S03.E11: Mom City

[DearEvette]

10 hours ago, Jeddah said:

Maybe Colin never specifically apologized, but he was trying to make sure things were right between them. And Nate just went for the jugular.

Colin and Isaac didn't do a direct apology but they did have one of those guy-type non-apology 'we all good' moments with Nate at the charity event in S1.

14 hours ago, Lady Calypso said:

As much as Nate's journey may not have been as well done as it should have been (thanks to the show wasting time on characters like Jack and even Zava), I don't see why the team can't give Nate that chance. They gave it to Jamie, so I'm fine with them giving it to Nate. 

Yeah, this is the crux of it for me.  Nate's journey back to Richmond is simply not well done, imo.  It is taking too many shortcuts.  At least we saw the team not happy about Jamie's return, especially Sam who was also a victim of Jamie's bullying.  And then we got to see the Diamond Dogs discuss the pros and cons of Jamie's return and vote on whether or not he should return.  We saw the struggle everyone had.

Also regards Jamie, it is human nature to want to root for the underdog.  It is one reason Nate going from kit man to coach in S1 was so satisfying.  It is the same with Jamie at the start of S2.  He was at his rock bottom.  He was poison, no one wanted him.  He was humbled and knew it. As a viewer I felt bad for him. 

One of the reasons I think it is such a struggle with the Nate story is they just aren't doing it that well.  It feels like a fait accompli almost.  Also Nate isn't an underdog, not really, so it is harder to root for him to rise again per se.  He was a coach in a premier league team.  He has a girlfriend who understands him and the respect of the public he so richly craved. He wasn't fired, humiliated or rejected.  So I struggle to understand what I am supposed to root for him for?

[Lady Calypso]

26 minutes ago, DearEvette said:

One of the reasons I think it is such a struggle with the Nate story is they just aren't doing it that well.  It feels like a fait accompli almost.  Also Nate isn't an underdog, not really, so it is harder to root for him to rise again per se.  He was a coach in a premier league team.  He has a girlfriend who understands him and the respect of the public he so richly craved. He wasn't fired, humiliated or rejected.  So I struggle to understand what I am supposed to root for him for?

 My main issue is how detached Nate has been from the rest of the cast for most of this season. I really think it would have helped if we:

1. Got rid of a couple of those subplots that wasted time (Jack, Shandy, I would have even cut Zava's storyline by a bit);

2. Added MORE to Nate's plot in the first half of season 3. Show more of his family, show him running into the Richmond players, etc. I think we really needed to see him struggling with his guilt and remorse past that one episode where Ted ran into Nate.

I think the second half of season 3 has been strong for Nate, but the first half, he was barely in for several episodes, and his reconciliation with his father didn't quite work because we saw so little of him this season.

I do root for Nate, to an extent. I just think the show made some initial missteps that has made his redemption look rushed. 

[Baltimore Betty]

1 hour ago, Uncle JUICE said:

Why exactly did Ted's mom go to England unannounced and sit on a park bench outside his apartment rather than call like a normal person? She's coming from KC, not from Leicester, it's a rather involved trip to "wing it", and what was her plan if Ted didn't come out that day for some reason?

That whole set up bothered me too, did she even say what she had done for the past week before she saw Ted? I was wondering if this was her first time out of the US and she goes solo and takes a chance on seeing Ted while she sits on a park bench when she has no idea the route he takes to work?

 

1 hour ago, Uncle JUICE said:

Beard's backstory: doesn't that make his two episodes out on the town, one we saw, the other we only see the aftermath of in Holland, PROBLEMATIC? He was drinking Auyuhuasca or however you spell it with Ted, wouldn't that be a high risk for backsliding

Exactly, Beard by definition of his actions is not sober.  Also, he says he is so in love with whatshername but we have not seen her in a season and a half but now we see a lot of Nate and Jade.

I cannot comment on the soccer stuff, I do not understand the league system and scoring (and frankly I cannot stand the noise of the crowd when my husband watches soccer on TV but that might just be my issue), but I am sure you are spot on about everything.

