May 27, 2023 • 49 mins
Welcome to the Crown & Anchor, Greyhounds! In this episode Christian and Brett have a conversation with sports journalist Alex McDaniel about their shared trust in the show's creators to end the series well.
Alex is the Managing Editor at USA Today’s For The Win - a social news hub that focuses on sports and entertainment. Of course, Alex is also a huge, huge fan of Ted Lasso, too. She’s written about Ted Lasso at For The Win, and had the opportunity to interview principal cast members for the site.
Alex co-hosts Ted Lasso-centered episodes for the Big Screen Sports podcast. She also happens to be one of our favorite Twitter follows, and as such is the primary reason we have a working knowledge of news emanating from the University of Mississippi athletic department.
We chatted with Alex about our shared love for the show, which led to some fun side conversations about Alex's Ted Lasso-themed Animal Crossing Island, her involvement in a formal press junket with the stars of the show, and how she's trusting the Ted Lasso team to land the plane as season three draws to a close.
Finally, let this serve as your official spoiler alert, as there is some light discussion of Ted Lasso plot points up through the fifth episode of season 3.
More extensive show notes can be found on our website: http://www.tedlassopod.com/alex-mcdaniel-for-the-win-ted-lasso
Richmond Til We Die is an episode-by-episode conversation about the Apple TV+ show Ted Lasso, where we explore the characters, their relationships to each other, and how they're able to make us laugh until we can hardly breathe one moment and then feel with the deepest parts of our hearts the next. When you're here, you're a greyhound.
Alex is the Managing Editor at USA Today’s For The Win - a social news hub that focuses on sports and entertainment. Of course, Alex is also a huge, huge fan of Ted Lasso, too. She’s written about Ted Lasso at For The Win, and had the opportunity to interview principal cast members for the site.
Alex co-hosts Ted Lasso-centered episodes for the Big Screen Sports podcast. She also happens to be one of our favorite Twitter follows, and as such is the primary reason we have a working knowledge of news emanating from the University of Mississippi athletic department.
We chatted with Alex about our shared love for the show, which led to some fun side conversations about Alex's Ted Lasso-themed Animal Crossing Island, her involvement in a formal press junket with the stars of the show, and how she's trusting the Ted Lasso team to land the plane as season three draws to a close.
Finally, let this serve as your official spoiler alert, as there is some light discussion of Ted Lasso plot points up through the fifth episode of season 3.
More extensive show notes can be found on our website: http://www.tedlassopod.com/alex-mcdaniel-for-the-win-ted-lasso
Richmond Til We Die is an episode-by-episode conversation about the Apple TV+ show Ted Lasso, where we explore the characters, their relationships to each other, and how they're able to make us laugh until we can hardly breathe one moment and then feel with the deepest parts of our hearts the next. When you're here, you're a greyhound.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:12):
Welcome to the Crown and Anchor Greyhounds. This is Richmond Till We Die,
the conversation about the Apple TV Plusshow ted Lasso, where we explore the
characters, their relationships to each other, and how they're able to make a
slap until we can hardly breathe onemoment and feel with the deepest parts of
our hearts the next. I'm Christianand to air for today's interview, I
listened to copious amounts of big critthe most notable rapper of all time from
(00:38):
the state of Mississippi. Our guesttoday is Alex McDaniel. Alex is the
managing editor at USA Today's For theWin, a social news hub that focuses
on sports and entertainment. Of course, Alex is a huge, huge fan
of ted Lasso as well. She'swritten about ted Lasso for at the Win
and has had the opportunity to interviewprincipal cast member for the site. Alex
(01:02):
also co host ted Lasso episodes forthe Big Screen Sports Podcast. Is one
of our favorite Twitter follows, andas such is the primary reason we have
a working knowledge of news. Emanatingfrom the University of Mississippi Athletic Department,
and this is your official warning thereare some light spoilers for ted Lasso season
(01:22):
three up through episode five, SoGreyhounds please join us in giving a warm
welcome to Alex McDaniel. Thank youso much for being here with us this
morning. Alex, this is soexciting y'all. Thank you so much for
asking me to come on. Ifeel this is just a treat. Y'all
are great. I love what youdo. Oh well, thanks, Well,
we're fans of your work too,and the reason one of the reasons
(01:46):
we connected with you on the internetis because we are all fans of the
show ted Lasso, of course.So why did you decide to start watching
ted Lasso? And what was themoment you knew Okay, yeah, I'm
in this. Yeah. So it'sa few things. I mean, I
think one of the one of myfavorite things just about I think the collective
fan base who've been watching from thebeginning is we all know we were pretty
(02:06):
much in the same situation, rightand it was different levels of terrible in
summer twenty twenty. So you know, like right after COVID hit, I
kind of had a dream job atESP Nation. I loved it, and
we all got unceremoniously laid off,and I spent that summer playing animal crossing
and being just like waiting to findout, Like I was doing freelance stuff,
(02:29):
but I felt so lost, andI think all of us did,
and it was just kind of thiscollective isolation and sadness. And I forget
where I saw it, but itwas just something that had popped up,
maybe on an ad. And youknow, I've been an SNL fan since
birth, and I've loved Jason Sadigisforever, and I especially love his dramatic
work. I think I've seen allof his movies, and I you know,
(02:51):
in my head, I was like, oh, that'll be funny.
Yeah, it's another funny shot,but that'll be really good. And so
I just started watching it. Iguess it was that August or whenever it
draw, I think it took.I knew I was going to watch it
regardless, because it was one ofthose things I just think you invest in
certain people and you're like, thiscould be kind of garbage, and I'll
still watch the whole thing, right, But I think it was episode three
(03:13):
with Trent Krem. I think thatwas the one where it really clicked for
me and a lot of people whereI was like, oh, this is
more than what we thought. Itwas, like, this is going to
go deeper than just this major leagueesque plotline. And that's when I started
squawking on Twitter every day, likebullying people like you've got to watch the
show because there's just something here andI don't know what it is, but
(03:37):
yeah, So that's how I gotinto it. Now here we stand,
we're about halfway through season three aswe're having this conversation right now, and
at the beginning of this season,you wrote a piece at for the Win
titled te Lasso's third season feels likethe end. Now we have to trust
them to stick the landing. Howare you holding up now with your trust
(03:59):
to the process meter as to themsticking the landing, I think they're going
to do it. I think thisseason is so different for a lot of
reasons. Number one, we hadto wait so long for it. Number
two, these episodes are twice aslong, and so we're the experience of
watching it is so different. We'regetting all of these storylines that are progressing
and wrapping up, and it's certainlynot the simple like season one. You
(04:24):
know, is Rebecca going to benice. You know, it's like so
much happening, but you know,this writing team and as a writer myself,
like I just really love good storytelling, and I have no reason to
believe they won't. Like I thinkin that column, my biggest point was
when you get invested in the showand you love it for whatever reasons you
(04:44):
have, you do get an ideain your head of like what does a
good ending look like to me?Like what would make me happy for these
characters? And so I think mypoint was like you may not get that,
you might not get what you want, you know, pun intended,
But I do think think it's goingto end the way it's supposed to end,
and so I'm still very confident inthat. But I kind of like
how clueless we are about a lotof things right now. It's kind of
(05:08):
anything could happen. So it's beengood. Yeah. One of the really
interesting things as this show has developedis kind of taking what you said about
first season. It was very likeclear what the focus was, like,
you know, we were learning aboutTed, but really it was like is
Rebecca going to be redeemed? Likeis she gonna actually like sort of start
(05:28):
to heal and now they've done somuch work with all of these characters,
who, like in a lot ofshows, would be more of like supporting
characters, like they would have somekind of B or C plot stuff.
But in the second and third seasonespecially, like that has really come into
focus and become part of, likea major part of the show. So
it's not just what is Ted orwhat is Rebecca doing, Like we're seeing
lots of growth from Roy and Keileyand Nate, like, there have been
(05:51):
so many other characters that have veryweighty storylines and that I think has contributed
to the sort of feeling of what'sgoing to happen, because it feels like
there's a lot to resolve with sevenepisodes left. If this is indeed the
final season, you know, ifwe if we're wrapping up this you know,
this arc, this chapter, howeveryou want to think about it right
now, it's a lot And Ithink that's a credit to the writers that
(06:13):
they've made these characters so interesting thatwe care about all of them, I
know, and we really do careabout all of them. I think when
you do kind of a rundown,it's like I need to know this is
going to work out for everybody involvedhere, and so you know, it's
exactly what you said. It's justa credit to the to the writer's room,
because they are so intentional about bothhow they've structured the show but also
(06:36):
in the micro sense of like howthey've you know, made these episodes kind
of further these stories. Yeah,it's their fault for making us so invested,
is what you're right? Hate it? You alluded to earlier how this
question has shifted from will Rebecca benice to kind of how can Rebecca process
(06:58):
the trauma that she's been through tothe best of her ability in this moment.
And you did write a piece calledWhat ted Lasso taught Us about Abuse
Recovery in the Pitfalls of Revenge wayback in the dark ages of twenty twenty
one. It's probably one of thebest pieces of writing on to quote Higgins,
the goddamn Internet thoughts. What thoughtsor insights would you add to that
(07:24):
article now that we've seen more ofRebecca's story play out? You know,
it's so interesting too, because kindof going back to that story I started
telling twenty twenty where I'd lost mydream job. I didn't know if I'd
land anywhere. I started it forthe win that month that season two is
coming out, and so that firstweek I was like, so, um,
(07:46):
can we do a Ted Lasso week? You know? And I like
a lot of my team, myemployees, like they had followed me on
Twitter and they knew I was obsessedand like, yeah, let's do it.
And so I hadn't written anything forthe site yet because I was getting
acclimated as an editor and trying tolearn everything. And I told my deputy
editor, I'm like, I'm gonnawrite something really light and fun. Okay,
I'm about ted last time. I'lljust hand it to you. And
(08:07):
then like he gets on at sixam and sees like this, you know,
this long thing. And so Iwent back and because I don't like
to reread old stuff. I thinkwhen you're a writer or any kind of
artist, you just it's part ofit is like I see a million things
I would change, and part ofit is when you write something personal,
it's like, get that is exactlywhere I was two years ago, and
I don't know if I want torevisit it or look at it with fresh
(08:31):
eyes. But I did go back, and I was glad I had written
some of the things I had.I didn't feel like it was a total
stranger right back at me. AndI think Rebecca's story to me has been
the most personal for sure, andthe one I've related to the most.
It's you know, I see alot of obvious I see a lot of
people on Twitter talking about things thisseason that I don't necessarily agree with,
(08:54):
where some people have said, oh, this baby things out of nowhere,
Well that's not true, or youknow, she's regressing and you know her
hatred towards Rupert is clouding your judgment, which I do think, but I
don't think it's as simple as oh, all of her healing is gone.
I think, you know, thereare a lot of there's a lot of
nuance there behind why she feels theway she does and the fact that she
(09:16):
you know, we season two wassuch a big mental health season and we
saw a lot of healing, especiallyon Ted's part and everything, but she
hadn't really started that process yet,like we saw it in the funeral where
she started talking about things. Butshe's very closed off and a very British
kind of like I'm going to keepeverything buried down deep and who needs a
therapist when you can just bother yourfriends with your problems or whatever. So
(09:41):
you know, I think she's stillhas a lot to figure out. I
think for me, it's just she'strying to find what happiness is to her
and what it will take to makeher feel like she's lived a fulfilling life
for what she's wanted. When peopletalk about the pregnancy or just going to
become a mother thing, and wego back to that episode in season one
(10:05):
where Rupert says, you know,I suppose I just didn't want a baby
with you know, or like thisis better or whatever he says in her
face, and she's the best faceactor I've ever seen, but you can
tell her just devastates her and shefeels like she's missed out on something.
