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The latest episode of Ted Lasso is called ‘Mom City’ because it’s the episode about mothers, or specifically, two in particular as the Richmond team is off to face Manchester United. At this point in the football season, Richmond has been doing so well that Ted’s normal walk to work has everyone being more polite, even the old man who’s always rude to him. But he gets a surprise when he spots his mother Dottie (great character actor Becky Ann Baker) waiting to see him on a bench.
Dottie sports the same sorts of folksy aphorisms as Ted, like ‘winner winner B. F. Skinner’ (which is certainly a pointed commentary about Skinner’s controversial child rearing theories) but Ted is immediately awkward about it — he even says one of her jokes doesn’t make sense, which is funny in its own way.
She’s immediately great with the team and Trent, offering all sorts of semi-accurate stories about Ted, and of course is happy to see Beard too (more on that one later). Rebecca offers the advice to give his mom at least one lovely moment during her vacation — and I’d say that does happen, only at the very end of her trip. And seems to set up a major change with the Ted and Rebecca relationship.
When Ted talks about therapy, Dottie does that classic joke of ‘I bet it’s all my fault’ because in a way, it sort of is — although not entirely, of course. She also can’t explicitly label Ted’s panic attacks as anything but ‘episodes’ while Ted has reached a point where he’s able to be honest with himself about it. She recognizes that Ted is still the over-helpful type — helping others while not helping himself, but this episode does delve into overcoming that.
Of particular note is Mae reading (verbatim) Philip Larkin’s famous ‘This Be The Verse’ which is a darkly humorous poem about how parents inevitably pass their own trauma onto their kids, and that ties in with Ted’s admission later on in this episode to his mom that he’s afraid of being hurt when Henry eventually leaves him.
It’s a breathtakingly momentous and emotional moment, and Dottie delivers one of those unreasonably great turns of phrases that relates parenting to football — rarely win, usually lose, mostly tie — and all you can do is keep playing. It’s a beautiful sentiment, and it comes on the heels of Ted cursing out his mother (in the only way he can, by also thanking her) in more F-bombs than we’ve heard from him since the start of the show.
Her admission that she didn’t know how to handle Ted’s father’s suicide and thus acted like nothing was wrong makes sense, because it’s not like there’s an easy way to deal with such a traumatic situation, nor is our culture particularly open to therapy as a useful tool either. Jason Sudeikis likely clinches his next Emmy win with this entire scene, doing such a phenomenal job it’s a highlight in a show of highlights.
The other major thing Ted does this episode is discussing second chances to Beard — not wanting to judge people by their worst mistakes. So perhaps that can apply to both himself and his mother too, and it seems he finally internalizes what he needs to do. When Rebecca reveals she had no truth bomb this year (I was bracing for an ill-done admission of love which thankfully didn’t happen), Ted admits he has one — which is how the episode ends.
But what could it possibly be but that Ted needs to go back home to his son? It’s always been a show about parents and children, and this is just the final act of that story. We still have to wrap up the little hint of Rupert’s situation — Bex and Miss Cakes showing up to ask Rebecca advice certainly seems to be a strong indication of impropriety on his part, but there’s been no confirmation yet.
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On the Nate side of things, it’s more broad for a while, working as a waiter in Taste of Athens while customers think he was fired due to drugs (but we know the truth). Jade thankfully continues to be too good for Nate and forces his hand, getting him fired in an amusing way (I laughed when she said that ‘No such man exists’ about Nate).
The interesting trio of Colin (who Nate once targeted with malice), Will (who Nate only apologized to last episode), and Isaac (the team captain) reveal that the team wants Nate back at Richmond unanimously, with Colin notably being the assertive one in their exchange. He’s also one of the only people to score a goal this episode, so you have to imagine his story arc is nearing its end.
Nate can’t stop being invested in his old team, watching enthralled as they play against Man City — but it seems like the stopgap is Ted, whom he never apologized to. Will he? The need to do so is interrupted by Beard’s sudden appearance at Nate’s home (with a horror movie sting to punch in the moment too) and Beard gives us the long-awaited backstory of the Ted and Beard relationship.
Of course it makes perfect sense — they knew each other as young men, Beard was a drug dealer and went to prison, and Ted was the only one who helped him when he got out — and even forgave and vouched for him when Beard stole Ted’s car. Thus we got a highly emotionally charged moment when Beard sheds a tear himself (in marked contrast to the You’ve Got Mail tear-fest earlier in the episode), telling Nate that Ted gave him a job and a life — in turn, he forgives Nate and gives him back his job. But a life, that’s up to him (another great turn of phrase by this show).
The other major storyline is about Jamie wallowing in a depressive state, seemingly about his father and the upcoming match with Man City (his hometown team after all). I do wonder what the show is ultimately trying to push with the Roy/Keeley stuff too, because they try (and keep failing) to help him. We finally get to meet Jamie’s mother, who is as supportive and kind as his father is an awful person — even though we discover later on that his dad is actually in an assisted living facility for reasons unknown.
Very amusingly, Roy and Keeley find themselves sitting on Jamie’s childhood bed looking at posters of themselves — and Roy admits he doesn’t want to be just friends. Keeley seems to be about to say something perhaps negative about it, but it’s interrupted by Jamie — an odd sign, certainly, given how the episode ends.
Jamie does such a great job in the Man City match that he gets the local fans to change from booing him to cheering him in another incredibly emotional moment in this episode (a lot of those this time around). But the last we see of him is drinking with Roy and Keeley while Jamie is recovering from his injury — as Ted looks in with an approving smile. That’s definitely a relationship situation that needs to resolve in some way, but I’m not sure how.
A complicated, funny, very hard-hitting episode that sets up the final moments for either this season or this show altogether — it’s a well-handled penultimate episode, moving past many of the questionable choices sometimes this season. How I feel about the season or show overall will really depend on that episode, but I suppose the fact that I don’t really want it to end says enough.
What did you think of this episode? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
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