#ted lasso negative perhaps ?

[waddingham]

was looking at some very old posts of mine and i just. when i finished s2 of ted lasso i was certain that a) ted would be going back to kansas and that b) ted and rebecca would not end up together on our screens. and i didn't have a problem with either of those things bc i was certain they'd be done with the same thoughtfulness that was present in s1 and most of s2. and i ended up being right about both things but so totally wrong about the execution of both??? yeah okay i hear you there was a three season arc, there was a plan, but wrt s3 you cannot convince me that plan consisted of anything that happened outside of "ted goes home". and even that decision felt shoved to the wayside.

i was dead certain that teds decision to go back was going to be informed by a deep exploration of ted and his past and his trauma and how the loss of his dad affects his own sense of fatherhood, that it was going to be ted's season entirely and would be as heart wrenching and uplifting as the rest of his story — so much so that by the time he decided he needed to go back, that we'd all be so on board. we'd all feel "oh of course he has to go back, look how much henry needs him and how much ted needs henry, how deep his fear of not being there for his son goes". why didn't we get that why did ted feel like a supporting character in his own show in his own SEASON why didn't the deeply traumatic event that informs almost all of ted as a character ever come up when it's so relevant to all of this why!!!! i need a 30 page essay from each of the ted lasso writers and a week long conference with js to explain it to me like im 5!!!!! am I stupid!!!

right anyway

when it comes to ted and rebecca i have less gripes but still am so baffled at the number of parallels drawn and connections made and support given to say "yes they're kind of intrinsically tied" for ZERO acknowledgement of it? which brings me back to the first point because that journey for ted could've leant itself so nicely to rebecca returning the kind of support to ted that he gave her? which in turn could've added a lovely extra layer to rebecca's story by seeing her find additional comfort and confidence in her own ability to support someone else and give love? it all could've woven together so neatly?? like??? am i stupid????? whether they ever hit the romance threshold or not (setting aside the fact of just how many and how often they tried to invoke rom coms but went "oh ew romance? no" when given a perfect opportunity to say something timeless but refreshing about second chance loves) continuing to see them grow together the way they had already accentuated through the whole rest of the show would've been more than enough for me personally. even if there was a heartbreaking parting it would've felt......earned? it would've felt right? just as fair to the viewer after absorbing all these things as it was to the story?

anyway......i feel like I'm missing something every time I think about it

[itsclydebitches]

Continuing my perhaps delusional argument/hope that Ted permanently returning to Kansas is just a red herring, I was thinking about our references and callbacks this episode. Specifically, how they don't paint Kansas in a positive or unique light.

The Wizard of Oz pinball game is definitely the most on-the-nose nod to his return, yet in the scene itself Ted is literally refusing to play.

When we get a closeup on the machine we're shown Dorothy's house spinning out of control. That is, a moment when she leaves Kansas for the bright world of Oz, not the ruby slippers of her return.

Similarly, Beard loses his game before Ted walks over. The ending of the Wicked Witch is one wherein Dorothy (Ted) does not go back home.

(I'm not entirely sure what to do with this one yet, but having Mae quote "This Be the Verse" is certainly A Choice. Though I think the overall message -- people, specifically parents, will inevitably hurt their kids -- is an uplifting and very relevant argument within Ted Lasso's heartfelt context -- ergo we should acknowledge that we'll never be perfect while still striving to improve -- but that last line? Oof. "Get out early as you can / And don't have kids yourself"? That's not the proposed solution I'd expect for an episode that was sending Ted back to his son for good. Obviously Ted already has Henry, but it may be significant that Mae eschews a generic 'You can do it!' argument for a far more nuanced and harder to swallow conclusion, perhaps one that heralds Ted's controversial decision to stay separated from Henry for at least part of the year.)

(Also let's toss in the fact that Dottie uses a football metaphor -- not American football -- to describe how Ted needs to parent: sometimes you lose, sometimes you win, mostly you just tie, and all you can do it keep playing.)

