There’s a hilarious moment where Roy tries and fails to hide his disgust when exposed to Phoebe’s unusually bad breath. It’s not just the contrast between their temperaments, but the way that Roy’s unyielding devotion to his niece reveals so much about him. The combination of the gruffest, hardest man in the EPL with this adorable little moppet just works perfectly every time. Roy Kent-plus-Phoebe has been this season’s not-so-secret comic weapon, and that continues to be the case here. But by focusing on how the members of the larger Richmond family take care of one another at yuletime, “Carol of the Bells” feels like a chance to visit the kind of holiday party you won’t be eager to leave. (If the episode has a flaw, it’s that it seems ill-timed to be the one to come immediately after “Do the Right-est Thing,” because it skips over Richmond’s first win of the season - the kind of beat that seems really important for a show like this - as well as any fallout from Sam leading the team in a very public protest against Dubai Air.) At only 30 minutes, it’s easily the shortest episode of the season so far(*). Not a lot happens in the context of Season Two’s larger arcs, other than how it addresses Ted’s ongoing loneliness in the wake of his divorce. It is, instead, a simple, lovely, nicer-than-nice episode - Ted Lasso doubling down on its fundamental charms, but not in a way that threatens to become self-parody. Nor does it attempt to bring various stories of the season to an emotional boiling point in the way that so many American series (Bill Lawrence’s Scrubs included) would do at midseason. “Carol of the Bells” doesn’t really do that. than it can be here in the States, and given how much of Ted Lasso is about the culture clash between Ted’s outgoing Midwestern demeanor and Rebecca’s more reserved persona, it could offer an opportunity to look at that clash through the lens of a holiday that means much to both of them. At the same time, given how Christmas is an even bigger deal in the U.K. So doing a literal Christmas episode could have easily felt like putting a Santa hat on a Santa hat. With the series’ warm-hug vibe and belief in the power of empathy, there’s a sense that every Ted Lasso episode is a Christmas episode. A review of this week’s Ted Lasso, “Carol of the Bells,” coming up just as soon as I see Once twice…
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