The world was in love with Ted Lasso. And then along came a very bad break-up.

Can you pretend to be the nicest man in the world if everyone believes you publicly humiliated your ex in an act of revenge?

I'm asking for a friend. 

His name is Ted Lasso. 

For a large, obsessive cohort of fans, Ted is the most beloved character on television. He – and his literal teammates – stroked our hair and told us everything was going to be okay at the most terrifying time of our lives. They soothed us through the fear and loathing of peak pandemic, and we love them for it. 

If you've ever wondered why a fish-out-of-water comedy show about an American football coach in England is so very beloved, and its fans (hi, it's me) get so defensive when non-believers call Ted Lasso  "Cheesy" or "Cringe", it's down to the very specific timing our love affair began. 

Things were bleak. We were afraid. The days were blurring into one, long, grey smear. And Ted Lasso came along, nestled into the nook that Schitts' Creek had left behind, and made us laugh. It showed us non-toxic men sharing their feelings and doing the Right Thing. It showed us the life-saving power of female friendship. It made us Believe. 

The cast of Ted Lasso. Image: Getty. 

The problem is this: Two years on, Ted Lasso is back. And a lot has changed. 

We can leave our homes. We can gather in groups without picnic baskets and we can get on planes whenever we can afford to. Oh, and Ted's wife left him for Harry Styles. 

No, no, that's not right. TED's wife didn't leave him for Harry Styles. Jason Sudeikis's wife left him for Harry Styles. And Olivia Wilde wasn't his wife, she was his partner of 10 years and the mother of his children. And, she insists, Harry came along after they split.

But whatever the actual facts, celebrity folklore has decided that Sudeikis was deserted for the only man the Internet loves more than Ted Lasso. And, the problem is, in this tabloid-sketched version of events, he didn't appear to take it well. 

There was that time Wilde was served custody papers while she was making a speech at movie fest Cinecon. She was humiliated in her big moment. There is a mortifying video that shows Wilde opening the manilla envelope that's been handed to her from the crowd. She thinks it's a script. It isn't. She called the move "vicious", if not "entirely surprising". "There's a reason I left that relationship," she told Variety. 

It's a very un-Ted thing to do. And although Sudeikis has said that the venue and timing was not his choice, he carried the can. 

Then there was the whole salad dressing situation. 

In an invasion of privacy almost as brutal as serving your ex custody papers on a stage in front of thousands, the couple's former nanny – apparently disgruntled with the way she lost her job – started leaking stories. Text messages that made Sudeikis seem vengeful at worst, and very sad at best, included the tantalising detail that he knew something was up with his marriage when Wilde was making HIS favourite salad dressing, only to see her take it with her when she went to meet HIM. Harry. The delightfully androgynous pop god who knows a good salad dressing. It tastes like strawberries. On a Summer evening. 

Allegedly, Jason chased her car down the street. 

Again, Ted Lasso isn't bitching about salad dressing, running after departing cars and being betrayed by former employees. Ted is sunshine. Ted is forgiveness. Ted refuses to rise to petty bait.

But this weekend, Vox ran this story: 

The fantasy of Ted Lasso and the reality of Jason Sudeikis

The Jason Sudeikis-Olivia Wilde breakup changed the way watching Ted Lasso feels.

And it's unfair. Jason Sudeikis never said he was Ted Lasso. He's an actor, playing a role. He says Ted is a side of him, not the whole package. And also, he doesn't say this, but it can go unspoken – Harry Fucking Styles. Who can compete with that? 

Olivia Wilde isn't dating Styles anymore, anyway, after the whole Don't Worry, Darling publicity train careened off the rails and into a wall, a hedge and over a cliff. 

Apparently, both sides of this couple must have their artistic projects falter because they dared to break up. 

The cast of Don't Worry Darling. Image: Getty. 

None of this is any of our business, of course, but the reason the Vox piece stings is this: Ted Lasso Season 3, so far, is not as twinkly-brilliant as the last two. It's just not. 

The cast are still spectacular. The music still makes a heart swell. The F-bombs and the in-jokes are still pinging. But something's not hitting the same. 

Maybe it's our mood. The shifting reality of our living rooms. We are not so in need of a hug, we'd maybe quite like something a bit rougher, more exciting, to be happening on our lounges. 

But this is the show that brought us a woman masturbating over a video of her boyfriend ugly-crying, so we know it's capable of sharp-edged sentimentality. 

Maybe it's the storylines. At episode three, early days for Richmond, Zava, and us, we are in danger of drifting so far from reality (Nate's now a fully-realised supervillain, complete with a getaway car, and Ted STILL doesn't know the offside rule) that we might completely lose sight of the storylines we were all so very invested in – Keely and Rebecca, Roy and Sam.

Maybe, as Vox suggests, we are struggling to separate real life and fantasy. But we can do hard things, friends.

"Likeability" is usually a stick to beat women with. "I just don't... like her" can be a career-ending statement if uttered often enough around female actresses, singers and hosts.

But maybe 'likeability' is cryptonite for men, too, if their success relies on us believing them to be too good to be true, and they, of course, are not. 

Fans of Ted don't want to say out loud that they're struggling to relive the magic of the last few years. We don't want to consider that maybe Ted Lasso is a Bad Boyfriend. 

That one who, for your first two years together, loved to surprise you with thoughtful gifts, had exciting, generous sex, listened to music with you that – amazingly! – you both love equally and never watched an episode of one of "your" shows without you. 

But by year three, that Bad Boyfriend is usually lying on the lounge with their hand shoved in the waistband of their shapeless tracksuit pants, is paint-by-numbers boring in bed, lets you buy his mum's birthday present and binges your couple show while you're working late.  

Somehow, that guy is a bigger disappointment than the one who was toxic from the start. 

Ted Lasso love-bombed us good, and we're all hoping he still has follow-through. Every Ted fan who isn't trying to peer through the moustache to perve on Sudekeis' pain knows what we ask of our show. Why we adore it and why we're still willing it on.

It just a little thing Roy Kent said to Rebecca once, when she was dating the 'good on paper' guy:

Don't you dare settle for fine. 

Image: Getty + Mamamia.