying this brief interaction. Let’s hope Keeley shows her a bit of love!
- “What’s that fucking face?” “It’s called empathy, you dusty old fart!” My favourite dialogue of the week, but who would’ve thought that Jamie Tartt (do-do-dodo-dodo), the arrogant, selfish boy from season one, would now express empathy for his former locker room enemy Roy?
- I only mentioned him briefly, but it’s great to see Trent Crimm back, performed with such swagger by James Lance. We’ve all met a few people like Trent, their library of knowledge delivered with obnoxious arrogance. Thanks to his employment at Richmond, we get to spend more time in his company!
- So Zava is heading off to Richmond after Rebecca knocked his ego down a peg or two in the urinal, primarily driven by Rupert’s appearance at the match. Speaking of which…
- “I guess I’m just like any man, just get bored with the same old.” Rupert loves rubbing it into Rebecca at every opportunity. West Ham v Richmond will surely be a fiery encounter with each passing week, but I’m waiting for Rebecca to lay into her ex-husband finally.
- No Nate to be seen in this episode, but let’s hope that the West Ham player from last week has been taken off the dumdum line.
EPISODE THREE: 4-5-1
“I am an empty vessel filled with gold; I am your rock. Mould me.“
We begin with, undoubtedly, the biggest addition of the week, Zava. Firstly, I must give massive credit to Maximilian Osinski for his stand-out performance in this episode suitably titled “4-5-1” (the formation used by Richmond on his debut). For long-time football watchers, it’s pretty notable that Zava is channelling the egotistical energy of Zlatan Ibrahimovic (who is remarkably still playing at the age of 41 for AC Milan), someone who defines themselves through a one-man philosophy and parts nonsensical words of wisdom for their fellow teammates. And Osinski hilariously taps into this egotistical mindset thanks to pseudo-philosophical lines like, “Time is a construct”, delivered in a slow husky voice, greeting Higgins in a forehead-to-forehead exchange and breaking Richmond’s traditional huddle by walking into the circle and getting the team to touch his body as though the second coming has arrived.
Personally, I’m already won over by Zava and think he’s a great addition to the show (Just look at that mosaic tattoo on his back!). Even though Ted has great experience handling arrogant players like Jamie Tartt, he hasn’t managed a proper superstar figure yet, so I’m excited to see how this will all pan out. Judging by the montage showcasing Zava’s immediate impact on the team – scoring sensational goals from the halfway line and with a bicycle kick – it’s a match made in heaven. But I’m really hoping the writers don’t fall into a cliché trap-door by having him betray Richmond or, worse, force a transfer to somewhere like Richmond as a catalyst for the Rebecca v Rupert storyline. Watch this space!
“I’m a strong and capable man.”
One of my favourite elements about this show is when we get small glimpses into the players’ lives which helps us understand the bigger picture of the team as a collective. This was brilliantly captured in one of my favourite scenes last season when Jamie leaves the ITV studios taking selfies and signing autographs to fans on autopilot accompanied by sincere Jazz piano to reflect his head being entirely elsewhere. This week, a popular fan theory is confirmed during the cold open revealing that Richmond midfielder Colin Hughes is gay as he warmly embraces his partner Michael (still in his dressing gown) before leaving for training. There’s also a lovely callback to season one as we see Colin struggling to drive his Lamborghini as he hits the bins on the driveway (timed with an excellent audio fake-out of the show’s theme). But, most of all, I love how this reveal provides deeper meaning to Colin’s mantra of being a “strong and capable man” because not only is it a motivational phrase to overcome his insecurities but a tool to hide his sexuality from his teammates through the familiar heterosexual footballer image, such as when he jokingly says “okay I’ll have sex with Zava” seen as light-hearted banter by the dressing room (notice Isaac’s casual homophobic remark during this scene too), or introducing Michael as a hetero “wingman” which was painfully sad to watch. Simply put, Colin must conform to being a “strong and capable man” in a heteronormative environment. It will be fascinating how the writers explore this mantra in a sport widely known for its homophobia.
From this perspective, Colin’s storyline is a critical moment for the show in a contextual manner, as homosexuality in English football is widely viewed as a taboo subject by both players and the media. Despite the Premier League having initiatives like Rainbow Laces in collaboration with Stonewall to promote equality and diversity as well as encourage LGBT+ acceptance among children and young people, there is only one openly gay male footballer in England’s top four divisions, Jake Daniels, a forward for Blackpool F.C (who came out only last year to widespread media attention). That’s not to say this storyline will give more LGBT+ players further confidence in coming out to their fellow teammates and clubs but considering how homophobia has been systemically widespread in the game for decades, it’s, without doubt, refreshing to see a representation like this in a major TV show about English football. And judging by that ending of Trent catching Colin “in the moment”, I think we can assume what will happen next.
“A reminder to come back again and again.”
The episode ends with a pre-opening gathering at Sam Obisanya’s brand-new Nigerian restaurant. This is a gratifying moment for Sam’s arc after last season as he finally achieves his goal of putting something from his heritage back into the community. Crucially, there’s a proper reunion vibe to the scene with these various characters across the seasons coming together in an intimate moment to congratulate Sam and a sense that this is potentially the last dance with many storylines coming together: Sassy’s back (yay!) and perks up a rather despondent Ted; Coach Beard and Jane are, somehow, still together despite their evident toxic relationship; Roy and Jamie have another retrospective moment and fast becoming a neat odd couple this season; Rebecca catching feelings for Sam again (the moment where she gets handed the green matchbox from him as a restaurant souvenir was spine-tingling). It’s just a very well-written scene reminding loyal viewers of the incredible progress of all the characters since day one, reinforcing the status quo whilst paving the way for upcoming episodes. Hooray for Team Lasso!
Premier League Watch
Two stadiums appeared during the montage sequence, mainly Burnley’s Turf Moor and Manchester United’s Old Trafford. The show looks intent on not treading into cameo territory, but I still have my fingers crossed on a current player briefly turning up for a one-liner or a full scene.
- Is it me, or did Roy Kent getting all gooey-eyed about Zava after his debut feel somewhat out of character? He’s never been starstruck by any players throughout the show, so I’m quite curious as to why he’s completely enamoured by him.
- “You will have a family. You will be a mother.” Rebecca storming out of psychic Tish’s house was very funny but did the writers just signpost Rebecca’s destination for this season? I suspect so.
- A phone call to America before the match means a warm welcome back to Andrea Anders as Ted’s ex-wife Michelle and, as alluded to at the end of episode one, she has a new partner Jacob who was the doctor that provided their marriage counselling. Unsurprisingly, this will get very icky for Ted, but it’s also noteworthy that he has a panic attack soon after on the touchline. As I wrote in the episode one recap, his triggers come from parental concerns, and now with Jacob re-entering his life, I think he’s more scared about losing Henry to another father figure like him.
- Only a brief appearance from Nate this week as he reads up on Richmond’s unbeaten run. For a character so pivotal to this season, we haven’t seen enough of him but looking at next week’s episode, that’s about to change.
- For any Wolverhampton Wanderers fans, what did you think when Ted mispronounced your team as the “Wolverhampton Wandering Wolves”? Might it catch on with the fanbase?
COMING SOON: EPISODE FOUR
