Ted Lasso season 3 finale: “So Long, Farewell”
With a big sendoff, the show reminds us that wanting to be better is enough—and it’s a choice you have to make over and over again
TV Reviews Ted Lasso
So long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, good night!
I was right to have been tracking all the musical references these past few episodes given that, for its season finale, Ted Lasso urged us to ask how you solve a problem like, well, Ted Lasso. Not that our folksy American football-turned-soccer coach was a problem, per se (he was less so than that famed Julie Andrews character for sure). But as this third (final?) season has worn on, it’s become clear that this wasn’t (couldn’t?) be a sustainable premise. Ted has a family back home. And a kid who was struggling with a father so far away. Moreover, given that this comedy ballooned itself into becoming a pat if heartwarming tale about self-actualization via sport metaphors, it makes sense that we’d arrive at a logical end point for all involved once they learn the main lesson Ted has instilled in us all through out these past three seasons: “Be a goldfish.”
That the season ended with such a simple message speaks to the unassuming if nevertheless powerful message this Emmy winning comedy staked for itself: wanting to be better is enough. And it’s a choice you have to make over and over again. It’s a simple message that exemplifies the way Ted approached life and sport alike and which became a kind of mantra for all involved in AFC Richmond, distilled as it was by Coach Beard during a Diamond Dogs meeting that finally found Roy Fucking Kent admitting he needed help.
True to any and all sports narratives, Ted Lasso grafted its ending onto a pivotal final match: Could AFC Richmond end up on top after a miraculous post-Zava season and win it all? The question, as ever, was mostly immaterial. (Though I will note that, just like last week’s episode, it is always fun to see the show really embrace the soccer part of its soccer comedy label). And while a lot was riding on this final match, it wasn’t really all to do with whether Rebecca would finally beat Rupert at his own game (as the pilot all that time ago hinted). Nor, as it happens, and as Trent has written in his book, was it whether the Lasso Way would prove itself worthy of such a study.
No, this match was important for all involved because it would be Ted’s final one with Richmond. This seemed to be the ending we all knew we were getting for months now: Ted has been little more than a structuring device for the show, with his same-named series valuing endless subplots around its peripheral characters more than wrestling (up until last week’s episode) with why Ted had so sidelined himself. If anything it proved there was, as he tells Trent once he gives him notes on that book of his, that this was never about Ted. It was about a team that learned how to work together, and grew into a well oiled machine that, yes—spoiler alert—led them to an eventual victory. The win, courtesy of great teamwork all around, was as satisfying an ending as one could’ve asked for and captured just how exciting soccer can be. (No, it’s not always about 90 minutes of excitement ending in a 0-0 result, thank you very much!)
The game may have been the anchor but this episode worked, perhaps a bit too hard, to tie up many of the show’s loose ends as tidily as possible. And so, even as the series finally (yet again) pitted Jamie and Roy in their wooing of Keeley, the two frenemies turned besties had to deal with learning that it wasn’t up to them as to who Keeley would want to date. (I still stand by my desire for all three of them to date.) No amount of fighting or grandstanding (or, worse yet, deigning to ask her as a kind of last resort) was going to settle said affair. I appreciated how the show turned their love triangle on its head, remembering how strong-willed our Keeley can be. She may choose one or the other, but it’s not for us to know.
Elsewhere, Rebecca found peace (at last!) having seen Rupert doing a good job of doing himself in. (Nothing quite like a divorce and a lawsuit one-two punch to turn him into a tabloid punchline.) It also looks like Keeley’s relaunched PR firm is off to a good start, giving us one final chance to revel in Barbara’s amazing off-kilter deadpan zingers. (I agree that rugby is preferable to soccer since that sport involved, uh, actual men throwing men around like children. And blood, yeah; though McAdoo gave us some of that here as well, with the second “ball hits face” joke of the season.)
Which brings us to that final scene on the plane (after Coach Beard pulls a stunt to stay in the U.K. to stay with Jane): Ted is now headed back home where his kid is eagerly awaiting him. He closes his eyes and then, in classic finale montage, we see snippets of what everyone at AFC Richmond is or will be doing: Rebecca runs into her boat paramour (with daughter in tow!); Coach Beard and Jane marry in front of a green screen—no, I’m sorry, I mean Stonehenge; Keeley, Roy and Jamie seem in good spirits at an outdoor event at Leslie’s … (we even see Keeley and Rebecca’s plan to open a Women’s team). It seems everyone’s doing great and moving on and thriving. But then, Ted wakes up and arrives home.
Which begs the question: Was that all in Ted’s mind or did we get flashes of what’s to come? The answer, like the question, feels dull to me. Like a half-made promise the show doesn’t need to keep.
Instead, I’d rather stay with the final image of the show: Ted staring at us in close-up, content with coaching his kid with the same enthusiasm and equanimity he brought to AFC Richmond: Be a goldfish. I may have struggled with this final season (a lot) but there remains something quite endearing about this simple dictum being leveraged within a sports comedy about men struggling to be better versions of themselves for themselves but also for each other. That’s why it was never the Ted Lasso Way: It was always, as Trent admits in changing his title, the AFC Richmond Way. And, Sound Of Music flash mobs aside, we’d all do good every once in a while to embrace such efforts to find in self-improvement a kind of solace, a kind of safe haven. From the world, yes. But also ourselves.
So long, Ted.
Stray observations
- Were you fooled by that first scene which flirted with the one Ted Lasso ship the show refused to gift us over and over again? I’ll admit I was kind of tickled by the idea of Rebecca and Ted finally getting together but was also quite content to have it be a bait-and-switch (cheeky writers!).
- How many of the many callbacks to the show’s many one liners and previous subplots did you catch? My favorite of the bunch (other than seeing a cowering dog hoping he wouldn’t get hit by a ball) was seeing Dr Sharon(!) giddily watching the game and then, of course, closing the door on her and Roy’s very first season, a nod to Roy’s commitment to being and doing better.
- Did you cringe through that Sound Of Music send up/send off? I sure did, even as the series has given me plenty of opportunities to get used to that kind of earnest flash-mob sensibility. (Better than that singalong at the bus, no? Maybe.)
- Two billion dollars?! (Sorry, I’m still not over that little detail.)
- Between this and Succession, Harriet Walker is having a great week playing emotionally aloof but endlessly entertaining British mums who clearly have always put themselves first. My one LOL moment came courtesy of her delivery of a line as simple as “No it doesn’t.”)
- Drink Sleep Fuck >> Eat Pray Love
- Of course Zava would send in one giant avocado.
- This was the entire payoff of Nate’s storyline? Oof. Talk about anticlimactic. Sure, his heart to heart with Ted was a welcome wrap-up for them both, but he’s … uh, back where he was after being a successful coach at a rival club? Talk about a downgrade
- Did I find the use of Cat Stevens’ “Father And Son” a tad on the nose for that final montage? Maybe. But Ted Lasso never did shy away from a painfully obvious needle drop so this is me nitpicking.
- The BELIEVE poster, like the goldfish metaphor, was central to the show. Understandable that it’d come back to play a key role in getting the team to come together (literally) to build it back out from the scraps they’d all kept.
241 Comments
I think this was a decent finale for an otherwise rocky season. I think there are a few things overall that I would have pulled (the psychic) and a few things I would have liked to see more of (Dr Sharon, onscreen development) but the last few episodes had a bit more going for them than the first half.
In the “Stonehenge dream sequence”, who was that last couple with a long, lingering shot? The bottle-blondish lady and huge baldo, bearded dude strapped to a baby carrier? Don’t recall seeing them before.
They were from the “Beard After Dark” episode, I’m pretty sure
You are correct. For a second I thought it was Rebecca’s new guy since bald guys with goatees tend to blend together for me, though.
Yeah Reddit called them Roid Kent and missus, which I think is kinda funny.
IMDB has them as “Darren” and “Red”
Ah, nice, I definitely didn’t catch that.
Happy that Keeley chose herself & neither of her man-child soccer player ex-boyfriendsSo was Rebecca’s mother’s psychic legit then? I kind of hate that I want to read Trent’s book
Keeley’s end of the story made me wonder if the writers are fans of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, since that one similarly featured a woman confronted with the choice between multiple men and ultimately deciding to choose herself.
I thought 90210 with Kelly’s “I choose me”
Or 90210
Kelly Taylor is the OG for “I choose myself.”
This site is really slipping in that not one person mentioned Buffy’s “cookie dough” speech resolving the Spike/Angel dilemma on Buffy.
I was thinking about it. Does that count?
My gripe with psychic plots in shows/films is that they’re always right about their predictions (however vague) and never seem to get them wrong.Just once I’d love the character to say, after waiting to find out if any of it comes true, to say “well that was a load of bollocks”.
Chekhov’s psychic
FYI, the only show I know of that consistently came down on the side of “psychics are all frauds (some well-meaning, most basically con artists)“ was The Mentalist. It was an attribute that actually helped sell me on the show, because the approach to them that you described is a huge pet peeve. It’s predictable (because almost all shows resolve it that way); it’s empty (especially when it’s just a throwaway B-plot in a show that isn’t normally about that kind of thing); and it just perturbs me to see how seemingly all Hollywood writers have no interest in science and cold, hard logic, and instead will dish up warmed-over platitudes about faith and the unknowable. It’s all just so cheap and dumb. Anyway, if you like procedurals, The Mentalist is pretty charming and far more cynical than average.
Not to mention Psych!
I’ve heard it both ways. Also…
Shawn Spencer
:
[describing his “psychic powers”]
You’ve seen “The Mentalist”, right?
Corporal Robert Mackintosh
:
Yes!
Shawn Spencer
:
It’s like that.
Burton ‘Gus’ Guster
:
Except that guy’s a fake.
Shawn Spencer
:
Right. If I was a fake psychic, it would be eerily similar.
Burton ‘Gus’ Guster
:
Exactly the same.
Shawn Spencer
:
A virtual carbon copy.
My gripe with it is that it’s a boring way to tell a story. The psychic essentially functions as one of the writers, walking on stage and saying “This will happen to you this season! And this! And this!” In Ted Lasso, it was used to lampshade some of Rebecca’s less realistic plotlines so the audience would accept that them (eg falling off a bridge into a meet-cute with the perfect guy). It saved them having to develop that relationship believably, but I would have preferred fewer scenes staring pensively at green matchbooks and more scenes on actual story.
