Grief, Growth, and Letting Go

*Trigger Warning: This review talks about suicide.

Ted Lasso is a show that I have been hearing about for a couple of years. I have heard nothing but good things about it and that it is one of Apple TV’s most highly acclaimed shows. The concept of the show seemed simple enough: a former American football coach travels to Britain to coach a soccer team even though he knows nothing about soccer.

Shows that centered around sports are not really my thing. The last one I remember being interested in is Friday Night Lights, which was pretty good. However, I decided to give Ted Lasso a chance after seeing one of their actresses, Hannah Waddingham, in Amazon’s Ride or Die. I liked her performance and was curious to see her character and others on a show that everyone is talking about. I expected that it would be silly, based on the different clips I have seen of the show’s namesake. However, after watching two seasons, the show turned out to be much deeper than I realized and has so much heart.

My favorite thing about the show is its wealth of thought-out characters. Three characters stood out to me when I watched the show. Let’s start with Hannah Waddingham’s character since she is the reason I started watching. Her character, Rebecca, is very fascinating. There is a parallel that is explored between Rebecca and her mother. Rebecca left her husband after finding out about his multiple affairs, whereas her mother stayed with her father even though she knew he constantly cheated on her. 

Rebecca’s willingness to walk away shows how strong her character is. She breaks the toxic relationship cycle in her family. Her mother didn’t want to be alone, and she loved her husband despite the way he treated her. Rebecca feared being alone after leaving her husband, but she went through with the divorce anyway. She didn’t want to be continuously disrespected. I admire her for walking away, and I wish more shows illustrated that, especially when I was in high school. I had a toxic friendship that took me months to walk away from because of guilt and fear. I wished I was more like Rebecca. She had her hesitations, but she got out of the relationship quickly before it brought her down. 

Another character who was surprisingly admirable is team captain Roy. When I first watched the character, he seemed rude and condescending. However, you later realize that it is just the exterior. He actually cares for people like his niece. He is always around to support her social and physical development and coaches her soccer team. He shows his love and devotion to his girlfriend. He also did an act that a lot of us have a hard time doing: stepping away from something when you know you are more of a hindrance than help. Roy loves soccer. However, being the oldest player on the team made him realize that his performance has gone down with age, but that he is also holding his team back with his poor performance. He knows that he has to end his soccer career if he wants his team to succeed. I know how it feels with my disability to have to give up things that you love. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you are giving up. It is recognizing that your circumstances have changed and you have to adapt. I like that Roy realized that eventually. He couldn’t be a soccer player, but he can be a coach to his former teammates and nurture their abilities. 

Despite how much I love Rebecca and Roy, I felt I learned more from the show’s namesake. Ted always portrayed himself as very positive and tried to pass on that emotion to others, like being a listening ear to his players, creating the diamond dog group for his coaches to support each other, giving players reading material to improve their potential, hand-making his boss’s favorite sweets, and the list goes on and on. 

I thought the story would be about Ted trying to survive in a world of positivity with the negativity of people trying to bring him down. However, it is more than that. As the seasons go along, we see cracks in Ted’s facade. His marriage fell apart, and he has panic attacks that cause him to shrink in on himself. We eventually learn that Ted is the way he is because he is still trying to reconcile with the fact that his father committed suicide when he was a teen. He is mad that his father gave up on himself and left his mother and him to deal with the fallout. However, his grief is much stronger because he wondered why he never noticed that his father was struggling and if there was anything that he could have done to help him. It made Ted want to be a person to reach out to people that he thinks are in trouble and offer support so that they can feel better. He doesn’t want the people around him to feel the way his father felt and give up on life. 

One of the things that I liked about Ted in particular is that not only did we see him struggle, but he gradually started to reach out for help when he realized he couldn’t maintain the pain that was inside him. He started slowly by notifying his boss and fellow coaches that he had a problem, which is a huge step. Acknowledging the problem is the first step on the road to recovery. It took him a while, but Ted finally worked his way to talking to a psychologist about his issues. Instead of trying to approach everything as a joke, he broke down into a vulnerable state to tell the psychologist about his past trauma, but was willing to listen to how to cope with his issues. 

I like that the show illustrates the point that everyone has problems, even those who seem to exude positivity and confidence. I also like that the most important message is to seek help when you know that you have a problem. You don’t have to suffer through it alone, and you’ll be surprised how many people are willing to help you see you succeed. If you ever feel alone and need help and someone to talk to, the following are good resources: 

988 Lifeline: Call or text 988 anytime for support with emotional distress or mental health struggles.

Crisis Text Line: Text MHA to 741-741 to chat with a trained crisis counselor.

NAMI HelpLine: Call 1-800-950-6264 or text NAMI to 62640 for mental health resources and support.