This month I'm looking at writing techniques in four different sitcoms. This week, Ted Lasso!
There's a million ways of putting together a successful season of a series. But for me, one of the most satisfying approaches is to see the finale payoff not just storylines of the season but as many elements of the pilot as it can.
As I wrote in March, the pilot for TED LASSO crystallizes around one idea: that the most important thing is that people (and also ghosts) believe in themselves. And all through the season we see Ted coaching out of that philosophy. And in the finale we're given tons of examples of the payoff, starting with Nate, the very first person that Ted tried to encourage in the pilot, now not only promoted to assistant coach but celebrated by the entire team.
Then the heart of the quest of the episode proves to be Ted trying to find a strategy to win with absolutely no luck, until he decides to turn to the team and have them teach each other trick plays. And the trick play that almost wins them the game, which admittedly comes from Ted himself, ends up requiring the commitment and action of literally every member of the team.
(Also it presents as a football play. Ted spends the whole season being belittled for being an American football coach, and then here at the end that's what gets them their goal.)
And when the team loses, what
is Ted's refrain to them but to look to each other. They've each gone from another guy on the team to someone the others can look to and count on.
It's all a brilliant payoff of the pilot's promise. And that's in a sense what a finale is--the debt come due. You said you were going to give me a great show about X; hopefully you've done that all along the way. But in the finale there's that extra expectation of fulfillment.
Even the team's brutal loss after Jamie's last second pass to a teammate is really a fufillment of Ted's Believe in Yourself strategy. After spending the first half of the season fighting to break through to Jamie, and then discovering that the heart of his obnoxious egocentrism is the fear and anxiety he got from his father, here in the finale Jamie finally trusts enough to not be ruled by that anxiety and do the thing Ted had been trying to get him to do all along.
(And he pays for it, too; that glimpse of his father shouting at him is, along with everything to do with Rebecca's ex, maybe the roughest moment in the whole season.)
There are so many other payoffs from the season in the finale. The pilot opens with Rebecca firing one coach and hiring another who she can be sure will tank the team, and ends with Ted quitting so that Rebecca won't have to fire him, only to have her insist he's the one they need.
The kid on the plane who takes a picture of himself with Ted on his phone and says what a disaster Ted is going to be returns in the finale to do the same thing to Jamie, with the added twist that he also shows Jamie video of Ted praising him.
In the pilot Ted and Coach Beard kid about how much angrier Roy is going to be once they win him over, and in the finale he's absolutely there, going nuts over Ted's insistence that he has to be the one who picks the next team captain, while Coach Beard looks on with glee.
After he gets injured stopping a kick Sam rushes over to him and helps him up, just as Roy did for Sam earlier in the season, with the same advice about playing it for the crowd. And later after they lose Ted asks Sam to tell the team about the virtues of being a goldfish after the loss, just as he had told Sam. And just as Keeley showed up about two thirds of the way through to pick up Jamie in the pilot, she comes to the locker room at about the same time in the finale to comfort Roy.
The finale of TED LASSO would have been great even without all these callbacks. It's such a well-written show. But with every bookend you create another sense of completion, another kind of payoff.
TED LASSO starts its second season on Apple TV on July 23rd. Can't wait.
Next week in Sitcom Month: Lessons Learned from Parks & Rec!
