Ted Lasso Season 2 Episode 8 Review: Man City
Becca Newton
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Ted Lasso isn't a joyous, life-affirming show because it thinks life is nothing but an endless swim in a pool filled with cash and Sour Patch Kids.
It's a joyous, life-affirming show because it acknowledges the less rosy sides of life.
So even though Ted Lasso Season 2 Episode 8 was the darkest installment of the show to date, it also had some of its warmest, most uplifting moments yet.
Ted Lasso Season 2 Episode 7 ended on an ominous note. While Ted Lasso Season 2 Episode 8 doesn't further Nate's storyline, it continues the ominous feeling as it opens on Sharon. We follow her as she vents about treating Ted and then unexpectedly becomes the victim of a vehicular accident.
I liked the shot of Sharon's belongings strewn on the ground as a way to show how bad the accident is. Not directly showing her bodily injuries did more to convey the horror of the event than an over-the-top display of gore would have.
It also provides some nifty metaphorical foreshadowing of what happens next -- Sharon emotionally spilling herself to Ted.
Ted Lasso Season 2 has done a good job structuring how it reveals Sharon's character, slowly peeling back her layers. It felt right we didn't truly get to know her until after we saw her formally counsel Ted.
Now with the layers peeled back, we truly see how much she and Ted have in common. She can be just as goofy. She is also just as vulnerable.
Showing Sharon has internal struggles and isn't as infallible as her introduction suggested enriches her character and helps to reconstruct the ideals Ted Lasso has been deconstructing all season.
Bumbercatch: Isaac is an artist with those clippers.
Colin: He only gives you one haircut per season. You try to save that for a very special occasion.
Dani: I'm not using mine until I'm married. Or I get circumcised.
Coach or psychologist, the fact their lives aren't all sunshine and rainbows and don't always have the answer doesn't mean you can't follow their advice.
Just as Ted Lasso Season 2 Episode 7 allowed Sharon to be right about how Ted doesn't coach for free. Ted Lasso Season 2 Episode 8 allows Ted to be right about how counselors shouldn't be judges and should care for the people seeking their help.
It's clear Sharon's counseling of Ted has taken her down paths she hasn't traveled before to the point where her methods are starting to resemble Ted's more than hers.
Because she's becoming more open to Ted and his perspective, he can start opening himself to her and the others, which leads to some of Ted Lasso's most beautiful, most tearjerking scenes to date, on a show that has already had a buttload of beautiful, tearjerking scenes to choose from.
The scene inspiring happy tears was before the Man City match when Ted's confession about his panic attacks inspired Higgins, Roy, Nate, and Beard to make confessions of their own. It was the perfect blend of pathos and comedy.
I don't read the scouting reports you guys write. I've lied every time they've come up. They're boring, and I won't do it.
Roy
How could your heart not burst from the unconditional love and support these friends showed each other?
The sadder scene was, of course, Ted telling Sharon about his father's suicide. Jason Sudeikis knocked the scene out of the park, and now we have a corner piece to the Ted Lasso puzzle.
The reveal of Ted's father committing suicide when Ted was sixteen is another example of how the best twists are the ones that make you think back and realize the clues were there the entire time.
Ted mentioned he played darts with his father until the age of sixteen on Ted Lasso Season 1 Episode 8. The abrupt cutoff at age sixteen implied Ted's father passed away.
Ted told Jamie his father was harder himself than anyone else on Ted Lasso Season 2 Episode 2. Plus, something tragic always seemed to be lurking underneath Ted's good cheer and not just his divorce.
Another reason this specific reveal makes for a good twist is it retroactively strengthens the material coming before it. Ted's monologue about his dog on Ted Lasso Season 2 Episode 1 was already sad.
Now knowing his dog died around the same dad committed suicide -- yes, still assuming the monologue was about a dog and not his dad -- ups the tragedy so many levels.
There's a lot to unpack with how this reveal has shaped Ted to be the man he is. Ted's still in the dark forest, but he's starting to see the way out.
Ted: How is that not offside?
Beard: Because he was only passively offside.
Ted: I don't get this frigging rule, still.
It can't come soon enough because Richmond needs him more than ever.
Did anyone else get a bad feeling when Beard said he didn't want to go home with the team? It felt ominous.
The team has never looked as devastated as they did after losing to Man City. Jamie's dad coming in to rub salt in their wounds shortly thereafter is agony to watch.
The only nice thing you can say about Richmond today is Sam Obisanya's hair looks absolutely fantastic.
Arlo
And then, as if Ted Lasso Season 2 Episode 8 hadn't torn out our hearts and stomped on them enough, it gave us a moment so great it needs to be added to every list of greatest TV moments ever -- Roy and Jamie hugged!
Even though Roy and Jamie's hugging is all the proof we need to know there's still good in the world, Ted Lasso provided extra sweetness with Sam and Rebecca, ready to give a romantic relationship a shot.
This is Richmond's darkest hour but also its finest.
Over to you, TV Fanatics!
Can Richmond bounce back?
Which confession shook you the hardest?
Hit the comments below.
Becca Newton wis a staff writer for TV Fanatic. She retired in February of 2023
