4 june, 2023

It has been wonderful for my spirit to write this personal review of Ted Lasso season three finale. I am aiming for more prose, poetry, and narrative into my artist studio work. Perhaps the best statement of intent for this essay is: a heartfelt ask for a season four. Pretty please, with barbecue sauce? Below is an attempt at persuasive, but mostly genuine, discussions regarding several themes of the show. Above all, Thank You to the show itself, most especially its creators and its actors. May they feel Believed-in, always. May viewers, if the end has indeed been the end, truly experience gratitude for three years past of joy and hope. May the entire planet of human beings be ignited everyday in the kind of team love that was displayed in the final locker room scene of the 3.12 episode. If the world began each day with a video clip of those pieces of the sign being pulled out and put back together, peace might become globally real. May anyone who is grieving in any way from the finale, eventually and soon find a way to paint some rainbows over the Kansas sky where we last see Ted.

First, there is the umbrella group of topics relating sub-ideas of found-family, no place like home, divorce, and the visceral challenge of making best choices in the most important of life jobs: raising children. On a show which not only supports found-family but shows it in superior form (as Ted is shown to thrive overall with new nucleus of AFC Richmond), Henry deserves a chance to find a best fit for himself in a place where he, inside his mind may want to be. His passionate and precious adoration of Nate + Jamie, his true love of soccer, his relationship with Coach Beard, his ease with travel, and his pride in his dad doing something fabulous all lead to a vision of him moving with thrill and joy. The happiest we ever see Henry is in England. Even the end, of Henry's essence in Kansas is portrayed as sad or struggling, on a simple soccer field where his spirit should be expressing itself as free and smiling. As a child of divorce by marriage, it is nearly impossible, for me to imagine recommending any child of separated parents endure a reunion unless they very clearly have no negative issues remaining. More, on a show referencing there's no place like home, Ted deserves a new home he grew to love even bigger, a place which brought light and life to his soul, because true home is only where the heart is. Ted and Richmond belong together. This notion illustrated itself while earlier passing by Ted Lasso merchandise at the bookstore. A reaction bubbled up immediately within, looking at Ted's images like seeing a ghost. Who was he? Is he still around? Why does it feel so sad and like the color grey... but far from a greyhound feeling, like that old bliss once felt, a metaphor of purple, like combining the team hues of red and blue? Why does it feel like someone the human race needed (and had leading its population of heartful souls) turned out to be lost? Why does it feel so hard to mentally reprogram the light of Lasso, which once was an unending wellspring? The goldfish stuff could be skipped. From my own athletic perspective, it's a top tactic for competition mental health; but, for human beings and real life, it implies that memories don’t serve us in a productive way and it also reflects the often-truth behind how the seemingly happiest people are at times the most sad inside, even hollow. Maybe, for individuals, visualizing redwood or aspen trees holding each other up, those beautiful breathing beings, entangled by their underground root systems, could be a best practice. We must become our best in our own skin, but it's because of the network around our bodies which keeps us ultimately ever-thriving.

