A review of this week's Ted Lasso, "Don’t Jump Around Much Anymore" — with spoilers — coming up just as soon as you gag for my purse ham...
Alan Sepinwall
Ted Lasso Season One was such an unexpected smash for Apple that the streamer decided to increase the order for Season Two from 10 episodes to 12. The problem is that by the time this decision was made, the show's writers had already outlined a whole 10-episode arc for that season. Rather than dismantle their work and start over, the producers decided to turn the two extra episodes into standalone stories, which didn't necessarily take place outside of continuity, but wouldn't impact any of the stories that had been previously mapped out. Not coincidentally, these were the two episodes of that season that proved divisive with both fans and critics, at a time when the series as a whole was still pretty universally beloved. One of these was "Beard After Hours," which suggested that, as funny as Brendan Hunt is as Coach Beard, the character is better off as an accent on the plate, not a main dish. The other was "Carol of the Bells," the Christmas episode that concluded with the suggestion that Santa Claus is real in the Ted Lasso universe. Even by the series' feel-good standards, it was too saccharine.
Credit to everyone working on Season Four that they seem to have learned the lesson of "Carol of the Bells" when making "Don't Jump Around Much Anymore," the show's first full-on holiday episode since then. It has its problems — some of them symptomatic of this season's flaws, some of them evoking the pitfalls of Season Three — but it at least feels like part of the larger story, and there's no literal magic at any point.