Are we supposed to believe that Mr. Nice Guy Dani is bipolar now? What the heck are we supposed to think about his extreme personality change?  

56 minutes ago, Uncle JUICE said:

Mama Tartt was a very, very weird sequence. NO ONE says anything about it though, they never comment on it. Not even silently, or afterward to each other, one of them could have been like "HEy, was it weird the way she was like caressing him? That wasn't just me, right?"

Yes it was odd, I half expected Mother Jamie to breast feed him as some strange calming thing she would do for him even as a teen...I know I am weird for typing that but I am guessing someone else might have been thinking that too.

[Trillium]

To be fair, Beard said he sold meth, not that he was addicted to it. 
 

There are people who put natural psychedelics into a different category than hard drugs. Not saying that is the right way to look at it, or that if he was a real person that it wouldn’t be problematic for a former meth user to use. But I’m ok with the narrative that he was messed the fuck up, Ted helped him turn it around and he’s in a place where mushroom tea can be a part of his life.

Edited May 30, 2023 by Trillium

[Uncle JUICE]

51 minutes ago, Trillium said:

To be fair, Beard said he sold meth, not that he was addicted to it. 
 

I am pretty sure he said he STOLE it, not sold it, unless I missed something. Totally possible because I have no idea what scene anyone's talking about with someone named Bex, I feel like I got hit on the head for having missed it. 

[Capricasix]

He definitely said “I stole a loaf of meth”. And the scene with Bex was near the end, when Rebecca opened her front door and greeted a woman standing on the step - that was Bex, Rupert’s wife.

[Uncle JUICE]

2 hours ago, Baltimore Betty said:

Exactly, Beard by definition of his actions is not sober.  Also, he says he is so in love with whatshername but we have not seen her in a season and a half but now we see a lot of Nate and Jade.

 

COme to think of it, doesn't his past now make his relationship with the woman whose name I don't remember, like the manic nature of it, less cutesie and more a dark symptom of a person who might need someone to help keep an eye on him? God, why pick the easiest answer with he's a recovering addict who clearly drinks and also uses drugs recreationally? Isn't that now sort of a yellow flag? Their relationship is never depicted as typical, but in this light it becomes something else entirely. Bad job Ted Lasso. I don't even mind if you make Beard an ex convict, that's fine, but something less nefarious than former crank addict would have been easier to execute and likely wouldn't have undermined the character. I'd have liked to know, for example, why Beard seems to know so much about soccer, as it cannot be what bonded Ted and Beard initially: Ted didn't know shit about soccer when he came to Richmond. Why does Beard appear to be positioned as someone who was very valuable to Ted's career as a soccer coach, not a football coach?  

[Crs97]

I got the feeling that Beard is someone who studies everything about a subject.  We saw him reading a soccer book on the plane there.  I figured he went all in on learning everything he could about the sport once they decided to come over.  I don’t know enough about soccer to know if it is possible to be as good at it as he is, but I guess I am hand waving.

Y'all have great points about his drinking/psychedelic drugs now being a huge flag rather than the quirky I think they were going for.  Writers too enamored with the “loaf of meth” line to think things through.

[Ilovepie]

On 5/26/2023 at 2:11 PM, tennisgurl said:

I also don't really buy that the whole team wants Nate back when not so long ago they were all so furious with him that they blew a game by beating the shit out of Nate's new team. I really needed to see a few scenes where Nate apologizes to the team or at least where they all talk about whether or not they want to invite Nate back, it seems like we missed an episode or two. 

I wish we had spent time on really working on Nate's issues instead of wasting endless time on Keeley's company and her boring relationship with Jack. 

THIS! I get Ted forgiving Nate, but the team? No way. The horror over the poster and the aftermath of finding out what he did just makes that scene so false!

And I hated the whole Keeley story line. I would have preferred for Rebecca to have funded the company from the get go, Roy and Keeley never broken up and no Jack at all. Keeley was so cool and strong the first two seasons and she was so weak and dumb this season, almost childish in some ways - what a horrible reversal for all she represented in season 1 & 2.

