The Lasso Way
I have struggled more with writing this than my usual subject matter. There are very few things in television or movies that have entered my life that I felt such a deep affection for, and far fewer if you restrict that to things that I discovered as an adult. Ted Lasso is different. I was late hearing about it, and the first season was already completely available to me at the point when I decided I would give it a shot, so there was no waiting. I could wonder if it was simply something I needed because of the state of the world or if it was something that I needed because of the state of MY world. But the fact is, that the time that Ted Lasso came into my life, it was almost like a salve for me. There was joy in it, there was grief and pain in it, but there was more. It had something that made it resonate with me in a way that very few things in pop culture, save for music, have. I do not want this to simply be my love letter to a show that has impacted me, so that means there is a high potential for spoilers as I am writing this less than 24 hours before the final episode is going to be made available. So, if you plan to read on, please be warned spoilers will be present.
I don’t know how I would best describe the show to someone who was uninitiated. Maybe it is a show about fatherhood and father figures. But it is also a show about redemption, accountability, and the power to change and grow that all humans possess. I think the show does a tremendous job of having all of these themes sort of meet together and that they all ultimately complete most of the main character’s arcs. I have had people ask me which character I most closely identify with or who my favorite is. I see elements of myself in so many characters and I adore so many of them, as they have become like family. I often will say that Higgins is the soul of the show. He is the one who seems to have overall been the steadiest and who has required the least amount of growth and change to fulfill his purpose. You see in Amsterdam and even when he is unemployed that he is very sure of who he is and that he does not make any bones about it. He is comfortable in any setting and comfortable being his quirky self. On many levels, his comfort in his own skin is what we should all strive for. Sure we could look back to Jamie in the first season who asked why he would want to be anyone other than himself, but then we also get to observe that much of his journey has been striving to earn one parent’s love and somehow never being good enough, and seeing that despite all of the growth he does, that leading into the match against Manchester City, he was a wreck worrying about his dad in the stands. Watching him as he has grown maybe more than any other character has been lovely, although an argument could be made for Nate on character growth. In many ways the two of them grew in opposite ways, but as the end nears, it seems they may have grown together and will achieve everything we wanted for both of them. Seeing Nate so desperate for a parents love that he has learned to make himself small and how he craves praise and validation to an extreme point that one of the most affable and lovable characters winds up becoming the villain by the end of the second season. I, like many, was devastated to see the turn in Nate, but anticipated a redemption angle because I did not think he was fully evil. Perhaps he is Ted Lasso’s Anakin, where we think he has turned fully to the darkside, but eventually we see that there is still all of the good in him and that the hope he once represented suddenly becomes the salvation of the story.
In season one, Rebecca and Keeley have a discussion about accountability which resonated deeply with me. Accountability became one of my most used words in 2021 and well into 2022 because of it. We see that the characters who are accountable for their actions, choices and behaviors experience growth whereas the characters who are not accountable are clearly heading for a downfall. Arguably, the two LEAST accountable characters are two of the wealthiest on the show in Rupert and Akufo, and while it seems Akufo has gotten his, it seems like Rupert will be getting his in the finale. I think though that it all comes back to fathers and father figures. We see the impact of fathers and father figures over and over throughout the show. Ted’s father dying by suicide and the fact that he did not feel empowered to deal with it, and his mom not having the tools to handle it herself left an indelible mark on Ted that has been apparent the entire course of the show. We see Roy who lost his grandfather, Rebecca who was mad at her mom because of how she handled things with her father, Jamie with his father, and Nate who lived in perpetual fear of disappointing his father. And yet in the end, many of these characters find their way by confronting their own hurts and traumas. Ted goes to therapy and even has a confrontation with his mom, which results in what feels like him deciding he has to move back to the States to be with his son. His biggest fear with his boy is that he will leave him, the way everyone else has, but in that exchange with his mom, I believe he sees that he cannot leave his son because of the impact his own father left on him. We see Rebecca tell of a story her father told her, and in that moment, she is able to stand up to a room full of men she once was intimidated by. Roy confronts his own struggles with the expectations of others and begins to live in his own skin. The more he is forced to give a damn, the less stuck he becomes, and we even see him becoming a more emotionally supportive and caring person as he confronts his own past and learns to be present for those he cares about. Jamie learns forgiveness is not for the forgiven person, but rather for when he could not carry his dad’s shit any longer. The moment he lets go of that; he earns the respect of an entire city who applaud him. We see Sam, whose father has been present and who has loved him and encouraged him the entire time be comfortable standing up for himself and be exactly who he is. He faces adversity and while it impacts and affects him, he is able to continue to move forward. Then we see Nate, who latched onto Ted seeking the fatherly love and validation that he felt he never got from his own dad, attempting to try and get that from Rupert. Eventually, we see Nate become aware that Rupert is not a good person, and he makes the decision to no longer be affiliated with him. He is devastated to have climbed so high only to have crashed and winds up back at his parents which leads to a confrontation between he and his father who with his own tears and grief tells his son he does not care if he is successful or not, that he only wants him to be happy while also acknowledging his own shortcomings as a parent.
Ted Lasso has made me laugh and it has made me sob. It has allowed me to explore my relationships with people and with the world around me and it has been a tool I have used to relate with clients, friends, and it has become a treasured experience I share with my own dad. This weekend, as we got him all caught up ahead of the finale, he said he was not ready for the show to end and that he expects he will cry. I have no doubt I will cry. I have a lot of predictions about how it will all end, with Nate at the helm, Ted returning home and Richmond AFC hopefully winning the whole fucking thing. But ultimately, I will cry happy tears that I got to experience this and share this as well as some tears of sadness saying goodbye to something that has meant so very much to me. As a father, my biggest hope in the entire world is that my kids grow up happy and healthy. I don’t care what else they achieve; I will love them and root them on and maybe give them little tugs on the ear. I hope that they find something so meaningful to them and that they will be able to share it with me the same way I have shared this with my dad. Ultimately, it is not about winning or losing after all, the most important part is helping those we love to be the best version of themselves.