My partner and I took a detour from the MCU to watch Ted Lasso. Jason Sudeikis is a Kansas City native and I rather appreciated some of the KC flexing he put in the show.
BBQ Flex
Joe reference to Joe’s Kansas City BBQ (formerly known as Oklahoma Joe’s, but they changed it because… people kept thinking it wasn’t KC-style BBQ)
Arthur reference to Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque Restaurant
Gates reference to Gates Bar-B-Q where the employees have to yell “Hi, may I help you?” rudely when you walk in.
Stack as a reference to, likely, Fiorella’s Jack Stack Barbeque, the priciest of the BBQ restaurants in town, but many also say the best.
Season 1
Season 1 of Ted Lasso is my favorite television series ever. The writing is so well done, and it tells the story of authentic-feeling people in an authentic world. I went into Ted Lasso thinking it would be a classic fish-out-of-water comedy series; I could not have been more wrong. Seemingly, tvtropes.org was used as the anti-style guide; seemingly none of the common TV tropes were used throughout the entire season. Throughout the first season, I watched on my television screen actual television characters developing like a real person in a believable way. I’m always complaining to my partner about character-driven stories where the characters are flat and uninterested, or plot-driven stories where the characters are minor set pieces. Ted Lasso manages to make me care and empathize with each and every character. And, more importantly, I’m not anxious when it happens because that person then feels authentic.
People make mistakes! And then they admit mistakes! Who knew that you could write actual human experience for the screen!
And, most importantly, the drama that occurs in the show is not driven by people not communicating, or communicating poorly; the drama is real and is caused by actual hardships in the characters’ personal growth. I’m so accustomed to shows/movies using ‘poor communication’ as a plot so much that I just stopped watching TV for decades, because it makes me uncomfortable to watch it unfold.
Season 2
Wasn’t as good, bruv. Some (a very small amount) of classic TV Tropes sneaked in this time, yeah?
The Coach Beard episode was interesting but ultimately revealed nothing additional about the character, other than what we already knew. Coach Beard is a set piece around which the other characters move and grow. By writing the Beard episode, they just doubled down on that and showed us that he isn’t, actually, a character. And if he’s not a character in his own right, then he is Ted Lasso’s Jiminy Cricket.
In other news, we’ve finished most of the MCU series at this point. Loki (fun, entertaining, but meandering), Falcon and the Winter Solder (The Bucky character was the only part of this that felt worthwhile. Everything else felt like an insult to story telling), Wandavision (really enjoyed it for a number of reasons. Really didn’t enjoy the overall arc. The ending was lame), and Hawkeye (fun, sappy, I liked the characters even if they are a bit flat)
We’re currently working through Moon Knight, and it’s pretty rough going. Technical problems are making it very difficult; uneven sound; poor set lighting and bad cinematography make it hard to follow. We’re telling the story of “complex” individuals, but we just see the same facets over and over again, rather than exploring new ones throughout the series. There’s only like 4 characters (or is that 3?) in the show; maybe try making one of them do something interesting?
We have one episode left; maybe it’ll surprise me. So far my partner has mostly been frustrated with the show because she can’t figure out what’s happening. She doesn’t seem satisfied with my explanation that it’s a metaphor for the psychological confusion of the main character(s). Maybe it’s supposed to be poignant; if it is, it’s just too heavy-handed to work for me.
On Midnight Mass. It has a real 
, Sonnie’s Edge, has a great premise and character design, even if I ultimately call b.s. on Sonnie’s “edge.” 