Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) always encourages his players to "be a goldfish" so they can forget their past mistakes. I would like to be a goldfish so I can forget I watched the Ted Lasso series finale.
Titled "So Long, Farewell," Ted Lasso's final episode crams resolutions for Season 3's myriad plotlines into its 75-minute runtime — something that may have felt more satisfying had Season 3 not been so back-loaded. Breakthroughs that could have been exceptional in an earlier episode get lost in the bloat of Ted Lasso's big wrap-up, and even though we do get answers to our burning questions about the season, it's hard to experience the same emotional payoff after 11 episodes of treading water.
SEE ALSO:'Succession' ends with a new CEO, but no real winnersSo how does Ted Lasso wrap up its biggest (and last) season ever? And more importantly, why doesn't it work? Let's take a look.
Hannah Waddingham and Jason Sudeikis in "Ted Lasso."Credit: Apple TV+"So Long, Farewell" opens by setting the stakes for the finale: For their final game of the season, Richmond is up against West Ham, pitting Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) against her ex-husband Rupert (Anthony Head) once more. If Richmond wins — and importantly, if current Premier League leader Manchester City loses or ties — they win the Premier League title.
But enough about football, because Ted Lasso is in Rebecca's house, all disheveled in his pajamas. He asks Rebecca if she wants to talk about "it," and she says she's not quite ready. Could it be? Did they sleep together? Did Ted Lasso confirm Tedbecca ... off-camera?
Nope! Turns out, Ted, Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt), and Jane (Phoebe Walsh) are all staying at Rebecca's house due to a deadly gas leak in their neighborhood. The Tedbecca ploy was all a huge fake-out — something the show already pulled in Season 2 by making us believe the two were texting on Bantr when in reality Rebecca was texting Sam (Toheeb Jimoh). While I am not a Tedbecca truther and personally prefer their relationship being platonic, the number of fake-outs surrounding the possibility of them having a romantic relationship reads as anticlimactic and slightly cruel to a large subset of the Ted Lasso fanbase that has been vocally shipping them since the start. If that was never going to be the arc of the story, why bother playing around with it so much over and over again? At this point, you're not beating a dead horse: You're beating a horse that was never alive in the first place.
Jason Sudeikis in "Ted Lasso."Credit: Apple TV+So what was the "it" that Rebecca and Ted didn't want to talk about, anyway? Rebecca is referring to the truth bomb Ted brought up in the final moments of Ted Lasso's penultimate episode, "Mom City." Ted has made the difficult decision to return home to America after the season, a choice that has clearly devastated Rebecca. It probably would have devastated her more in the moments after hearing it, but we do not get to see that. Nor do we even get to see Ted break the news to her. For the millionth time this season, Ted Lasso writes around a key event and only shows the aftermath — a problem that absolutely tanked Nate's (Nick Mohammed) redemption arc. But we have time for an entire Sound of Music number, why not?
SEE ALSO:'Ted Lasso's Hannah Waddingham and Kelly Clarkson compete in intense sing-offTed's truth bomb is not the only big moment from episode 11 that Ted Lasso skirts entirely in the finale. At the end of "Mom City," we see Rebecca letting Rupert's current wife Bex (Keeley Hazell) and former assistant and mistress Ms. Kakes (Rosie Lou) into her house, presumably to discuss Rupert's sexual misconduct. We learn in "So Long, Farewell"s opening that Bex and Rupert are getting a divorce following his affairs — a decision surely helped along by a heart-to-heart with Rebecca and Ms. Kakes. But we do not get to see any of that either, and any of the joy of Rupert's exes joining forces against him is relegated to an expository news report.
The ensemble of "Ted Lasso."Credit: Apple TV+At their last practice of the season, the players of AFC Richmond clearly aren't ready for Ted and Beard to leave, putting on a performance of The Sound of Music's "So Long, Farewell" that echoes their "Bye Bye Bye" dance to Dr. Sharon (Sarah Niles) in Season 2. The dance is cute but slightly redundant, and it's also proof that Ted Lasso definitely had more time to explore Ted's truth bomb had it felt like it!
