This season is almost over! It began over two months ago for me and I’m dying to see which land masses this crazy sea is gonna carry these characters out to.
Here’s how my funky little brain sees the final three episodes of this season going:
Cerithium Oil
Since the DubaiAir protest in Episode 3, I haven’t been able to shake off the idea that Rupert has been having Rebecca followed. In Season 1, the dude was obsessed with her! What kind of sicko finds out their fiancée is pregnant and thinks “yeah, I just have to go tell my ex this news in person.” He hates her for leaving him!
It’s been established that Rupert is buddy-buddy with Richard Cole, who owns the oil company that owns DubaiAir. Richard also has it out for Sam for protesting against DubaiAir. I don’t think the general public will find out about Rebecca and Sam; the show isn’t going to scorn Rebecca that way. However, there have been many references to Rebecca’s wealth this season. If these two crusty posh guys find out about Rebecca and Sam sleeping together, they might attempt to blackmail her, to get at both her fortune and the club. Rupert has to show up sooner or later, and I’m sure it’ll be when we least expect him to expose his nasty self from the cobwebbed shadows he’s been lurking in.
Goodbye, Paul
Rebecca’s dad is gonna die. I was flip-flopping on whether I believed this for weeks, then at last decided that yes this has to happen because Rebecca and Ted are going on parallel journeys. Ted’s dad is gone, and so off Rebecca’s has to go as well. This was extremely confirmed when Episode 9 dropped yesterday morning, because the preview image for Episode 10 dropped at the same time. Homegirl is serving some as-expected-but-still-shookethening Mourning Rich English Televisionwoman couture.
Rebecca and Ted’s private conversations were a staple of Season 1, yet we haven’t seen a one-on-one scene between ‘em for five whole episodes. Sure, Rebeca’s still getting her biscuit fix every morning, but we aren’t privy to it—this suggests that their off-screen conversations are filled with an abundance of words left unsaid. In this the Father Season, all about dads and their influence on their children’s life, it seems that Father Talk is going to be the thing that gets them to connect again. The ice breaker will be Rebecca’s loss of her father, which is an opener for Ted to talk about his father, which will make room for them to discuss everything they haven’t been discussing.
Rebecca’s Path towards Healing
Rebecca spends much of her time being the big boss behind the desk in her expansive office. By the end of the season, I believe she’ll be sitting in front of a desk, opposite Sharon. Again, to bring up Ted in direct comparison to her, they’re both on trains taking different routes, but the tracks are laid down parallel to one another. In Episode 2, they both agreed that therapy was unnecessary, and that burdens should be unloaded onto friends. Both of them, however, proceeded to tell each other nothing.
Ted broke down and started therapy, despite his open hostility towards the field. Therefore Rebecca will as well. When they hit Father Honesty and are both getting professional help, they’ll be all the more bonded and inseparable.
Nate Being Not-So-Great
Nate? That boy’s bouta blooooooooow! Out of all people, it’s Ted is the person who has been consistently putting Nate down this season. It’s not intentional! He has no idea that he’s been belittling him, but that doesn’t excuse it. The problem is that Ted was the character who, throughout Season 1, championed Nate, encouraged him to build confidence, and pulled him into his current coaching position. These small instances add up and are going to lead to a confrontation.
When Nate gets furious, he doesn’t know how to control his reactions. Now that all the coaches know that Ted left the FA Cup quarter-final due to a panic attack, I fear Nate’s gonna go berserk and leak that information to the press. The reporters who still cover Richmond after their relegation have become endeared to the cowboy manager, but the tabloids won’t be quite so kind.
AFC Richmond will be promoted back to the Premiere League. However, that win will not be felt by us. I’m sure that in the finale, Nate’s gonna do something that’ll make it feel like the club is burning down. Metaphorically, right? Metaphorically, right guys???
Ted’s Struggles Gone Public
In the season’s premiere, Ted told a heartfelt story during a press conference to smooth things over after Earl the Dog’s unfortunate demise. He spoke of crying because of things one has lost, which was a way of foreshadowing Ted crying when telling Sharon about his dad. It’d be fitting if, in the finale, Ted holds a press conference about his internal struggles. Instead of using stories and metaphors to skirt around truths, he just might speak directly and plainly on undoing taboos and mental health. Both in the world of sports and in life generally.
The Football of it All
The reason I don’t think that Richmond will play again at Wembley Stadium this season for the Championship playoffs is because it was such a huge deal that they played in that red-seated monster for the FA Cup semi-finals.
How likely is it that they’ll get automatically promoted without needing to do an additional two games at Wembley? To get into the football of it all, the two teams with the most points get automatically promoted. The top 3-6 teams battle it out at the playoffs. Wins=3 points, draws=1 point. Last year, West Bromwich got automatically promoted with 83 points. Currently, Richmond has 79 points with three more games left in the season. If they keep up a winning streak, it’s possible (though still unlikely) for them to come into second place and get that automatic promotion without having to keep battling it out.
A fact that is not-actually-quite-so-fun-but-in-fact-annoying-for-me-who-was-trying-to-keep-score: these hooligans added in the scores on the whiteboard in post-production for Episode 9.
Odds & Ends
This show went from a half-hour comedy to being…not that. I’m thinking the average episode length of eps 8-12 will be 45 minutes. 45 to 43 to 46 to ?? to ??. There’s still so much story to cover!
I sure hope they explicitly use the word “abused” when we start to overtly dive into Rebecca’s inner turmoil. It’s not the creatives’ job to baby the audience but too many dudebros still have it in their heads that Rupert was just some generic meanie. More importantly, it’s important for Rebecca herself to fully understand that that’s what happened to her.
On Ted & Beard’s first day on the job, Nate said that Sam had not been living up to his full potential. In the Season 2 premiere, Ted noted at the press conference that Sam just kept getting better at better. He’s going to become the MVP of the team by season’s end.
In the Christmas episode, Ted thought Rebecca was asking him to drive. In “The Signal,” Keeley threw him her keys to drive them to the pub. This is what we call foreshadowing, kids. I’m envisioning Ted in the driver’s seat of god-knows-who’s-car hightailing it out of London and over to the funeral after skipping out on it at first.
Higgins has been roaming around the clubhouse office-less for far too long for this to still be just a bit. Who’s desk space is he going to take up?