Last week’s episode of Apple TV‘s Ted Lasso was the shortest of the season, and that paid some real narrative dividends. Episode 8, “Follow the Anger,” is the longest, and that inescapable feeling from Seasons 2 and 3 — of storylines taking several scenes to accomplish what could have been done in one or two — is on full display. 

It’s downright eerie to watch episodes from Season 1 and compare them with how things get paced out now. Something better could be lurking around the corner, in contrast to earlier seasons of the show and to things this episode’s references can’t help but invoke. 

Take the “epic” conclusion to Roy’s and Keeley’s when-will-they-already will-they-won’t-they folie á deux. They both venture off to Chelsea so that Roy can be fêted as a Chelsea legend. He decides to drive them there in his flashy new car, tricked out to the nines including a PlayStation 5. Never mind that the show has spent nearly four seasons of television convincing us that Roy is a salt-of-the-earth bloke who doesn’t care for all of this nonsense, including the very event they’re traveling to. No, the writers need some kind of obstacle to get this couple’s boiling-over tension to erupt. 

Roy’s and Keeley’s madcap day trying to get to Chelsea on time is served to us as a comedy of remarriage, a classic rom-com structure wherein two former lovers, no longer together and outwardly at each other’s throats, get into some hijinks until they realize that they can’t live without each other. Your His Girl Fridays, your Palm Beach Storys, that sort of thing. It’s Complicated is a recent example. 

Due to how poorly the show is made, none of the gags meant to elevate the situation (Roy’s new car, Roy’s fear of the Tube, offering a young communist a bunch of money to borrow their scooter) land with any type of humorous force. The two almost-lovers spend the whole time either clearing up that whole business with Dr. Erin Beaumont without a wisp of tension, or screaming at each other while the pratfalls, well, fall flat. 

It’s the final nail in the coffin of overly manufactured conflict, only to conclude where we always knew it would: Roy making a big declaration of love, and Keeley falling madly into his arms. Personally, I’d rather see Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell do it all the way back in 1940. At least those crazy kids had something to run toward, rather than run in circles for no good reason. 

A far more blatant reference involves Higgins tracking down Richmond shareholders who have been selling their stakes in the club for more than they’re worth to a mysterious buyer. Higgins calls one after the other, as a dissonant piano chord inserts itself into the soundtrack. A low, escalating French horn figure crescendos at the peak of Higgins’s confusion, since everyone he calls denies the truth or alludes to their fear of discovery. Yes, it’s the main orchestral theme from All the President’s Men, the Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman Watergate classic. The references keep coming, until Mae assumes the role of Deep Throat, telling Higgins to “follow the anger”. 

I must admit I gave a slight chuckle of acknowledgement once I realized what co-showrunners Jason Sudeikis and Jack Burditt were up to. That shouldn’t be the only bar for a comedy to clear. Can you imagine if Michael Schur had the chance to do this with the Parks and Recreation cast? How about Dan Goor and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, a show that loved to spin parodies of old favorites and make them hilarious? Or maybe Tina Fey and Robert Carlock could have thrown this to Ellie Kemper in The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Though it was all speculative, I couldn’t help thinking about how much crisper, sharper, and funnier those shows would have made this conceit. 

I will give it up to this joke, puncturing the shadow-plunged allure of Deep Throat in the original film. 

Gemma also may be dreaming of something better. The curse of the ACL comes for her too, as Alice leaves her in a game when she was originally planned to come off. She immediately injures her knee ligament. Though we don’t yet know if it’s a full tear, women’s footballers don’t need much to assume the worst. 

Alice is consumed with guilt, followed by fear and panic when Gemma informs her that she is probably going to quit and focus on law school. She was awarded the prestigious internship she was recommended for in Episode 7, and the promise of professional and financial stability is too large an opportunity to turn down, when the risk of a future in football is so high after an ACL injury. 

When Ted finds Alice back in the coach’s office mid-practice, crying her eyes out, it prompts him to essentially re-run his big, inspirational speech to the team (but really to Alice) from Episode 5. We all need to feel more, and feel more openly. Alice knows this means her most of all. 