And so I think people are wronglyinterpreting this as, oh, well,
she's just like so desperate for love, she's looking for a baby. It's
(10:26):
like, no, this is actuallya part of her she's really wanted.
She has maternal instincts that have shownthrough the show. So I'm really interested
to see how that comes about andwhat that family looks like for her,
because I don't if it is romanticlove, great if it, but if
it's if it's her adopting a childor you know, becoming a stepmother or
something like whatever form that takes.I think that's when we're going to really
(10:48):
see kind of the evolution and completionof that character's journey because she, you
know, I think she's going inthe right direction. She knows where she
wants to go. We just don'tknow how it's going to end up.
But you know, I love Rebecca. I just think she's a great character.
Being press can be tricky because thereare some people in some press outlets
(11:11):
where you have to remain objective orneutral or whatever. One of the nice
things about some of the places you'vewritten is that you still get to be
a fan of things, and soanybody who follows on social media knows there
are some things that you really reallylove. Was that tricky when you were
part of the official Ted Lasso pressjunkett to keep your fangirl at bay as
(11:33):
you were interviewing primary cast members.So it's interesting because you know, my
career, I started in traditional newsand magazines and you know, went to
J school and I'm definitely one ofthose that I do not believe you need
a traditional journalism background to make itin this business. That's just where I
came from. And early in mycareer, and I wasn't in sports at
(11:56):
all until about six or seven yearsago. Early in my career, there
would be people who would call intolike a newspaper I worked for, and
they would see on my Twitter thatI went to All Miss and I was
an Ole Miss fan, and theywould accuse me a bias even though I
wasn't covering the team. I wasn't. It was wild and it was this
whole and I was confronted by afew bosses that were like, you need
to keep your opinions to yourself asif I was out there doing politics,
(12:18):
you know. And so that wasreally tricky for me because it, you
know, I which I'm not goingto get into like my media philosophy here,
but basically that we have focused somuch on objectivity, which I think
is a really unrealistic goal for people, that we have ignored the importance of
fairness. And so my argument foryears has always been, because I do
have I have had to write aboutalmost sometimes if I'm when I was working
(12:41):
in Mississippi, My thing is behonest about where your loyalties lie. And
where your biases are, and thenmake sure there's a system in place that
if you are covering them, youare covering them fairly. You have verification,
you know, Like I just youknow, I don't. I just
don't buy into the idea of likejournalists must be objective. Can look up
any journalists passed and look into theirhistory and what they like. We're people
(13:03):
and we should be people. ThenI did when I was able to pivot
into these websites that celebrated being afan, it was certainly more comfortable for
me, and with the junket,I wasn't worried about because I've done enough
interviews that like you just kind ofgo into interview mode. I was worried
about getting starstruck or anything like that. But it was different than any celebrity
interviews I've done because of how personalit was to me. And you know,
(13:28):
it's we haven't shared the full interviewsyet. We're kind of letting those
come out as the season goes on. But like in Jason's interview, I
don't know what came over me,but I had like one question left and
it was going to be a goodone, and I lost my mind and
was like, I just need youto know, like how much this show
meant to me at a time whenI thought my whole life was falling apart.
(13:52):
And you know, it's weird tothink that three years ago I was
unemployed and lost and I just kindof fall in love with the show and
then here I am with a job. I absolutely love interviewing you. And
then it occurred to me what Iwas doing, and I caught myself like,
all this is on video. It'svery embarrassing, Like that's so unprofessional.
I'm sorry, and Jason's like,who cares? Who cares if it's
unprofessional. I think it's important.It was just such a lovely moment,
(14:16):
and I felt like such a dorkI got done, But then looking back,
I was like, I'm glad Isaid it, you know, because
I normally would would keep things verystraight. But you know, I think
it was just fun. I thinkBrett was just a delight. More than
anything. I wanted to ask himabout Greece too, probably more than anything
in the world, so I gotto do that. But yeah, it
(14:37):
was just it was really fun andnerve wracking, and I think the high
leading up season three, the factthat we waited a year and a half
for it, and even like,you know, and this is what I
would I don't envy anybody who's famous. The fact that you have headlines about
Jason's personal life playing out at thisjust as strongly at the same time as
the show. I think there's justa lot going into it, and so
(15:00):
getting the opportunity to kind of justtalk to them all for a few minutes
was very heavy and a blast.But yeah, I can't watch the videos
because I just can't do it.I feel like it's written all over my
face. I was recently very gladthat you were a fan of Oldness because
(15:20):
they just recently hired a men's basketballcoach who lost his previous job because he
was arrested on a This is alwaysso tricky to talk about because you don't
want to like misrepresent it and getsued. But the police were called to
a domestic violence disturbance and he wasarrested, and then he lost his previous
(15:41):
job, and a lot of peoplewhen he lost his job, we're like,
call me and he's never going tocoach again. And then he is
now coaching again, like just afew months later, and I was like,
well, it sucks for I knowa lot of old miss fans like
it sucks for them. But Ido know one journalist that's not going to
let him get away with anything.So I guess that's that's not a good
(16:02):
thing about it. But no,I mean it's true. That's why.
And I will say this, Idon't care if Godrey. A lot of
people who work for that university cannotstand me for that reason because they can't
reconcile in their minds. How canyou love a place and I do what
that place gave to me built myentire life. They don't underly how you
can love a place and criticize itat all. And I'm like, yeah,
(16:23):
that's life. I mean think aboutjust even with your family relationships or
your personal relationships, like you're fightingfor something you care about, right,
and it would make no sense forlike you married me, you can't criticize
what I do or anything. It'slike, well, if we're gonna live
together forever, you know we're gonnahave to talk about things that I don't
like. So yeah, I've beenvery vocal over the years, and even
(16:45):
in college. I mean, thatuniversity has a very contentious history with race,
related symbolism, and I have coveredall of that for like fifteen years
at this point, but it hasn'tbeen easy because then you know, run
into somebody at a football game andthey're just like, Oh, I'm shocked
to see you here. I figuredyou would just reject it. I'm like,
man, I just want it tobe the best it can be.
(17:06):
I mean, let's how I feelwith the South in general, Like,
obviously this is a place that needsmajor overhauling on so many levels, but
like I'm a Southern girl at heart, like I want it to be the
best it can be. So,yeah, that basketball hires. We'll talk
a lot about it in the futureobvia some Twitter rants. But yes,
(17:27):
yeah, we've made the correlation hereon our show that SEC football and ACC
basketball are the closest analogs to theEPL in terms of both quality, like
being very high quality and having intensefan culture. And so speaking of you
know, your rivalries and allegiances,you have, I think, as an
(17:48):
external person, a cheeky and goodnatured relationship with Mississippi State fans. So
can you please explain to our audiencewhy you went so far as to dress
in missus SUPPI State Colors for arecent football game that they played against your
beloved University of Mississippi. Not justthe colors. I had the cowbell to
(18:11):
select a special cowbell. It's aspecial cowbell it was. It was a
ted Lasso cowbell um. So Iwas in the marching band. I was
actually a music major for most ofcollege. Oh yeah, yeah. I
wanted to be a here, aband director. That's what I wanted to
be. So I was a semester. I was a semester away from finishing
my music D degree. I waslike, you know, I'd always been
(18:32):
a writer too, and it wasreally bothering me that I hadn't done anything
with it, and I'm like,you know, I need to try it.
It was just the fear of likewhat if you fail and music ad
even though education jobs certainly and don'tcome with a lot of works or money
or anything. But I was confident. I was more confident that I would
have a consistent music I career thanI was that I could. There is
(18:55):
a stability in that, yes,exactly, And you know, if even
if you're not a band, reallythere are different elements of that you could
you could do. But I justreally felt to my god, I was
like, you need to try thewriting. You just need to see where
it takes you. So my parentswere thrilled for me staying in college an
extra year after that, but Istayed in the marching Man and I stayed
(19:17):
and went ensemble and and just lovedit. And you know, for an
SEC school, which most SEC schoolshave money at their disposal, and really
college bands in general at that levelusually have decent practice facilities. They at
least have a practice field similar towhat the football team would have where it's
an actual you know field with turfand lines and you want to replicate the
(19:41):
stadium atmosphere as much as possible.Well, it's never had that. They
had an open field behind the baseballstadium with ant piles and it was like
a little valley so it would getmuddy when it rained, and it wasn't
even a hundred yards long, sowe would like there were some sets during
practicing we run into the trees andit was it was pitiful, and the
band was just mistreated for the longesttime. And you definitely in Mississippi anyway,
(20:04):
you were not part of that bandbecause like it was a great scholarship
or because you've got a lot,you did it for the love of it.
And so a few years ago theystarted raising money for a new bandfield
or they launched a campaign, andit just wasn't moving because again the university
hasn't neglected that program for a longtime, and even people who donated considerable
(20:26):
amounts of money, like they weretrying to reach a five, six,
seven million dollar goal. And theuniversity had reached out to me in early
twenty twenty one and said, wedo this thing every year. It's Giving
Day. We asked some of ouralums if they would be ambassadors on social
media, you know, to supportsome of these funds. So they wanted
me to work for free basically,and I was like, you know,
(20:48):
and I'm again, I'm a journalist, so I'm never going to be like
a million dollar downer to my almmotter. But I am always happy to
do things that I am able toprovide. But I I just started thinking
about it. I'm like, nobodywants to donate to the band. It's
just truely, like, how dowe get innovative with this? And I
called I called my friend who hecovers Mississippi State, and I said I've
(21:11):
got a wacky idea. Just hearme out. I want to. I
know we're not going to raise alot of money, but like, what
if we did a thing where ifwe can get one hundred Mississippi State fans
to donate any amount It could bea dollar, but if we get a
hundred, I will go as aMissisippi State fan to the Egg Bowl this
year, which is our big rivalryfootball game. And he was like,
(21:32):
I don't know, Alex. Imean, people are not gonna want to,
Like, you know, money's tightfor everyone right now. We're still
kind of the throws of COVID,And I'm like, let's just try it.
Will you support me if we doanything? Yeah. So we get
to the day of or I thinkit was like a two day campaign,
and I lay it out and like, you know, I think I'm friendly
with a lot of Missisippi State fans. I mean, I'm not from Mississippi,
but my dad was and his wholefamily was Mississippi States. So to
(21:55):
me, it's like there's a youknow, there's a familiarity there. But
a lot of them really hate me. And so I didn't know how this
is going to go. But weended up tweeting and retweeting, and we
hit the one hundred very quickly,and then suddenly all this other money started
coming in from people from different schoolslike auburnel Obama and outside the SEC and
(22:18):
like, and people were just sofascinated. But like, she is going
to do the thing that will makeher throw up physically probably, Like it's
really that just to do this.So we ended up raising twenty five thousand
dollars, which again drop in thebucket, you know, but it was
more and then the band had everraised. And the point wasn't to raise
the five million. The point wasto get that story out there to people
(22:40):
that you know, I was tweetingout pictures of like George's field and Alabama's
field and saying, how is thisokay to let a university that spends so
much money on all this other stuff? And you know, this is a
classroom, A marching field is aclassroom, and this is it's not cool.