Finally, we've got references to both BBQ sauce and sunflowers via Ted's WiFi password and the bread Dottie bakes him, Ted's "favorite."

Half a season ago these would have been straightforward references to Kansas, positive ones at that. However, post-S3E6 (literally titled "Sunflowers") Ted has both of these beloved objects tied to the UK instead. He enjoys the beauty of Van Gogh's Sunflowers in the Amsterdam museum and finds a BBQ sauce so good that it inspires him to (hopefully!) win it all in his English sport.

It might just be me reading into things because I'm looking for my preferred ending to the series... but also I don't think I am because it's weird that Kansas is continually framed as a negative this season. Ted is still super awkward with Michelle. Her new boyfriend is kinda awful and likewise makes him incredibly uncomfortable (understandably). The Wizard of Oz references aren't targeting the happy aspects of the story, or even the parts about going home. The symbolic references to Ted's beloved state (sunflowers, BBQ sauce, the little green army men) have all been integrated into his life here. We get a whole episode about how once Ted learns to focus on Henry instead of Michelle, Henry has a fantastic time living in London. Hell, this episode opens with Ted enthusiastically greeting everyone he passes on his walk, a beloved member of the community, a staple of this town... and then his mood turns sour when he hits his Kansas-sprung mom.

Obviously Ted is undergoing some last-minute growth when it comes to being a father to Henry (and healing the rift with Dottie), but I think Ted's in-universe improvement is misleading, implying that because he may think he needs to return to Kansas, that's actually how the story is going to end. If that were the end-goal though, I would expect the subtext to have a more hopeful, optimistic feel to it; something that not just implies Ted's return, but argues why he would want to outside of Henry.

If none of that is relevant... that's going to be even worse for me than Ted just going back to Kansas. A Kansas ending framed as a positive is far from my preference, but it's (arguably) a strong conclusion to Ted's journey. A Kansas ending after all these implied negatives both isn't my preference and feels like more objectively bad writing.

[destinationtoast]

On writing messiness, genre expectations, and satisfying endings

(AKA why did I mostly like the Ted Lasso finale?)

I found the Ted Lasso finale more satisfying than many people seem to have – which is not to say I found it perfect; it was an imperfect end to a messy season – but it made me feel a lot of big & enjoyable emotions while watching it, and it didn’t contain anything that left me feeling too frustrated afterward.  But I know a lot of people had a much more negative experience (and I feel empathy and compassion for that, as someone who has been deeply disappointed by past shows I was hugely invested in *cough* Sherlock and Game of Thrones *cough*).  This meta is me noodling about why I found the finale mostly satisfying, while not critiquing anyone else’s experience or expectations.  

It's been funny watching the Succession finale and the Ted Lasso finale in such close proximity, for a number of reasons (I loved both shows, in such different ways).  Maybe I'm just not tuned in enough to the Succession fandom to see it, but I didn’t see people saying things like, "I can't believe Succession set up X to stay in an abusive dynamic with Y," or “Z is in such a mentally unstable place and didn’t get help! So unhealthy.”   OTOH, I see a lot of people feeling unhappy that their favorite Ted Lasso characters weren’t given ideal/healthy/happy endings, which seems to be where a lot of the finale dissatisfaction arises.

A lot of this obviously comes down to tone expectations – people were presumably not expecting Succession to be kind to the characters in the end, because it's never been about kindness or healthy relationships, whereas Ted Lasso has often been.  But this got me thinking about how I nonetheless seem to have had different expectations for the Ted Lasso finale than some (many?) fans did.  Looking at some of the criticisms I’ve seen from people who were disappointed by the finale, I think I had different writing expectations from some fans, different genre expectations, and perhaps a different idea of what qualifies as a satisfying ending.  

