Ted Lasso shows us how you could live if all the big things were removed and you only had small things left to trouble you.

I'm almost done with season 2 of Ted Lasso. The episode I watched was called Beard After Hours. It was a big tonal shift for the series to make, and I learned that it was the second of two episodes that Apple specifically requested to be added to the series. It was one of those episodes that haunts practically every show that hits the zeitgeist hard. The Bear season two had one of these episodes that was overly long and indulged in the drama of a family in crisis that was set some six years or so in the past. I didn't enjoy that episode all that much. This one that focused on Coach Beard was one I place squarely in that same box.

However, I don't watch this show for plot momentum. I watch it for the characters, of which Ted Lasso himself is the most enviable and most interesting. And I also watch it for the happiness that being rich seems to provide to those who are in that position. Ted Lasso is filled to the brim with rich people. In the Christmas episode of season two, we see some actual poor people receiving presents from a "secret Santa" kind of thing done by the owner of the Richmond futball team. But it's just a blip in the continuing drama of what it means to be exceptionally rich, and to have nothing to do with one's time aside from work at a job that looks incredibly fun, hang out with a bunch of athletically gifted and super attractive young men, and where your daily calendar is filled with only the best nutrition and you have plenty of time to date and to seek out therapy and to just enjoy the best that life has to offer.

It's honestly quite intoxicating. I mean...sure there's drama...but there isn't the kind of drama that poor people face, like eviction, or having to stay in a toxic place because finances would kill you otherwise. No, this is the drama of a girl with halitosis who then needs to see a dentist on Christmas to begin to treat the issue, and there just happens to be a dentist in their posh neighborhood. This isn't the drama of working three jobs and letting your body get broken so that you can pay bills. It is the drama of attractive people who don't have to do their own housework who place rose petals in the bathtub for a lover who feels they need some alone time. And there's always someone else that will go and clean all those rose petals up. No one ever has to scrub a toilet, spend their weekend washing clothes, getting a vehicle repaired (as all the vehicles are in brand new condition), or going to the grocery store for ingredients to meal prep until Wednesday so that you have food to eat at work. This is the drama of people who are riding in the back of a Rolls Royce, they have no mind on traffic because they don't care (or road rage), and they have the time to contemplate how one of their loved ones is feeling. And then they can check in, because (again) they have the time.

It's absolutely wonderful and oh how fantastic. There's so much to envy in the happiness of the casually super rich. It feels like a place where you could "just do it." Oh...you've always wanted to go to Italy? Just do it. And while your at it, go and have this amazing experience. Maybe go to the Maldives too. Yeah...just do it. You only live once. Only...a lot of people in this world can't afford to "just do it" to anything, unless it's walk down to Walgreens on the corner.

Anyway, Ted Lasso is a great show. I'm glad Liz recommended it so highly, and I'd recommend it to anyone. Just know that it's as much fantasy as The Lord of the Rings for most of us. But it's a fantasy that a lot of people can relate to, because it doesn't seem so far-fetched. It just all lies across that line of privilege that probably starts after you've accrued ten million or so in net worth. That (in my mind) is where life really starts to get good. So basically, Ted Lasso shows us how you could live if all the big things were removed so that you only had small things left to trouble you. Just think of all the possibilities you would have if you didn't have to file taxes because its done for you, you didn't have to shop because all your food just shows up in your house and is put into the fridge magically and prepared for you so all you had to do was eat it, so that you always had replacement clothes that always fit...I mean...every single one of us could be a good person. It wouldn't be hard to be a good person in a world like that. Sigh, if only.