There are plenty of reasons why I almost entirely lost interest in the cult sitcom Ted Lasso by the end of the second season. But the most important is that
it became a cult of toxic optimism.
And for a particular reason, one of the worst of its kind.
Although the origin of this phenomenon is quite understandable: the summer of 2020 was a strange time, and a sitcom about kindness, optimism, and hope became a hit naturally. Most people were seeking “fictional quarantine buddies” like Ted Lasso and other characters in the show. But not necessarily everyone. For example, my fictional quarantine buddies were the crew of the ill-fated Franklin expedition from the AMC mini-series Terror. Those were the weeks I read a ton about early 19th-century polar expeditions.
With this seemingly useless information, I just wanted to demonstrate that humans can respond to the same odd situation sometimes quite differently.
Also, Ted Lasso is a sitcom about mental health issues. The anxiety scene from the first season is a pivotal one. And for that reason, it’s quite appalling
how toxic optimism has grown among the most devoted fans of the show, who are responding to any kind of criticism with… well, with (online) harassment.
You’re not allowed to say even something innocent like “I would have written a scene between this and this characters a bit differently” anymore. Because there is someone in some dark corner of the internet, who is just waiting for the moment to explain to you what a sad, miserable little shit you are, and don’t deserve to live if you have any objection against this wonderful show about kindness.
Which is quite an odd statement from those who just declared themselves fans of a story, that tackles serious mental health issues. Actually, not just odd, but quite stupid and harmful.
I happened to have a very sensitive personality, but a strong mental immune system. Also, I happened to be someone, whose professional life is mostly about analysing stories written by others. I never knew the feeling of what would be like to have a daytime job with nothing to do with storytelling, then go home and watch a show just for fun. To distract my thoughts from my job. Because stories are my job.
So, here is a story that includes a plotline about anxiety and other mental health issues, and here I am, who is familiar with the fragility of the human soul and mind, but who is constantly thinking about this show (like about any other show) as a cultural product, thus a criticisable phenomenon, here are the toxic fans, who are eager to humiliate anyone who expresses their opinion different to their blind and intolerant admiration, and here is my mental immune system, which says: STOP. I should stop to watch the show entirely because it isn’t worth risking my mental health by being harassed for my opinion. You know what? There are so many other fascinating stories out there, let’s move on and think about them.
But there is one scene in the season finale,
that made it worth waiting till the end. The one with Ted (Jason Sudeikis) and Nate (Nick Mohammed). Although I think that the season-long lead-up to this moment has several problems, it’s just perfect. The way any sign of kindness and openness drives Nate just deeper into the darkness of his soul, how he feels more and more disconnected from the people around him, and how he later reacts to the team’s success is very well written.
I know that dark place quite well. I’ve been there several times in my life. And from that real-life experience, I know this fictional character just made the worst decision of his entire life.
But from the point of view of storytelling, it seems a great opportunity. Because the biggest problem of the show, which revealed itself somewhere in the middle of the second season, is that the conflicts and other interactions between the characters are only enough for one season. The entire second season seemed to be just a constant struggle to find something exploitable, in terms of storytelling, in these characters.
Now that Nate has accepted Rupert’s (Anthony Head) offer to be the manager of his new team, it will possibly shake up the entire structure of the story. Hopefully, there will be a refreshing reshuffle in the relationship between the characters.o
Long story short, it looks like it would be worth watching the third season.
A brief explanation of the blog category called “I don’t like sitcoms”: its a self-ironic reflection to the fact, that every time I intent to write something about this genre, the first sentence I would like to write down so eagerly is the statement, that I don’t like sitcoms.