[Athena]

2 hours ago, Baltimore Betty said:

That whole set up bothered me too, did she even say what she had done for the past week before she saw Ted? I was wondering if this was her first time out of the US and she goes solo and takes a chance on seeing Ted while she sits on a park bench when she has no idea the route he takes to work?

Dottie said she was at a hostel hanging out with a bunch of Australians. The whole thing was strange but it's obvious that the Lassos are not good at communicating directly with each other. Instead of telling her son she was coming, she decides to delay it even when she gets there and presumably stalks him a little without having tell him he's there. No wonder Ted is frustrated with her. This was probably his whole adolescence where she is wholesome, charismatic mom but doesn't get to the point with her own son.

2 hours ago, Trillium said:

To be fair, Beard said he sold meth, not that he was addicted to it. 
 

There are people who put natural psychedelics into a different category than hard drugs. Not saying that is the right way to look at it, or that if he was a real person that it wouldn’t be problematic for a former meth user to use. But I’m ok with the narrative that he was messed the fuck up, Ted helped him turn it around and he’s in a place where mushroom tea can be a part of his life.

He did steal the meth but it does not mean he was addicted or using it either. I assumed he stole it to sell it but there could be other reasons. He could have stolen it to get out of debt with bad people. Now we're getting into Breaking Bad territory. I've also heard and read the same thing about psychedelics which is what Beard is into more than anything.

 

[DEL901]

With Dottie, I got the impression her week long tour of England ((besides being an excuse to drop by) was a way to put off what she knew she needed to do,…talk to Ted.  Also, she made sure things wouldn’t get drawn out by meeting him at the end of her trip.  

[Uncle JUICE]

31 minutes ago, Crs97 said:

I got the feeling that Beard is someone who studies everything about a subject.

I wanted to think this too...but then I remember that this over-obsessive sort of thirst for knowing everything you can about one thing, right away, out of the blue, that's ALSO a potential symptom of addictive personalities. So is that what it's meant to be, or is that an accident? And reading one soccer book doesn't really tell me this is who he is as a person, you know? You have to do a little more than that, I'm not really sure what his nuts-n-bolts role is. No one is ever shown strategizing anyway. 

To use a soccer term here, this Beard thing is a total own goal, could have been avoided rather easily. 

[Jeddah]

Just now, DEL901 said:

With Dottie, I got the impression her week long tour of England ((besides being an excuse to drop by) was a way to put off what she knew she needed to do,…talk to Ted.  Also, she made sure things wouldn’t get drawn out by meeting him at the end of her trip.  

I thought it was really passive aggressive to tell Ted the trip was a Mother’s Day present to herself. Ted would have gotten her the trip for Mother’s Day if he had known that’s what she wanted.

[Kel Varnsen]

8 hours ago, Jeddah said:

Ted would have gotten her the trip for Mother’s Day if he had known that’s what she wanted.

The show is kind of weird like that though. Ted is kind of presented as a regular middle class dude. But at the same time he is head coach of a team in a major pro sports league, so he is rich. I found a Sport Illustrated article that said even the lowest paid PL manager is making 1.5 million GBP per year.

[BUGGAL]

So when Jamie was dating Keeley, he was basically dating his mum?  They were very similar types.  

[ahisma]

I loved Mumm-eh Tartt and her sex-eh litt’l beh-beh! He was so down and just needed that unconditional love. All these hard men players are marshmallows inside.  (Loved the posters in his bedroom, too!) 

He was especially sex-eh in that orange kit for the game. Fantastic bum! I loved him getting his groove back, peacocking back onto the field, although it was completely ridiculous that Ted would play a man down while waiting to see whether Jamie could go out and make his injury worse right before their next big game. 

I can’t believe that no one on the team watched You’ve Got Mail and didn’t have a comment about neoliberal free-market capitalism destroying small businesses and local economies. Their locker room talk in general has that kind of left-wing tendency, plus both Sam and Keeley are small business owners who have been having their businesses threatened by billionaires. 

