Ted Lasso Season Three (Series?) Finale: Post-Mortem

A strong series finale can go a long way towards helping an audience forget about minor bumps and bruises a show provided through an uneven series run. But what it can’t do is take a beloved series that almost fully lost sight of everything that made it great in its final run of episodes and paper over that disappointment to make everything copacetic in the end. So, while Ted Lasso’s swan song* was a solid episode (if, like so many episodes in this third season, too overstuffed and too long), I can’t forgive the series for the utter mess it made getting to this conclusion – one that, happily, saw pretty much everyone getting what they wanted (within reason) and living happily ever after.

*While we still don’t have an official announcement from AppleTV+ (or Jason Sudeikis, Bill Lawrence, Brendan Hunt, or any other members of the central writing staff), that episode absolutely felt like a series finale. Or at least a series finale for a series about Ted Lasso. Whether the series could return in some form and follow AFC Richmond and its newly promoted coaching staff, that’s a question for another time. There could be a story there, but I suspect it would be a case of diminishing returns. So, I’m going to write this under the assumption that that was the series finale and that this particular story, with these particular characters, has come to an end.

Let’s touch, briefly, on the finale itself before getting into the meat of this piece – discussing how season three went from potentially promising to a narrative mess – because I certainly have many more lovely things to say about the finale than I do about the back half of the season itself. A good finale is one that wraps up the major story points of a series, provides moments for the show’s key characters, and, most importantly, allows the audience the chance to say goodbye to characters they have grown to care about over the past seasons of the show. And Ted Lasso did all of that in spades. We were allowed moments with every major and nearly every minor character of the series. We got a number of fun callbacks, some moments that allowed us to cheer, chuckle, and moments engineered to make us cry*. We were able to see the family of AFC Richmond – which includes far more characters than simply the team, coaching staff, and ownership – come together and witness the greatest of victories (over West Ham, over their past expectations, over their fears, over their past failures) while also recognizing that even in a show that has played out like a Hollywood fairy tale, sometimes the good guys can’t win it all in the end. It was a finale that stayed true to so much of what made Ted Lasso into the massive hit it has been and that allowed us the chance to say our goodbyes and think back on all the joy the show has brought us over the years.

*I’m absolutely someone who will shed a tear when watching a show – and I’ve cried more than once while watching Ted Lasso, but I found myself actively feeling manipulated by the series in its clear attempts to wring emotion out of the audience. I’m not sure if it was that the writers clearly telegraphed exactly how they wanted us to react to that video montage or the sign getting put back together, but oof.

Could we have done with a shorter finale? Abso-freaking-lutely. But that’s been the case with nearly every single episode this season (more on that issue later). Did we need Rupert’s outburst? No, because he was already in crisis before. Did we need to spend as much time as we did with Rebecca trying to convince Ted to stay? Did we really need to see Beard in that thong?* But since the result felt like a classic Ted Lasso episode – with heaps of heart, silly puns, characters making important personal realizations that will help them to function long term, actual freaking football being played – I’m willing to overlook it, just this once, and declare the episode well worth our time. After all, the last thing any of us wanted was a swan song to a show we all cared so deeply about that missed the mark completely. This one managed to land the plane, albeit after the turbulence in the back portion of the flight nearly killed us all.

*I do want to commend Brendan Hunt for his complete and utter commitment to keeping Coach Beard weird over the last three seasons. Such an interesting performance, such an interesting, strange character.

And that’s where this particular post-mortem is going to get harsher. I loved season one of Ted Lasso. I begged everyone I knew to watch it and many did and fell in love with the show. I was a bit mixed on season two, for the reasons I outlined in my season post-mortem back then. But the two threads in the second season (which were also key storylines that began in season one) that I found the most compelling and which worked the best – Ted’s panic attacks and Nate’s heel turn – were set-up to continue churning through season three, hopefully with smooth conclusions that felt earned and tied up. That, unfortunately, did not end up being the case for those two sensational arcs. And it also wasn’t the case for many of the arcs the series attempted to launch in season three, most of which went nowhere fast and sputtered out almost completely before the end of the series.*

*I don’t want to get into any of the potential behind the scenes issues that have been discussed online regarding the writing of season three of the series. I will, however, note that this season did take considerably longer to shoot than past seasons. I will also note that this was the first season Sudeikis was the sole showrunner of the series, as Lawrence had left to showrun and launch Shrinking, which premiered a couple of months prior to Ted Lasso’s third season.

