Schweedie

I'm encouraged by the fact that there are still two episodes left. Another show would've done that confession in the season finale, but this way they actually have some time to resolve things or at least clarify what Keeley's thinking. ETA - I did appreciate how Jamie said he didn't know where to start and that he was "a bit all over the place". That says to me he's been dealing with the aftermath of what happened with his dad himself, at least.

Maybe you're thinking of when Jamie said his parents split up when he was just a "sexy little baby", heh? I don't think Ted has ever said anything about his parents being divorced.

I especially liked Colin's look - he looked so dapper with a waistcoat and everything! Isaac's look was also very him.

Agreed - Jamie still having feelings for her makes total sense and I've kind of been expecting this. He's always had this look when he said hi to her, especially in the Christmas episode (and knowing how that was shot after the rest of the episodes, that has to be intentional), and no doubt she's the nicest person he's ever been with. But goddammit, I don't want a love triangle here. Keeley and Roy are so good together. Although... In the episode with the double date when Roy says to Rebecca that she deserves someone who makes her feel like she's been struck by lightning, Keeley has this look on her face. Now I'm wondering if that's her realising that that's how Roy feels about her, but it might not be how she feels about him. Ugh. Loved Isaac setting the dress code for the team. Loved Dani's hatred of dress shoes, Jamie holding him up and telling him "We'll sit down in a minute, mate". Loved Keeley and Sassy being overjoyed to see one another again, loved Rebecca apologising to Nora for having a thing with Sam and Nora just thinking it was awesome. Loved Never Gonna Give You Up. Loved Ted and Sharon. It's driving me nuts, honestly. It HAS to be intentional. I wonder if Rupert is going to purchase a new club and bring Nate with him there. Him just releasing his/Bex's shares to Rebecca like means something's afoot. This was a good episode, but... It also illustrates one of my issues with this season, and that's that it doesn't really build on the previous one (referring to ep 8, not the standalone 9) other than Ted talking to Sharon here. No mention of football or the promotion battle they must be involved in, not a single reference to what happened in the locker room after the semi final. I mean, that was heavy stuff. Instead we just moved to a completely different mini arc. Even Sam/Rebecca is immediately over, at least for now.

Yeah. I love Hannah, but between the two I would've liked Supporting to go to Juno. Phil Dunster's reaction to Brett winning was freaking adorable. He was standing in for all of us.

I've been rewatching season 1 this week, and there was one line that I'd completely forgotten about that cracked me up - when Jamie wanted to talk to Keeley and she wouldn't let him come inside her house because of how they had so much sex there, and she'd had three glasses of wine and it was Pavlovian. Jamie: "Pavlovian? What is that, is that the wine?" Something about his delivery kills me there. Also, in the same episode Higgins says to Rebecca that a bunch of unemployed gaffers have been calling to ask if there's about to be an opening: "Tony Pulis, Alan Curbishley. Harry Redknapp called three times." At least Pulis and Redknapp are part of a subset of managers that often take over teams threatened with relegation a like halfway through the season (and they often don't last all that long in their jobs either). It's a joke that's basically only funny if you actually follow English football, but I laughed SO hard.

Yeah, I agree. 5-0 sucks, but it's not like it's an outrageous score or anything, not against a team like Manchester City. (The Premier League has just started and they've already beaten both Norwich and Arsenal five-nil.) But I guess maybe it was the manner of the drubbing, that they played so incredibly bad? If it really was "the only way to watch it is at ten times the speed with the Benny Hill theme playing over it" bad, then I get it. But this reminds me of something - looking at the board back there with their standings, Richmond have been on one hell of a run in the league since the Christmas episode (where they had 4 wins, 4 losses and 14 draws)! If they've played 43 matches that means there are three matches left, and with 79 points they *should* be right up there in contention for either straight promotion back up to the Premier League, or at the very least a play-off spot for it. I really, really wish there had been more football this season where we could have seen this happen, but I'm guessing/hoping this means we'll see more of it as the season comes to an end. I swear, if they break my heart by having them miss out on promotion... Heh. [Steve Rogers I-understood-that-reference gif]

I know this was the other stand-alone episode shot because they had an extra two eps ordered, and I can appreciate it for what it is because there was quite a lot of good stuff - but I don't know that it was a good idea to put it right after the last one where the stakes were so high. A breather episode like this would've worked better if this were a show where all the episodes were streaming at once so that you could get the next one right after it, I think. Having to wait another week for the plot to move forward after such an intense time last week is kinda frustrating and breaks momentum. Did love Gary Lineker and Thierry Henry running commentary on Beard throughout the night, heh.

