The “Ted Lasso” problem Ted Lasso can’t see

Nothing beats a cheerful holiday episode in the summertime, am I right? “Ted Lasso” stans know exactly what I mean. As you read this, you may still be riding the festive-season sugar rush of “Don’t Jump Around Much Anymore,” possibly the best installment of a fourth season that’s taken its sweet time to tighten up its plays. You may recall that this show pulled this stunt before. This time the action takes place on New Year’s Eve, but let’s tally the gift bounty anyway.

The Lady Greyhounds, AFC Richmond’s recently minted women’s football team for which the irrepressibly upbeat Ted (Jason Sudeikis) emerged from retirement to coach, are starting to improve. Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt) is recovering from his post-breakup funk. Greyhounds owner Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham) still has the love of her flying Dutchman Matthijs (Matteo van der Grijn).

Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster) makes a cameo to shill his vanity vodka brand and reconnect with Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) over a shared love of House of Pain’s “Jump Around,” which makes Roy forget he has bad knees. Roy and AFC Richmond’s PR specialist Keeley Jones (Juno Temple) have switched off their fan-serving relationship, but a prescription painkiller-influenced confession reveals he’d very much like for them to be on again.

And Ted, our folksy hero, is showing real growth. Season 4 finds him healthily co-parenting his son Henry (Grant Feely) with his ex-wife Michelle (Andrea Anders). The sixth episode establishes, finally, that not only are they fast friends, but Ted is also ready to begin dating again with Michelle’s blessing.

Everything is looking up for “Ted Lasso” and its title character, living up to its reputation and the brand promise of its executive producer Bill Lawrence. The industry leader in feel-good TV began his current winning streak with this show, and revived it based on, I don’t know, a vibe. The viewers’ hunger for easy comedic affirmation of human decency seems to be bottomless, so where’s the harm in going back to the original well, only this time with female athletes?

There’s no harm in that per se, but you’ll have to forgive my irritation with Sudeikis, Lawrence, Hunt and fellow executive producer and showrunner Joe Kelly’s clumsiness with the team’s most complicated working relationship.

But “Ted Lasso” is a fantasy, as demonstrated by Alice abandoning her principled plan to bow out once Ted gently acknowledges her formidable talent and the obvious fact that he, a guy who still doesn’t fully grasp the labyrinthine rules of football (or soccer, as Americans call it), can’t succeed without her help. The assistant coaching job will have to suffice.

Until the most recent episode, though, Alice’s entire personality has been scowls and deprecating hisses. The fifth episode’s title, “Riches of Embarrassment,” is derived from a halftime rallying speech Ted delivers to soften the sting of Alice calling their first-half performance embarrassing. And just like that first-season turnaround in a pub dart game, where Ted shows up Rebecca’s vituperative ex, Rupert, good old Coach Lasso leaps in to caramelize Alice’s insult into golden, heartwarming sunshine.

Once the game is over, Ted holds back Alice to delicately inform her that she reminds him of another coaching prodigy he failed once—he’s talking about Nate Shelley— and he doesn’t intend to make the same mistake twice. So he suspends her for a match, the last one before Christmas break.

The thing is, Ted isn’t wrong. Alice is a one-note character written to be unpleasant, the kind of coach who’d motivate her players with a whip if that were allowed. She’s difficult, and difficult women provide great contrasts to the Rebeccas and Keeleys of the world – women men who love women find it easiest to understand. Difficult women do not fit in this fantasy.

In the second episode, when Alice asks Rebecca if she’d ever considered her for the lead coach job, Rebecca curtly answers no. But by then we also know two things: that the old Richmond band, or as much of it as possible, was always going to get back together no matter what, and that Rebecca judged Alice’s value not by her ability but by her perceived unpleasantness. 

However, Alice’s presence forces Rebecca to reevaluate how legitimate an ally she is to other women. Eventually, she’s comforted by her unwavering support of Keeley, who is just the right mix of adorable, attractive and ambitious, and the fact that at least she’s not an anti-feminist like her mother. Rebecca is formidable enough to earn the respect and support of Zelda Southport (Tracey Ullman), another very wealthy, albeit utterly unhinged, woman who boosts other women. In other words, she’s good!

Only in “Don’t Jump Around Much Anymore” is Alice’s story fleshed out, beyond the career stats Ted rattles off at the season’s start: Alice was a rising star in the pro leagues until multiple injuries cut short her career. She is hardest on the best player she knows, Gemma Jay (Abbie Hern), because of that history. She may also be an introvert. These insights into Alice’s personality don’t excuse her short fuse, but they do mark her as worthy of redemption. Until Ted benches her, however, she is a device, a measuring stick against which Ted and Rebecca stack their values.

The “Ted Lasso” writers aren’t entirely unaware of the most obvious concerns that come with tasking Ted with wrangling a team of disparate female personalities. They’ve tackled many of them head-on, starting with the second-class treatment women’s professional teams face at the league level and in mostly male fandoms.

And there are some feelings about this show’s return that no amount of script finessing can alter.  Remember how Ted’s inability to get over Michelle in previous seasons coincided with the very public, acrimonious conflict between the show’s star and his ex? Some people still carry that information in a vest pocket. Most seem content to leave it in the past.

After all, Ted and Michelle are solidly and happily in the friend zone these days. Life, with all its painful realities, moves on. This is why the “Ted Lasso” faithful seems to be rolling with this reboot, flaws and all, as the season barrels toward its end. The show is finally back to reminding us of people’s essential goodness, maybe even Alice’s.

It takes a little holiday break and Alice’s decision to attend Zelda’s holiday party to soften her mood. Somewhat. But even when this festive magic wears off, I’ll still be left wondering why, in a season meant to uplift women in sports, the sour mood of one of their own had to be cast as a primary antagonist.

New episodes of “Ted Lasso” stream Wednesdays on Apple TV.

---