It seems as though "Ted Lasso" has ridden off into the sunset. If the third-season finale really is
the end, did this show touted as a champion of kindness give its characters a fitting sendoff?
"Ted Lasso" begins with the title character moving to England to take a job managing an
underdog English football team, AFC Richmond. He doesn't know a thing about soccer, but taking
the job serves as an escape. He and his wife need some space as they try to repair their marriage.
"What, no, what did I say? That's what I'm doing, though. I'm giving you that space."
Lasso sees the team through brutal losses and terrific wins, relegation and promotion,
personal issues and self-discovery. Season 3 sees Ted coming to terms with the end of
his marriage and making a big decision to maintain a relationship with his son Henry.
The start of the third season also sees "wonder kid" Nathan Shelley coaching West Ham United.
The former Richmond kit man grapples with his newfound responsibility before quitting and
trying to rediscover who he is. Roy Kent also goes on a journey of self-discovery after a
breakup with Keeley, and even Coach Beard finally spreads his wings and learns to fly on his own.
Several players on the team also go through personal plights as
the season progresses. Colin shares his sexual orientation with the team,
Jamie learns how to be a team player, and Sam opens the Nigerian restaurant of his dreams.
The apparent series finale sees everyone coming to terms with Ted's ultimate decision
to leave the team to be with his family. The players and a select group of fans perform
a coordinated musical number at Ted and Coach Beard's last practice while Rebecca refuses to
acknowledge Ted's decision until push comes to shove. She threatens to sell the team.
"If you go, I go."
AFC Richmond wins a nail-biting final match against West Ham, but not the Premier League,
leaving them without the final feather in their cap. After a disappointing first half,
the team reveals they've kept the pieces of the iconic "Believe" sign,
which Nate destroyed back at the end of Season 2, piecing it back together.
Everyone else seems to get a happy ending. Roy Kent becomes the new Richmond manager
and goes to therapy. Coach Beard stays behind and marries Jane. Sam gets to
play for the Nigerian national team. Rebecca ends up selling 49% of the team to the fans,
keeping majority ownership, while also having a chance encounter with the man she met in
Amsterdam earlier in the season. Nate finds happiness with his girlfriend, Jade, and his
family. Keeley's PR firm is going strong. Jamie reconnects with his father. Journalist Trent Crimm
publishes his book. And Keeley and Rebecca seem prepared to start an AFC Richmond women's team.
Throughout the series, Ted does what he can to make the lives of those around him better. So
when his marriage fails, it's almost impossible for him to mentally grasp, because he couldn't
make Michelle's life better or "keep her happy," no matter how hard he tried. Season 3 sees Ted
learn how to accept what he can't control and to let it go, especially with help from Rebecca,
who went through something similar in the aftermath of her divorce from Rupert.
Rather than continue to run away from what he can't control, Ted decides to go back home to
Kansas, even if it means he is returning to an environment that reminds him of his failure.
Acceptance is a significant theme across the series, particularly in the final season,
and not just for Ted. Rebecca accepts that there is nothing she did to cause her ex-husband Rupert
to cheat on her with younger women; it's something he will always do, no matter how young or perfect
his wife is. She also has to accept that her marriage prevented her from doing some things
in her life. She goes to a fertility specialist early in the season and discovers she can no
longer have biological children, forcing her to come to terms with the loss of that possibility.
Season 3 also puts a spotlight on Colin, who's closeted and worried about coming out to the other
players on the team. When Trent unknowingly comes across Colin kissing his partner, he provides a
helpful ear as Colin struggles with revealing his sexuality. Colin's best friend, Isaac,
later looks at Colin's texts and finds messages to his boyfriend. After some initial anger,
Isaac tries to understand and accept why his friend didn't come out to him. He eventually
confronts Colin at his home, asking if he had done something to make his friend think he
wouldn't accept him. When Colin's ready, Isaac and the team readily support him.
"Who's the fittest guy on the team?" "I won't tell you, and you could never guess."
"Bumbercatch." "Yes."
While AFC Richmond has always seemed like a tight-knit group of friends,
there were conflicts. For example, Jamie was a ball hog on the pitch, often refusing to pass.
With his sunny disposition and unconventional methods,
Ted changes that. Over his three years with the team, he encourages them to be honest and open,
to support one another on and off the field, and to reflect on how they can improve themselves.
He even gives them each a book that he thinks will help them on their journeys
to self-discovery. By the end of the series, Ted has cultivated teammates that are fiercely loyal
to one another. A prime example from Season 3 is when Sam's restaurant is vandalized after
a public argument with a politician. The team bands together to repair the damage.
Ted takes a team and turns them into a family.
This is undoubtedly a major theme of the entire series.
Men's mental health is often a stigmatized topic,
but "Ted Lasso" doesn't flinch away from the issue. Characters take the
time to reflect on themselves and what they need to maintain their mental well-being.
A prime example is how Roy initially reacts to Trent's presence during the season. The
journalist wrote a fairly scathing review of Roy after his first professional game,
which has haunted Roy for decades. Not only does Roy come to accept that it wasn't a personal dig,
but he also starts to understand how it impacted his mindset in his career and
personal life. In breaking up with Keeley, Roy realizes he needs to work on himself,
though he waits until the end of the season to really take those steps.
