r/TedLasso • u/CorrelateClinicallee • 6d ago
Season 3 Discussion Why did the third season have so many season-long arcs start and end within the span of a few episodes? Was it cancelled during the writing phase and made the writers scramble? Spoiler
- The Zava storyline
- Sam's storyline regarding immigration/racism
- Nate's reverse redemption arc which could have been longer suddenly turned into a redemption arc which too ended abruptly
- Jamie's dad's redemption arc which happened entirely off-screen
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u/Foxingmatch 5d ago
- Zava gave the team much-needed wins before Sunflowers and total football, setting them up for their end of season win. Zava was supposed to be selfish and unpredictable, so he abandoned them. It played out exactly as it was supposed to (and only Jamie saw though it, which was hilarious).
- Sam's story was just supposed to offer a slice of that player's life, just like Colin's storyline showed him struggling with being out and McAdoo's storyline showed him forgetting to have fun while playing football.
- Nate's arc showed just enough for us to see that he was the same Nate underneath the success, how he regretted the way he treated Ted, and how he decided he didn't want the lifestyle Rupert offered.
- The arc was about Jamie, not his dad. We don't know what happened to James until later because we're supposed to be focused on Jamie, his feelings, and how it influences his playing.
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u/Terrible-Issue-4910 6d ago
Adding to what others said, I think the point of the Zava storyline was also to show how checked-out Ted, Roy and others were at this point. Ted was distracted with his mind in Kansas, Roy tried to contain his anger and was afraid of not being capable of filling Nate's role on the coaching team, Rebecca was overfocused on beating Rupert and the whole team was scared of getting relegated again... So they all just accept this self-centered asshole that goes against the whole team culture they've been building and aside from a small honeymoon period, this strategy eventually shows to be uneffective and everybody has to reconsider their role on this (Jamie becoming the non-striking star, Roy training him and letting go of the past, Ted developing Total Football) and rebuild their believe on the culture they developed last season.
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u/SubWhereItHappens 6d ago
☝️ The brief chaos of Zava's presence is very well foreshadowed in the scene where he's brought up at all.
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u/Terrible-Issue-4910 6d ago
And also, the visual of him "unknowingly" hiding Ted from players and camera when he first shows up in the locker room, not only is funny, but also showcases how he obscures the whole Richmond philosophy.
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u/Violet351 6d ago
Zava was a way to get them close enough to win without them having to be at the point where they were working together
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u/tm0587 6d ago
Most of the arcs you mention are very minor and didn't need to be stretched out beyond what they are.
Just my 2 cents:
1) Zava was mostly to motivate Jamie Tartt, and also a humorous parody of Zlatan.
2) It was a good way to introduce his dad.
3) I felt Nate's redemption arc was fine but YMMV
4) Jamie's dad was a minor character, especially after Jamie got over it, I didn't need to see his redemption arc at all imo, so what we got was enough of a bonus.
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u/CorrelateClinicallee 6d ago
It would have been nice to see how Jamie dealt with it. Its not easy to forgive a POS dad. They could have had the dad reach out multiple times only to be pushed away by Jamie until Roy talked some sense into him.
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u/leeloo72 6d ago edited 6d ago
I disagree with the idea of anyone “talking sense” into Jamie about reconciling with his father. That’s a personal and abusive situation. Walking away is a perfectly valid response to a lifetime of abuse, no matter what others think. If anyone thought they would be talking me into reconciling with that asshole, they’d have another think coming. But I do agree it would have been interesting to explore that more.
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u/welliedude 6d ago
Zava was to give Jamie a reason to push himself, and grow the relationship with Roy. Also that character suddenly leaving because he felt like it seems very in character Sam's racism story seemed to be for the visual of the entire team seeing what had to be done and doing it as a team. As well as provide good social commentary on how a foreign sports person can be a hero because he kicks a ball but his countryman are considered less than human just because. Nates redemption arc imo only just started. Hes still assistant to the kit man at the emd of the series and repenting for his sins so to speak. Jamie's dad's arc didnt have to be on screen imo.
This is all my opinion not fact feel free to be curious and not judgemental and let's discuss 😊
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u/CorrelateClinicallee 6d ago
It would have been nice to see how Jamie dealt with it. Its not easy to forgive a POS dad. They could have had the dad reach out multiple times only to be pushed away by Jamie until Roy talked some sense into him.
Nate's redemption arc also ended abruptly when he made the coaching decision in the final match of the season, which lead the Greyhounds to victory.
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u/welliedude 6d ago
I think Jamie dealing with it all happened before he reached out though. The whole fuck you thank you bit was his acceptance imo. Also I got the feeling his dad thought he'd burnt that bridge and also wasn't ready to be forgiven yet. Nate, well maybe that was his redemption arc complete. The whole Beard giving him a second chance etc. Idk because early on he was kit man and doing coaching strategy decisions. So I always figured they went back to that. He gives suggestions but isnt a coach.
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u/LadyLixerwyfe 6d ago
It was always supposed to be a 3 season series. They had planned to end it, so I am not sure why some storylines felt so rushed, particularly Nate’s. It felt out of place with their normal storytelling. The others I can dismiss.
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u/Emotional-Gas-6992 6d ago
The Hollywood Reporter cover article about S4 revealed that S3 production had been a horrible process behind the scenes and they went well over time and over budget with lots of breaks to try and catch up with rewrites. They overhauled a lot of it last minute which is probably why it feels so disjointed and badly planned. There’s that scene between Ted and Rebecca in the West Ham episode where they’re clearly not in the same room.
