‘Ted Lasso’ Season 3 Finale: The End of a Frustratingly Bad Season And Beard’s explanation for how he knew so much about the school - “I dated a professor at Oxford, and I listened more than I talked” - sums up his whole ethos. This is actually Elvis Costello’s real name, but it hoodwinks the finance bros at the billiards table. To escape the doubting voices in his head, he gets drunk and deeply philosophical at The Crown & Anchor with Jeremy, Baz, and Paul, then convinces the Richmond fanboys to join him in crashing the elite Bone N Honey club, where he adopts the identity of Irish-born Oxford professor Declan Patrick Aloysius McManus. It is a fair point, since Beard’s command of the game is so much stronger than Ted’s, and suggests that Beard’s confidence in both himself and his boss is not as strong as it often appears. His apartment offers no respite, as he imagines being heckled by studio analysts Gary Lineker and Thierry Henry for failing to challenge Ted rather than be a yes man. ![]() He rides home on a train packed with giddy Man City fans (while a sad piano version of the Ted Lasso theme plays over time-lapse footage of everyone else having more fun than Beard). ![]() So after nearly two seasons of lurking at the edge of the frame and offering pithy wisdom about other characters’ stories, Hunt finally moves front and center for “Beard After Hours.” We open with a replay of Beard and Ted’s talk from the end of “Man City,” then follow our temporary title character for a weird odyssey through the highs and lows of London nightlife. ![]() “Beard After Hours” is an amusing diversion - and is far more melancholy than “Carol of the Bells,” and thus tonally a better fit with what’s been happening lately on the show - but it’s not the kind of instant classic it needed to be to justify its placement in the episode order. Sharon about his father’s suicide, Rebecca and Sam hooking up, Roy hugging Jamie - at a moment when the season was really starting to build momentum. But it’s also the first episode of Season Two to feel long a whimsical solo spotlight like this has no business being only two minutes shorter than an ensemble epic like “Man City.” And the timing feels less than ideal, tabling the various major breakthroughs of “Man City” - Ted telling Dr. And, yes, it’s a suitably weird homage to Martin Scorsese’s 1985 cult classic After Hours, which also involved a man spending an alternately exciting and nightmarish evening on the town while periodically losing his money and/or keys. While I almost always wind up in the latter camp, I had mixed feelings about “Beard After Hours.” Yes, it offers some insight into its title character. If you’re someone who feels like time spent with interesting characters only enhances the larger experience, you likely delighted in this extended spotlight on the most mysterious member of the core ensemble. If your expectations for the episode are based on the last five or so years of increasingly serialized television, you may view it as pointless filler that adds nothing to the plot. ![]() And since Jane exists more as a background running gag than a character at this point, “Beard After Hours” could be neatly excised from Season Two without anyone noticing. The other appears to be “Beard After Hours” (written by Kelly and Brett Goldstein), which explicitly takes place immediately following the events of “Man City,” but barely features any major characters other than Coach Beard, and doesn’t address any ongoing storylines other than his relationship with Jane. Rather than mess with those original plans, the creative team instead decided to make two largely standalone installments that could be inserted between, as Ted writer Joe Kelly put it, “when s- goes down and is about to go down.” One of those was the Christmas story “Carol of the Bells,” which became a major talking point for the factions insisting that Ted Season Two is a disappointment because it lacks conflict. Season Two, you may have heard, was originally planned to be the same length, but the overwhelming response to that first season prompted Apple to order two additional episodes after showrunner Bill Lawrence, Jason Sudeikis, and company had already outlined all the Season Two arcs. A review of this week’s Ted Lasso, “Beard After Hours,” coming up just as soon as I share a few thoughts on the fragility of life…
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