10 Times Ted Lasso Totally Nailed This Whole Parenting Thing

Way back in 2020, when I heard that Apple TV was releasing a Ted Lasso show based on the NBC Sports English Premier League promo campaign of the same name , I dismissed the concept out of hand. Sure, I loved the cheeky ads where an American football coach goes to England to manage a football club. But the premise felt too thin to flesh out into a full series, and Jason Sudeikis’ body of work up to that point didn’t inspire confidence that a sitcom based on the character could hold my attention. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Here’s the thing I failed to anticipate: Ted Lasso is, at its core, a show about fatherhood. Not in a neat, Hallmark-movie kind of way, but in the messy, long-distance, guilt-soaked, love-you-so-much-it-hurts way that a lot of us actually live it. Ted’s relationship with his son, Henry — conducted mostly through grainy FaceTime calls across a six-hour time difference — is the quiet beating heart of all three seasons. While the rest of AFC Richmond is arguing about formations and tabloid covers, Ted is trying to figure out how to be a good dad from 4,000 miles away while working through how his relationship with his own father has formed him. The man is not perfect. Nobody raising kids is, and running off to London without your family to accept a job you’re wholly unqualified for as an act of emotional avoidance is a narrative necessity, but it’s a flaw many folks have pointed out. But along the way, he does his best and makes the right plays in the mome…