I wrote a trilogy of fantasy novels a few years ago, and one of the running… threads (not really a gag) was that there’s prophecies but some people believe them and some don’t, and they’re very clearly just things people in-world believe, not dicta that I as the author was using as foreshadowing. I hate prophecies as a narrative device, so I’m never going to write one that magically comes true.If there’s psychic stuff in a story then that story better take place in a world where magic powers are real, because I also really hate it when an otherwise grounded world has a weird magical element. It’s a way, as a writer, to cheat and let you solve problems with, in effect, “a wizard did it.”
It is an absolutely ironclad law of storytelling that any psychic prediction will come true but not in the way you think and if you try to avoid the future, you will bring it on. Blame the ancient Greeks.
Roy Kents just a man, not a fucking man child. Jaimie, yeah, he was.
I don’t see how the show’s trying to frame the psychic as the real deal, as the “Signs” episode kinda showed that signs are just things you want to see—the things the psychic said are vague enough things that can be easily interpreted into multiple different ways. A color(green), a common saying(fumbling up “knight in shining armor”), and a common sentiment(wanting to have a family).To me, the show then assigning those things to different people in Rebecca’s life is more about Rebecca making a choice–you can see all the signs you think you’re seeing, but ultimately it all comes down to the choice you want to make.
Yeah, for me, a psychic in a story works best when they aren’t actually predicting the future, but more like Higgins described his belief in them— someone who has an intuitive sense or ability that allows them to help us see things in ourselves that we couldn’t/didn’t see otherwise.
“the things the psychic said are vague enough things”
No they weren’t!! lol they weren’t vague at all!
This feels cliche at this point tho I was hoping the end of Keely’s story would be slightly more nuanced than the “girl chooses herself” thing that we’ve seen a lot of. Not that we couldn’t use more of that it just seemed like that’s where it was going from miles away so I just wanted to see something different I guess.
I’m impressed with how the show handled Jack tho because I honestly thought “oh the show isn’t going to portray a lesbian as negative or with any nuance”. The show didn’t outright say it but her character was awful, sleeping with your subordinate and then announce to the office that your too wealthy for it to matter…? No…. sorry….. We’re not going to turn the other cheek on inappropriateness in the workplace to score woke points…. not after decades of assistants getting their asses slapped. This seemed just slightly tone deaf.
Also speaking of which how fucking badass was that sequence where Collin kisses the guy he’s dating? Even the way they filmed that scene with a heterosexual couple kissing first and then swiftly having the homosexual kiss afterward as though to say they have the same seat at the table. I almost fucking cried. Take that “Lightyear” haters.
I do like that now we’re getting “reverse-Archie” dynamics tho. Roy & Jamie were perfect “Betty & Veronica”s.
Kind of wild that the final game was against West Ham and Nate, the recent manager of West Ham, gave no tactical insights.
Well, they did use his old play to get the final goal. But yeah, it was kind of strange that the most active thing he did for the team was to make the box for fines.
“the most active thing he did for the team was to make the box for fines.” super-lol
Yeah I was expecting more input from Nate, but for whatever reasons the writers decided against that.Also not sure the gag of Nate ending up assistant kitman was all that good. Surely he’d be Roy’s No 2? (or joint No 2 with Beard).
In the flash forward it seemed like he was back up to being assistant coach. But I appreciated that they didn’t immediately bring Nate back into the coaching team. After who he became as assistant coach at Richmond and manager at West Ham, he needed to go back to his roots and embrace just being Nate again so he could keep that energy as he moved up this time.
AGREED on all counts
But I appreciated that they didn’t immediately bring Nate back into the coaching team.In principle, I agree. But how does bringing him back as assistant kit man jibe with the way the players begged him to return?And it was another weird hole in his narrative arc to skip past the part where he was offered and accepted such a lowly role (even if only temporarily).
Assistant TO the kitman, he made a point to say. I think he wanted to eat some humble pie to show his contrition.
“Also not sure the gag of Nate ending up assistant kitman was all that good. Surely he’d be Roy’s No 2? (or joint No 2 with Beard).”1) Nobody’s hiring a full assistant coach for the final game of the season.2) This is professional football at the highest order, there is no way Nate’s West Ham contract just let’s him walk and become a coach for a rival team, mere weeks after he quit, mid-season?Come on, a little common sense?
Not assistant kit man, assistant to the kit man.And it seemed to me that making him literally the lowest man in the org was obviously part of his penance and fairly temporary. I doubt that’s his job under Roy.
WE don’t need Nate, we’ve got Super David Moyes
Do you prefer your current owners or Rupert?As bad as he is, I find Rupert more likeable. Then again we have to put up with FSG and they’re penny pinching.
If there’s one thing that we can take away from the story-telling choices from this season it’s that plenty of the story, especially mechanical bits of the plot, happens off screen.We can reasonably assume that Nate gave some tactical insights into West Ham at some point, although since Richmond had been playing like a well-oiled machine up to that point, maybe they didn’t feel they wanted to change things up too much.
Besides using his play at the end, I can sorta buy Nate not being involved. The team made a point of completely changing the way they played up until then and bringing him on-board as part of the coaching staff at this point wouldn’t help anything.
I can buy not making Nate a coach, but it does feel like they would have / should have asked him for some insider info on West Ham’s players and tactics.
Can’t we just assume that he did that with the coaching team off camera and we didn’t see it because it would add nothing to the story?
I’d watch a sequel/spinoff series about any of these characters: Ted’s adventures as a travel team soccer coach, Rebecca’s attempts to balance a new romance and surrogate motherwood while starting a women’s football club, Sam’s life as a restaurateur, Trent’s awkward but endearing efforts to become a football commentator now that his book’s a success (think Fraser but in Richmond), life at Mae’s pub, you name it.
I would definitely watch a spin-off show without Ted. It was an ensemble show. Will I miss Ted? Yes. But I’d still love to see the rest of them and their continuing stories.
Did I find the use of Cat Stevens’ “Father And Son” a tad on the nose for that final montage? Maybe. But Ted Lasso never did shy away from a painfully obvious needle drop so this is me nitpickingThe real bold choice was immediately following it up with “Fight Test”, the Flaming Lips song Cat Stevens sued them for because it ripped off “Father and Son”.
Haha, I cracked up at that decision. I assume the music team knew what they were doing. (You’re also the only other person I’ve seen mention that detail anywhere.)
I took it as some sort of sly comment on change and evolution.
Ha, I hadn’t heard that Flaming Lips song and I have trouble processing lyrics so my initial thought was “wait, is this just a cover of ‘Father and Son'”?
It was the perfect end for this show. Last night, and yes, I know not to take the twitter discourse so seriously, I was shocked at the first reactions to it. Seeing so many absolutely rag on this episode, comments all in the general bubble of ‘it wreaked the entire show’ I am sorry, but in my deepest Roy Kent voice, FUCK OFF. I am glad that, the discourse took a hard shift once more people had watched it. What more could people possible want or expect about a show about positivity, growth, and unwavering support? It was always going to be on the nose, cliche, and over the top with the feelings, because that is what the show as always been. This episode was true to what the show is. It did not try and do too much or too little or change, it always accepted itself for what it is, and that came through. I think there is a similarity to Nate and Ted in where they both ended up. Both started with some rough edges and things to prove to themselves and to others that was not being true to themselves, but grew enough to realize and accept that it is not always out in front or the big stage where one needs to be. That happiness and purpose can be found when a true acceptance of self is achieved. This culture of ‘king of the castle’ is toxic and does no one any good, that it is okay and should be acceptable to step back and say “no, i think i am good” This is evidenced and contrasted with Rupert, who is a miserable prick, who could change but likely won’t, even when the entire crowd of supports of the love of his life tell him to his face.That scene with the “Believe” poster, just DESTROYED me. What a week for Harriet Walter. Two of the biggest zeitgeist shows in the last 6ish years ending in the same week. *edit: Bravo for the use of “Shadows” – Future Islands, in the Roy and Jamie bar scene. I listen to some off the map music, so it is always nice hearing some of these songs pop up in popular media.
What more could people possible want or expect about a show about positivity, growth, and unwavering support?Basic storytelling competency, maybe? I don’t have an issue with Ted Lasso being sweet enough to give you a cavity. I like ensemble shows where the draw is hanging out with your friends each week.I have a problem with its execution, because this show went from a 30 min fish-out-of-water comedy to a 60+ min after school special about how everything can be solved with a hug as long as everyone in your professional and personal orbit thinks, speaks and acts exactly the same way as you do.
I mean…yes, that is how problems CAN be solved…
I’ve mostly agreed, but I thought the ending landed about exactly where it should and exactly where I expected it to. I think it would’ve hit a lot harder if the plotting up to this point had been executed more carefully. But as a finale I thought it was a good finale.
The appeal that made it different in season 1 was that it had such a big heart. It sounds like your of the camp that enjoying the show spinning its wheels and not the meat and potatoes. Shame. You should go back and re-watch it. Or like the later seasons of any workplace sitcom, you might like that better.
Just my opinion, but I think season 1 was effective because of how well and steadily plotted it was. I’ll grant that it’s more difficult to do that once Ted has finally won the team over, but there was real, organic conflict, with Rebecca trying to sabotage the team and with the players and the community not thinking anything of Ted and expecting him to fail. But Ted doesn’t let that deter him; he’s determined to bring the best out of everybody, so he sticks to his slow-and-steady methods, subtle when he needs to be and dramatic when he needs to be, and gradually brings everyone around.I still think season 1 is fantastic; I rewatched it again not too long ago. Despite the shorter runtimes, they don’t skip anything in the plotting, and everything plausibly comes from what came before, which makes the actual triumphs and moments when Ted wins people over feel so much more effective. The later seasons, despite the additional runtime, too often felt (especially in season 3) like they still skipped crucial scenes in the storytelling or just glossed over details that should have been real problems or consequences for the show to address.(Imagine if, like the way the show skipped over the team discussing whether to bring back Nate, or Nate quitting West Ham, the show in season 1 entirely skipped the scene where Rebecca comes clean to Ted and let us infer it. We could have inferred it, sure, but the scene we got was so powerful and the moment so crucial to the story that it would’ve been a huge mistake to tell it that way. That’s probably the best I can put it— I don’t think season 1 skipped over any important scenes or ignored any conflicts that would have organically come up from the story they told. I think season 2 did a little bit of that and season 3 did it too often.)
The show length at times was a concern, but never once this season was I staring at my watch hoping it would end soon. These episodes still flew by and even if they were a bit of a mess, I still can’t see skipping any of them if I did a rewatch
Twitter usually becomes a “Who can hate it more” thing. Very little original thought there.
