Ted Lasso Season 3 episode 1 - Smells like Mean Spirit
It was with great anticipation and relief that we Australians were able to watch Ted Lasso Season 3, episode 1 yesterday.
Its title, “Smells like Mean Spirit”, says it all. We go on a journey that Brene Brown describes in her book Atlas of the Heart, “The places we go to when we are wronged; anger, contempt, disgust, dehumanisation, hate and self righteousness.”
It begins with Ted saying goodbye to his son, Henry as he goes home alone back to the US. It reminds us of the wisdom of the naivety of children, who have not been wronged as much as us who have lived longer.
His son gives him a lego piece - the centrepiece of the vision board they had built together. He comments on the political system he is going back to, waves and smiles as he descends the escalator to fly higher than 10,000 feet across the sky to live his life his way.
We experience Ted’s sadness. Instead of pushing it down as he has in the past, Ted shares his struggle with his coach, Sandra, who reminds him it is all for the best. She does not allow him to be distracted by her life, he needs to take action, move forward in his life.
Ted goes home, clears the clutter, and adds the piece to the vision board. He relishes the memories, sending love to his son. We feel his aloneness.
Ted then resets with a shower to face his world full of negativity. Everyone reminds him of statistics that show relegated teams rarely win. Rebecca, his boss, continues her fight with ex-husband, Rupert as she struggles with his humiliation of her.
We feel the disbelief of 10 year old Phoebe, as Roy and Keeley break up because they are more in love with their careers than each other. We see the hate of Nate towards Ted and all that he believes in. We sit with the characters as we feel their anger, hurt, contempt, disgust, humiliation. We feel the ‘mean spirit’.
Ted questions why he is there, just like we question why we struggle when we could be somewhere else.
Then Ted takes his team on an excursion off the field. They descend into ‘The Great Stink’ - the sewers of London. As the players cover their noses, complain, want to get away, Ted lets them experience how in 1858, one man designed and project managed over 100 miles of tunnels to divert the sewerage to be filtered back to the goodness of the ocean. It is what we as humans need to do, is to find a way of diverting meanness, to filter it to flow into the ocean of goodness of what we want our lives to be, not what it is now.
Ted leads the way with a press conference where the seagulls of reporters are treated with respect. He turns the wave of their meanness into the wave of seeing the light side of being ‘dumb’ and ‘crazy’ and seeing the fun and laughter that our struggles offer. We see Ted being Ted, using his signature strengths. We experience his humour, hope and forgiveness through his struggle. We smile and laugh with him as we wait in anticipation for the next episodes as he manifests what he wants; the centre of his vision board.
I encourage you to go on the struggle ride and experience Ted Lasso Season 3 episode 1, to understand that the smell of mean spirit is also filled with the smell of hope.