Second, there is the theme of Believe. It would be so beautiful if all the teens in the world could watch this show and without a doubt learn everything necessary in life to help them thrive and make positive ripples as humans forever. This is the echelon of supreme upon which Ted Lasso sits perched. If a season four can emerge and paint a mental image of it's many infinitely-positive story lines, there may be a whole generation of humans about to shift into adulthood with their best selves groomed and excitedly ready. For example, I grew up actually Believing in the stories I was fed, like Nora Ephron movies and Julie Andrews everything and phenomenal theater musicals. Doing so actually fueled me through to thrive; to illuminate, such programming gave me something wonderful to envision while enduring an emotionally abusive college relationship. Then, it reshaped my ability to trust again, and I was able to see and choose my best friend of twenty-two years as the one I hadn't yet known I really wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Belief in uplifting stories doesn’t only leave one’s heart and mind and spirit programmed with unshakable confidence in relationships; it leaves one feeling unshakably fearless about knowing that the best things come to those who look for them. Magic is seen by children because they seek it. To paint another picture, my life was saved because of Belief in stories like fairytales. On the day our daughter was born, I had three lifesaving surgeries and was conscious for all but the last one of the eight hours of it. With my still-awake psyche (adding general anesthesia to the epidural wasn't until the final hour), the two operating room nurses held my hands and my eyes and my life in theirs for all the hours, as I kept bleeding and eventually processed a blood transfusion over twice the amount of my body’s capacity. While my mind was terrified, my soul (because of, in part, youth-hood programming) Believed that such fairytales were real and that our family's story would be one, like them, at the end of surgeries. That’s the point of stories, and it always has been. Humans have used tales and telling for all of our history to pass along what can help make the next generation better. And, Ted Lasso as a narrative has done just this: changed the Earth. Human beings have survived life, and all that comes with living, in all of our little tiny individual corners of existing, often because of things gifted to us from this show. This story is an earth-shaking medium. And people, just as I did with the rom-coms and Rodgers-Hammersteins I programmed into my being early on, Believed, over the past three years, in the show as something to live by. That is both unfair for the creators to have to sign-up to bear, and yet it gives them the choice to take the chance to make an historic and epic positive amendment to the human race by fulfilling some callings of the show that have been laid out naturally for a further development. Now is always a good selection for "when". Let the whole light shine.

Thirdly, no Ted Lasso banter could be complete without touching on the theme of soulmates. If you believe in them, make a wish on the clouds today. If you do not believe in them, then here is a gentle and loving wish for you to find what your deserving heart very most desires! The writers and actors of Ted Lasso seem to confirm that a longer-term, "later" possibility for Ted-&-Rebecca-in-love is not off the table, although the finale left an ambiguous ending romantically for the two of them onscreen. At some point, in the life of two soulmates, if they find one another and the timing is right (sometimes it can take decades and many missed timings or unshared experiences; in the case of my husband and I, it took 22 years), romance happens because you realize you cannot do life without them and neither do you want to do so. Romance happens because when you need to just be held tightly by a hug, but don't know it, but your soulmate knows and just holds you for hours, and hours, and even days or weeks, and lets intimacy be just that: lots of true holding, because it's what you didn't know you needed, then you count that as perfect intimacy for that period of time. Regardless of what some fans of Ted Lasso may or may not want to actually see onscreen, the "hows" of romance between two soulmates is not at all the most important thing about two soulmates who finally fall in love. Often, it can be way less steamy than what you've might rootedly expect or desire. But, best of all, it's safe. It's excellent. It grows and it gets better. It's the most beautiful, because two people's souls, when made of the same essence, will create love physically in a stratospheric way that isn't about a carnal or animalistic pulse. It's beyond sensual. It's free. It's careless. It's the definition of wonderful. It's ugly sometimes. It can be shaky. The first time my now-husband kissed me was after those twenty-two years of best friendship and then several months of acknowledging we had indeed fallen in love but questioning the do-we/don't-we try even a basic smooch. We were both terrified. But, when we did kiss, I will never forget absolutely convulsing all over with something I can only describe as actual electric energy. Not lightning, as was suggested to be the boat man for Rebecca (a sense of attraction and striking notice); rather, what ours was, just total pure voltage. It was neither great nor unwanted. I still, to this day, eighteen years later, do not remember whether or not I enjoyed it. It was not scripted. It was not made for film. It was so raw. When you love someone with the power of two souls, putting it into action at the tiny size of human bodies compared to the infinite eons of stars makes things move the way the moon moves the sea. It's shocking. It's not perfect. But, as we know, perfect is boring. Millions of people begged for Ted Lasso to offer a romantic soulmate story, because no one on Earth as a human truly deep down wants boring. We are not socially conditioned to need male/female leads to be romantic... that is acutely beside the point. We are, however, organically conditioned, by nature of being spiritual souls inside human bodies, to yearn for and Believe in the existence of things beyond ourselves... and one of them being the ability of life and God Herself to bring its/her humans a soulmate. If they want one, and if they Believe (authentically), in one. In a show about women not being administered by men, Rebecca should have been given a Ted for her ending. The real beautiful Ted. The version of him that mirrors the heavenly Rebecca she herself has become. Maybe, it could just take a little season four to display Ted healing and returning, even if it films as if ten years passes between Kansas and a Richmond return. If Nate can do it in one year, asking ten for Ted seems so very mild!

