Lessons from Ted Lasso: How Confronting Our Father Wounds Can Lead to Healing and Growth
Exploring the Dynamics of Fatherly Relationships Through Fútbol and Biscuits.
The critically acclaimed Ted Lasso has won hearts worldwide with its joyful spirit and underdog storyline. While the story of a fútbol team led by an American with almost no knowledge of the game takes center stage, the story of fatherhood creates the backdrop of the show we love.
As Ted Lasso returns for a third season, I can’t help but reflect on what we saw in the first two. Season one was light. Joyful and refreshing in a way that is welcomed by many. Sure, complexity exists in the relationship between Ted, Rebecca Welton, and Rupert Mannion, but the common refrain I’ve heard from friends after the first season was, “it’s such a feel-good show.” Honestly, it’s difficult to say the same after season two… but in a necessary way.
While still joyful and hilarious, season two of Ted Lasso got real and fast. What was once a sweet escape from life in lockdown was now forcing its audience to evaluate their relationships and question what traumas we are running from. The departure from its light, heartwarming story surprised some, but if you reflect on earlier moments in the show, it was inevitable that these father-stemmed wounds would need to be addressed.
Off the bat, Ted shows up as the cheerful, upbeat, charismatic man who would make anyone around him run through brick walls for him. However, within the pilot episode, you immediately get hints that his acceptance of the job as Richmond FC’s newest fútbol coach was more personal than professional.
As a parent, you couldn’t help but question why a man who knows nothing about fútbol would leave his family in Kansas to become a global spectacle. You soon realize that the most optimistic man in the world was dealing with internal turmoil, stalling a divorce, leaving the audience to wonder how anyone could fall out of love with our happy goldfish. A panic attack in the karaoke bar leaves more questions, most of which wouldn’t be answered until season two.
Between Jaime Tartt and Sam Obisanya, season two was firing on fatherhood cylinders pretty early, but another Ted panic attack, this time during a match, opened the floodgates to the need to address his anxieties. Over the course of a few failed sessions with team Psychologist Dr. Sharon Fieldstone, Ted begins to open up about his panic attacks. However, it wasn’t until the fist-clenching scene where an edgy, bottled-up Jaime finally snaps at his father, striking him in the face after receiving insults and taunts in front of his Richmond teammates, followed by a Roy Kent embrace, that Ted would finally share with his doctor that his father died by suicide while Ted was only 16, a life-altering moment that he was now ready to address.
In Ted and Dr. Sharon’s emergency session, we find our optimistic, never quit Ted not only heard the gunshot that ended his father’s life, but he also found his body. That bitterness, hurt, resentment, and feelings of abandonment had been showing up throughout the following thirty years, shaping his grief into positivity and avoidance. The Ted we love wasn’t the embodiment of happiness by choice. Positivity was undoubtedly in his DNA, but his over-the-top, never quit attitude was the coping mechanism he adopted after his father’s death.
Ted’s relationship with his dad isn’t the only time we see a father altering their child’s decisions.
We’ve already addressed Jaime, whose father complicated his relationship with fútbol, inspiring him to be the selfish striker that made him a star on the pitch but an awful teammate in the looker room (and a not-so-successful contestant on Lust Conquers All).
There’s Rebecca, determined to burn Richmond FC down to the ground after being swindled by her awful husband, Rupert, before season one takes place. While infidelity will drive its recipients to respond outside of their usual character, in season two, we find that Rebecca’s father’s affair strained her relationship with her mom, whom she despised for refusing to leave her husband despite his selfish choices. As a viewer, this laid the foundation for Rebecca’s well-understood personal and professional scorn. Moreover, Rebecca’s father’s treatment of her mom informed her strategy to seek revenge on an unfaithful spouse. This strategy may have been pacified in her heartbreaking rendition of Rick Astkey’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” at her father’s funeral.
Then there’s Nate Shelley, whose transformation from a meek intellectual mouse to a calculated yet ruthless lion is explained rather clearly through meeting his father, Lloyd, a present yet never satisfied dad. From dinner in the window seats to his father’s lack of interest in his most prominent professional accomplishment, Nate showed signs of animosity in season one. Still, as he gained power in the locker room, leading to an unchecked ego and general cruelty towards others, Nate’s insecurities led to the gut-wrenching season two finale where forty years of pent-up emotions were hurled toward a heartbroken Ted before ripping the beloved Believe sign and joining the dark side at West Ham.
The role of a father is evident in almost every episode, though the examples aren’t all bad. For instance, in a moment of glee, Sam excitedly shares with his father that he has been chosen as Dubai Air’s newest spokesperson. But when his father explains how his new sponsor had been responsible for polluting Nigeria, their home country, Sam turns his father’s words into action, staging a boycott of the sponsor that eventually led to their removal from Richmond kits.
And while Leslie Higgins’ relationship with his father is mainly unknown, it’s no surprise that arguably the most well-adjusted diamond dog takes in a team of professional fútbolers on Christmas Day to celebrate the holiday alongside his family, choosing festive chaos and an extended table over a quiet, traditional evening with only his wife and children. Yet, while flawed like everyone, Higgins remains a source of calm, reason, and wisdom as his manner of communication and general lack of judgment contrasts the lives of most around him.
If season one was the introduction, season two was the reveal. Through fútbol and biscuits, Jason Sudakis, Bill Lawrence, and crew have tricked many of us into examining our fatherly relationships. I’m grateful for the push.
The story of healing wounds from our fathers resonates with countless honorary diamond dogs, and as someone who’s worked to overcome these wounds, it’s absolutely worth it. In fact, a man once said the harder you work, the luckier you get. Great things are on the other side of that work.
So as season three returns, I’m buckling up for gut-wrenching laughs and a crash course in fútbol terminology, much of which goes over my head. But the storyline I’m looking forward to most is learning how Ted, Nate, Hannah, Jaime, and the rest of Richmond FC move forward, healthily, from past hurts into a comeback, both on and off the pitch.
Fútbol may be life, but family is our foundation.