The season also has what is a sometimes difficult-to-watch breakdown on Jamie's
part. He clearly has a significant amount of weight on his shoulders as the season progresses,
especially as the team begins to soar. This results in a sobbing fit in the locker room
before a key game. Rather than allow himself to bottle it up, he lets it out in front of Roy,
who in the past probably would have ridiculed him for it, and makes a
point to go and visit the person in his life who always makes him feel better: his mom.
The third season of "Ted Lasso" is filled with turbulence, but everyone lands safely
in the end. Many of the characters get what they've wanted throughout the season,
whether it be more time with their family or the chance to play for their dream team. Some,
like Roy and Jamie, have what they need rather than what they want, which is to be with Keeley.
Some critics and viewers may think it's unrealistic for everyone to be in such good places
in the end, but it reinforces what audiences have come to know and love about the series:
we get what we give back to the world. The only person in a negative place is Rupert,
who, after being the leading antagonist for the entirety of the series, has fallen from
grace after his new ex-wife and assistant speak out against him.
The people who put in the work are in a better place now, which is all Ted wanted for them when
he met them three years ago. He made a lasting impact that has helped the people in his life
discover new things about themselves, including what brings them fulfillment.
"Thank you." "Oh, I'm sorry."
"No, I'm sorry." "Please, go first."
The ending of "Ted Lasso" seems to wrap most things up with a bow. Almost too neatly,
according to some fans and critics. The montage of everyone's happy ending plays
out on screen only for the next cut to be Ted waking up on the airplane,
landing back in the United States for the first time since leaving for England. This
has caused fans to question whether the happy endings we see are actually Ted's dreams.
There is an argument to be made that what we are seeing is what Ted wants
for them and not what actually happens. Ted isn't present during the wedding sequence,
which seems odd considering how close he and Coach Beard are. Wouldn't he fly
back to see his best friend get married in front of Stonehenge?
In a Reddit AMA, Brendan Hunt, who plays Beard and co-created the series,
had an answer. When asked if the wedding is real or in Ted's mind, Hunt simply replied, "Real."
But then fans wanted to know why Ted wasn't at Coach Beard's wedding. Hunt explained that the
characters' friendship has had periods of not seeing each other, and he expects that
the future we're seeing falls into that. He also argued the reasoning is "narrative" and,
"It would be anticlimactic and deflating if we suddenly see him
back there before we even see his plane [land]."
The creators and cast of "Ted Lasso" have been upfront about the future of the series,
or lack thereof. In an interview with Deadline, Jason Sudeikis,
who co-created the show and plays Ted, made it pretty clear, saying ,
"This is the end of this story that we wanted to tell,
that we were hoping to tell, that we loved to tell."
"There's a lot of things we don't get in life that we want,
but it's the journey to get there. So I have to get, kind of, done with this chapter."
Fans have known that the series was designed for three seasons for quite some time,
particularly after Brett Goldstein, who plays Roy Kent and is a writer on the show,
confirmed the designated end in 2022 to Variety, stating,
"It was planned as three."
In his Reddit AMA, Brendan Hunt expressed that nothing is set in stone at the moment,
but the creative team needs to rest before they talk about the
future of the series and characters. He explained,
"We don't know. We need a break and will take one presently. Nothing has been ruled out,
everything is possible; but that includes the possibility that
we're done. We won't know until we've sat with it for a while, decompressed, etc."
Even though the series is likely over, the team isn't writing off the possibility of developing
a spin-off series or two. Sudeikis told Deadline that spin-offs were still on the table, saying,
"I think that we've set the table for all sorts of folks ... to get
to watch the further telling of these stories."
Hunt reaffirmed the chance of a spin-off in his Reddit AMA,
confirming that discussions still need to happen after a well-deserved break.
When asked about the chance of a spin-off about the AFC Richmond women's team Keeley
and Rebecca plan in the finale, Juno Temple, who plays Keeley, didn't rule it out in an
interview with Deadline. She noted that the series showcases female friendships, adding,
"It would be amazing to see how they would continue to do wonderful things together."
Hannah Waddingham, who plays Rebecca,
echoed Temple's thoughts in her own interview with Deadline, commenting,
"I love the arc of Keeley's character to present
something to Rebecca that she hasn't thought about."
Also in an interview with Deadline, Phil Dunster,
who plays Jamie, offered the view that it's alright if this is the end, saying,
"I would love for there to be more but also, if that's all she wrote, let it be."
As far as we know right now, the third season of "Ted Lasso" is indeed the end.
As the end of a series, it provides closure for most of the storylines fans dug into over
the span of 34 episodes. From Ted learning to accept what he can't change to Roy realizing
he needs to grow for himself and himself alone, the team comes out on the other side
of their time with Ted with a new perspective on life and memories that will last forever.
The end of "Ted Lasso" also means the end to some important on-screen representation of men's mental
health, from Ted's panic attacks to Nate's implied depression after quitting his dream job. In turn,
the series also shows its characters doing the work to better themselves by going to therapy,
something that is still stigmatized in many places today. Hopefully, "Ted Lasso" will always
be available to watch on Apple TV+, helping break the stigma for new audiences for years to come.