Ted Lasso Recap: Better Living Through Improv

Ted Lasso
Yes & Baby
Season 4 Episode 7
Editor’s Rating ★★★★
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A diverse group of women from many different backgrounds make up the Lady Greyhounds’ lineup, but, as the opening moments of “Yes & Baby,” the seventh episode of Ted Lasso’s fourth season, make clear, they all have shit to deal with. Or at least that’s the word the players and others around them use to describe the difficulties they discover come with being a poorly compensated professional athlete while still trying to get by. For Lizzie, dealing with a last-minute child-care crisis when her ex unexpectedly bails on her makes her say “shit.” For Gemma, it’s an internship interview that conflicts with practice. For Niamh and Siobahn, it’s a rent increase. For Boots, it’s an ancient Jeep that’s on its last legs. Shannon gets a sympathetic “shit” from a delivery-service customer who recognizes her. And though Margy and Mady are having a different sort of problem — they’ve decided to split up again only to get matched on Bantr — that prompts a “shit,” too.

Who’s going to help them through all this shit? Surprisingly, the answer might be Alice, who’s returning from her suspension determined to be a different sort of coach. Specifically, she plans to follow the advice of the self-help expert whose video she watches in her car before heading into work: “Say ‘yes’ more.” It doesn’t take long for her to wonder if this is a mistake when she finds herself saying “yes” to Ted’s banal inquiries about her weekend and to his newly added “Believe” sign. 

Though the women’s club remains at the center, this episode provides a reminder that (a) yes, the men’s club still exists, and (b) it continues to take up a chunk of Rebecca and Higgins’s time via a subplot in which Derrick Tarp (Luke Norris), an unscrupulous sports agent, attempts to extort a better contract for Dani Rojas (who also still exists, it seems) by insinuating that he’s unhappy with his current situation and fending off offers from other teams. Also, if they don’t negotiate, then he might stir up some bad press. But it doesn’t take long for Rebecca and Higgins to see through this and to suss out Derrick’s real motive: securing a fat deal for Roy, whom he also represents. Roy, we’ll soon learn, isn’t really a Derrick fan, either. But, as he explains it to Keeley, “He’s a dick so I don’t have to be,” to which Keeley points out the obvious: that Roy, rather famously, can also be a dick. 

In fact, Roy is kind of behaving like a dick to Keeley about an awards ceremony at his old club, Chelsea, that he doesn’t want to attend when Dr. Erin walks in to check in on him for personal and professional reasons. The two seem pretty happy together as the episode begins. They’ll leave it still happy but very much not together because Roy spends the day distracted by Keeley’s obvious annoyance with him, a feeling that has deeper-seated reasons than him being a dick about Chelsea, even if that’s the focus of his complaints. After they have an extremely sweet, well-reasoned breakup, Dr. Erin says good-bye, (probably) paving the way for an inevitable Keeley-Roy reunion. 

Derrick’s visit has other repercussions. Rebecca and Higgins are still talking about him when Zelda arrives with the party favors Rebecca and Keeley never collected from the New Year’s party they failed to attend. It’s a passive-aggressive gesture, but Zelda seems in good spirits anyway as Rebecca unboxes swag that includes a bottle of jalapeño-infused cognac, a marble spatula, and a device that Higgins, and only Higgins, mistakes for a dog harness. 

Zelda has a second agenda. She’d like to come on — pro bono, of course — as an adviser to the women’s team. Should they trust Zelda? That’s not entirely clear, but they do trust her enough to send her after Derrick via an elaborate prank phone call that involves both Rebecca and Zelda trying on ridiculous accents and Zelda playing the role of a Chicago soccer-club owner named “Dolly Partonberg.” (An accidentally timely reference. RIP, queen.) The scene goes on a bit, but that’s okay. Why hire Tracey Ullman if you’re not going to let her talk in silly voices? (Waddingham does pretty well, too.) And, in the end, they get enough dirt to beat Derrick at his own deceptive game. Welcome to the team, Zelda.

At practice, Alice’s always-say-“yes” approach yields mixed results as she finds herself agreeing to an increasingly absurd string of player requests that results in, among other things, Boots playing barefoot. At once impressed and concerned, Ted introduces her to a fundamental principle of improv: “Yes, and …” (or, to use Beard’s variation, “Yes, and baby”), a variation on a mere “yes” that gives her an opening to make constructive additions to their requests. (Ted and Beard were turned on to this by an eccentric coach who used improv to loosen them up. Passing on this bit of wisdom seems like a Ted Lasso variation on the circle of life.) It ends up becoming an invaluable tool that yields immediate positive results via a confidence-building interaction with Shannon. Later, Alice and the team put their own “Yes, and” spin on Ted’s classic “Believe” sign: “Believe and Win.”

Margy and Mady aren’t the only characters struggling with a dating site this episode. Remembering his New Year’s resolution, Ted spends much of the episode attempting to create a Bantr profile as part of his attempt to reenter the dating world. It’s a simple process, or at least it ought to be. But Ted can’t even get past the first screen, which asks him to describe himself in three words. This proves to be such a distraction that he leaves practice, with Beard and Alice’s blessing, and seeks out Keeley’s advice. She advises him to get past his mental block around the first question by filling out all the other questions first. 

Their jokey interactions provide the episode with its comic highlight. (“Zodiac sign?” “I guess my sign would say, ‘You must see this movie!’”) Keeley and Ted are fun together, and they haven’t had a lot of one-on-one time yet this season. But, ultimately, Ted decides to delete his profile before it even launches and seek out the woman who got him thinking this way in the first place: the charming stage manager he met after Jane’s play. They have another nice, chemistry-heavy chat, but one that takes a disappointing turn for Ted (and maybe for the still-unnamed stage manager) when she reveals she’s started seeing someone recently and isn’t really available. Ted responds with the episode’s most popular expletive: “Shit.” 

After a couple of good-enough episodes, the season bounces back with “Yes & Baby,” in part because it feels kind of small after episodes focused on a big game and a big party. Here, we effectively get a day-in-the-life episode in which every character gets a moment or two, including the featured team members. We also, finally, get some Keeley scenes that aren’t defined by her yearning for Roy, a subplot that looks likely to be resolved soon. It’s a reminder that every episode has to involve some kind of high drama and that Ted Lasso is often at its best when it doesn’t feel like it’s trying too hard.

Biscuits

• Arch: What a nice kid and one who inspires some charming moments with both Ted and Beard, who can’t get through the book Charlotte’s Web without crying. But who can?

• Speaking of Beard, It’s obvious he’s still shaken by being rejected on New Year’s Eve for being “old,” so he’s trying to shake it up, most dramatically via the addition of some unnatural-looking, disturbingly vivid, and easily lost blue contact lenses. It’s also part of his “complete ego death and yet total resurrection,” but so far only the first part of that seems accurate. 

• “If human beings never said ‘no,’ we’d all have a time-share in Maui and be members of the Church of Latter-day Saints.” 

• “Hopeful, resilient, and kind” describe both Ted and Keeley. But would it work on a dating app?