Apple TV+ smash hit Ted Lasso needs a win this week, as AFC Richmond’s losing streak makes the team a laughing stock.
Ted’s not thinking clearly. Rebecca is seeing evidence everywhere that a psychic prediction about her is coming true — and it’s freaking her out. Keeley handles an unruly employee and makes a new friend. Nate has a minor victory off the pitch.
The episode, entitled “Signs,” is a perfectly good outing of the perennially upbeat football show.
Ted Lasso recap: ‘Signs’
Season 3, episode 5: Ted Lasso (played by Jason Sudeikis) and Richmond are in a slump. They’ve been losing left and right, leaving them ninth in the league. Not even the club’s new star player, the spiritual guru Zava (Maximilian Osinski), can help them.
Things look ugly all around. Coach Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) is furious with the team, team owner Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham) is furious with Ted, Leslie Higgins (Jeremy Swift) is getting hate mail from everyone he knows, and Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt) is confused and depressed. Even Trent Crimm (James Lance), the journalist who’s supposed to be objectively observing the team, has to admit Richmond is boned.
Rebecca’s been down about her own stuff lately, too. Ever since a fortune teller named Tish (Emma Davies) told her she was going to have a kid, she’s been finding more signs everywhere she looks. She runs into an old flame at a coffee shop, and his new fiance accidentally utters one of the phrases the psychic said to her.
As the signals pile up around her, Rebecca becomes nervous. She’s even more nervous when Leslie suggests that firing Ted might be the best thing for the team. She decides not to think about that, and instead goes to a fertility doctor to see what her odds are.
A crisis for Keeley
Keeley Jones (Juno Temple) is having a crisis of her own at work. CFO Barbara (Katy Wix) wants to bring on more clients. But neither Keeley nor their investor, Jack (Jodi Balfour), think that’s a good idea — even if it does mean less cash coming in.
Meanwhile, Keeley’s old friend and current employee Shandy Fine (Ambreen Razia) has been messing up left and right. Without permission, she put the Richmond players on a celebrity dating app. After getting dressed down for that, Shandy decided to make her own app for people to seek out sex with celebrities.
Jack tells Keeley she needs to fire Shandy. Keeley hates the idea, but she agrees, especially after Shandy drunk-dials one of their clients and suggests an obscene new business strategy. Barbara, on the other hand, is so thrilled that Keeley’s firing Shandy that she asks to watch it happen.
Shandy makes a huge scene (tries to quote Jerry Maguire and blows it) and threatens to start her own PR firm, but caves a few seconds into her fit and starts crying. All this madness endears Barbara, Jack and Keeley to each other, so at least they got something out of the experience.
Shandy sends a lamb to the office the next day and it uses the conference room as a toilet for a few hours before they discover it. This show simply cannot pass up a joke about crap.
Nate struggles outside the arena
Over at West Ham United, head coach Nathan Shelley (Nick Mohammed) is having less luck than usual. Since becoming a big deal, Nate still can’t feel successful, largely because Jade (Edyta Budnik), his favorite waitress at his favorite restaurant, refuses to find him interesting. Even when he shows up with a supermodel (Elee Nova) as his date, Jade isn’t impressed.
Ted is further distressed when he hears Henry (Gus Turner), his son, is being bullied at school. Ted calls his estranged wife, Sarah (Sarah Niles), and the situation gets even more grave. Henry was the one doing the bullying, it seems.
This throws Ted. But he’s got worse news coming: Zava vanishes five minutes before Richmond is due to take on Manchester. They blow the game, of course, and Ted is about to have a panic attack when Henry finally calls him. This briefly centers Ted, but he’s still bummed about leaving his kid in the lurch. He goes out and gives one of his patented speeches, and the Richmond players rally around him, as expected.
Then Rebecca gets a call from her fertility clinic and tries to call Keeley about it, but Keeley and Jack are drinking and having fun at the office. Then, very suddenly, they’re making out (called it). Looks like that news will have to wait.
I do not just believe, I know
Photo: Apple TV+
Brett Goldstein wins MVP again this week. Roy’s monologue about the how to handle bullies got the closest thing to a laugh out of me this week.
“The best way to deal with a bully is to ignore him … then … sneak into their house at 4 a.m. … statistically speaking the time people are least ready to defend themselves,” Roy says. “You beat them with a length of rope soaked in red paint. They mistake it for their own blood and beg you to stop. And when you do you laugh as loud and long as you can … then you beat them again.”
It pays to have a bruiser in your ensemble. Brendan Hunt overplays the moment, but Goldstein is great in the whole scene. He does a great eye roll at one of a thousand Zava-isms. (I’m glad this character is gone, by the way, comedy crib death that character.) In general, Goldstein reminds you why Ted Lasso so badly needs him.
Not another blast of optimism, Ted!
I did my own eye roll, however, when the episode ended with a traditional Ted speech about believing in yourself — the show can’t go an hour without one of those, I guess.
But the Nate stuff was great, which surprised me because the character hasn’t been that interesting since he left the team. His little victory when the supermodel abandoned him mid-date and the waitress finally came over with sympathy baklava was fantastic. And seeing him finally just behave like himself for the first time in a dog’s age was nice. It was a lovely little side story in a mostly good episode.
★★★☆☆
Watch Ted Lasso on Apple TV+
New episodes of Ted Lasso season three arrive every Friday on Apple TV+.
Rated: TV-MA
Watch on: Apple TV+
Scout Tafoya is a film and TV critic, director and creator of the long-running video essay series The Unloved for RogerEbert.com. He has written for The Village Voice, Film Comment, The Los Angeles Review of Books and Nylon Magazine. He is the author of Cinemaphagy: On the Psychedelic Classical Form of Tobe Hooper, the director of 25 feature films, and the director and editor of more than 300 video essays, which can be found at Patreon.com/honorszombie.