She goes back to Gemma to tell her that playing football was the only time she ever felt free, and that Gemma is the same way. Fear can’t be the reason she walks away from the sport, because if it is, she’ll regret all those moments not spent trying to be on the pitch. Gemma naturally tells Alice that she is putting her law degree on hold while she rehabs her knee.

It’s a classic sports-movie cliche, reminding a player at their lowest point that the love of the game must overcome all else. (cf. “It’s the hard that makes it great” in A League of Their Own.) This is yet another point where the “Believe” ethos (or rather, the “Believe and…” ethos) crashes headlong into the very serious challenges second-division women’s footballers face in England. Players don’t always get to choose between being a footballer and doing something else. That choice is often made for them, due to an inability to live on a player’s wages. 

Steps have been taken to end this problem. New regulations were introduced to the WSL 2 last year, requiring every club to pay their players at least a living wage, so that they could train and play full-time without any side hustles getting in the way. For many years before that, scores of players were lost to the sport because of their inability to play and put food on the table at the same time. It was a necessary and long-overdue intervention by the league. 

Season 4 was written before the WSL 2’s new policies were made public, so it makes sense that they don’t factor into the players’ lives onscreen. We saw Shannon moonlighting as a food delivery worker in last week’s episode, after all.

Gemma may have a way out. As is colorfully illustrated this week by her mother Bunny (Caroline Sheen) and the London neighborhood in which they live (Belsize Park, average home price: $3.4 million), Gemma’s family is very wealthy. They could provide another layer of support to let her pursue her dream. 

The problem is that Sudeikis et al. want to have it both ways. Gemma says she “doesn’t care” about her family’s money, going so far to say “I’m not rich. My parents are.” If we are to believe Gemma, then her family’s financial support shouldn’t factor into her own situation. 

Gemma, if she is unable or unwilling to use her family’s financial support, is most likely exposing herself to the same problems that Shannon and others are dealing with. That means that Gemma is turning down a law career that wouldn’t just mitigate professional risk, but also financial risk. 

The way to remove this horrible choice from players’ lives is to implement and improve policies like those the WSL 2 enacted last year. Systemic, structural changes buoy those most vulnerable inside that system, not individual choices, as the show would have you believe. Gemma isn’t standing for what is right; she’s standing for what is narratively convenient. 

The life of a professional athlete is a complicated one, especially when considering livelihoods and injuries. The show wants to simplify this quandary through Alice’s motivational speech meant to shake Gemma out of her fear. Gemma isn’t necessarily wrong to be afraid, though. Nor would any women’s footballer faced with similar choices. I could never blame a player like Gemma if she honestly thought that there was something better waiting for her outside of football. According to Ted Lasso, all you need is to be awoken from the fog of uncertainty to regain your belief, and thus your success.

One wishes the show had shown the thorns beneath the roses.

GAME NOTES

• Please, go watch All the President’s Men. It rocks. 

• Surprise surprise, the mysterious buyer of Richmond shares is Rebecca’s ex-husband Rupert (Anthony Head), evidently driven by anger and spite. One hopes that Head will appear at least once in the season’s concluding episodes, so that we may see off an actor who died far too young back in June.

• All of the episode’s flab only serves to muddle its characters, not clarify them. To wit: Alice admonishes Rebecca to care about Gemma as a person, not just as a player. She seems worried that Gemma might get cut loose, which acknowledges what Zelda (Tracey Ullman) had suggested to Rebecca earlier. Only, Alice wasn’t privy to that conversation. Yes, the gift basket had nuts that Gemma was allergic to, but Rebecca did offer the gift, and then fired the team surgeon because he refused to examine Gemma immediately. That doesn’t seem like a club owner who forgets about her players. Also, going through someone’s social media accounts to figure out their favorite snack is weird! 

• On a positive note, Roy’s and Keeley’s sunroof escape is underpinned by Alanis Morissette’s cover of “Crazy” by Seal, one 1990s icon tipping her cap to another. 

• Boots would have 100% broken her wrist(s) saving that penalty. THIS. IS. WHY. KEEPERS. WEAR. GLOVES.

Evan Davis is a contributing writer to Decider. He hosts Expected Own Goals, a podcast about women’s soccer.