Writing expectations. I didn’t think the finale could possibly fix most of what was wrong with S3, which was a mess.  S3 was often lovely, and I will enjoy rewatching it, but it was still a mess structurally – featuring weird pacing, odd choices of where to focus, and some unsatisfying storylines & character moments.  And because writers are only human – and also working with a lot of behind-the-scenes constraints & S4 negotiations & late rewrites – I didn’t think the finale would be able to do any last-minute miracle saves.   I didn’t expect any grand plan to become clear, or all/most of the loose threads to get tied up.  But I went in open to the idea that I would enjoy the finale for where it took the characters, given the messy journeys they’d already been on by the end of episode 3x11.  (This was tempered by my having hoped in vain for the writers to miraculously make sense of everything/tie together all the messy threads neatly in a finale before, and having never seen that happen!)

Genre expectations.   I think many fans watching Ted Lasso were expecting that the show was going to give an unambiguously happy ending to all the main characters for genre reasons.  Some saw it as a rom-com – a story leading to romance(s) and some form of happy ending for all the main cast – because the show featured a number of rom-com elements and references, as well as some romantic storylines.  And I think some (an overlapping set) saw it as a particular kind of hurt/comfort narrative – a story about triumphant personal growth, about overcoming adversity & trauma, and receiving only comfort & joy by the end of the story.  I can see the ending being disappointing with either of those genre expectations.  But the show I thought I was watching was about imperfect people trying to grow, to improve, to build better relationships, and to find ways to thrive – but doing so imperfectly.  I expected progress for most characters, but also backsliding – and for some characters to improve in some dimensions but not in others.  I thought the show was more about hope and effort than about success.  (And the show also wasn't about romance to me, even though I enjoyed Roy/Keeley in the show and want to read/write a ton of shippy fic about my OT3 and several other ships.)

Satisfying endings.  Given my genre expectations, what I wanted was not for the characters to all end up perfectly happy, nor for all the relationships to end up healthy or resolved.  I wanted characters to behave in ways where I could understand their motivations, and that were consistent with their behaviors through 3x11.  To me, the finale succeeded better at this than a number of episodes earlier in S3, where I was left scratching my head about why characters had made various choices.  And I wanted many of the characters that Ted had influenced to show some kind of growth/hope for the future, however imperfectly, because that fit my expectations for the kind of narrative it was (as described above – not complete happy endings, but messy and imperfect growth).  For me, the finale succeeded there, too.  To address a few endings that caused specific sore spots for other fans:

Beard/Jane: The one thing that seemed impossible to believe about Beard’s wedding was that Ted wasn’t there.  (That’s the main thing that makes me open to the “it was just a dream of Ted’s” theory – I think that theory has other difficulties, but it’s fun to consider, and I’m open to it.)  I know some people were upset that Beard & Jane ended up together because it’s a toxic relationship.  But while I don’t disagree, that doesn’t seem like a dealbreaker to me unless the show is a rom-com.  Beard has been on & off with Jane the whole show, and I didn’t see any signs that he was about to break that pattern.  It made sense to me that he would feel very conflicted about whether to follow Ted or stay with her, but also seemed believable to me that he would ultimately choose to stay.  I was very sad that he was leaving Ted, but it actually felt like personal growth to me, for him to feel like he could thrive without Ted.  (Lots of room still for personal growth in other dimensions.)  

Roy, Jamie, and Keeley: Roy and Jamie fighting about who should be allowed to try to date Keeley was stupid of them, but not unrealistically stupid, given that they're trying to figure out how to preserve their new relationship while also both loving her.  That’s backsliding, but they’ve also both grown a lot.  (Well, Jamie clearly has; Roy allegedly has, and I can see signs of that in a couple of episodes especially, but S3 has not served him that well overall imo, and I will require fic to fill in some blanks.)  I’m glad Keeley didn’t choose one of them – that shows growth on her part, I think.   I very much headcanon the three of them getting together eventually, but I feel like her choosing to focus on herself & KJPR for now (especially while they’re both being idiots) is a satisfying outcome.  

