The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Ted Lasso’ S2E11 Recap

Episode Date: October 6, 2021

The Greyhound Gang discuss the drama-filled “Midnight Train to Royston” and what it forbodes for the season finale. Host: Chris Ryan Guest: Van Lathan Producer: Isaac Lee Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello and welcome to the Ringer Prestige TV pod. I am Chris Ryan and I am joined as always by Banksy. And we are here to talk about the penultimate episode of the second season at Ted Lassow. It's midnight train to Royston. Obviously it's Van Lathen is not Banksy. Greyhound Gang, Wolf Wolf Wolf. You don't know if I'm Banksy. I guess anything's possible. I could be Banksy. Isaac could be Banksy, you know.

Isaac could be Banksy. If someone at the Ringer were going to be Banksy, Banksy, who do you think the number one person to be Banksie at the Ringer would be? I'll tell you what the funniest Banksy would be, as if it was Bill. If it was like, this guy's got it all, and he's fucking Banksy. And he's Banksy. That will be fucking his careful, yeah. Exactly.

Van, we're going to talk about an episode. It's a bad scene this week, man. Betrayal, heartbreak, imminent departure. Cicombs don't really have villains per se, but Ted Lasser's sure. has one. And, you know, we can get into whether or not that means Ted Lassow is or isn't a sitcom. But let's talk about Nate, man, because this was a pretty dark episode. Yeah, I feel like this entire season is like Nate's villainous origin story. And it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse. Like, there's always a moment where the villain is

messing around with it. They're fucking around with it. They're messing around with it. And then there's a moment that raises the emotional stakes for them to agree when they can't turn back. And that, of course, in this episode is the moment that he tries to kiss Keeley. And I don't know what he thought was going to happen. I really don't. But he's humiliated. Yeah. He's humiliated.

She says it's okay. She's letting him know, hey, this doesn't mean anything. He walks back into the dressing room. And what a penetrating scene. So well-acted. Spitting in the mirror. Spitting in the mirror. He hates himself.

So now. If he hates who he actually is, that means he has to overcompensate. He has to overcompensate. He has to put himself in a situation where he doesn't have to see himself anymore because other people will do the scene for him. That's what people try to make themselves as big as possible. That is when you do things to your friends in order to get ahead and change your perception about you.

Yeah, you know, we don't often see, like you just mentioned, the origin of a villain's story. You know, like we do that in prequels. We'll go watch the Joker. there's spin-off movies where they try to explain, like, well, this is what happened, X, Y, and Z to get this person to this point. But typically what we want from a villain is for that person to come in and change the temperature of the story that we're watching.

We want them to antagonize the hero, and we don't need to know, like, what was Nate's dad like? I think the thing that's really hard for people is this is a show that I think a lot of people have identified as one that champions the underdog, and in a lot of ways, Nate is the ultimate underdog. So to have Nate go from Ultimate Underdog and should be the sort of one of the mascots of this show,

Honestly, getting to a point where it's going to be hard for some fans to forgive him, but especially we can get into characters forgiving him and what might happen next week. It's an interesting using the sort of mechanism of what people love about Ted Lassow against it itself, you know? Yeah, it's very true. It's like, obviously I listen to an amazing amount of rap and hip-hop. And it's one thing that all rappers have in common is that all of their teachers in school told them they weren't going to be. shit. Like every single rapper.

My teachers told me I wasn't going to be shit. Now I am the shit. You know what I mean? And it's like, you always wonder, what happens to these guys? The teachers? No, not the teachers. What happens to, I don't know, no, no.

What happens to these rappers if they have more encouraging sixth grade teachers? Well, do they become? Maybe they're present. Who knows? Yeah. But you never get to see that moment because you don't really need to. They're telling you their origin story. They're telling you, hey, I wasn't always like this. I know you see me throwing my money in your face. I know you see me out here saying these things, doing these things. I wasn't always like this. A lot of people

had to beat me down in order for me to scab over and then go into the world and be this ostentatious and this brash and this arrogant and this confident. What's happening in this story is a little different because Nate is choosing to feel the way that he's feeling, right? Not, let me not say that he's choosing to feel the way that he's feeling because he feels that way in a very genuine way because of his relationship with his father. But we can also see how some feelings are prioritized based upon the trauma that we have before because he has been believed in on this show and in encouraging him. and people have had his back since the beginning.

