How Ted Lasso’s Roy And Keeley Helped Me Believe In Healthy Relationships Again
'Ted Lasso' depicts love in a healthy and real way - and it feels quietly groundbreaking.
Like pretty much everyone else on the face of the earth right now, I am obsessed with Ted Lasso.
Specifically, I am obsessed with Keeley and Roy’s romance, and the way in which this show portrays healthy and real adult relationships.
— Warning: Spoilers for Ted Lasso ahead. —
I’ll admit it, when I started this show, I didn’t expect to be spending my Friday nights ugly crying over a TV show about football. But sure enough, here I am weeks later, sitting on my couch sobbing over the Season 2 finale and wondering what could possibly fill the void in my cold, dead heart while I await Season 3.
Sure, there are other comedy dramas on the abundance of streaming services at our disposal. Heck, there are other sports comedy dramas too. But that’s not what makes Ted Lasso so special. There are quite a few things that make the show special, but I’m here to discuss but one part.
Repeat After Me: I Will Not Take Relationship Advice From Rom-Coms
As someone who went through a long-term relationship breakup weeks prior to the start of a pandemic that subsequently wreaked havoc on the dating game as we once knew it, I am not kidding when I say I’ve watched pretty much every rom-com — good, bad, and the ~ Netflix Original ~ — under the sun in the last two years. And like Ted Lasso’s titular character, I too, believed in rom-communism, probably to a fault.
“Rom-communism is all about believing everything’s gonna work out in the end” — Ted Lasso, 2021.
But while my belief in rom-communism has given me an extreme amount of optimism when it comes to dating, it also means I have interpreted my favourite rom-coms as documentaries on love more times than I care to admit. You’re telling me I don’t live in a rom-com where a man will appear at my doorstep in the pouring rain after a breakup and everything will just be magically fixed? Sounds like a hoax, but okay.
Unlike these typical on-screen relationships (see: Kat and Patrick in 10 Things I Hate About You), Roy and Keeley’s story isn’t shrouded in drama, insecurity and shitty behaviour for the sake of narrative tension. Instead, their relationship mirrors what most healthy adult relationships should aim for: open communication and honesty, even about uncomfortable topics.
There Are No Knights In Shining Armour
Keeley doesn’t need Roy, and he doesn’t need her. They are both fully developed, complex, and whole people in their own right, and although they bring out the best in each other, Ted Lasso avoids the typical rom-com trope of the hot mess woman who only gets her shit together when a man comes along that we’ve seen in the likes of Amy Schumer’s Trainwreck.
No. Keeley Jones, the self-appointed “independent woman” isn’t another Bridget Jones. She’s strong, driven, and knows what she wants. And unlike so many other rom-com characters (and myself in previous relationships), she doesn’t become a co-dependent shell of herself that moulds to fit around Roy’s needs. This is particularly evident in her friendship with Rebecca — which she prioritises over her romantic relationship with Roy on multiple occasions.
But she also doesn’t “fix” Roy either. Instead, their relationship focusses on important qualities like accountability, honesty and communication — especially when it’s uncomfortable.
From the very start of their relationship, Keeley and Roy are forced to overcome a number of issues, but they do so in a way that romanticises healthy relationship traits, rather than obsessive, overly-dramatic, made-for-TV traits. We see this before the relationship even takes off, when Keeley sleeps with Jamie because she’s not sure Roy is interested, and ultimately has to confess this to him and resolve the conflict before the relationship begins.
In the second last episode of Season 2, we see Keeley admit Nate kissed her during a suit fitting, while Roy admits he didn’t tell Phoebe’s teacher that he was in a relationship, only for Keeley to one-up this *again* by revealing that Jamie said he was still in love with her.
Sure, this makes for great TV, but unlike most other shows, it didn’t lead to some awful breakup that left both characters cynical and filled with resentment. Instead, it was an uncomfortable situation that was overcome with good communication and honesty — a foreign concept to me, a diehard fan of shitty communication rom-coms like 500 Days of Summer and How To Be Single.
Source: Apple TV+
No, You Don’t Have To Give Up Your Career For A Man
Throughout Season 2, the audience gets to witness Keeley grow as an ambitious career woman who is finally being taken seriously — which ultimately leads to her being offered the chance to start her own PR firm in the final episode. Thankfully, Ted Lasso never lets her drift into full #GIRLBOSS mode.
Through this, we see a more vulnerable side of Roy — he’s worried she may not have time for him and would perhaps be more successful without him — and it leads us to a wonderful moment: Roy tries to surprise her with a six week holiday, and while Keeley can’t make it because she’s too busy with work, she encourages him to enjoy the trip on his own because he’s also in need of a break.
This is such a stark contrast to, say, The Bold Type, where the career vs love life battle is the crux of a lot of the narrative tension. Will Sutton choose Richard? Or will she choose her career as a stylist in New York? Because we all know that women could never possibly have a successful career *and* a relationship.
Sure, many millennials and Gen Z viewers now look back on rom-coms like The Devil Wears Prada and agree that Nate was the real villain in that film for holding Andy back from her career. But ultimately, the conversation has always been about sacrificing one for the other, when any healthy real-life relationship would adapt and grow as your career and life does.
Source: Apple TV+
But What Exactly Does Ted Lasso Get So Right About Relationships?
It’s not just romantic relationships that Ted Lasso gets so right, it’s all sorts of partnerships. Between teammates, friends (Rebecca and Keeley), enemies (Roy and Jamie), and even the relationship we have with our own selves and past trauma (shown through Ted’s experiences in therapy). Across the board, Ted Lasso thrives on the subversion of classic TV tropes. It can’t help but foster these really strong, unique bonds on screen.
Perhaps it’s because writer (and Roy Kent himself) Brett Goldstein has an actual degree in film and feminism, or maybe it’s simply the result of a bunch of talented and intelligent people coming together to create the show, but Ted Lasso presents love in a healthy, realistic way.
Who knows, maybe this is why everyone has grown so attached to this show in the midst of a pandemic in which real relationships — both romantic and otherwise — have been strained by distance, lockdowns and all kinds of other stresses.
As our real lives have felt more like a strange, Hollywood movie than ever, there’s something very grounding about watching something that feels so genuine and real on screen.
Lavender Baj is Junkee’s news and politics reporter, and resident Ted Lasso stan. Follow her on Twitter.
You can stream Ted Lasso on Apple TV+ now.