The Ted Lasso Relationship Guide: Turn Yourself Around
Episode 6 recap and thoughts about fixing a bad situation
Where last week’s episode of Ted Lasso had me feeling pretty bummed out at the end, this week, I am really excited to see where the rest of the season is going. Last week I felt like we were deep in the Dark Forest, but I think the trees are starting to thin and glimpses of the sky above are peeking through. It was during this episode that I thought, “Oh, things are going to be okay.”
While Ted has been the one to voice how he feels stuck, we have seen it with nearly all of the characters this season. Rebecca is stuck in a bit of a revenge cycle with Rupert once again. Roy is stuck in his shame. Colin is stuck in his choice to remain closeted. The team is stuck in anger. And Ted is stuck, not really sure how to be an effective soccer coach. Over the past weeks, we have seen these people struggling, trying to find a way to make everything click. This week’s episode “Sunflowers,” seemed to give a push to each of them, and I want to examine some of those pushes.
I really thought at the end of season 1 that Rebecca was over her obsession with Rupert. She finally seemed like she was in a good headspace, and for most of season 2, it felt like she was. But repeated setbacks in romantic relationships and realizing that Rupert purchased one of Richmond’s main rivals seemed to eliminate much of the progress she was making.
I think what helped Rebecca get unstuck this episode was that she did something on her own. Rebecca confessed that her greatest fear was ending up alone, but after the loss of the exhibition match, she was forced into solitude, and she seemed to embrace it. Rebecca has a tendency to rely on others to avoid facing her own issues. We have seen her turn to Ted or Keeley or Sassy when she feels bad, using her friends as a way to numb her own pain while not addressing it.
Certainly there is no issue with surrounding yourself with people who care about you. Friendships are good and can help us to grow. But if we use friendship to avoid dealing with our own pain, they become something that hurts us, and possibly them as well. Rebecca choosing to be alone and then being forced to be alone even more by the loss of her phone, allowed her an encounter that reminded her that she could still experience care and romance, even with a stranger.
On the surface, it seems as though Roy deals with anger, but as we have seen time and time again, Roy uses anger to cover up his feelings of shame and self-loathing. He loses his mind when Keeley tells him that she needs some space of her own, and when she rejects an offer to go away for six weeks right as she’s beginning a new job, he breaks up with her. He fears that if he can no longer play football, he has no identity. He avoids taking a new job because he is worried that no one will like him at it. He left a football club that he loved because he didn’t want to just fade away. He spent years hating Trent Crimm because he wrote a mean piece about him when he was young.
Roy avoids opportunities for happiness at every cost. It seems to me that at some point he must have come to the realization that if he never expects anything, he can never be let down or let anyone else down. He is incredibly guarded, and he uses anger and bluster to keep people at bay.
In this episode, he starts by making Jamie miss the team night off by demanding that he continue his training. While Jamie initially resists, he quickly agrees and begins breaking down some of the barriers Roy put up by taking Roy on a tour of Amsterdam. Eventually he scores a couple of bikes so the two of them can go look for a windmill, at which point Roy angrily declares that he never learned to ride a bike.
While that may be a bit ridiculous on its face, when he shares the whole story about how he never learned because his grandfather died before he was able to teach him, Roy is vulnerable with Jamie in a way that he seldom is, and that brings the two of them closer together. In this season, we are seeing Roy recognize how he shuts people out of his life and as a result, shuts joy out of his life. I don’t think we’re ever going to see happy-go-lucky Roy because that’s not who he is, but I’m excited to see how he continues to grow as a character.
Colin is a character I haven’t written much about, because honestly, he seems to act more as a foil for other characters than as a fully fleshed out character himself. But this season we got confirmation that Colin is gay and that Trent knows it. I had concerns that Trent might out Colin, but instead, we had one of the best conversations between two side characters that we’ve had.
I love that when confronted with the idea of coming out to his teammates, Colin is pretty well convinced that he won’t encounter any negativity from them. That feels accurate to me as well. I think that the overall ethos of the team is one where kindness and acceptance is of the utmost importance.
But I do think it is telling that he is concerned that he will become a spokesperson for GAY. It’s not that Colin is concerned that he will face discrimination, at least from his teammates, but that he will instead become a kind of mascot and what he wants is to be able to just have a normal life where his partner doesn’t matter any more than his straight friends’ partners. I have seen this from plenty of people when talking about coming out. Even if they don’t experience hateful discrimination, there is still fear that they will be considered through a particular lens, rather than simply being the person they have always been.
I don’t know if Colin ever verbalized that to someone else before, which is often a part of the process of change. Seeing him talk to Trent about something soe personal felt huge, and I think it will be interesting to see how that plays out in the coming weeks.
The team has also been fully stuck after the match against Nate and West Ham. They have been in their heads for weeks and it shows. Even in a match with no consequences, they are badly beaten by the other team. I believe that Ted’s idea to give them the night off to blow off some steam was a good one, but we saw that even that caused plenty of problems as they weren’t able to come together to pick an activity to do as a team. Isaac recognizes that they need to do something as a group, but their ability to find a consensus is deeply broken.
I love that when they finally decided on a group activity, they chose the pillow fight, harkening back to season 1 when they were in Liverpool and Ted offered the option of movie night or pillow fight. I believe the team’s decision to finally choose the pillow fight and to have fun together again is going to begin to turn things around for them, not unlike when Roy has Isaac play against the amateurs for an evening. I hope AFC Richmond is back.
Finally, Ted, who has been talking about being stuck in nearly every episode this season, finally found a way out of his malaise. He thinks he’s taken some kind of hallucinogenic (though we later find out that it was a bad batch) and he goes out into Amsterdam to try to find some kind of answer as to what he should be doing.
What I found interesting about Ted’s turning point is that his reawakening required both something new, but also something familiar. Yes, he thought he did drugs, which was something that he wouldn’t normally do, but he then went to an American themed restaurant where he watched a basketball game that he’d seen before. It was the combination of the unique and the recognizable that finally shook him from his slump and had him actually working on strategy, probably for the first time in the show.
For the bulk of these people, making the decision to try something new or do something unexpected is what led them to a breakthrough. I think the same is true for most of us. When we get into a rut, it can feel impossible to change direction. Often, we can’t even see that another direction is an option. All we can see is just more of the same and it can leave you feeling helpless.
What I appreciated about this episode (written by Brendan Hunt, who plays Coach Beard) was that there was no single answer on how to change your life’s direction. Different people need different things. Sometimes we need space away from people. Sometimes we need people to move in closer. Sometimes we need to try something silly and absurd. Sometimes we need to get back to our roots.
What helps you move away from whatever has you stuck might be different than what helps me. The important thing is that we need to try something.