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Island of Bryan (2019)
It Actually Gets Worse in S4
We are seeing season 4 now in Canada and unbelievably, the series actually gets even worse. Now they have relocated from their Bahamas resort to South Florida, bought a big '80s/'90s estate, sold their Toronto estate that they built some years ago, and immediately decided to do a full reno/rebuild on the Florida house, including a $150K pool re-do. The Florida house is in a fly-in community and has an airplane hangar, so Bryan bought a private plane and is getting his pilots license. He also bought a fancy bus-sized RV for reasons that are uncertain, and picked it up in Calgary to drive it back to Florida, since apparently nothing similar was available a little closer to Florida.
Meanwhile the kids are still doing all of their expensive activities and the money is just flowing like water as he demolished half of the house and attached airplane hangar, where he wants to construct a golf cart drive-in theater for him, his kids and their friends. In addition Sarah leased unfinished space in an office building for her design business and leans on him to reno that as well while the house is in disarray, so they relocated again to a rental house for many months. Occasionally they revisit the resort to do a few small projects there, which is apparently now a huge success. Go figure.
It is all just insane. We do not know how all of his Canadian business interests are going to be handled with him no longer having a Toronto base, at least not yet. Maybe he will buy another sprawling house there soon, which will of course also need renos. Hope the river of money doesn't run out. This is now far beyond any degree of credibility it may ever have had. I have learned to PVR this show, not just to skip the numerous commercials (which in Canada also feature the Bauemlers) but also to FF through the kid segments, which are intolerable for me, along with a lot of the abject Sarah foolishness. Watch at your own risk.
Ted Lasso: Inverting the Pyramid of Success (2021)
Such a Shame
It is really unfortunate how the writers and producers have taken this show so far off the path made during the first season. This finale was more of the same - although at least we got to see some football again, even though the way it was featured was quite unrealistic and stretched reality to the limit. But the majority of the 49 minutes of this episode was more of the same schmaltzy soap opera the rest of S2 descended into, and it could never escape totally from that barrage of bubbles.
The Keeley-Roy relationship always required a certain degree of suspension of reality, but the way they left things in the finale just seemed absurd. Now we have another cliffhanger after last week's got resolved. Ah, soaps! The kinder, gentler Roy is a bit of a hard sell anyway. Asking the Dogs for advice over the magazine article seemed so far out of character as to strain credibility. And not having him punch out Nate was more of the same. As for Nate, he became almost a cartoon character in this, both physically and in terms of personality, so much so that he became difficult to believe as a real person, almost a cartoon figure instead. But as much as I would like him to disappear, I'm sure he will be back next season.
I found the entire Sam resolution hard to swallow as well. While I can understand his decision well enough, the sudden transformation of his benefactor seemed totally off. And the reactions of Ted, Rebecca and Keeley to the news seemed off as well. That entire piece was written very poorly, and seemed quite rushed.
Like all good soaps, there are so many loose ends that they could spend all of S3 trying to tie them all up. But I doubt I'll bother to watch. This season changed the entire direction of the show for the worse, and as the only thing that keeps my Apple TV+ subscription active, I can't see paying for more of this next year. Such a shame.
Ted Lasso: No Weddings and a Funeral (2021)
A Better Song Choice
For me the entire Rickrolled thing was way off base. If you actually read the lyrics it is about the very opposite of what Rebecca and her mom experienced. A better choice for me would have been "I Know I'm Losing You" by Rare Earth or Rod Stewart, because that's how I feel as what may be a soon-to-be former fan of the series. They are losing me quickly with S2.
S1 was the feel-good series of the decade. We knew near the end that Ted had some issues but that really came as no surprise. This season they have turned the premise on its head and *everyone* has issues, and there is very little feel-good in the storylines. It is like a totally different series. I don't watch.melodramas and that's what this has become.
This episode was also far too long. As usual, any time Sarah Niles is on-screen the scene seems to drag on without any relief. I have known therapists in real life and when they are off the clock they are often very entertaining, but that is something she seems incapable of. But of course the scene was necessary to explain Ted's issues. I found it rather incredible that after going through all that he was able to not only attend the ceremony but was also feeling well enough to speak out and assist Rebecca unprompted. It seemed to stretch reality, but I guess he is just very resilient. Most of the rest was just melodramatic filler. Not much comedy here, or if there was, I missed it,
I must take issue with the number of reviews using the word "Perfect" in their description. Few things in life are perfect, because humans are imperfect and hence can rarely create anything that is not flawed. Words matter.
The series needed a bounce-back episode. This wasn't it.
Ted Lasso: Beard After Hours (2021)
A Huge Misstep
This episode was completely out of character for this series. The producers seemed to recognize they had a problem by giving it is own intro and an inferior cover version of the theme song to try and distance it from the rest of the series. It did not work. It was a ridiculously bad episode that couldn't seem to decide what it wanted to be. Unlike what others have claimed, I do not see it doing anything to develop the character(s) and while it may have been inspired by Scorsese's 1985 film, that is a poor example to follow. How many people other than film geeks are even aware of that film these days? In this case, judging by how polarizing the reviews are, all it really did was lay a huge egg. For me, it has changed how I feel about the series and will look at future episodes much more critically now that they have in some ways betrayed the trust they had built with the viewers.