So yeah, so he did that, and I held up my end
(23:00):
of the bargain, and my friendI'm as State friend who helped me.
He made an itinerary for the wholeday the cowbell thing for them is really
important. So you I was goingto buy one. No, you don't
buy your first cowbell. You haveto be given the cowbell. And I'm
like, oh, no, one'sgonna give me one. And this amazing
thing. I have to shout himout. It's a man called his company's
(23:21):
called the bell Smith and it makesthese beautiful custom cowbells. And so you
know, the day of like I'mtailgating with state fans and everything, wearing
my maroon and white. It wasterrible, and he hands it to me
and I see the AFC Richmond logoon it, like shut up, and
then on the back I have itlike at my office, so I can't.
(23:42):
I think the back says like becurious, not judgmental. But it
was just so kind and such atreat, and I'm like this is it
was awesome. I had the bestday. We won, which was very
cool. I think I lost,it would have been worse, but you
know the cool thing about that though, And again this kind of goes back
to what I just said about peopleat the university. Not really, I'm
(24:03):
not their favorite gal. The universityfinally broke down and went it said okay,
just if she'll just stop you know, like here's the money, like
they reserved the funding and they neversaid me specifically, but it was just
it was very much conveyed, atleast as far as my sources say,
like because I had written a storyabout it, it was like this is
embarrassing, like Okay, here's yourmoney, you can have the field.
(24:26):
So they are almost done with thefield. It's beautiful and this I'm actually
going down in a month to seeit, and it's just incredible. It's
something I never thought would happen.And you know, getting helping in any
way to get that done because Icertainly wasn't able to donate a lot of
money. It means a lot tome because that program gave me a lot
and so you know, I'm neverdoing that again. I've never trust you
(24:48):
as articulars again, but it wasworth it for something like this. Do
you anticipate being presented with a NobelPeace Prize for your acts of diplomacy when
the project is finished? No,you know, And that's the other thing
I there's I have to be carefulhow I see this the spin And when
I say the university, I donot mean the band directors because I've wonderful
(25:11):
relationships with them, but it's beenspun that this was going to already happen
for years, and this was justkind of you know, and fine,
I don't want, you know,I do want the people who donated that
day to be recognized in some way, because it's very cool to have people
from other schools say, hey,we support you too. But no,
I don't think I'm going to belike invited to a ribbon cutting or anything.
(25:34):
But it's cool because I, youknow, the band director and I
are good friends, and so Ijust can't wait to see it. It'll
be great. Well, since we'realready on the topic of music, and
you are a known fan of lotsof things on the internet, I'm just
wondering. We geek out about themusic use on the show all the time,
(25:56):
especially in our episode conversations where wesometimes pick specific songs or moments.
Do you have like a favorite songor artist that's shown up in the ted
Lasso soundtrack, or like, didyou think that a song was particularly well
placed in a scene? Yeah,so, I you know, I totally
agree. I think they're so amazingand beautifully intentional with how they use music
(26:18):
in the show and I have,like, honestly, like a list of
like twenty moments where I could probablywrite individual essays on them, like this
is why it you know, buthave you interpret it? This is why
it matters. I think I'm sopartial though to season one. I think
just because that was the music hadso much to do with why it hit
me. And I think, youknow, when he and Michelle are saying
(26:38):
goodbye in the rain and Forever isplaying, that gets me every time.
I will never walk again, right, I mean, just like you can
hear Marcus Mum's voice. And Ithink you know, we did a on
the Big Screen Sports podcast that Iam the guest on whenever we do ted
last episodes. We did a TedLasso draft and I took my first pick
(27:00):
was the season one finale, largelybecause of how they use You'll Never Walk
alone. You know, I justthought that was beautiful too, But I
you know, I think it's justit's all so good. And something I
say I've said before on different podcaststhat I want everyone to do is,
you know, the the use ofcelesque strange in the Liverpool episode. I
(27:23):
don't know if you're Saint Paul andthe Broken Bones fans. Yes, I
love Saint Paul and the Broken Bones. Okay, so Paul, the lead
singer during COVID. He he hasa video on YouTube where he did a
cover of Strange and he talks aboutlike he said, I'm watching ted Lasso
and it's this great show that justkind of makes you feel warm inside.
It's his version, Like I wishhe had recorded it, because they should
(27:45):
put it on the show. It'sabsolutely gorgeous. So please google that and
listen to it a lot. Butyeah, you know, I just think
like they're really smart about it.I know there was a bit of commotion
about how Apple released the entire seasonthree soundtrack or the playlist rather on everyone
than they went back and like changedit, and now people are reading into
(28:07):
what a lot of those songs mightmean. So yeah, you know,
I just don't think there's a singlething wasted on this show, and definitely
never a moment where it's like we'vegot to put something there. I guess
we'll just go with this song.It's just another layer. I think that
makes the show really good. Yeah, when we've talked to actors or other
sort of creative or technical team membersfrom the show, They've often commented on
(28:30):
how there will be there will bemultiple choices, but it will be like
a song like this or one ofthese like four or five songs will be
here, and so I think there'ssort of like a power ranking of like
this is what we want if not, like here's several other suggestions. So
it's never just like it will besomething like hey, Jude, you know,
like there's like we specifically want this, and I you know, we've
(28:51):
talked about that on a handful ofepisodes of like how difficult it can be
to secure those placements, to getrights to actually use a song in your
show, which seems wild to meas an outsider, because I'm like you,
if your song is getting used ina hit show like that can only
be a good thing. But madeby the company that has dump trucks full
of gold. I guess that's thething that Apple money man. Yeah,
I guess I do get their reticence. That's like, you know, especially
(29:15):
with the Disney story that we've talkedabout, where at first for Frozen,
they were like, yeah, wedon't think you can use let it go,
like never mind, but then theywent and like shot the scene and
pitched it back to Disney and theywere like, okay, yeah, that's
great. And I just like recentlysaw that the composers of the music for
Frozen had like shortly after that episodeaired back in twenty twenty, they like
tweeted at Hannah and they were like, this is so beautiful, like you
(29:36):
did it justice, like which isanother nice, like great moment and just
speaks to like the tenacity of themusic team. I mean, they're obviously
Christa Miller works on all of BillLawrence's shows as his wife as the music
director too, but Antony Purview's workis just really amazing and as someone who
loves music and studied music, likethat's just something that drew me to the
(29:56):
show instantly. Is like Okay,yeah, this like they're very intentional about
what's happening here, Like there's alot of subtext here to really like sink
your teeth into. And that's justa wonderful, like a wonderful thing,
absolutely, And I you know twothings on that. I think you know
the story we've all heard about howJason had called Marcus and he didn't he
just didn't listen to the voicemail forever, and like I can't even imagine the
(30:18):
show without Marcus's influence. And like, you know, I'm a big mum
for and SNCE fan, and Iremember, like back in I Forget when
that Hopeless Wanderer came out and thevideo with Jason Sadeki is in Baven And
so I love that there's that personalpart of it because Jason's obviously friends with
him and connected with his music.And I think that's great And the only
(30:41):
other thing it's going to say,going back to what shows go through to
secure rights, one of my favoritelittle like I love the Office, one
of my favorite Office facts is themost money they ever spent on a song
was that scene. I believe it'sthe episode when they're finding out if Dunderman's
gonna go bankrupt or something, andyeah, Steve Carrel's in his office,
(31:04):
Michael's in his office and Sean Mullin'slullaby comes on and the other opened the
doors like he amything, and like, you know, it's just it's such
a funny scene, but it's kindof a throwaway. And I think they
spent something like forty thousand dollars justfor that three seconds of that song because
they're like this is the song,this is the joke, We're It's worth
it, this is what We're gonnabe for just that's one of my favorite
(31:26):
little trivia facts about the Office.So yeah, I agree with you one
hundred percent. Like the show feltlike it needed Marcus Mumford, like in
the DNA. Now that we've seenit this way, it's hard to imagine
it any other way, and especiallylike you see his influence and things like
you mentioned with his version of You'llNever Walk Alone, which I think was
a brilliant choice by everyone involved toslot that in, to create a new
(31:48):
version to sort of fit this momentat the end of season one. Right,
We've talked about it on our pod. Many people know that comes from
the American Golden Age musical Carousel,Um, and it speaks to a larger
love I think of musical theater amongthe characters and the creators of this show.
So I'm wondering, do you haveany favorite musical theater references that have
(32:09):
been made so far across the threeseasons. Um, I'm trying to I
don't know if I have a specificreference, though I did. I have
to say I loved the Julie Andrewsthat I thought it was just oh,
I know, it was just sobrilliant. I think, um know,
another reason I was pumped about theshow in general was because of Hannah Waddingham.
(32:31):
Yeah, and obviously like for musicaltheater nerds, like she's just you
know, she's a Lady of theLake and she is just like such a
big star. And I love Ijust I love anything that incorporates kind of
a quirky subgroup of society as ifit's just commonplace, because you know,
theater and music kids would get thisrep for being theater and music kids and
(32:52):
like, right, oh, you'rein drama in high schooling. Yeah,
I was, actually, But it'slike I love how like seamlessly the kind
of weave a lot of that stuffin is that everybody in society knows that
this is fine. I can't thinkof like a reverence on the top of
my head. I do think it'sinteresting that, you know, I just
talked about the season three playlist thatwas released and Party is kind of hoping
(33:14):
it's a fake out, but thelast few songs from it came from Lakajo
Fault. Yeah, and like,yes, very excited to find out what
that is all about Yeah. Ihave tried very hard not to speculate,
but yeah, it's on them forputting out the whole soundtrack. They did
it, wouldn't it be. Ijust like, I really hope it's a
trick though. I hope they start, they keep releasing and then it's just
(33:37):
all something different. They are kindof doing the Kanye thing of like I'm
just like switching this up in realtime, Like I'm just I know,
just changing it. I was like, I went back on there the other
day and I was like, there'slike six songs here that we're not here
a couple of weeks ago. Iknow. So from now I'm going to
refer to the soundtrack as Life ofLasso. Yeah, I love it.
(33:57):
Before we leave Musical Theater, Idid just see on your Twitter we mentioned
how fun you are as a followon social media, and you recently had
the opportunity to travel to New Yorkand see a show on Broadway. Do
you want to tell us a littlebit about why you decided to take a
last minute trip to see Mulin Rougein New York. So I love Aaron
Debate more than air. I thinkhe is just delicious and I've followed him
(34:22):
for years and years and years.It was back during the dark COVID times.
He was on Broadway for this,and you know, you just kind
of make a plan in your head, like, Okay, well he's gonna
be there for a while, I'llgo see him whenever. And I had
made plans with my friend to goin the fall of twenty twenty one,
(34:43):
yes, and they fell through,and like, I had just started a
new job, so I really didn'tfeel comfortable like just taking off for something.
So I was like, it's okay, he'll be there a while,
and then he left that I wasdevastated. We missed it, We missed
our shot. And then of courselast year he came back and announced another
limited run this year, but thesame thing happened where it's like, okay,
(35:06):
I'll make it a point to go, I'll make it a point to
go, and then you get caughtup with life and it just doesn't happen.
