Schweedie

I will be completely fine suspending disbelief if they win it - I saw Leicester do it in 2016 (after finishing 14th the year before and being promoted for the first time since 2004 the year before that, and it's now looking like they're getting relegated again) when everyone was saying the whole season their form wouldn't last, they wouldn't last all the way. But they did, with a lead striker who wasn't even playing League football two years before he came to Leicester, and it was amazing. Richmond's story has been modelled on them since season one, I'm sure. Or I hope, because I really really do want them to win the whole thing. I felt the same way, I found it so sweet. I was surprised that some found it weird! She definitely looked like she had him young. Kieran O'Brien cleans up nice. I don't particularly want Jamie and his dad to reconcile, but I appreciate getting to see what James might've been like when things were good, why Georgie might've been with him in the first place.

I mean, yes, in that situation, why wouldn't they? Higgins was off doing his own thing. Ted was lonely and bored and he assumed Rebecca would be alone, too, and was talking to his friend. Maybe twelve is a lot, but it's not weird to me because in texts and, like, Whatsapp, I tend to write that way as well - many short messages after one another. I think this might just be a case of how romantics vs non-romantics see things, heh. Plenty of people are saying Jamie and Roy are clearly in love, too, and I'm over here like, what? On this, we can agree! I really hope she gets a happy ending, or an ending that clearly sets her on a journey to that.

I'll give you the Bantr texting, but I never saw that as baiting, just a regular misdirect that shows like to do. And it never even occurred to me to think it would be Rebecca outside Ted's room instead of Sassy. I don't remember, how did they make it look like it might be? I don't think the show *means* it as baiting, since I don't think everything has to mean something. No, they didn't need to show Ted carrying the matchbook, but since the matchbook isn't considered special to him, there's no reason why him having it necessarily means something, you know? That moment certainly didn't make me think it had anything to do with Rebecca - it's possible the writers didn't even realise people would read it otherwise and just threw it in as a prop, something we would recognise. I could be completely wrong, and there might be a big reveal in the last episode, but what others have seen as baiting and signs I would find far fetched in retrospect. But I also tend to hate romantic comedies (including both You've Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle), so I might not be the best judge romance on the screen, heh.

Ted also said in the first episode that he would bring her biscuits every day since she loved them so much, and Ted both keeps his promises and enjoys making people happy. I honestly don't think it goes deeper than that. It's funny - none of the things people see as "hints towards Tedbecca" have ever struck me as such. (And I don't mean that in a patronising way or anything, it's just funny how people read things so differently!) The unanswered text and un-haha'd gifs? Friendly. The toy soldier is a sentimental keepsake, as is the matchbook, and they were kept together. Ted having the green matchbook in his pocket doesn't have to mean anything - he wasn't the one who got the prediction from the psychic, to him it's just a matchbook, but one he got from one of his players and so of course he's going to keep it around. To me, if they suddenly get together in the last episode, *that* will be the misstep. I saw more romantic/sexual chemistry between Rebecca and Dutch guy than I have with Ted over the whole three seasons.

Many thoughts, but -- Roy and Keeley are just friends, and in Jamie's room Keeley looked like she was about to tell Roy she didn't want to get back together? After Roy came down Keeley's stairs last episode while putting her robe on and everything about that scene implied they WERE back together? What the heck is this writing? And why do the players want Nate back? They were furious when they found out he tore down their sign to the point where they took it out on the entire West Ham team, and now they suddenly want him to come back? This is another discussion I feel like we should've *seen*, not just been told about. Jamie remains the best thing about this season. I'm not sure I love Ted's advice to forgive his dad. I get the idea of not doing it for them but doing it for yourself, but there's a difference between forgiving someone and letting go of the pain they caused. It was nice to see that Jamie's dad was in rehab, but Jamie reaching out to him, probably on the back of what Ted said... I don't know how I feel about that. On the other hand, I loved his mum - she wasn't what I was expecting, but she was brilliant and the way she assured Jamie his hair looked dead natural and they'd done a lovely job with it cracked me up. And I loved that Jamie had zero problems with cuddling up to her with Roy and Keeley right there. Fun to have Pep make a guest appearance.

And she wasn't at all I would've expected, for some reason, but she was amazing. Yay! I've never believed Ted and Rebecca would end up together. I know a lot of people have believed and wanted that, but I've honestly never really understood why - I've never seen anything but strong friendship there. Who knows, maybe the finale will prove me wrong and Ted's truth bomb will actually be about Rebecca instead of going back to Kansas, but I don't *think* so. My theory is that we'll see Hot Dutch Guy in the finale. God, I hope they win the whole fucking thing. My real team were disappointing and largely rubbish this season, I'd like to get to celebrate a fictional team winning, at least.

