Podcast: You’re a Godsend Ted Lasso

Thank you for listening to the Torg Stories podcast. My sister Anne and I are talking Season 1, Episodes 1 and 2 of Ted Lasso today. The title of this episode is “You’re a Godsent Ted Lasso.” It’s something the team owner Rebecca calls Ted, and he tells her, “It takes one to know one.”

Notes for the discussion on Season 1, Episodes 1 & 2 of Ted Lasso:

How close are Anne and I on our summaries of these two episodes? Here are mine:

• Season 1 Episode 1: “The Pilot.” American football coach Ted Lasso arrives to England to coach an English soccer team and faces a hostile reception. The owner of the team, Rebecca Welton, hopes he fails because she wants to get back at her ex husband for cheating on her. Everywhere Ted goes, he begins to win people over with his kindness.
• Season 1 Episode 2: “Biscuits.” Coach Ted makes it a point that everyone in the building is part of the AFC Richmond team. As a part of this philosophy, he brings Rebecca biscuits every morning so they can have a morning chat. At the same time, Rebecca tries to sabotage Ted’s relationship with his best player Jaimie Tartt.

What’s most important to discuss?

• Ted’s kindness as something people are drawn to with the show. I’ve chosen this line “You’re a Godsent Ted Lasso.” It’s what Rebecca tells Ted right in the middle of figuring out how to best destroy her team. This is in the pa rking lot just as Rebecca is gaining Higgins’s compliance with her plan to destroy Ted by bribing him with a promotion as “president of football operations.”
• Why Rebecca doesn’t care about lying and deceit at this point in her life.
• In the film Say Anything, I remember John Cusack saying something like the character appealed to him because he was interested in the idea of “optimism as a revolutionary force.” Just how far could that take a person?
• I think there’s more to get into when it comes to the clothes. The ICON hat. What Rebecca and Keeley wear.

I used an NPR articles by Linda Holmes titled “The Seven Ways To Write About Television” as a starting place for how we’d talk about this show. @Lindaholmes on Twitter.

What is appealing about this show?

• Dense with humor. Dense with lively writing. I was watching the film SALT the other day… Ted tells Nate he, “loves your hot dogs.” Ted to Beard on the plane: If we see each other in our dreams, let’s pretend like we don’t know each other.
• I was in on the show when Scott Van Pelt discussed Ted’s new job on ESPN and they showed that video of him dancing. This is my kind of show!
• The friendship of Beard and Ted.
• The lively and different characters: Ted, Rebecca, Beard, Jamie in his ICON hat, Keeley, Higgins and his caesar you later.
• Holy crap. This show references Anne Lamott’s book on writing, Bird by Bird. This show loves some of what I love: sports, books, writing.

A few observations on the plot:

• Ted is a character who just keeps being kind and keeps being undaunted by adversity. “Undaunted” as a good title for something.
• Easy one: Where is Ted getting the biscuits? And we get the answer to end the episode.
• Roy vs. Jamie has been introduced.
• We’ve got at least two pretty nice/kind people (Rebecca and Higgins) trying to do something nasty, such as taking these pictures of Ted and Keeley and sending to press to create disruption.
• Players are stereotypically nasty to Nick as the equipment guy.
• The British tabloid press. The behavior of sports fans.
• Twitter figures in the plot. Ted trends hard on Twitter.

The secret of the biscuits is revealed at the end of Season 1, Ep. 2

Observation about the characters:

• Ted (Jason) comedy chops: bounding back through the door when Higgins says, “Caesar you later.” Spitting water and “sorry for spitting on all of your stuff.”
• Ted as opposed to our previous discussion about Indiana’s Bob Knight.
• Jaimie: Icon hat. Colorful sweatsuit. “I’m me coach. Why would I want to be anyone else?” The snacks aren’t up to speed.
• Nate: making the boxes.
• The bar fans Baz, Jeremy, and Paul, especially Paul who really takes to Ted fast.
• Keeley’s comfort with using her sexuality, controlling that locker room full of athletes, that she thrives on that attention too.

More on one of the actors:

• In a Variety interview with the cast, I heard Jeremy Swift, who plays Higgins, had a goatee for his audition. Then he shaved it off. Sudakeis missed it and told him “he had to get that jazz back.” It came out that he played the upright bass. Sudeikis put that in the story. Swift said it was his dream to be in an American led sitcom. He always believed that America has two great art forms: jazz and the sitcom.

An observation on craft:

• so much attention to words and what they mean. If I got fired I’d get the boot and put my boots in the boot of my car. Word games / riddles. GIF or JIF?

The show’s attention to ethical issues:

• Misogyny-contempt of women. “Impressive chest” from the fired manager. Ted covers up Keeley’s boobs in the locker room.
• Mental health: “my brain just kept cooking.” Being open about mental health struggles. To Rebecca, how are you holding up? Coach, I’m me. Why would I want to be anything else?
• Political division: How many countries are in this country? Kind of like America.
• American Colonialism: Sam on the toy soldier: I don’t share your affinity for the American military.

Allusions:

• “God Save the Queen” Sex Pistols
• The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac. Click here.
• Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Soccer Tactics by Jonathan Wilson. Click here for Amazon.
• “We’re not in Kansas anymore.” -Ted on arriving to England. The “Oz” hypothesis.
• “Love your hot gods.”
• Bird by Bird book on writing by Anne Lamott. Click here.
• All that Jazz, a 1979 musical drama. Click here.
• Wooden’s Pyramid hung in the office! Jimmy V poster.
• shirt Joe Arthur Gate Stack + the BBQ saunce. Click here article on seller of t shirt.

Should not have cut “The Maker Model” from our list. Where do I see Sudeikis life in this?

1. He knows divorce. Rebecca and Ted’s marriage in trouble.
2. All the Kansas City.
3. All of the Chicago. Mustache comes. from Ditka.
4. Playing FIFA with Brendan.

TV criticism as Riff:

• Click here for example from Vulture.

Hilarious moments and golden lines:

1. Taking a challenge is like riding a horse.
2. Shot: beholding a stadium
3. “I’m going to start punching dicks.”
4. “The Lasso Way,” says Rebecca. That’s Trent’s book in the last season.
5. I do love a locker room. Smells like potential.
6. Don’t be a sleep cop. -Ted to Beard
7. The harder you work, the luckier you get. Ted quotes it; Gary Player credited with it.
8. Biscuits with the boss.
9. Tea is horrible.
10. Unless you want to win a buttload of money.
11. “They are not,” Jamie on the snacks.
12. I hope you choke on a Big Mac. Roy in the suggestion box.
13. Nate’s boxes!
14. Lion or a panda?
15. If you can turn me into us, the sky is the limit for you. Ted to Jamie.
16. Nate punches the glass.
17. And yet you remain undaunted. Rebecca to Ted.
18. The reveal that Ted cooks the biscuits.

If I’m writing chapters in a book about Ted Lasso, what am I writing about?

• You’re a Godsent Ted Lasso. The acts of kindness of Ted Lasso.
• Optimism as a weapon. -says Anne
• Emotionally moving moments.
• The clothes…
• Sports references in Ted Lasso.

Interesting links:

• Click here for the original Ted Lasso NBC commercials.
• Click here Variety for Ted Lasso cast interview.