And so my Sun's spring break waslast week and he was spending it
with his dad and his family inNew Jersey, and I just that same
friend that I was going to gowith two years ago. I was like,
Okay, here's the deal. Ican only see this show like Sunday
(35:27):
at five pm. That's it.That's our shot. And this is like
three days before. You know,I don't want to go, That's fine,
I'm gonna go and get a hotel. So it's a very last minute
and we got really great seats.And you know, the last thing I
had seen on Broadway was like rightbefore COVID it was Tom Hilston, another
love of mine in Betrayal and soand I used to like go to show
(35:49):
us all the times. This isjust kind of a big deal for me
anyway, and we went. Itwas just an incredible show for so many
reasons, and his last show withthem it was actually this past Sunday,
So yeah, it was great tokind of see that. And just there's
nothing more energizing for me than livemusic or musical theater or something. It
just recenters me and it again remindsme of like being that performer and being
(36:13):
that music kid. And there's somethingso light and free about being in the
presence of really talented people and seeingwhat they can put together. So yeah,
that was such a treat, noregrets. Yeah, and it's nice
that we get to see Aaron debatestalent on Display Weekly at the moment on
Shamika Dune season two, also knownas Schmicaco. So, I mean,
(36:36):
he's just doing incredibly excellent work asthe character tofur in this season, I
know, and you know that showoddly enough, even though like I'm pretty
trusting in most of what Apple TVdoes because I haven't seen a show yet
that's been like, O, well, you know, like everything they've done
this incredible. I did not knowhow they were going to pull that show
(36:58):
off in the beginning. I'm like, ah, is it going to work?
Is it going to be? Idon't know, And they did,
of course in that first season wasgreat, but I was like, well,
it's got to end here, rightthey can't. How are they going
to do this? Yeah, thatdoesn't even make sense. And again it's
kind of like I am with TedLasso, where I'm like, how are
they going to do this? Andthen they always pull it off so beautifully,
and yeah, I shouldn't get Dunesone of those that I'm like,
this is just such a such awonderful treat that we have, but it's
(37:22):
not for everyone. Night and thatspeaking of wonderful treats that may not necessarily
be for everyone. You're a bigfan of this video game called Animal Crossing
that I don't personally understand a wholelot about. However, very much in
awe of the fact that you madea ted a Lasso Island in the midst
(37:43):
of this game. Podcasts are notvery good for giving people like tours,
but could you please give us alittle tour of ted Lasso Island and maybe
explain to me what Animal Crossing is. Animal Crossing was truly just one of
those things that came out right whenCOVID hit and my son suddenly at home.
I was at home, I hadlost my job, and he was
(38:04):
like he was gosh six at thetime, seven six six wow, And
we had a switch and I waslike, oh, a little kid's game
because I never got into the oldAnimal Crossing and my sister was into that
because a little you know, Ijust I didn't play a lot of video
games as a teenager. I playedthem more as a kid with like my
Super Nintendo. So I got thegame for him and then I'm watching him
(38:25):
play it and it's just this lovelylike you're just on an island and you're
like working to renovate everything, andyou're doing these little quests where you're trying
to earn enough money to like buildthe town store and you know, get
your house upgraded and buy furnishings andyou can build things. You can change
(38:45):
your island. But it's not it'snot like my set also plays Minecraft and
I played with them. Sometimes it'sjust my brain that's way too overwhelming for
me because there's too many possibilities.But Animal Crossing is controlled and enough,
I feel like and cute enough thatyou don't get overwhelmed by all this stuff
you could do. So yeah,so you can have a little house,
(39:08):
you can. What's amazing about thisgame is just the thousands of things you
can buy, whether it's furniture orlike anything you would put in your home,
or like structures you can buy likemarket stalls that you can do whatever,
and they let you customize it.So a lot of the items you
can customize with either designs that youmake in the game, or there's a
(39:30):
way that you can transfer logos orreally anything to the game to make it
look like anything you want. Wehad to take a mandatory one week furlough
at Christmas, and I'm not goodat not working like I have to be
working all the time, and suddenlyI'm not even allowed to check my email,
and I was stir crazy, andwe hadn't played in a long time,
(39:50):
so I restarted Our Island. Andit takes a lot of work to
get to the point where you caneven customize this stuff. And I'm like,
I'm going to make it ten last. So I went, so,
what the what it actually is likemy house. When you walk in my
house, my living room is thelocker room. I have that set up
with like the Beliefs sign on thewall, and I use like a flat
(40:13):
screen TV to be the window lookinginto Ted's office. Then you go upstairs
and there's Rebecca's office and like,of course you can't ever get anything exactly
right, but it's kind of thesame layout of like her desk and the
art on the walls and the couchand I they have one of the objects
in the game is like a littletakeout box, and so I was able
to make that pink to look likeher little biscuit box. And you know,
(40:36):
it's huge. If you go tothe basement, that is where they
have press conferences, So it's setup with like the chairs and the desk
and like the I have the fizzywater on the desk and the things in
the back. It's just so silly. But when I get caught on a
project, I'm like, let's makethis as accurate as possible. And then
(40:58):
the rest of the island I hadset up just kind of like a little
English town, so I've got like, you know, I used castle walls
to kind of make everything a littlemore elegant, or tried to anyway,
and like these cobblestone walkways and everythingelse. So I never fully finished it.
And here's the terrible thing that Iso regret that I posted photos of
(41:21):
that island like three days before Iinterviewed them, but I had deleted it
because we wanted to start over again. And I was like, I'm okay,
you know, the game is justlike you played as long as you
want and then you can erase itall and start over. And I kind
of like doing that. It wasall gone, but I shared photos of
it online. Suddenly people are like, can I take a tour? Can
I see it? Can you makea dream address for me? Because you
(41:43):
can, you can make a littlecode where anybody can like they don't visit,
so it's not a live visit toyou, but anyone. They essentially
make like a copy of your islandwhere people can run around. And I
had just I had deleted all ofit. So I recently started rebuilding it
again, which is just a lotto work. But you know, I
now I want to like add KJPRAnd I also I did have the pub,
(42:07):
so I had the little pub andtry to design that the best way
I could. But the cool thingabout it, you know, I was
able to import the Richmond logos andthe Belief sign and everything else, and
you can just it's so easy tomake things customize and cute and I don't
know, it's just the cutest game. It's a cozy game, is what
(42:29):
I call it. Have you addedZavaville to the corner of the locker room?
That's what I'm working on right now. Actually, so I was playing.
I had a few minutes the otherday and I was like, okay,
this is We're going to read youthe corner and and I've got the
little like numbers above all the lockers. So I've got to go back and
make the the Zava thing. Yeah, So it's just you know, it's
(42:51):
fun, but it's silly, andI tweeted photos of it. Like I
said, like, the three daysbefore I did those interviews, well,
I didn't even know I had thoseinterviews yet, is the thing. I
know, if I was going toactually get them, ide the photos with
something like, oh, like you'venever made your animal crossing island, knew
a ted Lasso island. And Itagged a few of the cast members,
which is just something I do anyway, not so much because I think they're
going to respond, but back inthe day when you could depend on the
(43:14):
algorithm, you know, if youtagged people that other people followed, you
might see the tweets suggest in thefeed. So I was trying to reach
ted Lasso fans and then I justput Twitter away and didn't come back to
it for the night, and Igot an email then I was like,
hey, we approved these interviews fornext week. And I'm like, oh
my gosh, that's wild. Andthen I get so I had Jason that
Monday, and I get to theJason thing, and like I said,
(43:36):
before I made, you know,I felt like such a dork revealing my
heart and soul to him. Andafter he said He's like, I don't
care if it's unprofessional. I think, you know, human connection is great
or whatever he said that was sosuper inspiring. Then he says, by
the way, my kids really appreciateyour Animal Crossing Island and they want to
know they want to know how todo all that. And I actually made
a TikTok about this moment because Iwas just nervous and you know, running
(44:01):
on autopilot, and I say somethinglike, I'll show them. I'll show
your kids since we have such aclose personal relationship. And so that was
the coolest because it's like, ohmy god, he saw it. But
then the next day when I interviewedBrendan, they like, you know,
the screen pops up. The wayit works these virtual interviews is like you're
(44:22):
in a waiting room with a bunchof other journalists where it's just like a
zoom call or everybody's on it.Then they send you a link to a
breakout room and I click the linkand there's Brendan and he's like Animal Crossing
for Life, Like I'm rebuilding itbecause a lot of fans reached out and
they're like, how do you getthe design codes and all this? And
I'm gonna make like a little I'llprobably just put a post on the website
(44:42):
about if you want to do it, you know, this is how you
do it. But so mad atmyself for deleting it because I just never
I just wasn't thinking like other peoplewould want to do it. It was
more of me saying, look athow much of a dork I am that
I would devote all this time to, you know, making it if you
gotta play it, And I lovethat Now. Crossing is also part of
the DNA of the show because justin the most recent episode there was the
(45:04):
mention from Isaac of saying that's theonly game that they were allowed to play
before bed because it's so soothing itis. And I just it's wild how
Animal Crossing and ted Lasso like reallyplayed into my life journey the Fast Years,
because it's, like I said,during COVID, those were the things
that I kind of clung to asjust sort of keeping me sane a little
bit, and like that game cameat the perfect time. Everybody was obsessed
(45:25):
with it, so playing that alot, and then ted Lasso comes and
it's just like these little life jacketsessentially that everybody had to find peace somehow,
and they had to cope somehow,and there were healthy ways to do
that in unhealthy ways, and I'msure like my wine consumption probably wasn't the
best buy then, but you know, those to me were healthy things that
(45:46):
you could you could do to getthrough that time. So I love that
they referenced it. I want toclose with a very important topic, and
that is tea. It's not exactlya Midwestern thing. It's very much the
English and I iced tea is verymuch a Southern thing. So yeah,
that is explained for everybody. Howsweet tea is its own wonderful creation.
(46:12):
And whether or not you think Tedwould enjoy sweet tea, Oh yeah,
you know, tech you get downwith some sweet tea. I have no
doubt in my mind. It's interestingbecause I moved to northern Virginia last August,
and I know what I was gettinginto. People would be like,
Virginia is still the South, notthis part of Virginia. This is not
nothing southern, and so but Iyou know, I lived in New York
(46:36):
right out of college, and solike I've moved around. I even though
I grew up in the South,I've certainly spent most of my life here
and I think when I was younger, the funny thing was like going to
a northern state or you know,my mom is from Chicago originally, so
we spent a lot of time visitingour family there. And you would go
to a restaurant and ask for asweet tea and they're like, we'll bring
sugar to you. It's like,no, because it won't mix again sweet
(47:00):
tea. And so it's it's evenfunny to hear people say iced tea because
in the South there is no icedtea. You either want sweet or on
sweet. Like, if you wanton sweetee, that's how you order it.
I want an unwe like tea.It's just yeah, if you say
tea, you're getting a sweet tea. If you don't want sugar in your
tea, you need to be specificabsolutely, and so um, and I
don't you know, I'm I'm oneof those I can do a half and
(47:22):
half because I try not to havetoo much sugar when I was younger.
