From a religious perspective, a rejection of the trappings of success, of whatever the mainstream culture values most deeply, can be a prophetic act — one that, as Lasso shows, rarely gets applause. The so-called foolishness of holy fools is tethered to their spiritual insight. They offer a change in perspective. What appears “normal” and “successful” in the world is revealed by the fool to be hollow, vain and pointless. What appears foolish, it turns out, is the true path of flourishing. Above all, a holy fool is an icon for radical humility. And this is where Lasso most clearly embodies this persona.
Lasso is not a perfect man, and he knows it. When his not-exactly-love-interest Sassy rejects him as a “mess,” he embraces it (he calls himself, in a delightfully terrible pun, “a work in prog-mess”). He is not guilt-ridden, sullen or perfectionistic. He’s just Ted. He struggles with panic attacks and normalizes our nearly universal need for therapy, so much so that President Biden hosted the cast of the show at the White House last month to promote mental health awareness.
In the opening episode for this season, Lasso is publicly insulted by his former friend and kit man (equipment manager) turned evil “wunderkind” coach, Nathan Shelley. Rebecca, somewhat vindictively, tells Ted to retaliate, to “fight.” Yet, when asked by the press to respond, he calls Nathan’s comments “hilarious,” praises him as “smart” and wishes him well. He then proceeds to essentially do a stand-up bit with himself as the butt of the joke: “I look like Ned Flanders is doing cosplay as Ned Flanders. When I talk it sounds like Dr. Phil hasn’t gone through puberty yet.” He makes a joke about his mental health: “I’ve had more psychotic episodes than ‘Twin Peaks.’” He charms the press, gets them laughing, and, with effervescent humility, he turns a moment of conflict into a moment of levity, even joy. This also exposes Nathan’s pettiness. In Ted’s weakness is his strength, while Nate’s grasping at strength reveals debilitating weakness.
Lasso’s great humility, again and again, makes him a wellspring of transformation and redemption. He disarms people. In the main story arc of the series’s first season, Rebecca goes from trying to use and humiliate Ted in order to destroy her team (seeking vengeance against her philandering ex-husband, whose only true love is the club) to embracing him as a loyal friend. He won her over with daily “biscuits with the boss,” which, we discover, he secretly bakes himself, the kind of extravagant thoughtfulness we come to expect from him.
When, in an emotional season climax, Rebecca reveals her secret plan to Ted, confessing “I’ve sabotaged you every chance I had,” she tearfully apologizes and Ted immediately forgives her and sees a kind of goodness even in her dark scheming (“This job you gave me has changed my life,” he says). Holy fools are marked by this sort of opulent, irrational, prodigality of grace. As Dostoyevsky sketched out the main character of “The Idiot,” Prince Myshkin, perhaps the most famous holy fool in literature, he wrote: “His way of looking at the world: He forgives everything, sees reasons for everything, does not recognize that any sin is unforgivable.”