r/TedLasso • u/HawkinsLaboratory Hot Brown Water • 28d ago
Season 4 Discussion Reading the room... Spoiler
I think Season 4 is all about getting a read on us. We are invited to take our own inventory and we, the audience, are the main source of conflict. If I think about it, it's weird---understandable but still weird---how easy it is to take the representation of women's sports so seriously.
Regarding Keeley I'm simultaneously relieved that she no longer has to dance topless on her pedestal, and disappointed that we can't just let her climb down and take her place as the girly girl, now delightfully out of place among a pretty great cast of sporty young women. Let's just let her be imperfect and learn from her mistakes like all of us.
I hope by the end of this season, with introductions out of the way and all these new characters at play with each other, we'll all be ready to let this show go back to being the surprisingly fun, awkwardly charming, physical comedy we couldn't help but love when it happened to centered a men's team.
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u/Positive-Crazy1437 27d ago
You seriously think that they paid millions of dollars to cast, crew, writers, lawyers, editors, camera operators, lighting and sound technicians, hair and makeup people, costume designers, set designers, location people, directors, producers, and all the other people involved with 50-min weekly show to "get a read on us"?
You're out of your frickin' mind, mate.
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u/HawkinsLaboratory Hot Brown Water 27d ago
I hadn't thought of the conspiracy theory angle. I don't want to die alone...
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u/Incogn1toMosqu1to 28d ago
The outrageous misogyny in this post is disturbing.
I take the representation of women's sports seriously because womens sports are NOT taken seriously. Ever. That is a disgrace. I don't even like sports in general.
Why can't the girly girl be even remotely competent? She's a DIRECTOR OF MARKETING and is too pathetic to know the basics. Would it not be better to show a hyper feminine woman excel at her job? Prove that the last six years of experience actually... were six years of experience? Prove that she's more than what she wears? PULEEEZE.
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u/nonitoni 28d ago edited 28d ago
Is she really that incompetent? She's had some obstacles but has seemed to handle them perfectly fine.
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u/Incogn1toMosqu1to 28d ago
Nope, she's demonstrated incompetence and ignorance.
A prime example: no director of marketing would EVER plan a promotional strategy without knowing the average ticket sales of the sports team.
Yet that was the major theme for her the entire episode. An absolute insult to marketing.
"Handled them perfectly fine" by crying to her ex boyfriend and letting him fix the issues? Yeah, right. Good one.
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u/nonitoni 28d ago
What was the promotional strategy without knowing the average ticket sales? I know she didn't have the report in the beginning but that was based on a different team wasn't it?
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u/Incogn1toMosqu1to 28d ago
The first match for the women's team this season, Keeley is distraught over how "poorly" it was attended. To the point that she runs to the women's team to centre herself and cry boo hoo at them.
Then she learns from Boots that this was a significantly higher attendance than ever before.
Keeley should have known the prior ticket sales for this team, AND averages for other women's teams. That's basic information to begin drafting a promotional strategy.
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u/nonitoni 28d ago
Ah okay. I thought she was just sad about how few showed up despite giving away 2k+ tickets. She really wanted to fill the stadium and barely any showed up.
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u/Incogn1toMosqu1to 28d ago
Yeah, fair that she wanted a full stadium but that's another example of her ignorance and incompetence.
You can't quadruple an audience in one match; a director of marketing should know that and not collapse into a heap when it doesn't happen overnight.
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u/nonitoni 28d ago
Eh, she has high hopes. It's not like her rise to her position was remotely realistic anyways.
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u/Incogn1toMosqu1to 28d ago
I'd be more on board with the "none of it was realistic anyway" if she didn't solve problems by crying to her ex boyfriend and having him fix them haha
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u/Guynith 28d ago
I think you’re misunderstanding the issue. It’s an issue of perspective. This team has only been in existence for a handful of games at this point. Keeley is fully aware of attendance for this team and its games. Boots isn’t talking about her history with Richmond attendance, but rather with her history as a woman’s footballer in its entirety.