Season three of Ted Lasso was ultimately failed by its writing. At this stage of the game, you know what the cast is capable of and they delivered week in and week out, even when they were asked to play beats that felt like they came out of thin air or had missed ten steps in getting to that particular moment in a character’s story. Let’s take the Nate redemption arc as our key case study. Over the course of two seasons, we saw Nate go from cheery kit man to a dark, bitter shell of the character we knew. We watched him be bullied by the team, bullied and dismissed by his father, and craft a narrative in his own mind that Ted, his surrogate father figure, never liked him and only used him for his football acumen. He allowed Rupert to whisper poison in his ear and he ran to West Ham, eager to turn his back on his former mentor and prove that he was good enough – hell, better than good – all along. Season three was set-up to be a reckoning for Nate, who we presumed would eventually become disillusioned with Rupert’s manipulations, realize the error of his ways, and return to Ted, asking for forgiveness. But instead of a well-drawn arc, we were given only pieces of Nate’s redemption tour. We saw him not be able to be “one of the boys” with Rupert, we saw that he didn’t like that Rupert thought cheating on his wife was part and parcel of being rich and powerful. We saw Nate fumble his date with a supermodel and somehow charm the hostess he’s been pining for over the last two seasons.* We saw him refuse to follow along with Rupert’s manipulations. But we did not see him quit his job. We saw his father apologize for years of distance and abuse – but we didn’t see what, specifically, was the catalyst for this sudden change in a proud man who seemed wholly set in his ways. We saw the Greyhounds beg Nate to come back to the team – but we didn’t see any discussion by the team about this invitation being agreed upon, from a group of players who were so incensed at Nate’s actions in the past that they attacked their West Ham opponents on the pitch.

*Out of all the confusion surrounding Nate’s redemption arc, the one piece of the puzzle that confuses me the most is Jade. This is a woman who literally didn’t give him the time of day in a host of interactions with him, but his earnest love of the simple food at the restaurant (in the face of his date’s disdain) was somehow enough to win her over? And she somehow also made Nate realize he needed to check himself before he wrecked himself? Now, I might have been able to accept Jade’s magical abilities if the show had bothered, in its insanely long episode run times, to provide us with any characterization for Jade outside of “prickly, doesn’t care about Nate until she suddenly does,” but the series seemed so unconcerned with Jade as a fully realized character and only wanted her to be a piece of the Nate redemption arc puzzle. Which made this part of Nate’s story all the more disappointing. We also don’t know why Nate loves her and pines after her – other than that she’s beautiful. So, you know, lots missed when it came to this seemingly central romantic arc for the series.

Rather than take the time to show us how Nate came to realize he needed to work on himself and become the man he wanted to be – rather than the one he thought he needed to be – the writers opted to take various shortcuts and simply tell us that Nate had taken the requisite steps to earn full forgiveness (thereby ignoring the number one rule of  script writing: show, don’t tell). We don’t see him tell Rupert he quits – explain why he can’t coach West Ham anymore. We don’t see Nate’s father take the time to understand where he went wrong with his relationship with Nate, we only see the result of that introspection. We don’t see the team decide to accept Nate back into the fold, we only see them ask him to return. And, most importantly, we don’t see Nate overcome the final hurdle keeping him from coming back: His internal agony over betraying his mentor, Ted. We get Beard’s story of how Ted can forgive nearly any slight against him, but we don’t see Nate make the choice to return. We get his apology (which appears to come after Nate has been working in the kit room for the better part of a week, which is odd), but we don’t see Nate make the decision that he will man up and ask for the forgiveness he knows Ted has already extended to him. It was such a disappointment considering how wonderfully thought out this arc had been – how we could easily trace back Nate’s heel turn to each slight and microaggression, real and imagined, he had suffered in seasons one and two. We all know Nate would find his way back to AFC Richmond, that was never going to be the question we needed answered. But how he did it, how he worked on himself, what led him back to his work family, that was what we all wanted to see. And the writers absolutely dropped the ball in its execution.

