Erma Zurita

Ted Lasso Finale + parallels

I know you've already seen it, I just don't know if you watched the whole thing, look, look, look. Alright. So look, after we came in, Nate had to hide under my desk here for, like, three whole hours while we were whooping and hollering and celebrating all around him. Then, once we all split, he thought he was in the clear and BOOM! Cleaning crew shows up. That's another two hours under that desk, yeah. Well, after they leave he crawls out - his legs just gotta be jelly, barely stand up. Look at this, he goes to check the doors but they're all locked! Oh man, that son of a gun had to climb out the window here just to get out of the building.

And, most importantly, to Richmond.

I'm telling you, man, if y'all play hard, play smart, play together and just, you know...

It says a lot about Ted (stuff we already knew, frankly) that he'd take in a casual training buddy from his college days, seemingly no questions asked.

However, it says more about Beard's situation and isolation back then that the only person he felt he could reach out to was the nice football pal he never even got to play with; a mere acquaintance from his past who, depending on the timeline, might not have heard a word from him in years. That is a LOT of missing relationships in Beard's life for him to jump from "Family doesn't want me" to "Better call up that random guy I used to train with. He's the only one who might even consider helping me." (And, frankly, that re-contextualizes his obsession with Jane "Pain," but that's a post for another day.)

Like holy hell. I know the whole show is about bringing people out of that isolation and helping them form strong communal bonds, but Beard's backstory is like a concentrated dose of The Lasso Way in a single, thirty-second speech. I felt like I got walloped with an emotional sledgehammer. No wonder he's wanted to headbutt Nate on Ted's behalf.