ted lasso (season 3)

Ted Lasso may be an American comedy, but its willingness to bid a defiant farewell at the apex of its popularity feels distinctly… British. It’s not yet official that the show’s third season on Apple TV+ was its last, but it seems relatively certain that it won’t be continuing in its current iteration led by Jason Sudeikis’s titular star (my best guess - a half-continuation/half-spinoff called The Richmond Way). It seemingly joins the ranks of UK shows such as Fawlty Towers, The Office and Derry Girls that espoused the belief that it’s better to walk away years too early than a day too late.

Ted Lasso’s mere existence still feels like a minor miracle. The idea of building an entire show around a character Sudeikis basically created to help NBC promote its Premier League coverage still seems laughable… its ceiling on network television would charitably have been described as a critically derided midseason replacement destined for cancellation after four episodes. Instead, the delicate and disarmingly feel-good alchemy of its first season (bolstered in no small part by the dolorous backdrop of the pandemic) flowered on streaming and the show quickly became an Emmy-winning phenomenon. Ted’s fundamental and unironic decency was like a drug, and we all became willing addicts.    

There’s no need to mince words, however. It’s pretty well documented at this point that Ted Lasso’s third season careened through some fairly sizable narrative potholes. With Apple effectively removing all creative guardrails, the formerly half-hour comedy started routinely turning in mammoth 70-minute episodes - though they rarely justified the extra fat. Too many storylines frankly went nowhere. Richmond’s paradigm-shifting acquisition of self-aggrandizing striker Zava was a hilariously spot-on spoof of Swedish star Zlatan Ibrahimovich but otherwise petered out without incident (you’d assume Zava’s self-centered greatness would clash with Ted’s team-first ethos, but this is oddly never really touched on). Everything involving Keeley’s PR firm - from her ill-advised decision to hire party girl pal Shandy to her lesbian fling with venture capitalist Jack - simply fills space. Too often humor would dictate character, rather than the other way around (the eternally cheerful Dani Rojas morphing into a stone-cold assassin when pitted against teammate Zoreaux on international duty is good for a chuckle, but it’s inorganic caricature). At times, Ted just hovers over it all like a benevolent, mustached deity… almost as if the writers were stress-testing a version of the show without him in it. As others have pointed out, too much of the season left the characters stranded in their own individual orbits… like pinballs being paddled in parallel lines.

This was particularly evident with Nate, whose heel turn at the end of last season was already on shaky narrative ground. Left largely adrift as the newly installed manager of West Ham United and with no obvious way to exploit his fledgling rivalry with Richmond (it’s not like the two clubs could play every week), his redemptive arc was clumsily fast-tracked, glossing over the part in which he actually, you know… earns it (everything is chalked up to Rupert’s Sith Lord influence, even though he had no hand in Nate’s original betrayal). Under the circumstances, it’s not surprising that viewers gravitated most strongly towards Roy and Jamie’s sweet-and-sour friendship, which was the most reliable fount of character-based humor and growth. It was an especially pleasant surprise that Jamie - the formerly bratty striking prodigy played by Phil Dunster - turned out to be the best-serviced member of the ensemble... especially after the show had so little idea what to do with him last season (on the flip side, Toheeb Jimoh’s Sam - last year’s rightfully beloved breakout star (as an actor, Jimoh has an almost ecstatically endearing presence) - gets largely and disappointingly sidelined, aside from a few key episodes). And while Sarah Niles was deeply missed as team psychologist Dr. Sharon Fieldstone (the only person seemingly immune to Ted’s folksy cheer), James Lance - as journalist Trent Crimm (formerly of The Independent, and someone very much *not* immune to Ted's folksy cheer) - was smartly ushered in off the fringes and incorporated into the main fold.  

And yet, in spite of it all… Ted Lasso’s charm remains indefatigable. The premise was already starting to strain credulity (Ted’s ignorance of soccer worked in the first season, because he had insights that transcended the sport; but at this point, not knowing the offsides rule just makes him look bad at his job)… but the show’s value of optimism and courtesy proves as potent a balm in these fractious times as ever. Its world - a sports comedy filtered through the whimsical lens of Paddington Bear - is absolutely worth spending time in. As always, certain cast members deserve special mention. Brett Goldstein, like a live-action Oscar the Grouch with his perpetually scowling visage and fiercely knitted caterpillar eyebrows, remains a curmudgeonly delight as the eternally grumpy Roy Kent. Hannah Waddingham, as Richmond owner Rebecca Welton, has a uniquely radiant presence - it's still hard to believe the best Game of Thrones could devise for her was ringing the shame bell. Her speech in opposition of a proposed Super League was possibly the highlight of the entire series (one of the best things the show ever did was pivot beyond its pseudo-Major League premise and Rebecca’s antagonistic positioning as quickly as possible). And, of course, Sudeikis himself, the amiable glue holding it all together, who no doubt makes his job look a heck of a lot easier than it is (in an art imitating life moment, Rebecca tells Ted emotionally “I can afford to make you one of the highest-paid coaches in the league, but… I still think I’d be underpaying you for what you mean to this club.” On the other hand, Sudeikis hints at the show moving on just fine without him when Ted gently suggests Trent change the title of his forthcoming book The Lasso Way - “It was never about me”).​

But whatever the third season’s shortcomings, all of that lingering frustration gets swept aside during the stellar season (series?) finale “So Long, Farewell” (that early conversation about Julie Andrews films - and Mary Poppins in particular - was definitely not an incidental detail). It’s a perfect distillation of everything Ted Lasso does best - effortlessly teasing that fist-sized lump into one’s throat while reminding us of the uniquely galvanizing dramatic power of sports. If this truly is the end, the show will be missed. As Ted says “I know folks like to say there’s no place like home. And that’s true. But man… there ain’t a whole lot of places like AFC Richmond either.”