Yea during that scene I said to myself “damn that’s some Future Islands” loved it. Was also great to hear Mick Jones close out the show 2-3 episodes ago.
There was some great songs in this one. Love hearing the Stone Roses classic Waterfall. Brilliant.
I do think they missed a shot at some more interesting music choices while they were in Manchester, especially with the Hacienda hotel and all.
At one point did a song called “Work is the Greatest Game” play? That’s SOOOO appropriate because it was extremely evident here that this has always been a workplace dramedy.
I noticed a distinct difference in maturity level driving reactions to the show. The yoots wanted Ted and Rebecca to get together and everything tied in one big bow. And now they’re pouting. If they watch again in 10 years I think their reactions will be different. (Kind of like my 20-something and then 30-something reactions to original SATC)I agree, this was perfect. I even finally bought into Nate’s redemption when he finally fucking apologized (and, I thought he was assistant coach, per Roy’s comments that he can do things Roy can’t). But still not him and Jade. That has never and will never make sense at all.
Nate apologizing this week and Coach Beard explaining his relationship with Ted last week. And Cat Stevens’ song Father & Son for the finale. JFC Sudeikis are you trying to kill me?
Really, that’s a thing people expected or wanted? i dont see ted and Rebecca together AT ALL. Good boss/employee/friend chemistry, but zero romantic chemistry.
Yah I think my Mom was disappointed by this too… this is the same as when people wanted Liz Lemon to end up with Alec Baldwin’s character.
Next y’all will be asking for Leslie Knope and Ron Swanson to get together!
I never got that either. I was a little annoyed by the opening scene because I was so certain it was a fakeout. I guess part of me might have laughed at the thought of trolling the “Tedbecca”(?) fans, but I felt like the fakeout was a waste of time from my perspective.
Twitter is full of people who are furious they didn’t end up together and I really think it’s dominated by Gen Z babies
Beard & Jade didn’t work for me but Beard rushing off the plane for his toxic love of Jade did actually feel like the final punchline in the “they’re a bad couple” joke so I will take it. The colour we’ve been given to his backstory actually gives me a longer leash for that. People I’ve known like Beard do tend to chase toxic relationships. I actually gotta tip my hat to the scene in the airplane where Beard realizes he has to exit the plane. Ted’s ranting to Beard and he jumps up and goes “omg I love Jade” which actually tells me that the entire time Ted was speaking Beard was relating what he was saying to his own life and not actually letting Ted vent which is FUCKING HILARIOUS.
*Jane, not to be a pedant, but since Nate’s girlfriend is Jade I thought it would help.I think that’s a funny way to look at it, but I’m also not sure the writers understand what a toxic relationship that is. (If they wanted us to believe it was a healthy relationship, they could’ve shown Jane behaving in some emotionally healthy manner. My overriding impression of her was some combination of “unreasonably jealous and possessive” and “possibly severely bipolar.”)
Jade was with Nate. You are talking about Jane. Which is also a valid conversation! And I’m on board with your commentary. They won’t last though.
I do not understand the anti Jade sentiment. Good for Nate. He has a very nice attractive gf and she seems like a nice person.
I’m not anti-Jade, I’m anti Jade & Nate. Her transition to suddenly find him attractive was completely unfounded.
I started tearing up during the Goodbye song at 13 minutes and it just got worse as the hour progressed. Agree, Harriet Walters is having a helluva week. She has turned playing a goofy mother of rich people into a cottage industry. The Believe sign killed me. And when (was it Dani, it was 7 am when I watched) Dani made the final goal I’m sure my upstairs neighbors heard me screaming. I don’t know if Jason wants to make another season, or if they’ll do a spin off, but I am here for whatever they do. As someone who works in retail, and dealing with the public has gotten worse in the last 5 years if you can believe that, “Be a Goldfish”, has become a mantra for me. Just let it go, forget it, for every jerk you deal with you have a customer who remembers you and is thrilled to see you, is polite and kind and makes your day. Believe. And be a goldfish.
Not to mention she’s ALSO on Silo, which has had a really excellent start and is the 3rd most popular Apple TV+ show at the moment.
The most recent 3 TV episodes my wife and I have watched were the Succession finale, the first two Silo episodes, and this. We think she’s in literally everything now.
I wouldn’t sing the finale high praises personaly. It was fine, but it really was lacking. It wanted me to feel much stronger emotions than I had been, and I think that’s because this season didn’t have a ton of momentum behind it. I enjoyed it throughout but there never was a major overarching plot driving this season forward like the first 2. Obviously there is the plot of every season in trying to win, and at the end there they made a case that Ted wants to go home, but that felt rushed despite not a whole lot else happening earlier in the season. I dunno, I’m just left underwhelmed if I’m completely honest.
The early scene with Nate & Ted where the camera kept glancing at the spot where the Believe poster used to be was so powerful.
I thought the poster plot point was not so great as I was unclear why it was ever taken down permanently, and they could have put it back up whenever. It sits next to Nate not getting murdered with the things I disliked.But thats all I disliked this seasons. The rest of it was great. I’m sad some people could not enjoy it as much as we did
Yeah, I know I might be too cold-hearted about it all, but after the end of season 2, I despised Nate and still do.
Starting from the beginning, the fact that the show decided to do the Ted/Rebecca fakeout only to find out that it was due to other issues was well-done, if a bit frustrating on first watch. It felt like “Oh, they are gonna do this” and even with Beard coming out, I still wasn’t sure the gas leak was mentioned.Nate becoming assistant kitman was a funny choice of punishment, as was the 5,000 pound fine he got levied. It was good jovial fun, and enjoyable to see the guys get that locker room scene. Also, Dani trying to get his fine rescinded, a good time. I hope for the best for Cristo Fernandez after this show.Going into the match, I love the fact that George Cartrick comes back as the West Ham manager (quite fittingly), only to prevent himself from giving in to Rupert’s “Emperor Palpatine” shit. And, granted, I’m not as big of a Premier League fan, but I have a hard time seeing a 4th place finish helping keep an owner in power when he’s had so many improprieties in this day and age.Loved the callbacks at the end of the match. Jamie’s acting was over the top and worked in all the right ways.At first I was frustrated that they went with Man City still winning the title, but after a few beats I realized that was the better choice. It would have been too on the nose to have them go out on top.The final montage was so much fun. I wish this wasn’t the end, simply because Roy, Beard and Nate as coaches would be a fun show to watch.God, I’m gonna miss this show. I picked this up late October of 2020 (which in America was peak shitshow) and having the positivity was just so nice and refreshing. It helped me a lot during the bleaker times of the pandemic and the general shittiness of the American situation, and I’m gonna always be grateful.Fuck Dr. Jacob.
Two little moments I really loved – Ted *finally* showing some soccer knowledge by being the only one of the coaches to notice that one of the West Ham players was offsides and the goal wouldn’t count, and Dr. Sharon’s nameplate at the end of the episode, showing her new (I think) title as head of emotional support (or something like that) for AFC Richmond.Was this finale perfect? No. Was it enjoyable and satisfying? Yes it was.
Yeah, I’ve been very critical of the season up to this point (basic complaint: individual episodes have had nice moments, but narrative development across episodes was super weak), but I’m not mad about the finale. It was fine, and about as good as they could have done considering the season that lead into it. My gripes are minor: Rebecca considering selling the club comes out of nowhere and is an off note considering her passionate defense of what the clubs mean a few episodes earlier to Akufo. The team farewell song was cheesy even by Ted Lasso standards. I think it would have been better as an after credits scene. But there were some good resolutions there: Keeley asserting her independence, Roy showing more growth and getting the manager’s job, basically everything Jamie. Rebecca got her happy ending with Amsterdam guy (I thought she was going to have a ticket to fly to Amsterdam, but instead Amsterdam came to her!). Ted getting the offsides call right made me cackle. And seeing Dr. Sharon just drove home for me exactly how much the show missed her this season She is/was a delight.
I’m terrible at predicting things, so my small moment of pride was that as soon as someone explained that there was a way to win the final game and still lose the title, I knew that’s where we were headed. For all the issues people have with the show’s relentless optimism, it’s always been pretty good about underlining that this is really more about the people than the football and avoiding or at least de-emphasizing the big underdog sports movie endings in favor of more personal victories.
I will always really like Ted Lasso, even this last season that has been divisive. I love that there was a show on TV that was all about kindness, and being better and growing for the benefit of yourself and for others. It was perfect comfort food. A show like this, which by definition could not be about the dark conflicts that eventually drive most TV plots forward, could not go on forever. But I am really glad this show was made, and I know I will re-watch it fondly for years to come.All that said-I think a B is about right for this wrap up. Truthfully: It was all a little dull. All the good guys/gals got exactly what they wanted, which isn’t so bad for a show like this. But it happened in ways that most have known were coming for months. There was no tension and no surprises. But…..by the nature of this show, the characters had to be left in a good place. So I am glad that happened, even though it was not the most exciting watch in the world.I really wish that Rebecca had taken it upon herself to go back to where the guy’s boat was and look around instead of just running into him at the airport. She had less agency this way, and it was also pretty random. The show also refused to tie up the loose end that I most wanted resolved: are Ted and Michelle goint to make it? I guess the show cares more about Ted being there for Henry (which as a Dad I can relate to), but I think wrapping that up is pretty important given that Ted left his England family for his family back in the states.Thank you Ted Lasso-you were great. The finale was highly, highly predictable, but a decent conclusion overall.
I kind of wanted closure on whether Ted and Michelle got back together, but then I realized, why would I do that to Jason Sudekis, who I generally like?
If he specifically has them get back together, the Internet thinks he’s begging for Olivia back. If he specifically has them stay apart, the Internet thinks he’s being mean to Olivia. I think Sudekis let himself write the new boyfriend as a total asshole who should be without a license, if not without his freedom and that was the extent of his petty catharsis.
They are co-parents, making their way in the world. There will be ups and downs. We don’t need to know more right now.
The other guy being an outright dick was probably my least favorite part about the finale. I had a lot of issues with the season as a whole, but I thought the finale worked pretty well, but other than the obvious conflict of his job and dating Michelle, there has never been any real build-up to him being a douchebag to Michelle and the kid whose name escapes me, and this seemed to lay it on pretty thick, which I think is lazy. Just let him be “fine”, we still think it’s fair that Ted doesn’t like him, he doesn’t need to be painted as a villain any more.
Agreed. I felt like they made a last-minute decision to try to elevate the boyfriend from kind of lame to total asshole. If Michelle hadn’t already has any red flags pop up about the guy, she sure as Hell should have with him acting that way in front of her son.And when I say “kind of lame”, I’m talking about what the audience actully sees from him. The unprofessional, low-life manor in which he and Michelle initially got together goes beyond kind of lame.