In conclusion, we can each make up what we want in our minds for whatever serves us best, and maybe that’s how the Ted Lasso finale will go down in history: ambiguous for the purpose of not deciding for us. For example, many people will forever believe that Ted & Rebecca did actually sleep together (and soulfully love every moment of it, given the silent speech between their eyes across the kitchen island in the morning after) on the night of the gas leak. This could have led to the stadium seats and airport exchanges being so emotionless and silent for Ted, as words could have led to more complicating layers of acknowledging feelings. Or, people will believe that the sleepover was just platonic, and that will serve their hearts and minds best for themselves. Also, it has been written that show development behind-the-scenes over the past three years' time has had influence from narratives in the writers' or actors' personal lives; we must overarchingly respect, more than anything else, that they care much more about the brilliant piece of art they've made than we as viewers do. It's like a baby and a parent, the love needs not be competed with. Scripts could have been fluidly evolving between seasons of life off-screen, and day-by-day of the team and crew continued to become more invested in the long-term story plan of Ted Lasso. Then, when suddenly it became something so powerful, making global waves of goodness & positivity, the developers likely became protective of viewer opinions and afraid to lose any single audience member's fanship. The ambiguous ending could have been a way to say I Love You to each fan, no matter each's various opinion or wanted outcome/s. But, therein lies the problem with fear. It leads to hesitation, and hesitation will always make your biggest fears come true. If you don’t stand for something, you can't stand for anything. If the finale we saw is the forever finale, instead of the cast and crew resting in total peace from the ambiguity, the show may accumulate some enduring critiques. If this ending is the ending-ending, the show may not just be losing a few fans who didn’t want some popular endings to happen; instead, it may have incidentally maintained all of its casual, or shallow-reading viewers, while mournfully losing devoted followers and high-depth readers to grief or frustration or confusion. And then comes the ultimate question: Why are so many people feeling so "personal" about it? Well, the best response may be, as Meg Ryan spoke through her character Kathleen Kelly in You’ve Got Mail, “What is so wrong with being personal!?”. Personal is what we all, in our bottomless souls, yearn for the very most. It is not only wanted, but needed. Being personal within ourselves and among each other is what makes living alive. And, in so many cases around the world everyday, so many precious humans only have television to make themselves feel anything on a level of “personal”. Humans are so often neglected, isolated, hurt, unsure, and helpless. Television, be it whatever can be said of “silly” or “unrealistic”, is personally vital for many. Especially when it’s made as beautifully, movingly, and galactically as Ted Lasso.

If we have no season four and if this is eternally the farewell, there will be a few options for the forever future. Some fans may resonate with it, seeing the frail finality of Ted back where he started as a nod to the challenge of life we often are walking, a nod to how hard or impossible it is and may always be for change or escape or healing. Some may forever hate it, because it had the ability to leave itself as among the greatest love stories of all time. And some may always admire how the final episode left all doors open at the end, due to what wasn't explicitly decided, even if glimpses and options were shown; this flexible-perception offering may long-term inspire some to stop looking toward the screen for thought guidance, and instead ask ourselves: which ending would we pick for our own hearts? Many people may turn out to be more like the season one Ted that we knew, because they’re so entirely disheartened with the season three Ted. It, inadvertently, may motivate people in a rigorous way to never let themselves stay broken. There may be a desperate desire to self-heal, and stay healed... not because Ted did, but because Ted didn’t. (Or, isn’t yet.)