Ted Lasso has become an expert at giving me, and likely all of you, whiplash. Season four has been a bumpy ride because the storylines are a hit-or-miss in a way that continues to distance Ted Lasso from the show it once was: A refreshingly feel-good sports comedy. It has been replaced by a far less insightful, funny, or heartfelt version that recycles tired tropes (the Roy/Keeley nonsense) and gets too broad with its humor (Tracey Ullman’s Zelda). Perhaps this shift is the long fallout from Bill Lawrence stepping away before season three. The established characters don’t feel like themselves (looking at you, Rebecca, Keeley, and Roy), sit on the sidelines (poor Higgins), or are actively being ruined (sorry, Beard).
Meanwhile, the new ones are thinly sketched such that, even when the Lady Greyhounds let loose at a party and have a great time hanging out together, it hardly leads to anything enjoyable. A chunk of episode six spends time with the players as they enjoy New Year’s Eve festivities on a boat, allowing them to dress up, dance, drink, and steal fancy food. However, their fun is buried under layers of confounding subplots. The Greyhounds are at a fancy party hosted by Zelda, who goes from potential benefactor to the team and Keeley’s so-called hero to a chaotic wild card in the span of this one episode.
What’s with her references to Tony Blair (she calls out to him by saying, “You little war criminal, come and give me a kiss.”) and Prince Andrew, both of whom are supposed to be at this blowout? Let’s not forget Zelda firing off that gun manically after her speech, before her shindig turns into an Eyes Wide Shut event, masks and all, forcing Higgins and his wife to rush out of there. As necessary as it was to see the women bond, it came at the cost of Zelda’s ludicrousness and yet another botched Beard arc. Ugh. He presumes a younger woman—Zelda’s Botox girl, Claudine—who was friendly with him all night will be into a kiss. Turns out, she thinks he’s too old for her. The guy simply cannot catch a break, and apparently neither can we.
Written by Dylan Marron, “Don’t Jump Around Much Anymore” continues to firmly drag out the will-they/won’t-they between Roy and Keeley for no one’s benefit, certainly not the show’s. I’m sick and tired of it, actually. Usually, Ted Lasso reserves important conversations for off-screen, which is what made season three’s pacing wonky and frustrating. But now, we’re forced to endure two seemingly wise characters acting with profound stupidity. Look, love can and will make you do and say dumb things; that’s not the problem. The issue is that we’ve seen them deal with struggles maturely in the past—like in season one, when Keeley immediately admitted to sleeping with Jamie because Roy took too long to ask her out. He understood, moved on, and they started dating. The couple’s appeal lay in their ability to deal with drama together, not needlessly cause it.
In the three years since they’ve broken up, Roy and Keeley have never spent time alone or seemingly reflected on their relationship troubles. He’s been pining, and she’s been focusing on her work, pushing him to see other women instead of putting her on a pedestal. So when she tells Rebecca that it doesn’t matter whether or not Roy is with her on New Year’s Eve, it gives me pause. Girl, you haven’t spent the holiday with him for a while now, so your complaint makes no sense.
Roy and Keeley do hang out for a while that night, along with Rebecca and Jamie Tartt (!). The trio attends Jamie’s vodka launch party, and oh boy, was I glad to see Phil Dunster step into this ridiculous role all over again—only I wasn’t grinning as wide as Roy, who was eager to see Jamie embarrass himself. (“He never misses!”). Dunster emerged as a series MVP by the time season three wrapped up, and he effortlessly steals this episode simply by being, well, a cocky Jamie Tartt. That is, he brings that heartfelt and humorous element back to Ted Lasso, with Jamie confessing that he misses his old buddies when he’s in Barcelona—particularly Roy—while cracking plenty of one-liners throughout the hour. Jamie, we miss you, too.
