For her performance in the episode, Harriet Walter was nominated for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series at the 74th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards.
Meanwhile, Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) has a one-night stand with a man she met on a website, when she is visited by her mother, Deborah (Harriet Walter).
As Richmond is struggling, Roy decides it is time for "the signal", and he, Ted, Beard (Brendan Hunt) and Nate (Nick Mohammed) proceed to give Jamie the finger.
As Beard and Roy debate what to do, Nate decides to substitute three of the players and be more defensive, which leads to Richmond's victory when Jamie scores another goal on the counter-attack.
Club gave the episode an "A-" and wrote, "'The Signal' has lots of great moments sprinkled throughout, but the central juxtaposition between a thrilling victory for AFC Richmond and an A.T.L.
"[2] Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone wrote, "By sprinkling in more conflict — and repeatedly confronting the question of whether Ted's smiling persona is actually doing harm to both himself and the team — 'The Signal' was the season's most satisfying episode yet.
"[4] Becca Newton of TV Fanatic gave the episode a 4.5 star rating out of 5 and wrote, "Ted's panic attacks were bound to come up again, and having him suffer one now makes for a nice transition to the second half of the season.
"[5] Linda Holmes of NPR wrote, "'The Signal' is a jam-packed episode, plot-wise, moving a bunch of stories forward in important ways.
"[6] Christopher Orr of The New York Times wrote, "If this week's episode, 'The Signal', seems a bit scattered (and it does), it is in large part because it has returned to the nuts-and-bolts business of moving multiple subplots forward.