Well hey there, my unique little Unicorns! I hope you’re having the very best day. I hope you have the best shortbread biscuits on display. I hope you were able to wear socks straight out of the dryer. And I hope that neighborhood cat you’ve been trying to befriend finally let you pet it today!
Why am I so chipper? Because I’m about to review my favorite show! Back during the depths of the pandemic, when the summer heat was blazing and another viral variant was scaring the bejesus out of everyone, I was working deserted graveyard shifts at a survival job. I needed a show that was a booster shot of joy to get me through the wee hours of the morning, and some sweet soul suggested I start watching Ted Lasso (2020–2023).
I wasn’t even through the second scene of the pilot when I knew I was all in. And lemme tell ya, it has that perfect blend of exuberant outlook, characters you want to root for, and chummy yet precise humor that got me through some really tough days.
But why in the world am I talking about it here at the Unicorn Scale? Well, like one of Rebecca’s pink boxes of biscuits, let’s get into it!
There will be SPOILERS for the whole series of Ted Lasso. Yes, the whole kit and caboodle. So know that you’ll get all spoiler’d out if you read this before viewing the final episode. If this is your first time reading a Unicorn Scale — or you just need a refresher on what the metric is all about — you can learn all about it here.
Ted Lasso is an AppleTV sports comedy-drama based off of characters created for NBC Sports. Ted (played by Jason Sudeikis) is a Midwestern American college football coach brought on to coach soccer for the Richmond Greyhounds in a suburb of London — without knowing anything about the sport. It’s important to note — you don’t need any knowledge of or interest in soccer to enjoy the show and its motley crew of beloved characters.
What I Liked:
I want to focus in particular on the character of Keeley Jones (Juno Temple), a sort of “famous-for-being-famous” celebrity who develops a keen knack for optics and eventually becomes the publicist for the club. Throughout the first two seasons, she had somewhat formulaic romances with two players on the team, Jamie Tartt (Phill Dunster) and Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein), which is all fine and dandy. Those were fun. But Keeley, in her growing friendship with club owner Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham), kept making remarks about both Rebecca and her bodacious bod in a rather alterous-attraction sort of way — more than platonic but not quite romantic. At first, I was ready to mark this down as a combination Drive-Bi combined with lovely female friendships and how they can gas each other up.
But finally, in Season 3, Ted Lasso delivered on what it had teased for the first two seasons. That’s right — Keeley got herself a proper girlfriend, Jack (Jodi Balfour).
We get a meet-cute. We get banter. We get cute queer scenes. We get a multi-episode arc. We get accepting and supportive friends and colleagues who don’t bat an eye at this development. We get a clearly self-accepting bi woman in Keeley. We even manage to get ex-boyfriend Roy needing to blow off steam when he realizes Keeley is boo’d up, not because it’s a woman and there’s a hackneyed gay panic, but because she is moving on from him and he finds it terrifying! Instead of a typical heater love triangle, it’s nice to get a queer love quadrangle going during the final season. So much to love!
What I Didn't Like:
I know I harp on about this, and I know casual queerness has its rightful place, but damn it I would have loved if Keeley had said she was bi. Or queer. Or fluid. Or something!
I’m also disappointed that Jack ended up being a slut-shaming, optics-centered partner. Keeley deserved better than someone trying to shame her for sharing nudes with a consenting adult partner even though they got leaked. That boundary is a possessive one, so I’m glad she didn’t end up with the billionaire love bomber.
The Rating:
Come on. As if I’m going to let my quibbles keep me from giving full marks for queerness here. I love the hell out of this show and its casual queerness. It’s a lovefest and you should absolutely watch it unless you’re allergic to joy.
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