Daddy’s Boys and Girl Power

Ted Lasso Season 3

A bit of cultural theory

In an earlier two-part post (1 March and 8 March 2023), I looked into the first two seasons of the Apple TV+ series, Ted Lasso, as a jovial exploration into the brutality of sport.  My theoretical angles were two: hegemonic masculinity and internalizing the oppressor.

I found that the show presents viewers with a variety of masculine behaviors to contemplate, most tellingly that of the title character, Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis).  Ted performs a manner of “Better Man” manliness in counteraction to the unsavory alpha male conduct of football club owner, Rupert Mannion (Anthony Head).  I found as well, however, that two characters, Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham) and Nathan Shelley (Nick Mohammed), fall victim to the urge to replicate the cruel and domineering man-activities of Rupert.  Over the two seasons, Nate especially follows a painful trajectory from omega male equipment manager to steely eyed football manager, seemingly losing his kind and gentle soul along the way.

In this post, we’ll take a look at how these themes—and some new topics—play out in the final season of the series.

Applying this bit of cultural theory

First, I’ve got to say that the conception of the Zava character (Maximilian Osinski) featured in the early episodes of Season 3 is glorious.  Football strikers are a special breed—and superstar strikers can be even weirder on top of that (e.g. Cristiano Ronaldo).  That moment in S3.E3 when Zava scores yet another amazing goal, strips off his jersey, runs to edge of the stands, and lifts his arms in victory to the adoring fans says it all.  Standing behind the megastar, Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster) sees that tattooed on Zava’s back is the exact scene playing out in front of him—that is, Zava raising his arms to a cheering throng.  Meanwhile, the soundtrack plays “Jesus Christ, Superstar.”

Bloody brilliant.

It’s also great writing to remove Zava from the plotline after milking the character for all the football-culture commentary he’s worth.  Season 3 is all about bringing to a close the story arcs of many important and previously established characters.

Second, I need to refer back to an observation I made in my previous posts on Ted Lasso.  Namely, that Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) and Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt), as what I termed “hybrid-behaving males,” had something to teach Ted about when it’s appropriate to “be a prick” on the sports pitch.  That is, when dominant-male aggressive behavior is a good thing.  Well, in S3.E4, when Richmond faces off in a grudge match against the Nate-coached West Ham United team, I’m proven wrong.

After Richmond goes down 2-nil at halftime, Roy and Beard, in Ted’s absence, show the players the video of Nate ripping up the beloved BELIEVE sign.  It’s a motivational tactic they think is absolutely called for under the circumstances.  When Ted enters the locker room to see his team screaming angry at Nate, Roy explains to him, “A minute ago they were catatonic.  Now look at them.  Killers.”  In an I-told-you-so manner, Beard adds, “Frankly, Ted, sometimes that’s good.”

The tactic backfires completely.  Richmond goes out to play the second half like thugs, committing stupid foul after stupid foul and losing the match 4-1.  In this way, Ted’s Better Man philosophy of coaching takes firm precedence as the controlling mode of masculinity of the series.  At this early moment in Season 3, then, the overarching storyline of the series comes, in effective, to an end.

That is, the question is answered of whether or not this goofy American football coach will make his mark on the English Premier League.  The answer is, as Ted might say: You bet your noodle, Yankee Doodle.

“The Lasso Way,” as sports writer Trent Crimm (James Lance) initially titles his book, has taken hold.  Fittingly, for the remaining eight episodes, Ted fades into the background to become, more or less, just one of the many characters we’ve come to care about and whose personal journeys need closure.  Just as Ted suggests to Trent about his book, “I’d change the title.  It’s not about me.  It never was” (S3.E12), the series writers do the same.  They focus on the team, not on the coach, as they play out the final season of the series.  Even though the show is titled Ted Lasso, it was never just about Ted.

It’s about Ted’s influence on people as not a perfect, but as a Better Man.

Third, in my earlier posts on the show, I made the following sidebar comment: “Into the thick man-soup of Ted Lasso, we can add the ingredient of father-son relationships; both good and bad ones prominently dot the landscape.”  I’m ready to expand that incidental observation into the following major assessment:

At its heart, Ted Lasso is an extended meditation on the father-son relationship.

The show is filled with Daddy’s Boys—that is to say, sons who have a particularly deep bond, for good or for ill, with their fathers.  Ted’s entire oddball personality seems predicated on the trauma of his father’s taking his own life when Ted was a teen.  Nate has a stern and distant father, Lloyd Shelley (Peter Landi), who Nate longs to make proud—but never feels up to the task.  Jamie has an abusive and alcoholic father, James Tartt (Kieran O’Brien), who drives Jamie’s football game—and life—in ugly and unhealthy directions.  By contrast, Sam (Toheeb Jimoh) and his father, Ola Obisanya (Nonso Anozie), are the epitome of mutual love, support, and respect for one another.

