It’s been interesting lately, because Ted Lasso keeps coming up in unexpected situations. More often than not, I use my lifelong indifference to sports and their related travails (exceptions: bowling, actual miniature golf — ABC’s Holey Moley is near unwatchable — and pinball) as a lever with which to convince other people who don’t care for competitive sports that whoever brought the show up in the first place was right and that they should give it a try. There’s so much great stuff about this weird, genial and foulmouthed Apple TV+ sitcom that it’s doing a better job of improving the rest of the world’s perception of America right now than the vast majority of, well, Americans.
But I still can’t quite get my mind around how this show has such a diverse appeal to Americans of all sorts of ideological persuasions. If we actually had a foreign policy built on listening to the concerns of others, finding out how everyone and everything works together, and operating out of benevolent kindness and structured nurturing (as Ted Lasso, both the character and show, does), it’s hard to imagine the vast majority of elected officials being willing to go along with it — much less being capable enough of sustained concern for others. These are the thoughts that linger around the shadow of family get-togethers, and I could see this amiable show being a fail-safe for awkward discussions, a cushion of hearty larfs so we don’t have to ask those questions that could be the thing that tears the family asunder.
Maybe that’s too many variables for even Ted Lasso star Jason Sudeikis at his most charming to handle. But if there’s one axiom to best operate under while simultaneously in the age of climate crisis and Peak TV, it’s that we can’t expect our fictional characters to fix damage that’s been steeping for generations. If you haven’t seen Ted Lasso, whatever your political perspective, take a look. It really does appeal to the secret idealist in me, maintaining kindness in the face of catastrophe and fixing the tiny fractures to build interpersonal relationships back up into something stronger.
I binged Season 1 during the interval between my first and second COVID-19 vaccine shots, and there is something about its Paddington-with-F-words tone that meshes very well with cautious and subdued optimism. Of course, it looks like Season 2 is landing right as the Delta variant could be exploding in the U.S., which is pretty far from subdued and very far from optimistic. But I’m going to cling to hope, because I can’t cling to cookies, and this show believes strongly in both of those things.
I love fuzzy British curmudgeon Roy (Brett Goldstein, who does that thing everybody claims to like about some Guy Ritchie movies, but handles it all himself) and the always vibrant Juno Temple as Keeley, a model/publicist/icon navigating countless streams of fame and a shaky relationship. I love Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham), the businesswoman of sharp instincts and a sharper wit. She’s what any of the iconic ’80s TV divas could have been with a social media presence — and if the ’80s allowed professional women to express vulnerability or empathy, which that decade defiantly did not.
I resisted Ted Lasso initially because sports. That is the truth. And it took a diverse and worldwide chorus of friends, colleagues, lovers and random internet folk to make me take that chance. And maybe you can’t trust what I’m saying because you rely on this column just for where the most adventurous and unsettling horror is (it’s called We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, and it’s coming sometime in early 2022), or where the secret-gay stuff can be found (Luca, on Disney+, and it’s very sweet). But know that I’m taking this week’s column to reach out to everyone who genuinely wants to strengthen interpersonal bonds, and to say that there are lessons on this show that can help everyone. Listen to others, kill your own ego, help those who are hurting, use your enthusiasms for good, and let go of the lingering toxic people who’ve made you into a hateful caricature.
Season 1 of Ted Lasso is available to stream on Apple TV+. Season 2 will launch July 23.