Record yeah, but so I reallyam an unsweet tea person. But yeah,
it's just you know, it's different, it's regional stuff. And um,
it's always funny to like live ina place like this and to go
and kind of forget where you arefor a second. It's already unsweetened.
(47:45):
You can get iced tea, soum yeah. Ted's aversion to hot tea,
though, just cracks me up.Alex. We are so grateful for
your time today for coming in choppingup some ted with us. This has
been super fun and we hope thateverybody will check out your work and your
tweets and your podcast and enjoy tedLasso and all the things that you love
(48:07):
along with you. Thank you allso much. This is a blast,
and that's our show. We hopeyou enjoyed our conversation with Alex McDaniel,
who can find links to her work, her social media accounts, and everything
else we mentioned in the show notes. We'll be back soon with more ted
Lasso goodness, but you can keepthe conversation going with us on Twitter and
(48:29):
Instagram in the meantime. Our handleon both platforms is at ted Lasso Pod.
This episode of Rich Until We Dieis brought to you by Jimmy Kerosene
Productions is produced by me Christian aswell as Brett. If you're enjoying the
podcast, please take thirty seconds tosubscribe to our feed and give the show,
a five star review on Apple Podcastsor a five star writing on Spotify.
(48:50):
Heck, if you're feeling generous,you could even do both. As
always, we appreciate all the ways, and I'll share your love and support
for the pod. Okay, Christiansigning off for Brett and Alex. Thanks
for listening and until next time,cheers y'all. Ninety nine nine Court
Welcome to the Crown and Anchor Greyhounds. This is Richmond Till We Die,
the conversation about the Apple TV Plusshow ted Lasso, where we explore the
characters, their relationships to each other, and how they're able to make a
slap until we can hardly breathe onemoment and feel with the deepest parts of
our hearts the next. I'm Christianand to air for today's interview, I
listened to copious amounts of big critthe most notable rapper of all time from
(00:38):
the state of Mississippi. Our guesttoday is Alex McDaniel. Alex is the
managing editor at USA Today's For theWin, a social news hub that focuses
on sports and entertainment. Of course, Alex is a huge, huge fan
of ted Lasso as well. She'swritten about ted Lasso for at the Win
and has had the opportunity to interviewprincipal cast member for the site. Alex
(01:02):
also co host ted Lasso episodes forthe Big Screen Sports Podcast. Is one
of our favorite Twitter follows, andas such is the primary reason we have
a working knowledge of news. Emanatingfrom the University of Mississippi Athletic Department,
and this is your official warning thereare some light spoilers for ted Lasso season
(01:22):
three up through episode five, SoGreyhounds please join us in giving a warm
welcome to Alex McDaniel. Thank youso much for being here with us this
morning. Alex, this is soexciting y'all. Thank you so much for
asking me to come on. Ifeel this is just a treat. Y'all
are great. I love what youdo. Oh well, thanks, Well,
we're fans of your work too,and the reason one of the reasons
(01:46):
we connected with you on the internetis because we are all fans of the
show ted Lasso, of course.So why did you decide to start watching
ted Lasso? And what was themoment you knew Okay, yeah, I'm
in this. Yeah. So it'sa few things. I mean, I
think one of the one of myfavorite things just about I think the collective
fan base who've been watching from thebeginning is we all know we were pretty
(02:06):
much in the same situation, rightand it was different levels of terrible in
summer twenty twenty. So you know, like right after COVID hit, I
kind of had a dream job atESP Nation. I loved it, and
we all got unceremoniously laid off,and I spent that summer playing animal crossing
and being just like waiting to findout, Like I was doing freelance stuff,
(02:29):
but I felt so lost, andI think all of us did,
and it was just kind of thiscollective isolation and sadness. And I forget
where I saw it, but itwas just something that had popped up,
maybe on an ad. And youknow, I've been an SNL fan since
birth, and I've loved Jason Sadigisforever, and I especially love his dramatic
work. I think I've seen allof his movies, and I you know,
(02:51):
in my head, I was like, oh, that'll be funny.
Yeah, it's another funny shot,but that'll be really good. And so
I just started watching it. Iguess it was that August or whenever it
draw, I think it took.I knew I was going to watch it
regardless, because it was one ofthose things I just think you invest in
certain people and you're like, thiscould be kind of garbage, and I'll
still watch the whole thing, right, But I think it was episode three
(03:13):
with Trent Krem. I think thatwas the one where it really clicked for
me and a lot of people whereI was like, oh, this is
more than what we thought. Itwas, like, this is going to
go deeper than just this major leagueesque plotline. And that's when I started
squawking on Twitter every day, likebullying people like you've got to watch the
show because there's just something here andI don't know what it is, but
(03:37):
yeah, So that's how I gotinto it. Now here we stand,
we're about halfway through season three aswe're having this conversation right now, and
at the beginning of this season,you wrote a piece at for the Win
titled te Lasso's third season feels likethe end. Now we have to trust
them to stick the landing. Howare you holding up now with your trust
(03:59):
to the process meter as to themsticking the landing, I think they're going
to do it. I think thisseason is so different for a lot of
reasons. Number one, we hadto wait so long for it. Number
two, these episodes are twice aslong, and so we're the experience of
watching it is so different. We'regetting all of these storylines that are progressing
and wrapping up, and it's certainlynot the simple like season one. You
(04:24):
know, is Rebecca going to benice. You know, it's like so
much happening, but you know,this writing team and as a writer myself,
like I just really love good storytelling, and I have no reason to
believe they won't. Like I thinkin that column, my biggest point was
when you get invested in the showand you love it for whatever reasons you
(04:44):
have, you do get an ideain your head of like what does a
good ending look like to me?Like what would make me happy for these
characters? And so I think mypoint was like you may not get that,
you might not get what you want, you know, pun intended,
But I do think think it's goingto end the way it's supposed to end,
and so I'm still very confident inthat. But I kind of like
how clueless we are about a lotof things right now. It's kind of
(05:08):
anything could happen. So it's beengood. Yeah. One of the really
interesting things as this show has developedis kind of taking what you said about
first season. It was very likeclear what the focus was, like,
you know, we were learning aboutTed, but really it was like is
Rebecca going to be redeemed? Likeis she gonna actually like sort of start
(05:28):
to heal and now they've done somuch work with all of these characters,
who, like in a lot ofshows, would be more of like supporting
characters, like they would have somekind of B or C plot stuff.
But in the second and third seasonespecially, like that has really come into
focus and become part of, likea major part of the show. So
it's not just what is Ted orwhat is Rebecca doing, Like we're seeing
lots of growth from Roy and Keileyand Nate, like, there have been
(05:51):
so many other characters that have veryweighty storylines and that I think has contributed
to the sort of feeling of what'sgoing to happen, because it feels like
there's a lot to resolve with sevenepisodes left. If this is indeed the
final season, you know, ifwe if we're wrapping up this you know,
this arc, this chapter, howeveryou want to think about it right
now, it's a lot And Ithink that's a credit to the writers that
(06:13):
they've made these characters so interesting thatwe care about all of them, I
know, and we really do careabout all of them. I think when
you do kind of a rundown,it's like I need to know this is
going to work out for everybody involvedhere, and so you know, it's
exactly what you said. It's justa credit to the to the writer's room,
because they are so intentional about bothhow they've structured the show but also
(06:36):
in the micro sense of like howthey've you know, made these episodes kind
of further these stories. Yeah,it's their fault for making us so invested,
is what you're right? Hate it? You alluded to earlier how this
question has shifted from will Rebecca benice to kind of how can Rebecca process
(06:58):
the trauma that she's been through tothe best of her ability in this moment.
And you did write a piece calledWhat ted Lasso taught Us about Abuse
Recovery in the Pitfalls of Revenge wayback in the dark ages of twenty twenty
one. It's probably one of thebest pieces of writing on to quote Higgins,
the goddamn Internet thoughts. What thoughtsor insights would you add to that
(07:24):
article now that we've seen more ofRebecca's story play out? You know,
it's so interesting too, because kindof going back to that story I started
telling twenty twenty where I'd lost mydream job. I didn't know if I'd
land anywhere. I started it forthe win that month that season two is
coming out, and so that firstweek I was like, so, um,
(07:46):
can we do a Ted Lasso week? You know? And I like
a lot of my team, myemployees, like they had followed me on
Twitter and they knew I was obsessedand like, yeah, let's do it.
And so I hadn't written anything forthe site yet because I was getting
acclimated as an editor and trying tolearn everything. And I told my deputy
editor, I'm like, I'm gonnawrite something really light and fun. Okay,
I'm about ted last time. I'lljust hand it to you. And
(08:07):
then like he gets on at sixam and sees like this, you know,
this long thing. And so Iwent back and because I don't like
to reread old stuff. I thinkwhen you're a writer or any kind of
artist, you just it's part ofit is like I see a million things
I would change, and part ofit is when you write something personal,
it's like, get that is exactlywhere I was two years ago, and
I don't know if I want torevisit it or look at it with fresh
(08:31):
eyes. But I did go back, and I was glad I had written
some of the things I had.I didn't feel like it was a total
stranger right back at me. AndI think Rebecca's story to me has been
the most personal for sure, andthe one I've related to the most.
It's you know, I see alot of obvious I see a lot of
people on Twitter talking about things thisseason that I don't necessarily agree with,
(08:54):
where some people have said, oh, this baby things out of nowhere,
Well that's not true, or youknow, she's regressing and you know her
hatred towards Rupert is clouding your judgment, which I do think, but I
don't think it's as simple as oh, all of her healing is gone.
I think, you know, thereare a lot of there's a lot of
nuance there behind why she feels theway she does and the fact that she
(09:16):
you know, we season two wassuch a big mental health season and we
saw a lot of healing, especiallyon Ted's part and everything, but she
hadn't really started that process yet,like we saw it in the funeral where
she started talking about things. Butshe's very closed off and a very British
kind of like I'm going to keepeverything buried down deep and who needs a
therapist when you can just bother yourfriends with your problems or whatever. So
(09:41):
you know, I think she's stillhas a lot to figure out. I
think for me, it's just she'strying to find what happiness is to her
and what it will take to makeher feel like she's lived a fulfilling life
for what she's wanted. When peopletalk about the pregnancy or just going to
become a mother thing, and wego back to that episode in season one
(10:05):
where Rupert says, you know,I suppose I just didn't want a baby
with you know, or like thisis better or whatever he says in her
face, and she's the best faceactor I've ever seen, but you can
tell her just devastates her and shefeels like she's missed out on something.
And so I think people are wronglyinterpreting this as, oh, well,
she's just like so desperate for love, she's looking for a baby. It's
(10:26):
like, no, this is actuallya part of her she's really wanted.
She has maternal instincts that have shownthrough the show. So I'm really interested
to see how that comes about andwhat that family looks like for her,
because I don't if it is romanticlove, great if it, but if
it's if it's her adopting a childor you know, becoming a stepmother or
something like whatever form that takes.I think that's when we're going to really
(10:48):
see kind of the evolution and completionof that character's journey because she, you
know, I think she's going inthe right direction. She knows where she
wants to go. We just don'tknow how it's going to end up.
But you know, I love Rebecca. I just think she's a great character.