In the prolonged closing montage of the series finale (S3.E12), all of these father-son storylines—along with many other storylines—find happy resolution.

We see Nate at his favorite restaurant enjoying a family meal that includes both his wonderful girlfriend, Jade (Edyta Budnik), and his now wonderful father.  We see Sam now proudly a member of the Nigerian national football team—a mutual dream of his and his father’s.  We see Jamie happily chatting away and looking at family photos with his now cleaned-up and healthy-looking dad—who is obviously in rehab and doing well.  We see Ted returning home to his son, Henry (Gus Turner), to resume his crucial role as full-time dad.  The possibility even hangs in the air that Ted might be getting back together with his ex-wife, Michelle (Andrea Anders), and so re-establishing the family unit he left behind to go to England in the first place.  

The soundtrack throughout this montage is “Father And Son” by Cat Stevens—a song about father-son strife.

Along with these literal father-son relationships, symbolic father-son relationships define the show as well.  Nearly every man in Ted Lasso can be seen, in some way, as a Son of Ted.  That is, as someone benefitting from Ted’s influence as a Better Man.

Included in that long, series-ending medley of character outcomes is Roy being named the new manager of AFC Richmond and starting soul-healing counseling sessions with Dr. Sharon Fieldstone (Sarah Niles).  Trent at a book-signing for his bestseller The Richmond Way.  Leslie Higgins (Jeremy Swift) presiding over a family-team cookout at his home.  Coach Beard—who we discover in Season 3 that Ted saved from a life of crime and whose first name is Willis!—getting married at Stonehenge to his pregnant love, Jane (Phoebe Walsh).  And, most of all, Beard, Roy, and Nate repairing and rehanging in the Richmond locker room Ted’s all-important BELIEVE sign.

All of these men are where they are now because of Ted.  Ted presides over the series as the simultaneous Good Dad-Good Coach figure.

The culmination of this depiction comes in Ted’s final locker room speech (S3.E12) when the team is down 2-nil at halftime of their crucial final game of the season.  Not only are they playing arch-rival West Ham again, but the league championship hangs in the balance.  Ted’s coaching address to his players is equal part father’s address to his sons.  Ignoring the game situation on the pitch, Ted tells them:

Getting to work with y’all these last three years has truly been one of the greatest experiences of my life.  I’ve loved getting to know each and every single one of ya.  Learnin’ all about the men you were...and gettin’ a front-row seat to see the men y’all become.

Fatherhood, if done well, is an extended and far more profound version of this coaching experience.  Ted concludes his heart-to-heart talk with sentiments likewise applicable to both coaching and parenting:

And I want to thank you for your patience with me. ... I’m just so gosh-damn proud to be a part of this team, you know.  And I love you guys.  I’m gonna miss y’all.

Sons grow up to leave fathers.  And fathers must help them do so.  Even as it breaks the father’s heart to watch them go.

Ted’s finest coaching-fathering success is with Nate.  Not because Ted intervenes in Nate’s life during Season 3 to do anything to “save” Nate from going down a wrong path—but because Nate figures it all out for himself.  Using his characteristic intelligence and kind nature in conjunction with benefitting from his time and experiences with Ted, Nate develops self-confidence, emerges from his shell, and does very much the difficult but right thing by separating himself from the destructive hegemonic masculinity of Rupert.  (In Star Wars terms, Nate resists succumbing to the Dark Side of the Force.)

The most extensive and meaningful exchange Nate and Ted have during Season 3 are the moments of eye contact they share after Ted’s final locker room speech.  While the players reassemble the torn fragments of the BELIEVE sign, Ted and Nate merely nod knowingly to one another.  The mentor-father has done his job well of preparing the mentee-son to face the world successfully on his own.  There is no greater success and reward for a father.

Also important to note is how, in the end, Rupert is defeated as the Anti-Dad.

As noted in my earlier posts, Rupert is a shit.  He’s a terrible husband to whomever he’s married to, will no doubt be a terrible father to his new baby daughter, and is a sexual harasser in the workplace.  He gets a comeuppance in the series finale when he stomps onto the sidelines during the match—dressed in Evil Emperor all-black—to instruct his club manager to play dirty.  After behaving like the asshole he is, Rupert is jeered off the field by the Richmond fans calling him “Wanker! Wanker! Wanker!”  Exactly how they used to catcall Ted. 

One final note on the Daddy’s Boys theme: Ted’s homecoming to his son.  The last scenes of the series show Ted coaching Henry’s youth soccer team.  Henry misses an open shot on goal and gets down on himself.  Immediately, Ted does his coach-father thing, asking his player-son how Henry should deal with the disappointment.  Henry brightens and says, “Be a goldfish.”  Just as Ted coached Sam early in Season 1, he coaches his son at the end of Season 3.