Hey, I love Jamie and his headband, but every time I hear him say "I am an oog-leh, oog-leh boy" in my head I start giggling. 😆 Man, do I love a Manchester accent.

If Jamie gets a thread it's gotta be "Ugly, ugly boy with bad hair", heh.

Fun! Maybe there could be a football (or if you Americans would prefer, soccer) thread for people to discuss the footballing aspects of the show and where people wondering about rules or similar could ask questions, etc? Something like "The beautiful game: not all pitches are the same size".

"Pigeon sweat" is my personal favourite. :D

Given that he also wrote The Signal episode, I'm excited! Yeah, that's the thing that's bothering me about Rebecca this season. I get that her finding love/appreciation is a storyline that's relevant after what she went through with Rupert, but... I want to see more of the powerful businesswoman Rebecca.

Y'know, I could absolutely imagine teenage Ted being a pretty regular teenager with an attitude, who changed after his father's death, maybe due to guilt about something that happened between them. The amount of times I've rewatched the whole locker room scene is frankly embarrassing at this point. It's amazing what Phil Dunster does with only two quiet, short lines throughout. All the acting is in his face and the way he holds his body. The sheer terror on his face when his dad starts to get back up after the punch. Also I really want to give props to the actor playing Jamie's dad. His performance in that scene makes my skin crawl.

I've been wondering what the connection between Jamie/his dad and Ted's own emotional issues is, too. From what Ted has said his dad wasn't abusive; Jamie asked him something along those lines in episode two and he said no, his dad was a lot harder on himself than on Ted. But there's still something there. Right before his panic attack during the Tottenham match he was hearing that echo of Jamie's dad yelling at him. Maybe it goes further back, like, his grandfather was hard like that on his dad?

Fun fact: the ref was Mike Dean, an actual Premier League referee. He's well known for handing out a lot of yellow cards, heh.

The acting in that scene was so bloody great all around. The way Jamie was completely frozen after the punch, like, his right hand was still clenched in a fist when he started to return the hug. His flinching when Roy first came up to him. Everyone else, the way they didn't know what to do or where to look - Dani and Colin especially looked so uncomfortable when Jamie started crying. Roy's hand on Jamie's back opening from a fist to a palm. And I don't know if it's wishful thinking on my part, but I thought Nate looked quite affected. Like he was maybe realising other people are also products of shitty dads, but Jamie stood up to his and is clearly trying to break free from his influence. I'm hoping it could lead to him looking closer at himself and his relationship with his own dad, and what kind of effect that's had on him. Yes! I thought that, too - like, his dad stuck his tongue out the same way Jamie did when he finally got to be a prick on the pitch again. Love those little details. I thought for sure Higgins' confession before the match was about to be that he actually wasn't okay with being shunted around and really wanted a proper office where he could do his work. But no, he just apologises for messing up a transfer. Bless him. I thought she did, too, but I can't really see Roy even being tempted. He's way too committed to Keeley.

Oh my heart, I loved this episode so much! Perfect mix of giggles and emotion, and that hair-cutting scene was pure joy. Jan Maas not getting it cracked me up - it reminded me of Ben on Parks and Recreation not getting Li'l Sebastian. Loved seeing more of Sharon and her and Ted opening up to one another. And man, I'm impressed by how much they've managed to make me love Jamie after his early dickishness. His dad explains so much about him. When he was listening to Sam talk to his dad on the phone I thought for sure he was going to backslide out of envy/resentment over other people having actual good relationships with their dads and take that out on someone, probably Sam, but nope. He really has grown. The way Beard left has me nervous. Like, I *know* this is a comedy, but the dark forest thing and Empire Strikes Back comparison keeps making me expect something really bad to happen to someone.

