Ted Lasso shouldn't undermine Ted's optimism and iconic goodness
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"Ted’s relentless goodness is a boundary-pushing choice for TV after decades of anti-heroes from Tony Soprano to Don Draper to Logan Roy," says Anna Nordberg of the big revelation from last week's "Man City" episode. "And now the show’s writers are in danger of taking this astonishing thing they’ve created—this paragon of compassion, this unicorn of positivity—and turning it into just another TV cliché." She adds: "What does not need to happen, what should not happen, is for Ted’s empathy to be linked to his painful origin story, suggesting that it is a coping mechanism forged out of trauma, a deflection tactic to cover up a loss he never fully processed. This would cheapen Ted’s superpower, making it compensatory rather than the courageous core principle it is. Sometimes wrapping more words around an idea doesn’t make it clearer or stronger, it just diminishes it. Ted’s kindness is the engine of this show. Let it be who he is. Don’t weaken it by attaching an asterisk....I still worry that Ted Lasso, while remaining a wonderful, entertaining show, is losing the spark that made it great. Too often on prestige TV, compassion is associated with weakness—the lack of killer instinct that gets Ned beheaded on Game of Thrones, the way Logan ruthlessly exploits his son’s love for him on Succession—when in fact it’s the opposite. It takes nothing to put someone down in order to salve whatever emptiness is inside you. It takes nothing to go for the kill instead of trying to help others. But it does take courage—true, radical courage—to make the choice to be a good person every day. This is the thesis Ted Lasso built its entire brilliant first season around. It doesn’t need complicating. Sometimes in storytelling, the most powerful thing you can do is stop talking."
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TOPICS: Ted Lasso, Apple TV+, Bill Lawrence, Hannah Waddingham, Jason Sudeikis, Toheeb Jimoh
