Summary
Yeah, it was better when Beard was mysterious and secretive. This wasn’t a great episode at all.
This recap of Apple TV+s Ted Lasso season 2, episode 9, “Beard After Hours,” contains significant spoilers.
Read the recap of the previous episode.
We always wanted to know more about Coach Beard, but I highly doubt we expected what we faced in this chapter. Maybe keeping Beard mysterious was the best thing the series did because, in reality, this episode is not it. It’s tonally all over the place and, unfortunately, does not work.
Ted Lasso season 2, episode 9 recap
As we saw in the last episode, Coach Beard does not want to ride back with the team, so this episode follows him exclusively. He returns home and ponders contacting Jane. On the television, Thierry Henry and Gary Linekar criticize Beard, stating he never challenges Ted Lasso — it’s likely to be part of his imagination.
Beard decides to head to the pub, and he wants to talk to the barmaid about his break-up with Jane, but she’s more bothered about having a go at him for the recent bad result. So Beard decides to sit with the other fans, and he drinks plenty of beers with them and ignores Jane’s messages.
With the night still young, Beard and his friends sneak into a swanky club for the elite. They end up wagging chins with Oxford graduates and playing pool. Beard ends up talking to a woman and goes back to hers. They talk about love, and Beard admits he wants to be with Jane all the time. He answers the woman’s phone for her, and it’s her partner, who is extremely angry to see a man in his place. Beard has to run.
Beard runs to the rooftop, and he has no choice but to jump into a skip full of bin bags. He ends up getting away from the angry man by clambering onto a bus. He is soon kicked off as he has no way of paying. Desperate to get home, he heads to a hotel to try and use the reception phone, but the paranoid receptionist doesn’t want him using it.
As Beard walks the streets, he bumps into Jamie Tartt’s father and his friends — they threaten him. As he faces to fight him, his imagination goes wild again — he sees Gary Linekar and Thierry Henry, who are claiming Beard hates himself. Beard is beaten up, but he is unexpectedly saved by the man he angered earlier, who saves him and returns the phone he left in his apartment.
When Beard looks at his phone, he has countless messages from Jane, declaring her love for him but getting increasingly angry at no response. His phone goes dead, and Beard is devastated, and he shouts erratically. He ends up in a limo with the fans from the pub. When he gets home, his key breaks in his front door, and then it rains heavily. He’s locked out.
He ends up at the church that Jane sent a photo from. He prays and tells God about Jane and how he cares about her deeply. Suddenly, it stops raining, and Beard believes it’s a sign. He finds a secret nightclub beside the church.
The ending
On the dance floor, Beard dances like crazy and with freedom. He then sees Jane, who gives him a hula hoop, so he dances with it. Jane and Beard then dance with each other with a smile on their faces.
The next day, Beard arrives at work, and the coaches are worried that he has a black eye. Ted asks if they should watch the match to see if they can improve. Beard chooses to put his cap over his head to nap while the others watch the game.
Yeah, it was better when Beard was mysterious and secretive. This wasn’t a great episode at all.
What did you think of Ted Lasso season 2, episode 9? Comment below.
