Ted Lasso Review: Beard After Hours (Season 2 Episode 9)

After all the emotional upheaval that took place on last week’s episode of Ted Lasso, most viewers likely tuned in this week expecting to deal with the fallout. And that’s certainly what happens in Season 2 Episode 9, “Beard After Hours,” but I feel I can say with confidence that this is hardly the hour that anyone expected. 

That’s not a bad thing, by the way.

“Beard After Hours” is the strangest, most downright bizarre episode of Ted Lasso yet, a night-long odyssey through some of  London’s weirdest spaces with the show’s strangest character. Most of the show’s primary figures don’t appear in it, and it’s not entirely clear what, precisely, we’re supposed to take away from this story. 

An episode like this only works when it’s built around a character the audience doesn’t know very well, and despite the fact that we’re over halfway through Ted Lasso’s second season, we somehow still have no idea who Coach Beard is as a person in his own right. (We don’t even know his first name!)

His loyalty toward and care for Ted is obvious, as is his general stoicism, and willingness to speak up when it’s necessary. He’s funny, and one of the only members of the coaching staff who actually seems to do any prep work prior to Richmond’s matches. (So, you know, it’s clear why he took the Man City loss hard.)

Other than that? I don’t know. I’m not sure anyone does. And truly, I thought that was sort of part of the gag, that his  gruffness and reserved demeanor was meant as a foil to balance out Ted, who shares so much all the time with everyone. But “Beard After Hours” shows us that this is a character with complex and unexpected hidden depths.

The episode picks up from the moment that Beard splits off from the group after the Man City defeat last week, and follows him through to the next morning, when he brings coffee for the coaching staff, as promised in the previous installment.

Along the way, we see him slick talk his way into an exclusive London after-hours club with the trio of Richmond superfans from the Crown and Anchor (with a little help from Mae’s lost and found box of clothes), head home with a strange woman who promises to fix his torn pants, get in a fistfight with Jamie Tartt’s father, lose his phone, get it back, and reach an entirely new level in his relationship with Jane. 

But on a more metaphysical level, this story seems to be about Beard coming to terms with himself, or at least quieting the internal demons — who take the form of sports announcers — that fill him with self-loathing and hatred. 

There are moments in “Beard After Hours” where you’d be forgiven for wondering whether this episode was even real, as absurdist events and repeated inexplicable actions — I truly still can’t figure out what Beard constantly losing his keys was supposed to mean — feel like nothing so much as a tic in a French arthouse film. (Like, really? That run-in with Jamie’s dad actually happened?)

Still, by the end of the evening, which includes Beard’s joyous dance sequence to Martin Solveig and Dragonette’s “I Just Came to Say Hello,” and his decision to allow the trio of Crown and Anchor regulars secret backstage access to the Richmond pitch, it seems as though something truly transformational has taken place here.

And I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how precisely — or even if at all — that shift shapes the rest of Ted Lasso’s second season.

Stray Thoughts and Observations:

• The music choices throughout this episode are chef’s kiss perfect. 
• If we’re doing random character study episodes where is my Mae backstory is all I’m saying. I need to know more about how she came to run to the Crown and Anchor, why she’s such a die-hard Richmond fan, just…everything.
• I also want a whole episode about Jeremy, Baz, and Paul. Like, what do they do when they aren’t at the pub? How did they meet?
• I still don’t particularly like Jane even if she did finally admit that she loves Beard. There, I said it.
• One of my favorite shows (this one) repeatedly shouted out one of my all-time favorite performers (Cher!) I am trying living the dream. (Even if I fully believe Cher would have gotten into that club.)
• The entire time that Beard is at the club all I could think about was the time I went to Limelight on a trip to New York in college what feels like a million years ago — a sort of infamous dance club that was also in a former (and very cool looking) church.

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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