Ted Lasso’s fourth season was a success. But there’s one thing still missing

Late on Tuesday night (or early Wednesday morning, depending on your timezone) the footballing world came together in unison to bid farewell to an icon of the game. Some supporters argued the final whistle was long overdue, while others still cling to the hope that their hero might return to fight one last battle. As the curtain fell, we were left with a lasting image, both poetic in its narrative weight and overwhelming in its emotion: Lionel Messi sending the goalkeeper the wrong way from the spot to score one last goal for Argentina. Oh, also the Ted Lasso finale was on.

***SPOILERS FOR THE FINAL EPISODE OF TED LASSO SEASON 4 FOLLOW***

Strangely, if there’s one thing the fourth season of Ted Lasso lacked, it was football. As events in Buenos Aires proved last night, the real game is ripe with high drama. For a season of television that ostensibly set out to celebrate women’s football, Ted Lasso showed us precious little of it over its last ten episodes. In the finale, we cut away from the all-important, last match of the season before a ball was even kicked. Messi would never miss an open goal like that.

Instead, the show chose to focus on the relatively minor matter of life and death. There was a wake for the beloved pub landlady Mae Green (Annette Badland), and the pitter-patter of tiny football boots on the way for Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) and Keeley Jones (Juno Temple).

As sad as many fans of the show understandably were about Mae’s abrupt demise, it did give the finale real weight as it stuck the landing in its most emotional moments: a moving performance of the folk song “The Parting Glass” and Badland’s wonderful reading of the Mary Oliver poem “When Death Comes.”

Still, you can’t help but think that Mae herself would have agreed with the legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly, who famously quipped: “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.”

There had been a fair bit of trepidation about whether Ted Lasso would justify its return after three years away from our screens. The warmth and wit of the show’s first season arrived like a life-affirming balm in the pandemic-hit days of 2020, but by the time it ended its run after three seasons in 2023, its charms had curdled and become cloying. Earlier this year, the show returned for an unexpected fourth season, which saw Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) taking charge of AFC Richmond’s newly formed women’s team.

If the show’s comeback felt like a risk, it’s one that’s been justified by a largely endearing, funny and welcome run of new episodes. Not everything has worked. Coach Beard’s (Brendan Hunt) continued tangles with estranged wife Jane (Phoebe Walsh) have been mostly laugh-free and head-scratching at best, while the eccentric Zelda’s (Tracey Ullman) well-signposted and long-winded betrayal of club owner Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) was another misfire. The show’s only true mystery remains why Sudeikis and Waddingham have shared so little screen time since the reboot.

But the gamble certainly paid off with audiences. According to recent data from Ampere Analysis, the fourth season pulled in 3.3 million views in the U.S. alone last month, making it Apple TV’s most-watched show or film in September. For context, in second place was the new Ryan Reynolds movie Mayday, trailing by some distance with 2.1 million views.

The question now is whether Lasso will return for a fifth and even sixth season. Apple has remained tight-lipped thus far, although Sudeikis has said that he and the show’s other creators do indeed have another two seasons sketched out. Back in July, an interview with Sudeikis and his collaborators in The Hollywood Reporter suggested that: “If all goes according to plan, the Lasso team will be back in the writers room in late August mapping out a not-yet-ordered season five.”

With fans still watching in droves, there seems to be little reason Apple would stand in their way. The finale of the fourth season tied up some plot threads neatly, but left plenty of questions unanswered and ambiguous. Coach Alice Chilton’s (Tanya Reynolds) elevation to lead the women’s team felt both fitting and inevitable, but the question of who will take over the men’s team now that Roy is off to Chelsea remains open.

A cameo appearance from Nick Mohammed’s Nate Shelley suggests he could be welcomed back into the fold, but surely Ted can’t spend a whole new year as assistant to Coach Chilton? Sure, he might be a better father and finally make it to watch some of his son’s games, but admirable parenting hardly screams “satisfying TV.”

After all these years, what Ted really deserves is to finally get his hands on some silverware. His message of positivity was all well and good as we watched him get Richmond relegated (season one), promoted (season two) and eventually narrowly finish second in the Premier League (season three), but it feels like unfinished business if he doesn’t get to actually win something.

Admittedly, it was Manchester City that pipped him to the title that third year, but you’d be hard-pressed to ring much excitement out of watching lawyers argue to have the history books corrected in Ted’s favor over financial irregularities.

No, Ted has earned a real-life, soppy, punch-the-air victory, just like Messi in 2022 or Rocky in Rocky II. For the millions of us still tuning in, that’s the unfulfilled promise that’ll likely keep us coming back for another season (or two): the hope that, just for once, nice guys might finish first.

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