Ted Lasso has always been a product of its time: our Covid-era years of discontent, when everyone was quite literally forced into social isolation, dystopia was on the doorstep, and we yearned for ways to connect. It also arrived at the tail-end of Trump season one, amid a wider sense that the world was going to shit; even so, there was still some optimism in the air, collectively buoyed by an enduring belief that change could be on the horizon (a hope which has long since deserted many of us). Perhaps that is why, back in 2020, we were not only more receptive to the flurry of positivity-punches landed by “Coach Lasso,” with his big, approachable smile, Flandersian moustache, and things-can-only-get-better attitude. We actively showed him our bellies and invited his wallops of “Believe!”
And so Lasso became a streaming hit like few others this decade, the flagship show of an Apple TV that has since shifted towards prestige-era-coded critical darlings like Severance and Pluribus. It was meant to finish with its third season, by which time it had morphed from jolly, feel-good football comedy, its episodes a tight 30-minutes a piece, to earnest drama with comedic undertones, its runtimes doubling, one of many signs that it had begun to take itself a little too seriously. It was a good time to end: the series’ pop cultural impact had peaked to the extent that Pep Guardiola was courted for a cameo, AFC Richmond managed their best-ever Premier League finish, and though the mood towards the show had begun to sour, it hadn’t quite become an out-and-out hate watch.
But these things are simply too popular, and financially lucrative, to stay off the air. So, Ted (Jason Sudeikis) is back for another season. And good god, he’s more annoying than ever.
The new season opens with Ted back at home in Kansas City, where he has taken a job as the assistant manager of a copycat Whole Foods; you’d think that his years leading a Premier League club would see him set up for life financially, but hey, maybe he just wanted something to do. (He could’ve done ads for Uber Eats.) He has settled into a laid-back suburban life with his ex-wife Michelle (Andrea Anders) and soccer-mad son Henry (Grant Feely), the quiet existence he long dreamed about from the touchline. And then arrives Richmond owner Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham), gawky executive Leslie (Jeremy Swift) and bubbly PR chief Keeley (Juno Temple), ostensibly on a work trip to scout the Kansas City Current, the local women’s football team, ahead of establishing their own ladies’ outfit. But the ulterior motive is obvious from the get-go: Rebecca wants Ted to come back to London to manage the Lady Greyhounds, viewing his sunny managerial approach as exactly what they need to thrive.
With the Richmond trio coming to Ted’s home turf, we basically get a reverse of Lasso‘s fish-out-of-water setup. While they wait for Ted’s response — which we know will obviously be a yes, because there is an entire season of television to come — they explore the city, whereupon they discover that the locals are essentially all nigh-on zombified Lasso clones, radiating a cloying, smug sunniness that makes you want to commit violence. The characters are quickly won over by this apparently city-wide pathology of can-do attitudes and neighbourly affection, but for viewers who got over the positivity-porn schtick back in 2023, it’s a nightmare. There’s actually an air of Pluribus to it all, as if everyone has had their brains rewired by an alien virus, unable to be anything but Extremely, Painfully Nice. Such a saccharine-sweet world might’ve made for a charming novelty earlier in the decade. But now, it just feels like an irksome, tone deaf, liberal fantasy, one that is gleefully divorced from the state of things IRL.
Anyway, Ted takes the job (duh), and his family decide to come to London with him, because, well, why not? (Who cares if that was one of the only genuine points of conflict that existed in the show’s prior three-season run, wiped away over the course of a convenient text conversation?) With the move to women’s football, the show’s main thematic thrust shifts over to gender inequality, led by the unfair conditions faced by the lady Greyhounds. There’s the dressing room they have to share with the youth academy, a shoebox with a single working shower. For their part, the blokey Richmond faithful couldn’t give a toss about the girls. And so, Ted’s quest becomes one about changing hearts and minds, one smile at a time, because anyone can change the world — you’ve just gotta have a positive mental attitude, buddy. (Shoot me.)
It’s all very stale. The actual football is as badly done as ever. And, once again, the show falls into all of the same dramatic traps of its previous run: conflicts are resolved on the turn of a dime, there’s no real jeopardy, and there’s always the sense that everything is going to be okay, at least eventually. Which invites the question: why should I care about any of this? Maybe, for some, Lasso‘s ruthless positivity was once an escapist balm. But now it’s just painfully cringe.