[dovegrey]

On 5/30/2023 at 10:22 PM, Kel Varnsen said:

The show is kind of weird like that though. Ted is kind of presented as a regular middle class dude. But at the same time he is head coach of a team in a major pro sports league, so he is rich. I found a Sport Illustrated article that said even the lowest paid PL manager is making 1.5 million GBP per year.

Heh. He’s rich (presumably) because he lives like a regular middle class dude from Kansas. Even if he took the job at the lowest possible pay, 1.5 million goes real fast when the earner sees it as unlimited spending money rather than investment money, especially in sports culture. I never thought it was a weird show thing for Ted to present as middle class; that’s how a lot of high income earners grow and maintain their wealth. I just always hoped Ted was savvy enough to have an investment advisor, rather than sticking all his earnings in a regular savings account or under his mattress or something. 😆 Roy is also loaded (unless he spent it all), but you’d never guess. 

[ahisma]

I just realized… the awful restaurant manager in Amsterdam was named Derek, as was Jade and Nate’s boss. Are all terrible restaurant managers Derek? Or just the ones in foreign-cuisine restaurants (American in Amsterdam, Greek in London)? 

When I worked in a restaurant in college (Mexican in the US), the owners used to skim cash payments off the income to dodge taxes and snort coke, so Derek of Taste of Athens was pretty familiar to me! Neither of them was a Derek, though.

[lucindabelle]

On 5/30/2023 at 8:15 PM, Whimsy said:

Original airdate 5/31. 
 

Series finale

 

On 5/28/2023 at 10:12 AM, paramitch said:

I thought this was the usual -- incredibly rough but with some sweet moments.

I still feel like this entire season feels like a rough draft of "Ted Lasso" shot out of a confetti cannon. It's not bad. It's just kind of a weird, choppy B- version of the usual "Ted Lasso."

While I liked that Will was present (after Nate's sweet apology), I thought it was unbelievable that the show handwaved that they all wanted Nate to come back. And as others have said -- would they really do this during a winning run? And that the entire team supported the act. No fricking way.

I did love Beard showing up at the 11th hour, but that entire story feels like we are missing hours and hours of relevant moments. And it's just not well-written. Why don't we get to hear some of Nate's letter? Why didn't we see the team discuss WHY TF they want to bring Nate back -- and THE VOTE? I mean, sheesh.

On our rom-com battles, I will always think You've Got Mail is a masterpiece while personally, I find Sleepless in Seattle creepy for glorifying Meg Ryan as the world's sweetest stalker and parasocial overstepper. What I like in YGM is that Hanks and Meg's characters are both equals -- they are businesspeople who connect personally even while they battle it out and one of them loses, but they still are able to see one another as people. And while I am not a fan of what BN or Amazon did to the little bookshops of America, I do believe it's possible for someone like Hanks's character to be a decent guy. And for me the big emotional wallop of the film (beyond the closing scene) is the visible pain that strikes Hanks in the coffee shop when he tears up and quietly tells her, "That's my cue," after she decimates him personally for his business.

As far as Ted's confrontation with his Mom, this was probably my biggest problem with the episode. There is no way on God's green earth I will ever believe that Ted would say "Fuck you" to his mother. Ever. Much less repeatedly.  It is utterly unlike Ted. And what was with her being in London a WEEK without contacting him?! I mean, why is everything so WEIRD with people this season?!

I liked Keeley and Roy and Jamie until we realized Keeley and Roy were not back together (um, okay, show). The game was great. But I was unhappy that we repeatedly see Ted send Jamie -- visibly possibly very hurt and NOT MEDICALLY CHECKED OUT -- RIGHT BACK OUT TO PLAY. This is not the Ted we know. For Ted, a player's health would be more important. He would at least have looked very conflicted over it (see also a very similar but much better done scene in the movie Hoosiers -- and Hackman as the coach makes the right choice and pulls the player).

As always this season, I didn't hate it. I just wish I'd loved it, and instead I am so damn frustrated. What a terribly, sloppy season.

