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The latest episode of Ted Lasso is called ‘Carol of the Belles’ and I know I’m missing some reference aside from the obvious name of the song. But the episode was mainly about seeding a few little things, ignoring a few others, and blowing away everyone with kindness at the end of the episode.
The subplot with Roy, Keeley, and Phoebe is interspersed with the others, but it’s otherwise its own separate storyline. After Phoebe reveals a boy in her class named Bernard made fun of her for some sort of hardcore halitosis, the three are off on their own holiday adventure. The idea of the ‘Sexy Christmas’ is a pretty decent one, hope that’s not forgotten in the future. But otherwise the three knock on random doors in Roy’s posh neighborhood, trying to find a dentist.
This leads to a few heartwarming moments, starting with Roy admitting to a random kid that he too has had ‘adult accidents’ and perhaps they can both overcome them. Then after they finally find the dentist (who naturally lives in the last house), the three create a better version of Love, Actually as Phoebe offers forgiveness to Bernard but asks for him to stop being a little berk. The dynamic of these three is always great, and there’s a lot that’s inherently funny — both acting like surrogate parents, each with their own uses. Keeley is unendingly kind and Roy is gruff but wise — she can always keep him back from his worst impulses.
This is contrasted with the knocking on doors by Rebecca and Ted, delivering gifts to a neighborhood that is certainly far less posh than Roy’s. It has a sweet element too, Rebecca rescuing Ted from rewatching It’s a Wonderful Life and getting drunk — a pretty dark scene as Ted admits (I also noticed a lingering shot of Ted’s MacBook, naturally).
But we still get plenty of jokes, like Rebecca praising the puppet show of Rachel Weisz and Daniel Craig at Elton John’s holiday party — or the reference I had to look up where Ted says (of trying to give money to buskers while Rebecca is there with far deeper pockets) that he should know better than to ‘tinkle’ next to John Holmes, who is apparently a very famous porn star.
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This all connects back at the end with the household Higgins and the party there, where every player seemingly has shown up (or at least certainly all of the ones from other countries). It’s a nice thing to see them interact with Higgins and his family, but also to show how in the new year, Higgins has become quite the popular person with the team.
It all connects at last when Ted and Rebecca show up with the buskers (who are the performers Adam Taylor, Tom Prendergast, and Leona Norskov Jorgensen) to sing the classic song ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ by Darlene Love, also famously covered by Mariah Carey. Finally we get a chance to see Hannah Waddington belt out like we know she can — it’s the perfect way to end a non-canonical episode of this show.
But why do I say that? Because at the end, Higgins’ youngest son sees Santa fly in the air — so I’m suspicious it’s alt-reality, let’s just say. Otherwise though, it’s a classic episode of ‘holiday’ cheer that has all elements of any religion carefully removed, which I tend to approve of because I don’t really want to see something about the ‘magic’ of a specific Christian holiday in this show.
Whether or not anything here will truly matter in the rest of the season almost doesn’t matter — sometimes it’s just nice to have a funny, charming episode before we get back to the real problems again.
What did you think of this episode? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
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