I saw a lot of vaguetweeting from Myles and other critics about how off the rails this episode gets and boy did it live down to expectations. At this point the show is just pulling a full on Rise of Skywalker and trying to gaslight its audience into thinking that the middle installment didn't happen and a whole different story occurred in its place. I get that backsliding is a thing, but Ted's main focus has long been on his relationship with Henry and not on rekindling his relationship with his wife, and this episode shows him sacrificing time and focus on the former at the expense of the latter. Even if it only lasts as long as "Hey Jude", it's still a huge betrayal of his character as we saw it develop last season. And then the end of this episode makes it look like he might have a shot at getting back with his wife, like that's something we have been led to think we should be rooting for? His entire story with therapy has taught us we should be rooting for him to move forward even if it seems difficult, not settle back into the comforts of the past.

Nate's story continues to only make sense if you skipped season 2 entirely, or maybe if you cut up all of his scenes from season 2 and drop them into this season. Him softening up after seeing Ted in the stands should be the turning point for his redemption arc, and his deleted text afterwards should be where he realizes what Rupert's influence has done to him. From here we should see him starting to emulate Ted and assembling his ersatz Diamond Dogs, realizing he doesn't want to date an uninterested model, being himself at the restaurant and around Jade, etc. But instead the keystone moment comes after all the rest of it, making it seem like he became enlightened without actually having an earned moment of enlightenment or learning anything from his past actions. And as far as Jade goes, the only way I can make sense of her thing is if she's like that girl from the episode of New Girl where Jess and Nick kiss for the first time who is sexually attracted to sadness. Otherwise I've got nothing.

But at least Nate's story has the familiar contours of a redemption arc, even one that being handled in a baffling way. I still have no idea what is supposed to be going on with Keeley. What this episode crystallized was something I felt for the past few episodes, which is her story is about things that happen to her but that we never see her actually react to. Not only does that completely infantilize her and regress her arc, but it passes up on any number of ways to tangentially or thematically connect her to the goings on at Richmond, instead stranding her in the world's worst and longest backdoor pilot.

Roy breaks up with her off screen and we never delve into how she feels about it. She hires Shandy but Barbara is the one who has to point out what a bad idea that is and Jack has to push Keeley to fire Shandy (even writing a "you're fired" speech for Keeley to deliver). Jack refers to her as a "friend" and slut shames her, but then *Jack* is the one who walks out on *her*. Hell, even this whole traumatizing story about her video being leaked is more about contrasting Jack's, Roy's (who also has his character entirely betrayed here), and Jamie's reactions to it than it is diving into how she feels about it. Which is doubly disappointing considering Keeley Hazell has a writing credit on the episode and this incident is (if I recall correctly) based in part on something which actually happened to her!

The stuff with Richmond as a team is still working well enough (always nice to see Isaac acting like a captain and Will has been a surprising source of comedy the past few episodes), but every time it steps away from the team it starts taking the worst imaginable route to get to a place it probably didn't need to be going anyway. At this point I'm watching for the occasional moments when it remembers it used to be a half hour sitcom about a soccer club and to be consistently baffled by all the bad decisions on display.