Ted Lasso discussion thread. For Elana.

I think we've had long enough for anybody who’s going to be watching the Ted Lasso final to have watched the Ted Lasso final. I caught it last week on Wednesday afternoon to avoid spoilers anywhere online.

It was good.

Was it as good as the first season? No, of course not. But that's a silly question because nothing cool can ever be as good as the first time you encounter it. I remember the first time I ate at Flower Drum in Melbourne, thinking it was exquisite, but also feeling a little sad because I would never have the experience of dining there for the first time again. That's what it was like with Ted Lasso, if you are a fan. You watched that first series, especially if you watched it in the weird times during the pandemic, and you sort of knew something special was happening, and that it could literally never happen again.

The something special was, er, niceness, I suppose. The series was unrelentingly nice when the world had become unrelentingly bleak. I don't recall whether Trump was still in office. I think he was, but I don't even want to go check. I don’t remember whether I was in lockdown. Probably not. But Melbourne would have been. And maybe Sydney. Everything was fucked, and nothing felt like it would ever get better, and all of a sudden, here was this show that seemed devoted to the idea that we really could be better. I recall it being a joy to watch.

In fact, I recall finishing my first run through the first series and just going back and watching it again. I’ve since watched a third time.

Of course, catching lightning in a bottle isn't easy. And I don't think the producers or writers had any intention of doing that. They always spoke of Ted Lasso as a three season show. They had a story they wanted to tell, and three acts is traditionally as long as a story takes. We now have the third act. I'm not going to do spoilers because I’m not a monster. (Can’t vouch for the comments, though) But the show ended up pretty much where we all thought it would. It’ll almost certainly go on into a fourth season but without Jason Sudeikis. As Ted tells Trent Crimm the Independent, “It was never about me.”

Will I watch it? You bet I will. But I probably won't watch it three times. By the end of the S3 I was happy that everyone's arc landed where they did, but I didn't have a desperate need to follow along the way I did previously. (Except for Roy and Keelie. I really needed closure on that, damn it). In fact, I’d already started watching Platonic on Apple TV. It has a similar feel to it. It's a bit grittier and much more realistic, in a way. But the characters are the sort of people you just want to hang around with. If and when season four of Ted Lasso drops, I will totally hang around with those guys. But until then, you'll find me in Seth Rogen's beer hall.