Let’s invade France.

Synopsis

Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) and Keeley (Juno Temple) help Nate (Nick Mohammed) learn how to be more assertive while Ted (Jason Sudeikis) pursues a new member for his coaching staff to help AFC Richmond’s team captain get his groove back. 

You buy a man a table, he eats once. You teach a man how to get a table, and he eats at that restaurant until it becomes a Starbucks.

Keeley

Breakdown

Ted Lasso picks up several loose threads from earlier in the season after last week’s yuletide interlude. We are back to seeing what is happening on the pitch; the good doctor Fieldstone (Sarah Niles) is once again observing the team and clashing with Ted; Rebecca has found a potential suitor using the words-only dating app Bantr; Roy’s (Brett Goldstein) post-football career takes an unexpected turn and some potential progress is made on the Dubai Air controversy as Bantr takes over their spot on the team’s uniforms. 

That’s a lot to pack into a 30-ish minute episode, and to be perfectly honest, the end result isn’t as smashing a success as the rest of the season has been. Ted Lasso has been branching out and trying new things this season, such as when they used animation during Dani’s (Christo Fernández) nightmare about accidentally murdering the team’s mascot or when they used stop-motion, Claymation-esque opening credits during last week’s Christmas episode, but this week’s homage to romantic comedies just felt a little forced and fell a little flat. I felt every minute of this episode, which is not something I typically say about Ted Lasso—in two short years it has become one of my all-time favorite TV shows. But I was just bored this week.

Don’t get me wrong, there was still a lot to love. Rebecca’s explanation of how she boosts her confidence and self-esteem was just fantastic, as was the delivery of Keeley’s line “Let’s invade France.” And Ted and Roy’s discussion about how many times Roy used the F word and Ted’s comparing it to how many nipples were present in the film Showgirls was just perfect. I also enjoyed the scene where Leslie (Jeremy Swift) gave Rebecca some dating advice, as well as the bookend of that scene where we see Leslie and his wife reunite at the stadium while their song played in the background, just as in love as ever. It is especially sweeter knowing that the two actors are husband and wife in real life. 

And it was good to get back to football, as this is a show about a football team, after all. Roy realizing that where he is meant to be is coaching AFC Richmond through his time coaching captain McAdoo (Kola Bokinni) was classic Ted Lasso and showed just how good a judge of character Ted really is. I am very interested to see Roy re-join the fold and be part of the A storylines in future episodes now that he is back with the team.

It seems that more seeds have been planted for future storylines. Last week, I mentioned that it was starting to appear that the writers were teeing Ted and Rebecca up for a romantic storyline in the future, and there was a brief moment where they made it look like Ted was the mystery man Rebecca was flirting with on Bantr. Is that really where their story is going? Or are they just trying to give us a bait and switch? I can’t decide how I feel about it either way, but I am interested to see how it plays out.

Nate has been going through some stuff this season, too. We had the scenes a few episodes ago with him constantly berating the new kit man; there have been several comments about how difficult his father is and in this episode we got to meet his father and see just how down trodden and cast aside Nate really is. With Ted giving Leslie Nate’s office recently and his laughing at Nate thinking he was a big dog in this episode, as well as Roy joining the coaching staff just as Nate got more assertive and confident, I think we are in for a big fall out from Nate in the future. 

Verdict

Though there was a lot of progress for several key storylines this episode, I just can’t shake the feeling that it was filler and the writers are just trying to move key people into position for future storylines. I have a hunch that, once the season is over, we will look back at this episode and see that a lot could have been cut out and re-arranged to get major players where they need to be without the feeling of treading water. I still love this show and can’t wait to see how these plot points play out, but here is hoping Ted Lasso gets back into the swing of things next week. 

What did you think of this week’s episode? Let us know in the comments below or join the conversation on the Boss Rush Discord.

Mark Pereira is a staff writer for Boss Rush Network. He loves all video games, but his top three favorites are Skyward Sword, Super Mario 3D World and Batman: Arkham Asylum. You can find him on Twitter where he’s usually talking about Nintendo, video games, movies, and TV shows.