In the “Ted Lasso” Season 3 finale — or, as it was understood at the time, the “Ted Lasso” series finale — Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) makes one last earnest plea for her beloved coach to stay. She knows Ted (Jason Sudeikis) is ready to go home. After the big game, he plans to leave London behind and return to his son, Henry, in Kansas City. But she also knows his significance to Richmond F.C. goes beyond winning matches (as she should, since redefining success is kind of his whole thing).
“I just want you to consider the possibility that this is your home,” Rebecca says. “Henry can come and live here, and go to one of the best schools in the world, and enjoy the life-changing experience of being in another country. Michelle [Ted’s ex-wife] can come here and teach, get fully qualified, and go home as a department head. … Would you please stay?”
Ted, of course, turns her down. His mind is made up. His son needs him, and he’s not going to uproot Henry’s life in America (or take him away from his mother, or somehow convince his ex-wife to move to London). It’s the right choice, and the series frames it as such. Rebecca knows it, Ted knows it, and the viewers know it, too. For the multitudinous issues “Ted Lasso” faced in Season 3, his decision to leave wasn’t one of them.
Which makes it all the more confounding when, a few years later, he decides to go back for the exact reasons Rebecca proposed and he rejected. Suddenly, Henry could benefit from a change of scenery (even though he’s doing just fine in Kansas City). And wouldn’t you know it, Michelle is willing to uproot her life and move to another country (even though she’s not falling for Ted again). So it’s a good thing Ted is A-OK asking for such a huge favor, especially when it’s to facilitate a job offering less money, less security, and fewer personal ties to the team itself.
Granted, the “Ted Lasso” finale set up the possibility of a women’s soccer club emerging at Richmond. But the “Ted Lasso” Season 4 premiere does too little to justify why Ted would be the one to lead it.
On the one hand, who cares? Apple TV (presumably) backed up the money truck to keep one of its breakout hits rolling after a less-than-heralded conclusion. OK, why not? Apple’s got the money, and “Ted” can try to go out on better terms this time. More importantly for viewers: “Ted Lasso” is a sitcom, and sitcoms make all sorts of leaps in logic to keep their core characters in a familiar setting, with familiar people, doing familiar things. The audience wants to see Ted coach again, with Rebecca, Keeley (Juno Temple), and Roy (Brett Goldstein) in tow. Why would it matter how he gets back to doing what he does best, so long as he’s back?
But “Ted Lasso” isn’t just a sitcom. Not anymore. Not after that ill-fated third season, in which episodes ballooned well beyond 30 minutes (the finale clocks in at a whopping 75) and jokes were sacrificed at the altar of inspiration and sentiment. The comedy wasn’t the priority anymore; the priority was tugging those heart strings, as if the show capitulated to its own hype and decided the greater path to feel-good TV was unyielding hope, rather than the hearty hoots and hollers it started with. Delivering reasons to believe, week in and week out, can’t be taken for granted. It has to be meticulously built, in order for the big dramatic moments to land.
No matter how you see the series, joke first or hope heavy, meticulous craftsmanship is not its strong suit. “Ted Lasso” Season 4 doesn’t beat the charges, nor does it earn its return, even beyond the questionable rationale by which Ted returns to Richmond. The fourth season, with new showrunner Jack Burditt (“The Santa Clauses,” “30 Rock”), remains torn between two worlds and continues to suffer from the same tonal imbalances that felled the former final season.
Episodes are painfully long (none are shorter than 44 minutes). There’s not enough conflict to drive the narrative, and not enough laughs to liven up the dead spots. What does work is largely derivative of earlier, superior seasons.
The first episode is awful — a showcase for Kansas City filled with so many inessential subplots it may as well be excised from the series and shown on a loop at the city’s welcome center — but even when things pick up once Coach Lasso dons his whistle, what’s missing from the first four episodes is as vital as it is obvious, no matter what you’re hoping to find in the series: Ted and “Ted” have no purpose.
Before, Ted was hired as a trick. Rebecca brought in a college football coach to lead a professional soccer club because she wanted to run it into the ground. (It was, fundamentally, a soccer-centric remake of “Major League.”) So not only did he have to prove he could do the job, he also got to prove he should do the job — and he had to prove it to his players, their fans, and Rebecca herself. That’s a lot to do!
Of course, he did it all so well that now Rebecca wants him to instill the same positive, familial culture in the Lady Greyhounds. Ted wants that, too — it’s certainly more fulfilling than his job in Kansas City, as an assistant manager at Fowch’s Fine Foods — but there’s no stakes to his success or failure. Season 4 drives home the financial difficulties facing a second division women’s team. Much of Keeley and Rebecca’s relationship is negotiating around a tighter budget than they had for the men’s club, which Roy is now coaching.
But there’s a glaring absence when it comes to what each character is risking on a personal level. Relationships are steady, nonexistent, or teed up for the long-term. Demons of old (like Ted’s panic attacks) are quelled, and new concerns have yet to emerge. It’s all a bit too happy for happy’s sake, which speaks to the series’ larger tonal issues, but there’s also no sense of why Ted and his new team need to win beyond the obvious — or even what success means beyond the Lady Greyhounds moving up the standings.
With six episodes left to be seen in Season 4, there’s plenty of time for pressing dilemmas to emerge and the vibes to improve. (Sudeikis has said he has another three-season arc in mind.) New assistant coach Alice Chilton is a blatant remodeling of Roy Kent — a brusque ex-soccer player who’s reluctant to engage with Ted’s tomfoolery or personal prodding — but Tanya Reynolds’ performance is equal turns wounded and witty. She’s a huge asset, in part because she’s so similar to Roy (who’s still around, although largely in will-they-won’t-they scenes with Keely). “Ted Lasso” needn’t fear leaning into its strengths, and Ted prying grouchy, quiet-types out of their shell is one of its strongest traits.
What’s concerning, though, is the unforced errors “Ted Lasso” keeps accruing. At times, it feels like Season 4 is playing it safe by mimicking its original form: an unfailingly optimistic coach instilling a system of belief in a team with good reason to doubt him. That’s the kind of simple framework that should lead to easy wins, and yet “Ted Lasso” keeps stumbling over itself, time and time again.
In comedy, slip-ups can be entertaining. But in dramas, they need to matter. If “Ted Lasso” expects people to care again, he’ll have to offer clearer reasons to believe.
Grade: C
“Ted Lasso” Season 4 premieres Wednesday, August 5 on Apple TV. New episodes will be released weekly through the finale (Episode 10) on October 7.
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