I admit to really disliking Sleepless -- it's an incredibly creepy story at heart, and the only things I like about it are the friendship between Meg and Rosie (Editor), even if the editor is enabling her being a stalker, and I do love every scene between Hanks and his friends and his little boy. The scene where he and Victor Garber cry over The Guns of Navarone (I think that's it?!) is fantastic.

This is me, every single thing you mention. The show keeps skipping past the most important scenes -- or fast-tracking them like "oh they don't need to see how we got there," and --yeah, we really do need to see that.

This season has been a C+/B- at best for me, and a huge drop from the first two seasons. Oh, well. It does make it easier for me to say goodbye to the show.

You mean the incredibly cruel and violent bullying we had just witnessed several times previously toward Nate in the first few episodes of Season 1 by multiple players, led by Jamie, and including Colin and Isaac? I mean, if we're going to talk viciousness, I would argue what they did to Nate was arguably worse than Nate's rudeness to Will (which was absolutely NOT OKAY either, in any way). For which Nate apologized and also made the gesture of doing all of his duties for the day and saying he was sorry, complete with note and a signature in humility.

I think it's worth noting that I don't think any of those players who were ganging up on Nate and bullying him as a group (of elite famous athletes, no less) ever apologized to him at all. Period. But they are forgiven. I just don't get it.

Nate told Trent about Ted's panic attack in cruel, childish impulse, and he deserves every bit of blowback and punishment he got. Ted deserves his apology deeply, and I am glad the show has tried (however badly) to show us that Nate almost instantly regretted it.

Anyway, I can finally shut up about Nate since we're near the end of the season. YMMV. :) 

One of the few things "Ted Lasso" did right this season for me was to almost immediately show the revelation that Nate was almost immediately deeply regretful and sorry for his behavior to Ted. I really liked that this wasn't artificially dragged out, and I do get what the show seemed to be trying to do by showing Nate healing simply by getting the validation and love he needed in healthier ways.

Anyway. I realize I'm not going to change anyone's mind here, but I still feel sorry for what Nate went through and understand how it affected his desperate need for Ted and the others to admire and accept him (based blatantly on his own sufferings at the team's bullying at then his lifetime of his father's).

I did get Beard's fierce anger at Nate as well as his lovely hug of forgiveness. An since I already got my one big wish of Nate apologizing to Will (and doing so in a lovely way), I really do hope we see Nate apologizing to Ted, and to the Team, in the finale.

All I've ever really wanted on the Nate/Ted storyline was for Nate to see and realize that Ted had always kept Nate's gift photo on his shelf next to the picture of his family. That Ted had cared deeply for Nate and forgiven him almost instantly.

Sorry my quoting skills aren’t so better.

just wanted to join you at your table for two.

Nick Mohammed SHOWED us on his face how tormented he was about what he’d done, all season long. To me that IS “showing not telling.”

it was obvious how sad and sorry he was. I didn’t need it to be spelled out.

simklarky I didn’t need it to be spelled out why he quit when he found out he quit. He’d been leaving behind the ugly wunderkind thing for weeks, he didn’t spit at himself when he just asked Jade out in a simple way. She restored his faith and it made him see things clearly.

rupert and rhe club was a wake up call as he not only didn’t want to cheat on Jade he really saw in that moment how Rupert was trying to manipulate him.

I was surprised Mae knows Philip Larkin’s poem by heart but on the other hand they are super literate in England or at least many people are and it does seem like people will sometimes surprise you that way.

[Danny Franks]

So now I know how people feel when their hometown is in a TV show but the geography is wrong.

Jamie said he's from a council estate in North Manchester (probably somewhere like Harpurhey or Collyhurst) but the show had him crossing the Hulme Arch Bridge, heading out of the city centre into Hulme or Moss Side, South Manchester. Well, maybe mum and stepdad moved to the other side of the city (though Hulme isn't any nicer than Collyhurst). I don't think the Hacienda Hotel exists, but it was a nice nod to Manchester's musical history.

It was fun to see Jamie being so vulnerable, and so down that he hasn't even been using conditioner!

