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chainofclovers · 1 year

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Ted Lasso 3x2 Thoughts

An episode for the ages! My favorite scene of s3 is still Ted’s press conference in 3x1 (plus there’s just something about an episode written by Leann Bowen that gets my right in the brain and right in the heart) but 3x2 was incredible and made me feel so excited about this show and the stories they’re telling and so excited that it feels like each character is going on a realistically new journey here in the final third of this arc. It’s kinda thrilling.

I already accidentally chatted about this episode with a bunch of people and honestly I’ll probably continue to lack the willpower to make this a truly “pure” reflection of my thoughts at the end of an episode. At the same time, this is my best effort to preserve and record my own feelings.

Rebecca’s backstory with Rupert is perfect. Timelines on this show continue to be a bit squishy and I’m okay with that. I love knowing that she was a bartender (I can see it! I can see her having this scattered relationship with her family and finding something she’s good at—albeit with a massive safety net—and I want to know allllll her opinions on cocktails and tending bar). I love the pain of her having been the other woman while Rupert was married to someone else—the knowledge that would have given her of what he was capable of (and the manipulation was so well-crafted that she was still surprised that he cheated on her, which I believe), but also the pain of having been so manipulated into believing Rupert genuinely saw something special in her, and how much that kind of attention followed by his present-day open revulsion (all performances) would fuck a person up. I particularly loved that she finally told Keeley about the origin of that relationship while watching Rupert manipulate Zava; Rebecca understands that Rupert’s power isn’t just something he wields to get sex from women, but a skill that impacts how he conducts himself professionally. If viewers watched that scene and the connection she’s drawing between all these different types of experiences and still don’t understand that Rupert is abusive, that’s on them.

I’ve been filtering through my thoughts on Rebecca knowing Rupert was married, and how that intersects with her experience finding her father cheating. In a lot of ways, I think Deborah is the key to all of this. Even if Rebecca didn’t confront her mother, she tried to, and her mother shut it down to the point of giving her still very young daughter the silent treatment for months while she was away at university. Even though it wasn’t Deborah’s fault that she was getting cheated on any more than it was Rebecca’s fault that Rupert manipulated her or that Rupert cheated on her too, I think Deborah’s refusal to go there with her daughter had an incredibly toxic impact on Rebecca’s sense of self-worth. I think she probably felt very unspecial, very alone—even with friends and a job and who knows what other relationships—and even if she didn’t, even if she felt fine, suddenly she couldn’t imagine life without Rupert making her feel special. It’s tragic and messy and I think it’s a really good character choice for Rebecca to have had the level of knowledge she had. It also mirrors the knowledge someone like Nathan has, deep down, about the good and bad in people, while he very understandably makes this choice to align himself with West Ham and with Rupert even as Rupert is throwing away his car and making choices for him and twisting him into thinking that’s respect.

This was such an incredible Roy episode. I find it interesting and really wonderful that Rebecca’s been aware of the breakup for days or weeks (and Higgins, too, unless Keeley didn’t tell him why she needed to sob into his clean shirt) and didn’t tell any of Roy’s colleagues even though these are all people in her world, too. Everyone else at the club tries their best—and Roy does end up needing some help and direction for articulating his feelings more—but they’re all really outward in their displays of sympathy. I really like that Rebecca, who went through probably the most nightmarish breakup on this show so far, is the one who’s most circumspect about it all.

There’s just so much. So much. Roy having held this grudge against Trent since he was seventeen, feelings deeply hurt by adjectives in a newspaper, then going on to embody at least some of those adjectives (but effectively! And with talent! But not always with intention!) for the rest of his career. It makes it so moving to think about Roy telling the team not to share anything with Trent. I like that Roy appears to have taken at face value Ted being over the article Trent posted about him; it feels like this may be yet another thing Roy has attempted and failed to process on his own, another difference between Roy and other people, where Roy carries around this old newspaper clip for decades but Ted has “healed” in a matter of months. (Not that all this was directly in the text of the show, but I think it’s really telling that the Trent thing is the source of the first true conflict between Ted and Roy where Ted ends up needing to very assertively provide Roy with some direction.) It’s all so intricate, all the different shower conversations, and Roy’s revelation about why maybe he shouldn’t have left Chelsea so hastily being something he needed to hear himself say (because of Keeley) and also something Ted needed to hear Roy say at this time of being very aware of what he’s left behind in Kansas and even more crucially aware that he’s got a decision to make about Richmond. Roy doesn’t know that Ted is questioning his value so profoundly, and it made everything that happened in that final scene so !!!!!!!! And Ted kind of plays it up, batting his eyelashes and talking about how lucky it is he and Roy met, and of course it’s both of their wild leaving-things-early decisions that got them to this place, and maybe Ted can start to see how good that is even if he’s still got a lot to sift through. And then he’s alone in the office and his face becomes this entirely different thing. <3