He has no reason to do anything other than to love, stick by, and maybe value Ted more than any other character. Ted has given him a career when nobody else was paying attention to him, saw him for his talent, and promoted him every single step along the way. But when you have trauma and hurt in your life that takes up so much space in your brain and your heart, it's hard to see the parts of it that are reaffirming you.

So in this particular point, we're watching a villain become a villain, but we're also watching a villain make himself. It's just very interesting. I felt one of the reasons why I'm so mad at him is because he's fucking ungrateful. You know what I mean? One of the reasons why I'm so pissed off

is because, yo, it's all coming. you're doing exactly what you need to do. You don't have to do some Shakespearean shit. But I think these are the things that happen in real life. In real life, it's very hard not to prioritize your trauma. It's very hard not to take the worst parts of yourself and make them into the most important parts of who you are. I think that there's something also to be said about the fact that

this show does a pretty good job as an ensemble show of investing in the emotional lives of secondary characters and making all the ensemble feel like they're relatively three-dimensional people. But what you have to imagine is like all of these people to themselves are the hero. They are Ted Lassow. The show isn't called Ted Lassow. It's called Coach Beard.

It's not called Ted Lassow. It's called Keeley. You know, like there's this idea that like, you know, this is all revolving around the son of Ted Lassow. But for me. Wow, what a fantastic observation. But you know what I'm saying? Like Nate's probably like actually I ate shit for my whole life. Nobody's ever respected me starting with my father.

I've always been told all you'll ever be is the kickman or all you'll ever be is like Ted's sidekick and Ted can do the press conferences and Ted gets all the credit. And I think they've done a pretty effective job of showing what happens when people buck up against that. And in a lot of ways, this episode was like, you know what?

Like all fan service aside, everybody would love for Keely and Roy to be this wonderful relationship. It's two fan favorites coming together. But what if it just doesn't work? Yeah. We would all love for Roy, beard, Nate and Ted to get back into the Premier League

and make a Lester-like run at the Premier League, but what if it doesn't work? And that's kind of like where this show is a little bit subversive. You know, it's like for every time Ted walks into a room and does three puns and a dumb dad joke to start a scene, more often than not, it's ending where, like, it's going towards where we're going. And I kind of wonder how many fans of the show are comfortable with that.

When Ted Lazo came back, it's like, I can't wait to have this beacon of light and affirmation and sweetness and sensitivity and love in my life again. And watch these people tear themselves apart. It's kind of tough. It's like the kale in my smoothie mix. Yeah.

I really don't want it in there. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, I got the smoothie mix. I got the great stuff in my smoothie mix. I got the strawberry. I got the banana. By the way, you guys are out there.

You're drinking a strawberry banana smoothie. You think it's healthy. Be careful. Yeah, because that's a lot of sugar, dog. It's a lot of sugar. It's a lot of sugar. Yeah. But for me, there's kale in it.

And you got to have the kale. Cale is part of life. Bitter, but it's good for you. Bitter. but it's goddamn good for you, right? Yeah. I thought at the end of this show, I was going to get to see the whole team

do a great big bye-bye number. I really did. In the first season, we just saw that. Yeah. But I think the theme of this season is sometimes you don't get the big number that you thought you were going to get.

Sometimes what you get is a little too much of the thing that you think that you need. And even watching Keely and Roy who are definitely drifting apart, there's no big inciting the incident that's making it happen. No, it's just two people who got together and it got hot and heavy real fast. And maybe it's not right for them this time in their lives.

Maybe it doesn't have legs. Maybe there's a part of Keeley who still wants the Jamie Tark type of guy. Maybe there's a part of Roy who wants the schoolteacher type of lady. And he goes, yo, school teacher asked me if I was married and I said no and nothing else. I don't know why. Because nothing told you to protect your relationship. Something says, hey, what would it be like to hang out with her? People have been there.

People have made the wrong decision. And even in them having that very open conversation about it, the characters are still more virtuous than most people in the real world are. It's just we had gotten so used to them being who they were that now, you know, we don't want them to be us. We want them to be better. We want it, Ted Lassau to be, I mean, use a Marvel term, a multiverse where a part of the multiverse where everything always works out for everyone.

