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The latest episode of Ted Lasso is called ‘Midnight Train to Royston’ — Royston is a town in both the UK and Georgia, although it doesn’t particularly have any connection I know of to where our Richmond team is playing. The episode sets up several conflicts and resolves just one, leaving everyone else spinning in the wind.
As I see it, we have the Sam situation (possibly leaving), Dr. Sharon leaving the club, Nate leaving his ethics behind, and Keeley/Roy possibly leaving each other? In the only heartwarming plotline, Ted is seen setting up a complicated farewell party for the Doc, only to be infuriated by her leaving a day early. Higgins has a note from Sharon to everyone she’s worked with, even if Ted initially refuses to read it.
Although we do get a great callback when Higgins tosses a pun to not ‘Letter’ get away with it — of course we know Ted loves that. When Ted finally confronts Sharon, she points out that he’s helped her become a better therapist — a great moment that Ted appreciates. And then of course, the great few minutes where we silently watch Ted read his letter and watch the two express emotions entirely non-verbally. A powerful moment, and it’s made even better when Ted turns around Sharon’s early farewell with a note in the pub.
But things are more complicated in the Sam/Rebecca situation (and of course, Ted finally explicitly mentions the Cheers reference) as both of them are clearly not over each other. Yet Sam gets a great offer from new Ghanan billionaire Edwin (the great Sam Richardson) about joining a new all-African team in Casablanca, and it’s an effective pitch for multiple reasons. Sure, it’s funny that Edwin keeps doing ridiculous things like renting out a museum or creating his own pop-up restaurant, but he ultimately expresses it’s about Sam the player and Sam the human being.
A much harder thing for Sam to ignore, and Rebecca doesn’t make it any easier, telling him she can’t explicitly say not to go but hopes he doesn’t. Yet she can’t definitely answer anything about their relationship because she doesn’t know herself — and the power dynamic is still a potential issue underlying it.
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The last two storylines are tied together, Nate going too far and Keeley and Roy having difficulties. After spending hours apart from each other with another person, they come together in a supportive way but admit terrible truths. Keeley admits Nate kissed her after their time together (he obviously misread it, mistaking her general demeanor for romantic interest) while Roy admits that he didn’t explicitly tell Phoebe’s teacher he was involved.
But the real kicker (because Nate is not a real factor for Keeley and Roy barely knows the teacher Ms. Bowen, played by Ruth Bradley) is finding out that Jamie has recently admitted he still loves Keeley. This is a much harder pill to swallow, and it’s clear both of the couple are stricken, but what we don’t see is how bad this honesty has hurt them as a couple. It’s a terrible situation for the complicated couple, and uses the theme of honesty not necessarily helping, even if it’s preferable.
Ted tells Rebecca to listen to her heart and gut, which leads to her being honest with Sam about not wanting him to leave — another hard situation. But then we get the most honest moment of them all as Trent Crimm texts Ted about his panic attack and reveals that the source was Nate. Nate, who all episode has been complaining about wanting to be the boss, while nobody notices anything amiss despite many, many warning signs. I mean maybe they deserve to be surprised since nobody has legitimately tried to do anything about it.
It’s quite an emotional roller-coaster, and it’s the endpoint we’ve seen seeded for a while now — naturally it’s easy to guess that Nate with his new suit has the opportunity to be the ‘boss’ for another club, likely connected to Rupert. So as we dip into the end of the season, things are mostly grim — but that only means that things can only get better, right? But still, what a great episode.
What did you think of this episode? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
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