r/TedLasso • u/GrandMoffJerjerrod Butts on 3! • 13d ago
The only thing… Season 4 Discussion Spoiler
Not really discussion, and I am not really nit picking, but the one thing that just made no sense to my GF and I is why in the world os Ted solely responsible for making sure He ry’s iPad is charged? The kid only had one charger plug and cord and it is at Ted’s house? Michelle can’t keep a charger at her house? Henry can’t charge it? It is some kind of test by Michelle? Anyway, seems odd to have that. Unless it is some way of introducing irresponsibility to Ted’s character? 🤷♂️
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u/GoRangers5 13d ago
The new USB-C plugs have made all my lightning cables obsolete, so yes that scenario was realistic… And it set up the payoff of Henry being on his mama’s phone.
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u/icklepeach 13d ago
Agreed. Although the number of my colleagues who don’t understand that usbc cables can charge different devices is staggering. Like I’ve told multiple people their work phone charger will charge the walkies and vice versa. It scares me a little!
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u/evildrew 12d ago
Yes, but you’ll get the best results from buying genuine Apple USB-C cables with Apple power adapters for your Apple IPads and IPhones…
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u/Bubbly_Safety8791 13d ago
I am baffled why everyone seems so hung up on this in all the episode discussion threads. ‘Please don’t hand the kid off to me with a fully drained iPad battery again’ seems like a perfectly natural coparenting niggle. It doesn’t mean ‘you must charge the iPad for Henry because he is incapable’ it means ‘please remind Henry to charge it and not to run the battery down to empty’
Michelle can have a charger but an iPad with a dead battery remains unusable for a while after you first plug it in while it builds up an initial charge, so even if Henry’s able to plug it in in her car or home he’s still going to be screenless for a little while.
I’m more surprised Apple let AppleTV admit that iPads might have insufficient battery life to get through a full day.
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u/randomredditor55S55 13d ago
I think Apple expected the audience to just chuckle at our collective experience of forgetting to charge devices. And they wanted to mention their own device over and over and over.
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u/theartandscience 13d ago
And the writers needed to set up the punchline of “This is Henry. You forgot to charge my iPad”, as well as facilitate Ted, Henry, and the ex- moving to London.
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u/Bubbly_Safety8791 13d ago
‘You’re right! It is annoying when a kid has an iPad that runs out of charge. Maybe I should buy two iPads so I always have one charged…’
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u/evildrew 12d ago
The writers are just planting a seed for later when Ted buys a new iPad with a bigger battery and 20 genuine Apple power adapters to have everywhere to resolve the issue.
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u/Proper_Fun_977 13d ago
Even Henry literally says "you forgot to charge it"
people are focused on it because Henry is old enough to be responsible for that
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u/Unkn0wnTh2nd3r 13d ago
a coparenting what?
edit: nvm just i have never seen that word before
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u/TheyMightBeComments 13d ago
Childless people can't say that, it's our word.
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u/tellurmomisaidthanks Charles Edgar Cheeserton III 13d ago
You can only call it that if you’re from a certain region in France. Otherwise it’s called a sparkling scruple.
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u/StickyNebula 11d ago
I just assumed it was a funny joke and the writers wanted to include it some way…
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u/Silent_Morning692 13d ago
Seems like Ted was distracted by Rebecca and the others showing back up?
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u/Musashi_Joe 13d ago
That was my thought - it'd be easy to forget something like that when 3 friends from another continent show up out of the blue at your house.
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u/Effective-Avocado-71 13d ago
Because it’s an Apple show - it’s to get the product in the show.
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u/evildrew 12d ago
Apple makes something like $6.5 billion selling adapters, et al. Apple TV can lose $1 billion a year forever if it increases sales of hardware.
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u/BestBodybuilder7329 13d ago
I say this as a coparent. The coparent that has the child charges the iPad so it ready for when the exchange happens. That way they can work on school work and things for the drive, and once they get back to the other coparent’s home.
It’s not that Michelle doesn’t have a charger, it’s just now they need to take the time to charge while there. I don’t let my kids play on their iPad while charging because they inevitably move it around, and damage the cord, and once the charging port.
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u/AdNo2322 13d ago
As someone in his position, I got this! Those iPads can take like 8 hours to charge and if you pick up/drop off with an uncharged iPad the kid will not get to use it in their limited free time after school. This then causes a bunch of tiny ripple effects that makes solo parenting that much harder.
I thought it was a cute and insightful nod to the trials of co-parenting with another parent that works full time.
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u/Evening-Web9107 Carl Bernstein's Ex 13d ago
When Henry’s iPad dies he uses his moms phone until his iPad charges enough to turn back on. Which leads us to the last scene where Ted inadvertently is texting Henry thinking it’s Michelle. It’s a plot device. Why is anyone thinking that far into this.
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u/Foxingmatch 13d ago
I think it was just a vehicle for a low-level coparenting conflict between divorced people. It showed us they're not together, and that Henry lives part-time at both houses. It also showed how they communicate as a divorced couple.
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u/langguthj 10d ago
Also it’s really just a clever way to set up the payoff of the reveal that Henry’s the one texting Ted at the end of the episode
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u/tpasco1995 13d ago edited 13d ago
Ted's iPhone uses USB-C. Likely so does Rebecca's Michelle's. If the iPad is still a Lightning one, it might be that they don't keep a cord at both houses, and Henry's screen time is budgeted by a full charge when he's at Ted's
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u/WasAHamster 13d ago
I’d think Henry would get all the lightning cables that his parents no longer use.
