Ted Lasso said goodbye in May 2023 with its third season. After AFC Richmond finishes in second place in the Premier League, Lasso returns to the United States to spend time with his son. Roy Kent becomes the team’s coach and Coach Beard stays in England after marrying his fiancée. And Rebecca, the owner of the institution, decides to sell 49% of the ownership to the fans.
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After a successful run – which went from more to less, it must be said – it seemed like a definitive farewell for the Apple TV comedy. But no. Three years later, Ted Lasso returned last week with a new story and its characteristic formula of humor and sweetness.
The production picks up the character of Jason Sudeikis a few years later in Kansas City, where he shares raising his son with his ex-wife, Michelle, and goes through a set of circumstances that force him to face a new stage of his life.
At that moment the fiction picks up a clue included in the last episode of the third cycle and shows Rebecca, Keeley, and Higgins visiting the protagonist in his city with a proposal under their arm: that he take over as head coach of the Richmond women’s team, the project that Keeley presented to the owner some time ago. After carefully evaluating it, he only accepts when his son and Michelle agree that they all move together to London. A possibility that was never realized when he was working as the head of the men’s team.
In the second episode of the fourth installment – which debuted today on the platform – the magnitude of the challenge ahead begins to be revealed. He meets Alice Chilton, his assistant coach, who has a difficult personality and is upset for not being selected as the head coach. Of all Ted’s traits, she is especially irritated by his insistence on getting to know the players on a personal level. And regarding the finances and long-term viability of the project, the prospects are not positive either. In his favor, Lasso has the return of Beard, who stops working with Roy on the men’s team.
The series takes its time to present the new (old) ecosystem surrounding Ted Lasso. Something that is probably explained by the long-term plan managed by Sudeikis and the other minds: initially, the idea is that there will be a total of three seasons about the women’s team (which would bring the total to six), although Apple TV has not yet announced anything officially.
The streaming platform limited itself to sharing four of ten episodes with the press and, at least so far, the balance is favorable, but not as much as in its original incarnation.
“The triumphant return of the series brings with it a feeling of belonging and warmth that television has sorely missed since its farewell three years ago. It is not only a relief to welcome Ted back to England, but it is also a kind of reboot that, in this modern era of reboots everywhere, achieves something spectacular: it delivers on its promise,” said The Wrap.
While it considered that the third cycle “satisfactorily and credibly concluded the story of almost all the characters,” the Los Angeles Times celebrated the comedy’s return. The newspaper highlighted that “things improve in the second episode, which is more natural,” and particularly praised the work of Tanya Reynolds (Sex Education), who plays Alice Chilton, assuring that “she will undoubtedly emerge as the star of the season.”
“Despite its irritatingly artificial qualities, the appeal of Ted Lasso remains intact: predictable comic gags, gestures of kindness and reconciliation, bright colors, clean lines. A sense of quality entertainment still permeates the well-oiled production,” published The Guardian, expressing that “Ted Lasso remains as saccharine as ever and, without a doubt, continues to be liked by many people.”
In a somewhat colder analysis, Variety called it a “perfectly routine sequel.” It based its criticisms on the little development given to new characters, except for Alice, and the predominant role assigned to veterans. “Characters like Roy and Beard, Ted’s longtime assistant, would work better as occasional cameos, but they remain protagonists who carry the weight of the plot and take up a lot of space. The consequences border on the absurd,” it stated.
In a review titled “Ted Lasso doesn’t know what to do with women’s soccer,” Time magazine shared its doubts about the outcome produced by the experiment of having the good-natured American coach in charge of a group of female athletes.
“Making him the voice of reason could be perceived as mansplaining; giving too much importance to his players could turn him into the forced and ridiculous feminist man he sometimes seemed in previous seasons. The series’ solution is to keep him practically on the sidelines,” it noted.
And it concluded: “Ted Lasso, which is no longer a manual on how to be a good man, returns as, in part, a kind reply to sexism in sports and a gift to those who still support the relationship between Roy and Keeley, but above all as a comforting series about work that is about nothing in particular.”
Meanwhile, The Hollywood Reporter stated that the production includes “speeches about how important it is, not only for girls but also for boys, older women, and really people of all ages and genders, to see that women can also play (…) But one thing is to label something as important, and quite another to make it interesting. Ted Lasso achieves the first, but fails at the second.”
The comedy will premiere a new episode on Apple TV every Wednesday, until October 7.
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