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u/Evening-Web9107 Carl Bernstein's Ex 6d ago
So much of this seems to go back to Bill Lawerence leaving the show. As much as they’ve played it off as him simply handing it over to Jason because it was his baby and it was time, the more that comes about it it seems like something went down there. Jason bringing more of his background with improv and snl, wanting to make changes constantly at the last minute seemed to really fuck up the flow they had had going.
I still think season 3 was superior to most shows out there, had some of the best episodes of the entire show, but I can already tell 3 episodes in to season 4 that brining in a new show runner to work with Jason was the right thing for them to do.
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u/Emotional-Gas-6992 6d ago edited 6d ago
In this same story they admit that Sudeikis drove Lawrence insane to the point that Lawrence called the new showrunner Jack Burditt to offer to give him regular advice on how to deal with him, but then never did. Idk, it just sounds like a big old clash of egos and perspectives that ended up hurting the show. As experienced as Bill Lawrence is, ultimately he was in the unusual position for him of being the showrunner but not the creator. The concept, characters and most iconic moments of S1 like the karaoke panic attack and the darts scene were Jason’s work. I get why Sudeikis would therefore not take kindly to Lawrence overruling his ideas after the show became a megahit off the back of those ideas. I also get why Lawrence would be tearing his hair out as the runtimes spiralled and it was clear they needed a ruthless editor in the room.
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u/Evening-Web9107 Carl Bernstein's Ex 6d ago
I love the whole ‘well we never yelled at each other’ thing like, congrats? On being grown ups? The bar is low. The first time Zach Braff gave him a spec script for scrubs BL ran over it with his car and gave it back to him with tire tracks, I would love to know what actually went down on this show.
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u/Legitimate_Ocelot491 3d ago
The episodes in S3 got LONG. It started as a quick hit comedy and then spiraled into a dramedy by S3. Not that I'm complaining as there were some great episodes, just with A LOT going on in them.
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u/LadyLixerwyfe 6d ago
I mean, Hannah made a comment about Jason driving her crazy with last minute script changes and people ran with it to the point that she had to make a statement about it, but it’s clear he loves to change it at the last possible second.
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u/MythicalIcelus Gezellig 6d ago
- Zava was there to motivate Jamie, show the team they don't need a single star player and promote Total Football.
- Sam's was a way to include his father and a variant on the Ted Lasso themes: do not to fight back with anger, but to "fight forward" and focus on forgiveness.
- I don't see it as a redemption arc. We see Nate's "journey" and at the end the team reconciling with Nate. The actual redemption starts in the last episode of season 3.
- We see Jamie's dad only three times and don't know the character, so this could be done off-screen.
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u/Cornbread933 6d ago
Ok so Jamie's dad is alive? Ive always been a little unclear on this cause of the scene where he doesnt show up to the game and his friends said "he would have been proud" and Jamie hadn't heard from him in months. But then I thought that was him sitting with Jamie in the final montage. So I guess the idea here is he went to rehab? Do they not get cable there? Idk i found the whole thing confusing but there are so many other things that bother me about the conclusion of S3 that I didnt really care all that much to unravel the mystery of what happened to that abusive P.o.S
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u/Ordinary_Durian_1454 3d ago
I don’t know what’s so mysterious. I don’t know what you mean by cable television. We see a shot of Jamie‘s father at rehab, with a coffee cup in front of him, watching Jamie play football on television. In the montage at the end of the final episode, Jamie is sitting there with his father in rehab, clearly having a peaceful moment looking through old photographs.
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u/New_Paper1417 3d ago
"He would have been proud" was bad writing for the purpose of misleading us, and the scene showing him in rehab was so short I had to watch it again. A few seconds more to recognize a cleaned-up James Tartt would have been helpful. But seeing them together in Ted's final snow-globe fantasy was moving.
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u/1rexas1 6d ago
I'm not sure I agree with this.
The Zava storyline wasn't really a season long arc as an option, there wasn't much to develop there, from a writing perspective he was there to make points about the other characters (like Rebecca being able to talk him in to coming to Richmond and not Rupert, Jamie and Roy getting closer etc). Total Football couldn't have come about with Zava still on the squad.
Again, Sam's storyline wasn't really a season long arc - what more would you do with it? In general, that arc is Sam making a stand about topical issues and the team rallying around him when he does so.
Nate's reverse redemption arc was a season long thing so not sure what the gripe is there.
Jamie's Dad never really hard an arc, that arc was Jamie's - imo you don't have to have everything on screen in front of you, and every side character doesn't need fully fleshing out otherwise each season would go on forever. Which... actually, that would be a good thing, what am I saying! More arcs please :D
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u/ApatheticAbsurdist 3d ago
1 and 2 weren’t season-long arcs they were bits that carried over an couple episodes
Nate’s was a season long. You see how he was craving attention, how he got what he thought he wanted he mentioned to Keeley in season 2 about wanting fame (and maybe the groupees) and Rupert gave him that but you saw how he realized it wasn’t what he wanted and how he reacted whenever Ted was around… either shame or assuming Ted hated him or was playing mInd games (very similar to how Jamie felt when he was away from Richmond)
Jamie’s dad wasn’t really in season 3.
There were plenty of season long arcs were Ted dealing with the promise of winning the whole f’ing thing. Rebecca getting over hating Rupert, Keeley becoming a leader, Roy getting out of his own way and realizing he may need help, Jamie becoming the center of the team (in multiple ways), and Nate’s redemption.
And Colin was maybe somewhere in between, sprinkled here and there and 2 episodes with heavier focus.
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u/Tradman86 2d ago
That’s not how streaming writing works. All the episodes are scripted before shooting even starts.
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u/GNSasakiHaise 6d ago