Smells Like Mean Spirit
Ted accompanies his son Henry, who has spent the last six weeks staying with him in London, as he boards his flight back to Kansas. Henry gives Ted a toy Premier League trophy and tells him it's just a placeholder until Ted wins the real one. On the way home from the airport, Ted calls Dr. Sharon, who is now working for a rugby team but has stayed in contact with Ted for therapy sessions. Ted expresses to Sharon that he sometimes wonders if his staying at Richmond is doing more harm than good, but Sharon reminds him that he doesn't quit things.
At Nelson Road, both the players and staff are frustrated by the fact that every sports pundit is predicting that AFC Richmond will finish last in the League. Rebecca is also upset that West Ham United, now owned by Rupert, is projected to finish in the top four. Higgins suggests that Richmond improve their odds by signing a new player, while Roy recommends that the team focus on excelling at simple, classic tactics instead of trying clever but risky strategies like Nate would have preferred. In order to take the team's mind off the pundits' predictions, Ted leads the players on a field trip to the London sewer system. Ted explains that he wants the team to build connections to each other and let other people's garbage, such as pundits' opinions, flow through them and away, much like how the creation of the London sewer system helped cure a cholera outbreak by improving hygiene and waste management in the city.
Keeley and Rebecca meet for lunch at Keeley's new office, where Keeley breaks down and confesses that she's overwhelmed by the stress of running her own business. Rebecca comforts her, and the two of them talk about the upcoming football season. Rebecca admits that she's concerned that Ted isn't taking it seriously enough, and that she still desperately wants to beat Rupert even though she no longer wants to destroy his life. Keeley advises Rebecca that she has to let Ted and Rupert be themselves.
At West Ham, Nate establishes himself as a strict, cruel manager who disciplines his players with humiliation and shrugs off most of his coworkers' attempts to be friendly with him. Rupert encourages Nate to insult Richmond at a press conference; after a brief anxiety attack, Nate does so, to the anger of Rebecca as she watches a livestream of the conference. When Ted returns from the sewers, Rebecca angrily confronts him about skipping training and asks him to fight back against Nate and Rupert. Instead of attacking them, however, Ted uses Richmond's press conference to take control of the narrative by making self-deprecating jokes, which Rebecca ultimately comes to appreciate. Nate, watching a livestream of the Richmond conference, is irritated by Ted's attitude, but his mood brightens upon learning that Rupert has bought him a new luxury car.
That night, Roy and Keeley have dinner with Phoebe, where the two of them explain to her that they've broken up because they're both too busy with their careers. Phoebe questions their excuses for the breakup, but ultimately accepts it; however, once she and Roy leave, she tells him that he's being stupid. Meanwhile, Henry and Ted talk on Facetime, where Henry asks if Ted and Nate can still be friends even though Nate doesn't work for the team anymore. Ted tells Henry that he doesn't like being apart from him and would only do it for something he really believes in. Henry shows Ted a gift he got from Jake, Michelle's "friend." Ted struggles to hide his distress at the revelation.
Tropes featured in "Smells Like Mean Spirit" include:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Ted invokes this as part of his Politeness Judo towards Nate, claiming to have found the latter's insult hilarious and that his only objection was that it wasn't insulting enough.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Henry asks Ted if he and Nate can still be friends even though Nate is at West Ham.
- Artistic License – Sports: Jan Maas claims that, statistically, most newly-promoted Premier League teams are relegated in their first season. This isn't actually the case: since the Premier League was founded in 1992-93, only 1/3 of newly-promoted clubs have suffered that fate.
- Bad Boss: Rupert starts Nate's tenure at West Ham by showering him in compliments and buying him a car, repeating the abusive patterns he displayed in the past with Rebecca. Love bomb to start, then distance and subtle insults.
