What’s Beard Reading? (3.06: “Sunflowers”)
With last week’s episode, Ted Lasso has finally recaptured some of its signature magic. Hopefully that bodes well for a turnaround for the close of season 3 (and hopefully of the series). In “Sunflowers,” Richmond is in Amsterdam for an exhibition match. With echoes of the Greyhounds’ away game at Everton in Season 1 (“Make Rebecca Great Again”), this episode has all the markings of a much-needed pivotal moment for most of the characters. I’m going to focus on Ted’s epiphany in this reflection, although the scenes with Roy and Jamie are just about the best of the series so far.
This season, Ted has seemed not himself. The writers have tied that, I think, to his desire to return home and confusion about why he’s still in London. And the audience has sensed this futility, as Ted seems distracted and uninspired himself. In fact, despite the rousing pep talk he gave at the end of episode 5, Richmond continues to lose — even at the friendly match with Ajax.
Inspiration comes at last when Ted is alone, unable to connect with Rebecca and left behind at the hotel by Beard. Chugging what he believes to be (but isn’t) hallucinogenic tea, Ted explores the city, stopping first at the Vincent van Gogh museum and ending up at the Yankee Doodle Burger Barn for a taste of home. There’s a lot to unpack in these scenes, and they work well in conjunction with the other threads of the plot. But at bottom, Ted’s excursions tap into his deepest hurts and most intense longings. Out of this confrontation stems a whole new outlook on the game, as Ted channels memories of watching the Chicago Bulls with his father into a creative tactic for the Greyhounds to try in future games.
This notion of creativity as both product of and cure for suffering is reinforced by Higgins’ visit to the Red Light District, where he honors his jazz hero Chet Baker who died mysteriously at that spot 35 years ago. Although the specific cause of Baker’s death is unknown, the life he lived was riddled with addiction and clashes with the law. Even still, he made an indelible mark on the jazz world, including drawing Higgins to the genre. “He was tortured by demons, but they didn’t stop him from making beautiful music,” Higgins tells Will.
Vincent van Gogh, too, “had his demons,” as the museum docent tells Ted. But as with Baker, “they never stopped him from searching for beauty.” The common sunflower is one of the places that van Gogh found that beauty. In his attentiveness to it and his repeated engagements with it, van Gogh was able to discern and translate that beauty for others. He painted two series of the flower, the most famous being those painted in Arles. Van Gogh called these paintings repetitions and experiments with color, as he used three shades of yellow “and nothing else.” Van Gogh, of course, is notorious for finding an audience for his work only posthumously. In his lifetime, he painted mostly in obscurity, a sad reality expressed (and perhaps redeemed?) by the docent’s quote from a letter van Gogh wrote to his brother:
But one doesn’t expect out of life what one has already learned that it cannot give, but rather one begins to see more and more clearly that life is only a kind of sowing time, and the harvest is not here.
At this, Ted notes that the sunflower is the state flower of Kansas, his home. Recognizing how much van Gogh’s story has touched Ted and perhaps sensing the coach’s need to express whatever emotional breakthroughs he was experiencing, the docent gives him a journal decorated with a print of van Gogh’s sunflowers. It is this journal that Ted uses when the Arthur Bryant’s BBQ sauce sparks his creative torrent of new, experimental configurations for the Greyhounds. Arthur Bryant’s BBQ sauce according to Ted, recall, is the “best barbecue sauce in Kansas City,… the kind of food or something that can teleport you back home” (“Biscuits”).
And, yes, the tactic (Total Football) was actually developed by the Dutch team in the 1970s (as Beard ably recognizes). But Ted’s creative outpouring is no less inspired and (presumably) workable for Richmond. It’s worth noting that Total Football aligns with the team and the show’s strengths: community and cooperation. Since players, on this strategy, are not confined to one position and can move freely from offense to defense to midfield at will, depending on the need of the moment, “they gotta have one another’s backs, that’s for sure,” as Ted realizes.
All of this (along with many other wonderful elements of “Sunflowers”) is promising for what lies ahead for the team and the show. It seems to me that they have re-found their focus on renewal, relationships, and teamwork.
Other Installments of “What’s Beard Reading?” (for Season 3):
Episode 1, “Smells Like Mean Spirit”
Episode 2, “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea”
Episode 7, “The Strings That Bind Us”
Episode 8, “We’ll Never Have Paris”
Episode 9, “La Locker Room Aux Folles”