I can’t really see there being any chance of them getting back together, and I think their reactions to each other during their family reunion shows that. Now if Dr. Jacob lasts, and if he gets to keep his license or not, that’s a different story.
I think I can take this show as it intends, a set of parables about how to be a better person and about how kindness and forgiveness are virtues. The precise plot mechanics don’t matter nearly as much as the fact that Ted is basically a modern-day Jesus, but without all the judginess.
I just wanted to point out the “Cheers” moment (where Norm was played by Jason Sudekis’ uncle)… after Nicholas Colasanto passed after season 3, a picture of Geronimo he had in his dressing room was hung in the bar. One of the last things Ted Danson did in the last ep was straighten it before leaving. Mae, when they’re looking at their shares of the team, straightens the exact same photo.
Boy, I did not read that closing montage at ALL as just a dream Ted was having. Like, it genuinely never occurred to me that it even might be. More often than not, with this show, take things at face value.
I only read it as a dream because he wasn’t at Beards wedding. There’s no way he wouldn’t be there, standing where Roy was. He went back to live in the States, he didn’t die.
Huh, that’s an interesting point and a good observation. On the other hand, does Ted even know about Amsterdam Guy? I take it his reunion with Rebecca at the airport was real, but I don’t know if Ted would have known enough to imagine them together in the future.
finishing second to manchester city after a remarkable season was a bit too soon for me as an arsenal fan
Truly the most realistic part of the entire three season run.You can’t beat the Man City juggernaut, unless you’re Liverpool.
We could only do it once.
Pep won the prem league twice this season.
Big difference between Richmond and Arse. Richmond didn’t bottle it.
I still don’t think you get the show. But that’s okay.
OK, the tea leaves are out. There is no way Apple is going to let this go by without at least an attempt at a spinoff. Whether it goes the way of Frasier or AfterMASH remains to be seen. Some options:
* The women’s team. That is an absolute natural. Try to cast a similar bunch of goofballs. Keep Rebecca and Keeley and Leslie for sure, but hold off on the other cameos until you get established.
* The Year After. Just do Richmond all over again with Roy coaching and Beard and Nate assisting.
* A 6-episode dark series about all the marriages Dr. MindRape destroyed and how they all come back and sue him.
* The re-rise of Rupert. Why not. Let him gain power and slap him down again.
As far as Sudekis? I’d bet a nickel he ends up a cameo via Zoom on the women’s team or the further adventures of Richmond team show. Not every ep. Maybe not even most. But yeah, he’s there from time to time.
Keely owning and running a women’s team would be a fun watch. Especially when the show takes a dark turn after their plane crashes in the middle of nowhere in Canada and they struggle to survive……..oops wrong show!
There’s an obvious Ted-specific spinoff, and that’s to let him coach the US Men’s National Team. You could have two or three seasons of shows preparing for and competing in the next World Cup. You get to have a new goofy set of players, but American this time. You get to play off of America not being a soccer-loving country yet (at least to the level of the rest of the world). He gets to rekindle the relationship with his wife. He gets to have combative teen angst with his son. He can beg Beard to move back to help him out. He gets to deal with the odd fame from almost winning the world’s biggest sports league, but also still being anonymous here in the States. You get to play with America’s failure to make a dent on the international scene, not unlike the status AFC Richmond had when Ted took over (at least as far as AFC Richmond being able to crack the top tier). Lots of opportunties.And it wouldn’t even have to be a spinoff. Just call it Ted Lasso, or The Richmond Way, and it works. Now that episodes are more than an hour every week, you can just have all these mini-shows play out within this one umbrella show. You have “Richmond Til I Die” (the main team), “Lady Greyhounds” (Keeley’s mini-show) and Ted’s USMNT mini-show. Characters can fly back and forth between countries as needed to be in each others’ storylines. How exciting would that friendly match between AFC Richmond and the USMNT be? As we saw from Nate’s storyline this season, you can have a character being basically disconnected from the other storylines and no one really is put off by it. So I think it wouldn’t be an issue if you have Ted/America and AFC Richmond/England storylines be basically disconnected for most of the season.
I…do not like the chances of a team trying to play Total Football but which practices together only a few weeks a year. Feels Berhalter-ish, and not in a good way.
What would the aim of a show be emotionally with Ted as USMNT coach? What would you do with the character apart from the comedy? Ted has made his journey. Where would he go from here?
True, but that’s never stopped a TV series from creating new problems for a character. You can have him dealing with massive fame. American fans are just as toxic as the worst European soccer has to offer. How would Ted fare outside of his safe Richmond bubble? How does he win his wife back? How does he motivate the American team that still had an inferiority complex? How does Ted translate his newfound love of the sport to the rest of America? I’m not saying these would make for great TV, but it’s enough meat that a good writing team could make something good from it. Ted has more journeys in front of him.
“I’m not saying these would make for great TV, but it’s enough meat that a good writing team could make something good from it.”I disagreeI think most “check in” shows ruin the very good feelings you have for the show.They are almost ALWAYS cringey or poorly done. Like picking a scab
That’s true, but I’m 100% a proponent of taking the shot, rather than shrinking from taking the shot. If it’s terrible, then no one will remember or care. Who is still anywhere whining about AfterMASH or Joey or Caprica? No one cares about the failed or meh spinoffs. None of the original shows were damaged by the failed spinoffs. But if there’s a chance for a Frasier, or an 1883, or even a sure-fire “disaster” idea like Cobra Kai, those are worth a hundred failures. If I had a dollar for every comment when the first Cobra Kai trailer came out that complained that the show should NOT be even attempted, I’d be able to fund my own failed spinoff of a series! Let them try! The failures will sink to the bottom of the ocean like Jack Dawson’s frozen corpse, never to be seen again.
“Who is still anywhere whining about AfterMASH or Joey or Caprica? No one cares about the failed or meh spinoffs.” Probably some of the folks who were cast in these abominations lol.Boy I have no use for “Cobra Kai” I can’t believe how well it did either.The “Fraiser” thing is worrisome because they basically filmed a trailer to sell it. Did it ever come out. Paramount wanted it right?I think sometimes you land ok ( For some reason “Archie’s Place” didn’t irritate me. More than likely it was Danielle Brisebose – Boy I had a crush on her )I think the best thing to do something like “Trapper John M.D.” a show I didn’t appreciate until years after it went off air as I didn’t put it together he was THAT “Trapper”. I would be ok with some of the lesser known characters getting a “far down the road” show that also focused on finding their even better selves. Maybe even the guys at the Pub. Stay out of America though. I think that’s best
Personally, I’ve lost all confidence in this creative team to narratively pull the trigger. They totally chickened out of this season’s main storylines, so I think it’s best to just move on to something they feel they are willing to explore in full detail.
EhDon’t forget how utterly ridiculous the premise for this show is.The pulled off something incredible. And didn’t drag it on for no reason like “Walking Dead”.
Would say give it a few years and having a show about Henry as a player on the USMNT team mirroring Ted’s philosophy while being a forward…could be interesting. Like, an opposite-Blue Lock type deal.
The English Premiere League is not the biggest sport league in the world, not even the biggest football league in Europe.
Right when it ended I told my partner this show is perfect for one of those reunion specials that a lot of shows get. A 2-hour check-in on all these characters 3-5 years down the road would be great, and not all that taxing on the cast and crew presumably.
One of those Christmas episodes that British shows seem to get outside their regular seasons.
Dr. MindRape. Excellent.
I was just listening to an interview with Sudekis on the Fly on the Wall podcast. They asked him straight-out if this was the end of the series. He was emphatic that it’s the end of THIS story. They’re cooking up something.
The elephant in the room is that he is clearly done living in the UK given his custody situation. Zoom calls, or even a visit by some of the crew to the US to say hi would all work.Nate or Roy coaching a US soccer team would be funny too.
Clearly, Apple will pull a Disney and invest in an MLS expansion team
I mean… I thought it was an appropriate end to the show. I was never in love with it, but I don’t think I was ever as negative on the show as most other people seemed to be. Having said that, the first season is unequivocally the best and it’s been sort of sad watching the show try to recapture those highs. Better for the show to go out now, on its own terms, I guess.Still weirded out that Ted’s ex-wife got with their marriage counselor, but I guess his disinterest during the game was the only acknowledgement they were willing to give it.
That wasn’t disinterest. That was active belittling. And pouting when Richmond won.
I don’t need Michelle to get back with Ted. I do need her to lose that guy, though.
I got the impression she did, in fact, lose him. I just wish the show had honestly dealt with the severe ethical issues at play of Dr. Jacob dating Michelle at all, rather than just having Michelle and Henry get tired of him because he’s a guy who sucks.
There are only two cases in the entire run of the show where I wanted Ted to let someone have it, gently. One is in the famous “I forgive you” scene with Rebecca.
After he does the “divorce is hard” speech with Rebecca, I wanted him to say, “I forgive you, but I’m not your only apology. Coach Beard came on my say-so and I came on yours. Now, I’ll make sure he treats you fair when you do it, but you need to apologize to him too.”
And to Michelle. “I trusted Dr. Jacob. Because you did and I trusted you. I trusted you wanted this to work. You didn’t, so he didn’t. Or he didn’t and you didn’t. Either way, I’m the only one of us three who wanted it, and that seems to be why I’m the only one alone now.”
That’s good. I’m almost thinking about it even more from the other end. I think Ted has at least grounds to file a professional complaint about Dr. Jacob. “He was my wife’s therapist and then he was our couples counselor (red flag one) and then we got divorced (some therapist!) and he started dating my ex-wife (HUGE red flag)”… It’s hard to look at that and not think Ted has a legitimate case that Dr. Jacob used his professional standing to undermine the Lasso marriage so he could date Michelle. Guy should lose his license for that.
They missed an opportunity by not having either Sassy or Dr. Sharon or both get a chance to tear that guy a new one, therapist to therapist.
The way it played out, I’m not even sure the writers are aware of what a huge ethical violation Dr. Jacob is committing.
Oh ok
No mention of Dani Rojas being awarded the ultimate “Man of the Match”?
