Season 4, Episode 10

Well, it’s time to close the book on Ted Lasso Season 4 with a season finale that feels open to new avenues but also closed enough to end the story here if need be. Don’t get me wrong: I want more. I always do. A world without more Ted Lasso feels a little sadder, but we do what we must, and personally, I think this season finale operates better than the third season’s ender, so we have that, at the very least.

Opening with a celebration of life for the recently departed Mae (and wow, the Reddit threads had some wild thoughts on what happened to Mae in the previous episode), we see a recurring motif of grief, loss, and the lies we tell ourselves all playing out with a little lie from Ted to son Henry. Heading back to a Season 2 discussion with Rebecca, we get that pain welling up and Ted making a simple decision to hide the difficult truths and reckon with that choice. I loved this moment as it makes his character journey feel less complete than we’d previously assumed. Anxiety, grief, pain, they never really go away; we just feel accustomed to them and know how to work with them.

This thread leads to new ones, including the episode’s central concept: change tends to all come in bunches. Sure, this can be seen as a traditional finale motif, one that most shows feature as they wrap up a season, sometimes to ensure closure in case of cancellation, and sometimes to entice viewers to return for another round of chaos. All throughout this episode is change, in small and large ways, and our characters’ ability to navigate that change is what makes or breaks them. Change can be little things like a co-parent relationship evolving but not enough to be certain. It can be the ownership of a pub trading hands (seriously, these three are doomed, but I’m hoping Ted still has a place to stay). It can also be returning to an old team as a new Coach, as Roy does this episode, or changing position in order to let a colleague continue growing, as Ted and Alice do.

Some things never change, and some things do.

Alice’s arc this season has been one of my favorite plots. I was very unsure how to feel about her after one episode, but I chose curiosity over judgment, allowing the story to unfold in the way the creators planned, and I’m so happy for the outcome. It left me with plenty of questions for a potential Season 5, but I’m happy to see some of the lingering threads get closed in a satisfying way this season. Seeing her rise to the position of Head Coach this season makes me wonder what Ted’s role in the future will be, whether that be returning to the Men’s Team or supporting his new coach. I’m hoping to spend more time with the Women’s Team in the next season, as I found a number of characters that I’d like to further spend time with as well as a few background faces that I never got to meet.

So Quick, let me drop a couple quick thoughts before I linger too long:

• Jane’s appearance freaked me out, and I’m so happy that she didn’t derail the proceedings.
• The Parting Glass performance was brilliant and beautiful and what Mae deserved.
• Nathan Shelley and the Men’s Team appearing made me so joyful, but not as much as another important return.
• DIAMOND DOGS! And cat. I loved this further evolution of comfortable themes, and as much as I’d hoped for a little Trent Crimm in all this, seeing a more playful Alice partaking and supporting was such a joy.
• The share shuffle with the Milk Sisters and Zelda was a bit of a dropped ball. Zelda never really worked and the whole share buyout was fascinating and exciting and could’ve led to big change, but it ended up being a nothingburger.
• Beard, please return to normal. We love you for who you are.

Mae gets the final few words of the season, and her monologue, delivered beautifully by Annette Badland, was the perfectly pointed final stamp that Season 4 needed. I really loved large swaths of the this season, and I loved how so much of it pointed to back to the change that occurs in cyclical relationships, and how things for the Women’s Team would not play out exactly as such. What CHANGE is in store for next season? Seems like a lot, and I hope we get to see it sooner rather than later.

4/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

• For more Ted Lasso: Home, Curiouser and Curiouser!, Richmond’s Got Talent, Greyhounds’ Day Off, Riches of Embarrassment, Don’t Jump Around Much Anymore, Yes & Baby, Follow the Anger, Mae Rides the Bus