And the show is increasingly telling us that it's not that way, while maintaining the core DNA of what the show always is, which is someone just trying their best to be positive in the face of all of these things that aren't going right. You know, the show continues to sprinkle some nice little Easter eggs for the football fans. And the idea that Nate has in the beginning of the episode about using a false nine, I can't remember who they're playing, I guess. Maybe it's Brentford or something. but he wants to use a false nine.

That's his tactical idea. And what a false nine is is basically in football, there's forwards, midfielders, and defenders lined up on the field and kind of like a few different rows. You can be in three rows. You can be in four rows, whatever. But Nate's idea, which has been used before in football, is basically we're not going to use a striker.

And we're going to have the midfield basically be the attack and put more bodies in the midfield, and it will confuse the defenders. Because what happens is defenders look for the striker, and they sort of orient themselves, around where is this guy who's probably going to score? Like, let's all play off of him. And so basically, by taking away that striker, the defender's like, who am I supposed to

defend? What's going on? That idea, basically, though, is what this episode is about. You think you're supposed to keep your eyes on this Sam and Rebecca storyline or Ted and Dr. and Sharon and everything. And you're like, oh, like, this is a normal. And then this Nate thing happens at the very end. And like you said, you thought you were going to get to hear bye, bye, bye.

but instead we hear Radiohead. We hear a song about paranoia and creeping vengeance. And I kind of wonder whether or not we're in for a very dark finale because of that. It might be very dark. By the way, we have to do a whole podcast around my radio head phase. It's not that I was into Radiohead. I was Radiohead. I was walking around, you know.

I've had the musical phases that I've gone through, I've then reflected them in my actual life. was Kurt Cobain for a while that my dad was very, very afraid. I became radiohead. When the shoegazing music came out, I was shoegazing. You know, the whole nine. It's happened. So was your radio head phase like concurrent with OK computer coming out? Like, when was this? Yeah. It was like, yeah. It's like, yeah, it's like, I feel like you. Yeah. Like, yeah. Like you weird, we're, you know what I mean? Like I feel like you, bro. But we're the same. I'm that. I'm a creep too. Okay, Computer, one of the most perfect albums ever. Anyway, I'm going to

pretend like I understood your soccer stuff because I don't know soccer like that. The basic point is just like you have a fixed point that as a viewer, you used to, I expect this to happen or I expect this person to be the hero of the show and this person to be the sidekick of the show. And by removing certain things, it disorients the viewer. And now I think that as Ted Lasso viewers, we're probably like, but they're going to figure this out next week. Maybe Ted is going to reenact his I forgive you speech. I don't know though. I have no clue.

And it's funny that you bring that up through the lens of what's going on with Sam because it's a fairly gigantic decision that one of the most beloved characters on the show has to make. And it starts off with him having the best game of his life, which I was thinking was a dream sequence all the way up until the point to where it was revealed that it wasn't a dream sequence. I was a little confused by that too because they haven't really checked in on the progress of the team very much.

And then in a voiceover, they're like, they need one more win for automatic promotion. And I was like, oh, wow. So I guess they've just been bust, like, just kicking ass. Because that's very hard to do. Yeah. Yeah. So it starts off with him.

And there's all of these undercurrents of what your new family means, as juxtaposed to the cultural family that you feel like you belong to now. In this case, the billionaire guy is Ganean and Sam is Nigerian, but even still, though, there's a kinship and an understanding that they have based upon their origins from the continent. And there's something that this guy tries to do. I totally expected that character to be evil.

And it was almost more surprising that the character was benevolent, right? Because all of the notions and the motivations behind it are good, and Sam's has to make this huge decision. And then while I'm settling into that story and Rebecca's dilemma on whether or not she wants Sam to go or stay and what the reasons are. Is it for

Richmond? Is it for her? While I'm settling into that, these things just, the billionaire's name is Edwin Akufo. It's played by Sam Richardson, who's obviously on Veep and tons of other stuff. A lot of other stuff. As I'm settling into that story,

