In an appearance on Saturday Night Live, Jason Sudeikis, creator and titular star of the Apple TV+ comedy Ted Lasso, expressed his surprise at the success of the popular show about an American football coach hired to coach an English Premier League “soccer” team. “It’s truly shocking to me because it’s built around two things Americans hate”, Sudeikis joked: “soccer and kindness”. Explaining Sudeikis’ observation that Season 2 is akin to The Empire Strikes Back, Brendan Hunt (who plays Coach Beard) observed, “It’s darker than maybe a sitcom is supposed to be”. While both comments contain a kernel of truth, Ted Lasso reaches considerably deeper than either remark can capture.
The real genius of the show is its ability to plumb the depths of human fragility in order to ascend the heights of human redemption.Through brilliant writing and impeccable comic timing, Ted Lasso resonates with Catholic themes: alienation and reconciliation; transgression and forgiveness; defensiveness and vulnerability; fear and transparency; and, most importantly, the obligation to forgive those who have offended us.
Ted Lasso resonates with Catholic themes: alienation and reconciliation; transgression and forgiveness; defensiveness and vulnerability; fear and transparency; and, most importantly, the obligation to forgive those who have offended us.
One does not find conventional notions of Christian piety in Ted Lasso. By and large, the characters are foul-mouthed and sexually licentious, with little or no apparent interest in formal religion. Indeed, discussions of religious faith are all but completely absent from the show. If one is offended by very strong language and frequent references to casual, extra-marital sex, it might be difficult to see through to the deeper themes and messages. But this would be to miss the aspects of Ted Lasso that challenge Christians in ways that traditionally religious shows are seldom able to do. While the medium is unconventional, Ted Lasso resonates with Catholic moral doctrine.
On a superficial level, coach Ted Lasso appears to be a cloying, overly optimistic extrovert, full of clever pop allusions and fortune cookie aphorisms. And from the first few episodes of Season 1, such an observation may have some merit. Gags about differences in American and British words, phrases, and customs abound. And his relative ignorance about the game of football is a running joke. But by the end of the first season, and well into the second, we see that Ted is much more than clever one-liners and treacly adages.
Instead, he is a man of both profound moral awareness and deep, painful secrets. In the penultimate episode of Season 1, Ted learns that he has been the victim of a cruel joke, which has involved a series of betrayals by someone he trusts and loves, perpetrated for the purpose of injuring a third person. His betrayer reveals the duplicitous scheme to Ted, expecting him to respond with anger and bitterness, and to seek retribution. And Ted is both surprised and deeply hurt by the revelation. But rather to express hostility, Ted responds instead with understanding and forgiveness. And this act begins a process of transformation in him, his betrayer and other major characters into and through Season 2.
Ted’s act of forgiveness lays the foundation for a journey of introspection and self-honesty, in himself and other characters in the show, that drives the “darker” themes of Season 2. Through the addition of a team psychologist, Ted and others are forced to confront demons of loneliness, alienation, fear, and spiritual harm, all of which contribute to various levels of moral isolation and charades of invulnerability.
Through both the contemporary narratives and backstories, Season 2 does indeed take us to dark places, in Ted and other characters. But the journey through pain, loneliness and isolation is the necessary route by which the characters cut through the thickets of self-deception. In doing so, they learn to be truthful about the frailty of their lives, not for maudlin self-pity, but rather to seek redemption than can only come through a thorough examination of conscious and sincere confession. Most importantly, Ted’s example demonstrates that the greater moral obligation is not on the offender to seek forgiveness, but rather on the offended to grant it. Redemption is not complete when I have been forgiven my trespasses, but only when I have forgiven the trespasses of the other.
The journey through pain, loneliness and isolation is the necessary route by which the characters cut through the thickets of self-deception
Ted Lasso also begins to teach us about the transformative grace that attends those who acknowledge their dependence on others. As Ted and other characters become more vulnerable and transparent, they become more likely to be healed of the past injuries that stunt their moral lives. And, of course, these stories are told through dialogue and sketches that are whimsical, charming and, at times, laugh-out-loud funny. This is what sets Ted Lasso apart from any TV series of which I am aware.
The last episode of Season 2 set up several story lines for Season 3. The most prominent of them is a variation on the theme that ended Season 1: Ted being betrayed by someone close to him, whom he trusted and loved. Ted learns about it and is willing to forgive. Rather than to seek Ted’s forgiveness, however, this person (to borrow Brendan Hunt’s allusion) fled to the dark side, where the shame and guilt will be festering into next season. Given the precedent, one is confident that Ted will find a way to reconcile this person in a way from which we all can learn. And we will laugh about it at the same time.
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