Ted Lasso series finale was a coloring book page that didn’t stray outside of the lines even a little bit. There wasn’t one plot wrap-up that wasn’t the most obvious and gentle one possible. The only actual surprise was Rupert’s defeat. I was certain that even HE was going to get a gentle finale wrap-up and that the pow-wow between all his exes and mistresses was going to lead to Rupert realizing he needed to do better. So color me surprised.Ted Lasso season three was just the blandest and least-challenging season of a formerly-cutting edge show I can recall. It took zero chances this season and put none of the characters through any sort of dramatic arc. It was… fine. It was unchallengingly nice. Every character (except Rupert) got their warm hug. My reaction to this season is curious even to me because of my reaction to the week’s other big finale, Succession. I could never watch this show (except for the season finales which I watched just to stay relevant in the discourse) because I detested all the characters so much and I detested how the show just celebrated (in its way) these horrible people. In the farther past, I would have been delighted by a show like that, but having just come off of half a decade of Trump and his family dominating headlines and news broadcasts, I was DONE with spending any amount of time with those sorts of characters being treated even remotely sympathetically. That’s why Ted Lasso was such a welcome balm in the midst of Trump, Pandemic, and for me personally, two catastrophic hurricanes that direct hit my Louisiana town in 2020. It was so nice to spend time with genuinely decent people and with a show that was about how we should be nicer. But I think season three showed that even with that as the selling point of the show, you still need to go somewhere with it narratively beyond just being NICE for three seasons. The show had the chance to take its characters to some darker places before bringing them back up, but it chose not to. I can respect that, but for me it makes for a weaker show overall. This finale was fine. However, I’m a million percent skeptical that any sort of spinoff would be fun to watch if it is going to just continue this bland niceness.
So, you’re basically saying. “Give me what I want. But what I want makes me feel bad, so fuck you.”
Definition of a you problem.
Yes, that’s what makes it interesting. Humans are inconsistent, contradictory creatures. I look at it more as an evolution of what I want and don’t want out of my current TV shows. I want nice, but not so nice that all logical dramatic storytelling choices are abandoned in favor of niceness. Darth Nate was a storyline everyone was expecting and looking forward to. It’s clearly a storyline they chickened out on in favor of just letting Nate meekly return to the fold, with his great potential confrontation and standing up to Rupert happening inexplicably OFFSCREEN. That one change symbolizes everything that made this season as bland and flavorless as British food.
Out of curiosity, how *do* your farts smell?
I thought the ending worked well enough for me; any problems I had with it are more problems with the season overall, and it was more or less too late to deal with them in the finale.Been a pleasure to chat on these comments. Hope to stay in touch, although I’m not sure what the AV Club will be reviewing next that I might be around for regularly. (The Righteous Gemstones, maybe?)
See you at the Gemstones! (If they review it. If not AV Club, Vulture will)Like you, I’m not mad about the finale. It did what it had to do, and it worked as best it could around the problems that existed throughout the season.
They did Gemstones here last year and I thought they were pretty good. Hopefully they stick with it. But I do have a Vulture account, at least for the time being (it’s pretty much impossible to comment without a subscription, so I’ll have to see how much I want to spend on that sort of thing).
I subscribe to Vulture/NYMag, too, but every year I consider whether I truly need it. At $5/month, it’s a bit pricey for an online subscription that I don’t read every day. But usually they lure me back.
Ha, yeah, right now I’m on that “6 weeks for $1″ plan, which I will probably not continue once it ends.I signed up for a month of Myles McNutt’s Episodic Medium Substack, though, to read his Ted Lasso reviews and for the discussion there, and after reading their upcoming schedule and how many circa-2010 AV Club writers he has on board, that one I might actually go ahead and keep.
The Boys? Black Mirror? True Detective? There’s stunting else starting in June that’s slipping my mind.
Hmm, maybe I’ll be around for True Detective, but I’m not sure. It’s Always Sunny is starting back up in June, but I don’t know if the AV Club covers the show anymore.
I remember now! Not sure if it’s returning in June, but Winning Time season 2 is the imminent show I’m most excited about.
Ahh, I meant to see season one and never did. Maybe I will, if I can make the time in between all the other stuff coming back to air.
I was a bit surprised that they didn’t make Richmond the league winners. I think I went in expecting total victory, but good that this didn’t happen.
For the season as a whole, I liked the stories with Roy training Jamie, Colin coming out, and Trent joining the team to write a book. I generally liked the way the Richmond season unfolded. Sam’s plots were good as well – I liked the awkward conversations between his father and Rebecca. And of course, everything with Ted himself was great.I didn’t care at all for Nate’s plots and felt his redemption was half-baked at best. The whole plot around the Super League that humanized Rupert briefly and brought back Sam Richardson’s caricature of a character seems really odd now. Keeley’s PR firm and romance with Jack was largely wasted time (would have been fine with Keeley being dropped down to occasional guest star this season if the options were that or the plots we did get).So I have this down as an OK season of TV. Watchable and often fun but also a bit of a chore because of how many dull and ultimately meaningless plots were stuffed in. Don’t think I’d tune in if they choose to keep this going through a spin-off without Ted.
I would have liked it more if they’d made it explicit that Rupert didn’t really value Nate’s expertise, and undercut him by having other coaches contribute strategy and leadership. He just wanted Nate’s (significant) tactical ability, and to stick it to Richmond by stealing their “Wonder Boy.” And Nate eventually realizes this and realizes he’s been had.
“Wonder Boy.”I think you mean wonder kid wunderkind wonder kid.
Or even simpler – just have Nate not quit his job in episode 11 and have him be the one that Rupert verbally and physically assaults when he begins to falter against Richmond. It makes Nate’s decision to leave West Ham much less abrupt and you can keep his tearful apology to Ted with just a bit of reframing.
I like your idea.
It’s (in comparison) easy to see that someone who physically assaults you is bad for you; it’s hard to realize that someone that gives you everything you think you wanted is bad (see also: Jack).
You cringing at the Sound of Music send off, one of the best things to come out of this show, says a lot about how you never really got this show.
I am embarrassed to admit that even knowing the episode was titled “So Long, Farewell” I did not see that coming.
Nice finale. I especially liked the callbacks and tying up the bad storylines that people hated, and gave almost all of the show’s characters mostly happy endings or some kind of comeuppance. They even gave a glimpse and hint of what happened to Shandy and Jack. Good, small way to ties those stories up without taking away from the main characters.I’ll miss this show. It’s what we needed to be a comfortable, feel good, panacea during that bleak period of time of 2020/21, and why I overlooked the flawed the second season. I got it that it was never meant to be over than how Ted is an agent of change and force of good that pushed people to be better and nicer to each other and themselves. Good on Apple for taking what was a one off joke character from NBC sports and turning it into such a good show. Just like with Barry, this show was great for bringing out the best and introducing to mainstream audiences, Brett Goldstein, Hannah Waddingham, Toheeb Jimoh, Juno Temple, Nate Mohammed, Phil Dunster, Katy Wix, Cristo Fernandez, and etc. Hope this means more bigger roles for those guys in more prestige shows and movies in future. Looks like Goldstein is in the MCU, and I hope to see the same for Jimoh as he would be an excellent Black Panther.
I think Nate’s ending made perfect sense. He was on top of the world, professionally, as the manager of one of the biggest teams in the Premier League but he was miserable. And remember the conversation with his father where he said he just wanted Nate to be happy. Nate went to where he was happy which is with Richmond. He has a girlfriend he loves, his father has finally fully embraced him and he gets to be assistant manager at the club he loves the most, Richmond. Sounds like a great ending to me.
Oh, I bet if they do a 5 years later bit, you’ll find Nate has got his own club again, but it comes after Rebecca and Roy and Beard basically shove him out the door and say, “You’re ready. You have our blessings.”
It wasn’t Beard, it was LESLIE who distilled the moral center of the show. Jesus dude.
Also when Leslie said that the team was worth 2 billion, surely he meant 2 billion British pounds, not dollars.
Did I find the use of Cat Stevens’ “Father And Son” a tad on the nose for that final montage? Maybe.I thought it was pretty cheeky that they followed “Father and Son” with “Fight Test”– the Flaming Lips song they had to settle with Cat Stevens to give him 75% of the royalties from for being too similar to “Father and Son.”
Oh, and I want to read Roy’s “very brief foreword” to Trent Crimm’s book. I imagine it’s something like “Oi! I used to think Trent was a prick but it turns out he’s all right. READ THIS!”
“Old Trent is fine I guess. Read this book or don’t, I don’t care.”
I’m glad you said this, because for at least part of the credits I thought it was a cover.
Easter egg: notice in the ending montage that Mae (in the bar) straightens a photo on the wall of Geronimo. Sam Malone did the exact same thing to honor Coach in the finale of Cheers.
I’ll take the MULTIPLE nods to Cheers over the course of the series as a sign that Sudeikis thinks fondly of his uncle George. (And recognizes Cheers as one of the GOAT sitcoms of course.)
On the one hand, it was more or less exactly what I expected the finale to be, in terms of how everything resolved and the sheer amount of sentiment dripping from it. On the other hand, it did not really fix my biggest problems with the season as a whole, although I did not terribly expect it to by this point. On the third, secret hand, it was actually very funny at points (Barbara’s bloodlust!), including some great freeze-frame gags (Bex getting a deal to write a book of placenta recipes), and having watched the older episodes again has given me a stronger sense for the sheer number of callbacks packed in there.Things I expected to happen include: Ted goes back home, but Beard sticks around. Roy Kent is named the new coach after the season. Richmond wins their final game against West Ham— although, the twist of Man City also winning and thus taking the Premier League title was somewhat unexpected.Things I suspected might happen: Keeley doesn’t choose between either Jamie or Roy. Rebecca has a chance reunion with her Man from Amsterdam, and his daughter, which as we see in the final montage leads to them dating. Rupert Mannion’s downfall, although the final straw was not something I expected before the episode— I predicted he might push for his team to deliberately injure Jamie once the game got going, but I was genuinely surprised that George, the coach with the short shorts, stood up to him.Things I wanted to see and did not: Someone addressing the entire ethical problem with Dr. Jacob dating Michelle in the first place, although it seems clear he’s not long for the picture with how coldly his snark about Richmond’s season finale is received. I’m still not convinced Jane is healthy for Beard, and if the writers wanted us to believe that she is, they should have written her some scenes where she doesn’t act some combination of highly possessive and severely bipolar. Some kind of hint of personality from Jade.Things that were good to see: Nate’s apology to Ted, long overdue— Nick Mohammed is arguably doing the best work of anyone in this episode. Also, Dani’s apology to Zorreaux / Van Damme, complete with new face mask. Roy genuinely asking the Diamond Dogs for advice on whether people can change, after a year of putting in the work to do so and feeling like he really hasn’t.A few notable callbacks: The final goal is scored on the play Nate designed in season 1, the one with Jamie running decoy— and he even gives the Ted-style “I’m open, I’m open!” performance Ted was trying to get out of him in season 1. Chris Powell reflecting Roy Kent’s line from season 1 about never knowing how to react to a grown man doing a silly dance— that grown man in both cases is, of course, Ted. George’s balls popping out of his short shorts. (There were many more than that, of course.)Admittedly a lot of cheese in this one, but it worked pretty well on the whole. Some of that was helped by having watched the older episodes recently— Rebecca telling Ted how much he’s meant to the club and to her personally is a lot more believable having seen season 1 so recently, than if I’d just watched season 3 straight through without reviewing any of those episodes.All in all, though, this was definitely the weakest season of Ted Lasso. The gaps in the plotting and plausibility that started showing up in season two grew bigger and bigger in season 3; several stories felt like they didn’t have much point to them; but the show could still put together great moments and great episodes from time to time. Those often make the show worth watching through the bits that don’t work, even this season. Season 1 was nearly perfect; season 2 was good but flawed; and season 3 was even more flawed but still capable of great things, and the ending will probably lift my overall evaluation of the show a bit. It landed in the right place, even if it didn’t take the right road to get there.
