The internet often talks about the fall of Ted Lasso, by which they mean the perceived fall from grace of the show, especially in the third season. They mean the shift from the mostly saccharine first season to the diluted second season to the bitter third season. Think pieces and video essays around the world complain that the show lost its way. As is the entire thesis of this site, the internet is always wrong.
When I say the Fall of Ted Lasso, I don’t mean the fall of Ted Lasso. The show, Ted Lasso, is not a sitcom, a medium full of sacchrinitiy, whose conflicts are mostly misunderstandings, unusual circumstances, and cruelty. Despite the jokes, its sweet veneer, and its happy endings, it’s not necessarily accurate to call the first three seasons of Ted Lasso a comedy (technically it is, but it’s also mostly not). Those first three seasons of Ted Lasso are about the Fall of Ted Lasso, or to be more precise the downfall of Ted Lasso.
From the very beginning, the show tells the audience exactly what it’s doing and where it’s going. The very impetus for Ted Lasso to agree to go to coach for AFC Richmond in the first place is because his marriage was falling apart. His wife, Michelle, had fallen out of love with him and asked for space. While he obliged her, putting the Atlantic Ocean between them, Ted Lasso starts his journey in Ted Lasso in a hurt and confused state, trying to understand what happened to their marriage and why he can’t fix it.
Before we move on, we need to go back to the basics a little, so I can show my work. There are two main factors at play: Tragedies versus Comedies and Rise, Fall, Redemption. The first is required to understand the second, which is an observation of my own, so I’ll start at the beginning because I’d rather repeat something everyone knows for the sake of those whose education systems failed them.
Tragedies versus Comedies
Many, if not most, people are aware of the dynamic between the original use of comedy and tragedy, but not everyone is. For those unaware, in their most simplistic definitions, a comedy is the rise of the protagonist (or protagonists, but we’ll say it in the singular for the sake of this essay), often ending with a joyous celebration, where a tragedy is the fall of the protagonist, often ending in some kind of mournful observation.
While comedies are often full of joy, jokes, and banter, that’s not always the case. There is very little fun that exists within the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but under that ancient definition of comedy, that’s exactly what it is. The heroes encounter many great struggles, but in the end they overcome them to save the day, followed by a grand celebration. Even the likes of Batman Begins, which has very little humor or lightheartedness and lacks any kind of joyous celebration, is still considered a comedy in this context because it ends with a triumphant hero.
In the same way, a tragedy doesn’t need to be joyless to be a tragedy. Romeo and Juliet, which has many lighthearted moments, and at many times could be mistaken for a romantic comedy, is no less a tragedy. It ends with the dual suicide of the two star-crossed lovers, worse due to a tragic misunderstanding.
Modern American audiences do not seem to like tragedies for the most part. Plenty exist. Se7en and American Beauty are shining examples of modern American tragedies (or at minimum they’re the ones that pop to my addling Elder Millennial mind first), but the vast majority of media made for modern American audiences end on a high note. While I think that ending on a low note in Ted Lasso could have been more fitting in many ways, I don’t know if it would’ve served the story as well, and it for sure would’ve alienated the American audience it was appealing to. As a result, the denouement for Ted Lasso needed to be joyful, thus negating its position as a tragedy, even if the whole of the story was building towards tragedy.
[As a bit of an explainer, a denouement is the resolution of a story following the climax. It’s where character arcs are tied up, story arcs are resolved, events are explained, and/or the moral of the story is highlighted, among other things. The denouement precedes the conclusion and the epilogue.]
Ted Lasso otherwise follows the downfall of Ted Lasso, culminating in Ted’s “Thank You and Fuck You” monologue from the penultimate episode, “Mom City,” which is the actual climax of the series, not the final game of the season against West Ham United. Yes, at first glance it would awkwardly place the entirety of the final episode, “So Long, Farewell,” of Ted Lasso as the denouement, but it actually more accurately applies to the events of the episode, or at least the events leading up to the epilogue.
