2x09 Beard After Hours

[9.5/10] Holy hell! I didn’t know that Ted Lasso had an episode like this in it. I loved this: the magical realism, the more freewheeling and cinematic direction, the sense that this episode could work as a standalone short story if it needed to, the chance to delve into a secondary character and find hidden depths and layers we’d never been privy to until now. I am, traditionally, a sucker for a good format bender, and this pushed all my buttons.

I spent much of this episode wondering if this was all really happening. I think that's intentional. The events of Chrs Beard walking it off after the brutal loss to Man City are larger than life. You could buy his story of sleeping too late and hitting his head rolling out of bed...until the flashy pants show up in the coach’s office. But it feels like a dream, from the recurring symbolism of the moon (connected to Ted’s “once in a blue moon” comment?), the club within a church, the heightened dialogue between Coach Beard and the ingenue he runs into at the club. The whole thing stretches the bounds of the show’s reality in a very creative way.

But it's also a mood piece. The episode captures the more liminal experience of a night out where you’re processing your feelings in real time, with the world bending a nd s stretching to reflect Beard’s hopes and anxieties. The way the announcers dig at him specifically on T.V. screens and “real life”, commenting on everything from his football strategy to his self-loathing, puts the man’s heart on display in a way we don’t always see.

Likewise, the self-hatred he cops to is balanced out by the fact that, for all their apparent tempestuousness, he loves Jane and wants her to live him back. His simple prayer, that he knows she won’t cure what ails him, but she makes life more interesting, is one of the sweetest and most sincere descriptions of attachment to someone I’ve heard on television in some time. There is great catharsis when he finally makes it to that mysterious club after no end of trials and travails and finds her waiting for him, having returned his affections, and joining him in unrestrained expressions of joy and self-expressions.

Plus, as much as this is a “day in the limelight” episode a la “Lower Decks” from The Next Generation or “The Zeppo” from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it doesn't just focus on Coach Beard. The three mugs from Mae’s pub get their chance to step into the spotlight too. Watching them sneak into an exclusive club, hustle some Oxford boys out of their billiards money, roll around in a limo with their winnings and, with Beard’s help, get to exult on the AFC Richmond pitch in jubilant style gives them some shading and charm we don’t always get for the show’s three-man Greek chorus.

At the end of the day, though, this is Coach Beard’s story, and Brendan Hunt more than lvies up to the extra challenge of having the whole episode focus on him. He nails the comedy of dealing with peculiarly suspicious hotel clerk, the pain and resignation of someone who feels as though he is unworthy and not good enough in his job or in life, and the pure unfettered bliss when he finally let’s go and is able to enjoy himself with the woman he loves. It’s a tour de force performance, and only faces competition from Jason Sudekis for the best outing for an actor in the show.

In brief, I didn’t know Ted Lasso had ambition for this type of thing, let alone the ability to pull it off. This feels more like something BoJack Horseman would try, and I say that lovingly. This is a comfort show, one that has its depth, but tends to go to pretty accessible, life-affirming places. “Beard After Hours” is dark and outre and downright weird in a way that general audiences don’t always jive with. God bless it though -- this may be the boldest and most creative thing the show’s ever presented, and I am all over it.