I am just kidnapped by some other plots that are going on. Kidnapped by what's going on with Nate. Nate puts us on blast before when he's complaining, kidnapped by Roy and Keely, kidnapped by Ted and Sharon. And at the end of the episode, I'm not

sure what I wanted it to have been, but I damn sure it was pissed. I was very upset at that last scene. It engaged me and pulled me to watch the next episode because I want to see how the sunniest

man in the galaxy shine some light on this betrayal. Yeah, there was an interesting line when Rebecca comes in to tell Ted about Sam and this is kind of like that funny bit where it's like, isn't this what we were doing last year? Like this kind of confessional

moment where you come to me and seek kind of like a life advice and that's the sort of infamous scene, maybe one of the scenes that made Ted Lassau what it is, which is the I forgive you scene. And so it's interesting to see echoes of the first season and the second season and wonder whether or not the show

is like, it's not going to be like that again. Because this time, it's not just Ted he's fucking with. It's the whole club. It's possibly in cahoots with Rupert. It's at the expense of a bunch of people who maybe aren't as sunny in their disposition as Ted.

And yeah, I don't know if the wolf pack is going to live through this one, man. It's hard for me to imagine them straight up writing a character off the show. It's also hard for me to imagine a third season where Nate is somehow an antagonist, maybe a manager for another club. club or something. I don't know. But I don't think that the resolution is going to be just Ted

Lassow just being like, I am, I'm fine with this. I can forgive anything. I can, like, I understand where needs coming from. I must have been, must have been my fault. I think it's too close to home for him. I think his panic attacks on what he's been going through mentally, it's something that you've seen him stoo about a lot. Yeah, it's always also something he wasn't sharing. Yeah, it was. It was something he wasn't sharing. It was something that came from a trauma that was deeply embedded, been going on for decades. So I'm not sure if it's going to be as easy for him to react in the same way that he has in the past.

And to that point, it's like, what does that say about Ted? Is Ted Lasso still Ted Lasso if he gets pissed about this? Inatly, what do we want to see from Ted Lasso? I'm actually not sure. Is this the moment I want to see Ted Lasso go, hey, fuck you, you're fired? Or do I want in my life to believe that there's somebody, even a character, even a character, that's created and concocted, that would take that situation and then deal with it using a heaping pot of grace. I'm not sure.

But I think that the fact that we're asking these questions, it's healthy for the show. The show can't be, no show can be, how are the characters going to nice their way out of this one? It's just not life. Yeah, and it's funny to go back now and kind of think about most people, I think, a lot of people, watched season one in a binge at some point over the last year. And then season two, for the most part, for everybody,

I think is, if you're listening to this podcast, experience on a week-to-week basis. So it's now funny to consider the Christmas episode and this past episode in the same season. The Christmas episode,

for some people, I think, a little bit of a shark-jumping moment where it was like, this show is too saccharine. This might be too sweet. Right. And now you're like,

damn, dude, I just kind of need like a... We can go out. on like a little bit of a high note, right? Like we can go something upbeat can happen here. And I wonder whether or not they'll be like it's both. It's them getting promoted back into the Premier League. Maybe Sam stays because he loves Rebecca, whatever, whatever.

But like ultimately, like Nate's not going to be there. And, you know, Roy and Keely will break up some combination of these things. I wonder what, how they're going to set themselves up for that third season and what kind of show it wants to be. Do you have anything you want to say necessarily about the Sam Rebecca plot line, which was kind of other, the other than the Sharon plot was like the other plot we haven't really remarked upon.

Kind of got kicked to the curb a little bit. Yeah. But this is, you know, this is what would happen if you were in a situation like that, like that. You know, the closest thing I think we talked about,

the closest thing we got to is was when Phil Jackson was dating Jeannie Bus. You know what I mean? It's like, it's kind of a situation to where, oh, well, who's the right man for the job? Phil Jackson is. I wonder why.

you know, Phil's going to make that decision. Okay. I wonder why. You know what I mean? So, but all of those dynamics would exist if you had a player who was getting better at the pace that Sam is getting better and, you know, expanding. You know, you see people giving them props and stuff. You're expanding his brand all over the place. And then you have somebody who's essentially fucking the owner and in love with the owner.

look how crude I was. In love with the owner, they make love. And you're going to run into situations like that. And then, you know, what does Rebecca want for the rest of her life? Because there's just so many things to think there. She's 20 years older than him, you know? So when she's talking about her life and his life, they're in completely different situations. Yeah, but there are some interesting parallels between Sam or Rebecca and Keeley and Roy,

where it's like everything is probably telling you that this would be a good idea. Everything is probably telling you that you guys make a good idea. everything is probably telling you that you guys make a great match. But sometimes where you are in your individual life dictates that. It dictates whether or not that perfect match actually is actually all that perfect. You want to make any predictions for next week? I don't know. It seems like a fool's Aaron.

