It’s been my limited experience watching them that soccer games (football matches?) go on forever. Far too long. And, I’ve noticed, because of something called “stoppage time,” no one seems to really know when they are going to end. The scheduled play time runs out, fans are satisfied with the result—and yet, the match keeps going on.
Anyway, Ted Lasso has been officially renewed for Season 4. I thought that was an apt metaphor for my feelings about the decision.
(Trying to eke out a paragraph-long sports metaphor? I am exhausted.)
The previous season of the feel-good Apple TV+ awards juggernaut concluded in May 2023. While there were rumors that spin-offs were being considered, confirmation that the show is officially coming back—and coming back as Ted Lasso, with Jason Sudeikis back as the titular coach—just came, nearly two years after what many assumed could, and should, be a series finale.
Details are scant, beyond that this is happening. The Season 3 finale ended with Ted returning to the U.S. to be with his son and maybe reconcile with his ex-wife, perhaps the most emotionally intelligent thing the series scripted in that divisive season.
Does this mean things didn’t work out, or Ted gave up, and so he’s moving back to England? That would be a crushing bummer. Is he carting his family overseas with him? That would be such a narrative copout. Are his former AFC Richmond colleagues and players, for some reason, staging some sort of British Invasion and heading stateside? That would be preposterous, and ruin the entire vibe of the show: mustachioed American fish out of water and forced to swim in a sea of tea, which he hates, was the whole point.
(Update: In Travis Kelce’s podcast Friday, Sudeikis said Ted will coach AFC Richmond’s women’s team.)
The only other hint we have about the theme of the new season comes in a statement from Sudeikis, who in addition to playing Ted co-created the series: “As we all continue to live in a world where so many factors have conditioned us to look before we leap, in season four, the folks at AFC Richmond learn to LEAP BEFORE THEY LOOK, discovering that wherever they land, it’s exactly where they’re meant to be.”
Whatever greeting card or inspirational throw pillow inspired that statement, I hope the company behind it gets residuals.
Hannah Waddingham, Brett Goldstein, and Jeremy Swift are all confirmed to return, and it’s understood that Juno Temple and Brendan Hunt are in talks to come back as well. Fan favorite Phil Dunster, who played reformed cad Jamie Tartt, is expected to appear in a limited capacity, because of schedule conflicts.
In the renewal announcement, Channing Dunney, chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. TV, the studio behind Ted Lasso, heralded, “If ever there was a show the world needed more of right now, it would be Ted Lasso.”
And I’m just like… is it?
Over its run, I was a huge champion of Ted Lasso, fervently defending it during its backlash for becoming too dark in Season 2 and for becoming, well, bad in Season 3. But even I feel like it’s time to retire the jersey.
The idea that what the world needs now is Ted Lasso is such a groan-worthy miscalculation of where we are as a culture—and where we were when the heartwarming series became a thunderous smash sensation.
Its free kick into the zeitgeist (these sports metaphors are killing me) came during the darkest era of our pandemic trauma and malaise. The show’s message that there is goodness in us and around us, if we dare look for and acknowledge it, was a revelatory salve. At a time when our instincts were exclusively towards cynicism and nihilism, Ted Lasso’s optimism was practically renegade.
In some ways the show, let alone its success, is a time capsule. What’s the point of a time capsule, when you just dig it back up right away?
The idea that the show’s tone and mere existence is a prescription for some sort of societal healing during our current maelstrom of violent awfulness is malpractice. It would be like Democrats thinking that releasing a video of celebrities singing “Fight Song” again would be at all helpful in combating current circumstances. (And given the party’s current struggle to do anything remotely impactful, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did try that throwback stunt—and that’s the problem.)
I love Ted Lasso. I love its characters. I cherish the role it legitimately had in cheering up its truly hurting audience. But can’t we let that be?
There was a resounding negative reaction to the final season, making it more perplexing to bring the show back after such a long stretch. I don’t have it in me to weather more rounds of discourse about whether a beloved show ruined its characters and its legacy by unnecessarily coming back. I’m a soldier with only so much strength, and I’ve been severely weakened by the last few years trying to defend the return of Carrie Bradshaw.
At the end of Season 3, the character Ted Lasso knew it was time to end the wild ride, pack it up, and go home. Maybe the show should’ve done the same.