The scenes of “So Long, Farewell” play out as moments wrapping up the stories of each of the characters in Ted Lasso, as is tradition in planned series finales of shows, especially with sitcoms. What it is not is a standalone story with a distinct beginning, middle, and end. Thus, the entire final episode of the first three seasons is a denouement, whose goal is to send off all of the heroes of the story into joyful endings, thus making it a comedy, despite its climax.
In a brief summery of “So Long, Farewell,” Rebecca Welton is tempted to sell either some or all of AFC Richmond, Roy Kent and Jamie Tartt fight each other over the affection of Keeley Jones, who rejects both of them, the team performs a rendition of The Sound of Music‘s “So Long, Farewell” for Ted Lasso and Coach Beard as a farewell gift, Trent Crimm finishes his book, Nathan Shelley returns as an AFC Richmond kit man, and AFC Richmond beats West Ham United to get second in the Premier League, during which Rupert Mannion finally loses his temper and leaves the stadium in disgrace as his team is on the cusp of losing, culminating with Ted and Rebecca having an emotional farewell and Beard choosing to stay in London to be with Jane while Ted returns to Kansas City. In the epilogue, Rebecca runs into the man she met in Amsterdam after running into his daughter, she sells 49% of the team to the fans, Trent changes the name of the book from The Ted Lasso Way to The Richmond Way, Rupert is removed as West Ham’s owner, Roy becomes the new head coach of AFC Richmond, Sam is on the Nigerian national football team, Jamie reconnects with his rehabilitated father, the Believe sign is restored, Beard marries Jane Payne, and Ted is home, coaching his son’s soccer team.
Rise, Fall, Redemption
While I make no claim of being the sole person to have figured out this pattern, especially considering how prevalent it is, the one that I’ve noticed that endures is Rise, Fall, Redemption. The pattern exists at all levels of a story, and permeates throughout it. The story as a whole, each act, the individual scenes, and all of the characters have their arcs of Rise, Fall, Redemption. Even tragedies, who forgo redemption in its climax or during the denouement, still have moments of Rise, Fall, Redemption throughout.
What do I mean by Rise, Fall, Redemption? In short, the Rise is the initial improvement beginning from homeostasis, by which I mean as it existed at the beginning of the cycle; the Fall is the setback or downfall from the peak of the Rise, which is triggered by conflict, and ends below homeostasis; and the Redemption is the final improvement, which ends the cycle in an even better place than the end of the Rise. This, I know, is a very nebulous definition, but the Rise, Fall, Redemption exists at all levels of storytelling, and each character, conflict, chapter, and story has their own Rise, Fall, and Redemption, so an initial definition that is non-specific is necessary to lay the groundwork to show how it works in general before showing how the first three seasons of Ted Lasso is the Fall of Ted Lasso.
To provide a baseline example of Rise, Fall, Redemption, I’ll show how it exists in its most platonic ideal, which is in the original Star Wars trilogy. Across the original Star Wars trilogy, A New Hope is the Rise, The Empire Strikes Back is the Fall, and Return of the Jedi is the Redemption.
The homeostasis at the beginning of the trilogy is the Galactic Empire is in seemingly total control of the galaxy, with some resistance, chiefly from the Rebellion. Throughout the course of A New Hope, the primary protagonists (Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, and Han Solo) and the secondary protagonists (Chewbacca, R2D2, and C3PO) of the trilogy are collected, they mount a assault on the attacking Death Star, destroy the Death Star, and celebrate the Rebellion’s first major success against the Galactic Empire. While there are plenty of ups and downs, the trajectory of the story is upward. The story, and its characters, are on the rise.
