The show is pure Barney the Dinosaur mentality. Everyone is friends and gets along, and sometimes when there are real issues that COULD have material impact on people, they just get resolved by people saying the right words and everyone being friends. Unless there is a serious course-correction and the writers have just done a bad job of progressing through plotlines after setting the table, then the moral of the show is that performative sensitivity and pointing out things like "colonialism" are on their own good enough to make things better.
If you aren't aware, the premise is Jason Sudoku from SNL (he played Biden in 08!) is an (American) college football coach who gets hired to coach (soccer) futbol on Nonce Island. This premise is pretty interesting because college football coaches are all literal psychopaths, and the idea of one trying to coach soccer is genuinely funny. The first season was maybe not as bad in hindsight as the show has gotten, but it was short and I watched it all basically in a day out of boredom (this show is EXTREMELY popular among football/sports media people).
Anyways, season 2 has some of the pieces for interesting conflict along class/racial/economic lines, but all the people are friends and friendship is the best so the problems get solved offscreen. Also, the dialogue is 99% soy banter and like, Family Guy style obscure reference humor but coming from a guy who really WANTS to be Mister Rogers. And some people do SWEARS, so it's definitely not for babies! But if you took them out it would be!
If this show is as influential as some people think, then I fear it is only a matter of time before the cheap network clones roll out a thousand worse versions of this and liberals talk about how great it is over brunch while nothing gets meaningfully done. Any sort of progressive ideals or "difficult topics" are 100% there performatively. I think Felix would put this much better than I did, so hopefully we get a "This is Sus" special.
I guess I deserve gulag because I loved the first season (though I have been apathetic about s2 so far). I watch an unhealthy amount of soccer tho so that's probably it.
I was disappointed that there was almost 0 American football in the entire first season, other than that one part (which was somewhat of a gag, although it was semi-relevant). I don't count it as a strike against the show because soccer is bigger everywhere else, but this guy could have just been an American soccer coach or whatever. But definitely feels like a missed opportunity.
I deserve gulag too because I do like Roy Kent (because he tells Ted Lasso to go fuck himself all the time).
Ok now that I am imagining Ted Lasso in MLS I definitely agree they probably missed an opportunity there
And I cannot stress enough that US football coaches are fucking monstrous, ESPECIALLY at the college level (which is indentured labor with mascots). Perhaps the most beloved and well-regarded college coach covered up a sexual predator for YEARS because he was an assistant coach. AND THAT WAS ARGUABLY THE BEST ONE.