Apple TV+’s hit show Ted Lasso is notorious for its pop culture reference, from borrowing memes and viral news stories for storylines to the titular coach’s brainy rock-referencing inside jokes. But in the latest episode, streaming today, it’s sidekick Coach Beard who gets to take control of the pop culture discussion on the show — and he delivers a blazing hot take about classic rockers Joe Walsh and Jimmy Page that is sure to have the show’s fans ready to take the debate offscreen and online.
Minor spoilers for episode 9 are below.
When Ted has to forego a press conference for a parent-teacher conference, responsibility for dealing with a room full of journalists falls nominally to lovable grouch Roy Kent. However, in typical curmudgeonly fashion, Roy opts out, sending Beard in his place. This, predictably, has disastrous consequences, as team owner Rebecca learns upon walking into a press room in complete disarray. Rather than discussing the team’s strategy in their forthcoming match, Beard ends up loudly debating a controversial opinion with The Independent‘s new beat writer.
To sum it up: Beard is convinced that Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh is underrated in contrast to Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, who he calls overrated before indulging in some slightly more colorful language. Naturally, this causes quite the stir among the assembled Brits — as my colleague Brian Grubb put it in his recap, “Joe Walsh over Jimmy Page, in England, might get your home vandalized” — forcing Rebecca to try and salvage the situation. Unfortunately, her response to “best rock guitarist of all time” isn’t much better: “the guy from Cream” isn’t much of an answer, although Eric Clapton does have his supporters in the debate, even if his star has fallen in recent years.
Coach Beard went absolutely feral in this scene oml Brendan Hunt’s acting here had me dead
#TedLasso #tedlassospoilers pic.twitter.com/YpRGykugVY
— 𝙶𝚒𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚎
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(@giselleb1234) May 10, 2023
The only downside to the whole fiasco is we don’t get every character’s take; I don’t know about you, but I could have sat through another 5-10 minutes of Ted, Trent, Higgins, Rebecca, and Roy sitting around and hashing out just who the greatest rock guitarist ever is, but alas: The football show had some football to show but at least we got a very funny bit out it.