In The Empire Strikes Back, the Rebellion suffers a major defeat where they lose their base on Hoth, Luke Skywalker leaves the Rebellion to get more training, Han Solo is betrayed by Lando Calrissian and captured in Cloud City on Bespin, Luke abandons his training with Master Yoda (who dies) to save the other protagonists, it’s revealed that Luke is actually Darth Vader’s son, and the protagonists limp off to lick their wounds, defeated. Throughout the movie, events transpire and choices are made that place the heroes of story in a much lower place than where they started. It’s true that there are some small victories, in order for them to fall below where they started, even those small victories have to be bittersweet.
In Return of the Jedi, Lando Calrissian becomes an additional secondary protagonist, Han Solo is rescued by the rest of the protagonists, the Rebellion mounts an attack on the second Death Star still in construction, Luke Skywalker faces of against Darth Vader (who is redeemed), Emperor Palpatine is defeated, and the Rebellion celebrates the eventual downfall of the Galactic Empire. The story starts at a low spot, still lower than where they began at the outset of the trilogy, but throughout the course of the movie, they’re able to generally quickly rise to new heights, achieving their ultimate goals completely. They didn’t just destroy a second Death Star, they defeated the Emperor and took down the Galactic Empire. Redemption isn’t just getting you back to where you started, but in a much better place than where you ended the Rise.
The Fall of Ted Lasso
Unlike most stories, the Rise of Ted Lasso doesn’t happen during Ted Lasso, or rather it’s more accurate to say that it wasn’t explored during the show. It’s mentioned as a part of the setup, and otherwise referenced, but it’s not fully explored. In summation, Ted Lasso led the fictional Wichita State Shockers to their first national title, as Division II championships, the first in the school’s history. He didn’t lead a good team to the ultimate end. He started with a “garbage program” and won in his very first season with the team. He even ended with a celebration in true Comedy fashion, and in the denouement he became an internet sensation.
For every Rise, there is a Fall. As pointed out earlier, Ted Lasso starts with Ted Lasso in the midst of a marriage that fell apart. They aren’t explicit with what happened, but being a head coach at the college and professional levels is incredibly time consuming all year round. There is always a training camp, somewhere to go for scouting and recruiting, some kind of combine, workouts, and some kind of game management to be had. For head coaches, and probably a lot of the coaching staff, it’s an 80 hour week all year long. Being in a relationship with someone who works that much is a lot like having a long distance relationship with someone who you live with. It’s easy to imagine how Ted and Michelle’s marriage fell apart. It’s also easy to see how as the person working that much wouldn’t necessarily be aware of a marriage falling apart as it’s happening.
That’s where Ted Lasso starts. Equal parts not quite fully understanding why his marriage is falling apart (well fallen apart, but he didn’t know that), trying to maintain a brave face, and keeping up his positive attitude, Ted Lasso braves on, doing his best to make a bad situation as good as he can. He’s not yet aware that he’s a total mess, as Sassy Collins would eventually inform him.
While not everything in Ted Lasso’s life in Ted Lasso is in a downward trajectory (as mentioned, Rise, Fall, Redemption is a cycle that exists at multiple levels throughout an entire story), Ted Lasso’s journey (as opposed to the trajectory Ted Lasso) is marred with more struggles than successes, and even those successes are often undercut by his struggles. As a prime example, in “Make Rebecca Great Again,” the night before AFC Richmond’s victory against Liverpool’s Everton FC, Ted is being pushed to sign the divorce paperwork by his soon-to-be ex-wife and her lawyer, and he ends up snapping at Nathan Shelley. After their win, the team goes out to celebrate, which is where he has his first panic attack, during Rebecca Welton’s rendition of “Let it Go.”
