Further discussing the backlash, Lawrence said, “I think it’s just part of the game … if you’re writing and doing shows completely based on the response you’re hoping you’re gonna get, you’re not going to succeed because you’re gonna be surprised both positively and negatively about it.”
Lawrence has a lot of showrunning experience to back up this sort of advice. Most notably, he was the showrunner of “Scrubs,” which featured a second season that most fans today agree was pretty damn strong. The show was still finding its voice a little, but this was the season where the writers figured out exactly what they wanted to do with each of their characters, and the dynamics between the cast settled into that comfortable sweet spot they’d mostly stay in throughout the next few seasons.
Season 2 of “Ted Lasso” feels the same way. Years from now when we look back at all the main characters in this show, we’ll likely remember them as they were here. It’s almost hard to believe that Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) used to be a bitter, closed-off woman solely focused on revenge against her ex-husband, just as it’s hard to think of Jamie (Phil Dunster) as the arrogant bully he was introduced as. Whereas season 1 was all about the character’s making the leap to become the better people we’d come to know them as, season 2 is all about them trying to hold onto the progress they’ve made, to avoid backsliding. That brings us to Nate, the one big exception to season 2’s rule.