- Black Comedy: Mr. Maher, the janitor, took care of Ted at school until his dad remembered to pick him up. Ted helped him clean the school the whole time. His dad paid Mr. Maher for his time, then Mr. Maher turned around and gave the money to Ted to pay him for the work, then Ted turned around and used the money to buy a present for Mr. Maher, which he didn't get to give him because Mr. Maher got hit by a train.Doc. Sharon: Wow. I did not see that coming.
Ted: Yeah, you know what, neither did Mr. Maher. - Blatant Lies:
- At his press conference, Nate tells the reporters that's he's been getting along well with the West Ham players and has been learning a lot about them. Not only was he just shown bullying the players at training and making them all miserable, he wasn't even referring to any of them by name.
- Rupert "mistakes" Nate's old Mini for a cleaner's car and has it towed from the premier parking lot. The fact that he does it when Nate's in his office to see it happening, humiliating Nate and making him more malleable, all but spells it out that it was a deliberate ploy.
- Blunt "Yes": When Roy explains how the 4-4-2 formation is the best tactic to stick to since the players have known it since childhood, Ted facetiously asks if it was invented by the Russians. Roy and Beard both bluntly answer "Yes".
- Boring, but Practical: Roy recommends Richmond maintain a basic 4-4-2 formation, since most players have been drilled in it since they were children, so the team will know what to do on the pitch rather than getting lost trying to remember elaborate plays.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: Trent Crimm's successor at the Independent introduces himself the same way that Trent would.
- Call-Back:
- Rebecca reminds Ted that he’d previously stated his intent to win the league on Richmond's first season back in the Premier League, before accidentally spitting sparking water into her face.
- Roy reveals that he finally watched Hoosiers, after Ted had tried to pay homage to it before the team's F.A. Cup semi-final match.Roy: Why the fuck's it called Hoosiers?
- Nate continues to insist that he actually said "Wunderkind" rather than "Wonder Kid" when he spoke to the press following Richmond's F.A. Cup victory over Tottenham.
- Ted being forced to say good-bye to Henry, followed by his lonely tour of his apartment and a depressed shower refers back to the pilot episode and how Ted spent his first night in London.
- Phoebe mentions that the ice cream is immediately doing bad things to her stomach, similar to when Roy mentioned that he once ate so much ice cream that he shat himself on the bus ride home.
- Character Development:
- Jamie's is acknowledged by Beard when the team return from their impromptu trip to the sewers to find Nate had trashed the team in his press conference - Ted goes to speak to the team, before Beard motions for him to wait as Jamie calms his frustrated teammates down by reminding them of the purpose of the trip - to let shit flow instead of letting it get to them.
- Ted is shown to be making a conscious effort to gain an understanding of association football. He's used some of his quality time with Henry to do things like play FIFA Soccer and review soccer flash cards, and spends some time struggling through Inverting the Pyramid. He's still got a long way to go, but he's shown to have gained a much deeper understanding of soccer tactics and terminology than before.
- Character Tic: Jamie shows that he's picked up Ted's habit of creating rhyming salutations.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Dani is disappointed to learn that Paddington Bear doesn't actually write his own Twitter account. Even Zorreaux is only kind of sure that people write his Twitter for him.
- Cool Car: Nate's worn-down Mini gets replaced with a brand-new Aston Martin, courtesy of Rupert.
- Dare to Be Badass: Over the course of the episode, Ted tries to temper expectations of Richmond winning the league, before Henry points out that Richmond have to at least try.
- Desperately Craves Affection: The first thing Nate does when he arrives in his office is to search his name on Twitter and scroll through the positive comments. He does the same thing after seeing Ted's press conference, only to see that most people approve of Ted's response and are now directing their mockery to Nate instead, prompting him to put his phone down in disappointment.