This isn’t to say that Ted Lasso itself isn’t as a whole more tragedy than comedy (denouement notwithstanding), as the struggles that Ted Lasso endures are at the center of Ted Lasso, but I will say that it’s a bit less clear. Ted Lasso’s story isn’t the only one that exists in Ted Lasso. Nathan Shelley’s entire arc is Rise, Fall, Redemption as perfectly partitioned by each season. Keeley Jones’ arc also perfectly maps to the three seasons of Ted Lasso. Rebecca Welton’s Fall happens en media res, where hers starts before the series starts, and her Redemption arc starts at the end of the first season, concluding with meeting the mysterious man from Amsterdam (Matthjis) in the episode, “Sunflowers.” Roy Kent’s Fall is also in progress at the beginning of Ted Lasso, shifting to Redemption when he joins the coaching staff, although his relationship with Keeley is in Rise until he breaks up with her, and is currently in Fall. Coach Beard’s primary Rise, Fall, Redemption arc happened before the events of Ted Lasso, where he and Ted became friends as special teams back-ups, his drug addiction, and eventual Redemption as becoming a permanent assistant coach and friend with Ted Lasso (although his relationship with Jane Payne is a different conversation). Each of the rest of the characters have their own Rise, Fall, Redemption arcs, existing at various points before, throughout, and after the first three seasons of Ted Lasso, but I’ve provided enough examples to establish the pattern.
To hit the highlights of Ted Lasso’s personal arc, by which I mean the things that actually have a significant impact on Ted’s life, in order to show my work properly, within the first three seasons of Ted Lasso are:
- Ted arrives in London to coach a sport he has no experience in, in a Hail Mary effort to save his marriage on the verge of collapse, who is hired with the express effort of imploding the team (a la Major League), and is met with resentment and outright hostility by the fans, the press, and the players
- Michelle and Henry, his wife and son, visit Ted, where Michelle eventually confesses that she no longer loves Ted, and believes she never will again, to which Ted lets her go and agrees to a divorce
- Ted signs his divorce paperwork after being pushed by Michelle and her lawyer, as well as his first panic attack, although it ends in a night with Sassy Collins
- The Diamond Dogs are formed in order to help Ted process his feelings about sleeping with Sassy
- Ted and Coach Beard get in a fight about his attitude that wins and losses don’t matter
- Dr. Sharon Fieldstone, a sports psychologist, is hired, who Ted resents, and has an adversarial relationship for a long time, although he eventually comes to respect and rely on
- Ted falls into despair on Christmas after his attempt to have some kind of celebration via FaceTime goes awry, although Rebecca swoops in and rescues him from things getting truly dark
- Ted suffers his second panic attack of the show, and the first in public, which is the impetus of him seeking help with Dr. Sharon
- While getting ready to go to the funeral for Rebecca’s father, Ted has his third panic attack, where he reveals that his father committed suicide and how that impacted his life; Nathan Shelley leaks to the press that Ted has been having panic attacks, which was the real reason why he left the game earlier in the season
- Over FaceTime, Henry casually shows Ted a gift he got from “Jake,” who is later revealed to be his former marriage counselor, Dr. Jacob Branson, which has him reeling
- After another night of passion, Ted asks Sassy out, which she declines, explaining that he’s a total mess, later confirmed by the Diamond Dogs
- Ted finds out Henry bullied another kid, which is antithetical to who Ted is
- Ted goes to an American themed restaurant where he watches a Chicago Bulls game and has an epiphany, leading him to independently reinvent Total Football, which leads the team to massive success, eventually qualifying AFC Richmond to play in the (UEFA) Champions League
- Ted finds out and Dr. Jacob is taking Michelle to Paris, where he assumes he will propose to her, which sends him into a tailspin, even enlisting Rebecca to hire him a private investigator to find out, although she eventually talks him down and Ted returns to enjoy his time with Henry
- Ted confronts his mother in the aforementioned “Thank You and Fuck You” speech, where she tells him to move back to the US, as Henry misses Ted and needs him
- Ted quits AFC Richmond, returns to Kansas and coaches Henry’s team.
Obviously, while not everything listed above is negative, nor is it everything that happened to Ted, but the things that truly impact Ted’s life, which is a lot different than the things he does teaching life lessons to others or helping them, when compiled, it’s hard to not see a downward trajectory. It’s hard to see the first three seasons of Ted Lasso as anything other than the Fall of Ted Lasso.
