By Colleen Glatfelter aka Geek. Dad. Life.

I’ll be honest: I had mixed feelings the first time I watched “We’ll Never Have Paris.” After two solid eps in a row, I thought season 3’s eighth episode felt disjointed with Ted, Keely, and Roy once again behaving out-of-character and that it lacked that Ted Lasso magic.

I’m happy to say that I liked “We’ll Never Have Paris” much better on my second watch. My original feelings still stand but I have a better appreciation for what they were trying to do. If there really are only 4 episodes let in the series, I truly hope they can bring it all together quickly and land the plane smoothly. Or, dare I say, take the characters’ sad songs and make them better. I’ll see myself out now.

“Woof.”

I love that the team is doing great and on a winning streak thanks to Jamie being the on-field facilitator of Total Football. I wanted to see more of that!

I hated that Ted decided to handle his jealousy over Michelle and Dr. Jacob Jake’s possible engagement by asking Rebecca to hire a private investigator. I totally get how Ted is feeling – he’s simply not a person who lets go of people he loves that easily (see: Nate’s picture still at his bedside) – but for the love of Hera, hiring a PI to follow your ex-wife on a romantic vacation to ease your own anxieties is taking it waaaaay too far. It’s obsessive and an invasion of privacy. Back in my day, we just stalked people’s social media accounts. Wouldn’t a better solution have been to set up an emergency appointment with Dr. Sharon to talk it through?

I loved that the Diamond Dogs reappeared and welcomed Trent into the fold (I need a “woof-off” between him and Harrison Ford) but it was absolutely a missed opportunity for them to advise him to “find out before you flip out,” rather than remind him that there’s nothing he can do about Michelle moving on and the healthiest thing to do is let it go and move on himself.

Thank goodness for Rebecca’s, “Who gives a flying f*ck if Michelle gets engaged? That time in your relationship with her has passed, but your time with Henry hasn’t. You need to stop letting yesterday get in the way of today.”

Speaking of Rebecca, they really didn’t give Hannah Waddington too much to do this episode, but Rebecca did have one other standout moment while talking to Keely, which will get to a little bit further down.

Don’t Carry the World Upon your Shoulders

As totally predictable as it was from the moment we heard it start, I freaking loved Beard’s heart-to-heart with Henry, using the history of “Hey Jude” as a pep talk. “I know right now, it feels like you’re in a sad song,” he wisely states. “But you, young man, you have the power to take a sad song and make it better.”

Cheesy? Sure! But I still loved it. Brandon Hunt, who plays Coach Beard, has said that “Hey Jude” is his favorite song. I just wasted a good 10 minutes trying to source this and couldn’t, so take this with an extreme grain of salt, but I saw several people on Twitter mention that Hunt has explained that his special connection with the song has to do with late mother. He reportedly saw Sir Paul play it live the day his mom died and when his son was born, the song started playing.

[Story time, feel free to skip ahead: My grandpa danced together to Bruno Mars’ “Amazing” at my wedding. I was at his bedside when he died in June 2013 and had this weird feeling, “I’m going to have a baby on this day next year.” Fast forward to the following year and my water broke on the first anniversary of my grandpa’s death. My grandma had prayed and prayed that he wouldn’t be born on that day, and he was born the next morning, but right after he was born, my mom’s phone – out of nowhere – started playing “Amazing” in the delivery room. At the time, she had no idea how to put music on her phone, so it was quite literally out of nowhere. Jay and my mom both heard it. So, yeah, that’s why I really want to believe that Brendan Hunt’s story about “Hey Jude” is true.]

Enjoy the Victories

Checking in with Nate, Jade is now spending the night! Nate is still gonna Nate, though, and woke up early to shower, brush his teeth, shave and use the next door toilet before sneaking back into bed. Things may be going well for them but Jade is not ready to use the boyfriend word yet. Missing the camaraderie of AFC Richmond’s leadership team, he tries to create a knock-off Diamond Dogs called the Love Hounds, but it fails to catch on.

Nate’s further reminded of what he gave up when Ted, Beard, and Henry (in a West Ham jersey) show up at his match, happy to see him. He thinks it’s funny, but doesn’t tell Rupert that. Using text messages this season to show what Nate is really thinking vs what he says clever. It shows us that Nate still has a way to go in terms of fully becoming his own person.

After telling Nate to enjoy his victories, Jade refers to him as her boyfriend. I am happy that things are going well for Nate, but like I say every single week, he doesn’t get redemption until he apologizes to Ted. I don’t need them to be best buddies or to work together again. I don’t even need Ted to forgive him (we all know he will). Just take responsibility and be remorseful. That’s it.

There’s a theory out there that Jade is actually a plant from Rupert or only dating Nate at the urging of her boss, the motivation behind both being to keep Nate happy. With only four episodes left, I’m not sure how much stock I give this theory. *However,* it’s worth noting because we’ve already seen three characters introduced this season only to make sudden, quick exits (Shandy, Zava, and likely, Jack). What do you think? Does Jade have honest intentions or will her storyline take a dark turn and send Nate back to Ted and the Diamond Dogs?

