The list of calamities of the third season of Ted Lasso is impossible to comment in full. Nate’s dramatic arc, improvised, in fits and starts, and inconsistent with the proposal of previous seasons. His indefinite girlfriend. Ted with a spelled conflict from the beginning while he became the most boring character in the entire series. The unforgivable duration of the episodes that deactivated any option to give wings to comedy. Keeley’s spin-off within the series, clumsy and interrupted, spiced up with a lesbian lover who should be deleted from the series’ cut. Any scene related to Zava or Akufo. Rebecca’s Dutch date, which was going romantic when it was the premise of a horror movie. Well, the entire episode shot in Amsterdam represented the mistakes of the season: lack of rhythm, failed jokes, unnatural intersecting stories, misaligned characters.
After this walk through the desert where there was hardly any oasis to cool off (the ninth episode, to be exact), it was time to face the outcome. It was impossible not to do it from mistrust. The recent results indicated disaster and (surprise!) the conclusion has been almost exemplary, hitting the right keys and only committing slips typical of finalitis, that disease that practically all series have when they try to say goodbye. Among the cons, the need to put a montage with the future of the characters, including Rebecca with a hasty resolution on the sentimental level, a mismanagement of the love triangle between Keeley, Roy and Jamie, or the anticlimactic of not seeing the reactions of the Richmond players before Ted’s departure. Among the virtues, practically everything else.
The musical number to say goodbye to the coach is nice without the need to look for tears, aware that there will be emotional moments later. There is one last discussion in the offices of the technicians that, like the entire series, challenges traditional masculinity with this way of exposing himself. He has jokes as effective as the team crying on the field because of the coaches and one as brilliant as the goal that pierces the goal net: it is commendable how he adds layers of grace to each sequence with the repetition of the play, the fan with a broken nose, Keeley’s partner celebrating and the bloody kiss between the wounded man and his wife. And, when Ted Lasso sets out to tear down the viewer’s armor and squeeze the tear ducts, the scene appears with the “Believe†poster that strikes a sensitive chord in a coherent way and in its proper measure. How I missed Ted backing the dynamics of the locker room!
This hour and a quarter of the ending, curiously, has been more representative of what Ted Lasso is than 90% of the episodes of the third season when television history indicates that few fictions know how to convey his essence in its latest installment. The series was characterized by being a warm corner that combined humor with the desire to move the public and with a charismatic cast and above all in tune (with Hannah Waddingham as the undisputed star and Phil Dunster as the season’s breakthrough player). It was a vaccine against cynicism: on a television that rewarded the anti-hero and ridiculed goodness, Coach Lasso improved the community based on empathy, optimism and a predisposition to second chances and to look for the best in others.
The last season was a stumbling block (absorbed, ambitious in the worst possible sense, unaware of everything that made the whole great) but Ted Lasso has managed to remind us who he was, both on television and in person. With this last-minute creative resurrection, consequently, the void will be much greater, at least until Apple TV confirms or refutes the possibility of continuing the fictional universe in some way.