(And I do like that Trent is there to witness a lot of that. I really enjoyed his role in this episode and I think I’ll enjoy the layer of storytelling and awareness he lends to the various football and feelings arcs this season. I think Trent is a fun character who brings out something interesting in basically everyone he interacts with. I’ve never been that compelled by him in a fannish way, though. He can be fun to think about, but I don’t really ship him with anyone and I don’t find the fanon around him very interesting. Is this the most shocking and divisive thing I’ve ever said in one of these! Maybe! It makes me very happy that so many people are Trent girlies [all gender]! I am just not one of them! But season 3 is making me care!)

Keeley is the Ted of PR! Ted is the Keeley of football! Ted almost faints when he finds out Roy and Keeley broke up! He’s there for both of them! He’s a good friend! And Keeley is having such a little Ted journey in the wild yet staid world of KJPR. I really like that it’s clear now that she didn’t hire that team; a larger firm has clearly made these placements. It makes me have lots of questions about the nature of the firm’s investments in her. Everything with Shandy was brilliant. I was chatting with a friend (hi @theodore-lasso) who pointed out that Keeley has possibly taken Rebecca’s “hire your best friend” advice a bit too literally. Yes, Shandy has industry knowledge, but Keeley might not be ready to simultaneously navigate insisting that Barbara treat everyone with respect while also setting boundaries with Shandy in that we cannot simply be expensing mimosas at work. I think it’s fascinating that Keeley has never once described her career shift as “getting out” and has never articulated—or even seemed to experience—any shame over topless modeling or any of her previous jobs, nor have Rebecca, Roy, Keeley, Nathan, Higgins, or anyone else in her life who she’s talked work with made any assumptions about that. (Ted covering up the photo in 1x1 feels adjacent to that kind of judgment, but to me it’s always felt like a judgment of Jamie Tartt’s judgment rather than a reflection on Keeley’s own judgment.) So it’s so fascinating to me that Shandy, a person doing the same work, is the first person to express that perspective. And Keeley just immediately gets her out. Immediately hires her. Seeing both the real goodness in that—it’s very Ted “I don’t wanna bench Roy because he’s going through a lot of emotions and he needs this” Lasso of her—and the ways she’s making things more complicated for herself is so fascinating. I’m here for it.

And Beard! Beard! Reduced largely to pitch-perfect, hilarious shrieks for this episode, he somehow still manages to be wonderful. And if I had fewer feelings about the look on Ted’s face when Beard matter-of-factly tells Ted he can’t pass along his hello to Jane because she still finds their relationship threatening…fewer feelings about that would mean I could say more. It hurts. So much. And yet I was so relieved to see that dynamic in Ted and Beard’s relationship because I think it makes it clear that either Ted really is going to need to become a “threat” to Jane (he’s already taken Rebecca’s feedback in terms of fighting back for her and for the team [“our team”...not over it], and he’s already made it clear that Roy needed to get over himself and deal with the Trent thing, so maybe he’s in his growing-vertebrae era. And even if we don’t ever see Ted interact with Jane, it could be just as satisfying for him to be honest with Beard about everything he’s observing.

Side note: I loved the “hope you aren’t late” joke Ted is ready with as soon as he finds out Beard is going to a play about menstrual cycles. I love that the quickness between them almost never falters even when things are hard.

Side note: Ted’s Breakup Mix!

Side note: Higgins’ convoluted connections! The comedic rhythm he and Rebecca (and Keeley, when she’s around, and Ted, when he’s around) have this season is so good.

Side note: As someone who watched my first Hallmark movie specifically so I could write fic for the holiday exchange, Ted’s entire speech about Hallmark movies was so incredible and had me losing my entire mind. I think I literally had my hands clapped over my mouth. My wife was supportively laughing at me.

Not a side note but every feeling in the world: Many more people have observed this already, but the contrast between Rupert showing up to a bar every day and claiming he’s there without expectation just because it’s worth it to be near Rebecca vs. Ted showing up with the biscuits every day very much with a stated purpose—they can’t be good partners without getting to know each other well—makes my little Ted/Rebecca heart soar. It explains so much about why she was so resistant to the biscuit tradition at first, as well as the great significance of why she’s come to rely on it.

There are a million other things. This episode was really rich and layered. I loved s1 for its perfection—its confidence bolting out of the gate and establishing a world I wanted to live in. I loved s2 for its pain and mess and soul. But so far s3 is really, really earning its place as an answer to both of those contrasting experiences, and I’m so excited for more.