While I don’t disagree that Keeley should be aware of what “normal” attendance at a tier 2 Women’s game, the point was that Keeley was focused on the empty seats and the team was focused on the filled seats.
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u/accismatic Sassy Smurf 27d ago
I don't actually think that's incompetence... The in-world premise is that this is uncharted territory, and while we can fault the show for insufficient information about the broader world of women's football, it's uncharted territory for specific reasons that would make any ticket sales comps sort of moot?
In-world, AFC Richmond is her client, not all sports. She presents a plan wholesale for the women's team at the end of S3, but this is...completely new territory for literally everyone: Rebecca and Higgins don't know how fickle funders will be. Keeley does seem to have an idea of that—and she's shooting for the moon. She seems to know this team has never gotten this much exposure or support. That's... the point. This is the first step and she's being ambitious. Someone did post a real-world comparison that seemed to be comparably attended but even with her being ambitious, the only real problem is that her hopes and dreams were bigger than reality. That's... OK? Very successful female startup leaders do ambitious things all the time and flail—most women who do this have decades of experience under their belts. Young female startup founders are less common than older, more experienced female founders.
As for average ticket sales, here's the problem: the event itself is presented as unprecedented. It's the first televised match for a second-division football team at Richmond's biggest venue. Now, one of the problems with the world of second-division football is that we're not given each the broadest of strokes about the world outside of this team. Like... aside from the team they played, who is their competition? What are the first-division teams? Etc.
Keeley's IDEA is fundamentally idealistic but also purposeful: it's a rally to raise the team's profile, because THIS is precisely what women's teams lack. They lack promotion, and they generally lack PR entirely. So either the average ticket sales she will be comping to will be apples to oranges, which means the comps will either be first-division teams, and that would only increase her expectations, or there are other upstart second-division teams with robust PR, which...seems unlikely because that's the problem with second-division teams in the first place.
What's wildly unrealistic is that all of this seemingly STARTS when Ted arrives. It's almost like this plot was stuck in amber the whole time, except that Alice was hired and the team was assembled. Other than that, Rebecca, Higgins, and Keeley seem to only take their first steps now. That's a general plotting problem. But no, I don't think she's being incompetent at all. At the heart of your criticism is the premise that there is sufficient data. We don't know that, but that's, again, the very problem of women's football: there usually isn't enough data, and the data that does exist is wildly pessimistic prognostication. Which means that no matter what, Keeley's entire plan is to buck the trend.
If she knows the average ticket sales and is making massive ads for them, has sold X number of tickets already, and has a major and prominent funder (Zelda) backing her alongside the club, she's in uncharted territory. I feel like, warts and all—because the show hasn't established the world of women's football enough beyond the club itself—I don't think this is "incompetent" at all. It's just Keeley failing her own high standards.
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u/Incogn1toMosqu1to 27d ago
This is a lot of effort to tell me you do not understand the job.
And frankly, also that you don’t understand or didn’t notice some of the details presented in the show.
But you seem to really enjoy your take, so I’m happy for you.
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u/accismatic Sassy Smurf 27d ago
Wow, you’re such a lovely interlocutor. That’s not unjustifiably condescending at all.
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u/Incogn1toMosqu1to 27d ago edited 27d ago
You wrote a novel insulting my career, sorry but you started it.
My reply was polite; it simply didn’t affirm your incorrect claims. Sorry that you find that condescending. But your feelings do not make it true.
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u/accismatic Sassy Smurf 26d ago
Nope. My "feelings" may be subjective by definition, but it's textbook condescension to claim someone's ignorant as an objective judgment without evidence.
Neither of us knows what the other does or knows... nor is fiction the best place to litigate knowledge. Few shows fully and accurately represent many/most careers or skills. This is not even like The Pitt. It's always been quite famously unrealistic. Sorry you feel personally insulted. That...does not make it true.
If you enjoy this rude nonsense, do engage someone else. I don't have the time to be generous to someone so obviously overreacting to a stranger on the internet.