The Great A-Wank-ening

The biggest storyline this episode was the reveal that Keely was a part of a massive data leak of famous people’s private photos and videos, a la 2014’s “The Fappening.” Things are going great between her and Jack when a video of her masturbating for an unknown paramour leaks. Jack is initially supportive but responds to Keely’s plea for help by having her rich daddy’s lawyers draft an apology statement. Despite owning a start-up PR firm, Keely is taken aback by this solution and refuses put it out there.

Good for Keely! Seriously, she has been a shell of her former self this season and I really miss the feisty, smart, confident woman we got to know during the first two seasons. She shouldn’t apologize. Jamie was 100% correct when he told the team, “The only people to blame are the dickheads who steal your sh*t and put it online.”

Jack, in turn, does a reverse Jade and downgrades Keely from “girlfriend” to “friend” status in front of one of her rich university friends. The classism vibes were strong here, as Keely is cosplaying Julia Roberts in the Pretty Woman polo scene where Richard Gere tells Jason Alexander that she’s a sex worker. After Keely reiterates that she’s not issuing an apology and doesn’t regret making a private video, Jack slut-shames her for making the video in the first place.

“It’s not a great look when the person I’m seeing, whose company I fund has a porno online,” she huffs. THE F*CK? Keely isn’t some plebe normie who got lucky with a billionaire. She was a woman with a career, sense of self, good business instincts, and a bit of clout herself, even if not billionaire clout. Also, not for nothing, but Keely was a model and influencer before starting KJPR. Did Jack somehow miss the whole first part of her career in which she willingly posed for risqué pictures?  Nah, Jack just did that thing that ultra-rich people do when they look at someone else’s problem and think, “How can I make this about me?” Even Barbara knew the statement was bullsh*t. This better be the start of the return of Keely being herself again.

I know IRL, relationships of any kind – personal, professional, etc. – can easily evaporate just like that but just as with Shandy or Zava, what was the point of Jack? Will she apologize? Rebuke KJPR’s funding? Will we even see her again?

As always, one of the brightest spots in this episode involved Keely and Rebecca. Great scene, love how much they always support each other. Some gems included Keely’s answer to Rebecca when she asked what she can do to help (“Restructure society so women aren’t constantly sexualized while simultaneously being crucified for being sexual?”) and Rebecca pointing out to Keely that the silver lining in the video being released is the number of young women she’s teaching to masturbate properly.

But the best part of that scene was the hug at the end. “I love you,” Keely declares emphatically. “I’ve got you,” Rebecca protectively replies. Petition to make that exchange the female friendship version of “I love you.”/”I know.”

Another great scene was Jamie apologizing to Keely that he forgot to delete the video from his email, even if he did try to fool hackers by making his password “password” with two S’s. Phil Dunster is killing it this season. I am genuinely excited to see what happens with Jamie Tartt by the end of the series.

I know a lot has been made about Roy’s faux pas of asking Keely who the video was for. Ahhhh, it was cringe and wrong, but it also made me really miss the days of Keely and Roy and all of the growth Roy had. If they were still together and this had happened last season, Roy would have asked the question and then by the end of the episode, had a moment of maturity and shared aloud why that was not the right question to ask. Part of me hopes that this was Roy’s bungling way of trying to find out who to yell at about it, but let’s be honest, he let his jealousy get the best of him, pure and simple. Men out there: Be a Jamie, not a Roy. Also, remember that “password” – whether its spelled with one or two S’s” – is a bad password.

And finally, we have Isaac making everyone on the team delete any risqué pictures/videos they have on their phones. There were funny moments (“What if I’m French?”) but it kinda came across as a bit like an after-school special, educating viewers who society has taught to victim blame (“Don’t take them if you don’t want them online”) that the real bad guys are the ones who violate your privacy in the first place. Was anyone surprised that Sam is such a good person that he lets women go through his phone and delete what they want? (Even if one girl “accidentally” deleted Candy Crush.)

Of course, the biggest thing to come out of this scene was Isaac seeing the pictures on Colin’s phone and realizing that he’s in the closet, which will surely come to a head next episode. Oh, and I couldn’t help but chuckle at the looks Will got when even he was deleting things. I wonder if he had pictures from his Amsterdam threesome on his phone? Also, who knew Jan Maas was so into copyright law?

Random thoughts and highlightable quotes:

• I have been compiling a lot of these kinds of observations and Easter eggs for a post I want to do before the last episode airs, but the Internet noticed that when Rebecca texted Ted with info from the PI, it was timed with the lyric “let her into your heart.”
• In the same vein, did anyone else notice that Ted pulled out a green matchbook while looking for change for Henry?
• Why does Jamie have so many different types of deodorants?!
• This week’s “Culture in the Locker Room” moment was courtesy of Dani dropping a Les Miserable “Yes, 24601!”
• The book Ted is reading to Henry is The Breakfast Club Adventures by Manchester United player Marcus Rashard.
• Love that Mae put Ted and Beard on probation for taking Henry to the West Ham game and that Henry was drinking a big glass of milk lol.
• “Is this a game or child labor?”
  “In late-stage capitalism, what’s the difference?”
• “The Eiffel Tower is just a lamppost with a publicist.”
• “Jack thought you could post it across your socials, but maybe not Facebook because that’s just grandparents and racists now, isn’t it?”