His relationship with his "mummy" explains a lot. About his personality and about him being with Keeley, an older woman. It also drives home the fact that Jamie is still only about 24, and his mum was probably quite young when she had him. A fair bit younger than his dad.

Wasn't keen on Ted's mother suddenly showing up, and I wasn't feeling the actress either. She didn't seem naturally bubbly and light, which Jason Sudeikis does so effortlessly.

But I did appreciate Mae summing up the theme of the episode with a bit of Philip Larkin. Jamie being completely messed up emotionally because he feels like he still has to prove something to his deadbeat, abusive dad (also, I don't know that his mum calling him a "sexy, little baby" can help much), Ted not able to talk to his mother because they both do the exact same avoidance thing.

I really don't care about Roy and Keeley getting back together. Nor does the show, it seems, so that's fine. They're trying to play on the investment in a relationship we saw last season, and just giving it very cursory attention this. Just another storyline that seems to be happening mostly off-screen.

Honestly, one of the best performers this season is Jade. So frank and no bullshit, and genuinely invested in Nate. I just wish they gave her more to do that wasn't just propping up Nate's broken ego. The show does a great job of finding really charismatic actors for these smaller parts - Jade, Sam's chef, Rebecca's Dutch guy, Barbara, Phoebe's teacher. I guess Nate being able to watch and support Richmond again is the sign that his redemption is complete.

The show has mostly not fallen victim to the 'star player beats half the opposition team on his own' nonsense that most football movies do... then they had Jamie's ridiculous goal.

Of course fucking Guardiola gets a cameo where everyone gushes about him. He's so desperate to be adored and seen as a good guy, while coaching a team that has made an art of tactical fouling, while being a defender of despotic regimes and while (allegedly) accepting illegal, off the books payments from his bosses then trying to take the moral high ground when his club is charged with over 100 financial doping offences.

I guess him being painted as a wonderful chap, and the City fans getting to be magnanimous and decent was the price the show paid for using them as the villains.

Also, it's obviously my lack of interest in children factoring in here, but I really, really do not care about poor little angel, Henry Lasso.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Danny Franks

[norcalgal]

On 6/9/2023 at 1:46 PM, Danny Franks said:

The show does a great job of finding really charismatic actors for these smaller parts - Jade, Sam's chef, Rebecca's Dutch guy, Barbara, Phoebe's teacher.

Of course fucking Guardiola gets a cameo where everyone gushes about him. He's so desperate to be adored and seen as a good guy, while coaching a team that has made an art of tactical fouling, while being a defender of despotic regimes and while (allegedly) accepting illegal, off the books payments from his bosses then trying to take the moral high ground when his club is charged with over 100 financial doping offences.

She can be seen in the Netflix show Fate: The Wynx Saga.  Silly fantasy series involving a boarding school of fairies (yes, you read that correctly). It's based on a cartoon called Wynx Club.  

Re: Pep. So sad he fell in line with what the owners/club put out regarding the FFP violations. And instead of remaining neutral ("let's see what the investigation concludes")  Pep instead went attack dog mode on behalf of his owners. I truly hope each one of City's EPL winning seasons will have an asterisk - and I'm not even a United (read: rival) supporter!  

[blackwing]

On 5/23/2023 at 11:17 PM, HelloooKitty said:

If you had told me way back in season one episode two that I would be sobbing over Jamie Tartt and absolutely adore him at the end of it all, I’d never have believed you. He has grown the most of all the characters and has come so very far and I feel so proud of him even though he isn’t real!

I really hope Phil Dunster wins the Emmy this year, whenever they finally decide to hold them.  I felt bad for him when every single prominent male actor was nominated for an Emmy for the first season except for him.  Especially after seeing how happy he was for Brett Goldstein when Brett won.  

He has been an absolute gem playing Jamie Tartt this season.  

[Maurina]

On 5/28/2023 at 4:14 AM, Adgirl said:

Just because he's inept at cruelty doesn't mean he's owed forgiveness

Holy crap that is a very good line. Very very accurate.