Even though there are other things that surround Ted Lasso in the show, and all of the characters and events have their own arcs, Ted Lasso is ultimately about Ted Lasso, and the tone and events of everything going on around Ted have to be in service of the about its central figure. Hence, Ted Lasso is mostly a Tragedy, which the Internet mostly didn’t get, which is why most people didn’t like it as much as they could’ve.
Enjoying the Story Being Told
There is nothing easier than being passive, and that’s just as true for consuming media as it is as anything else. Don’t get me wrong, not everything needs to be analyzed and deconstructed, Ted Lasso included. There is a ton of value in just mindlessly consuming a piece of media that makes you feel good in some way, that’s a totally fair way to consume media. However, developing strong media literacy can help you understand and appreciate what you’re consuming more, even the most mindless drivel, but that experience will always be enhanced by trying to understand the story trying to being told. Yes, even reality television.
Criticism has two definitions. The second definition, and the one that most are familiar with, is expressing negative judgement of something, someone, or actions taken. The first definition is the analysis and evaluation of the attributes of media, including literature, poems, music, movies, shows, plays, art, or just about anything that can be analyzed or evaluated.
When you apply that first principle of criticism, the goal is to find a deeper understanding of the media being engaged. It’s important to understand the artistic intent, otherwise you can’t make an effective analysis. Sometimes you can point to the artist’s own words, but all too often you have to look to the text itself, metaphorically speaking, to identify an artist’s intention. If you don’t, you risk missing the point entirely, and take away the wrong message. That’s how you have the widespread misunderstanding of “The Road Not Taken” from just about every commencement speaker ever, and along with it a message that was never intended. Or, if you want a more succinct and widely applicable example, the idiom of “a few bad apples” is a misread of the metaphor, “one bad apple ruins the whole barrel,” which is to say that the rot of even one bad actor can infect the rest of the people in a group or organization, which is why it’s important to remove the rotten “apple” in the first place.
In the case of Ted Lasso, by taking the time to analyze the actual text of the show and not just let the good vibes that the first season is using to create a contrast for the Fall of Ted Lasso wash over you, you’re better able to understand and appreciate what’s going on in the second and third seasons a whole lot more. Which isn’t to say that you necessarily need to have figured it out right away. It was no more obvious to me at first as it was to anyone else. I, too, initially dismissed the initial clues about the direction that the writers were talking us down. It wasn’t until the second season episode, “Carol of the Bells,” where Ted Lasso was on the brink of absolute despair before being rescued by Rebecca, which is some 60% of the way through the second season, when I really started to realize what they were doing.
Criticism isn’t a thing you do once and forget about it forever. It’s a thing you do throughout an entire piece of media. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a thing you have to be actively doing all the time, especially if you’re just consuming it for entertainment, but it’s wise to check in with yourself every now and then, or at minimum when it breaks your expectations. Did they fail to achieve their goals or should you reassess your expectations? The easiest way to do that is to determine whether what they’re doing now is actually in line with what they’ve always been doing, even if you didn’t realize it at first. Were the clues always there, even if you dismissed them, or is there a ton of inconsistency? If you want to go further you can, or you’d rather not then you can skip it, but if you just dismiss a piece of media just because it didn’t achieve your expectation, then you’re the one missing out.
Epilogue: The Redemption of Ted Lasso
I had begun this 7-8 page essay a bit before the start of the fourth season of Ted Lasso, where at the time of publishing the fourth episode of the fourth season, “Greyhounds’ Day Off,” just aired. So far, it’s following the Redemption stage of Ted Lasso’s story to a tee. For those interested, I suggest watching the next three seasons of Ted Lasso with that pattern in mind. It should put a ton in perspective as you’re watching it.
Offbeat Thesis 