Much of the episode dealt with the fallout of the news that Ted would be leaving Richmond at the end of the season, with many a tearful goodbye. However, none were as fun as the players themselves saying goodbye to Ted, and they did it in the best way possible.
At the end of their final practice, the team surprises Ted with a full musical rendition of “So Long, Farewell”, the song from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1959 musical, “The Sound of Music”, and its film adaptation. from 1965 – with Dani Rojas as little Gretl and Roy Kent speaking the lyrics to the song in the background.
It’s a fantastic scene with some pretty good choreography, but it’s not the first time a musical number has performed at the Richmond training grounds. In the penultimate episode of Season 2, Ted and Coach Beard also have the team practice and perform a musical performance of NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye”. In either case, the moment the coaches give the performance their approval, the team celebrates like mad, going completely mad, even more so than when they win the decisive match in the final.
The reason these performances work as more than benchmarks is because they show how much players have grown, how open they are to each other, how comfortable they are doing stupid things like a song and dance number to say goodbye to their boss and do it sincerely and not ironically.