#ted lasso #meta by me #ted lasso meta #ted lasso s3 spoilers #ted lasso 3x2 #hot dork club

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chainofclovers · 1 year

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Ted Lasso 3x3

Good lord. This episode was like being on the Scrambler at the fair. You know the one, you sit in the little seat at the end of a big arm like a spoke of a wheel, and the central machine spins steadily, but because of the position of the arms, and I don’t know, physics, you kind of get flung from point A to B, then B to C, then C to A again, but it’s a slightly different A than before, a slightly different spot, and it goes fast and your surroundings are blurry but then there are little moments when you land at each point where the movement pauses and you can see clearly, just in time to propel someplace new again.

The Scrambler was always my favorite ride. I’m too chickenshit for huge rollercoasters, I get irrationally angry (terrified) if upside down, I don’t want to be splashed with water, etc., but also I’m not a baby. I liked being disoriented. And I think I really liked this episode. 3x1 and 3x2 were both awesome and I was cruising along feeling very aware of what show I was watching, and tonight I was absolutely watching the same show but the fucking great needle drops and the whole weird energy of the thing left me—to overdo the stupid metaphor—scrambled.

I can’t believe my last pre-s3 fic included Ted having bad feelings about Precious Moments figurines in a rental house and then it turns out actual Ted’s actual mom collects them!

(Weird bullet to start with? Well, I feel weird!)

The boys (adult men who coach AFC Richmond) just want Julie Andrews to boss them around and punish them. I get it. 😌

Ola’s! I’m so excited for Sam and I love the vibe of his restaurant and I love that he’s getting to do this communal, home-oriented endeavor that connects him to so many things about both Nigeria and the UK right as his football club is becoming a cult of personality.

Everything with Tish was so unsettling. I love that Rebecca was trying desperately to play the whole thing for laughs, but then it was genuinely chilling. I have so many (strong) feelings about Rebecca and motherhood, and I’ve felt this whole time like it was incredibly important to her character’s journey that she is never going to be a mother, exactly, even though I’m just a human girl and I would love to see her stepmommin’. But tbh I am HERE for seeing what happens precisely because she was angry about the premonition, she didn’t bite back her feelings, she called the vision cruel. I’m going to need to rewatch and listen to every word that Tish says but I am! Losing! It!

Zava is great as a device and I’m loving that Jamie isn’t having tantrums but is instead using his words (to great effect!). He’s standoffish but he isn’t being a total prick. And I’m very :eyesemoji: about these early morning trainings with Roy, and, you know, what purpose Roy is going to find there beyond helping to mold Jamie. I really like that most everyone else is very much not immune to Zava, and I like that there’s a logic to that—they’re winning, they’re thriving, they’re a surprise success story.

I am obsessed with Ted’s obsession with Dr. Jacob and how he’s continuing to call him Dr. Jacob. I completely get why it’s so upsetting and bewildering. I would be a basket case. Also I think there’s something incredibly perfect about the terrible foot they start off on (restart, anyway), with Dr. Jacob doing the stupid Trump impersonation and just really putting his foot in it. I guess there could have been worse ways to choose to answer the phone, but it’s difficult to think of one! And Dr. Jacob might not get much screentime, but we get so much—the cringiness of the realization it’s Ted on the line. The cozy homey Kansas kitchen. The busy lived-in domesticity, interrupted. And then he’s in this fugue state for weeks, obsessing, and there’s Sassy. I kinda love that he tells her up front about Michelle and their ex-therapist; they clearly haven’t seen each other in a long time, and that’s the first and only news he thinks to tell her!? Yikes.

Shandy! Yes. (And Roy wanting to do the interview. HELP.)

I have every feeling in the world about Colin and his boyfriend. I absolutely love—I mean, I hate it for him, but I love it for this story—that he’s seemingly secure in his sexuality in terms of understanding who he is, and is closeted because of the world he lives in. Colin and his absurdly noticeable car and hiding in plain sight among the casual gay jokes of the world he lives in. My heart was in my throat over Trent seeing them. My hope is that we’re going to get confirmation that Trent is also queer, and that all this is going to have something to do with the book he’s writing (hopefully in a good way rather than a horrific way!), especially since the audience hasn’t heard Trent pitch his book project and we really don’t know much of anything about the kind of story he’s looking for. TIME WILL TELL, I GUESS.

I’m sure there are a million other things, but to be entirely honest my entire brain is just the words “shite in nining armor” over and over and over again. Maybe my brain will come back online tomorrow, or maybe it won’t come back until May 31, or never! Goodnight!

#ted lasso #ted lasso s3 spoilers #meta by me #ted lasso meta #ted lasso 3x3 #hot dork club #ahhhaapwoeifjaeslkfjeal;kjwel;kwjefr;lw

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