One of the things Ted Lasso – the show, not the character – does really well is needle-scratch press conferences. They established this precedent splendidly with Ted’s seltzer water spit-take in the first few minutes of the very first episode. (Come to think of it, spit takes are another thing Ted Lasso does really well. It’s a long list!) In fact, every Ted Lasso season premiere uses the press conference as a plot device for establishing some season- or show-long theme. In the pilot, it’s Ted’s thorough sincerity and aptitude for the occasional jaw-dropping cultural faux pas. In “Goodbye Earl,” the Season 2 premiere, it’s the notion that we don’t always appreciate something great until it’s gone – or, worse, it’s taken from us.
But the most recent Ted Lasso press conference is the most daring narrative risk yet – for both the show and the character – and the most successful. To be honest, it’s such a complete and total act of self-flagellation that the first time I watched it I was horrified and brought nearly to tears. To give some quick context, in case you haven’t yet seen “Smells Like Mean Spirit,” the Ted Lasso Season 3 premiere: Ted decides that AFC Richmond needs a little field trip to free their collective head from distraction. He leads them down into the London sewer system for a heavy-handed (but effective) lesson on the importance of letting all “pooh-payh,” both literal and metaphorical, simply flow away before it can become an obstruction.
However, Ted also inadvertently picks the worst possible time to go on this field trip. Photos of Richmond descending into the sewers circulate online just as former Richmond assistant coach Darth Vader Junior Nate Shelley is giving his very first press conference as West Ham’s new gaffer. West Ham, you may recall, is now owned by Rebecca Welton’s ex-husband, Rupert “Handsome Emperor Palpatine” Mannion. I’m surprised Ted Lasso didn’t turn on a couple of huge industrial blowers for this sequence, because the shit most definitely hits the fan. Instead, the show pivots to a (deliberately) obvious insult: when asked for a response to the photos, Nate tells the press he’s hardly surprised, given how “shitty” Richmond’s coach is.
And so the team returns, Ted finds out about Nate’s comments from an irate Rebecca, and Rebecca – who is taking all of this very personally, given her emotional involvement and (apparent) inability to slay the dragon called Rupert – demands that Ted fight back. Ted, who understands exactly how difficult this is for Rebecca, can’t say no to her. But, Ted being Ted, he also cannot and will not “fight” in the sense that Nate fights and that Rebecca would love to herself – that is, with more insults and assorted verbal taunting.
So this is an impossible predicament, right? A pickle so sour even Ted can’t eat it without puckering? A puzzle so complicated it would burst blood vessels in the brains of far lesser folk? Well – this is where we get the strange, baffling genius of Theodore Laurence Lasso. Because Ted, rather than ready and aim his weapons at Nate, instead turns them on himself.
Ted’s attack comes in two parts. First, he ignores the opportunity to talk about how Nate fucking betrayed Ted’s confidence in the shittiest possible way during his last season with the team and instead praises Nate. This is of course not a huge surprise. We’ve only ever really seen Ted get mad twice: once after Rebecca acceded to Manchester City’s request and sent Jamie back to his home club at the end of Season 1’s “Two Aces,” and once during his first proper therapy session with Dr. Fieldstone in Season 2’s “Headspace.” And the latter was really more frightened defiance than anything else. And the former was followed immediately by an apology for losing his temper.
So, yeah, Ted was never going to unload on Nate. (At least, not in public.) And you could also make the argument that what Ted says is the standard response for any disciplined coach: he doesn’t give West Ham any bulletin board material. Ted tells the press that he thought Nate’s insults were “hilarious,” and indicative of “Nate the Great.” (Quick aside: Jason Sudeikis, please like the @AntagonistBlog tweet promoting this article if someone on Richmond will call him “Nate the Hate” this season.) Specifically, of Nate’s ability to “find the tiniest little weakness in a team, and just want to attack that.” Which is precisely why Nate is “a junkyard dog. And smart.” And that, in turn, is precisely why “they’re real lucky to have him over there at West Ham.” In conclusion, what does Ted wish Nate? Why, “the best of luck,” of course.
So that’s Ted Lasso’s Press Conference of Impossible Cheek-Turning, Part One. What makes it a true baffling astonishing marvel is Part Two: In Which Ted Insults The Shit Out Of Himself.
