1x05 Tan Lines

[6.0/10] This is the first episode of Ted Lasso that didn’t really work for me. They lean too hard into the maudlin without really earning it. Case-in-point -- I was really excited to meet Ted’s wife and son. The idea of a partner who could find Ted anything less than charming seems a little wild given how readily he bonds with almost anyone in his orbit. But the show suggests a good idea through Ted’s own words, that his wife might find his optimistic disposition “too much” now and then.

That's totally plausible! You could imagine someone suffering from depression struggling with Ted’s sunny worldview, or just wanting to be able to have a bad day without the efforts to buck them up. But we hear that without really seeing that. All we get is a generic, “It doesn’t feel like it used to” from Ted’s wife, and a rushed, trite “I have to let you go because change is good” epiphany from Ted. Nothing from their interactions shows us there’s a problem. It’s a told not shown sort of thing.

I especially bristle at Ted taking Higgins’ lesson that “If you’re with the right person, even the hard times are easy.” Hard times can be hard, man! It’s borderline unhealthy to put the idea out there that if you’re going through struggles as a couple that's a sign that you’re not meant to be. Challenges happen! Not all of them are going to be peachy to get through 100% of the time. But honestly, that's part of the overall problem here. The episode deals in trite truisms, and expects to get away with it if they can rely on some superb “almost tearing up acting” from the performers and a heartfelt Mumford & Sons song in the background.

Candidly, it feels manipulative. We’ve barely seen Ted and his wife together, and the show doesn’t do the work to explain why they once made sense together but now don’t. So while we can intuitively understand that accepting your marriage is over would be incredibly difficult emotionally, Ted’s wife hasn’t been a real character until now, so the attempt at heightened poignance in the moment comes off unearned.

Everything’s just profoundly on the nose in this episode. I don’t know if you realize this, because they’ve been very subtle about it to this point, but Jamie can be kind of selfish. I jest, but his self-centeredness has reached such cartoonish levels, and is commented on by almost everyone, to the point that it feels like Ted Lasso is bashing its audience over the head with that fact. And at the same time, it’s just as obviously signposting that Keeley and Roy are going to get together, which, fine, they have nice enough chemistry, but be a little less obvious about it.

Even if it’s a throwback to childhood sports movies, I do like that Ted benches Jamie to teach him a lesson, and that the team rallies around the idea of teamwork in the absence of their arrogant star player. It’s a simple story beat, but a venerable one because it’s effective. And for all my gripes, I like the fact that Ted’s greatest professional success in the game of soccer to this point is paired with his greatest personal loss. There’s poetry in that.

You can just feel this episode tugging on your heartstrings without having earned the pull. There’s no subtlety to this episode, no well-written interactions that feel like real people dealing with jubilation and heartbreak, just good performers elevating undercooked material that doesn’t earn the maudlin catharsis it’s shooting for.