I just hope we get to meet Jamie's mum, too.

I said before that I loved Dark Dani and I stand by that, but it actually would've been even funnier to me if the flight attendant and return to Golden Retriever Dani had happened, only for him to go from smiling back to stone-faced the second the flight attendant turned away after he cleaned up the mess. (But yeah, like debraran said above, most of the mess ended up in Van Damme's hand.)

I got the sense that playing in Toronto was exactly what they were doing - the commentators said something about "When Mexico comes to our yard". Friendlies between countries are usually played in one of the two, and in Canada Toronto is the obvious pick. (But yeah, they would definitely have been flying business or first class, that stuck out to me, too.)

I loved that moment so much. Roy actually looked proud (for Roy) when he gave Jamie that little punch on the arm. Agreed. Someone so sensitive to criticism won't really do well in a job where he's constantly being judged and every misstep causes a storm that he can follow live on Twitter. Unless he works through that he should really step out of the limelight. Seriously, it's mad. It's not even like Sam turning down his offer embarrassed him publicly or anything like that, the offer itself was all hush-hush and no one even knew about it. So he's doing all of this just because he was *personally* offended - by a very polite and humble "thank you, but no", at that. And it annoys me that it's something I don't really see being resolved this season, which is probably the last, unless Akufo suddenly loses all his money and sway. I want to Sam to achieve his dream to play for Nigeria.

Bahahaha, yes!

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this happened in, like, a quick moment in the last episode, and I would not mind it one bit. (My favourite way would be for Roy watching Phoebe because her mum has a date, and when she's dropping Phoebe off Jamie shows up, all casual with "Ready to go?") I really don't want Nate back at Richmond, and I hope they're not going there. Maybe he can start busking with his violin. Or go with Jade to Poland, if she's planning to go back there after she's done with her studies, and start from the "bottom" coaching a team there.

To be fair to Higgins, I don't think I ever saw him be gleeful about it. He does that gagging noise every time he feels particularly bad about something, and we heard that quite a lot (it's always been up there with my favourite character details). But he was cowardly, for sure. I agree with those upthread that Nate owes Will more than this as an apology, and I'd hope he tells him that if they meet again, but I also still think that what he did do was a nice gesture. Not sticking around hoping to be forgiven, just doing something nice, and showing with the lavender branch that he remembers specific instances when he was mean to Will. (I still don't think his redemption is earned, and is being rushed with two episodes to go. They've spent way too much time on him just being sort of stagnant.)

It actually is called that and has been for as long as I can remember, honestly, and I've followed football for almost 20 years now. I guess the allure of alliteration comes before linguistic accuracy, heh!

He did in the funeral episode last season. Yeah, she said in the season one finale that she "forgot how stressful it is when you actually give a shit". So it's entirely possible that she cared very much cared at one point, before Rupert soured her relationship to the club and getting revenge on him became all that mattered.

The return of Laughing Liam! That cracked me up so much. Nice callback to Nate's "roast" in season one ("Don't read it, say it to my face") when Roy stopped reading from his letter and saying what he wanted to say directly to Keeley instead. I'm so glad they're back together, but I'm still so annoyed we had nine episodes of them barely interacting at all to get here. It does make sense story-wise to me to have Roy break up with her for the reasons he did, because he is the way he is, but what they then did with Keeley during all that time apart just ruined it. What a waste of time everything around KJPR has been. Except for Barbara. I love Barbara. And I love that she likes clothes that "tell the truth". Great to see Phoebe again! I've missed her. And yes, Roy, Jamie is your best friend. You may as well own it. Loved how he insisted it wasn't true but then was insulted when Jamie said his best friend was Isaac. (Which was a surprising pick to me, actually - I would've thought Dani, possibly Colin.) And the doctor from Sharon's accident WAS Roy's sister as has been speculated, that was nice. It's good casting, I can see it. I loved that playing for Mexico brings out Dani's dark side. Rani Dojas, if you will. I don't even know why him being like that makes total sense to me, but it just does. The whole Super League thing was actually a real thing that was in the works a while back - a bunch of top European clubs, six of them English, announced that they'd be forming their own super amazing league. It didn't go down well among players, coaches, or fans, and the backlash made most of the founding clubs withdraw almost immediately, so the whole thing fell through. Thank god.

