Ted Lasso Season 3 Is Too Obsessed With Winning
In episode 5 of "Ted Lasso" season 3, the Greyhounds are coming off of a brutal loss to West Ham that knocks them even further down the Premier League power rankings. Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham), Richmond's owner and biggest champion, storms into Ted's office and yells, "Are we ever going to win another f***ing match?" Clearly, the team is spiraling and the pressure of joining the Premier League is mounting, causing a rift between Rebecca, the team, and the fans; a rift that's only growing larger week by week.
Of course, the entire Richmond community wants their team to win and Ted has an obligation to make sure they're the best they can be. But season 3 as a whole has become a little too concerned with what's happening on the field and in episode 5, "Signs," the obsession with winning becomes too much of a focus for a show that's always chosen character over what's on the scoreboard.
"Ted Lasso" has intentionally moved away from the fish-out-of-water caricature of its leading man to explore issues about mental health, separation anxiety, and panic attacks that have added some much-needed depth. Now, the team is consistently losing and the characters are still struggling, causing the Richmond faithful to revolt. One fan at Ted's local Crown & Anchor pub shouts at the television, yelling "I knew positive thinking was bulls**t!" Lasso's self-help philosophy is losing support because there's too much emphasis on results now that AFC Richmond is in the limelight. To get back to the core tenant of the show that places team building and positivity ahead of winning percentage, the rest of season 3 needs to stop worrying about what's happening outside of the locker room so the team can start believing in each other again.
There's still a lot of football to be played, so why worry?
Granted, the AFC Richmond schedule is relentless in their first season in the Premier League. Jaime Tartt (Phil Dunster), Dani Rojas (Cristo Fernandez), and Isaac McAdoo (Kola Bokinni) are still licking their wounds from the West Ham loss when they have to start preparing for the next week's match with Manchester City, the top-seeded team that's completely dominating the competition. They crash and burn in the match, losing to their "sky blue tormentors" four-nil. With the loss, Richmond falls to 9th place with six wins, six draws, and three losses. For a team that was projected to finish last out of the 20 best teams across England and Wales, is that really such a bad position to be in?
With his unflappable sunny disposition, the old Ted Lasso would surely be happy with their standing through the first leg of the season after Richmond battled back to secure a spot at the end of season 2. As long as the Greyhounds don't wind up as one of the bottom three teams, they won't be relegated to the second-tier Championship. It's still early on, and Richmond's newfound ability to recruit top players like Zava (Maximilian Osinski) got off to a thunderous start but hasn't exactly paid off in the big matches. In fact, Zava's addition to the team has turned Dani and most of the other players into hero worshippers that hang on every cheap piece of ego-driven wisdom their shiny star player utters.
When Jaime steps up to be the leader in the locker room and tells the team to stop worrying so much about winning, Zava twists his words saying "You will win because you work together." The team is listening to the wrong person and they're paying for it.
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?
With Zava's sudden retirement in episode 5 (that avocado farm isn't going to plant itself!) just before the Man City match, the Richmond players wind up learning a valuable lesson. They're going to lose with or without their best player. In the final minutes of "Signs," Ted manages to fight off a panic attack after talking with his son, Henry (Gus Turner), before he says goodnight to the team. It's a telling moment that suggests Ted is starting to be able to put aside the stress and anxiety that's been plaguing him. Ted is about to leave when Sam (Toheeb Jimoh) asks about Zava deserting them, inspiring him to give a great speech that should put them back on track to be better individuals first before worrying so much about the win column.
The "Believe" sign that Nate ripped up suddenly falls down behind Ted, which should be an ominous harbinger of things to come, but it becomes a rallying cry instead. Winning is important as long as it happens with the people that actually want to be there, and Ted turns a negative into a positive, saying "The belief that I matter regardless of what I do or don't achieve" is what's important. It's time to move past the fake Zen spiritualism of Zava and all the locker room superstition.
Winning it all was never what "Ted Lasso" was about, and by the end of episode 5, the team looks to turn inward and get better as individuals. For fans of the show and the fictional fans of AFC Richmond, it should be okay if they don't win every game as long as they stay true to each other and stick by their coach.
New episodes of "Ted Lasso" stream on Apple TV+ each Wednesday.