Watching Diary #1: Ted Lasso Season One

Ted Lasso is a show about an American football coach (as in he is American, and he’s coaching American football) who gets hired by Rebecca Welton, new owner of Richmond FC, to coach her (not American) football team in an attempt to ruin the team to take revenge on her ex-husband.

Sure, let’s blog about watching things, too. I am in an unusual time of my life right now as I am watching more things than usual (I am highly allergic to sitting down and watching things; I feel out of control and my attention span isn’t very good so I keep getting distracted, which isn’t as much a problem while reading because reading pulls me in more reliably, and I also control the pace there) (I could have blogged about The Pitt Seasons one and two back in January, too, since I watched them both, then; I was lucky enough to be sick and to get sucked into it so watching something worked, but I haven’t actually watched anything since then up until now), as I am watching an episode of Ted Lasso and Wolverine and the X-Men a day right now. What a miracle! I can only watch one episode because of my aforementioned attention issues and also because I might dissociate otherwise, which we cannot have. I’ve already dissociated today! It’s already rather late and I haven’t done much of anything yet! The day just begun! Yikes!

So, Ted Lasso. I watched this show originally ages ago, both seasons one and two and a bit of season three, but I was so pissed about what I heard about the ending and how some of the character relationships ended up that I just sort of dropped it because I lost interest, and it’s already rather hard to get me invested enough to watch anything, lol (I still haven’t finished the new Daredevil show… and Korra… and I haven’t watched Wednesday season two… or Brand new Day (would solely be watching for Jean) or Superman or Supergirl… sigh sigh sigh!). But now there’s a new season after the show was supposed to be done and over with, and reception from what I’ve seen has been good, so I decided to get back into it, or try to, at least! So far it’s worked, since I’ve finished season one and am already a couple of episodes into season two.

I quite like Ted Lasso. I quite liked Ted Lasso the first time I watched it, too, so I am glad it’s continuing, and I hope it can make better some of the pitfalls of its supposed ending and also bring in new stuff. I’m excited about the women’s team!

I’m getting ahead of myself, however; this is about season one. I finished season one while I was still on my trip (of hell and doom and dissociation; I am exaggerating, I had a nice time, but there were very difficult parts about it, as things tend to be with family, I suppose), so it hangs in a sort of limbo, but I much enjoyed it. I am so very fond of Rebecca and her arc this time around, too, perhaps even more than the first time. The way she’s confronted by the things she’s done to innocent people in her quest for revenge and the way she tries to make things better without losing her edge is just so good… I really like that despite being (for now) centered on a men’s team, and as such there being many more male characters of importance, the female characters that are there are good and are given interiority and time for themselves.

I really love Keeley, and her romance with Roy, too—though I still remain of the opinion that they should have been a slow burn—their first kiss was so buzzy even on re-watching that I had to rewind multiple times and still consider sometimes just putting on the episode solely to watch it again. Keeley’s arc with Rebecca, becoming friends and learning their worth and importance for themselves (and dumping Jamie in the process) is gorgeous, too, especially once Keeley finds out what Rebecca has been doing. Admittedly, the fallout from this is so very small, and they pretty much immediately bounce back to being friends, which I am a bit sad about. I think their friendship is well-written and not at all without nuance, but that would have made it even stronger, writing-wise, I think.

I like the women the most, so I’ve been talking about them the most (lol), but there are so many character arcs in this first season that I enjoy so much, and that are so very well done. Ted’s journey to letting go of his wife and his struggles with panic attacks, the beginning of Jamie’s journey (as much as he really does annoy me, it is very well-done), the seedings of Sam’s journey, Roy’s arc about football and his pride and grief and acceptance over having to quit… Awesome, awesome, awesome. I think the show’s biggest flaw at this point is that it’s a bit corny at times (and, though this is a rather personal issue, I struggle greatly with second hand embarrassment, as in, I have to mute audio and skip scenes if it gets too bad, and this show has a lot of it), but it’s not really ever to a degree where it’ll get more than an eye-roll from me. The tone here of mostly light-hearted but capable of delving into deeper topic, is also very much incredibly well done this first season.

For some reason, I forgot that they lose their last match and get relegated! So this was once again a shock for me this time around. It serves to illustrate something about the show, however: in Ted’s own words, it really isn’t about winning or losing. This might be the Blue Lock fan in me (lol) but at times this lack of competitivity annoys me a tine bit… though it doesn’t harm the show. I wish there was more football, though… maybe during later seasons, who knows… I quite like how character-focused it is, however. Maybe Richmond will have their big win eventually. They probably will, right?