“Someone addressing the entire ethical problem with Dr. Jacob dating Michelle in the first place”
WHO do people want to address this?
Is it Michelle’s ex-husband? Is it Michelle’s ex-husband’s best friend who hates her? Or is it someone else in the cast, ALL OF WHOM HAVE NEVER MET MICHELLE OR DR JACOB?
I would *love* to know which character in this ensemble is supposed to confront Ted’s ex-wife (or better yet, Ted’s ex-wife’s new boyfriend) about it.
Maybe Dani Rojas? Maybe Zoreaux? Maybe those three fans in the pub. Yeah, they should be the ones to confront the ex-wife of the coach of their local football club over her new relationship.
Jesus butter-basted Christ, people. Get a fucking grip.
“Get a fucking grip” doesn’t really land when you write a bad-faith answer with all-caps mixed in, FYI.I don’t even mean confronting Dr. Jacob or Michelle directly. I mean, like, how about anyone Ted has talked to about it mention to him that it’s a huge breach of professional ethics? Instead they’ve mostly talked to him about how he needs to accept that Michelle is dating other people.The way it played out, in conjunction with some of the other relationships on the show, I’m not even sure the writers are aware of the ethical breach here.
Right, like I think Sassy is the only one who even brings up that it’s “borderline unethical”? I’m a therapist and that plot line left such a bad taste in my mouth that it’s affected how i feel about the show overall. For a show that claims to care so much about mental health, and did so much in season 2 to address therapy stigma, I can’t believe they’d throw in a “therapist does the one thing that will absolutely get your license revoked” plotline.I mean, hell, Dr. Sharon could have been a perfect person to address this! I don’t know how US-UK licensing laws would work in this case, but if I were Dr. Sharon and Ted told me what was happening, I’d be calling Dr. Jacob’s board immediately!
Right! It’s just wild that this seems to be never addressed or taken seriously by the show. I don’t have to watch Dr. Jacob lose his license; I just have to have somebody on the show realize that this is a serious enough breach that he could lose his license. I really can’t add much else because this is a fantastic comment. For a show that claims to care so much about mental health, and did so much in season 2 to address therapy stigma, I can’t believe they’d throw in a “therapist does the one thing that will absolutely get your license revoked” plotline.I fully agree, and I was reminded of the Total Football episode where the coaches had the team tie their dicks to a string: For a show that follows that episode with one about consent and sexual autonomy— hell, just for a show that’s about being kind— it’s unbelievable that they’d throw in something that belongs more in a story like The Program, that would be a huge scandal in the real life, and then they play it for laughs!
The show in general did some truly weird things around relationships and consent. They had not one but multiple bosses dating employees, and only one boss experienced consequences for it (and he only experienced consequences because he was the show’s villain and not because the show thinks that dating an employee is inherently problematic).
I just want to say, I agree with all your criticism here as a fan of the show, who likes spending time with these characters every week, and one who still gets teary eyed when they want you to, and I’ll add a layer to the Ted/Michelle thing, apart from the Dr. Jacob ethics… so, does Ted wind up with Michelle? We’re led to believe in S1 that he left Kansas to give her space, that she had moved on from the relationship totally (faxing divorce papers and all), but then we get to the Paris situation and it’s as though all of the work Ted had done in therapy (we assume, because it’s not on screen?) is out the window. He wants to hire a PI and by episode’s end, Ted/the viewer seem to be given some hope at reconciliation… but for what? and for…why? As high school English teachers or lit profs might say, “Where is it in the text?” It ain’t explicit. I don’t know what the show is fighting for, or arguing for, in this case. And that’s where some of us, who did love S1 (and S2, as well!) have a few gripes: for a show this moralistic, you have to pay off what you introduce, and they let so many storylines just sort of float in and out of the show’s consciousness, while also not adhering to the moral code the show originally set.
they let so many storylines just sort of float in and out of the show’s consciousness, while also not adhering to the moral code the show originally set.You hit the nail on the head, and that has a lot to do with why I’ve found this season so uneven. The first season, especially, was pretty much pitch-perfect in that regard. Consistent in both aspects. (As you may see from one or two of my follow-up comments, I do agree with the “not adhering to the moral code” part— both in what they ignore and some of the things they try to portray as normal, healthy, or funny, that clearly are not.)That said, I think the show left it intentionally ambiguous as to whether Ted and Michelle are really back together. The focus when Ted arrives is on Henry greeting him, not Michelle (I think we don’t even see Michelle in that scene), and of course Michelle would be at Henry’s soccer game whether or not she and Ted were back together.
This makes sense, in the “sort of” way S3 has allowed us. I appreciated the moments where the writers chose to play with and subvert a lot of tropes, which I think they did a much better job at in S2, where they played with and undid a lot of the stuff they set up in S1, like messing with sports triumph arc (to the point of not showing a lot of the football) or romcom arc, where they did a lot of appreciative winking at, but also ducking places that romcoms usually lead us. And it’s not to be one of those orthodox writer brains which demands that characters all change (except maybe it is/I am), but it’s curious to think about how much Ted changed, after all this… they did a fantastic job with the Jamie change arc, though it’s a pretty clear path to reforming a jerk. They undid Ted’s relentless positivity in S2, exposing how it was a coping mechanism, leading to a ton o’ anxiety for the dude, but still allowed Ted to be Ted of course. In S3, they’re pitching us the idea that in the end, it’s NOT about Ted, so fine, but the largest change he experiences in S3 is understanding he needs to be home with his son, which is a tough one, because I think a lot of us clocked this as the end game a while ago. Maybe that’s fine. Maybe the conversation with Becky Ann Baker about intimacy, and how hard it is for him, is a better character reveal than I originally gave it credit for. But it is fine to poke holes and see how it might have been better, when your writer-structure consciousness just clocks “this doesn’t feel right.” I can take shagginess, but this felt more like drift (poor Keeley!) than being intentionally loose. And maybe my writer-structure brain is just all messed up because of processing the ends of Succession, Barry, and Ted Lasso in a week. It’s funny, while I truly love spending time with the Ted Lasso world every week, I cringe my way through spending time with the Succession peeps… but at the same time, every character move in that finale both made SO much sense, and also shocked me, at times
I feel ya on the writer-structure-brain problem here. Or, not really “problem,” but ability to see where the details in the plot are skipped over or where the writers didn’t seem to bother with whether the progression of events made narrative sense. I loved this show in season 1 precisely because it got all the details right; the last two seasons it seems to have moved more and more into a mode where we’re just hanging out with the characters, but the stories either skip important details, don’t make a lot of sense, or feel like they didn’t amount to anything or were just side diversions.(Unfortunately, I felt like Barry ran into similar problems this season. It’s a shame, because those first two seasons were so tight and immediate, and everything came naturally from what had some before… the last two seasons, and the final season in particular, felt more like the writers wanting to make a point or come to a conclusion— or Hader just wanting to show off his directorial skills— and not being as concerned with the plausibility of the story.)(This all has a lot to do with why The Shield is my favorite drama of all time— the plot is so well-written and progressed, and escalates plausibly, and nothing is ever forgotten or simply undone. That plausibility and care to detail makes the finale so much more devastating, since it feels like the logical outcome of the actions the characters have taken, rather than just something the writers wanted to make a point about or a pre-determined destination where they wanted the show to end.)
I think Dr Sharon telling Ted how unethical it was, and Ted at first wanting to get his license revoked but then deciding he shouldn’t after finding out more about their relationship (e.g. wife is happy, they re-connected randomly long after sessions ended, etc) would have been a good way to go. It was indeed weird how they glossed over the ethics of it.
Yeah, if they don’t want Ted to actually go through with filing some kind of complaint, that would be a good way to go about it. As it is, it plays like the writers don’t even know what a violation of professional ethics Dr. Jacob is committing, which makes the whole thing feel weird and dissonant.
A friend of mine had to see his newly divorced ex-wife start dating the church-appointed marriage counselor who hadn’t been able to ‘save’ their marriage. That’s some unethical stuff right there.
Honestly? Dr. Sharon would’ve been the perfect person. Ted still talks to her on the phone or on Zoom; let her weigh in on it, because as a professional, she’d know just how unethical it is to be a marriage therapist who then goes on to date a patient. Snip a little of some of the other storylines to grab the 2-3 minutes it’d need and move on.
Excellent summary of the finale and the show as a whole. This is about where I’ve landed too.
Nick Mohammed is arguably doing the best work of anyone in this episode
He wrote some really thoughtful stuff about it on twitter too:
Ooh, wonderful, I’ll have to make the time to read all this.
