4 Relationship Lessons from Ted and Rebecca
My subject line is not a Ted Lasso spoiler, but there will be some in this email
To begin with, I’m going to be spoiling the hell out of seasons 1 and 2 of Ted Lasso.
Research actually suggests that people may sometimes (not always) enjoy things more after they’ve been spoiled, but don’t let that stop you from going to watch Ted Lasso and then coming back to read this.
Okay.
So I’m already on the record as enjoying the sexual relationships on Ted Lasso. In a world full of bad representation of sexuality in the media, season 2 of Ted Lasso is one place that has an aspirationally good sexual relationship.
What I haven’t said is that the romantic relationships in the first two seasons seem to have been written by teenagers and new adults whose only understanding of relationships comes from the romantic comedies which they so frequently reference.
Mostly the romantic relationship struggles in Ted Lasso have been the relationship struggles of teenagers working out the basics of being in a relationship for the very first time. Like Keeley not knowing how to talk to Roy about needing a little more space and Roy not knowing how to cope with her having a full life even if he’s not there. That’s kid stuff; if they can’t get through that, they’re not ready to be with anyone.
In grown-up, long-term relationships, a great partner is one who’s there for you, who turns toward your difficult feelings with kindness and compassion.
And they like and admire each other. In fact, in a great relationship, you really like who you are when you’re with that person, and that person likes who they are when they’re with you. You bring out the best in each other. You probably also sometimes bring out the worst in each other, but in a great relationship you recognize that part of the deal of building a shared life together, is helping each other with the hard stuff.
So let’s review the big moments when the story shows us, again and again, that Ted and Rebecca are there for each other’s big feelings, with kindness and compassion, when it matters most.
First, Ted Lasso 101 for the uninitiated: Ted is an American Division II Football coach who went viral doing the running man in celebration of his team’s big win. He’s hired by Rebecca, the British owner of a Premiere League football club to coach this professional team. He’s a relentlessly optimistic believer in Belief itself, who is moving to the UK because his couple’s therapist said it might be a good idea if he gave his wife some space; she is an ultra-rich, extremely gorgeous, bitter recent divorcee.
Here are four episodes that show what solid grown-up relationships actually look like.
1.) Season 1, episode 2 (and episode 6): Biscuits
Ted takes Rebecca a small box of cookies—biscuits—every day. Biscuits with the Boss, he calls it. She says no thank you, she clearly is being obedient to some diet or other, as most of us are, but she tastes them and… she loves them.
She sends her right hand Higgins on a hunt for them. She wants to be able to get that feeling without having to go through Ted.
The biscuits, of course, are a symbol.
Toward the end of that episode, Ted says to her, “You got some kind of food or something that just teleports you right back home, makes you feel all warm and fuzzy?”
And Rebecca looks wistfully at the box of biscuits on her desk. (Ted notices but says nothing.)
In episode 6, Ted is angry with her for a decision she made that will negatively impact the team. He’s angry, he’s seeing red everywhere, he says, and she says, “Well then perhaps you should leave before you say something you regret.”
He turns to go, but then he turns back and says, “You know what? Here you go. Your biscuits. And I hope they’re not as good as they usually are. Awwwww, but dang it they’re the best batch yet, I finally cracked the recipe!” And he walks out with an exasperated groan.
Now I think that, to Ted, the biscuits are a symbol of connection and respect. But for Rebecca, who spent years married to a narcissist, terrified to leave him for fear of being alone for the rest of her life, that connection and respect are precisely what she’s been starving for.
I firmly believe that love has a flavor. If you had ever tasted my grandmother’s pot roast, chicken fingers, cheese sauce, or Christmas cookies, you would too. We said it to her as a joke, “Why is this so good? It’s because you can taste the love.”
But like for real.
You can taste the fuckin’ love.
And, like Ted, my grandmother offered it unconditionally.
In your relationship, do you have an unconditional exchange of connection and respect that feels like home?
2.) Season 1, episode 4: For the Children
A lot happens in this episode, but I’ll mostly skip to the big moment.
Rebecca organizes a gala fundraiser for children in need. It’s the first time she’s doing it without her now ex-husband—who, nevertheless, shows up uninvited and proceeds to be a sleazy douchebag offering backhanded compliment after thinly veiled insult. It’s important for me to mention that Rupert, the ex, charms literally everyone. Ted witnesses all of this.
Ted finds her later, outside the venue, crying, and she frickin’ busts out her deepest fear. “Now I’m alone, I’m alone, Ted, just like he said I would be if I left. I don’t want to be alone.”
He hugs her and offers her an exit.
She asks if Rupert has started the auction and when Ted confirms he has, Rebecca says, “Good. I’m glad he’s done that, because we’ll get much more money. No matter what he does, they just love him.”