Nah, I don't really want to make too many predictions for next week. I want to let the story wallop me right in the face. I don't want to make any predictions. I think it's obviously pretty clear that we're going to have a big showdown with Nate in some way. Either there's going to be a big love showdown or a big hate showdown. They can't play it any other way. They can't play the middle here. The only thing I will say about the episode is there's only one thing at the episode

that jumped out at me. And that was Trim giving up his source. Yeah, I was going to talk about this. I wanted to talk about this right now. That's good. Never. Yes, no. And I know that, like, journalistic ethics and journalistic rules are different in

England than they are here and everything. And I saw that even the official, unofficial Trent Crimm, Twitter account tried to say, like they're a cultural different but I don't think there is really no version of this where this happens where the person is like by the way it was neat yeah it I worked in I'm not going to go backwards

and I don't even want to think of it but I worked in that arena for nine years do you have any idea what a cardinal sin it would be to give up somebody that you've sourced in that situation to the person he was talking about

to the person he was talking about like that is super duper nuts. Like super duper nuts. The idea would basically be that Trent is not exactly like Tony Kornheiser. That he's a guy covering a second tier London football club that maybe he thinks by giving Nate up, he gets Ted as a source forever. I don't know. You could make some arguments.

But the reality is that though, if you already have Nate, then what do you need Ted for? Right. Why not go to Nate and find out of everything. Yeah. Most of the stories are going to be about Ted and about the club. And so it's way better to report on someone by having someone close to them rather than have them as your source. Because if you have them as your source, you're never going to get the real story about them. If you have somebody that's in their camp, you'll always get the real story about them.

You know what I mean? Especially if there's somebody disgruntled or a better story. So it's just something that would never happen. And I just thought of all the things that they've said about to the last one, and maybe things are different. When you say things are different, how do you mean that things are different? Well, you know, it's not uncommon when you're reading, say, like an interview with a soccer player and even a really respected newspaper that they will mention that this person appears courtesy of Gillette or Gatorade.

Like that they are doing basically a sponsored appearance. And that is why they get to do the interviews because they're doing an appearance for something for the Nike or for whatever. So I think that's something that in the States, generally people shy away from is doing stuff that's like directly promoting a brand for an athlete if they're like they've got a sponsored deal. There's also a lot of stuff about fees for interviews,

basically paying people to talk, which in the States, generally speaking, you're not supposed to do. But in England, I think that they're a little bit more free with like, oh, do you have some salacious gossip about David Beckham? like it's 20,000 pounds show up, you know, like that kind of thing. And like they have all the stuff with like the phone hacking, remember, with the Murdoch owned papers and stuff like that.

So it's a hairy business. It's hairy over here as well. But yeah, it's just a couple of different like rules applied to British journalism than to the states. That being said, I still think Trent Crum like crossed every boundary that you have. I think also when that story came out, I thought they were going to go a different way when he was telling him that it was coming. I thought that Ted was going to have to go around.

find out who said it. And it's obvious at that point that it would have been Nate, right? From how Nate was talking earlier with Roy and Beard, who were looking at him like, what the fuck is your problem? Right. He'll just take all the credit. He'll just take all the credit. Like, yeah, he's the coach.

And Roy was a well-active scene by Roy Kent because I always say that. Roy Kent wasn't acting. Roy Kent was a character. Brett Goldstein, yeah. Yeah. But it was well-acted scene just because he's looking at him and his scowl is saying two things.

This is the way things are. And you're fucking up right now. Yeah. Yeah. So his scow is saying, yeah, that's what happens. But also, I see what you're becoming. Nate's also still, like, bullying kids in front of beard after beard's like, I'm basically giving you a warning.

This time it's between us. You know what I mean? Yeah. I'm really excited for this next episode. I'm excited to talk about it with you, man. It's been an interesting journey talking about this second season. I really enjoyed it. We'll be back next week to discuss the season finale of Ted Lassau.

We were produced by Isaac Lee for Van. Thanks for listening, and thanks for listening to the Ringer Prestige TV podcast.