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A review of this week's Ted Lasso, "Mae Rides the Bus" — with spoilers — coming up just as soon as my pig Oo Goobley is an idiot...
Alan Sepinwall
"Mae Rides the Bus" feels like the penultimate episode to a different season of Ted Lasso than the one we've watched. Or, at least, to a much differently-paced season.
There is, as has been the case all year, some awfully good material involving the team, who earn automatic promotion to the Super League (the women's equivalent of the Premier League) even with Gemma limited by her injury. But the story skips past almost all of Gemma's recovery, making this victory feel satisfying, but less powerful than it would have had we gotten even a single episode where they're muddling through entirely without her.
Zelda is revealed to be the villain of the season, not Rupert(*). But 1)the idea of the season even having a villain was only introduced [checks notes] in the previous episode, and 2)the show has been really half-hearted in setting up the idea that Zelda might be bad news. Bringing the Milk sisters back into it — when they were the key to Rupert's attempt to buy his way back into the club via his new wife Bex — also makes it feel like the show is repeating an old idea for lack of new ones. When, again, there is this whole new team with theoretically lots of new stories.