First of all, I absolutely love this series to death. Keeping that in mind, there were a few things that I couldn‘t quite wrap my head around.

So after I watched S3 episode by episode every week my main criticism afterwards was that Nate was allowed back so easily on the team and that he didn‘t really have a redemption arc and so on. After rewatching it now, I still think it could have been handled a bit better but I‘m not as annoyed at it anymore. Instead, I think that there are 3 much bigger issues with S3:

First, the ungodly amount of side plots that I just couldn‘t care less about. Everything related to KJPR, Zava, Nate‘s love life, the fortune teller and so on. Honestly I started skipping through some of it because I was too bored watching it.

Second, to have all this screen time for these subplots they dropped some already established ones that I actually did care about. For example, Phoebe barely had any screen time and I was excited to see what was gonna happen between Roy and Phoebes teacher after S2.

And third, the in my opinion unresolved (and unsatisfying) ending and plotlines. The Roy/Jamie/Keeley situation wasn‘t really solved. Beard getting married to an abusive PoS. The Dr Jacob situation. Richmond not winning the league??? Seriously, would it have been any worse for the plot to give people the happy ending they were waiting for?? And lastly the biggest issue: Ted‘s ending. To me it didn‘t feel like he is now in a better place than when he started at Richmond or after the promotion. He actually regressed during S3 and yes he‘s now back with Henry but I just can‘t help but feel like he‘s not in a happy place.

Feel free to discuss

  • artvandelay9393@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I agree with everything you said. You’re gonna get downvoted if you say anything remotely negative about the show on this sub. Lame but it is what it is

    S3 was by far the worst of the bunch and could’ve used tighter editing. The KJPR plotline was so ridiculous, and the whole time I’m thinking “there’s gonna be a great payoff at the end.” But the payoff was Keeley makes a series of awful business decisions (hiring shandy, sleeping w her boss), and runs back to her billionaire friend who bails her out when she fails. Awful message, awful storyline. Keeley was one of my fav characters and I abhor what they did to her in S3. They don’t show Nate’s apology but we see 20 scenes about KJPR and Shandy? Terrible.

    Zava, to me, was filler. They needed some storyline to bring the team together (when Zava departs) and also have them in the middle or top (I forget) of the table (standings) at a certain point of the season. His whole schtick got old after a while.

    The fact that they validated psychics creeps me TF out. Psychics are swindlers. Grifters. Schemers. And this show validated them. Gross.

    And lastly, I agree about the ending. Ted 100% regressed and yeah he’s near his son, but he’s also near a manipulative doctor who took advantage of a vulnerable wife at a vulnerable stage in her life. And he’s near his ex wife who pretty much left him for THEIR doctor. Show said absolutely nothing about how ethically wrong that whole situation was which was surprising.

    But also I just rolled my eyes at a lottttt in S3. The scene where they’re discussing nudes in the locker room may be one of the worst scenes in any TV ever. It’s like they got the 6 most popular opinions about nudes and gave a player each opinion and just went around the room saying each opinion. It was preachy and felt like the writers think their audience is dumb. Truly an awful scene. I could write an essay on it.

    The main writer (Bill Lawrence) left the show for S3 and I think his loss was felt hard. He was a big proponent of keeping the shows around 30 mins, and they could’ve used that in S3. Episodes were way too long and got very boring. It almost felt pretentious, like the writers of S3 said “Bill doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Our stuff is so good we’re gonna give you 1 hour+ of it every week.” And it just wasn’t.

    Bill Lawrence did “Shrinking,” also on AppleTV and I enjoyed S1 of that much more than S3 of Ted Lasso, so if you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend.

    Overall, Ted Lasso is amazing. That first season is A++++ and 2nd season isn’t that far behind. S3 takes a nose dive but there’s still great moments in every episode imo.