Ted Lasso. Elana has thoughts and feels.

A comment this long needs its own thread. Also spoilers. Heaps of spoilers.

Elana writes re Lasso:

I love this show so much. I heard all the buzz about it and very skeptically picked it up when the second season was weeks away from dropping, and then of course binged the whole first season in a matter of days and then had to eke out the second season as it dropped.

I have raved about this to any member of my friends circle who would listen to me, and then preened in their gratitude for the recommendation as they too were "Lassoed".

In the debate about favourite characters (yeah it's Roy, and Rebecca, and Jamie and...) I'm not sure if it's so much a favourite character as it is about favourite relationships and interactions in the show. Roy with literally any other scene partner is a joy, but special shout outs to Keely (obvs), Jamie, Rebecca and Trent Crimm(!).

Speaking of Trent Crimm, while Jamie (and Phil Dunster, who plays him) gets, and deserves, all the praise for his character arc and the incredible performance underpinning it, Trent's arc from snotty pseudo villain journalist to essentially becoming the team’s mascot, biographer and counsellor is a less showy but still deeply felt character development over the three seasons. Trent was the slow burn character that took me from mildly hostile ("Is this a fucking joke?") to a deep adoration where I watched for Trent's reaction to things in every group scene, with the pinnacle being his adorable melt down over the Lasso Way (seconded only by his arc in the Amsterdam episode. And the jacket twirling at the end of the Sound of Music interlude).

While I too need a resolution on the Roy/Keely situation (although I am not opposed to a Roy/Keely/Jamie throuple situation) what I loved is Roy finally cracking and asking to join the Diamond Dogs not for advice on how to get Keely back, but how to be a better person. And in the final wrap up you see him seeking help from Dr Fieldstone - not only seeking advice, but then acting on that advice. That's massive growth for Roy. As much as I want Roy and Keely together, I am 100% on board with each of them choosing themselves - it’s clear that they had each long relied on relationships and significant others and were rarely alone. For Keely to choose to back herself and her journey, and for Roy to choose to continue working on being a better person is the less satisfying but ultimately better outcome for both of them. And it leaves it open for a spin off series where they come together as fully formed adults. What a payoff that would be.

And precious baby Jamie. To go from easily the most easily hated character in season 1 to the most popular and precious character in season 3 is a hell of an arc. Loved this for him.

Two things I didn’t get about S3:

1. The perception that it was way off course or somehow a disaster. Was it the same as S1? Hell no, it was the final act in a 3 act story. I think I just trusted the writers to finish telling their story, and didn’t rush to judgement. Some of the reviews I read had me wondering if I was watching the same show as the reviewer.

2. TedBecca. I REALLY didn’t get this one. That there was a whole subset of the fandom shipping Ted and Rebecca really came as a late surprise to me, since I couldn’t see it. Ted was always going to go home at some point, I thought that was clear from the beginning. Ted’s purpose in Rebecca’s life was to teach her to love again - the club, her friends, herself. She hired him to destroy the club, but he ended up saving it and her. Her reward was the hot Amsterdam pilot.

I think the key message of this whole series is kindness, and learning to be kind to yourself by learning to be kind to others. Only when you learn to be kind to others can you be kind to yourself, and we see in S3 the culmination of that lesson, where all our beautiful damaged characters learn to be kind to themselves - Roy, Keely, Rebecca, Nate, Jamie, even Beard.

What I especially liked is that having learned the lesson of kindness, it’s not all unicorns and rainbows for everyone. Everyone is moving forward with more work to do on themselves, more growth to go through, including Ted. And that in itself is an important message; it’s the journey of kindness, there’s no destination where you finally achieve enlightenment and you don’t have to work on yourself.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. (oh no, I saw what I did there. That was not deliberate!).

Thank you JB, I feel better having gotten that off my chest.