A+ episode.

What confused me most about this finale is that so much of the work the season did to place Ted’s philosophy under a microscope and consider the limitations of a culture of positivity was effectively unwritten by how the show chose to resolve those stories, creating almost no accountability for the lapses in…

Eight years on SNL and he still was never funnier than those AT&T commercials ca. 2012. That’s not a putdown, I loved those commercials.

I agree. Even though I don’t watch Ted Lasso for the sports aspect, it was so effective in the first season as a way to dramatize some really interesting character stories (like Friday Night Lights did so well). It’s conspicuously odd that they’re neglecting this part of the show this season. 

Where people see “awkwardly dropped” I see “conspicuously backgrounded”, but we’ll see how it plays out :) 

Rebecca’s mother made a joke about how Sam’s boxer briefs left little to the imagination but if the writers really wanted that joke to land they would have chosen a lighter color.

Yeah, I think we’re pushing toward a triumphant if bittersweet ending for sure. I don’t see any way that this show ends without Ted going back to America to be closer to his son, which will be sad for the community and culture he’s built in Richmond. But I think he’ll go out on a high note, with the team either…

This is really fucking with my perception of time and age. When Never Been Kissed came out I was 14 and felt Drew was so old that it was ridiculous for her to pose as a high schooler even though I was watching old “teens” in Dawson’s Creek et al. Turns out she was like 24. And then here I see that Beanie Feldstein…

I feel the exact same way with Vin Diesel.

Head empty, only thought is that I am enamored of Sassy.

I wish they leaned into the weirdness of it even more. I’d love a benignly Lynchian talk show hosted by Drew Barrymore.

<3 <3 <3

Drew Barrymore comes across as a nerd.

I have a feeling that Jan Maas would be unsusceptible to one of Nate’s takedowns. 

Hannah Waddingham’s face was perfect in that reaction shot. The whole first half of the episode had me bursting out laughing while waiting for the underlying tensions to peak.

Why would it be big? Ted isn’t so famous as a coach that people would go digging up his family history, and he’s extremely private about it.

I suspect the management of the show’s plotting has been moderately loose — a show like Fargo is deeply plotted out and every character fully defined before the vast amount of dialogue is written, while other shows, especially sitcoms, are a lot more open.

Maybe comedy isn’t the only goal of this show? There was after all a segment in which one character described the suicide of his father. 

I think you could go in two directions--excise subplots or scenes that aren't working, or develop further and split into two episodes. Imagine if this season had been 12 episodes all along, not 10 plus 2 added later on. 

I think that’s fair, and the question then is what should the show do differently?