Yeah, I said it earlier and I'll say it again - the actor has aged a lot in between seasons. Last season I absolutely thought Nate could've been in his mid- to late 20s (I've never seen Nick Mohammad in anything so knew nothing about him or how old he is), but this season he looks much closer to the actor's age, and that makes this storyline more uncomfortable to watch. Nate's definitely not irredeemable to me yet, but he needs to sort this out, preferably with the doctor.

Well, that wasn't very funny. The dark forest period is well and truly underway, it seems. I hate not liking Nate - he seemed so genuinely gentle and kind in the first season, but I guess all he needed was a self esteem boost for his uglier side to come out. He got confident enough to start bashing the people considered 'above' him and when Beard took him down a notch he just went back to taking everything out on the one person he considers below him. He needs some time with doctor Sharon to work out his issues as badly as Ted does, and I hope he gets it before the season is over. And I hope he gets it before he ends up causing some real, lasting hurt - I know this show is a heartwarming comedy, but I too was worried Colin would end up doing something bad. Now I'm worried about Will. I did love Jamie unwittingly making Roy realise what he'd been doing to mess up Keeley. He was so confused.

About the panic attacks, I'm not sure Ted had even had a full-blown one before the one we saw in the first season - he seemed completely taken aback by what was happening and it was Rebecca who told him he was having a panic attack. He may have had anxiety tendencies before, with his hands tingling etc, but if that was the first 'real' one he had it makes sense to me that Beard wouldn't know about it.

Oh my gosh, I'd completely forgotten about that! Good catch. I did wonder why they spent so long showing him laughing. Yeah, I've been wondering this, too. I feel like the actor has aged quite a bit looks-wise (sort of looking a little grey around his temples) since season one, when I thought he came off as much younger. I actually never got the impression Roy was executing some kind of strategy when it came to Jamie, I think he genuinely didn't want to coach him. I mean, I love him, but the man can hold on tight to a grudge. Jamie straight out asked for advice out on the pitch and Roy just turned his back and ignored him, and Jamie's frustration when he asked the others to tell Roy to start coaching him indicates to me it wasn't the first time. I think Roy really was just being a brat here - if Ted hadn't stepped in when he did it looked to me like it would've just ended up being another Roy/Jamie bust up like in the old days.

Yeah, agreed - the doc might suspect Ted has issues he needs to talk through with her, but she has no idea he's suffered panic attacks before and no reason to assume that was what was happening here.

A thing I'm thinking about - when Ted started having his panic attack, the things he was hearing was Jamie's dad was shouting at him after that match last season ("You're better than that, Jamie!") and then his son saying "Jamie Tartt?" in awe. I wonder how those two situations are connected. Was the panic attack a reaction to Ted realising that Jamie WAS better before he "fucked him up", making him question his ability to coach the team? Or does Jamie himself trigger something in Ted with his father issues? And on a completely different note, on rewatch I noticed the other app Rebecca's using where she's talking to Hunky Luca is called 2MSCNT, which, bahahaha.

Man, this episode had everything I love about the show! Football, hilarity, friendship, emotional issues. Loved the confrontation between Roy and Jamie, with a side of Ted. Jamie was completely right that Roy needed to get over his childish grudge and coach him, and I was frustrated with the group that they just brushed it off when he first asked for help about it. He may still be a bit of a selfish prick at heart, but he's trying. And if he can turn the prickishness on and off at the right moments during the matches they could be unstoppable, heh. Also loved that Roy didn't for a moment take the credit from Rebecca for that win, telling her right away that it was Nate. But I really hope Nate doesn't let it go to his head - we saw during training that he needs to work on being constructive. Just shouting "dolt" at Colin was completely unhelpful, especially compared to Roy then telling them where they went wrong. (Also, Colin is one of my favourites.) Sam being the mystery man makes sense, but man, that's gonna get messy. And finally some character development for Ted! I've been waiting for him to realise he really does need to talk to doctor Sharon.