Ted Lasso – Season 3 Episode 1 Recap & Review

Setting Up Season 3

The Season 3 premiere of Led Lasso begins at the airport with an unusually unshaven Ted Lasso sending his son Henry off, after spending a lovely 6-weeks together in England. Ted reluctantly hands his son over to his accompanying air hostess while advising him to not watch It, the horror movie, on the plane this time. Before he leaves, Henry hands Ted a tiny Premier League trophy as a gift.

On the way back home, Ted gives his therapist Sharon a call. As he cleans up the blanket forts and toys around his apartment, we hear him tell Sharon he feels guilty about sending Henry alone. He goes on to wonder why he is sticking around in England. He knows why he came but isn’t sure if his presence is even doing any good. Sharon reminds him that doubt can only be removed by action. He tries asking Sharon about her personal life and she gives him appropriately vague answers. After the call, Sharon goes back to her bedroom where a man awaits.

Rebecca and Leslie discuss how all the predictions for the season have put Richmond at the bottom, in 20th place. Ted enters and is his usual optimistic self. Leslie wonders if they should look for new talent but Ted thinks they’re fine. Rebecca is particularly determined to see Richmond beat West Ham, currently owned by Rupert and managed by Nate. She heads off to Keeley’s swanky new PR office where the two girls greet each other with squeals of excitement.

The Richmond boys discuss the predictions in the locker room where Jan Mass unhelpfully quotes statistics about new teams being the first to be relegated.

The coaches meet up and Roy suggests the 4-4-2 strategy for the team to stick to throughout the season. He says it’s better to rely on a solid strategy than a clever one.

Nate, now Coach Shelley, heads into the fancy office at the fancy building at his new job. A man pokes his head in and greets him, calling him Wonder Kid, prompting Nate to tell him to leave before returning his attention to a malicious twitter feed.

Ted and Beard realise that the boys are too distracted by the pundit predictions to train properly. They tell Will, the kit man, to ask Kenneth to bring the bus around.

Rebecca tells Keeley she’s worried that Ted isn’t concerned enough about Richmond but Keeley convinces her to let Ted be Ted. She’s still bothered about Rupert though. Earlier she wanted to destroy everything of his but now she just wants to beat him and win. Keeley says it’s progress. Barbara, Keeley’s CFO, comes in and tells her to not spend two hundred pounds on flowers every week. She also tells Rebecca that she and Roy are going to have a talk with Phoebe later that night.

Nate trains the West Ham team with aggressive tactics and the use of a ‘dumb-dumb-line’. Rupert’s secretary calls him up to meet Rupert, who has come back from a holiday. He’s ecstatic about the pundit prognostics. He’s also about to have a car towed away for being parked in the prestige spot when Nate realises it’s his and Rupert lets it go.

Kenneth, a hippie who used to be a cult leader, drops off the team. Ted leads them all to a manhole and instructs them to go down into the sewers. A pair of construction workers see them and take pictures.

Meanwhile, Leslie and Rebecca get ready to watch Rupert’s press release.

In the sewers, Ted explains that Henry watched It and so wanted a tour of the sewers. The guide talks about how the sewer system helped prevent a cholera outbreak due to untreated waste going into the Thames.

At the press release, Rupert gets Nate on the stand. Initially, Nate gets really awkward and pretends to tie his shoelace to collect himself. When a reporter asks if he’s overwhelmed to go from a kit man position to a coach, Nate says he earned it and insults the reporter for asking a stupid question.

The players ask Ted what they’re doing down in the sewers and he says that their brains are blocked by other people’s ‘poopy’. They need an internal sewer system to let all the waste out and rely on learning from each other instead. Anything they don’t need should flow right out.

At the press release, someone brings up the picture of Richmond’s team going into the manhole and gives Nate the opportunity to insult Ted as well, calling him a ‘shitty’ coach. Meanwhile, Rebecca gets mad.

Back at the training centre, the news about Nate’s comments spreads but Jamie reminds the team that it’s just poopy and they should let it flow. The coaches are proud.

Rebecca makes her upset feelings clear to Ted. She says everyone, Rupert included, is laughing at them and tells him to fight back. Ted holds a press conference where he tells the reporters that despite the predictions, his hopes are high.

The Independent’s new reporter asks him about Nate’s comments. Ted says they were hilarious but Nate could have taken better digs at him. This is followed by Ted making jokes at his own expense and the crowd of reporters eventually joining in on the laughter. Even Rebecca realises the merits of letting Ted be Ted.

The response to Ted’s press conference infuriates Nate and to make matters worse, his mother’s text conveys that his father is upset that he swore on telly. Rupert’s secretary arrives and gives him a small gift box with keys to a new car. Nate gets inside a fancy new ride and drives away.

Roy and Keeley let Phoebe have ice cream before dinner and then break the news that they are breaking up. However, she and Keeley can still see each other all the time. When she asks for a reason, Roy says it’s because they’re both busier than they usually are. On the way home, Phoebe tells Roy he’s being stupid.

As Ted and Beard walk home, Ted muses about their reason for sticking around in England. At home, he speaks to Henry on the phone and shows him the little trophy kept on the Lego football ground they had built together. Henry asks why Nate is off to the side and reminds Ted that they can still be friends even if on different teams.

Ted puts the figure of Nate with the rest of the figures. He asks Henry if knows that Ted is only so far away from him because of something important. Henry says he believes they’re going to win. Ted says winning isn’t everything but Henry says he has to try. He then shows Ted a toy infinity gauntlet that was given to him by Jake, who turns out to be his mother’s friend.

The Episode Review

Spurred on more by Ted’s ramblings than anything else, Episode 1 feels as dynamic and exciting as ever. A few interesting things happen — we see that Ted’s centre of focus has moved and he’s now questioning his reason for staying in England, while Nate has fully adopted his role as an antagonist. The contrast of Ted’s kindness and Nate’s aggression is great. Also, there is a new hippie bus driver named Kenneth!

A few not-so-interesting things include Ted’s sewer metaphor which was a bit too on the nose. Also, Rebecca’s ongoing feud with Rupert, which seems a bit old, done and dusted. Rebecca and Sam’s relationship would have been far more intriguing but, curiously, they haven’t mentioned it in this episode. Rupert does seem a bit of a caricature too at this point and lacks the nuance of so many other Ted Lasso characters.

There’s also Roy and Keeley and their seemingly pointless breakup in this category. They’ve had the unique combination of being a healthy couple on TV while also remaining interesting so it’s a bit sad to get this separation and not even a very meaningful one at that. It’s a small consolation that the love triangle with Jamie hasn’t reared its head…yet.

Overall, a good episode that sets up a lot of the journeys to come in season 3.