‘Ted Lasso’ makes triumphant return
Some television shows and movies are criticproof – it doesn’t matter what anyone who reviews them thinks, people will watch them anyway.
Often it’s because they’re big dumb fun franchises, like the “Fast & Furious” movies.
If you like car chases and explosions, you’re going to watch, and it doesn’t really matter if a critic complains about the mise-en-scene or whatever.
But it works the other way, too. Sometimes a show is critic-proof in the other direction – sure, it’s nice and it’s getting nearuniversal raves, but you’d have watched it anyway.
To put it another way: Welcome back, “Ted Lasso.”
Jason Sudeikis returns as the sweetest soccer coach on earth in the Apple TV+ comedy that began life as a commercial and became the Show We All Needed along the way to 20 Emmy nominations.
Jason Sudeikis returns as Ted Lasso, optimistic as ever
Excuse me, football coach. Both kinds. If you didn’t see the first season … well, you need to. Immediately. Sudeikis stars as Ted, a college football coach recruited to coach an English soccer team precisely because he has never coached the sport and knows little about it.
Ted is unfailingly optimistic, which is a massive understatement. Goofy, teller of bad jokes, he’s also intuitively good at finding the best in people and making them believe in themselves. It’s a handy quality in a coach, typically less so in a sitcom protagonist.
But Sudeikis’ performance is so committed, so all in, that it’s as impossible for the audience to resist Sudeikis as it is for the players to resist Ted. Even if you want to, you can’t help yourself. You’ve just got to love the guy.
In Season 1 the team’s owner, Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham), wants the club to be relegated to a lower division as revenge against her cheating ex-husband, who loves the team.
Her plan doesn’t work out, as she, like everyone else on the planet, is so charmed by Ted he wins her over.
The first season also introduced Ted’s enigmatic assistant, Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt), brand manager Keeley Jones (Juno Temple), director of football operations Leslie Higgins (Jeremy Swift) and aging, angry player Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein).
(You’re basically reading a list of Emmy nominees there.)
Everyone’s back for the new season, but Ted takes a bit of a backseat as the show shines more of a light on the team, players like Sam Obisanya (Toheeb Jimoh), who finds his voice in and out of the locker room. A chastened Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster) returns after a hilarious career detour.
I’ll stop in the middle here to say that the Christmas episode – which, like this paragraph, arrives out of nowhere and is a standalone episode – is one of the funniest, sweetest holiday shows I’ve ever seen.
When the season begins, the team has seven consecutive draws. Events lead to the hiring of Dr. Sharon Fieldstone (Sarah Niles), a no-nonsense sports therapist. So no-nonsense that she is immune to Ted’s hokey charm. Ted’s a little perplexed by her demeanor; how their relationship plays out and what drives it is one of the season’s more intriguing new storylines.
The show, streaming on Apple TV+, avoids being cloying. It’s just happy
“Ted Lasso” is such a feel-good show – somehow it avoids being cloying and just makes you happy, damn it – that it was a natural hit for the COVID-19 pandemic. It just made you feel better for having watched.
As the world opens up a bit, it’s possible that such relentless positivity might seem overdone. And in truth, “Ted Lasso” isn’t perfect. Some of the jokes are dumb on purpose (Ted’s and Beard’s, notably). Some of the jokes are just dumb. Not everything lands. Sometimes Ted’s folksy act goes a little too far.
So what? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. The hit-to-miss ratio is still exceptionally high, and while Season 2 travels down a few more serious paths, that’s a risk worth taking. You still feel good after you watch, and this time, even more than in Season 1, that feeling is earned. The show takes some chances, and not all of them work.
But when they pay off, they pay off big.
You leave each episode – Apple TV+ sent eight of the season’s 12 for review – feeling about the show like the crooked sign above Ted’s office commands:
Believe.