Ted Lasso and Using Tropes Effectively

I’ve been rewatching Ted Lasso recently, and while there are many things to appreciate about the writing on that show, I found myself impressed by the tropes. Rebecca is the tough female boss, Higgins is her bumbling sidekick. Jamie is the fantastic young athlete who only cares about himself, and Roy is the old curmudgeon, past his prime. Many of the characters are shown in the first episodes as decidedly one-dimensional. Normally, “trope” is a dirty word among writers—synonymous with laziness and lack of creativity. Tropes are things we’ve seen before; things we’ve seen so many times, in fact, that they are familiar and often boring. But that familiarity can be an asset when used carefully. A trope can be a shorthand. It doesn’t have to be explained, because the audience already knows. A show with a big cast like Lasso needs these shorthands to introduce so many characters so quickly without confusing the audience. The show manages to get a ton of story across in the first few…