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The latest episode of Ted Lasso is called ‘La Locker Room Aux Folles’ which is a play on the play La Cage aux Folles, which was later adapted into a movie and then a musical (referenced in the end credits of this episode) and the classic film The Birdcage with Robin Williams and Nathan Lane. The title translates to ‘The Crazy/Foolish Cage’ which means that the episode clunkily translates to ‘The Crazy Locker Room’.
As a story about an older gay couple, there’s an obvious connection of a sort to Colin, because the story is also about trying to fool a bunch of super conservative parents. It’s not a one-to-one, but I get the intention. The episode has this Colin subplot as its background and foreground alike, because there’s a pretty clear sort of thoroughline from Colin as the joke of the team until the ‘man of the match’ at the end of this episode’s game.
After the tease of Isaac and Colin last time, the captain rebuffs Colin’s friendly overtures and even an overt request to chat — it’s a sort of tease about him maybe being homophobic. But that was never the way Ted Lasso was going to roll. After Isaac continues to be difficult, Colin plays poorly and makes a critical mistake — and Isaac unloads on him, but we later understand truly why.
Because soon after, a verbally abusive fan (one we’ve seen before) yells out insults and eventually drops a homophobic slur — one which the show bleeps out in an artful way, because we get what happened without having to experience it ourselves. Isaac tries to fight the fan in an understandable but obviously completely inappropriate manner for a player, and gets kicked out of the game.
In the locker room, everything comes into focus as he yells about how we shouldn’t have to keep living with ignorance like that — and that maybe one of them is gay. As the team ponders this and wonders if Isaac is gay, Colin decides that now is the moment — and just like before, we don’t see it — it’s a private coming out to the team, and we weren’t meant to see it. Because as Colin already said, he just wants to be himself and not the token Premier League queer player.
At the same time, Roy helps Isaac to understand his feelings, expressing how he also has been in his own way — just as Rebecca yelled at him earlier in the episode. It’s a well-handled sort of parallel from captain to captain, and Roy is explaining about improperly redirected anger — Isaac is able to admit at the end of the episode that he’s hurt that Colin didn’t trust him enough to tell him and might’ve thought Isaac would react poorly.
Considering that we start hearing the La Cage aux Folles song ‘I Am What I Am’ over the credits right after Isaac admits he loves Colin (as a friend) but cannot say the words aloud, perhaps it’s about how much the captain has supported Colin over the seasons. The locker room responds also in a completely idealized (but in this world, predictable) way, supporting Colin and saying nobody cares.
This leads into one of two ‘big speeches’ this episode as Ted talks about a friend of his he wasn’t able to support — and perhaps lost along the way, it’s implied. His message is about how they ‘don’t not care’ which is a bit of a distinction — in general he means they’re there to support him and have his back, but otherwise he’s the same as always.
But he isn’t really, as now Colin’s two worlds collide into one and he helps the team score two goals. In a similar ‘realization’ moment, Roy gets out of his way and listens to Rebecca’s command to do a press conference, in which he delivers a truly devastatingly sad story about his own lack of supporting a teammate — of which the message is: Everyone has their own issues, we shouldn’t think we know what’s always going on. But we should instead give them love.
In the completion of the worst, most pointless, storyline, Keeley is being ghosted by Jack and assumes their relationship to be over. I still don’t get the point of that entire arc at all, it feels diminishing and problematic and not really that entertaining — not to mention not really feeling like it’s doing Keeley justice. At least we do get Higgins hilariously saying ‘Good riddance’ after complaining about Jack’s overly firm handshake.
The other funniest moment was Roy grimacingly smiling and saying, ‘I mean, I’d love to’, in response to Rebecca earlier. I also appreciate Ted’s overly circuitous reference to ‘that’s what she said’ by referencing ‘that lady from the American Office‘. Just stupid enough to work. But otherwise Ted had little to do, other than some other background business.
The other major storyline is Nate finally pulling himself out of the Dark Side, thanks to his own reverse Padme. Rupert slimes his way into a creepy backhanded compliment about Jade being too good for Nate (which she is) but he’s overly awful about it — which of course she notices about Rupert even if Nate has yet to admit he’s noticed it too.
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Rupert mentions that he’s picked up on Jade’s accent as being from the south of Poland, and indeed actress Edyta Budnik is Polish by birth. But the whole point here is Rupert trying to turn Nate into another version of himself, thus the invite to a ‘guys’ night out’. Nate finally (after quite a while) realizes how this path would end for him and leaves Rupert behind to embrace his girlfriend.
From an ‘internal’ perspective that’s all well and good for Nate’s redemption arc, but he still hasn’t dealt with his awful treatment of Will, Colin, or even Ted for that matter. So I don’t know how I really feel yet about his arc this season.
Although there were some pretty funny parts this episode, and some sweet ones too, it did feel a little ‘feel good’ in a way that feels a little too feel good even for this show. I worry that it’s setting up a series end that won’t feel paid off, but I’m still willing to give the show the benefit of the doubt so far.
What did you think of this episode? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
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