Sometimes during the season countries play qualification matches for the World- or European cup, but I got the sense that these were just what's called 'friendlies'. It's a way for the manager of the national teams to test players and see who's going to make the squad for the qualifiers or whichever international cup is coming up, to see how some players can fit into the team, test tactics, etc. Friendlies aren't technically important, but for many players representing their country is their main goal, so being selected is considered a big thing. Some countries like Switzerland or Wales or Canada may not have that many players playing on the highest level, so considering our boys are in the Premier League and doing really well it makes sense that Colin, Van Damme and Bumbercatch (whose first name is Moe, @kwnyc 😄 ) would make the cut. (Eta -- for some reason love the revelation that Bumbercatch is apparently a Swiss national. Sometimes a player has the option to choose which national team they want to play for - Bumbercatch may have been born in Switzerland and moved to England early on given that he sounds London born, or has a Swiss parent.) England are pretty stocked, obviously, so Jamie being selected for the first time definitely shows how well he's done this season.

I'm really, really hoping for this. Nate could go to Bex, help her get evidence of Rupert cheating to use in a divorce, and Bex then walking away with money and West Ham. (This still wouldn't be any kind of redemption for shit Nate pulled at Richmond, but I'd love that for Bex, and for Rupert.)

Re: the bolded, I kind of thought it made sense. Partly because Colin's already out to the audience - we don't need to actually hear him say it, the important part of the story was how the team reacted after he did. But mostly I thought it made sense because of what Colin said to Trent in the Amsterdam episode - he doesn't want to be a spokesperson. I feel like letting him tell the team off-screen was a nod to that. I thought Ted's story was a bit unnecessarily long, but yeah, I also really appreciate him emphasising how they don't *not* care. "We don't care" is what homophobic people would say before adding "but we don't need it shoved in our face" when Colin finally does kiss his fella in front of everyone after a win (which I really, really hope he gets to do before the show ends).

Oh, I also loved how the pub lads were pretty casual about the guy in the stands only "probably" deserving it, until May said he was a dick to her niece once. Not Claire!

The bolded: hard agree, haha! The rest, same. Do not care. Much, much better than last week. Was Isaac wrong to give Colin the cold shoulder for not having told him, yes, but I'm at least glad that was the reason and not the more depressing option. Billy Harris and Kola Bokinni were both brilliant throughout the whole episode. Keeley text-bombing Jack like that annoyed the heck out of me, though. Keeley Jones, the Independent Woman, should've (and would've, before this season) said "Don't let the door hit you on the way out" last week and never looked back. I really liked Rebecca telling Roy off - he needed to hear it, and he needed to hear it straight like that, on the nose or not. "You'd rather eat a bowl of shit soup and then complain about the portions" is dead on for Roy. I feel like he really is taking some steps towards acknowledging his issues and how he uses anger to deal with them - admitting to Jamie in Amsterdam that he was taking his negative emotions out on him and apologising for being dick, saying to Isaac how he recognised that Isaac was angry about something else, and then the press conference. (And yeah, the press conference story was very much Ted influenced, which I love, but it still felt like a Roy story to me.) Baby steps, tiny and wobbly, but still steps. Sam and Jamie teasing each other makes me so happy. They've come so far.

Yeah, in season one Keeley said she was sort of famous for being almost famous, but the Vanity Fair thing I think points to that she's at least somewhat of a legit big-ish name. But this? YES. This would've been SUCH a better and more interesting storyline. I agree with @Uncle JUICE above that much the writing in this episode felt off to me and a bit like a PSA - I don't think there's an issue with them wanting to do a storyline about a hack like this, but the way the wrote the events and the dialogue... Nah. Keeley and Rebecca's exchange with the "I'm not an idiot, I know there are tons of topless pictures of me online, but those were *my* choice." "Absolutely! It makes a huge difference!" - it's not that I disagree with the sentiment, but something about the actual dialogue just rang so false to me.

This, so much. He's still very much Jamie, just a Jamie that he probably never was really allowed (by his dad or by himself) to be until now. I thought for sure he'd get a nomination last season, was really disappointed when he didn't. I feel a bit like the writers are maybe actively giving him some extra great stuff this season in order for him to be noticed, and I really, really hope it works because he's just brilliant.

Every week I get excited when I see the running time of the episode, and almost every week I'm disappointed that most of that time is spent on things I don't care about. I don't need to see Nate worrying about brushing his teeth before Jade wakes up when we apparently could've seen Richmond beating Everton for only the second time in sixty years and having another wild night out in Liverpool that Jamie gets to be part of this time. I love this show so much, but I'm starting to really worry that they won't stick the landing. I'm gonna need for the last four episodes to be *really* good.

Ooh, that would definitely be better.