Lassoed

Toheeb Jimoh (from left), Brett Goldstein, Karine Jean-Pierre, Jason Sudeikis, Hannah Waddingham, and Brendan Hunt in a White House briefing last week. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

After weeks of starts and stops, I finally abandoned efforts to write about the Oscars. A buddy had reminded me that it used to be part of my job description to Monday-morning quarterback the wins and losses of Hollywood's Big Night … but then I remembered, hey, I'm retired now. No more skin in the game, besides this blog that some of you tell me you enjoy when awards season rolls around.

Amidst the glitz and the gossip, the adoration and the snubs, the gowns and the snarky jokes from the emcee, the Academy Awards are a reminder that the movie industry is, and always has been, in the business of creating illusions. 

Virtue signaling is a big one. The ceremony is always a balancing act between glittery excess and proclamations on behalf of the less fortunate. Still, it was a little disconcerting to see Nobel laureate Malala Yousefsei, executive producer of an Oscar-nominated documentary, in the audience surrounded by stars in apparel and jewelry valuable enough to feed an African village for a year. When host Jimmy Fallon attempted to joke around with Malala, she didn't get it.

Trying to sort out how politics, sentimentality, personal loyalties, not to mention multimillion-dollar marketing campaigns translate into votes for the “best” in any creative category is above my pay grade.

Personally, as wiggy and fun as it was, I wouldn't put “Everything Everywhere All At Once” in the seven Oscar league. I suspect that “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “Tar,” “The Fabelmans” and even “Top Gun Maverick” will have places in my heart and still be lingering in memory about this time next year, long after the best-picture winner has faded away.

So let's leave it at that. There are fresh causes for celebration.

At the top of the list is“Ted Lasso,” returning like spring itself.

Not to say that I'm a superfan exactly, but I have managed to see both episodes of the new season – two so far – the first day they were available. (Unlike “All Quiet on the Western Front,” winner of four Oscars, that I started watching months ago and haven't bothered to finish.)

Since bursting onto Apple TV two short seasons ago, this fish-out-of-water comedy about a Kansas football coach who, despite having no knowledge of the sport, winds up coaching the AFC Greyhounds in England's premier soccer league, has gone from a quirky curiosity, to winner of lotsa Emmys and other trophies, to international institution. 

Last week, series creator Jason Sudeikis with superb co-stars including Hannah Waddingham, Brendan Hunt, Toheeb Jimoh and Brett Goldstein shared the podium with real-life Biden press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in the White House Briefing Room. The fictional characters were there to address the very real issue of mental health, a concern underlying the brilliant comedy of the smash hit show.

What is it about “Ted Lasso” that gives it such cachet? What makes it unlike anything else on screens large or small? How does it make me laugh out loud – probably a dozen times in the last episode – where other comedies produce slight smiles at best?

How is it that I know every quirk of every character so well, when I can barely keep up with who's who in any other production that has more than three people in the cast? 

What are these guys on?

Truth serum is my guess.

Just as Sudeikis hides his genius under the aw-shucks masquerade (an act not unlike Mark Twain, I noted the last time I wrote about the show), “Ted Lasso's” humor is a disguise, too. It reminds me of Peanuts comic strips, packing infinite wisdom of the human heart and psyche into a minimum of black and white pen strokes. 

It's a sort of alchemy. It's an example of the sensation of being part of something bigger than yourself that UC Berkeley clinical psychologist Dacher Keltner probes in his wonderful new book titled “Awe.”

When the series began, Hannah Waddingham's character, team owner Rebecca Welton, looked like a Cruella de Ville villainess from hell, out to destroy the team and the vulnerable psyche of its new coach as payback to her estranged husband. Now she radiates as much love as the screen can hold, every episode.

That's the “Ted Lasso” template. Villains are just broken souls in need of repair. Actually, we all are.

Ted Lasso is the instrument of their – and our – salvation. Despite his own demons and doubts – he took the English coaching assignment after his wife told him she “needed her own space,” putting an ocean between him and his young son as collateral damage – Ted's optimism is the stuff of inspiration.

With the “Believe” sign taped over his office door, he is a poster boy for turning the other cheek, and yes, any connection you might make to a Christ parable would be well-placed.

As opposed to so much else in the media these days, “Ted Lasso” shows us a better world, and how to be better souls worthy of it. No wonder the appearance in the White House Briefing Room was followed by a meeting with the President and First Lady. They know how desperately the country needs to be Lassoed.

We all do.