Ted Lasso Season 3 has halfway wrapped its storyline, and Phil Dunster’s Jamie Tartt has already climbed up the list of our favourite characters in the show. You’ve got to appreciate good character development when you see it, and so things are looking up for him as even his coach/mentor/new friend – Brett Goldstein’s Roy Kent – can see the change in his personality too.
One can’t call this transformation a drastic turn because it has taken him a good run of 3 seasons to reach this point, and none of it could’ve been possible if it were not for Roy’s gruff “indifference” (that actually cares a lot). What started with the two sharing the football pitch as teammates, with Jamie being the prima donna he was and Roy as the veteran player of the lot, whom he secretly looked up to in Season 1, has now completely turned on its head.
From Jamie calling Roy a “grand-dad” to Roy reverting to his dictionary of vulgar slang (all coming from the heart, no less) to calling Jamie’s narcissistic behaviour out to Jamie teaching him to ride a bike, we’ve come a long way. Ted Lasso Season 3 Episode 6, titled ‘Sunflowers’, offers us this present that we never knew we needed. We can’t thank the showrunners (Jason Sudeikis, Bill Lawrence, Brendan Hunt and Joe Kelly) enough. Here’s how their relationship has evolved over the years.
Evolution of the Jamie Tartt-Roy Kent Dynamic on Ted Lasso Season 3
One of the best blessings coming out of this show has to be its share of friendships. Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddhingham) and Keeley Jones (Juno Temple) equally started on the same wrong note, and their friendship has swollen into being one of the best things about the show. Similarly, the usual and cliched tricks would’ve had the show’s writers pitting for an unforgivable love triangle between Keeley, Jamie and Roy, especially since the former two were in a relationship during the first season.
This later switched over to Keeley finding a more “accountable” man in Roy, making way for one of the most-loved ‘ships’ of the show. However, Season 2 ended on a sour note for them, which perplexed everyone about the future, and the worst nightmare came to life when the two parted ways in Season 3. It could’ve easily pushed the show to retract back into the bad habit of fleshing out toxic love triangles.
Instead, we got a fresh twist with Keeley finding new love in Jack Danvers (Jodi Balfour) while Roy charted out his path to discovering his insecurities and all those feelings he’s bottled up for all this time. And who got to hear some parts of it? No one, but Jamie Tartt alone.
The most heart-warming aspect of this evolving dynamic is that the trajectory of the show has been hinting at it since the beginning. From Ted pushing them to talk to each other and clear the air out in Season 1 to Roy being there for Jamie when the latter’s abusive father mortifies him in front of the entire team in Season 2, and even Roy head-butting Jamie for speaking of his supposed feelings for Keeley on the day of Rebecca’s dad’s funeral but ultimately hugging it out upon their team’s victory after the match.
Season 2 also sparked the hints for Roy pushing for Jamie’s extra training sessions in Season 3 when the two finally put on headlamps to head out for practice even before dawn. Jamie has even stepped forth to console Roy about his breakup with Keeley and tried to hug it out. This might have been one of the few reworked transitions of a love triangle that helped the characters’ individual growth. It’s really hard to miss how the Season 2 Jamie, who participated in that shallow dating reality TV series, is the same man who corrected Coach Beard regarding the difference between the words ‘Ironic’ and ‘Hypocritical’ in the third season.
While the last few episodes had already fed us on the agenda that Jamie and Roy are more alike than we (and they) ever thought (but Ted knew it way before any of us did) as Roy could see through Jamie’s feelings on being pushed back on the pitch with Zara’s presence overshadowing every move he made. The same two players at each other’s throats, with one of them even being a bully at that, have now embarked on this journey together and walked the same ground.
Episode 6 of Season 3 shows them on their quest to find real windmills, which again proves that their goals are the same, which they always were, but with them cycling down the road beside each other, it further delineates that even their paths are the same. Who would’ve ever thought that Roy would open up to Jamie about his grandfather passing away the day he was meant to teach him how to ride a bike? Conversely, Jamie speaks up about the childhood traumas (which he still can’t quite dig into) inflicted by his father Vs the embracing memories of his mother with Roy.
With a touch of comedy, their moments of banter or even just them sharing the screen have been the most gratifying and emotionally melting scenes this season. Hopefully, the upcoming second half of the season will keep blessing us with the same energy.
Ted Lasso Season 3 Episode 6 is now streaming on Apple TV+. New episodes drop every Wednesday.
Also read: Ted Lasso Season 3 Episode 6 Review: Don’t Worry About a Thing