And at the end of the night, Ted says the important thing. He doesn’t say, “You’re not alone;” that’s not what she needs and it directly contradicts her internal experience. He says, “You may think you’re the only one who can see who he really is. But you’re not.”
He sees what Rebecca sees. He validates her experience, when she’s surrounded by people who are fooled by the douchebag.
To whom can you tell your deepest fear? Who in your life sees who the real enemy is, validates your experience of the real enemy? Who is your Joseph Cotten, telling you you’re not going crazy, the gaslights really are flickering? And for whom are you that person?
3.) Season 1, episode 7: Make Rebecca Great Again (and Ted’s panic attack)
They hired Hannah Waddingham to play Rebecca, and they clearly were like, “We are knuckleheads if we don’t let her sing.”
And so when the team all go for a celebratory round of karaoke, Rebecca belts out “Let It Go,” from Frozen. The selection of this song is so well-embedded in the storytelling that it seems like a throwaway choice, but listen, I have an entire hour-long talk called “Love Is An Open Door: Frozen and the Science of the Feels.” I won’t give the whole talk here, but I just want to say… it’s a deliberate decision.
As she begins the first chorus, Ted’s body shakes and he struggles to breathe and he leaves the club in a haze, only half aware of his surroundings. He sits against the brick wall outside the club, his body out of his control, sounds ringing in his ears, until he hears, “Ted. Ted. It’s okay. It’s okay. Try to breathe.”
“I can’t, I don’t know what’s going on. I’m sorry”
“It’s okay. You’re having a panic attack. Just breathe.”
“Am I going crazy?”
“No more than anyone else.”
And he laughs a little. A little eye contact. Hand holding, a hand on his cheek, a small joke, and his body begins to release.
I don’t know how Rebecca knew it was a panic attack; she says elsewhere that she thinks therapy is nonsense. But in the moment that he needs that wisdom and that calm presence, she is there for him.
That night, they each have sex with somebody else. But the most intimate connection either of them shares with anyone is that moment in the alley.
Who is a calm, wise presence when you’re at your most vulnerable?
And for whom are you a calm, wise presence, when they’re at their most vulnerable?
4.) Season 2, episode 10: No Weddings and A Funeral
Rebecca’s father, from whom she is intentionally estranged, dies, and her mother insists that Rebecca give a eulogy. Lost for words as she begins, since she and her mother were discussing the Rick Astley song “Never Gonna Give You Up,” she starts muttering then lightly singing that song. When she gets to “Never gonna make you cry, Never gonna say…” she get stuck, the tears blocking her voice.
And no one knows what to do. No one knows how to show up, how to be there for her in this intense moment of vulnerability, standing alone in front of a crowd. Most people look away.
Not Ted.
When Rebecca is stuck in her grief as she gives her father’s eulogy, who is there for her? Who shows up first and biggest? Is it Sam? Keeley? Flo? No. Are they all great characters who totally support and love Rebecca? Yes. They’re not failing her in this moment, they’re just not the ones who know how to show up and do it fearlessly. It’s Ted, all the way in the back row, who knows what she needs and is unafraid to appear foolish. He sings all by himself, loud enough so she can hear “Never gonna say goodbye… Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.” And only then do her best friends and then the whole congregation join in.
I’m only describing the specific moment of being there for her. There’s lots of other stuff in that episode that deepens the meaning of it. But for the purposes of this newsletter, the moral of the story is:
Who’s your person who doesn’t look away and isn’t afraid to seem foolish in order to make sure you have the support you need when you are in the darkest places in your heart?
I am writing this before episode 5 of season 3 is released. I don’t know how the whole series will end. (Obviously I have opinions.) But I believe that some genuine tragedy is going to strike, and whenever that tragedy occurs (my vote is episode 11 of 12, when Rebecca traditionally goes to Ted’s office and confesses something big), Ted and Rebecca will be there for each other, more immediately and more concretely than anyone else will be there for either of them.
And I think that the tragedy is going to end up being the actual point of Ted’s otherwise not-very-relevant press conference answer about Earl the deceased mascot dog, when he said, “It’s funny to think about the things in your life that make you cry just knowing that they existed can become the same things that make you cry knowing that they’re now gone. I think those things come into our lives to help us get from one place to a better one.”
Ted and Rebecca have already been that for each other.
tl;dr:
See who the real enemy is; validate that for each other.
Unconditional connection and respect.
A calm, wise presence when someone is at their most vulnerable.
Not looking away, not being worried about appearing foolish as you show up for them.
** But no, I don’t actually ship Ted and Rebecca.
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And after this latest episode... I am convinced the powerful friendships between them, as well Beard & Ted, Roy & Jamie, Higgins & Rebecca, might be even more clearly seen in some of those ever-shifting triads that make healthy systems function (or put unhealthy ones in a funk).
So true! Love this.