As the season progresses, we watch as Ted is increasingly unable to avoid his more complicated feelings about the divorce, his ex moving on, his distance from his child, and the repressed bitterness that his characteristic, outer positivity may be maskingup to Roy’s young niece, who is surprisingly unfazed. “Nothing lasts,” she tells the exes, and though it’s a child saying these words, it very much sounds like a divorced person writing them.
For me, the show has lost much of its innocence, as I recall the seemingly endless backlash Wilde faced for her relationship with Styles,, even for moving to England to live with Styles for certain stretches. She and Sudeikis split their time co-parenting, yet only one of them has been regarded as an “absentee” parent. Meanwhile, Ted is widely beloved, celebrated as a plucky sitcom protagonist and doting father, despite moving halfway across the world from his child for a job.
I very much appreciate the alert.