And this was the case with nearly every single storyline this season on Ted Lasso. We had Rebecca go from badass boss bitch to a woman who suddenly couldn’t be complete without a child – which, again, is a storyline that could have worked with the proper set-up. The problem wasn’t that Rebecca wanted a child to make her life complete, it was that we’d never seen this particular need expressed to this level until she went to a psychic and was told she was going to be a mother. And then there was her strange Amsterdam interlude – which, of course, paid off in her finding her pilot prince charming in the finale once more, this time with adorable little moppet daughter to make Rebecca a parent as she dreamed – which . . . taught her that she didn’t need to want a family to be fulfilled? Which was then undermined by the finale reunion? I’m still not sure quite what that was all about, save that she returned to Richmond and decided she should focus on owning a football club once more. Sam was given a one-off story point about the continued racist attitudes among governments when it comes to dealing with the world-wide migrant crisis, where the show immediately dropped the issue like a hot potato once the episode was complete. Keeley, thankfully, learned she doesn’t need anyone else to make her complete (which was a nice conclusion to her arc), but getting there was a trial with that mess of a relationship with Jack (love to see a queer romance on the show, wish it were written better) and the phone hacking scandal which helped get rid of Jack but also taught the Greyhounds the importance of consent? Again, a messy arc that led somewhere in the end but felt so loose and unwieldy in the moment, often siloing Keeley in what felt like her own series. Roy worked on himself – which gave us the excellent bromance between him and Jamie, which was the greatest part of season three by a long shot – and thankfully became a patient of Doctor Sharon by season’s end (another complaint: not nearly enough Doctor Sharon this season, which was an absolute bummer). And Jamie realized he can be a good teammate while also being a star player – that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Jamie’s growth from season one to the finale was just wonderful, and I loved that the show continued to keep him a loveable doofus in so many ways while helping turn him into a good man as well.

As for Ted, our titular character, the arc was also pretty wobbly. I think pretty much everyone clocked he would be ending the season on a plane back home for good from the opening moments of the season. And laced throughout were many a clue that Ted missed Henry and wanted to be with him full time, so none of that was a shock. But Ted didn’t really do all that much this season. In fact, he was rarely at the center of the action at all. Some of that comes from the fact that so little of the season was actually about playing football – which was a major misstep as well, as this is a series where what happens on the pitch and on the way to getting to the game was always a reflection on the team and their own insecurities they were working through. But Ted took a backseat to other characters – even minor ones – which, in turn, led to the writing not really knowing just what story it was meant to be telling. Had the series been named AFC Richmond or Richmond Greyhounds, it would have made sense to not focus on Ted so much. But, it’s a show about Ted Lasso, and we got precious little time with Ted as the season unfolded.  I mean, even his sessions with Doctor Sharon seemed to come to an abrupt end with little to no explanation early in the season. I could have done without an episode about the players going to play for their national teams if it meant we got an episode where Ted finally did the work and realized he needed to focus on football or decide it was time to bow out of Richmond. Or an episode where Rebecca and Ted talked about the fact the team was on a major losing streak and that meant Ted’s job was in jeopardy. But we didn’t get that. And that made the conceit of the series feel stretched at times.

All that being said, what does this mean for Ted Lasso’s legacy? Well, I suspect many folks aren’t going to care all that much about many of the issues I outlined above. Television viewing and criticism is subjective, after all, and the ending of Ted Lasso had more than enough of the DNA of the series that people fell in love with. Like I said, a good finale can allow an audience to look past some blemishes and bask in the tried and true rhythms of a series they loved one last time. And some will think I’m being too harsh on this feel-good comedy. But, as I say every time I criticize a series I once loved, I’m pointing out these failings precisely because I loved the series. I wanted it to maintain its previous high level of writing. The performances were always there. The writing simply tried to do far too much with far too little. No series that begins as a half hour comedy should ever morph into a hour-plus long dramedy where the writers feel they need to ensure each and every minor character gets some sort of arc over the course of the season. That’s a fool’s errand and won’t end well. But that’s precisely what happened with season three of Ted Lasso. And that’s a crying shame, because this series had the potential to be an all-timer. Instead, we’ll always have that wonderful first season. And the knowledge that, in the end, AFC Richmond lived happily ever after.