The American-British series “Ted Lasso” was a real discovery of 2020. The showrunner of the project was Bill Lawrence, the creator of the famous series “Clinic”, based on “Ted Lasso” was a series of parody videos with actor Jason Sudeikis made for the American television channel NBC Sports. The show was deceptively simple and seemed like it would play a win-win card of cultural differences between Americans and Brits, but that wasn’t really the point at all, and “Ted Lasso” completely captivated the audience with his characters, among which, of course, , the main one was coach Ted himself, brilliantly played by Jason Sudeikis.
Well, as a result – thirteen (!) Emmy nominations in 2021, of which four won: Best Comedy Series, Best Actor in a Comedy Series (Jason Sudeikis, of course), Best Supporting Actor (Brett Goldsteen), Best Supporting Actress (Hannah Waddingham) Plus two more Golden Globe nominations, one of which won for Best Actor on TV (Jason Sudeikis).
Let me remind you the essence of the first season. Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham) divorced her husband because of his infidelities, received the Richmond football club, which her husband cherished very much, in court, and decided to “finish off” the club out of revenge, for which she invited American Ted Lasso to coach the British football club , who does not understand anything in European football, because he coached the university American football team in the States. However, oddly enough, the case, “Richmond” with the new coach is gradually getting better.
I liked the first season of Ted Lasso so much that I was downright afraid to watch the second season for fear that the creators of the series would not be able to maintain the high bar raised by the first season. In addition, they needed to come up with something new for the second season, some new intrigue.
The season began with a completely anecdotal story about how Richmond footballer Dani Rojas accidentally killed a dog, the team’s mascot, during an extremely important penalty for the championship. Well, I thought, here we go.
However, things slowly unraveled from there. The team invited psychologist Dr. Sharon Fieldstone (Sarah Niels): she first dealt with the problems of Dani Rojas, then began to help other members of the team, well, Sharon also wants to help Ted Lasso himself, who has his own problems and cannot cope with panic attacks, however, Ted does not believe in psychologists and refuses to come clean to Dr. Fieldstone.
The great Roy Kent (Brett Goldsteen), who is out of football, is toiling and trying to find himself, while solving some problems in his relationship with Keely (Juno Temple). Roy also touchingly takes care of his eight-year-old niece Phoebe.
Rebecca, who is now, quite logically, a fan of the team, is in charge of the operational management of the team, also solves serious problems with the team’s title sponsor (the team’s best player Sam Obisanya refused to wear a sponsor’s jersey because this company pollutes the environment of his homeland Niger with hazardous waste , with other players following suit).
Richmond’s former best player, the nasty Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster), blew everything he could bleed, after which he began to humbly ask to return to the team, where the rest of the players, unsurprisingly, do not want to see him. But Ted Lasso believes that Tartt can be given a chance to prove that he understood everything and changed.
Plus, the quietest Nate (Nick Mohammed), whom Ted from the team outfitter made as an assistant coach, sort of “cools”, gets a taste and begins to believe that he himself is no worse than Ted Lasso can cope with the position of a team mentor, after which he begins his intrigues . Because there are devils in still waters!
***
All in all, I enjoyed the second season. Without enthusiasm, as with the first season, however, I think that as a continuation of an excellent story, the second season turned out to be quite worthy. After a somewhat discouraging start, the series quickly swayed, well, it became quite good.
As the only exception, I would only add the terribly surprised Bublik and me in the ninth episode, where it’s not at all clear why the main character was suddenly made the coach Beard (Brendan Hunt), who for all the other episodes did not say more than a dozen words, and he lit the whole series there with nightly adventures . The plot of this episode is clearly sucked from the finger, the series is frankly stupid, and I don’t know how to explain its appearance at all. Bublik and I assumed that the crew had simply decided to give the rest of the cast a break and let Brendan Hunt take the rap. Well, or vice versa – the actor himself demanded to bring him to the fore, but it would be better if they did not, honestly.
