In this week’s episode of Ted Lasso, “We’ll Never Have Paris,” Richmond is back on a lucky streak after finding their groove with Total Football. However, the woes of Ted’s personal life continue to haunt him when Michelle, Henry, and Dr. Jacob are in town for a visit, and Keeley finds herself at a crossroads after something personal of hers is leaked on the internet.
Très bien … or not
Ted Lasso may be the the most wholesomely optimistic man on the planet, but boy has he been going through it lately. He may be on a hot streak after bringing Total Football to Richmond, but he can’t even celebrate the team’s recent string of wins with the stress of having Michelle, Henry, and Dr. Jacob in town. Their slightly awkward breakfast at the pub only turns more awkward when Michelle tells Ted that while they’re overseas, Jake surprised her with a trip to Paris.
Paris might sound lovely to some, but for Ted, it’s the perfect recipe for yet another Lasso spiral. As Will takes Henry under his wing and shows him how to prep the locker room for practice (or is it child labor?), Ted calls on the Diamond Dogs for advice — much to Roy’s dismay. With Trent there as their newest member and Higgins gasping for air from racing downstairs, the DD’s are confused to learn that Ted is simply just making the assumption that Paris = engagement. They try to calm him down, making a fair argument that he shouldn’t spend time worrying about something that hasn’t even happened yet (shouldn’t we all).
However, not even the sage wisdom of his coworkers can help Ted through this, because he pays Rebecca a visit to discuss his quandary as well. Despite Rebecca’s insistence that the Eiffel Tower is just a lamp post with a publicist, she tells him that she’ll get her private investigator involved.
The leak
Keeley’s morning is ruined when she finds that a private video that she took in the past has somehow made its way to the internet due to a huge leak that hit a whole slew of celebrities and public figures. Later, she’s caught up reading insensitive comments on the video at her desk at work when Barbara walks in. As promised, Jack is “doing something” about the issue, but her solution is giving Keeley an apology statement to share on social media. The wording of the statement, which Rebecca assures her was clearly written by a lawyer, upsets Keeley, because it makes her feel as if she should be ashamed or embarrassed about the sexual nature of it.
A day off
With no practice or Richmond games on the schedule, Ted and Beard begin listing off suggestions to Henry for how they can spend their day off. However, to their surprise, he has no interest in doing touristy things … he just wants to go to a football game. Beard is none too pleased that the only game they can attend is, of course, a West Ham one (so he makes sure he’s decked out in Richmond attire, of course). Henry insists on waving to Nate from the stands, which perplexes him. Rupert texts Nate after the game and apologizes for Ted’s attendance, assuring him that it won’t happen again.
Later, they head to the pub for drinks and food, though Mae nearly refuses to serve them for attending a rival game. When Ted steps away to call Rebecca, Beard has a little heart-to-heart with Henry. Meanwhile, despite the fact that she baited him with the temptation of an update from her PI, Rebecca instead gets very blunt with Ted as she asks him who cares if Michelle gets engaged or not. He needs to stop letting yesterday get in the way of today and focus on what really matters: his son. Ted makes it back over to the pub just in time to sing the end of “Hey Jude” with Henry and Beard.
Nate’s dilemma
Despite Nate’s status as an antagonist of sorts this season, he sure is getting lucky. After spending the night with Jade, she playfully calls him out on sneaking out of bed to brush his teeth. And shave. And shower. She good-naturedly shares her morning breath with him in return. And because Nate’s still as awkward as ever, he tries to ask her what exactly their relationship status is in the most roundabout way possible (and accomplishes nothing). Despite what happened between him and AFC Richmond, Nate clearly misses having the Diamond Dogs to turn to when he’s having problems in his personal life, so he tries calling together his West Ham coworkers for his own version of the support group. Unfortunately, Rupert declines his invite, and the advice from the other two leaves something to be desired.
Nate does eventually get his answer when Jade is at his place after West Ham’s win. She asks him if he wants to go out and celebrate, but he’s too distracted looking at an article that was written about Richmond’s coaches attending the game as spectators. Jade makes a comment when Nate smiles, referring to him as her boyfriend, thus answering his burning question. Yes, they’re dating.
An ethical debate
When news about the data leak makes its way to Richmond’s locker room, the boys find themselves in the midst of a debate about taking, sharing, distributing, and saving nude photographs, as it seems nobody in the room is a stranger to it — not even Will. However, the team goes quiet when Sam tells them that a video of Keeley was leaked. Leaving no room for argument, Isaac demands that everyone go through their phones and purge the nudes lurking in the depths of the camera rolls on their phones. Colin opts to take care of business somewhere more private, given his sexual preferences, but Isaac follows him, assuming that he’s just brushing him off. When Isaac snatches his phone, he realizes that there are photos of men on Colin’s phone, not women. He nods at him and walks away without saying anything else.
Roy overhears the mention of Keeley, and it clearly bothers him, because he quietly leaves the room while the boys begin to scroll through their photos. He runs into her in the parking lot and asks her if she’s okay, telling her that he’s sorry about what happened. However, he then makes the mistake of asking her who the leaked video was for, and she leaves without answering him.
Trouble in paradise
Jack makes the executive decision to cancel her and Keeley’s plans to attend the polo match, assuming that she won’t want to be around people or the press following the video leak. However, because Keeley already went out and bought an outfit, Jack dresses up alongside her in a killer pantsuit, and they go for a mini golf date instead. They run into an old friend of Jack’s on the course, and Keeley’s cheery mood is dampened with Jack opts to introduce her as her “friend.”
Later, Jack informs Keeley that she had her father’s lawyers put together a more toned-down version of the statement. But at this point, Keeley doesn’t want to apologize or put out any kind of statement at all. They get to the root of the problem brewing between them when Jack lashes out on her and says that maybe she shouldn’t have made the video in the first place. Keeley, on the other hand, stands her ground as she tells her that she doesn’t regret making the video or sending it. Jack leaves … and she’s not sure if she plans on coming back.
An apology
The Jamie Tartt redemption arc continues when the footballer pays a visit to his ex-girlfriend the next morning with his metaphorical hat in hand. We learn that the video in question was originally for Jamie, and though he eventually cleared out the Keeley gallery on his phone after their breakup (admitting that he initially thought she was only dating Roy to make him jealous in the process), he forgot about the ones in his email inbox. Clearly using “password” (with two s’s!) wasn’t a strong enough password, so he believes that this was all his fault. Keeley isn’t angry with him, however, and she hugs him.
Not a ring in sight
When Michelle arrives at Ted’s apartment to pick Henry up after the Paris trip, Ted makes a show of looking down at her left hand when he hands her their son’s backpack. And … there’s nothing on her ring finger. Ted stands at the window as they leave, watching as Henry bolts right past Jake’s open arms and hops into the back of the taxi instead of giving him a hug.
Top Ted-isms of the week
“Well, I’m her ex-husband, not her current father. So no.”
“The world is our shrimp cocktail.”
“We could rent a boat, float down the Thames. They spell it weird, but it is lovely.”
“My one day off from football, you wanna go watch football? It’s a little bit like watching a mailman go for a walk on his day off, don’t you think?”
The next episode of Ted Lasso will premiere exclusively on Apple TV+ on Wednesday, May 10. Follow along with all of our weekly episodic recaps here.