Being press can be tricky because thereare some people in some press outlets
(11:11):
where you have to remain objective orneutral or whatever. One of the nice
things about some of the places you'vewritten is that you still get to be
a fan of things, and soanybody who follows on social media knows there
are some things that you really reallylove. Was that tricky when you were
part of the official Ted Lasso pressjunkett to keep your fangirl at bay as
(11:33):
you were interviewing primary cast members.So it's interesting because you know, my
career, I started in traditional newsand magazines and you know, went to
J school and I'm definitely one ofthose that I do not believe you need
a traditional journalism background to make itin this business. That's just where I
came from. And early in mycareer, and I wasn't in sports at
(11:56):
all until about six or seven yearsago. Early in my career, there
would be people who would call intolike a newspaper I worked for, and
they would see on my Twitter thatI went to All Miss and I was
an Ole Miss fan, and theywould accuse me a bias even though I
wasn't covering the team. I wasn't. It was wild and it was this
whole and I was confronted by afew bosses that were like, you need
to keep your opinions to yourself asif I was out there doing politics,
(12:18):
you know. And so that wasreally tricky for me because it, you
know, I which I'm not goingto get into like my media philosophy here,
but basically that we have focused somuch on objectivity, which I think
is a really unrealistic goal for people, that we have ignored the importance of
fairness. And so my argument foryears has always been, because I do
have I have had to write aboutalmost sometimes if I'm when I was working
(12:41):
in Mississippi, My thing is behonest about where your loyalties lie. And
where your biases are, and thenmake sure there's a system in place that
if you are covering them, youare covering them fairly. You have verification,
you know, Like I just youknow, I don't. I just
don't buy into the idea of likejournalists must be objective. Can look up
any journalists passed and look into theirhistory and what they like. We're people
(13:03):
and we should be people. ThenI did when I was able to pivot
into these websites that celebrated being afan, it was certainly more comfortable for
me, and with the junket,I wasn't worried about because I've done enough
interviews that like you just kind ofgo into interview mode. I was worried
about getting starstruck or anything like that. But it was different than any celebrity
interviews I've done because of how personalit was to me. And you know,
(13:28):
it's we haven't shared the full interviewsyet. We're kind of letting those
come out as the season goes on. But like in Jason's interview, I
don't know what came over me,but I had like one question left and
it was going to be a goodone, and I lost my mind and
was like, I just need youto know, like how much this show
meant to me at a time whenI thought my whole life was falling apart.
(13:52):
And you know, it's weird tothink that three years ago I was
unemployed and lost and I just kindof fall in love with the show and
then here I am with a job. I absolutely love interviewing you. And
then it occurred to me what Iwas doing, and I caught myself like,
all this is on video. It'svery embarrassing, Like that's so unprofessional.
I'm sorry, and Jason's like,who cares? Who cares if it's
unprofessional. I think it's important.It was just such a lovely moment,
(14:16):
and I felt like such a dorkI got done, But then looking back,
I was like, I'm glad Isaid it, you know, because
I normally would would keep things verystraight. But you know, I think
it was just fun. I thinkBrett was just a delight. More than
anything. I wanted to ask himabout Greece too, probably more than anything
in the world, so I gotto do that. But yeah, it
(14:37):
was just it was really fun andnerve wracking, and I think the high
leading up season three, the factthat we waited a year and a half
for it, and even like,you know, and this is what I
would I don't envy anybody who's famous. The fact that you have headlines about
Jason's personal life playing out at thisjust as strongly at the same time as
the show. I think there's justa lot going into it, and so
(15:00):
getting the opportunity to kind of justtalk to them all for a few minutes
was very heavy and a blast.But yeah, I can't watch the videos
because I just can't do it.I feel like it's written all over my
face. I was recently very gladthat you were a fan of Oldness because
(15:20):
they just recently hired a men's basketballcoach who lost his previous job because he
was arrested on a This is alwaysso tricky to talk about because you don't
want to like misrepresent it and getsued. But the police were called to
a domestic violence disturbance and he wasarrested, and then he lost his previous
(15:41):
job, and a lot of peoplewhen he lost his job, we're like,
call me and he's never going tocoach again. And then he is
now coaching again, like just afew months later, and I was like,
well, it sucks for I knowa lot of old miss fans like
it sucks for them. But Ido know one journalist that's not going to
let him get away with anything.So I guess that's that's not a good
(16:02):
thing about it. But no,I mean it's true. That's why.
And I will say this, Idon't care if Godrey. A lot of
people who work for that university cannotstand me for that reason because they can't
reconcile in their minds. How canyou love a place and I do what
that place gave to me built myentire life. They don't underly how you
can love a place and criticize itat all. And I'm like, yeah,
(16:23):
that's life. I mean think aboutjust even with your family relationships or
your personal relationships, like you're fightingfor something you care about, right,
and it would make no sense forlike you married me, you can't criticize
what I do or anything. It'slike, well, if we're gonna live
together forever, you know we're gonnahave to talk about things that I don't
like. So yeah, I've beenvery vocal over the years, and even
(16:45):
in college. I mean, thatuniversity has a very contentious history with race,
related symbolism, and I have coveredall of that for like fifteen years
at this point, but it hasn'tbeen easy because then you know, run
into somebody at a football game andthey're just like, Oh, I'm shocked
to see you here. I figuredyou would just reject it. I'm like,
man, I just want it tobe the best it can be.
(17:06):
I mean, let's how I feelwith the South in general, Like,
obviously this is a place that needsmajor overhauling on so many levels, but
like I'm a Southern girl at heart, like I want it to be the
best it can be. So,yeah, that basketball hires. We'll talk
a lot about it in the futureobvia some Twitter rants. But yes,
(17:27):
yeah, we've made the correlation hereon our show that SEC football and ACC
basketball are the closest analogs to theEPL in terms of both quality, like
being very high quality and having intensefan culture. And so speaking of you
know, your rivalries and allegiances,you have, I think, as an
(17:48):
external person, a cheeky and goodnatured relationship with Mississippi State fans. So
can you please explain to our audiencewhy you went so far as to dress
in missus SUPPI State Colors for arecent football game that they played against your
beloved University of Mississippi. Not justthe colors. I had the cowbell to
(18:11):
select a special cowbell. It's aspecial cowbell it was. It was a
ted Lasso cowbell um. So Iwas in the marching band. I was
actually a music major for most ofcollege. Oh yeah, yeah. I
wanted to be a here, aband director. That's what I wanted to
be. So I was a semester. I was a semester away from finishing
my music D degree. I waslike, you know, I'd always been
(18:32):
a writer too, and it wasreally bothering me that I hadn't done anything
with it, and I'm like,you know, I need to try it.
It was just the fear of likewhat if you fail and music ad
even though education jobs certainly and don'tcome with a lot of works or money
or anything. But I was confident. I was more confident that I would
have a consistent music I career thanI was that I could. There is
(18:55):
a stability in that, yes,exactly, And you know, if even
if you're not a band, reallythere are different elements of that you could
you could do. But I justreally felt to my god, I was
like, you need to try thewriting. You just need to see where
it takes you. So my parentswere thrilled for me staying in college an
extra year after that, but Istayed in the marching Man and I stayed
(19:17):
and went ensemble and and just lovedit. And you know, for an
SEC school, which most SEC schoolshave money at their disposal, and really
college bands in general at that levelusually have decent practice facilities. They at
least have a practice field similar towhat the football team would have where it's
an actual you know field with turfand lines and you want to replicate the
(19:41):
stadium atmosphere as much as possible.Well, it's never had that. They
had an open field behind the baseballstadium with ant piles and it was like
a little valley so it would getmuddy when it rained, and it wasn't
even a hundred yards long, sowe would like there were some sets during
practicing we run into the trees andit was it was pitiful, and the
band was just mistreated for the longesttime. And you definitely in Mississippi anyway,
(20:04):
you were not part of that bandbecause like it was a great scholarship
or because you've got a lot,you did it for the love of it.
And so a few years ago theystarted raising money for a new bandfield
or they launched a campaign, andit just wasn't moving because again the university
hasn't neglected that program for a longtime, and even people who donated considerable
(20:26):
amounts of money, like they weretrying to reach a five, six,
seven million dollar goal. And theuniversity had reached out to me in early
twenty twenty one and said, wedo this thing every year. It's Giving
Day. We asked some of ouralums if they would be ambassadors on social
media, you know, to supportsome of these funds. So they wanted
me to work for free basically,and I was like, you know,
(20:48):
and I'm again, I'm a journalist, so I'm never going to be like
a million dollar downer to my almmotter. But I am always happy to
do things that I am able toprovide. But I I just started thinking
about it. I'm like, nobodywants to donate to the band. It's
just truely, like, how dowe get innovative with this? And I
called I called my friend who hecovers Mississippi State, and I said I've
(21:11):
got a wacky idea. Just hearme out. I want to. I
know we're not going to raise alot of money, but like, what
if we did a thing where ifwe can get one hundred Mississippi State fans
to donate any amount It could bea dollar, but if we get a
hundred, I will go as aMissisippi State fan to the Egg Bowl this
year, which is our big rivalryfootball game. And he was like,
(21:32):
I don't know, Alex. Imean, people are not gonna want to,
Like, you know, money's tightfor everyone right now. We're still
kind of the throws of COVID,And I'm like, let's just try it.
Will you support me if we doanything? Yeah. So we get
to the day of or I thinkit was like a two day campaign,
and I lay it out and like, you know, I think I'm friendly
with a lot of Missisippi State fans. I mean, I'm not from Mississippi,
but my dad was and his wholefamily was Mississippi States. So to
(21:55):
me, it's like there's a youknow, there's a familiarity there. But
a lot of them really hate me. And so I didn't know how this
is going to go. But weended up tweeting and retweeting, and we
hit the one hundred very quickly,and then suddenly all this other money started
coming in from people from different schoolslike auburnel Obama and outside the SEC and
(22:18):
like, and people were just sofascinated. But like, she is going
to do the thing that will makeher throw up physically probably, Like it's
really that just to do this.So we ended up raising twenty five thousand
dollars, which again drop in thebucket, you know, but it was
more and then the band had everraised. And the point wasn't to raise
the five million. The point wasto get that story out there to people
(22:40):
that you know, I was tweetingout pictures of like George's field and Alabama's
field and saying, how is thisokay to let a university that spends so
much money on all this other stuff? And you know, this is a
classroom, A marching field is aclassroom, and this is it's not cool.
So yeah, so he did that, and I held up my end
(23:00):
of the bargain, and my friendI'm as State friend who helped me.
He made an itinerary for the wholeday the cowbell thing for them is really
important. So you I was goingto buy one. No, you don't
buy your first cowbell. You haveto be given the cowbell. And I'm
like, oh, no, one'sgonna give me one. And this amazing
thing. I have to shout himout. It's a man called his company's
(23:21):
called the bell Smith and it makesthese beautiful custom cowbells. And so you
know, the day of like I'mtailgating with state fans and everything, wearing
my maroon and white. It wasterrible, and he hands it to me
and I see the AFC Richmond logoon it, like shut up, and
then on the back I have itlike at my office, so I can't.
(23:42):
I think the back says like becurious, not judgmental. But it
was just so kind and such atreat, and I'm like this is it
was awesome. I had the bestday. We won, which was very
cool. I think I lost,it would have been worse, but you
know the cool thing about that though, And again this kind of goes back
to what I just said about peopleat the university. Not really, I'm
(24:03):
not their favorite gal. The universityfinally broke down and went it said okay,
just if she'll just stop you know, like here's the money, like
they reserved the funding and they neversaid me specifically, but it was just
it was very much conveyed, atleast as far as my sources say,
like because I had written a storyabout it, it was like this is
embarrassing, like Okay, here's yourmoney, you can have the field.