Back in the locker room, we see that Nate has returned as assistant kit man — sorry, assistant to the kit man. He seems incredibly happy and ready to work for his redemption, and the Greyhounds have accepted him back with open arms. It's all too easy of a resolution given how much they wanted to kill him after he ripped up the "Believe" sign. Not even a sweet reconciliation scene between Nate and Ted (finally!) is enough to save this storyline.
Elsewhere in the club, Trent Crimm (James Lance) worries about Ted and Beard's reactions to a draft of his book, The Lasso Way. Rebecca ponders selling Richmond after Ted's departure — "If you go, I go," she tells him later — and Jamie (Phil Dunster) invites Keeley (Juno Temple) to a commercial shoot in Brazil, much to Roy's (Brett Goldstein) horror.
Brett Goldstein and Phil Dunster in "Ted Lasso."Credit: Apple TV+After spending the entire season becoming fast friends, Roy and Jamie get in a major fight over Keeley's affections — even though that love triangle hasn't really been a thing all season long. However, in a show of someemotional maturity, Roy and Jamie realize that they shouldn't be fighting over a woman. Unfortunately, the next decision they come to is that they should show up to her house unannounced and make her choose between them. Keeley chooses herself and kicks them out, and by the end of the season, the three are still good friends.
SEE ALSO:Ted Lasso's Brett Goldstein and Brendan Hunt on the show's incredible fandomWhile it's lovely to see Keeley prioritize herself, it's a frustrating ending to a season that didn't seem to know what to do with either Roy or Keeley after breaking them up right at the start. In distancing Keeley's PR firm from the rest of the Richmond plot, Ted Lasso did a major disservice to Temple and reminded us that its characters are much stronger together. Keeley's relationship with Jack (Jodi Balfour) was an odd blip in a season full of odd blips, and the show failed to treat her sex tape storyline with the care it deserved. Truly, it only felt like it was included in order to service the men of the story: We get that locker room scene where the Greyhounds wax on about the importance of deleting nudes, which then leads to Isaac (Kola Bokinni) learning that Colin (Billy Harris) is gay. Then the video resurfaces when Jamie tells Roy Keeley made it for him — why bring it back simply to stoke the flames between Jamie and Roy when Keeley is the real victim?
In addition to the mishandling of Keeley this season, Ted Lasso also failed to give Roy anything particularly compelling to do beyond train Jamie and utter a few well-timed "fucks." He tells the Diamond Dogs in "So Long, Farewell" that he's been trying to change for the better this past year — a statement which is, quite frankly, news to me. If any Greyhound has been taking steps to improve himself, it's Jamie. Roy's just been along for the ride.
Brett Goldstein, Brendan Hunt, and Jason Sudeikis in "Ted Lasso."Credit: Apple TV+The match against West Ham gets off to a rough start, but a classic Ted Lasso pep talk at halftime helps turn the team's spirits around. In what is easily the best scene of the finale, each Richmond player reveals that they've kept a piece of the "Believe" sign. They reassemble the sign in front of Ted, at which point he says, "and there it is. Number four."
The line is a callback to Season 3, episode 7, "The Strings That Bind Us," which sees Ted teaching the players the Total Football tactic. He tells them them there are four aspects of Total Footballs: conditioning, versatility, and awareness, and a fourth component that he doesn't quite know yet. Turns out, it was hanging on the wall (or sitting in pieces in each player's cubby) the whole time: Believe. It's a sweet full-circle moment that re-emphasizes the show's ethos and prompts the Greyhounds to play their best in the second half. They come from behind to win the whole game 3-2, leading to the most joyful celebration in Ted Lassohistory.
However, it's not enough to win the Premier League. Manchester City wins their match and the title, but Ted Lasso fades to black before we can see how anyone reacts. For once this season, I appreciate the restraint in writing around that particular event. Richmond has already had a historic season, and they'll be advancing to the Champions League. They did everything that they could to get to second place, and by the end of the West Ham game, that's what they're really celebrating: how they managed to get all the way to the top. We don't get to see their reactions to the Manchester City victory because they don't matter: Richmond has already won, in their own way. The only way this cutaway could have worked better would have been if Ted Lasso had not established a troubling pattern of avoiding key moments this whole season long.
