Ted Lasso has returned for a fourth season. I'll be recapping every episode. I've got some overall, non-spoiler thoughts on the season's first four episodes followed by spoilers for the premiere, "Home" (I'll warn you before we get to that), coming up just as soon as my son's tattoo is either of a taco or Australia...
We have to start our discussion of Season Four with an immutable fact: Ted Lasso ended.
I don't just mean that Season Three wrapped production more than three years ago, and that there wasn't any talk of it coming back until about a year ago. I mean that the story that the show Ted Lasso was telling ended. Ted raised up the spirits and abilities of everyone around him. Rebecca came into her own as a badass businesswoman, and she in turn helped Keeley to become one. Roy Kent went from surly loner to slightly less surly leader of men, the clear choice to succeed Ted as coach of AFC Richmond. Everyone was better for their association with Ted, even relatively minor figures like Trent Crimm (formerly of The Independent). And Ted himself worked through enough of the emotional darkness that had helped to end his marriage that he felt able to return to America to get more time with his son Henry, whether or not he and ex-wife Michelle would reconcile. Hell, even Nate had gotten a happy ending — maybe the least justified happy ending in TV history, but he still got it. There was no story left to be told, and certainly not about Ted himself.
Alan Sepinwall
At the time, there was speculation that Ted's exit in the Season Three finale would eventually lead to a spinoff featuring most of the supporting cast, but that fizzled quickly. The series was done.
Until it wasn't.