(24:26):
So they are almost done with thefield. It's beautiful and this I'm actually
going down in a month to seeit, and it's just incredible. It's
something I never thought would happen.And you know, getting helping in any
way to get that done because Icertainly wasn't able to donate a lot of
money. It means a lot tome because that program gave me a lot
and so you know, I'm neverdoing that again. I've never trust you
(24:48):
as articulars again, but it wasworth it for something like this. Do
you anticipate being presented with a NobelPeace Prize for your acts of diplomacy when
the project is finished? No,you know, And that's the other thing
I there's I have to be carefulhow I see this the spin And when
I say the university, I donot mean the band directors because I've wonderful
(25:11):
relationships with them, but it's beenspun that this was going to already happen
for years, and this was justkind of you know, and fine,
I don't want, you know,I do want the people who donated that
day to be recognized in some way, because it's very cool to have people
from other schools say, hey,we support you too. But no,
I don't think I'm going to belike invited to a ribbon cutting or anything.
(25:34):
But it's cool because I, youknow, the band director and I
are good friends, and so Ijust can't wait to see it. It'll
be great. Well, since we'realready on the topic of music, and
you are a known fan of lotsof things on the internet, I'm just
wondering. We geek out about themusic use on the show all the time,
(25:56):
especially in our episode conversations where wesometimes pick specific songs or moments.
Do you have like a favorite songor artist that's shown up in the ted
Lasso soundtrack, or like, didyou think that a song was particularly well
placed in a scene? Yeah,so, I you know, I totally
agree. I think they're so amazingand beautifully intentional with how they use music
(26:18):
in the show and I have,like, honestly, like a list of
like twenty moments where I could probablywrite individual essays on them, like this
is why it you know, buthave you interpret it? This is why
it matters. I think I'm sopartial though to season one. I think
just because that was the music hadso much to do with why it hit
me. And I think, youknow, when he and Michelle are saying
(26:38):
goodbye in the rain and Forever isplaying, that gets me every time.
I will never walk again, right, I mean, just like you can
hear Marcus Mum's voice. And Ithink you know, we did a on
the Big Screen Sports podcast that Iam the guest on whenever we do ted
last episodes. We did a TedLasso draft and I took my first pick
(27:00):
was the season one finale, largelybecause of how they use You'll Never Walk
alone. You know, I justthought that was beautiful too, But I
you know, I think it's justit's all so good. And something I
say I've said before on different podcaststhat I want everyone to do is,
you know, the the use ofcelesque strange in the Liverpool episode. I
(27:23):
don't know if you're Saint Paul andthe Broken Bones fans. Yes, I
love Saint Paul and the Broken Bones. Okay, so Paul, the lead
singer during COVID. He he hasa video on YouTube where he did a
cover of Strange and he talks aboutlike he said, I'm watching ted Lasso
and it's this great show that justkind of makes you feel warm inside.
It's his version, Like I wishhe had recorded it, because they should
(27:45):
put it on the show. It'sabsolutely gorgeous. So please google that and
listen to it a lot. Butyeah, you know, I just think
like they're really smart about it.I know there was a bit of commotion
about how Apple released the entire seasonthree soundtrack or the playlist rather on everyone
than they went back and like changedit, and now people are reading into
(28:07):
what a lot of those songs mightmean. So yeah, you know,
I just don't think there's a singlething wasted on this show, and definitely
never a moment where it's like we'vegot to put something there. I guess
we'll just go with this song.It's just another layer. I think that
makes the show really good. Yeah, when we've talked to actors or other
sort of creative or technical team membersfrom the show, They've often commented on
(28:30):
how there will be there will bemultiple choices, but it will be like
a song like this or one ofthese like four or five songs will be
here, and so I think there'ssort of like a power ranking of like
this is what we want if not, like here's several other suggestions. So
it's never just like it will besomething like hey, Jude, you know,
like there's like we specifically want this, and I you know, we've
(28:51):
talked about that on a handful ofepisodes of like how difficult it can be
to secure those placements, to getrights to actually use a song in your
show, which seems wild to meas an outsider, because I'm like you,
if your song is getting used ina hit show like that can only
be a good thing. But madeby the company that has dump trucks full
of gold. I guess that's thething that Apple money man. Yeah,
I guess I do get their reticence. That's like, you know, especially
(29:15):
with the Disney story that we've talkedabout, where at first for Frozen,
they were like, yeah, wedon't think you can use let it go,
like never mind, but then theywent and like shot the scene and
pitched it back to Disney and theywere like, okay, yeah, that's
great. And I just like recentlysaw that the composers of the music for
Frozen had like shortly after that episodeaired back in twenty twenty, they like
tweeted at Hannah and they were like, this is so beautiful, like you
(29:36):
did it justice, like which isanother nice, like great moment and just
speaks to like the tenacity of themusic team. I mean, they're obviously
Christa Miller works on all of BillLawrence's shows as his wife as the music
director too, but Antony Purview's workis just really amazing and as someone who
loves music and studied music, likethat's just something that drew me to the
(29:56):
show instantly. Is like Okay,yeah, this like they're very intentional about
what's happening here, Like there's alot of subtext here to really like sink
your teeth into. And that's justa wonderful, like a wonderful thing,
absolutely, And I you know twothings on that. I think you know
the story we've all heard about howJason had called Marcus and he didn't he
just didn't listen to the voicemail forever, and like I can't even imagine the
(30:18):
show without Marcus's influence. And like, you know, I'm a big mum
for and SNCE fan, and Iremember, like back in I Forget when
that Hopeless Wanderer came out and thevideo with Jason Sadeki is in Baven And
so I love that there's that personalpart of it because Jason's obviously friends with
him and connected with his music.And I think that's great And the only
(30:41):
other thing it's going to say,going back to what shows go through to
secure rights, one of my favoritelittle like I love the Office, one
of my favorite Office facts is themost money they ever spent on a song
was that scene. I believe it'sthe episode when they're finding out if Dunderman's
gonna go bankrupt or something, andyeah, Steve Carrel's in his office,
(31:04):
Michael's in his office and Sean Mullin'slullaby comes on and the other opened the
doors like he amything, and like, you know, it's just it's such
a funny scene, but it's kindof a throwaway. And I think they
spent something like forty thousand dollars justfor that three seconds of that song because
they're like this is the song,this is the joke, We're It's worth
it, this is what We're gonnabe for just that's one of my favorite
(31:26):
little trivia facts about the Office.So yeah, I agree with you one
hundred percent. Like the show feltlike it needed Marcus Mumford, like in
the DNA. Now that we've seenit this way, it's hard to imagine
it any other way, and especiallylike you see his influence and things like
you mentioned with his version of You'llNever Walk Alone, which I think was
a brilliant choice by everyone involved toslot that in, to create a new
(31:48):
version to sort of fit this momentat the end of season one. Right,
We've talked about it on our pod. Many people know that comes from
the American Golden Age musical Carousel,Um, and it speaks to a larger
love I think of musical theater amongthe characters and the creators of this show.
So I'm wondering, do you haveany favorite musical theater references that have
(32:09):
been made so far across the threeseasons. Um, I'm trying to I
don't know if I have a specificreference, though I did. I have
to say I loved the Julie Andrewsthat I thought it was just oh,
I know, it was just sobrilliant. I think, um know,
another reason I was pumped about theshow in general was because of Hannah Waddingham.
(32:31):
Yeah, and obviously like for musicaltheater nerds, like she's just you
know, she's a Lady of theLake and she is just like such a
big star. And I love Ijust I love anything that incorporates kind of
a quirky subgroup of society as ifit's just commonplace, because you know,
theater and music kids would get thisrep for being theater and music kids and
(32:52):
like, right, oh, you'rein drama in high schooling. Yeah,
I was, actually, But it'slike I love how like seamlessly the kind
of weave a lot of that stuffin is that everybody in society knows that
this is fine. I can't thinkof like a reverence on the top of
my head. I do think it'sinteresting that, you know, I just
talked about the season three playlist thatwas released and Party is kind of hoping
(33:14):
it's a fake out, but thelast few songs from it came from Lakajo
Fault. Yeah, and like,yes, very excited to find out what
that is all about Yeah. Ihave tried very hard not to speculate,
but yeah, it's on them forputting out the whole soundtrack. They did
it, wouldn't it be. Ijust like, I really hope it's a
trick though. I hope they start, they keep releasing and then it's just
(33:37):
all something different. They are kindof doing the Kanye thing of like I'm
just like switching this up in realtime, Like I'm just I know,
just changing it. I was like, I went back on there the other
day and I was like, there'slike six songs here that we're not here
a couple of weeks ago. Iknow. So from now I'm going to
refer to the soundtrack as Life ofLasso. Yeah, I love it.
(33:57):
Before we leave Musical Theater, Idid just see on your Twitter we mentioned
how fun you are as a followon social media, and you recently had
the opportunity to travel to New Yorkand see a show on Broadway. Do
you want to tell us a littlebit about why you decided to take a
last minute trip to see Mulin Rougein New York. So I love Aaron
Debate more than air. I thinkhe is just delicious and I've followed him
(34:22):
for years and years and years.It was back during the dark COVID times.
He was on Broadway for this,and you know, you just kind
of make a plan in your head, like, Okay, well he's gonna
be there for a while, I'llgo see him whenever. And I had
made plans with my friend to goin the fall of twenty twenty one,
(34:43):
yes, and they fell through,and like, I had just started a
new job, so I really didn'tfeel comfortable like just taking off for something.
So I was like, it's okay, he'll be there a while,
and then he left that I wasdevastated. We missed it, We missed
our shot. And then of courselast year he came back and announced another
limited run this year, but thesame thing happened where it's like, okay,
(35:06):
I'll make it a point to go, I'll make it a point to
go, and then you get caughtup with life and it just doesn't happen.
And so my Sun's spring break waslast week and he was spending it
with his dad and his family inNew Jersey, and I just that same
friend that I was going to gowith two years ago. I was like,
Okay, here's the deal. Ican only see this show like Sunday
(35:27):
at five pm. That's it.That's our shot. And this is like
three days before. You know,I don't want to go, That's fine,
I'm gonna go and get a hotel. So it's a very last minute
and we got really great seats.And you know, the last thing I
had seen on Broadway was like rightbefore COVID it was Tom Hilston, another
love of mine in Betrayal and soand I used to like go to show
(35:49):
us all the times. This isjust kind of a big deal for me
anyway, and we went. Itwas just an incredible show for so many
reasons, and his last show withthem it was actually this past Sunday,
So yeah, it was great tokind of see that. And just there's
nothing more energizing for me than livemusic or musical theater or something. It
just recenters me and it again remindsme of like being that performer and being
(36:13):
that music kid. And there's somethingso light and free about being in the
presence of really talented people and seeingwhat they can put together. So yeah,
that was such a treat, noregrets. Yeah, and it's nice
that we get to see Aaron debatestalent on Display Weekly at the moment on
Shamika Dune season two, also knownas Schmicaco. So, I mean,
(36:36):
he's just doing incredibly excellent work asthe character tofur in this season, I
know, and you know that showoddly enough, even though like I'm pretty
trusting in most of what Apple TVdoes because I haven't seen a show yet
that's been like, O, well, you know, like everything they've done
this incredible. I did not knowhow they were going to pull that show
(36:58):
off in the beginning. I'm like, ah, is it going to work?