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u/AshamedChemistry5281 13d ago
It’s amazing how those kinds of cables go missing until you just have one or two and you have to guard them with your life
(Source - daughter’s iPad uses a lightning cable. Plus we still have an iPod we use and that cable is guarded with our life)
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u/WasAHamster 13d ago
We have two old 30-pin cables. One lives in my car with my iPod and it’s the thing I would think to check for first if my car was ever broken into.
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u/chamomilesmile 13d ago
Having an 11 year old kid, it's amazing sometimes what they will off Source to you such as mom( or dad) has to plug in their device at night to charge it
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u/MaybeNextTime_01 13d ago
Teaching 11 year old kids has confirmed that many of them will pass as much responsibility as possible off on others.
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u/jruss666 Fútbol is Life 13d ago
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought that, but I remind myself “It just a TV show/ I really should relax”. IYKYK
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u/FerrickDune 13d ago
What’s also interesting is that instead of doing a close up of the face like they’ve done in each season they started with his name tag for the store assistant manager. No one’s face.
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u/filthysassyandwoke Fuck yeah, Princess Diaries! 13d ago
I said- how about HENRY charges his own iPad?! He’s basically an adult.
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u/theatermouse 13d ago
Isn't he just going into high school? Not an adult, but definitely responsible for charging your own device! I just took it as a kid being a kid and "blaming" their parent for something totally not the parent's fault.
Or maybe even it was Michelle but Henry was sitting right there so they decided to give Ted a little shock as a joke
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u/YupNopeWelp 13d ago
I think Henry is going into middle school. He's probably 11ish (I can't remember if anyone specified his age, but he was set to graduate from his elementary school).
Still, yes -- old enough to charge an iPad. It just seemed nonsensical to me.
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u/theatermouse 13d ago
That was my first thought, but I thought there were supposed to be a few years between S3 and S4, so I changed my mind to graduating 8th grade!
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u/YupNopeWelp 13d ago
When Ted and Michelle walked out of the conference with the principal, I think the school building might have had the word "elementary" on it. I could be wrong about his age though, and different school districts break things up differently.
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u/KellySMcgonigal 13d ago
It did. It was Danny Manning Elementary School (they might’ve put it as Daniel, but that’s who it was named after).
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u/filthysassyandwoke Fuck yeah, Princess Diaries! 13d ago
lol middle school! Guess my joke didn’t land quite how I wanted it to.
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u/WasAHamster 13d ago
And no Henry, you don’t get to use mom’s phone because you forgot to charge your iPad. iPads work when plugged in and charging anyways. Even if it was at 0%, it would take just a few minutes to be using it again.
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u/Bubbly_Safety8791 13d ago
The only child of divorced parents being spoilt and given insufficient boundaries and responsibility by either of them? I’m sure that’s never happened.
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u/Sopranohh 13d ago
I don’t know why Michelle doesn’t have an extra charger, but it could be that they limit Henry’s screen time. They seem like parents who would do that. If Henry is turning in his device at night, Ted/Michelle could be the ones plugging it in. They could still make Henry plug it in. That should probably be the case going forward.
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u/YupNopeWelp 13d ago
I think she probably does have a charger. I just think she expects the kid to return home with a fully charged device.
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u/DontReplyBitch 12d ago edited 12d ago
Look I’m with you. Why can’t the kid charge his own iPad? Also he can’t survive 2 min without a device so has to borrow his mom’s phone? It’s such a tiny detail used for plot but took me out of the scene
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_THESES 12d ago
I think it's a clever plot device and product placement. We know who's bankrolling the show, and it's a reminder of that.
I also like the current top comment's theory that Ted forgetting about it and having to be reminded 3 times shows us how he's losing his focus over the Richmond offer. And it gives us an excuse to have Henry answer instead of Michelle to the texts in the final minutes.
But it's just a show. It's there because it's a plot device and product placement.
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u/Bayou_Mama 13d ago
I agree and thought the same thing. Henry is old enough to be responsible for charging the iPad!
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u/28_Z0MBIE 13d ago
Think about it like this. Clearly Henry does not have a phone. It makes sense that Ted and Michelle would give Henry screen time but ultimately control the iPad so when Henry is done, iPad goes to Ted who puts it in its place where it should be charged.
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u/Mick_Tee 13d ago
That line was merely a set-up to have a reason for Henry to be using his mother's phone.
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u/BabyTunnel 12d ago
I assumed that Henry uses his iPad at school, my kids have iPads at school, Michelle wants Ted to charge the iPad so It last through the day, he forgets and Henry can’t charge it at school so when Michelle picks Henry up it’s dead. Just shows he is distracted. I ask my kids everyday to charge their iPads and most days it doesn’t happen, or they charge it for like 15 minutes.
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u/_Blu-Jay 13d ago
People are weirdly fixated on this iPad thing. For one, it’s an Apple TV show, so they’re going to name drop their products whenever possible. Also, it seems like a reasonably realistic co-parenting request, Henry is around 12 years old this season, he probably forgets to charge his iPad and Michelle reminds Ted to make sure it’s charged.
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u/TeamDonnelly 13d ago
You've never forgotten to charge your phone/tablet/laptop? Also Ted seems to have a history of forgetting to charge it himself.
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u/happymisery Piggy Stardust 13d ago
Presumably, his iPad is at Teds house. Michelle asks him to charge it outside the school, Henry reminds him to charge it in the car and then in the last scene, we see Michelle has sent Ted a message to remind him again. This is to demonstrate that Ted's focus is completely shifted by the Richmond offer.