Jamie and his dad: As with Beard/Jane, a lot of the critiques I saw of the (dream?) montage reunion between Jamie and his dad were of the form “But that relationship has been toxic.” And I can understand wanting Jamie to be fully done dealing with the source of so much past trauma.  But I can easily imagine Jamie trying to cautiously have some limited form of relationship with his dad again.  I am not saying someone in Jamie’s position should do that, nor that it’s likely to lead to a healthy/easy dynamic.  But it does not seem inconsistent with where Jamie is as of the finale.  I think he’s grown a lot, and has more agency in his life now, but he clearly showed he was having trouble just ignoring his dad.  And many people revisit relationships that have caused them pain and have lacked resolution, for better or worse.  I hope and expect that with a strong set of friends/found family supporting him, Jamie will ultimately be okay.

Nate:  Okay, here I admit my headcanons are doing some heavy lifting, and I would have been happy if they’d clarified more of this onscreen.  But I cannot imagine that Nate was not offered a coach role when he returned – and I can easily imagine him refusing that offer and asking to be a kit man again for the short term, so that’s my headcanon.  He seemed to really be enjoying working at Taste of Athens as a waiter – for multiple reasons, not just because Jade was there – and this seems consistent with that.  I think part of what he learned from this season was that prioritizing fame & recognition doesn’t lead him to happiness, and that he has an unhealthy need to be admired/praised by the Twitterati, the press, etc.  I can easily believe that he’d want to step back from the limelight and prioritize working with a team that cares about him while figuring out what’s next.  (Especially as he has been pretty bimodal; overly humble and shy at first, and then overly recognition-seeking and angry about perceived slights – I can easily buy him backsliding into too-humble mode for a while).  I fully expect he’ll keep building more confidence again in a healthier way, and that he'll coach Richmond again shortly (even if the montage was just a Ted dream).  And if Roy was truly made head coach, I headcanon that it happened after a discussion about who should fill that role, and Nate turning it down.  I also would have liked a fuller resolution between him and Ted, but I bought the brief scene between them as consistent with where they both were emotionally at that point (I would not be shocked if Nate mailed Ted the full 60 pages later, though).

Rebecca:  Love that she’s truly over Rupert and figuring out whether she still wants Richmond in light of that – and I love the decision she arrives at.  Her running into the Dutch guy was the most rom-commy piece of the finale for me, but I didn’t mind it.  I’d been trying to figure out how on earth they could wrap up the whole messy psychic storyline (which I hated), and I had vaguely wondered whether – if she was indeed fated to be a mother – she might end up co-parenting with Bex, or whether she might end up with the Dutch guy.  I also started to think during the finale that she might go back to Kansas with Ted, but if she had done so, I wanted that to be the first step on a journey of world travel and self-exploration – not her getting together with Ted and co-parenting Henry. (I wasn’t ever opposed to T/R, but I personally felt it would have felt unearned if that relationship had only started up in the finale.  I personally really enjoyed the double trolling at the beginning of the episode, though, with Ted and then the bethonged Beard in Rebecca’s kitchen – amazing! XD )  Anyway, I’m fine with her ending up surrounded by her Richmond family and dating the Dutch guy.

Ted: I expected Ted to return to Kansas at the end, and I think that was the best choice, though a hard one. I think Ted adores Richmond and will be back visiting all the dang time, and I hope he may eventually move back.  But the “choice” Rebecca offered him to move Henry to Richmond now was an unrealistic one – Ted would have to negotiate that change with Michelle, and it’s a HUGE ask her (and possibly Dr. Jacob) to uproot like that and leave her family/friends/job behind.  So the right thing for Henry right now is for Ted to go back and be with him.   And I think that choice is very consistent with what we’ve seen of Ted’s struggles with anxiety last season and his more explicitly worrying about where he should be this season.  I think it’s a bittersweet choice for him, and he’s going to miss Richmond a lot, but I’m not worried about him being all alone.  With the way Ted makes friends, I am sure he already has a bunch of good ones back in Kansas, and that he’ll keep making more.  I very much look forward to a lot of reunion fic with everyone he’s left behind, though.  And I want AFC Richmond to come visit him, as well as the other way around!

