Ryan Reynolds. Matthew Ashton – AMA/Getty Images
The Welcome to Wrexham season 3 premiere kicked off with a recap of the second season finale — Wrexham AFC was officially promoted to the English Football League for the first time in 15 years.
As the team’s cochairmen Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney geared up for the team’s first season in League Two, a harrowing injury to star player Paul Mullen had the players losing momentum during pre-season — and forced him to stay in the United States for two weeks.
“Rob was so kind, he offered Paul his own home to stay in,” Reynolds, 47, joked during the episode, which aired on Thursday, May 2. “I felt a little like, I’m going to have to compete with that somehow. So, I offered Paul my lungs. I just said, ‘You can have the lungs and you’ll be playing before you know it.’”
McElhenney, 47, joked that Reynolds probably has “robust lungs” to share. “Not the lungs of a 26-year-old though,” he added.
Mullen’s injury occurred during Wrexham’s preseason game against Manchester United, which took place in San Diego. The tense scene on the field showed Mullen, 29, laying horizontal after colliding with a player from the other team. “I can’t breathe,” he could be heard wheezing as his lips turned visibly blue.
“Hit the floor and thought I was just winded. It will go, it will pass,” Mullen said during his confessional. “Obviously, as the seconds went, and I tried to take a breath in, and I couldn’t. That’s when I thought, ‘Jesus, I could be in trouble here.’”
It was later revealed that he suffered four fractured ribs and a punctured lung.
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Because of the injury, Mullen was unable to fly back to the U.K. for two weeks. He missed Wrexham’s season opener and a reunion with his family. (Mullen shares son Albi, 4, with wife Mollie O’Brien.)
“They basically said that if I got on a plane, my lung would expand, and because there’s a hole already in it, basically it would pop,” Mullen said. “Then, you’re in trouble when you’re flying over the Atlantic Ocean. You ain’t got many hospitals to go to in that circumstance.”
Instead of playing, Mullen was forced to watch Wrexham’s first League Two game against MK Dons, which they lost 3-5. (It’s important to note that Hugh Jackman did accompany Reynolds and McElhenney to the game.)
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The loss against MK Dons was Wrexham’s first one at their home stadium in over two years. The disappointment was evident all around as the match came to an end.
“We hard-launched failure,” Reynolds declared in his confessional as the episode came to an end.
New episodes of Welcome to Wrexham premiere on FX Thursdays.