Ted Lasso Is Back
Barbecue sauce.
This is a recap of the season 2 premiere, so if you don’t want it to be spoiled, stop reading and go watch the show instead.
Everybody’s favorite college football coach turned Premier League soccer manager is back. The second season of Ted Lasso premiered Friday on Apple TV, and it didn’t disappoint.
It kicks off with AFC Richmond stuck in Ted’s worst nightmare — a record-setting seven straight ties. Ted argued in season one, “If God wanted games to end in a tie, she wouldn’t have invented numbers.”
In this case, Ted’s not wrong. Richmond got relegated at the end of season one, so if they want to get promoted, they’ll need to start winning some games.
The opening scene is wild even for this show. A penalty kick from Dani Rojas kills Richmond’s mascot, a dog named Earl Greyhound. Apparently, Richmond has a mascot now — or had a mascot anyway. I don’t remember that from season one.
Following yet another Richmond tie, douche reporter Trent Krimm bluntly asks Ted about Dani and the dead dog. Ted shows how far he’s come in his relationship with the rest of the media when he tells a heartwarming dog story from his childhood instead.
The perpetually upbeat Dani stops believing that “football is life.” Ted tries every Lassoian tactic he knows to help his star player, but nothing works. “Football is death,” says Dani.
Dani killed a dog, and now he can’t bring himself to do even the most fundamental on-field tasks. He’s got the yips — even though Ted and Coach Beard don’t want to say that word out loud.
Nate and Higgins have no clue what the yips are, which inspires one of the episode’s best lines from Ted to Beard: “Sometimes being here is like living in a foreign country.”
This introduces a new character —the stone-faced team psychologist Sharon Fieldstone. Subsequently, Ted confides in Beard that he’s not a big fan of therapists because of what happened with his marriage.
Sharon helps Dani, and some of the other players want to see her too. It’s hard for Ted to watch someone help his players in ways that he can’t. Sharon is the antithesis of Ted, but not necessarily in a bad way.
At some point, hopefully, we get a glimpse into why Ted’s marriage fell apart and the reasoning behind his relentless positivity. After all, Ted did say it was too much for his wife.
In stark contrast to Ted’s arrival at Richmond, the first time he walks into Rebecca’s office, he’s greeted by Rebecca, Keeley, and Higgins like Norm from Cheers. It’s one of my favorite scenes in the episode.
Rebecca has a new boyfriend, but he’s kind of a dud. They double date with Roy and Keeley — Roy’s super psyched about it.
Keeley puts on her best “your boyfriend is great” act, but Roy can’t help but be Roy and trash the dude. Rebecca is awesome, and she deserves the best. Fortunately, she realizes that by the end of the episode.
Roy is retired, coaching his niece’s soccer team, and doing hot yoga with women who don’t give a shit that he’s the great Roy Kent. Keeley is still working for Richmond and wants Roy to consider a job as a TV commentator.
The Diamond Dogs are back!
In one of the episode's best gags, Higgins insisted on giving his office away to the doctor and is using a tiny table just outside to do his work.
There’s a phenomenal Star Wars conversation between Higgins and Ted too. Sudeikis is obviously a Star Wars fan.
Nate, who’s now a coach, is treating the guy who took his old job like crap. He says to Ted, “You have to stay on him.” I can’t imagine Nate the hardass, but that could be fun.
And Beard? Beard is Beard.
Like many people, I wrote off Ted Lasso at first because it was a show that came from a series of NBC Sports commercials. On top of that, it was on Apple TV, and the consensus was that Apple’s streaming service wasn’t worth the money.
So Apple TV isn’t worth the money, but Ted Lasso is fantastic. It quickly became one of my favorite shows in 2020.
The hilarious Jason Sudeikis co-created the show and plays the title character that won over so many with his charming positivity during a grotesquely negative time.
Not many premieres can boast a fanbase rabid enough to watch a show the day it premieres. But Friday was Ted Lasso Day for many fans of the show like myself.
Ted Lasso is significantly more popular than that show about the news with Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Steve Carrell — exactly how Tim Cook pictured it.
The show picked up 20 Emmy nominations (I didn’t even know the Emmys had 20 categories), and Sudeikis won a Golden Globe.
The expectations are enormous for season two, but I still expect Ted Lasso to deliver. Until this point, it’s been five stars.