I’ve read/been influenced by some good meta about some of the above points, and I’ll reblog some of it later.  But that’s the gist of where I’m at – the characters we love are growing and changing in some very good ways, but they are definitely still imperfect, and still themselves. And most things don't wrap up tidily with a full resolution, but that's okay.  For me, that all holds true whether or not the montage was Ted’s dream, and I am happy for that to be ambiguous (except for the part where Ted would totally be at Beard’s wedding).  But I’m very interested in hearing about the whole gamut of experiences people are having (and to hear alternate theories about genre expectations, etc)!  I can’t wait to read more meta, as well as so much fic, fix-it or otherwise. I continue to be delighted to be a part of the fandom for this show. <3

[jvstheworld]

My Ted Lasso Re-watch: S1E3 (part 3)

Trent Crimm - The Independent

Roy loves his niece. Only he can call her an idiot and ten dote on her completely.

Ted's celebration after he gets the header is everything to me. And Roy's look of exasperation is perfect.

Roy is surprisingly good around kids. No matter what, he compliments them on their header attempts. He knows that kids need praise, and because of the article that Trent wrote about 17 year old him, he knows how negative comments can affect someone.

Nice kick, Pheobe. Her and Roy have put in a lot of practice for her to be able to do that. I do feel bad for Ted's nose though.

Trent knows about A Wrinkle in Time because he has a young daughter and has probably read it to her at some point.

'Am I supposed to be the little girl?' ' I'd like you to be.' I love them both. This exchange was just everything.

Trent wears a blue band with daisies on his wrist. A gift from his daughter, perhaps?

Ollie from ep1 is back.

'Smell is already deep inside my brain.' Sir, you have no sense of smell. Jason has anosmia, so he can't smell the food. Too bad, because good curries smell amazing.

"I'm supposed to be getting paid?' Is that a reference to We're The Millers that got memed?

Ollie calls his father-in-law, dad. That's cute.

You can actually see the sweat forming on Ted's forehead as he's eating the spicy curry.

Ted's philosophy when it comes to coaching is that if you're going to get people to be the best on the pitch, then they need to be their best selves off it, too.

'Growing up without someone believing in you.' For Ted, his dad was probably the one who believed in him the most. And with he people he has coached, he has made himself their biggest supporter so that at least they had someone.

Trent doesn't believe that Ted means what he says about enjoying their time together. Trent is just their for a scope to potentially ruin Ted, yet walks out and begins to change his mind about him.

Roy is the best uncle. He reads his book to Pheobe, has an epiphany, and still manages to kiss her good night before leaving.

Trent writes fast because his article is previewed the same night. So he maybe typed it up in an hour or two.

Ted's style might not hit you over the head, but Roy's certainly will.

Keeley has the hots for Roy. And Roy like Keeley.

Trent doesn't gloat at the end of the season when they get relegated. He does end up becoming one of Richmond's and Ted's biggest supporters.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Robert Shrimsley discovers The Sopranos.

"The good news is I’ve just found this amazing new series to binge-watch. The bad news is that I can’t talk to anyone about it because it’s The Sopranos. I’m not quite sure what made us take the plunge. Maybe we wanted something less bloody after the wall-to-wall coverage of the This Morning saga, which saw Machine Gun Schofield brought down in a hail of unattributable quotes and schadenfreude. But it’s so good. You really should watch it, except, of course, you probably already have. So my wife and I are therefore devoting hours of our lives to bingeing on something that we cannot discuss with anyone because it turns out that we are the last people on Earth who had not already seen it.

Part of the joy of great TV is talking about it with others, but this time conversational gambits are pretty limited. There are only two responses to, “We’ve just started watching The Sopranos.” The first is, “Again?” and the second is, “You’ve never seen The Sopranos?”. Tiresomely, the second almost always follows the first despite the fact that it was rendered unnecessary by the previous answer. (The same thing happens at Pret A Manger when you reply in the negative to the question, “Taking away?”. The follow-up is invariably, “Eating in?”, which leaves you wondering about the other options that still need to be ruled out. Is there a Schrödinger’s Super Club sandwich that can be simultaneously consumed both on and off the premises?)

