Ted Lasso – Home Review

When a friend asked me how I would describe the fourth season of Ted Lasso, the best description I could come up with – based largely on this season premiere – was a warm hug. Because, considering the polarizing nature of the show’s third season – which I enjoyed at the outset and then was incredibly disappointed with by the back half – there was a lot of squandered good will the show needed to recapture and recapture fast. Amazingly, this episode pretty much did all of that and then some, bringing back some familiar faces, transplanting the action from London to Kansas City (both Kansas and Missouri – it’s confusing, I know), and then presenting Ted with his new challenge: Coaching the Richmond Lady Greyhounds.

We got to watch Ted and Rebecca’s sharp-witted working relationships come back to the forefront. Saw Higgins fall in love with another great game with his trip to the Negro League Museum (I’ve been and I can vouch that it is a truly stellar museum and a must for baseball fans in particular). And learn that while Roy and Keeley aren’t together – although the possibility is certainly there from her reaction – Keeley has thrown all of her PR energy into turning the women’s club into a success. She’s so excited about it that Rebecca can’t tell her about the recent folding of another women’s team and the negative outlook for women’s professional football for UK clubs that aren’t linked to hugely powerful Premier League clubs.*

As I wrote a bit about in my season review, it can be a bit jarring to see how much of a struggle it is in the UK to have a women’s football club when we have a women’s league here in the States that has been around for a number of years (at least in its current incarnation – there were several others previously). For as hard as it’s been to get large swaths of the US population to really buy into men’s soccer, we’ve taken to women’s soccer much faster than the rest of the world. It does help that our national team routinely wins international tournaments. But still, women’s sports on the whole are less profitable than men’s, even if women’s soccer has a much stronger US foothold than it has in other countries.

But the most important aspect of the episode was its focus on showing us who Ted is now and what is missing in his current life that could be rectified should he take the job in Richmond. Yes, he’s incredibly invested in Henry’s life. Yes, his co-parenting relationship with Michelle is as good as it’s ever been. But he’s stagnating in every other way. His part time job at the supermarket is mostly just to get out of the house. When he’s not with Henry, he’s on his own – there’s no indication that Ted has friends outside of his family. This isn’t a man who is truly happy. He’s living half of a life. And now that the show has taken away the biggest obstacle to Ted’s happiness while over in London – with Henry and Michelle both making the move across the pond – the show can really begin with Ted all-in on coaching this team and turning them into something special.

Because that’s what we’re all back here for, right? To see Ted’s special world view transform those around him and make them better versions of themselves. To see him inspire his team while also learning a bit more about himself in the process. It already sounds like his assistant coach, Alice Chilton, might be in need of some of Ted’s magic (or she might end up being the proverbial brick wall he’s going to crash against, forcing him to look at himself as well). Of course, coaching women is different than coaching men – I spent many years playing soccer and am well aware of the personality clashes, grudges, and cliques that can pervade a women’s team if you let things fester. Heck, I still remember the numbers and teams of some of the girls that took cheap shots at me in games years ago. It’s a very different beast than men’s football.

But we’re off to a stellar start with this episode. The characters feel like themselves again. The reset of the story works. And Ted’s life is in a place where the tug of “home” isn’t going to be a major hurdle for the storytelling like it was in the past three seasons. This time, Ted can come back to Richmond and be content that he has all he needs with him (his mom seems like she’ll be just fine in her new retirement community, after all). He’s truly going home. That’s what we needed from this episode to get things off on the right foot. Now, it’s time to meet the team and see what Ted has to work with.