Juno Temple in "Ted Lasso."Credit: Apple TV+Ted indeed makes good on his promise to return to Kansas, where he winds up coaching Henry's (Gus Turner) soccer team. The final shot of the whole show sees him watching, fulfilled and content, as Henry plays on.
But still, I have questions: Have Ted and Michelle (Andrea Anders) gotten back together? Crucially, her boyfriend (and their former marriage counselor) Dr. Jacob (Mike O'Gorman) is nowhere to be seen, especially not after his active disdain for the Richmond-West Ham game. Ted Lasso leaves the future of Ted and Michelle's relationship ambiguous, a move that honestly feels annoying after Ted's personal growth in London and the show's hasty attempts to redeem Michelle in the back half of the season. Hopefully they can just be friends and good co-parents, because it seems like they need different things in a partner.
Across the pond, Rebecca decides to keep the majority of Richmond, although she sells 49% of the club to the fans, who view her as a kind of matriarch. With the club becoming her family, the last piece of her mother's psychic's visions falls into place — but wait! After a tearful goodbye to Ted in the airport (an admittedly lovely scene), she runs back into Hot Dutch Houseboat Guy (Matteo van der Grijn) from the Amsterdam episode. He's a pilot, and the two seem to strike up a new relationship, one in which Rebecca becomes a mother figure to his daughter.
Roy becomes the new manager of Richmond, while Beard (whose first name, we learn, is Willis) stays behind to continue coaching alongside Nate. He also gets married to Jane (in his magical "Beard After Hours" pants no less), another odd move from Ted Lasso given how unhealthy their relationship is — something that weirdly became a bit as the show went on. We don't get Roy and Keeley back together, but we do get this? A choice.
Elsewhere, Keeley and Barbara (Katy Wix) join forces to create KBPR. Trent publishes his book, now titled The Richmond Way, because Ted reminds him it was never just about him. Colin comes out publicly by kissing his boyfriend in celebration at the match, Sam gets to play for Nigeria, and Dr. Sharon returns to Richmond to head up mental services. (Justice for Dr. Sharon, who has been nowhere to be seen since episode 1 of Season 3 and really only turns up in the finale to provide reactions to the big match.) Happy endings all around! Except for Rupert, who gets majorly humiliated in the final game. At least we get that.
Jason Sudeikis in "Ted Lasso."Credit: Apple TV+Throughout the rollout of Ted Lasso Season 3, Sudeikis and the rest of the show's team were all fairly coy about whether this season was indeed their last. After all, they'd said many times that they envisioned the story they wanted to tell as a three-season arc — but could more story have opened up as they wrote these three seasons?
Based on Ted's departure from England, this tweet describing the episode as Richmond's "final match," and a goodbye video streaming on Apple TV+, it's pretty clear that this is the end of the road for Ted Lasso as we know it — especially for its titular coach.
SEE ALSO:How 'Ted Lasso' fumbled Nate's redemption arc, big timeDoes the finale leave room for spin-offs though? Absolutely. We could certainly continue to see Roy, Nate, and Beard coach our beloved Greyhounds. But in a more interesting turn of events, the finale sets up another fascinating possibility: A Richmond women's team. Keeley proposes the idea to Rebecca in the show's final minutes, and based on Rebecca's elated reaction, it looks like it'll be happening! A show focused on a women's team (and hopefully Rebecca and Keeley's role in supporting them) would be an exciting direction for a Ted Lasso spin-off, especially since the show never focused on women's side of the sport at all.
Still, before we entertain the possibility of re-entering the world of Richmond, I'll need the Ted Lasso team to step back and take some hard lessons from Season 3 and its finale. If nothing else, we need to return to the half-hour episode format.
All episodes of Ted Lasso are now streaming on Apple TV+.
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