Disney Almost Ruined One Of Rebecca's Grandest Moments In Ted Lasso
Perhaps the highlight of "Ted Lasso" season 1 is watching Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) slowly come around to Ted's point of view. Although AFC Richmond was full of grumpy characters in desperate need of Ted's positive influence, the vengeful Rebecca needed him the most. Slowly but surely, the audience learned that she was not only capable of kindness, but was in fact a straightforwardly kind person once you got to know her.
The first season's seventh episode, "Make Rebecca Great Again," revealed that the Rebecca we've known this whole time hasn't been the "real" Rebecca. So far, we'd only met her in the middle of the darkest period of her life. Years of mistreatment from her ex-husband Rupert had turned her into the worst version of herself; the fact that the tabloids were clearly taking Rupert's side in the divorce only drove her further into her bitterness. "The real Rebecca is silly. Strong, yeah, but not cold," her old friend Sassy explains. "Have you ever heard her sing? ... Beautiful voice."
The moment she says this, it becomes clear that Rebecca's storyline is not about Ted turning a cold person into a nice one; it's about him reminding a naturally nice person of who she already is. The episode culminates in a lovely karaoke scene where Rebecca sings "Let it Go" from "Frozen" in front of the whole team. It's a moment where we get to properly see the "real" Rebecca, being silly and fun, for the first time. Yet if Disney had its way, we might not have gotten this scene at all. Rebecca almost had to pick a different song.
Changing Disney's mind
"I did initially get a denial on [Let it Go] because the catalog is very particular about uses, and initially when you're sending in a scene description — because you've not shot it yet — they don't know exactly what it is. So it's kind of a fine line," music supervisor Tony Von Pervieux told Nerdist. "When we first got the denial, I was like, 'No!' And then letting everyone know, 'Hey, we should find a backup just in case for that spot, but I'm going to go back and try and fight for it.'"
What was the back-up song? Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive." A great song that would make sense for Rebecca to sing, but lacking the sort of "silly" vibes the show was aiming for. In particular, "Let it Go" makes way more sense as the song Rebecca would dedicate to Sassy's young daughter, who was six the last time Rebecca hung out with her.
"The hope was — because they would want to see the scene — the hope was that we would send them the scene and be like, 'Look, we told you, she's an amazing singer. This is actually a really good scene. We're not denigrating the song in any way,'" Pervieux explained. Sure enough, Disney reversed their denial, and we got the big "Frozen" musical moment the writers always wanted.
Why it needed to be 'Let it Go'
Pervieux believed the reason for the song choice was because of how well it fit with Rebecca's season 1 character arc. This whole time she's needed to let go of all the pain involved with her ex-husband; while it's not until season 3 that she fully moves on emotionally, this was her first big step in the right direction. "I think the other reason why [the writers] chose 'Let It Go' was, it's such a big moment. And then the juxtaposition of him having a breakdown, panic attack," Von Pervieux said. "Just in that moment, you have this beautiful, soaring song from this Disney film that it just seems like everything should be light and not heavy. And then [Ted] ends up having a panic attack and leaving the club."
It's easy to see why this provoked a panic attack for Ted. The kids' song likely reminded him of his own kid, his own lost family, and his inability to let the pain from that go. The fact that both Ted and Rebecca are going through divorces when we first meet them is their main bonding connection, the reason they work so well as mirrors of one another throughout the series. The scene where Rebecca helps him during his panic attack is the first moment where Ted and Rebecca talk to each other without any other pretenses, without any of the usual social barriers. It was the moment we realized these two wouldn't just stop being enemies, but they had the potential to be great friends as well. Although it would be two more episodes before Rebecca fully joined Ted's side, her singing "Let it Go" was the real turning point for her and Ted's relationship.