Watching ‘Ted Lasso’ Was The Only Good Idea I Had Today

The feel-good comedy lives up to the hype — it will actually make you feel good

I had a bad day. This year has been the Olympics of bad days. So today wasn’t a living nightmare like, say, this past April. It wasn’t a really, truly bad day. It was just a demoralizing eight hours or so. I choked during a videoconference presentation. I am failing to hit my goals for the quarter. My management style is best described as “overthink emojis on Slack.”

Anyway, I overthought an emoji on Slack. I should have gone with “thumbs up,” but I picked “smiley guy wearing glasses” and no one responded.

Defeated, I watched Ted Lasso on Apple TV+. I was honestly surprised I still had an active Apple TV+ account. I’m a fan of filling yellow legal pads with random notes written in black felt tip pen and I’m certain there’s a quick bit of chicken-scratch that reads “cancel Apple TV+.”

I had subscribed to the platform to watch Tom Hanks fight Nazis on a boat. World War II Tom Hanks is my second favorite Tom Hanks, right after Gentle Wise Father Figure Tom Hanks. I had zero interest in the other programming, including an expensive-looking sci-fi series that stars Aquaman in a future where everyone is blind.

“I want a show that combines Game of Thrones with Daredevil with, oh hell, Mad Max!” — some Apple executive, mad with power

I had read some positive reviews of Ted Lasso. A few blue checks Tweeted weakly supportive opinions about the show. Full disclosure: My Twitter account has a blue verification check. I have no idea why this is so. It’s like winning a lottery that pays out nothing but self-loathing. Here is the series of events that led to me watching Ted Lasso: I had a bad day, I commuted home from my standing desk to my couch, and I proceeded to reject every show on every platform for an hour until I just went YOLO! and clicked on the Apple TV+ icon.

I resisted Ted Lasso at first because it was on Apple TV+. There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to support that streaming service. Apple is like that perfect kid in high school who is good looking and smart and funny and an athlete and then, senior year, for the hell of it, tries out for the school musical, gets cast as the lead, and nails it. I resent Apple. Oh, so you think you can just turn on a money hose and poof! you can suddenly grind out excellent narrative entertainment? Just like that? Do you think that’s how it works?

Well, it turns out, in the case of Ted Lasso, that it works. The half-hour comedy is a ball of joy kicked right at your face.

The other reason I didn’t want to watch the show is that I don’t really love ‘fish out of water’ stories. The titular character is a mustachioed college football coach from Kansas who gets hired to coach a UK Premier League football (*cough* soccer *cough*) club in Richmond upon Thames. Ted Lasso is a positive goofball whose sincerity repels cynics and attracts dreamers. He endures the insults of beer-drunk lads. There’s a The Producers-like twist but that’s a subplot, a secondary gag, a sideshow. Ted Lasso is about rooting for the nicest guy in the world. A dude who loves the game, win, or lose.

Ted Lasso is a happy warrior with a bazooka full of smiles. A Kansas City Candide whose optimism is a force of nature. But unlike Voltaire’s satirical novel, the cruel world buckles under the weight of Ted Lasso’s relentless good-naturedness. He makes having a good attitude cool.

Ted is joined on his adventure across the pond by his best friend and trusted right-hand man, Coach Beard, who is sort of a cross between a grim jock and Samwise Gamgee. The pair find an ally in Nate, a nerdy “kit man” who could be a strategic football genius. Then there’s Rebecca, the owner of the club and the person who hired him, which was a controversial decision. A decision the high-paid, egotistical players are none too chuffed about.

The comedy in Ted Lasso wants to inspire hugs, not cringes. The setting helps: merry ol’ England is an island populated by mean-spirited Scrooges and Ted Lasso is the warmhearted Ghost of Christmas Present. The man is jolly AF. There are lighthearted, but not toothless, jokes about American imperialism, too.

These are days when it’s hard to be proud to be an American — but Ted Lasso is a reminder that our optimism, our corny ability to look on the bright side, and bounce back, is a very real national condition. At our best, we hope for better tomorrows. That’s Ted. And that will be me. As Ted tells a player, be a goldfish. Goldfish are happy because they have ten-second memories. I don’t know if amnesia is great if you a country that frequently, historically, crushes non-white minorities but on a personal level, it’s good to crack on. To not hold on to grudges. To hope tomorrow is better, even if you know it’s not. What other choice do you have?

I’ve got another Zoom call coming up and I’m going to be confident while I sweat. I’m going to do my level best to hit my goals and if I don’t hit them then I’m going to own my failure. And I’m definitely going to use that “smiley face with glasses” emoji more. I love that little guy.