Everything else is good. Ted Lasso is still joking all the time and as charming as in the first season, but he has less screen time here, which, in general, is correct, because we learned everything about Ted Lasso in detail in the first season.
Roy Kent is even better here than in the first season. Roy is engaged in coaching (this is a separate pleasure for the audience), under the influence of Keely he tries himself in television, spends a lot of time with Phoebe, who does not have a soul in Uncle Roy, although she fines him for constantly using rude words, and also with Keely Roy has some relationship issues and it’s interesting to see how they try to overcome it all. Brett Goldsteen did an excellent job as Roy, and I liked this character a lot more here than in the first season. Brett has already received an Emmy for his role in the first season, and something tells me that the second Emmy is clearly not far off.
Rebecca Welton, performed by the spectacular Hannah Waddingham, also turned out to be a little different here, not the same as in the first season. There she intrigued and tried to destroy the club, here it is the opposite: she became a fan of the club, she is a fan of the club. Well, she is trying to arrange her personal life, in which Keely actively helps her, and their relationship here (however, as in the first season) is very touching. And Hanna herself is incredibly charming, lively and natural!
By the way, there is an episode where she meets with a certain John, played by Patrick Baladi. So, Patrick Baladi is there – one to one, Nick Frost, who has greatly lost weight and rejuvenated. I even thought that it was Frost, who in the recent “Why Women Kill 2” appeared in a depressingly elephantine state, suddenly lost weight dramatically, and from this he looked younger, but no, of course, this is a different actor. Which, by the way, is the same age as Frost – forty-nine.
Look, it looks like Frost, doesn’t it?
But the story of Rebecca’s anonymous correspondence with a player of her team and their subsequent light romance seemed completely far-fetched and strange to me, but maybe I just don’t understand anything in anonymous correspondence and light novels?
An excellent and completely new character is the psychologist Dr. Sharon Fieldstone, played by Sarah Niles. Dr. Fieldstone is a person with great self-respect: she initially proved to be completely immune to Ted Lasso’s charms and jokes, she tries to help him and is visibly annoyed that Ted doesn’t believe in psychology. And these two go through interesting metamorphoses in their relationship there. Sarah Niles played Sharon wonderfully, I really liked this role, and I really wanted to see something else with this actress.
Higgins, Rebecca’s assistant, has a slightly expanded role, and his character has also changed markedly. In the first season, he was a kind of bootlicker at Rebecca’s backup dancer, but at the same time he began to get closer to the coaching staff. In the second season, he is all with the coaches, and with him and his family there is a good Christmas episode that could seem too sugary, but what this series is good for is that even the obviously tear-squeezing moments in it are done not fake and very – kind. Jeremy Swift did a great job playing Higgins, and although I’m tired of writing “excellent”, “cool”, “great” and so on about the acting in this series, you can’t argue against the truth, really – great roles. And the truth is the main thing for us with Bublik!
Well, I liked the fact that all sorts of metamorphoses began with the character of Nate. In the first season, he was such a “rags to riches” thanks to Ted, and then Nate began to intrigue and even do some meanness, which is good and vital: I do not believe in the quietest disinterested outfitters. When they are abruptly pulled up, they have to change, and Nate has really changed here.
What is the result? I like it. Not without reservations, but I liked it. There were moments that caused some bewilderment, but in general the season is good, sometimes even excellent. The bar, in my opinion, was practically not dropped, and it often happens that TV shows with an excellent first season are literally blown away in the second season. Fortunately, this did not happen here.
The groundwork for the third season is done, the third season is being filmed, we are waiting for its release.
Ted Lasso. Second season / Ted Lasso. Season 2 review
Director: Bill Lawrence, Joe Kelly, Brendan Hunt Cast: Jason Sudeikis, Brett Goldsteen, Brendan Hunt, Nick Mohammed, Hannah Waddingham, Jeremy Swift, Phil Dunster, Juno Temple, Tohib Jimo, Cola Bockinny, Patrick Baladi, Sarah Niles
Series, USA-UK, 2020, 30 min. 3 seasons, 10 episodes per season