Having said all that nice stuff, Ted must admit he’s a “little surprised that that’s all [Nate] could come up.” Indeed, Nate unloaded on Ted with far more devastating ammunition in Richmond’s own locker room last season. After all, as Ted points out, he’s a pretty easy target: “You know, not one joke about me being a dumb American? Come on, man. It’s sitting right there. I mean, I’m so dumb…”
But evidently they don’t have this joke format in Britain, because the press corps is completely dumbfounded. They think Ted is really sitting there calling himself a straight-up moron and letting the insult hang in the air like a shart at Easter dinner. Take a good look around the room; breathe in the mix of shock, incredulity, skepticism, bewilderment, and even quiet discomfited cringe to be found on every face.
Emotionally, this is the lowest moment of the scene – the most challenging point. Even rewatching it and knowing full well what Ted was doing was uncomfortable. This goes way beyond any of the awkward stuff we’ve seen Ted do so far, the hokey jokes he’s made, the stupid-sounding aphorisms he’s spouted to every single other character on the show. Go back and rewatch “Biscuits,” Ted Lasso‘s second-ever episode, and check out beautiful, sweet, naïve, young-as-fuuuuck Sam Obisanya’s expression the first time Ted tells him to “Be a goldfish.” Sam isn’t charmed or intrigued. He’s flat-out bewildered and his look is the look you give a person when you’re trying to decide if they’re fucking with you or simply bananas. Because there is no third option in this circumstance.
This is the dilemma that Ted presents: he’s so earnest that you find yourself wondering whether such a person could possibly exist. Even this crew in this room for this exchange, though, these people who’ve been covering Ted for over two years and know better than anyone that his public face is no different from his semi-public one, are stretched to their relative breaking point. And it’s still the case even after Ted explains how the joke is supposed to work and starts rolling out punchlines: he’s so dumb, “the first time I heard y’all talking about Yorkshire pudding, I thought it was a fancy word y’all had for dog poop.” He’s so dumb – “How dumb are you?” – “whenever I text someone over here about money, I still spell pounds ‘L-B-S.'” He mocks his mustache (“I look like Ned Flanders is doing cosplay as Ned Flanders”), his accent (“When I talk, it sounds like Dr. Phil hasn’t gone through puberty yet”), and his Ted-isms – the very stuff that makes Ted Ted (“I’m more corny than Kevin Costner’s outfield”).
Ted even points out his most glaring weakness of all, the thing that above all should disqualify him from his current position: his ability to coach non-American football. “Look, man,” he says. “I’m not a great coach. Probably aint. You know, I’ve been doin’ this sport now for three years and I still get a chuckle every time someone talks about a handball violation.”
I’ve already written about Ted Lasso‘s broader contribution to my own mental health. And the show’s overall contribution to the greater conversation about mental health awareness in this country, in sport, and around the world probably can’t be overstated and will far outlast the show itself, whether this really is the last season or they decide to stick around for thirteen more. But the reason I still find this scene so challenging is in my experience you can’t tell other people the kinds of things about yourself that Ted says about himself unless you’ve already gotten comfortable telling them to yourself. For someone who struggles the way Ted struggles, for someone whose anger and anguish and grief have gotten tamped down and compressed and then bubbled up in unhealthy ways, all of those words aren’t insults because other people said them – they hurt because you’ve said them, you yourself, to yourself, in your quietest most away moments.
That’s part of what makes this a “troubling” scene, for me; that’s partly what I mean putting that word in the title. It seems clear, given Ted’s personality, that he doesn’t say such mean, bullying things about himself to make Nate look like that much bigger a bully. Nor does he to it specifically to be the bigger man or take the high road or any related cliché. Those things come with the negative implication that you’ve done it at least in part to prove how you’re better than your detractors. There’s a level of pettiness, of vengeance to that approach that we haven’t yet seen in Ted – and if we’re ever going to see it, it will some later this season; if you believe Nate is done trying to get Ted to align with the dark side then I encourage you to go back and rewatch Return of the Jedi.
I think that Ted directs his anger toward himself because that’s the only safe place for it. He’ll never attack Nate. He’ll always help Rebecca. The only option left to him is to beat himself up worse than Nate did and keep standing at the end of it. It’s hard to watch Ted go through with it because going through with it means accepting that this isn’t fair, that doing the only thing he can do to remain true to himself will injure him. This, too, should trouble us: our notion of what self-sacrifice can mean, of what dignity is worth. And of how we demonstrate our love of that which we value more than ourselves.
