Kindness takes – Across recent screen stories, the “soft touch” is moving back into the spotlight. Ted Lasso and Death by Lightning center leaders defined by gentleness, self-control, and kindness—pushing back against decades of protagonists who treat empathy as expendable.
For decades, many popular protagonists were allowed a certain hardness. They could be ambitious. sharp. even a little rebellious—but kindness was often framed as a weakness. or at best an optional accessory. The messier parts of being human—someone else’s feelings. the slow work of doing things the proper way—were something the lead could “skip” because the plot demanded action.
But the stories people keep returning to are starting to look different. Kindness. gentleness. and self-control—described as fruits of the Spirit in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount—are no longer background virtues. In Ted Lasso and Death by Lightning, they are the organizing principle. And that shift. at a moment when daily life is being shaped by increasingly relentless media. changes how audiences are asked to feel about power. conflict. and what leadership should look like.
Ted Lasso begins with a familiar setup: a simple American football coach from the US is engaged to lead a struggling British soccer team toward better results. It’s an underdog sports tale, the kind you might shelf beside Miracle Match and Coach Carter. Yet one key scene is noticeably missing. Instead of standing out on the field to pump up a dejected team with high-spirited. demanding motivation. the title character—Ted Lasso—opts for a quieter approach.
He checks in on players’ personal lives. He follows their progress both on and off the pitch. And he keeps having heart-to-hearts with members of the club management. As the stories build, obstacles aren’t treated as the product of somebody else’s malicious intent. Even when the show sets up hostility—Jamie Tart’s aggression toward veteran player Roy Kent. for example—it doesn’t leave the conflict there. It quickly frames what looks like antagonism as the result of human failings, fears, or core insecurities.
The moral logic lands softly but firmly. Viewers may think, “So what?”—what if the person is acting out of insecurity or past hurt?. Ted Lasso doesn’t accept the shortcut that excuses harm because the backstory is sad. It still holds people accountable for what they did and what they might do again. Then it refuses escalation as the solution. The point isn’t to demand a justification before kindness can start; it’s to insist that kindness and gentleness are the only real tools within our control.
Ted is played by Jason Sudeikis, and his character’s approach is built to look realistic, not sentimental. The show treats turning the other cheek as a hard road. taken in a world that has taught audiences to equate a soft touch with failure. The result is a protagonist who doesn’t just win matches—he tries to bring people back onto the best path. with a belief that each person deserves the time and effort it takes to get there.
If Ted Lasso tests kindness when the pressures are ordinary, Death by Lightning confronts the question at its highest volume. Watching Ted might tempt some people to believe gentleness works best when stakes are low—when the conflict is a neighbor’s dog or someone cutting you off in traffic. But the show’s premise is built to challenge that comfort.
Death by Lighting is a recent hit Netflix show that follows American President James Garfield. It makes an even more outrageous claim than the sports drama: that people can be kind. gentle. and in control even when lives and nations are at stake. The series recognizes that it may simplify some of the issues of the past to resonate with modern audiences. but the leadership it offers is unmistakable.
Garfield—played by Michael Shannon—keeps returning to promises. gentleness. and honor. including how he chooses to treat his children and how he tries to believe the best in everyone around him. The series tracks his path to the White House while repeatedly insisting that he should lower his voice first and foremost.
That stance echoes Teddy Roosevelt’s foreign policy phrasing: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” The show folds that line into its moral rhythm: speak softly, carry the authority, and stay steady. In Death by Lightning, kindness isn’t presented as decorative behavior—it’s the method.
The series also introduces Charles Guiteau, presented in parallel to Garfield throughout the show. Charles Guiteau—played by Matthew McFadyen—is shown as a striving. impressionable. opportunistic individual driven by a desperation to show loyalty to someone or something and to receive that loyalty in return. The structure matters here. If the show had saved him for the end. when his actions finally come to fruition. viewers might simply hate him. Instead. the story brings you alongside him in setbacks. pain. miscommunications. and difficulty finding even a small corner of the world in which to exist.
That doesn’t soften what comes later: the show presents Guiteau as the other side of Garfield’s coin. and his acts result in terrible grief and lasting ill effects for the United States as a whole. Yet the series keeps making a contrast. Garfield has more reason to hate Guiteau than anyone else. Still. the series depicts Garfield as continuing a policy of kindness and gentleness until the very end. trying to make the happiness in his life resound louder than the tragedy.
The moral emphasis is sharpened by the way the show frames Garfield’s end. Instead of a “means justify the ends” protagonist who breaks everything around them to achieve their ends. Garfield pays the cost himself. The series describes a Christ-like motivation: rather than let hatred and pettiness carry the story beyond his own life. he chooses to end that story and start a new one—one of humility. forgiveness. understanding. and grace that values the least and has the guts to live it out until the end.
Together, these new characters point to a shift in what audiences want to see from leads. The stories suggest viewers are weary of characters acting on instinct with no concern for repercussions. The demand has turned toward role models who can make an omelette without breaking eggs—and who can show how to do the same. The direction implied by that metaphor is practical: less spectacle of domination, more discipline of response.
The stories even gesture toward how this kind of leadership might travel across genres. The trend is presented as an emphasis on understanding people’s experiences. backgrounds. and personal adversities. including in shows like Ludwig—a BBC series that follows a lead character who struggles to relate to those who are different from him but eventually strives to be a source of light. kindness. and justice to them anyway.
This is where the conversation lands: it is easier to call forgiveness. gentleness. peace. and patience “nice” than it is to demand them from protagonists who are supposed to be powerful. Yet Ted Lasso and Death by Lightning treat those attributes as the point, not the decoration. When kindness is the engine. conflict becomes something you can navigate without escalating it into something you can’t take back.
And for audiences, that’s not just a shift in character design. It’s a shift in what feels viable—what feels achievable—when the world is asking to be met with fire.
Ted Lasso Death by Lightning Netflix Jason Sudeikis Michael Shannon Matthew McFadyen James Garfield Charles Guiteau kindness gentleness pop culture television cultural identity BBC Ludwig Jesus Sermon on the Mount