Ted Lasso was a massive hit. But that was also over three years ago – when the last season streamed on Apple TV – and still riding high on being the beloved savior of prime COVID streaming, a series that brought hope, laughter and tears to the eyes of a humankind hungry for all three. After a mixed positive reception to the second season and a mixed negative reaction to the indulgent third season, the show goes back to basics for a surprise fourth season which changes the premise, though keeps much of the same core cast. And the good news? You better believe Ted Lasso is so back.
Picking up appropriately three years later, Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) has made good on his promise to be part of his son Henry’s (played this season by Grant Feely, previously by Gus Turner) life, to the point that he’s given up soccer/football entirely, and instead is using his earnest powers packing groceries at the local supermarket. That’s when Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham), Leslie Higgins (Jeremy Swift), and Keeley Jones (Juno Temple) show up in Kansas City with a proposition: come back to Richmond in the UK and coach the new all-women football team.
It’s not too much of a spoiler to say that Ted does head back, though it’s helpful to think of the first two episodes of Season 4 as a repilot (the first five episodes of Season 4 were provided to critics for review). In one he’s making his decision, the second we’re resetting the stage with the new team, as well as catching up with some old favorites back in Richmond. Subsequent episodes find Ted building up the roster of the team, as well as both Rebecca and Keeley struggling with different sides of feminism and misogyny, with Leslie mostly befuddled and stuck in the middle.
Brendan Hunt returns as well as Coach Beard, Ted’s second-in-command who hasn’t weathered the past few years without him very well, no thanks to the gruff coaching of Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein). And while plenty of other familiar faces pop up, at least in the initial episodes, the men’s team is off-screen as the show takes time to focus more on the new cast members.
Of those, the biggest stand out is assistant coach Alice (Tanya Reynolds), who ends up coaching the team with Ted when it turns out he is more out of his element coaching a women’s team than he was in the first season trying to translate football to, uh, football. Reynolds is no stranger to comedy, particularly a stand-out turn as the off-kilter Lily on Netflix’s Sex Education. But she gets to bring a lot more of her acting chops to bear here as she wrestles with her role on a team that seems doomed for failure while still finding herself (naturally) won over by Ted’s charms.
An awkward segue, but this a good opportunity to address likely one of the big worries going into this season: even though episodes average around 45 minutes, Ted Lasso Season 4 is a brisk comedy. At least in the episodes I’ve seen this is a complete turnaround from the more conceptual and morose take the series infused into Season 3, and every episode made at least this viewer laugh out loud multiple times and then suddenly tear up in the closing moments, aka the vintage Ted Lasso experience.
Part of that comes with some caveats, which include rolling back most of the emotional development Ted went through over three seasons in service of allowing this to be a broader comedy with a potential for a longer run. And that is… Okay? Sudeikis methodically whittled away most of what made Ted an appealing character in the previous season, so bringing him back to basics may not be satisfying on a dramatic level, but it is on a comedic one. On the other hand, some storylines feel a bit like they’re spinning their wheels… Goldstein and Temple are a sizzling couple as always, but picking up with Roy and Keeley three years later in the same place we left them, i.e. still trying to figure things out, feels like weird stasis. Rebecca, too, acts like no time has passed since the Season 3 finale and now, when some growth and change could have been good.
Goldstein, a gifted comedic performer, suffers the most here. While Keeley and Rebecca’s relationship forms the spine of the season thanks to their vested interest in the success of the women’s team (or lack thereof), Roy feels like a vestigial limb, here merely to go through the same growling and variations of the word “fuck” – though impressive they may be – he had been doing for three prior seasons. And with the men’s team mostly absent, it’s odd that Roy is included at all, other than the whole world loving Goldstein.
That’s sort of the point, right? Ted Lasso said what it needed to say, completing its sports movie plot and then digging far too deep into psychology and surreality for a show that started as a series of NBC Sports promos. There was an underlying idea that Ted Lasso – or rather, Sudeikis – had something to prove. First that he could make the premise work despite its odd origins, and then that he could pay off on all the accolades with something raw and real. That out of the way, Ted Lasso is back for what amounts to a “hey let’s have some fun with friends” victory lap. There’s no reason for the show to be back, and other than Reynolds’s performance the female cast doesn’t distinguish itself the same way the men’s cast did in Season 1 – mostly due to the rivalry between Roy and the now on a different Bill Lawrence show Phil Dunster as Jamie Tartt. The others took some time to develop, and the women’s team will hopefully find their groove as the season continues.
But Season 4 is mostly what I just said: time to have fun with your friends again. And isn’t that okay? Teamwork makes the dreamwork, and Ted Lasso spent the previous three seasons driving home that no one teammate can make or break a team. Here, Sudeikis steps a little back to let the others in the ensemble step up, and it’s a charming and sweet return. We may not be in the same place as a society as we were when the show first premiered in 2020 (thankfully), but if Season 4 of Ted Lasso continues at the same level after these five opening episodes, it might be just what society needs… Again.
New episodes of Ted Lasso stream Wednesdays on Apple TV.
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