The incredulous “You’ve never seen The Sopranos?” reply comes with a fully loaded moral judgment which openly marks you down as a poor cultural sherpa. Bada Bing! Our social cachet is sleeping with the fishes. So we are denied the simple human pleasure of telling friends that “we’ve just found this amazing new series”, with its delightful subtext “which you won’t know about because you are not as cool as us”. We don’t get points for finding a series made outside the G20, nor can we claim to be watching the original foreign-language version with subtitles for those who don’t speak “Joisey”. We are merely signalling that at a time when there was only one great show on TV, we weren’t watching it.

Perhaps our sense of separation is a foretaste of life when everyone is wearing the virtual and augmented reality headsets being built by Apple and experiencing their entertainment in personalised isolation. There are people who wear these gaps in their culture as a badge of defiance, a sign of their higher aesthetic. They boast drearily about how they’ve “never watched The Wire” or “thought The West Wing unrealistic” (really, you think?). But that’s hard to carry off when you are known to have enjoyed Ted Lasso. (Only series one, obviously, because, you know, it really went downhill after that.)

I’m not really clear why I didn’t watch The Sopranos. It may be the spawn’s fault. Series one came to the UK in the year the boy was born and during that first-child haze when our only reliable TV experiences were the Teletubbies and 7am Sunday reruns of Match of the Day. In our new state of exhaustion perhaps it was on too late, or we kept forgetting to programme the video, or maybe the painstaking character development was just a bit too slow to keep me from falling asleep on the sofa. Having missed the first wave, we never got around to catching up. The boy, all innocence, caught us watching it the other day and dropped into the whole “How come you haven’t seen it?” shtick, to which the only possible reply was, “I don’t know, how come it took you 18 months to sleep through the night?”

It could be worse. Instead of being the last person to evangelise The Sopranos, I could have been the first to rave about Glee during the five early episodes, when it apparently wasn’t too bad. Worse, I could still be trying to persuade people that Schitt’s Creek really is worth sticking with because there’s a good joke in series three. I may be late to the party, but at least my taste remains unimpeachable. Anyway, in a few weeks we will have finished the series, erased our secret shame and moved on to something really cutting edge. I’ve heard good things about Breaking Bad."

[Financial Times]

[theheroheart]

What ‘Ted Lasso’ gets right about resistance to therapy, according to a therapist

By Erin Qualey Sep. 10, 2021 6 AM PT

The following contains spoilers from Friday’s episode of “Ted Lasso,” “Man City.”    (Originally posted here.)

Wherever you go, there you are.

In my work as a therapist, this is a concept my clients and I often explore. No matter how far or fast you run from your troubles, the one thing you absolutely cannot escape is yourself. Wherever you go? There you are. It’s a saying that Ted Lasso himself would surely love.

In the first season of the Apple TV+ series “Ted Lasso,” Ted (Jason Sudeikis) travels across an ocean to coach a professional football team with zero experience. He’s an aw-shucks Kansan with a can-do attitude, and his perpetual positivity proves infectious to almost everyone he meets. Although “Ted Lasso” is a comedy, Ted’s tortured inner life has been hinted at from the start — in the form of conflict with his ex-wife and a panic attack he experienced late in Season 1, triggered by a karaoke version of “Let It Go” from “Frozen.” For Ted, the song served as a crushing yet temporary reminder that he was putting off the inevitable. It’s only in Season 2, the adjustment to a new life and job complete, that Ted has been left to sit with his feelings — and realize he might not be able to outrun himself after all.

Enter Dr. Sharon Fieldstone (Sarah Niles), sports psychologist, whose presence clearly rattled Ted. Niles imbues Dr. Sharon with an even keel and disciplined temperament: Whether she’s engaging with a client or observing the team at practice, her active body language and ever-searching eye movements indicate that Dr. Sharon strives to treat each moment at her job with the utmost care and seriousness. She sets personal boundaries but also knows when to head out for a drink with the team after a particularly needed win.

It’s the addition of the enigmatic Dr. Sharon that catalyzes the central action of Season 2 — which, though it’s received criticism for a lack of dramatic momentum, has been laying a trail of biscuit crumbs to Friday’s game-changing “Man City.”