- Downer Beginning: Overall, things are fairly downbeat in this season opener. Ted is depressed after Henry goes back to Kansas following his summer trip to London and keeps wondering why he's still in London at all, and he ends the episode accidentally learning that Michelle has a new boyfriend. Rebecca is lashing out because of Rupert's ownership of West Ham. Roy, struggling with being in charge of tactics now, and Keeley, who is feeling overworked with her new company, have broken up. The Richmond players are out of sorts due to the public expecting them to be relegated again. Even Nate, who mostly relishes in his new job and continues to enjoy bullying other people, particularly his old team, is suffering from panic attacks, being manipulated by Rupert, and still neglected by his father.
- Downtime Downgrade: Roy and Keeley broke up over the summer.
- Evil Wears Black: Both Rupert and Nate are dressed in all black and have even decorated their West Ham offices with the color, even though the club's traditional colors are claret and sky blue.
- Foil: Ted and Nate's opposing personalities are contrasted throughout the episode.
- When Ted arrives at work, he rushes forward to open the door for someone else. When Nate arrives at work, he ignores a greeting and dismisses a staffer who comes by his office. Nate is also alone in his office while Ted shares workspace with Beard and Roy.
- During training, Ted realizes that the players are feeling down and organizes a field trip to rebuild their spirits. Nate, meanwhile, insults one player and orders that the rest be pushed to exhaustion.
- When addressing the press, Nate insults reporters and lashes out at Ted and Richmond. Ted, on the other hand, is chummy with the press, provides support to one reporter going through a breakup, and uses Self-Deprecation to defuse tension.
- Nate also has a panic attack at the start of his press conference, when he attacked Ted by outing him to the press for having the same.
- Both start Waxing Lyrical from musicals in different contexts: Ted asks "What's the buzz? Tell me what's happenin'" when arriving at Rebecca's office, as one of his customary clever greetings. When asked how he's getting on with the West Ham players, Nate answers that he's "Getting to know them, getting to know all about them, getting to like them...", to cover up how little he knows about them.
- Nate begins to have a panic attack at his press conference, not unlike the panic attack Ted suppressed in an earlier press conference of his own.
- Foreshadowing: Keeley spends a lot of time trying to win Barbara over, despite the latter's desperately boring exterior. By the end of the season, Barbara will join Keeley in running KJPR without Jack.
- Freudian Slip: In her first scene, Rebecca keeps calling West Ham "he" instead of "they," because she truly wants to defeat their owner Rupert specifically.
- Friendship Moment: Phoebe makes it a point to note she's glad she'll still get to spend time with Keeley.
- Funny Background Event: During team practice at Richmond, at one point Will can be seen in the background trying to balance a water bottle on his knee while standing on one leg.
- Hated by All: By the end of the episode, Nate has burned his bridges with just about everyone except for Rupert, Ted, and his mother. The team hates his guts for betraying and smack-talking them, Roy (previously one of his biggest defenders) only refers to him as a "little prick", his dad dismisses his new position because he swore in public, and the general public dismisses him as a "wanker" after Ted takes his public insults in complete stride.
- I Know Mortal Kombat: After Beard and Roy express shock at Ted's understanding of the 4-4-2 formation, Ted explains he spent a lot of time playing FIFA Soccer with Henry over the summer and learned a lot from the game.
- Innocently Insensitive: As the rest of the squad express their frustration at being ranked as the favourites to go down, Jan Maas claims that statistically, most newly-promoted teams are relegated in their first season. As well as being incorrect (see Artistic License – Sports above), this is the last thing the players want to hear, and he's genuinely confused as to why they all round on him for saying it.
- Insult Backfire: Nate attempts to humiliate Ted and Richmond at his press conference. Rather than showing sadness or firing back, Ted laughs at the remark and even subjects himself to some lighthearted Self-Deprecation. This wins over the public and social media, all of whom praise Ted for his class and humility, while dragging Nate as a pathetic bully.
- Ironic Echo: Rebecca slams her MacBook shut in frustration as she watches Nate's press conference in which he repeatedly insults Ted and Richmond. Nate has the exact same reaction after seeing Ted's press conference, in which he laughs off Nate's insults with self-deprecating humour.
