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The latest episode of Ted Lasso is called ‘Headspace’, and naturally, this applies nearly across the board to the gang. The people who have issues in this way are Roy, Keeley, Nate, Rebecca, Sam, and Ted, which is quite a lot to juggle. But the episode handles all of these parallel storylines quite well, also setting up even more drama and potential growth to come.
In the ‘pending further info’ storyline, Rebecca is struggling with responding to Sam’s (who is still anonymous to her of course) request to meet in person. It’s clear that she wants to do it, but has issues with commitment, understandably so given her marriage. But at least it’s a positive desire, one of self-protection, even if she derides Ratatouille, which Keeley correctly calls a masterpiece.
Sam is getting a lot of support from the guys, who are right there with him watching those dreaded three dots — even if overly honest Dutch Jan incorrectly says it’s probably because she lost interest. But the show delights in teasing us, having Sam and Rebecca knock into each other in the hall while on their phones. They seem to have a rapport, certainly, even Sam does deliver that hacky line about us modern people and our devices (which are often Apple products, aren’t they?).
Roy and Keeley’s storyline is pretty good, but it actually reflects the fairly mature nature of their relationship, despite these hurdles. We see Keeley get increasingly frustrated at Roy’s constant presence, which gets amusingly referenced later when she yells that he’s perfect and she should know because she’s literally always with him every moment. But despite this all coming to a head and an argument, Roy gets answers (albeit obvious ones) from Jamie of all people.
Of course it’s simply that he needs to give his girlfriend space sometimes, because she already said it — he just had to make the choice of how to manage it (including a notable ‘Siri’ reference). So the episode ends with the two of them better than ever, an interesting contrast to the scenes of Sam and Rebecca and their halting growth.
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On the halting growth side is also Ted’s tale, where he struggles with his attempts at therapy, even fleeing at first, then angrily yelling the second appointment. But finally he returns, as Sharon has pointed out, because he ‘never gives up’ — which was an issue with his marriage, we already know. The doc is able to get Ted to listen by explaining that she was offended by his accusation that she doesn’t care about her patients because she gets paid, and turns it neatly around on him.
The scene ends with the two laughing after Ted tosses the tissue box away, and it seems that perhaps Ted is finally willing to address the issues underlying his panic attacks — and it’s great to see the character actually maturing in ways that were hidden there the whole time.
But unfortunately things are all great, as we see regression instead of progression in Nate’s storyline. The ‘wonder kid’ is still obsessively scrolling his Twitter feed throughout the episode, but we see more of the roots of his self-doubt and lack of confidence. His father is realistically but terribly critical, not even willing to comment positively on his son showing up in the paper.
Instead he must throw out a painful aphorism (which I believe is from evangelical pastor Rick Warren) that ‘humility isn’t thinking less of yourself but thinking about yourself less’. So he’s critical of Nate being proud of his success, so no wonder he feels constantly like he needs to prove himself and that everyone is just as critical as his father.
When ‘taking the piss’ with the players, Nate punishes Colin for clearly personal reasons, and then gets much, much worse with a terrible personal attack comparing him to a dull Holiday Inn picture. Beard actually overhears this and finally, finally says something, and Nate actually apologizes to the team. But this is not the end of the drama. Nate simply cannot let his ‘wunderkind’ misspeaking go, making you wonder who he’s really trying to convince.
We see multiple scenes of Will the Kitman doing his job with aplomb and cheer throughout the episode, and even seems to be a fan of Nate the ‘Wonder Kid’. Yet he’s bottling things up, like Ted and Keeley were, but unlike them, his feelings erupt in truly awful ways. As Nate scrolls through his feed like always, he spots the one negative comment from a ‘JoTheMan6’ who calls him a loser.
All while Will is whistling happily, and Nate cannot handle what he suddenly thinks was an attack on him — which of course it wasn’t. But while Nate is no longer being cruel to the players, instead he attacks the only one truly at the bottom of the totem pole. So this asks the question? Is Nate now the villain of the show?
It’s a lot of well done storylines, with a lot of great comedic jokes as always, and a heartbreaking ending. That’s the Ted Lasso way, after all, and it’s quite an episode.
What did you think of this episode? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
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