Ted’s insistence that life has infinite happy endings already bordered on toxic positivity, and it catapults over that line into maladaptive behavior in Season 2. As Ted starts to strain against the weight of the trauma he carries, he shifts into near-manic mode. The pressure to be himself — a man who consistently puts others’ needs above his own — finally becomes too great, and he experiences a debilitating panic attack in the middle of a crucial match. In a striking scene, Dr. Sharon finds Ted curled up in her darkened office, finally asking for help.

Therapy is all about sitting with and processing uncomfortable emotions in a safe space. Unfortunately, much of Ted’s ethos runs completely counter to this idea. His “be a goldfish” saying and his staunch belief in “rom-communism” both center on selective amnesia of the negative and overemphasis on the positive. But Ted has another mantra: “bird by bird.” Originating in the book of the same name by Anne Lamott, the term connotes perseverance and patience: It means to take things one step at a time until a daunting task is completed. So when Ted finally decides to engage in therapy with Dr. Sharon, he’s determined to not give up. And, wouldn’t you know, there’s a bird involved.

When Ted finally sits down for his first session with Dr. Sharon, he is a mess. He spies a bobbing drinking bird and taps it. The bird, much like Ted, can say only “yes.” But in a powerful moment, Ted begins to gently oppose the bird, shaking his head “no” as he watches the toy come to a stop. Shortly after, he pops out of his chair and leaves the session. Something similar happens during the second session, but this time he picks a fight with the good doctor before storming out.

The bird is an important visual illustration of the cognitive dissonance Ted is experiencing. He’s programmed himself to use relentless positivity as a coping mechanism, always saying yes to every experience and aiming to please in every interaction. Therapy is an unknown for him, and his fear of uncovering the truth is far greater than his fear of not being liked. So he bolts.

This scene could well have been lifted from many of my sessions over the years. There’s a bit of Ted in every therapy client I’ve ever worked with, and an instinctual pushback to therapy is understandable, given there are deeply entrenched societal stigmas associated with reaching out for help. Asking for help is an act of courage, as therapy can be scary and even at times unpleasant: As Dr. Sharon says, “The truth will set you free, but first it will p— you off.”

It takes a leap of faith to engage in therapy, as it’s a process often filled with challenging emotions. Ambivalence is normal and even expected. “Ted Lasso” delivers a raw and honest portrayal of how — with the right therapist — a person can overcome their fears and begin to pursue a more hopeful path. (It’s worth noting here that Ted represents the best-case scenario for someone seeking therapy. He has a quality therapist who has time for him, is conveniently located and is presumably free of charge. In real life, availability, location and cost are major barriers that can prevent people from even getting in the door.)

Still, though Ted is staying for the duration of his sessions with Dr. Sharon at this point, he’s not actually doing the work. So she tries a different angle: Following a traumatic accident on her bike in “Man City,” she worries she’ll be too scared to do one of her favorite activities going forward — and shares these feelings with Ted, using self-disclosure to model behavior for her client. When she’s vulnerable and honest about her emotions, it gives Ted the license to do the same.

A day later, Ted witnesses an altercation between Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster) and his abusive father, and it triggers a reaction. It’s easy to imagine the old Ted swallowing his own feelings and trying to smooth the situation over, but that’s not what happens. Instead, he races outside, calls Dr. Sharon, and tearfully confesses to her that his father took his own life when Ted was 16. And Ted Lasso — both the character and the series — has fully earned this moment, as we’ve witnessed absolutely every step that has led up to his breakthrough.

For a show such as “Ted Lasso” to depict the initial stages of therapy with such care and nuance is an act of generosity. Just as Dr. Sharon modeled desirable behavior for Ted, the series successfully modeled a very real experience that can and does hold people back from finding the support they need. Perhaps Ted will eventually be the catalyst for many of the people in his orbit — looking at you, Nate, Rebecca and Jamie — to seek out time with the doctor as well.

