Message in a Bottle Episode

Ted Lasso lights the way in "Sunflowers."

Did I want an excuse to share another sunflower photo? Yes. Yes I did. ©SheilaMoeschenPhotography

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My anxiety was already humming in the days leading up to the election. There was a lot of yelling. Mostly online, but also with all the signs. Did you notice all the political yard bling this time around? So much, so many, packed together on medians like movie extras waiting around to do something. I did some math. Each Harris/Walz sign was the equal to three Republican stanchions and one jumbo banner depicting the nominee, his head swathed in a dirty, bloody bandage as if had just been freed from a Viet Cong prison camp, perched on the back of an enormous bald eagle careening over the Statue of Liberty while blonde Jesus, John Wayne, Elvis, and the Virgin Mary look on from a pink, glowy cloud in the sky. If we had thirst map Steve Kornacki tracking the GOP sign game, we might have seen this catastrophic result a year ago. 

To be fair, I do support this sign. ©SheilaMoeschenPhotography

Either way the wave broke I knew it would not be gentle. I started insulating with what I call my emotional support TV–shows that soothe, comfort, and give me hope. They put the balm on. But not because they’re the kind of shows that depict some kind of view of the world and humans washed in a lobotomized Hallmarkian version of reality. They generally tell stories about people who are imperfect, but trying. 

Unsurprisingly, it’s been a very Ted Lasso week around here. 

If you know me even a little you know that of course I love this show. It’s like the values of Sesame Street and Mister Rogers Neighborhood had a baby with Tom Selleck’s mustache and The Good Place’s charm and wit. I was always going to be powerless to resist this show; I’m not interested in mooning over the places where it fell short (Answer: didn’t, couldn’t, still hasn’t). Not everything begs for critical dissection. Some desserts are simply meant to be enjoyed and savored for their pure pleasure. Bibs on, people! In the coming years I think we are going to want to order straight from this kind of menu.  

Anyway, by the end of the weekend I was already in season three, which features one of my favorite episodes: “Sunflowers.” This is what I call a modified bottle episode. A bottle episode refers to one where the characters are contained in a singular setting for the duration of the episode. For instance, the 90s sitcom, Mad About You, featured a bottle episode where the main characters–Paul (Paul Reiser) and his wife, Jamie (Helen Hunt)–were accidentally locked in their bathroom. Insert predictable comedy bits here about two married people literally sharing a bathroom. Undercut that with dialogue that turns into moving moments about a couple confronting painful truths about each other and their relationship. In the hands of skilled writers and actors, the bottle episode can contain one helluva genie. 

“Sunflowers” is similar in that it puts the characters in one general location–Amsterdam. The team has just lost an exhibition match. Morale is low; frustrations are high. Each character is distracted by their own inner-turmoil. The action tracks across the city and follows several different story lines, so in that sense it’s not a traditional “bottle,” more like being under a glass cloche.     

I’ve always loved the bottle episode long before I knew it had a name or a format. Probably because I also love theatre, and these types of episodes share that sensibility. Time slows, space contracts, attention gets laser focused on those specific characters. Within that compressed atmosphere more truth leaks out than it does over the course of 12 or 22 episodes. Lives change in the handful of hours they are snowed in at the diner or waiting for a table at a Chinese restaurant. Isn’t that a lot like life? Pay attention, plug in–there’s nowhere else to go and everything is right here whether you want it to be or not. 

All of the storylines in this episode are beautiful in the way they use mundane happenings–riding bikes around the city, attending a live jazz show, going out to a club– to let the characters open up. They are crafted with the same kind of attention and thoughtfulness as one of Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings, which feature in Ted’s night out in the city. 

Stuck personally and professionally, Ted wanders off in search of….something. He winds up at the Van Gogh Museum. As Ted stares at one of Van Gogh’s iconic sunflower paintings, a docent quietly sidles up to him. He quotes the artist: “One doesn't expect to get from life what one has already learned it cannot give. Rather, one begins to see that life is a kind of sowing time...and the harvest is not yet here.” And then, like a Dutch Jiminy Cricket, the docent says: 

He was just a humble preacher’s son. And yes, he had his demons, but they never stopped him from searching for beauty. Because when you find beauty, you find inspiration. If, that is, you stay as determined as Vincent. Never stop, no matter how many failures. When you know you’re doing what you’re meant to do, you have to try. 

Just when I thought I was done with the weeping. That’s the other thing about my emotional support TV: these shows can be real goddamn eye geysers. But at least it gives me a better reason for the crying other than just, “oh, you know, THE WORLD.” 

One New York Times critic complained that “Sunflowers”  “goes nowhere,” and they are right in the literal sense, but completely miss the point otherwise. In the realm of Ted Lasso there is no growth without exposure and vulnerability; there is no success without community; and there is really no point to any of it without belief–that you can change, things can change, that the harvest is worth working for even if it comes long after you’ve put in your time.