Ted Lasso Review: Lavender (Season 2 Episode 2)

Former AFC Richmond player Jamie Tartt returns in Ted Lasso Season 2 Episode 2, “Lavender,” an episode that’s as much about the former members of the team as it is its current ones.

It’s unlikely that anybody watching this show is surprised by Jamie’s return, he’s always had unfinished business with the team and Ted and even Keely to some extent. The question of whether this show, as it stands now, still needs him, is a fair one, but the way Ted Lasso engineers his return — as an event that will inevitably shake the team’s faith in Ted, even as he displays his faith in Jamie, is brilliantly done. 

I mean, Jamie did finally make the extra pass last season, so it’s obvious that is capable of genuine growth and change, even though it often seems otherwise. (He kept the toy soldier!) What he will do with this second chance Ted’s giving him is anyone’s guess, but I hope that, at some point, he realizes the risk Ted has and is taking for him. 

Since he was sent back to the Manchester City team at the end of last season, Jamie decided to partake in a terrible reality dating program who was voted off the proverbial island earlier than expected just in time to find out his team didn’t want to take him back. 

Despite the patently ridiculous reasons he gave publicly for his choice — George Harrison did indeed die all the way back in 2001 — the real one is his abusive relationship with his father who does nothing but degrade his choices and skills. Jamie is clearly looking for someone to believe in him, and there’s no better person for that than Ted Lasso. 

Even if you could easily make the argument that Jamie doesn’t entirely deserve Ted’s kindness. He was a truly awful teammate, abusive in his own way to everyone who played with or worked around him. He never apologized to any of them, and only briefly seemed to realize there was another way he could live his life. 

Sam’s painfully honest anger — and his admission that no teammate has ever made him feel as bad about himself as Jamie did — is heartfelt and real. (And he’s such a glowing, golden soul that it’s impossible not to immediately take his side in any argument.)

What makes this show so great though is that Ted’s point (and his genuine desire to help Jamie become his best self) is just as equally valid. We do tell athletes, we often tell the whole world to never give up — on the chances of winning a game, on each other as teammates and people — and he’s living those values in extending a hand to Jamie when it’s not all that likely that Jamie would have ever done the same for him. 

Basically, I love them both so much and I can’t abide the idea of Ted and Sam (or Ted and any of his players really) being at odds with one another like this. 

“Lavender” also shows us the apparently infamous Roy Kent press conference retirement speech( in part, at least), a rare moment in which he is openly emotional and vulnerable and lets us see once more how much this sport really means to him. He’s so aggressively walled-off so much of the time, it’s always nice to see the fuzzy warm teddy bear underneath. 

(Especially because the idea that it’s that press event, specifically, that turns Keely on is hilarious.)

And despite his obviously colorful language, I wish every sports commentator of any stripe clearly loved the game they talk about as much as Roy does. 

For being just the second episode of Season 2, it’s a bit odd that Ted Lasso chooses to focus so much of it not just off the pitch, but away from the specifics of soccer. Instead, “Lavender” takes time to focus on the two specific characters around whom so much of the show’s first season revolved, and who are only just now finally digging into the kind of men they want to become. You love to see it. 

Stray Thoughts and Observations

• FYI, Lavender is a fantastic scent and it is very relaxing, fight me everyone at AFC Richmond except Will, apparently. 
• I know that I cannot be the only person who would absolutely watch whatever weird and horrible reality dating show Jamie was on. It looked like an even nuttier version of Too Hot to Handle.
• I would also absolutely watch an entire show (or at least an episode) about Roy coaching his niece’s soccer team.
• “Old people are so wise. They’re like tall Yodas.” 
• I desperately want a backstory episode about Mae, the woman who owns (or at least runs), Ted’s local. 
• It took almost two full episodes, but it looks like even Doc Sharon isn’t immune to Ted’s relentless charm. 

What did you think of this episode of Ted Lasso? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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New episodes of Ted Lasso stream Fridays on AppleTV+. 

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