Qualey is a licensed therapist specializing in addiction and trauma with more than a decade of experience in the field. She also works as a freelance writer, often focusing on the intersections among mental health, addiction and pop culture.

[emily84]

In case you were unaware, there [are no openly gay professionals] currently playing in the Premier League. The first-ever openly gay pro footballer was Justin Fashanu, who publicly came out [after ending his career] in 1991. Following allegations of assault, and fear around receiving a fair trial because of the public knowledge of his sexuality, Fashanu died by suicide in 1998. It feels odd for a show in 2021 – set in the world of professional football – to not even attempt to grapple with such an important issue.

Perhaps this could be forgiven if the show was *only* steering clear of negative football stereotypes in an attempt to stick to its relatively harmonious worldview. But that still doesn't justify the total absence of queer characters. There's really not even one.

The problem of omission [...] feels particularly icky in stories that use 'wholesomeness' as part of their shtick. This is because, historically, marginalised groups have been excluded from the 'wholesome'. Our queerness isn't seen as family-friendly, or appropriate, or suitable for all ages. If Ted Lasso wants to hold on to that wholesome self-image while also being inclusive, it better address that issue ASAP. If it doesn't, the show risks alienating LGBTQ+ fans even further. After all, there's only so far the (frankly alarming) magnetism of Brett Goldstein and Hannah Waddingham can get you.

[freenewstoday]

New Post has been published on https://freenews.today/2020/12/13/apple-tv-was-making-a-show-about-gawker-then-tim-cook-found-out/

Apple TV Was Making a Show About Gawker. Then Tim Cook Found Out.

“It’s something that gave me pause and that I thought about, but I would do it the same way again,” he said. “There is a broader good in knowing more about the private lives of the people who run this society. If writing about the C.E.O. of Apple isn’t within bounds — then who would be?” (An Apple spokesman didn’t answer any questions about how Mr. Cook felt about the coverage at the time.)

Apple, a company whose corporate culture is firmly controlled by the same small group of men who have run it for two decades, and whose value to consumers is focused on protecting their privacy, doesn’t quite see the world the same way. So now “Scraper” is heading back to the market, and could still see daylight with a different producer.

Apple TV+, which started a year ago, has struggled to find its feet in a climate in which its top creative executives, Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, appear to be constantly trying to guess what Mr. Cook and Mr. Cue might like, or might object to. That has mostly ruled out the sort of prestige drama that defined other breakout streaming services. The service is currently experiencing modest success with a show that would be at home on broadcast TV, the sweetly funny “Ted Lasso.” (The branding can be a little conspicuous: There are as many as three Apple devices in some “Ted Lasso” scenes, and Siri makes a cameo.)

The company is in no hurry, though, and its strategy with other media projects has been to edge them from failure to, if not blowout success, a strong enough position that you’ll sign up if the thing is preinstalled on your phone — Apple’s true commercial advantage in the media business. That’s true of Apple Music, now the world’s second-largest streaming service; and of Apple News, a well-curated, if unexciting, app that is reportedly where President-elect Joe Biden gets his information. Apple’s greatest streaming coup of the pandemic was to pick up the film “Greyhound,” the World War II drama starring — who else? — Tom Hanks.

And Apple’s willingness to sacrifice creative freedom for corporate risk management is still an outlier. None of my reporting suggests that Mr. Bezos is reaching into Amazon’s studio (or The Washington Post) to kill negative depictions of either e-commerce or the police, or that Mr. Stankey is ostentatiously slipping AT&T routers into “Lovecraft Country.” The question, of course, is how long, even at those companies, the old law will be suspended — that he who pays the piper calls the tune.

Fortunately for aficionados of Gawker, there’s another version out there: The well-regarded production company Anonymous Content bought the option to develop a 2016 article on Gawker’s fall by Jeffrey Toobin, a frequent target of the site, according to a person familiar with the deal.

But perhaps unfortunately for its prospects, Anonymous Content is partly controlled by yet another person close to Apple, Steve Jobs’s widow, Laurene Powell Jobs.

Source