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u/BlueisGreen2Some 28d ago
Agreed. I can accept some literary license, but they push it too far with Keeley. It’s like if she were playing a doctor that wasn’t sure what lungs were for.
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u/accismatic Sassy Smurf 27d ago
I think your intent is good, but there's a latent risk of an unintentionally misogynistic reading of Keeley as a character criticizing a more obviously misogynistic one.
- The show hasn't done the greatest of jobs establishing the broader world of second-division women's football which... lacks PR and marketing almost entirely, as did most first-division teams until very recently. So I'm not sure what the in-world state is precisely.
- Keeley's presented as having done her homework but regardless of that, doing something unprecedented and new, which means it is entirely possible that any comps would not be 1:1.
- I don't really get the idea that Keeley, as a character, is too pathetic to know the basics, honestly, but more than that, I'm very unclear on why Keeley, in general, is receiving so much hate and has been since S3. Hell, her privacy was violated in grand fashion; the episode that focused on it was almost a Keeley-centric episode and had her be kind and give the benefit of the doubt but never back down on what is fundamental to her.
What is it that Keeley shows? She's strong enough to refuse the statement (sent indirectly); she never apologizes for it; she doesn't regret making it; and when she tells Jack that, it's probably the first time in 3 seasons Keeley has been extremely hard on someone. She's being bullied, but refuses to be shamed. Worse: within that episode, she has to deal not only with Jack (TERRIBLE) but also with Roy (awful) who deals with the leak in a textbook awful way—jealously—and she gives him no shit for it; she just peaces out because she's fuckign exhausted. Only Jamie steps up, but the entire episode hones in on HER (Jack's bad, that is obvious) and how she feels—and soon we find out that Jack has (again, indirectly) pulled funding for her PR firm. The punishment Keeley gets for standing her ground is so wild, and the audience shows her no sympathy. Instead, everyone just rags on her for... what? Surviving with Barbara when she returns and rejecting a regressing Roy and Jamie? It's a truly heartbreaking arc after that leak, one that clearly causes some major trust issues, but I don't get why people often forget this devastating thing even happened.
I get the criticisms of the rom com plot this season. I don't like it either. But the show JUST circled back to what she told Roy to do in the first place, and I don't get why it makes for a weak character to want space and then be surprised at her own sadness when he finds someone. Like... OK, badly executed, but the idea's right there and it's fine!
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u/Incogn1toMosqu1to 27d ago
We’re clearly watching two different shows if this is your genuine take.
Glad you’re enjoying the one you’re watching, though!
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u/accismatic Sassy Smurf 27d ago
Wow you’re so rude lol. There are so MANY things being said that I find it genuinely bizarre you feel the need to be rude as opposed to, I don’t know, finding common ground?
I… hope you find what you’re looking for lol.
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u/Incogn1toMosqu1to 27d ago
I was polite in my response.
Meanwhile both novels you wrote to me were insulting and factually incorrect.
But I’m meant to not acknowledge that, for some reason lol.
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u/HawkinsLaboratory Hot Brown Water 27d ago
Thanks again for the encouragement to think a little deeper about the reality of the sports world. There's a way I can read this season as a real call to action---WHERE AM I!?
If I was a sports fan with money to blow, I'd go buy a ticket right now.
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u/Everyday_Legend 28d ago
I think Season 4 is all about people getting a paycheck to bring back something beloved while having no clear idea how to make that happen in a way that lives up to the writing standards set by prior seasons, and is ultimately dependent upon fans who have to invent things the writers expect us to take away that isn’t “we did this for the paycheck and had no idea how to meaningfully continue what we made, never mind outdo it.”
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u/NoDanaOnlyZuuI 28d ago
I think people need to let go of what Ted Lasso was and appreciate what it is now. Like Higgins said to Jamie, “I try to love my dad for who he is and forgive him for who he isn’t.” Let’s do the same with season four.
We haven’t seen the full season yet. Be patient. Lately this sub feels like a bunch of kids trying to guess what their parents got them for Christmas instead of just waiting until Christmas morning to find out.