- It's Personal: Although Rebecca keeps trying to say Richmond needs to beat West Ham and go on to win the league, it's clear that what she actually means is that she wants to beat Rupert on a personal level.Rebecca: Rupert is laughing at me, Ted.
- Jerkass Ball: Rebecca grabs it in this episode due to all of the pundits predicting Richmond to finish last while praising Rupert, Nate, and West Ham.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While Nate does so in a rude way, his put-down of the reporter who questions his right to coach West Ham while subtly putting him down in public is pretty justified. After all, as we've seen, Nate is good at the tactical side of his job. The press and even Higgins admit that it's a burn.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Nate, who betrayed Ted by leaking his public panic attack to the press, has a public panic attack in front of the press.
- Married to the Job: This is the reason why Roy and Keeley broke up: both are so preoccupied with their respective jobs that they decided it was best to separate.
- Meme Acknowledgement: When poking fun at himself during the press conference, Ted compares himself to Ned Flanders. The similarities between the two characters has often been brought up by fans and viewers of their respective shows.
- Motive Decay: Discussed by Ted with Sharon and Coach Beard. He took the job at AFC Richmond because he wanted to give Michelle space in a last-ditch effort to save their marriage. However, now that their relationship is completely done, he's still with the club even though it means being thousands of miles away from Henry.
- Mythology Gag: Ted playing Fifa Soccer to learn how to play the game is a direct reference to the original Coach Lasso skit. In the skit it was a sign of Lasso's arrogance and insouciance towards the game, but here it is representative of a genuine effort on Ted's part. In both cases, it's Played for Laughs.
- Nun Too Holy: Colin recalls getting heckled by a nun over Richmond's miserable season prognosis. His Catholic teammates react by immediately crossing themselves in reverence.
- Obviously Evil: Rupert got out of the summer break with a new all-black fit, a previously unheard evil laugh and an office that looks like the Death Star's throne room. He's also revealed to be close friends with the Sackler family
, the pharma moguls infamous for creating the opioid crisis. - Oh, Crap!: Ted has a small, quiet freakout over Michelle's "friend" who bought Henry an awesome new toy.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Even Roy, who previously disapproved of the bullying Nate suffered and ended it, now considers him to be a "little prick" for what he did to Ted and the team, showing how far he has fallen in the eyes of everyone but Ted.
- The Peter Principle: The first signs that Nate is not cut out to be a football manager begin to show here. While he might be a tactical genius, he's completely incapable of training and motivating a team. His practices quickly devolve into physical and psychological torture, being little more than an excuse to bully his team (for example, he forces one player to stand on the sidelines and belittles him without actually explaining what the player did wrong). He's also terrible at talking to the press, resorting to mean-spirited quips at his old team over any meaningful analysis of his team's prospects.
- Politeness Judo: When Richmond is being savaged by the media and openly mocked by Nate, Rebecca implores Ted to fight back. Ted's response is to take the insults in stride and one-up them with a series of good-natured jokes at his own expense. It works tremendously, getting him dubbed "Ted Class-O" on social media, with Nate taking his previous "wanker" nickname instead.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Ted gets hit with this twice in quick succession at his press conference.
- When he first starts his self-deprecating jokes, he leads with, "I'm so dumb—", clearly expecting the journalists to recognise the Match Game reference and respond with, "How dumb are you?" They don't, as the British version of Match Game (Blankety Blank) didn't use that particular Catchphrase, and he has to explain the bit to them to get them to play along.
- Ted's run of self-deprecating jokes comes to a screeching halt when his joke about Field of Dreams falls flat, since baseball isn't a popular sport in England and thus the film isn't either.
- Precision F-Strike: Subverted by Phoebe. She asks Roy for permission to say a bad word, then says "I think you're being stupid". She's goddamn right.