Is it going to be? Idon't know, And they did,
of course in that first season wasgreat, but I was like, well,
it's got to end here, rightthey can't. How are they going
to do this? Yeah, thatdoesn't even make sense. And again it's
kind of like I am with TedLasso, where I'm like, how are
they going to do this? Andthen they always pull it off so beautifully,
and yeah, I shouldn't get Dunesone of those that I'm like,
this is just such a such awonderful treat that we have, but it's
(37:22):
not for everyone. Night and thatspeaking of wonderful treats that may not necessarily
be for everyone. You're a bigfan of this video game called Animal Crossing
that I don't personally understand a wholelot about. However, very much in
awe of the fact that you madea ted a Lasso Island in the midst
(37:43):
of this game. Podcasts are notvery good for giving people like tours,
but could you please give us alittle tour of ted Lasso Island and maybe
explain to me what Animal Crossing is. Animal Crossing was truly just one of
those things that came out right whenCOVID hit and my son suddenly at home.
I was at home, I hadlost my job, and he was
(38:04):
like he was gosh six at thetime, seven six six wow, And
we had a switch and I waslike, oh, a little kid's game
because I never got into the oldAnimal Crossing and my sister was into that
because a little you know, Ijust I didn't play a lot of video
games as a teenager. I playedthem more as a kid with like my
Super Nintendo. So I got thegame for him and then I'm watching him
(38:25):
play it and it's just this lovelylike you're just on an island and you're
like working to renovate everything, andyou're doing these little quests where you're trying
to earn enough money to like buildthe town store and you know, get
your house upgraded and buy furnishings andyou can build things. You can change
(38:45):
your island. But it's not it'snot like my set also plays Minecraft and
I played with them. Sometimes it'sjust my brain that's way too overwhelming for
me because there's too many possibilities.But Animal Crossing is controlled and enough,
I feel like and cute enough thatyou don't get overwhelmed by all this stuff
you could do. So yeah,so you can have a little house,
(39:08):
you can. What's amazing about thisgame is just the thousands of things you
can buy, whether it's furniture orlike anything you would put in your home,
or like structures you can buy likemarket stalls that you can do whatever,
and they let you customize it.So a lot of the items you
can customize with either designs that youmake in the game, or there's a
(39:30):
way that you can transfer logos orreally anything to the game to make it
look like anything you want. Wehad to take a mandatory one week furlough
at Christmas, and I'm not goodat not working like I have to be
working all the time, and suddenlyI'm not even allowed to check my email,
and I was stir crazy, andwe hadn't played in a long time,
(39:50):
so I restarted Our Island. Andit takes a lot of work to
get to the point where you caneven customize this stuff. And I'm like,
I'm going to make it ten last. So I went, so,
what the what it actually is likemy house. When you walk in my
house, my living room is thelocker room. I have that set up
with like the Beliefs sign on thewall, and I use like a flat
(40:13):
screen TV to be the window lookinginto Ted's office. Then you go upstairs
and there's Rebecca's office and like,of course you can't ever get anything exactly
right, but it's kind of thesame layout of like her desk and the
art on the walls and the couchand I they have one of the objects
in the game is like a littletakeout box, and so I was able
to make that pink to look likeher little biscuit box. And you know,
(40:36):
it's huge. If you go tothe basement, that is where they
have press conferences, So it's setup with like the chairs and the desk
and like the I have the fizzywater on the desk and the things in
the back. It's just so silly. But when I get caught on a
project, I'm like, let's makethis as accurate as possible. And then
(40:58):
the rest of the island I hadset up just kind of like a little
English town, so I've got like, you know, I used castle walls
to kind of make everything a littlemore elegant, or tried to anyway,
and like these cobblestone walkways and everythingelse. So I never fully finished it.
And here's the terrible thing that Iso regret that I posted photos of
(41:21):
that island like three days before Iinterviewed them, but I had deleted it
because we wanted to start over again. And I was like, I'm okay,
you know, the game is justlike you played as long as you
want and then you can erase itall and start over. And I kind
of like doing that. It wasall gone, but I shared photos of
it online. Suddenly people are like, can I take a tour? Can
I see it? Can you makea dream address for me? Because you
(41:43):
can, you can make a littlecode where anybody can like they don't visit,
so it's not a live visit toyou, but anyone. They essentially
make like a copy of your islandwhere people can run around. And I
had just I had deleted all ofit. So I recently started rebuilding it
again, which is just a lotto work. But you know, I
now I want to like add KJPRAnd I also I did have the pub,
(42:07):
so I had the little pub andtry to design that the best way
I could. But the cool thingabout it, you know, I was
able to import the Richmond logos andthe Belief sign and everything else, and
you can just it's so easy tomake things customize and cute and I don't
know, it's just the cutest game. It's a cozy game, is what
(42:29):
I call it. Have you addedZavaville to the corner of the locker room?
That's what I'm working on right now. Actually, so I was playing.
I had a few minutes the otherday and I was like, okay,
this is We're going to read youthe corner and and I've got the
little like numbers above all the lockers. So I've got to go back and
make the the Zava thing. Yeah, So it's just you know, it's
(42:51):
fun, but it's silly, andI tweeted photos of it. Like I
said, like, the three daysbefore I did those interviews, well,
I didn't even know I had thoseinterviews yet, is the thing. I
know, if I was going toactually get them, ide the photos with
something like, oh, like you'venever made your animal crossing island, knew
a ted Lasso island. And Itagged a few of the cast members,
which is just something I do anyway, not so much because I think they're
going to respond, but back inthe day when you could depend on the
(43:14):
algorithm, you know, if youtagged people that other people followed, you
might see the tweets suggest in thefeed. So I was trying to reach
ted Lasso fans and then I justput Twitter away and didn't come back to
it for the night, and Igot an email then I was like,
hey, we approved these interviews fornext week. And I'm like, oh
my gosh, that's wild. Andthen I get so I had Jason that
Monday, and I get to theJason thing, and like I said,
(43:36):
before I made, you know,I felt like such a dork revealing my
heart and soul to him. Andafter he said He's like, I don't
care if it's unprofessional. I think, you know, human connection is great
or whatever he said that was sosuper inspiring. Then he says, by
the way, my kids really appreciateyour Animal Crossing Island and they want to
know they want to know how todo all that. And I actually made
a TikTok about this moment because Iwas just nervous and you know, running
(44:01):
on autopilot, and I say somethinglike, I'll show them. I'll show
your kids since we have such aclose personal relationship. And so that was
the coolest because it's like, ohmy god, he saw it. But
then the next day when I interviewedBrendan, they like, you know,
the screen pops up. The wayit works these virtual interviews is like you're
(44:22):
in a waiting room with a bunchof other journalists where it's just like a
zoom call or everybody's on it.Then they send you a link to a
breakout room and I click the linkand there's Brendan and he's like Animal Crossing
for Life, Like I'm rebuilding itbecause a lot of fans reached out and
they're like, how do you getthe design codes and all this? And
I'm gonna make like a little I'llprobably just put a post on the website
(44:42):
about if you want to do it, you know, this is how you
do it. But so mad atmyself for deleting it because I just never
I just wasn't thinking like other peoplewould want to do it. It was
more of me saying, look athow much of a dork I am that
I would devote all this time to, you know, making it if you
gotta play it, And I lovethat Now. Crossing is also part of
the DNA of the show because justin the most recent episode there was the
(45:04):
mention from Isaac of saying that's theonly game that they were allowed to play
before bed because it's so soothing itis. And I just it's wild how
Animal Crossing and ted Lasso like reallyplayed into my life journey the Fast Years,
because it's, like I said,during COVID, those were the things
that I kind of clung to asjust sort of keeping me sane a little
bit, and like that game cameat the perfect time. Everybody was obsessed
(45:25):
with it, so playing that alot, and then ted Lasso comes and
it's just like these little life jacketsessentially that everybody had to find peace somehow,
and they had to cope somehow,and there were healthy ways to do
that in unhealthy ways, and I'msure like my wine consumption probably wasn't the
best buy then, but you know, those to me were healthy things that
(45:46):
you could you could do to getthrough that time. So I love that
they referenced it. I want toclose with a very important topic, and
that is tea. It's not exactlya Midwestern thing. It's very much the
English and I iced tea is verymuch a Southern thing. So yeah,
that is explained for everybody. Howsweet tea is its own wonderful creation.
(46:12):
And whether or not you think Tedwould enjoy sweet tea, Oh yeah,
you know, tech you get downwith some sweet tea. I have no
doubt in my mind. It's interestingbecause I moved to northern Virginia last August,
and I know what I was gettinginto. People would be like,
Virginia is still the South, notthis part of Virginia. This is not
nothing southern, and so but Iyou know, I lived in New York
(46:36):
right out of college, and solike I've moved around. I even though
I grew up in the South,I've certainly spent most of my life here
and I think when I was younger, the funny thing was like going to
a northern state or you know,my mom is from Chicago originally, so
we spent a lot of time visitingour family there. And you would go
to a restaurant and ask for asweet tea and they're like, we'll bring
sugar to you. It's like,no, because it won't mix again sweet
(47:00):
tea. And so it's it's evenfunny to hear people say iced tea because
in the South there is no icedtea. You either want sweet or on
sweet. Like, if you wanton sweetee, that's how you order it.
I want an unwe like tea.It's just yeah, if you say
tea, you're getting a sweet tea. If you don't want sugar in your
tea, you need to be specificabsolutely, and so um, and I
don't you know, I'm I'm oneof those I can do a half and
(47:22):
half because I try not to havetoo much sugar when I was younger.
Record yeah, but so I reallyam an unsweet tea person. But yeah,
it's just you know, it's different, it's regional stuff. And um,
it's always funny to like live ina place like this and to go
and kind of forget where you arefor a second. It's already unsweetened.
(47:45):
You can get iced tea, soum yeah. Ted's aversion to hot tea,
though, just cracks me up.Alex. We are so grateful for
your time today for coming in choppingup some ted with us. This has
been super fun and we hope thateverybody will check out your work and your
tweets and your podcast and enjoy tedLasso and all the things that you love
(48:07):
along with you. Thank you allso much. This is a blast,
and that's our show. We hopeyou enjoyed our conversation with Alex McDaniel,
who can find links to her work, her social media accounts, and everything
else we mentioned in the show notes. We'll be back soon with more ted
Lasso goodness, but you can keepthe conversation going with us on Twitter and
(48:29):
Instagram in the meantime. Our handleon both platforms is at ted Lasso Pod.
This episode of Rich Until We Dieis brought to you by Jimmy Kerosene
Productions is produced by me Christian aswell as Brett. If you're enjoying the
podcast, please take thirty seconds tosubscribe to our feed and give the show,
a five star review on Apple Podcastsor a five star writing on Spotify.
(48:50):
Heck, if you're feeling generous,you could even do both. As
always, we appreciate all the ways, and I'll share your love and support
for the pod. Okay, Christiansigning off for Brett and Alex. Thanks
for listening and until next time,cheers y'all. Ninety nine nine Court
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