What’s Beard Reading? (“So Long, Farewell”)
Throughout Season 3, Trent Crimm has been embedded with the Greyhounds so that he can write a book about the team. As he says to Ted, he thinks there’s a story there worth telling (“(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea”). We see the result of Trent’s unfettered, behind-the-scenes access in the season (series?) finale when he gives Beard and Ted an advanced copy of the manuscript he’s produced. Trent plans to name the book The Lasso Way, a callback to the profile on Ted that he wrote for The Independent in Season 1 (“Trent Crimm: The Independent”).
By the end of Season 2, Trent is looking for “something different. Deeper.” He no longer wants to practice the gotcha journalism he was known for (“Inverting the Pyramid of Success”). In fact, he’s come clean about revealing his source for the piece he wrote about Ted’s panic attack. He’s accepted the consequences of this breach of journalist principle and is fired from his coveted position at one of the more reputable newspapers in town. Trent is no longer interested in Roomba-style journalism, just “wandering around looking for dirt” (Trent Crimm: The Independent”). Nor is his main concern “being edgy … trying to make a name for [him]self” (“(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea”).
No, as with everyone else whose lives Ted touched, Trent has changed. He’s grown. And the book he’s written bears that change out.
Trent gives Beard and Ted the draft because he wants their feedback. Do they think he made any mistakes, he asks. Even still, he insists, he won’t take them out but instead will explain why the coaches are wrong. Undaunted, Beard doesn’t hold back his critiques: “Nope,” he boisterously insists as he launches in, pen in hand. “Derivative, …. Overly prosaic.” It’s no surprise then that the manuscript Trent gets back from him at the episode’s close is littered with Post-its identifying all the points Beard protests.
Whether Trent takes any of these suggestions to heart, we don’t know, but we do know that he heeded Ted’s. “Great job Trent,” reads Ted’s note on his copy. “I loved it!!” The coach demurs on just one point: he’d change the title. “It’s not about me. It never was.” That sentiment strikes Trent as right and helps him land on a more fitting title, The Richmond Way: The Unbelievable Season of a Premier League Underdog. Trent has now seen Ted in action up close for a much longer stretch than the one day it took him to write his initial article.
In that piece, Trent zeroes in on Ted, trying to figure out what makes him tick. Ted is glaringly out of place in the world of Nelson Road, and Trent wants to solve that puzzle — to find a way to make sense of his installment as manager. Trent does offer some insightful analysis, but all of it is centered on Ted himself. He calls his coaching style subtle yet its effect ultimately impossible to ignore. Ted, Trent explains, encourages “followers to become leaders” and puts his reputation (and stomach) on the line to help others flourish. He Ted is “out there in the community either bravely or stupidly facing the music” (“Trent Crimm: The Independent”).
The central question Trent asks in that initial article is whether Ted will fail. Will the Greyhounds be relegated under Ted’s watch? Trent’s eyes are trained on the outcomes of the matches, even though Ted insists (twice!) that for him success doesn’t consist in wins or losses. Ted is aiming at something else entirely: “It’s about helping these young fellas be the best versions of themselves on and off the field” (“Trent Crimm: The Independent”).
In the second half of Season 3, Trent starts to see the link between Ted’s approach and a turnaround for Richmond. Even though he’s still equating success with victory on the pitch, Trent explains that over the course of the three seasons, Ted has slowly but surely built “a club-wide culture of trust and support through thousands of imperceptible moments, all leading to their inevitable conclusion” (“The Strings That Bind Us”). That inevitable conclusion, for Trent, is coming out on the top of the league.
What actually happens, we have since learned, is that the Greyhounds instead come in second, to their main rivals Manchester City. Lots of Ted Lasso fans (myself included!) found that outcome somewhat disappointing. It was Ted himself, at the end of Season 1, who predicted they would “do something that no one believes we could ever do,” namely they would win the whole thing (“The Hope That Kills You”). Narrative misdirection side, the win against West Ham in the finale was not insignificant, especially given the complete turnaround for the characters that it signified.
Rebecca is no longer in thrall to visions of revenge against her ex-husband. She has settled into her new family and welcomed a motherly role — in both her professional and personal life. Ted’s now a Richmond legend and Rupert the object of mockery. Jamie has gotten his worst impulses in check and has embraced being part of a team. He’s improved so much on this score that he shifts from taking all the credit for whatever success the team has to hamming it up as a decoy in the last seconds of the match. Roy asks to become a Diamond Dog, is named Richmond head coach, and even starts therapy. Nate turns away from the lure of fame and self-glorification and accepts his supporting role — first as assistant to the kit man and later as supporting coach. Keeley has found her footing and thrives as her own boss. The closing montage illustrates that though Ted has gone back home to Kansas, the seeds he has planted in Richmond have come to fruition.
I confess that I’ve felt dissatisfied this season by Ted’s recession into the background of the show. The other storylines have taken center stage, and Ted has gotten much less screentime than in the previous two acts. With Ted’s note to Trent, however, I better understand the writers’ intentions on this score, even if I suspect they could have handled it better. We have seen the outworking of Ted’s influence, which is what Ted has most cared about all along. I think this transformation shows up most blatantly in the Jamie/Roy arc. Their relationship has arguably come the furthest — from bitter animosity to touching friendship. Rewatch “For the Children” (Season 1, episode 4) and compare with “Sunflowers” (Season 3, episode 6), and you’ll see a shift that is well-nigh tectonic.
It’s a beautiful reminder that people are not set in stone. Circumstances and relationships can change, and like Ted we should hope for and work toward the best in others. There are no guarantees of course. Rupert’s in worse mental, emotional, and moral shape than he was when the story began. Even still, betting on the good is a risk worth taking, foolish as it sometimes seems. It may or may not change others. But practicing such generosity of spirit changes us.
For all these reasons and more, I’m grateful for the gift that is Ted Lasso. This charming show has provided us all plenty of entertainment, sure, but it also offers fodder for deeper thought and common ground on which to discuss important issues. Early on, David and I snagged a contract for Ted Lasso and Philosophy with Wiley-Blackwell. Look for that book to be out later this year. The project has been for me a labor of love, as have the weekly blogs I’ve written this season. In the vein of Trent Crimm’s The Richmond Way, they have been a way for me to honor the show’s creators and to pay forward my appreciation of Ted Lasso to the broader community.
This community building is what Ted Lasso — both the show and the character — has been about all along. Sudeikis has likened Ted to Mary Poppins, a catalyst for positive change that will continue to reverberate well after he’s gone. What The Richmond Way suggests is that he need not be the only one.