- Promotion to Opening Titles: Anthony Head (Rupert Mannion), Toheeb Jimoh (Sam Obisanya), Cristo Fernández (Dani Rojas), Kola Bokinni (Isaac McAdoo), Billy Harris (Colin Hughes), and James Lance (Trent Crimm) are all bumped up to series regulars after being recurring cast previously.
- Pulling the Thread: Phoebe keeps asking why Roy and Keeley broke up, revealing that it's mostly about Roy's insecurities.
- Rule of Symbolism: As Nate walks into London Stadiumnote , he walks right on the team's crest on the carpet. This is a serious breach of the old sports superstition and symbolizes how Nate only sees the team as a tool for his own glory.
- Self-Deprecation: Ted laughs off Nate's insults to the press by stating his surprise that all Nate had to say was that he was a shit coach, and proceeds to mock himself for a variety of things. It effortlessly turns the public completely against Nate.
- Serious Business: Richard corrects Ted that he doesn't have an extensive knowledge of expensive wines, but of fine wines. The thing about fine wine is that a great bottle doesn't have to be expensive.
- Sexy Discretion Shot: After her call with Ted ends, Dr. Fieldstone is shown closing the door behind her and a younger boy toy.Beautiful Man: Finally got off?
Sharon: Not yet. - So Last Season: Rebecca points out to Ted that while their current squad may have been good enough to get promoted from the EFL Championship to the Premier League, being back in the top flight means they'll have to upgrade the roster if they want to avoid getting relegated again, and especially if they want to make a serious run for the title. note
- Shout-Out:
- The episode's title is a reference to the Nirvana song "Smells Like Teen Spirit".
- Ted tells a worker at the airport that Henry was trying to unlock Princess Peach in Super Smash Bros. (most likely Ultimate, since Henry is playing on a Switch). She replies that she once held up a flight to Sydney since she was playing Breath of the Wild.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Dani and Richard both cross themselves after Colin reveals the person who cussed him out was a nun.
- Take That!: Rupert mentions that he was on a vacation with the Sackler family, the pharmaceutical magnates who are responsible for the ongoing opioid crisis, and that they were "legally required to remain 50 miles offshore".
- Taking It Well: Roy and Keeley fear Phoebe will take the news of their breakup badly and even give her ice cream beforehand in anticipation of her being crushed. Much to their surprise, she accepts the news with no issues, although she does later admit to Roy that she thinks their decision is stupid.
- Tastes Like Purple: Higgins notices Keeley left mascara tear stains on Rebecca and asks why she's "dressed like an umlaut".
- Turn the Other Cheek: After Nate mocks Ted during his first press conference, Rebecca urges him to fire back at him and Rupert at his. However, Ted doesn't and instead indulges in Self-Deprecation. This infuriates Nate, who was hoping he'd be humiliated by his insults.
- Waxing Lyrical:
- When Ted comes into Rebecca's office to greet her and Higgins after arriving at work, he says "What's the buzz? Tell me what's happenin'", which are lyrics from Jesus Christ Superstar.
- Nate, weakly responding to a question about his relationship with the team during a press conference, says it's been great "getting to know them. Getting to know all about them. Getting to like them, getting to hope they..." He trails off there, unable to finish the line, which is from "Getting to Know You" from The King and I.
- Wise Beyond Her Years: Phoebe puzzles Roy and Keeley with an unusually mature reaction to their breakup, stating that it's perfectly normal for adults to grow apart, especially during major career changes. She also says that she believes nothing lasts forever, due to her parents splitting up when she was four years old.
- You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: Inverted. Blink and you'll miss it, but when Rebecca confronts Ted about not taking Richmond's chances seriously enough, she calls him "Coach Lasso" instead of Ted, showing just how upset she is.
- Your Makeup Is Running: Keeley's mascara leaves a noticeable stain on Rebecca's blouse when she cries over her breakup, and Higgins later reveals his own shirt still has the same stain from a previous incident, even after the shirt has been dry-cleaned six times. Both are briefly concerned about Keeley using such persistent pigments near her eyes.
