What to watch on Apple TV+ | Ted Lasso and the pursuit of happiness

Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis, right) is a GenXer who talks in Hallmark greeting cards and Dad jokes. He's lame, self-aware and unique. (Image: Screenshot/YouTube/Apple TV+)

“I believe in communism,” declares coach Ted Lasso to his stunned team. “Rom-communism!” he clarifies, after a beat. Relief and confusion sweep through the locker room. Lasso elaborates in his Midwestern twang with all the largesse of a practised orator bestowing his wisdom on the world. “Believing in rom-communism,” he says, “is all about believing that everything’s going to work out in the end.”

At the point in time when Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) makes this speech, somewhere in the middle of season 2 of the smash Apple TV+ show, things are most definitely not working out for AFC Richmond. Relegated, deflated, fighting to be reinstated in the Premier League, the boys aren’t in the best shape. Their best players suffer from crises of confidence, are caught up in the crosshairs of fame and geopolitical turmoil, or are trying to recoup their reputation.

Lasso, an American football coach from Kansas with woefully little knowledge of the game he is supposed to be coaching a British team in, continues his TED Talk. “Fairy tales do not start, nor do they end in the dark forest. That son-of-a-gun shows up smack dab in the middle of the story. But it will work out. Now it may not work out how you think it will. Or hope it does. But believe me, it will all work out. Exactly as it’s supposed to.”

Ted Lasso is hardly the first character on screen to channel the power of believing. Frank Capra’s 1946 film It’s A Wonderful Life literally opens with constellations in the sky talking to each other about sending an angel down to earth because one George Bailey was disheartened. Shah Rukh Khan’s line from the 2007 film Om Shanti Om has been immortalised: “Kehte hain ki agar kisi cheez ko poore dil se chaho, toh saari kayanat tumhe usse milane ki saazish mein lag jaati hai.”

Rom-coms and fairy tales are certainly fertile terrain for this kind of blind, abiding faith in the universe; as is the entire history of sports dramas where the underdog comes out on top. It is that theme of hope, optimism and warmth that helped Ted Lasso score big when it first came out in 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, when these things were in short supply. But that was just one reason.

Ted Lasso’s success is the sum of its parts. For a comedy, the characters, world and plots have unusual depth and are built for longevity. Lasso is a GenXer who talks in Hallmark greeting cards and Dad jokes. He's lame, self-aware and unique. He is probably what you’d get if Abed from Community were written as the stereotypical all-American guy who wears his heart on his sleeve; with Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt) as his subdued Troy, “a Renaissance portrait of masculine melancholy”.

The rest of the ensemble cast is just as well-fleshed out, with their own individual pursuits. Lasso has been set a Herculean task—to revive the fortunes of a fledgling soccer team, while also winning over the tea-loving snooty British on behalf of his countrymen, not to mention this team and his boss, who aren’t exactly rooting for this outsider. But he accepts it with good humour. And with the fundamental belief that sport is not about winning or losing. It’s about getting people to become the best version of themselves.

The first season was so exuberant and in-your-face cheerful that critics dismissed it almost immediately. Despite their best efforts, Ted Lasso became a monster hit for Apple TV+ (who had actually pinned all their hopes on The Morning Show). The show earned 20 nominations at the following Emmys—a record for the most-nominated freshman comedy in TV history that remains unbeaten. Incredibly, watching it again now, it doesn’t seem to have aged a wrinkle.

In 2020, Ted Lasso gave hope. In 2021, in its second season, it got way too real. Co-creators Jason Sudeikis, Brendan Hunt, Joe Kelly and Bill Lawrence pivoted so hard into the tricky terrain of mental health, it left some wondering if this was the same show. It was certainly: The banter between Lasso and Beard, the masculine energy of Roy Kent, the puppy pound dynamics of the rest of the team were intact. But now the curtain was parted; we were privy to the demons they fought on their own time.

It is filmmaking 101 that all drama is conflict. Especially in rom-coms, fairy tales, sports dramas and their ilk, where levity is the end-goal, that drama is borne of the darkness that these characters (and you, the viewer) must navigate to arrive at the light. Ted Lasso’s very smart conceit, though, was to demonstrate that there is always darkness within any light. They co-exist. Like yin and yang, they cannot be separated.

As season 3 of Ted Lasso begins, Ted Lasso himself appears almost insignificant to the larger themes and storylines playing out. In fact, that insignificance is his main predicament. He wonders whether it’s crazy that he’s still here. Meanwhile, the rest of the main cast are waging their own private battles.

Keely weeps in her office privately, consumed by the anxiety of being a successful entrepreneur while her personal life is shot. Rebecca’s desire to destroy what her ex-husband Rupert loved most is transfigured into a desire to win over him. Roy Kent is stoic as ever but his brows furrow deeper—a big indication that not all is right in his morally righteous world.

And then there is Nathan. From kit man to coach, it’s been an unusually quick leap for the “wunderkid”, which means he hasn’t had time to adjust to his newfound power. The fact that validation from his father remains out of reach complicates matters. He insults his players. He panders to his new boss Rupert. He spits at himself to boost his confidence. Nathan’s is the darkest timeline in Ted Lasso.

With each passing season, it gets harder to see Ted Lasso as the saccharine condiment it was labelled as when it first came out. There’s little that is diabetic about its view on the world, but it remains wonderfully uncynical. In the first episode, which was released last week, Lasso and Beard take the team on a tour of London’s underground sewage system by way of a motivational field trip. Why, everyone asks.

Lasso’s goal is to teach them how the team can be an interconnected arterial system that pushes out the mental poop, transfused with a pint or two of confidence, joy, or whatever else they might feel to be particularly lacking in the moment. They (and we) know there’s nothing light or easy about loss, humiliation, depression, anxiety, loneliness, isolation. But, Ted Lasso seems to say, as long as we have each other’s back, we might be okay. And that’s a refreshing take on an abysmal world.

New episodes of Ted Lasso Season 3 arrive each Wednesday on Apple TV+.