2021 Awards: Best Episode: Ted Lasso - No Weddings And A Funeral

It didn’t take long for Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso to become a fan favorite. With casual optimism and the perfect blend of witty humor, it easily won fans over. Looking back on season two, a brilliant stroke of writing led us to 2021’s Best Episode – No Weddings And Funeral for the tenth episode of season 2.

*disclaimer: There may be an episode of better tv out there, we just haven’t seen it yet. Unlike those half-hearted reward shows, we judge based on what we’ve watched. If your favorite show/movie/actor didn’t make the list of awards, we probably just weren’t familiar with the work. We value our integrity and put in the work, not the hype of lazy award shows.

From IMDB.com

Rebecca is stunned by a sudden loss. The team rallies to show their support, but Ted finds himself grappling with a piece of his past.

*And as always, if you’re not caught up with the end of season 2. Stop here and come back to enjoy.*

It takes a good team of writers to come up with an episode that perfectly balances emotion. When you have an episode that can make you laugh and tug at your heartstrings at the same time, the writers have done their job. No Weddings And A Funeral was one of Ted Lasso’s best episodes so far for that very reason.

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Struggling to deal with the loss of her father, we see the same stoic side of Rebecca that we always have, but it doesn’t last. It takes a one on one with her mother to see how truly pained she is and reveals one of the more relatable moments of the series. Most of our relationships in life are closely related to the relationship formed with our parents. As the old saying goes, every man grows up to marry his mother.

In a similar fashion, we hear how Rebecca’s relationship with her father deteriorated leading to her disappointment in him in the end. While she loved him up until the day he lost her trust, she held on to a lifetime of hatred, much like her divorce from Rupert. Despite having the lifestyle of a futbol club owner, he would also go on to betray her trust. Both moments came at the expense of men she loved, both shaped her into the strong independent woman she is.

Simultaneously we’re getting the backstory for Ted and the loss of his father. The parallels between the two’s story and the way they were written are the reason it was the best episode this year. Ted’s relationship with his father also made him the man he is. With a scene full of heart and emotion, we see him explain the day his father died, how it broke him, how he hated his father for it. Then we hear the true reason why Ted Lasso was so optimistic and caring for the people around him. Oddly enough, it wasn’t until he was asked by Dr. Sharon why he loved his father that we see the same struggles in him.

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Ted goes on to tell a story of a book report he had to give for school and how his father went above and beyond to help him. We see that same level of caring from his father that Ted passes on to everyone around him. It shows despite our flaws and no matter how different we try to be, there’s a little bit of our parents engrained in each of us.

The most entertaining part of the episode was being “Rick Rolled”. Yes the writers actually took Rick Astley’s – Never Gonna Give You Up and made it one of the most touching parts of the show. The scene in question is when Rebecca is fumbling with a loss of words for her father’s eulogy. Earlier in the episode her mother says about the song “when I love something, I love it forever”. In the same scene Rebecca explains that how the constant replaying of that song is what made her hate it.

That should sound familiar, it’s the exact reason she hated her father. The more she replayed that moment in her head, the more she grew to hate him. After a lengthy heart to heart with her mother, she realizes her loss and it was her love for him that stung her so deep. In referring back to that moment, she admits despite his mistakes, she too loved something for the long haul.

To take something that has been a running gag and turn it into a powerful scene speaks to how well this episode was written. The writing team for Ted Lasso deserves all the praise, and that’s why No Weddings And A Funeral is 2021’s Best Episode of TV.