Ted’s drawn-out, final look into the camera verges on melancholy—but then ends with a small, self-effacing smirk.  It’s as if this inveterate father-coach is saying to us: Hey, what ya gonna do?

Fourth, Girl Power?

In commenting so extensively on the concept of masculinities—and in particular the idea of Ted’s upstart Better Man masculinity challenging Rupert’s shithead hegemonic masculinity—the series Ted Lasso inevitably offers important feminist statements as well.  A number of strong women characters are featured in the show, with Rebecca and Keeley Jones (Juno Temple) being the most fully developed.  These women are set in opposition to the patriarchy they face and fare well in their battles against it.

Rebecca becomes an extremely successful football club owner and experiences a pivotal moment when she faces down the Old Boys Club of football owners, seeing them for the selfish and stupid little boys they are (S3.E10).  Similarly, Keeley goes from being a “famous but not famous enough” model and influencer—and maybe a bit of a Boy Toy—at the outset of the series to the CEO of her own Public Relations firm by its end.

Some influential mothers play important parts in the storyline as well.  Mae (Annette Badland) has always presided as the wise matriarch of The Crown & Anchor pub.  And Rebecca’s seemingly screwball upper-crust mother, Deborah Welton (Harriet Walter), turns out to be something more crazy-like-a-fox (S3.E12).  In the penultimate episode of the series, “Mom City” (S3.E11), both Ted’s mom, Dottie (Becky Ann Baker), and Jamie’s mom, Georgie (Leanne Best), make appearances crucial to the largescale plotline of the show.  That is, both women make it possible for their troubled sons to come to terms with their problematic fathers.

However.

While these aspects of the show are no doubt positive and important, nonetheless it must be said that Season 3 of Ted Lasso falls short when it comes to giving all of these women—and the social issues around them—the full attention they deserve.  For example, Rebecca and Sam’s interracial relationship effectively disappears, and Rebecca’s desire to have a stable partner and a child—or maybe not—goes underexplored.  Even more regrettably, throughout the last season the vibrant and remarkable Keeley is relegated to serving more or less as a prop for the storylines of other characters.  Her story gets glossed over.

Keeley’s relationship problems with Roy are murky at best.  Her same-sex relationship with Jack Danvers (Jodi Balfour) receives nothing like the insight and care given to Colin Hughes (Billy Harris) as he eventually comes out as gay to the team and, in particular, to his close friend, Isaac McAdoo (Kola Bokinni; S3.E9).  For this reason, the Keeley-Jack love affair comes across as a bit gratuitous if not prurient.  Likewise, the crisis of Keeley’s privacy being violated when a sex-video of her is posted online comes and goes in a flash.  While it’s fitting and interesting that Keeley, in the end, unceremoniously rejects both Roy and Jamie, all of the many feminist matters involving her want more time and emphasis.

For that matter, Rupert’s comeuppance should be much more that simply ignominiously losing his ownership of West Ham United FC.  He should be facing charges for the workplace sexual harassment of his personal assistant, Ms. Kakes (Rosie Lou), as well (see also here).

Still, throughout the series, Rebecca and Keeley always have displayed admirable mutual support as they battle the hostile world of patriarchal men.  In the closing montage of the final episode, these two strong women share one last imperative moment of Girl Power.  Keeley presents to Rebecca a proposal for an AFC Richmond Women’s Team.  If there is ever a Season 4 of Ted Lasso—or even better a spin-off series titled something like Keeley Fucking Jones—following the fortunes of that team would be, as the poncy guy in the airport who takes selfies with Ted says, legend and wicked.

In other words—and in terms of cultural theory—Rebecca and Keeley not only reject internalizing the hegemonic masculine oppressor; they recognize that only the oppressed can free themselves.

So what?

Just this.

In an ocean of mediocre-to-bad streaming service content, Ted Lasso stands out as a welcome island of smart, funny, and consequential.  Whatever its shortcomings, we need more shows like it.

And this.

The motto of my Substack newsletter is: Inspecting most what we think about least.

One thing we think about least, and so really need to inspect most, is popular culture.  We tend to consume it like popcorn—in unthinking great handfuls—when in fact TV shows and films and fashion and sports and social media sites and pop fiction and all the rest not only show us who and where we are at any given social moment, but they both indicate and steer us to where we might be going next.

Do not underestimate entertainment designed to be easy-to-swallow.

If you care to understand our here and now, you must take into account our popular culture.  There’s no such thing as “low-brow” or “not worth taking into consideration” when it comes to investigating What People Do.

Sound intriguing?  Then check out here.

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