A legion of personal coaches may preach people down a road to contentment but reality remains that there’s a lot of disagreement over how to get happy. For Ted Lasso, happiness cannot be separated from goodness, which is an act of being and doing while life is a stage where we fight one another from time to time but we also use our strong tendencies to help because doing so strengthens the prospects of survival in general.
The story of an American football coach from Kansas City arriving in England to help an English football team has become the anatomy of hope over two seasons, ultimately becoming the Emmy darling this year, taking home four awards, including Oustanding Comedy Series. It’s a befitting celebration of the central character played by Jason Sudeikis as the Apple TV+ show went from being an underdog to the story of many viewers during the pandemic. The feeling of being constantly underestimated — something many can relate to — finds a voice in the show when the titular character explained his philosophy in way of a Walt Whitman quote in the first season — be curious, not judgmental.
Before the Emmy wins and the start of the second season, Sudeikis told us about what Ted Lasso stands for over a video call. “Ted Lasso is a vibe, it is like a philosophy,” he said. “Everybody who worked on the show is proud of what we made. The first season was an invisible thing until it was not. Everyone was going with the flow and the notes. We are really proud of the show. The response to the show — critically and on social media — has made the people (associated with the show) feel proud. Different departments getting recognised felt like communal love.”
Football and the fate of AFC Richmond is only a wave that allows Ted Lasso to surf on with a message that goes far beyond the field. It is a story of self-belief — outside Lasso’s room the word ‘believe’ hangs in the form of a hand-drawn poster — as much as how to get along despite all kinds of differences, which are aplenty among members of AFC Richmond. At the start of season one, Rebecca Welton (played by the brilliant Hannah Waddingham), the new owner of the club following a divorce, hires Lasso to humiliate what her former husband loved the most — the club. By season end, she was putty in the hands of Lasso, believing in his philosophy. By the time second season rolled in, the patrons of the local pub cheered as much for Lasso as viewers around the globe. Here’s a tea-hating man with a Kansas-style drawl, zero knowledge of the sport, trying to offer what the world was looking for during the pandemic — optimism, hope, friendship, goodness, kindness, and golly gee.
‘We wanted to make this fun story’
And the other person who shares his enthusiasm is his long-time friend Coach Beard, played by Brendan Hunt, who said over a video call: “We didn’t set out to inspire people per se (when the show started). We wanted to make this fun story, this fun show that had a character in it, who likes to inspire people but we just couldn’t expect the response it got. So we tried to maintain the inspiration (in the second season) that we were getting from it. We had to continue to do it like how we have been doing it since before we knew the (public’s) reaction.”
The sports comedy-drama has been developed by Sudeikis, Hunt, Joe Kelly and Bill Lawrence, based on a character of the same name that Sudeikis had first portrayed in a series of promos for NBC Sports’ coverage of the Premier League. The character stayed on with Sudeikis. After the sweep at the Emmy Awards, Lasso’s Twitter handle had a message for those who believe in the character: “Winning is fun, but if you find a family along the way, you can’t lose.” It perfectly captures the essence of the show.
You don’t need to be interested in football or the Premier League, or have knowledge of rules governing offside and penalty to appreciate this fictional character. Bearing the first two episodes of the first season is enough to make you binge-watch and come up to date with the ongoing Season Two, which is headed for a big ending in a few weeks time. (Apple TV+ releases one episode every Friday.)
‘It was a very meta thing’
A fascinating aspect of the show is how a story that largely targets the American audience has captivated people across the pond called Atlantic, the land of the unforgettable show called The Office. The humour on Ted Lasso greets everyone with a warm embrace.
“Brendan and I… and our co-creator Joe Kelly… we all worked together in Amsterdam (as part of Boom Chicago)… it was improv (comedy). That gave us this perspective that we were a similar lot. Even though we were doing jokes and making fun of all the generalisations we make, it definitely gave us an interesting view. The importance of travel is that it allows you to see other cultures and experience other cuisines, music and fashion… and also other styles, and sense of humour, of loving and hating if you will. The show is sort of an amalgamation from my perspective of that fortunate view that we have. And we do aim towards an American audience, so we used terms like locker rooms instead of dressing rooms and then we tried to blur the line a little bit. In this day and age, people watch TV on their phones, so if we reference something maybe people will dig a little deeper about what the heck we are talking about. And when you dig a little deeper, you find gold,” said Sudeikis.
When the show first released in August 2020, the promos and the trailer sort of injected our heads with preconceived notions and many thought it would be a silly storyline. It’s not. There’s profound truth hiding in that “silly” premise. “All I can say is, it was fun to watch people coming in with preconceived expectations and notions of Ted. Then people opened their hearts and understood it was way different than what they thought the show was about. It was a very meta thing,” said Hunt.
Shooting the new season hasn’t been easy with pandemic-related restrictions. “The make-up people coming at you look like science-fiction characters. It was constant through the entire shoot. We couldn’t hug. We are huggers. Away from the set, we didn’t get to hang out. During season one, we were routinely going out for drinks after work and seeing London a little bit. In Season Two there was no London to be seen. It was just a different dynamic,” added Hunt.
Already renewed for a third season, one may say that Lasso-level of patience and enthusiasm is impossible in the real world. But that’s not the point of the show. Lasso is not asking us to befriend the man who dumped garbage on the head from the first floor. But unless we aim for Edenic calm, how can we even make it through the crappiest of days with something to look forward when we hit the bed? In a way Lasso is thinking like Wodehouse’s Gussie Fink-Nottle who said “Don’t talk rot” to the “fellow with a face rather like a walnut”. “It is a beautiful world. The sky is blue, the birds are singing, there is optimism everywhere,” said the Wodehouse creation, much like Lasso’s, “If you care about someone, and you got a little love in your heart, there ain’t nothing you can’t get through together.