I was similarly whelmed (not over, not under) by the finale. On it’s own it was an enjoyable and fitting ending to the show. I think it will be judged unfairly though because it wasn’t able to somehow correct the weaknesses of this season as a whole. In my opinion, the biggest failure of this season was Nate’s arc. We knew things wouldn’t work out with West Ham and that he would ultimately be redeemed by Ted/Richmond. Nate’s sudden rejoining of the team in the penultimate episode felt too sudden and unearned and his inclusion in the finale seemed pretty half baked and unimportant. And don’t even get me started on Jade…
I was similarly whelmed (not over, not under) by the finale.Well, the show is set in Europe. In my opinion, the biggest failure of this season was Nate’s arc. We knew things wouldn’t work out with West Ham and that he would ultimately be redeemed by Ted/Richmond. Nate’s sudden rejoining of the team in the penultimate episode felt too sudden and unearned and his inclusion in the finale seemed pretty half baked and unimportant.I just finished reading the lengthy message in the tweet from Nick Mohammed that someone else posted, and it illuminated some things for me, in the way Nate’s story was told almost symbolically in ways that I didn’t always catch.That said… I prefer stories to be told through the characters’ actions, not through symbolism. And I generally agree with you; we just didn’t see enough of the process of Nate coming to realize he’d made a mistake and wanting to make amends. You can kinda construct it from what we do see, but there’s barely enough to hold it together, and even then some crucial scenes are just skipped over.I’m starting to think that the problem with season three may have been that the writers bought into “the show about kindness and positivity” so much that they became reluctant to show us any scenes of real* conflict or confrontation, which too often unfortunately included the scenes that contained resolution and growth necessary for the plot and the characters.(* – most of the time when there was conflict, it was from cartoonish villains like Akufo or what Rupert was this season.)
I am so glad Roy is head coach and not Nate.
Me too, although I’ve predicted that for a while. I think it just makes a lot more sense. Even if, somehow, you were able to leave out the manner in which Nate left and came back: Roy is a better natural leader, he commands more respect from the players than Nate does, and he understands the player mindset better, having been one himself. Nate is better suited to an assistant role where he can concern himself more with strategy and tactics, at least until he has the experience and self-confidence to command a locker room and foster mutual respect between himself and the players.
I’m 59 and Ted Lasso is my favorite show ever. I loved Seasons 1-3. I could go on about the things I loved, but here are a couple of things that puzzled me about a finale I wasn’t thrilled with:
– Ted moved to England because his wife wanted space. He was too smothering. When was it established that she was open to Ted being there again? Her first visit to England brought her to tears
– Why wasn’t Ted at Beard’s wedding? It was all a dream? If so, that’s a bad Dallas bit. And if it’s a tip-of-the-hat to Wizard of Oz, it’s just confusing
– Nate as an assistant kit man wasn’t funny or plausible. They seriously wouldn’t tap his strategic brain when playing the team he coached?
– Selling single shares to the townspeople is a moneygrab. Rebecca remains in full control. They get a piece of paper. They already felt ownership in the club. Rebecca wouldn’t do that. Nor would they have $1 billion combined
– Ted not only doesn’t get picked up from the airport in Kansas, but he looks like he’s moving back in? That seems like a leap
One lingering question I was left with was whether a Premier League team would actually allow public ownership. Everybody loves the story of the hometown Green Bay Packers and their fan-owned stock, but fewer know that the NFL owners decided (in 1980) to change the rules so that it can never happen again.
Man Utd are publicly traded. Arsenal kind of are, but the shares are on a specialist exchange and it’s a whole weird situation where they’re effectively a publicly traded company for legal purposes, but the shares are only handed about through a select group. Source- had a mad Arsenal fan for a flatmate for a couple of years who was absolutely desperate to get his hands on just one share, and being made to listen to many, many, gin fuelled rants about how it’s bullshit. So my statements may not be entirely accurate.
If we can’t rely on gin-soaked Arsenal fans for reliable information, I don’t even know what to say about the world we live in.
There are no rules against fan ownership of at least part of a club. My own team (Swansea City) were 20% owned by the supporters when we were in the Premier League.
There are what they call the “Owner and director tests”, which are designed to prevent unsuitable people/organisations from owning or controlling football clubs, but seeing as the Saudi Arabian Government were recently allowed to buy Newcastle United they don’t really work all that well.
Also it was very much “after the horse has bolted” action following The Glazers ownership of Man United, who were allowed to load so much debt onto the club. Then basically milk it for all it’s worth (or over worth considering their current “sale process”).
Like the reviewer I also scoffed at the “2 billion” figure. Newcastle was recently sold for around 350 million which is much more realistic if you’re not Man U.
Also, how do they get to the money for selling 49% being used to buy players? That’s Rebecca’s money for selling those shares of the club, not the club’s money. Even if you ignore FFP, that makes no sense.
I was wondering about that too, and I tried to look up franchise valuations in the Premier League, which even by source seem to widely vary. (As in, I saw some sites that listed the top franchises at a little over a billion, and others that listed the top franchise as over six billion. Even on the latter lists, though, they listed five or six teams in the Premier League as having evaluations over $3 billion, and all the others under $1 billion.So I’m not sure where Richmond would slot in there. If the latter list is accurate, then $2 billion feels a little high but not unbelievably so.
What about $2 billion for a soccer team is baffling to you? Before we were given a number, I was figuring somewhere around the $4 billion price point. I was off by double, but hearing 2 billion felt just as reasonable to me. Am I missing something?
The actual West Ham is only worth $1 billion. There are only a dozen or so teams in the entire world that are worth $2 billion or more.
Ted casually revealing Beard’s first name was Willis moments before his hysterical fake-appendicitis send-off was the kind of little joke that made me love this show.
Some details-
Ted’s friend Shannon (the girl with the football) was getting her book signed by Trent.
Henry was wearing number 9. Jamie Tartt is his favourite player, who also wears number 9.
Jamie kept his piece of the Believe poster in his (now well worn) copy of The Beautiful And The Damned, which he threw away when Ted gifted it to him in the first season.
McAdoo’s killer penalty hit Rebbeca’s incredibly mediocre ex in the face.
On his flight home, Ted was reading How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan.
Solid finale overall. I thought the whole “farewell” flash mob singing scene with the team was incredibly stupid and unnecessary but I also get the show’s writers just wanting to go for broke since it’s the series finale and all.I’m glad Keeley refused to make a choice between Roy and Jaimie and just did her own thing instead, and that Roy and Jaimie both realized how insanely stupid they were for trying to make her choose. My only big disappointment was that Roy didn’t wise up and at least explore the possibility of a relationship with his niece’s teacher, who even admitted straight to his face that she was into him. Like, I’m not saying they should have ended up as soulmates, but maybe a brief scene during the final montage of them on a first date or something would have been better in my opinion than Roy just regressing and chasing after Keeley again.
I’m also not 100% convinced that Nate earned his redemption, but I will admit that scene with him and Ted looking up at where the ‘Believe’ poster used to be (and Nate finally fucking apologizing) was well done.There’s certainly potential for a spin-off or two (and as the author notes, the show itself even seems to be teasing as much with Keeley’s founding of a women’s team), but I’d also be ok if Apple just let the original show stand on its own.
Nate’s a moron. Never go backwards, never give up a good position.
Working for the devil isn’t a good position.
He could work for any club in Europe. He decided to be the assistant kit boy in Richmond. That’s just childish nonsense.
He wanted to be with his family. Richmond is his family. He knows he has dues to pay literally with five thousands pounds and otherwise. I’m sure he doesn’t need the money right now, he just left a very high paying job and when he chooses to move up his reputation will open doors.
it is if it pays good and has a good title.
I guess Ted’s a moron then too.
he kinda is.
didn’t watch the show after season 2 but this has been one of the most schizophrenic comment sections to lurk.
Keeley choosing herself was a good distraction from the fact that she had like 2 lines in the final episode.Also, Trent’s book being called “Believe” was the layup of all layups and they biffed it.
I’m impressed with your take, Manuel. You finally reviewed the show as it is, not as you wished it to be.
It was a sweet end to a sweet show. I know Ted Lasso has its fans of the more Hallmark-style writing over the past season(s). I’m not one of them but I get it.
That said, there were some moments that I just didn’t buy:
Obisanya getting on the Nigerian team? No. Jamie having happy times with his Dad? No. (of course, these could both have been Ted’s dream)Giving McAdoo that penalty in the final? No.
But the big one: Ted not taking Rebecca’s offer to make him one of the highest paid coaches in the league (and hence, the world). That he didn’t even consider how to make that work because the idea of him going home had plot-armor? Not good enough.
With that money Ted could have probably lived in the US half the week, in the UK the other half. Or, as Rebecca said, had his family come to live in the UK. They certainly made a point that his ex-wife’s new partner probably wasn’t going to be a permanent thing. If he had at least discussed it with his family and their reasons for staying in the US were clear, then it might have worked. Without it, no. Too unbelievable. Even with all the glue, glitter and sticky tape in the word, I just didn’t “Believe” it.
“But the big one: Ted not taking Rebecca’s offer to make him one of the highest paid coaches in the league (and hence, the world). That he didn’t even consider how to make that work because the idea of him going home had plot-armor? Not good enough.”I’m surprised you found this unbelievable. Ted’s never been motivated by money, and it would make neither narrative nor thematic sense for Ted to just go “you know what, I think I will have my cake and eat it too!” Moving to England and coaching Richmond was Ted’s way of avoiding confronting the realities of his crumbling marriage. Now that he’s over it and grown as a person it’s time for him to come home and be a full-time father to his child. Would it be unbelievable for a real-life person to turn down such a lucrative offer? Sure. Is it unbelievable for the preternaturally saint-like Ted Lasso? Nah.
the preternaturally saint-like Ted Lasso
That’s the only reason they get away with it and if I switch off my brain almost completely I can almost accept it.
But if you’re trying to show characters growing and becoming “better”, then the idea that they wouldn’t take a life-changing opportunity to make their life and their family’s lives better (i.e. better by everyone having more opportunities) is just silly. Would have been better if they’d never written Rebecca’s offer in the first place.
Yes, Ted Lasso was a fictional, saint-like character. But he was also written as a real man and father with real world concerns, needs and desires. And he was also written as being smart. In the end it felt like he moved back to the US almost to avoid even trying to reconcile his new life with his old one. That might feel like the right decision to Ted, but it’s not the smart one.
Nate quit the best job he ever had and now has a lower position at Richmond than when he started, and he spent a good part of this season in the land of assholes. Is it really plausible that Ted would make the more crass choice than Nate?
Huh? Ted wasn’t in the land of assholes being head coach of Richmond, and if he continued there with better pay he’d have more opportunities to be with his family in the US and potentially change the culture of the “land of assholes” in the UK, since his coaching seems to yield results.
Nothing crass about that and it’d be a season 4 I’d be interested to watch.
Not, Nate was in the land of assholes. And yet he still made the choice that wasn’t about the paycheck. If the asshole could make that choice, is it plausible that the non-asshole would make a lesser choice? No.
I’ve already agreed above that in this fantasy Ted Lasso world with “the preternaturally saint-like Ted Lasso” this story almost works. Thematically, maybe sure.
