We're back with another Docuseries. Resembling in ways a real-life Ted Lasso, Welcome to Wrexham chronicles the purchase of Wrexham AFC by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny. The Wrexham Red Dragons are a fifth-tier Welsh football club, meaning they sit at the very bottom of the pyramid of professional UK leagues. Thus, the immediate goal of this venture is pretty simple: Promotion. Ryan and Rob certainly have the capital to make a splash. The question is whether money will translate onto the field.
Marketed as an underdog story, Welcome to Wrexham is anything but and with a cynical lens we look at the odd setup of this program. Sure, as the 3rd oldest football club in the world bolstered a small blue-collar town whose fed-up with years of poor results, Wrexham AFC is a team worth rooting for. However, given the deluge of money & prestige immediately put into the club by their Hollywood owners, they become, in some ways, the evil villain of the fifth-tier league.
Fortunately, the series takes a wise approach and democratizes its focus. Sure, much of the runtime is filled with vainglorious self-promotional bits for Reynolds and McElhenney (after all, everything Ryan touches is branded to death). But many episodes give us, the audience, a direct and intimate glimpse into the small, tight-knit Welsh community of Wrexham. We listen to the pub's boorish bickering and drunken bloviation; we learn about the history of football hooliganism; we get an in-depth backstory on the corruption and subsequent cooperative takeover and ownership of the Red Dragons.
By the end, it's nearly impossible not to cheer on Paul Mullin, Ollie Palmer, and teammates as they claw their way to the cusp of promotion. Even for cynics like ourselves, it's nearly impossible not to feel a bit charmed, instead of vexed or embarrassed, by the team's rise to dominance. It's hard not to forgive Rob and Reynolds, despite their football illiteracy (Ryan literally asks bystanders to explain offsides during a critical matchup at Wembley late in the season). And that's a testament to the power of the world-building. Enjoy some good old-fashioned ranting and rowing as we wildly vacillate between positive and negative overreactions.
