Ted Lasso Drops Its Lesbian Relationship Storyline Like a Hot Potato

Last week’s Ted Lasso episode, “We’ll Never Have Paris,” should’ve been titled “We’ll Never Have a Lesbian Relationship On This Show That Lasts More Than Four Episodes.” Across a meandering hour of television, we got a whole thing with Ted hanging out with his son and singing “Hey Jude” at a picnic table and also Ted being paranoid that his ex-wife’s boyfriend might propose to her in Paris and also Nate dating that girl from the restaurant. Surprisingly enough, I don’t really care about any of those things. What we’re here to discuss today is the arc that was mostly about Keeley but somehow also ended up being about the entire football team: a massive leak of sexual photos and videos featuring noted actors and athletes and politicians, amongst them (1) video starring our very own bisexual PR queen Keeley Jones. 

The leaked masturbation video, which Keeley had sent to an ex-boyfriend famous enough to have his phone hacked, is eventually what leads to her breakup with rich hottie Jack (Jodi Balfour), noted desecrator of first-edition Jane Austen novels.

Their storyline opens in a place of hope: Keeley and Jack in bed after having sex, flushed and overjoyed. But the leak immediately thrusts the pair off-track. Despite Keeley’s pitch-perfect deconstruction of Julia Roberts’ Pretty Woman Kentucky Derby outfit, Jack un-invites Keeley from a pre-planned family outing to the polo match and instead takes Keeley mini-golfing, where she introduces Keeley as her “friend” to a friend from uni. (Jack’s intent in that specific moment is unclear: is she referring to Keeley as a friend because of internalized or external homophobia, or because she’s ashamed to call Keeley her girlfriend after the leak?)

While Keeley is upset by the leak and needs emotional support from Jack, she’s firmly aware that she did nothing wrong by creating the video for her ex in the first place. Jack, however, is not quite so sex-positive, and she ends up insisting that Keeley “fix” the problem by delivering an apologetic statement crafted by Jack’s team. “I’m sorry, but it’s not a great look when the person I’m seeing whose company I fund has a porno online,” Jack insists.

Keeley notes that the video leak wasn’t her fault and therefore she has nothing to apologize for. Jack says it is Keeley’s fault for making the video in the first place and says it’s nothing to be proud of. Keeley says she doesn’t regret making the video or sending it. Jack asks if there are “more out there.” Has Jack seriously never sent or received a nude? Who is this person?

Regardless, after five lines of contentious dialogue, Jack exits Keeley’s apartment and the entire relationship. I truly cannot imagine any world in which this argument wouldn’t at least have the chance to play itself out before one party exits the relationship — while I’m willing to buy Jack’s sudden slut-shaming prudishness revealing itself under these circumstances, Jack’s apparent disinterest in even listening to or trying to understand Keeley’s (correct) point of view is downright bizarre.

“The connection they had was very real; I think they were falling in love, big-time,” Balfour told Vulture in an interview last week about the breakup. “And I imagine that Jack will continue to walk through her life with a lot of regret, and will hopefully begin to unpack what was going on for her in that moment, that she couldn’t see past this very patriarchal, shaming point of view to be the support to this woman she was falling in love with.”

I hope Jack is not the only person on the Ted Lasso set who will walk through their lives with similar regret for ripping this fresh ‘ship out of our cold queer hands.

Something felt uncomfortably familiar about this dynamic playing itself out in an episode where Roy (almost) and Jamie (fully) checked in with Keeley to offer support after learning of the leak. Jamie — the video’s original recipient — was specifically a real sweetheart about it. I don’t think “ex-boyfriend is the source of comfort in an episode where the current girlfriend is the bad guy” is an official TV Trope, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this film before and I didn’t like the ending. (There are certainly traces of it in early iterations of the Bisexual Love Triangle.) This felt like a 2006 lesbian storyline, not a 2023 lesbian storyline.

Most of all, I think Jodi Balfour and Juno Temple were really hot together and we deserved more of that, you know? Like, as a community!