But it’s not too much of a leap that the smart character that Ted Lasso is could see that it’s not so much “about the paycheck” as it is about being better by making use of opportunities that can help others. He could arguably help more people, his family, Richmond FC, the fans, and potentially other clubs and fans around the world as they see that his approach works, by taking Rebecca up on her offer.
For this show, this story, the overly simplistic take of “go home be with your family no matter what it’s the right thing to do” works in an overly simplistic way. But I never saw Ted Lasso as an overly simplistic character.
Watching the door close on Roy and Jamie, I said “they’re fucking idiots” a half second before Roy said it.
its not an avacado, its a Zavacado…. 🙂
I thought the finale was fantastic, but it’s hard to say if this rambling shaggy dog of a season really earned it. I’m happy with where everyone ended up, but I don’t think the show really put in the work to get them there. I guess I can see why Ted spent so much of season 3 on the sidelines—it’s The Richmond Way! get it?—but the show made so many bizarre decisions in shifting the focus away from him. Why Shandy? Why Zava? Why Jack? Why spend so much time with Shandy, Zava, and Jack, only to have Nate largely undergo an entire redemption arc offscreen and between episodes? I had zero issue with the hour+ episodes, just with how they chose to spend that time.ETA: Given the Bill Lawrence connection, I wonder if that flash forward was a nod to the Scrubs finale, which ended on a very similar “but it was all a dream…OR IS IT?” note.
That was some of the worst green screen I’ve seen since the 80s. On a positive note, nice to hear a long Stone Roses track play as background music, even if it didn’t really fit that well.
Who the fuck were the couple with the baby at the end of the terrible Stonehenge scene? I didn’t recognize them at all.
Apparently they were the two Beard ran into in “Beard After Dark”— borrowing pants from the wife, being chased by the husband, then the husband saving him from Jamie’s dad and his goons.
This three-season show is so in love with its own lore, it’s insane.
So reading between the lines, since Ted never met those people, it follows that all that montage stuff actually happened, and it wasn’t just a dream Ted was having on the plane.Which asks the question: why the hell wasn’t Ted at his best friend’s wedding? He just moved home to the USA to be with his kid, it’s not like he’s been permanently exiled from the UK.(Of course the real answer is likely that these details don’t matter to the writers, aka “a wizard did it”)
Yeah… my reaction was pretty much exactly yours, ha.
I appreciated how the show turned their love triangle on its head, remembering how strong-willed our Keeley can be. She may choose one or the other, but it’s not for us to know.
After the bullshit Roy and Jamie pulled this episode, she shouldn’t date either of them. She is not an object. I could not believe when Jamie told Roy that Keeley made that video for him. Turning her trauma into a pissing contest seems like something old Jamie would do. That whole scene made them both look terrible, it was a huge step backwards for both characters.I love this show, but the writers decisively proved this season that they have no idea how to write storylines for female characters.
B- finale for a C+ season.
That’s not how you use the term ‘begs the question’
you probably mean ‘raises the question’
I start tearing up during “Father and Son”, so that hit the spot for me. Great song, and it worked. I also liked the use of Ben Folds’ cover of “In Between Days.”
The $2 billion valuation also made me laugh out loud. Like there are clearly people on that writing staff who like and understand English soccer because there are plenty of times that they nail fun little details, but then there are also times where they have characters say things that are utterly baffling. Chelsea, who have won the Premier League five times, the Champions League twice, and the FA Cup five times in the last twenty years alone sold for $3.1 billion last summer. AFC Richmond would likely sell for less than $500 million, with the fact that they qualified for the Champions League and had a heartwarming Cinderella story maybe bumping up the sale price by another $50-100 million. I thought it was a bit odd too in the finale that after mostly presenting Ted’s divorce as “these are tough things that happen to people, it’s no one’s fault, the important thing is to still be there for your family even when it’s hard” every time we cut to his son and ex-wife watching Richmond’s final game it felt like they were going out of their way to highlight “her new boyfriend is a real piece of shit and would make a bad step-father, so that relationship probably won’t last.” It just felt a bit tacked on, like they wanted you to walk away thinking maybe Ted and his ex would reconcile but they didn’t want to actually lay any of the groundwork for that to be a plausible ending.
That wasn’t Stonehenge but Avebury.
Pretty much the platonic ideal ending for this show. This was Ted Lasso at its best. This season was uneven. It had some great highs—Amsterdam episode—and some big lows—everything KJPR. And a lot of “oh, well, it’s fine, I guess”: Nate’s redemption happening largely off-screen even as the actor did his absolute darndest to sell it. And me being like, “So, we’re skipping over the games now, I guess?”But this episode gave me everything I’d been looking for all throughout the season. Nate apologized! There was a climactic match that had ups and downs. Ted coaching! BELIEVE with the kintsugi! It was funny.It had some turbulence, but damn it, it nailed it. It did what a good finale ought to do. End this part of the story while acknowledging that life goes on. Gave us some closure but not wrap everything up nicely. Will AFC Richmond continue their hot streak? Probably. They may even win the Champions League. But they no longer need Ted there to do it, thanks to Ted. I had a rough week. Been having a rough week. This episode reminded me of the first season in that…it helped. Goodbye, Ted Lasso, I never want to read a twitter hot take about how you can’t save us ever again.
Requisite “was this written by a 1st grader” sample: “But as this third (final?) season has worn on, it’s become clear that this wasn’t (couldn’t?) be a sustainable premise. Ted has a family back home. And a kid who was struggling with a father so far away.” Oof.Glad the series has wrapped up and put out to pasture. Lovely moments to be had in this bloated finale, sure, but unlike Succession, this show never justified its expanded runtime. Season 1 was a breath of fresh air during a pandemic. Season 2 kept some of the same vibes, but with some massive narrative dissociation occurring (sleeping with your boss is fine, Sam’s activism has no real consequences). Season 3 was even weaker than the second, reducing Rebecca and Keely to being defined by their sexual partners instead of their work, barely justifying Nate’s well-established heel-turn and introducing a truly baffling girlfriend for him who didn’t have a line of dialogue in the last 75 minutes. And it had the audacity to trot out the tired-in-the-90s“we got in a fight over you” bullshit plot between Jamie and Roy for Keely’s affections. Maybe you had scheduling issues with the actress that played Dr. Sharon, but she pops up out of nowhere here. Also, was the marriage counselor-turned-boyfriend (STILL not even close to explored how fucking gross this relationship is, and how fucked up the son will be because of it) being played by a different actor, smarmily attempting to not give a shit what his new family is interested in? Reminded me of the first sketch of season 3 of I Think You Should Leave with the cellphone use.I laughed twice during this last episode, once when the airline attendant muttered that Ted was a fucking twat or something after he declined seeing Coach Beard to the hospital, and where Barbara was sent into a blood frenzy. For the most part, I’m tired of this show trying (and these non-Substack Episodic Medium reviews to sadly attempt to break it down) and flailing for the latter half. So thanks for the good memories, Ted, and for season 1. Jamie Tart remains MVP for actually demonstrating character growth.
I really liked it, however,
this write-up has informed me that the episode was actually called “so long, farewell”…. and they just straight up did a musical number from an old Rogers & Hammerstein musical…. that was jarring. I realize the team, especially at practices, has always been more of a classic greek chorus but I feel like they could have done something slightly more original here? I liked the end bit where they all cheered aggressively but it still felt odd….. Remember during Steve Carells last few episodes on The Office at one point the entire cast just started singing “525,600 Minutes” from the musical Rent…. I had similar feelings there too.
Despite some cracks appearing in the show this (hopefully) final season, I still found the ending satisfying, warts and all. It’s been a good hat trick for the three shows I like that have signed off. I’m happy with the finales of Barry, Mrs. Maisel and this. BTW what was up with Rupert’s limp? Was the actor actually injured or did it make him more villainy?
Could anything make him more villainy than that black leather duster?
I think he had the limp a couple of episodes ago and it was never explained then, either. No idea if it’s something with Anthony Head’s health or if it was a character choice as a subtle way to show him declining in power.
I took the ending far more literally; after a lovefest emotional rollercoaster montage of all the pieces of your previous life you left behind we get Ted and Henry “I can’t believe I missed that” has a dual meaning. Ted’s smiling but he looks just a little heart broken at what he’s left behind to be a responsible father, not because he wanted leave but because his son needed him more.
No love for the best line in the episode?When the announcer said “I never know how to react when a white man does the running man in front of everyone,” I died lol. Could not breathe.As for the finale, I actually liked it a lot. It still felt…rushed? Not entirely complete? Even so, it did feel like a good end and sendoff for the show and characters. I did cringe a bit at the musical-bit but I know I’ve cringed at other things in this show, and everyone’s reaction when Ted gave his seal of approval on it afterwards made me so damn happy I didn’t care about the cringe anymore.Overall, this season was good, but compared to how great the first season was, that “good” feels more like a “meh”. Wish they would’ve stuck with 30 minute episodes and just had more of them and more of a focus on everyone with time to see them all grow and breathe.
The best part about the show ending is no more reading the comments sections to correct MB’s mistakes. 2nd best part is not having to read his reviews on this show at all.FWIW, a Premier League team that just finished 2nd, is probably worth more than $2B, but it’s a nice # regardless. They would have to seriously improve the grounds to get closer to the big guns from Manchester and West Ham…
Beyond the “trying to be better is enough” theme, for me, the central theme of this entire show is selflessness. Everyone learns to care about others. Central to that is Ted’s utter selflessness, sometimes to his own detriment. That final note he wrote on Trent’s book nailed it. “One suggestion, change the title…it’s not about me. It never was.”THAT is the essence of the show. Of what teamwork is about. And with all of those disparate personalities, they came together. For me, that’s what resonated so strongly with me.
T0 be honest every review you wrote this season has been you “nitpicking”. I am over it.
Man, I disliked this season, but it at least helped me go into this episode with ZERO expectations, so I actually really enjoyed this finale! Okay, maybe I had one expectation, and I think they really flopped wrapping up the Nate/Ted storyline 🙁 That was it?!
There are a lot of comments here so not sure if anyone else mentioned this, but since this is England it would be 2 Billion pounds not dollars. So more like nearly $2.5B. This is not crazy–the Dallas Cowbows is valued at $7.64B
I’m a little late on the party (old house, a bit of renovation stuff, 10th year on the row, no finally done), but finally got the see the finale. And it’s a weird series.I mean the title character during the whole series is the worst part of the series. He has nothing concrete to give as character, as actor, not that great and Ted feels kinda unnecessary. I think it kinda undermines why there’s so many brits in the Hollywood.