In fact, Roy misses Jamie so much that he forgets about his bum knee and joins his former teammate in aggressively bouncing along to House Of Pain’s “Jump Around”—sending him straight to the hospital. Again. When did he become somebody who never learns? It’s here that Keeley, Rebecca, and Jamie meet Roy’s girlfriend, Dr. Erin (Laura Haddock). Of course, this is a gut punch for Keeley because she essentially pushed Roy into Erin’s arms. Still, Keeley’s treatment of her (wondering out loud to Rebecca and Jamie if she should report the doctor) is just too out of character. Again, love makes you say and do silly things, but Ted Lasso hasn’t justified why either Roy or Keeley is behaving this way. Worse, the show relies on a tired cliché when Keeley overhears a drugged-up Roy say “I love you,” only to walk away before he can follow it up with a “Keeley.” What a freaking mess.
“Don’t Jump Around Much Anymore” does have a couple of highlights, like seeing a suspended Alice muster up the courage to attend Zelda’s party. She has low self-esteem about what she’s wearing, her inability to engage in small talk, or just the fact that the Lady Greyhounds don’t seem to like her. But I love that Alice pushes herself to go anyway and ends up reconnecting with Gemma, who assures her that the team doesn’t hate Alice; they’re just trying to figure her out. Unlike Ted, she’s no open book, but hopefully, this motivates Alice to bring her walls down instead of being mad at Gemma for revealing their conversation to her teammates. We also meet Alice’s girlfriend, but at least in the screener I was watching, the show didn’t deem it necessary to give her a name; my subtitles just had her as [partner], which is a real damn shame.
However, the most compelling and Ted Lasso-y part of the episode is, yes, Mr. Lasso himself. Instead of attending Zelda’s bash, he stays at the pub with Michelle and Henry. As their kid works to clear tables, the former couple hashes out their, ahem, marriage story as politely as they can. Ted and Michelle have a very open, necessary, and, frankly, healthy talk about their relationship and divorce—and a lot of it happens over, what else, a game of darts, before they move up to Ted’s rented apartment. She encourages him to date again, while he finally prods her about dating their therapist. Jason Sudeikis and Andrea Anders deftly navigate this episode, giving it an emotional but not sappy spin. Eventually, Michelle encourages him to join the Lady Greyhounds (who are now at the pub) at midnight, leaving him a gift that he sees when he returns: A freshly painted BELIEVE sign and a reminder for him that “divorce does not make you a failure.”
It’s a lovely gesture, and an overall lovely way for the show to tie up any lingering feelings they may have. Ted and Michelle are in a good place now, which means Ted can breathe easy and not feel guilty about messing up his marriage—and hey, he might just hit up that stage manager he met or find someone else. After this episode, I have that hope for him. But over halfway through season four, I can’t say I have hopes for the show to snap back into place by the finale.
Stray observations:
- •Michelle is passing her time in a new city by writing a book about Mark Twain’s adventures in London, while Henry is working a part-time job at Mae’s pub.
- •Sorry for stuffing Rebecca’s arc in here, but I was upset to see how this episode treats her. She spends the whole time worrying about not being able to track Matthijs, who isn’t responding to her texts and has his Find My Phone turned off. Excuse me, but who is this Rebecca? By 12 a.m., Matthijs surprises her at the hospital, leading to a hasty reunion. Unfortunately, the show just hasn’t put in the work to make us invest in them as a couple, even though they’ve been dating for three whole years.
- •Also, Rebecca and Alice haven’t shared any meaningful screen time after episode one. It’s an aggravating choice.
- •I loved seeing Alice with her girlfriend in a domestic setting because it paints her in a new light; she’s her most authentic self. If only her [partner] had a name and personality, too.
- •Justice for Erin! The poor lady has done no wrong and got caught up in Roy’s shenanigans.
- •”You’re like the brother I never had, a brother who was kidnapped by the government because they thought he was a werewolf due to the fact that he was so fucking hairy.”
- •”Sometimes perfect is the opposite of good.”
Saloni Gajjar is The A.V. Club‘s TV critic.
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