Yeah, that was beautiful, a small bit that had a giant impact, a magnificent piece of writing.
I didn’t catch that the game was supposed to have happened in Ted’s past, I thought it was Ted’s future, he returned to the game of soccer for the love of the game. But now I’ll have to rewatch that.
I only have trouble agreeing with you, because she has very strong competition. Brett Goldstein (the actor/writer who plays Roy Kent) is right up there as is Coach Beard, although the latter is more of a “glue character”.
I meant the future shown for the other characters. Basically everything from when Ted’s plane takes off until he wakes up. It shows everyone else’s futures, even months from the flight. Then all of a sudden we see Ted on the plane waking up and arriving home.
I’m convinced now that none of it was a dream, but the backwards time jump was weird, especially for a show that hasn’t had any flashbacks so far.
That time skip then rewind thing was a bit weird but the weirdest thing to me was why Ted was bringing his bags into the house with Michelle.
Even though they insinuate Dr Jake isn’t in the picture anymore in the later scenes, he was clearly there during the match that occurred seemingly the day or two before.
Based on some of the AMAs that people from the cast have done I don’t think we’re supposed to overthink it though. They choose that scene for the symbolism of a literal homecoming for Ted, but cast have said that the show intentionally wanted to leave it open whether he and Michelle get back together.
I assumed he came back for his son, and that this was his first order of business.
I think the clear implication was that Nate would become part of the coaching team. Ted chose one of Nate’s plays as the crucial play in the last game.
I think this was cut for time. I really wish they had done without the Zaza arc and invested that time into that.
My take was that it was very much Nate’s redemption arc, Ted never held a grudge against him. It was Nate himself who needed to grow, and then the relationships that were broken with the players and with Beard were the ones that we needed to see fixed.
My surprise was that it was Roy not Nate who was promoted to replace Ted. I thought Nate coming back initially as the assistant to the kit man was enough to show he’d rediscovered his humility, but wasn’t expecting him to stay in that role! Happy endings aside, seems like even with all his growth Roy would hate being a manager, while Nate has already shown he was capable of being an outstanding manager so would be the obvious choice now that he’s also remembered how to be a good human being.
While I agree, I think they could have shown more. Just to give one example, I was always expecting that Nate’s gift to Ted, the photo, would play a role. Nate was disappointed, because Ted did have it on his desk — at work. But he did have it at home. So I was hoping for a sequence where they’d have a heart-to-heart and ended up in Ted’s home. Where Nate would discover that Ted kept his present in a very prominent spot.
Also him deciding to quit his old job with Rupert felt a bit rushed, too. He was a kit man at Richmond when Rupert was in charge. Presumably he would have known what kind of guy he is.
Agreed, I was fully expecting that Nate would succeed Ted. Roy was a very unlikely candidate given that his strengths weren’t, hmmm, dealing with the subtleties of human interactions.
On the other hand, Ted, Coach Beard and Roy really functioned more like a cohesive unit, a team. I reckon the new troica is similar. Coach Beard is a theoretician, Roy a practitioner and Nate the Wunderkind who sees things from a different perspective.
See I disagree with this. I think the whole focus of Roy throughout the show was his ability to excel things he despised. Every time there was a focus on Roy it was some sort of surprising ability to manage human interaction while being angry about it.
I don’t disagree with the choice, I am just saying Roy was the unexpected choice. Your thoughts express the rationale behind it very eloquently. If Roy had been given more time during the third season to make the shift, I think I might have considered the possibility.
The photo was prominently featured in the previous season and I thought that this was what they were going for. Like you wrote, it certainly would have made for a nice lightbulb moment.
He was being dropped off by a cab. I think he just went straight from the airport to see his kid. I would too. He has to bring his bag in or the cab leaves with it. Michelle can just give him a ride home later.
Yup, that’s how I see it, too: he came home to spend more time with his son who missed him terribly, so it makes sense that his first stop is his son’s home. He was not on bad terms with Michelle, so yeah, her giving him a ride (or him calling another Uber) seems consistent.
