Ted Lasso :: So Long, Farewell

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The first season of Ted Lasso was in my opinion about as good a first season of television I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen an awful lot of TV over the years. I was a defender of the second season too, which I think was unfairly maligned because it wasn’t as ‘feel good’ as the first season, but anyone watching that first season should’ve noticed it got emotionally complicated a lot and delved into darker moments (if not the darkest). The point of it was that the inherent kindness and grace of Ted Lasso (despite his traumatic upbringing) was something that improved the lives of everyone around him and helped them feel better about themselves too.

I’ve had my issues with the third season of the show — I didn’t think the Jack storyline worked at all, and that Shandy and Zava were joke characters that felt like unnecessary conflicts on the way to the ending. I also felt the season underserved Nate and Keeley’s story arcs, even if the final moments of both worked pretty well for me. I’m still iffy on the whole psychic thing, because it’s still a reality-breaking conceit since ‘Tish’ accurately predicted the future, and what else can she predict or influence?

Some characters had legitimately moving story arcs, like Sam, Jamie, Roy, Colin, and Rebecca to some extent — others had great moments and scenes, like Mae, Trent, Isaac, Dani, ‘Zorro’, Higgins, and Beard. Some remained pure joke characters like the barflies, former coach George, the French player Richard, Jan Maas, and of course, the only good new character, Bloody Barbara, whose kind heart, awkward eating, and bloodlust kept her in my good graces until the end.

The final episode, ‘So Long, Farewell’, was at times cheesy, moving, sad, happy, silly, and even a little far-fetched occasionally. I can’t say it ever really surprised me or kept me in suspense, but that’s not to say I didn’t appreciate quite a few little moments of joy or nonsense along the way. The episode starts with an affectionate trolling of the Ted Lasso fanbase by implying that Rebecca and Ted hooked up before immediately undermining that with the truth.

The actual story of those two this episode was a more complicated, difficult one — Rebecca didn’t want to talk about Ted leaving because that would make it real. She was willing to flat out ask him to stay and bring his son and ex-wife to another country, and even seemed to seriously consider selling the team for an exorbitant price.

I had strongly suspected that Rebecca would end up being the ‘mother’ to the team, and the show makes it explicit by having her selling 49% of the team to fans and being called the team ‘matriarch’. Of course the show wants to have it both ways, so she’s also the new stepmother(?) of the Flying Dutch pilot she met in Amsterdam, whose daughter is the same young actress that played a young Rebecca in the mirror in very intentional symbolism.

Thankfully Rebecca’s arc is also about realizing her true self — she’s completely over Rupert and unaffected by him, helped by his utter breakdown and self-destructive behavior. And Hannah Waddingham’s tears in that farewell hug with Ted seemed to be half from Rebecca and half Hannah herself, I’m sure. In a show that boasted so many great performances, this finale kept that streak going with a string of great work from so many of these characters and the actors playing them.

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Nate has his most emotionally raw moment, bursting into tears when apologizing to Ted — a true standout moment for Nick Mohammed. His new position as Will’s assistant is a good sort of penance, and there was also the very subtle moment of him painting in the torn ‘Believe’ sign with gold paint, a reference to the Kintsugi practice of repairing broken items with gold that Tish the psychic introduced earlier this season. Another subtle but effective symbolic moment.

Jamie and Roy maintain their new friendship and seem to move it to new places, casually hanging out outside of practice, even if they stupidly devolve into a fistfight over Keeley’s affections. When she told them ‘So, I get to choose?’ it was so obviously sarcastic that it was almost silly that neither of the men picked up on it but thought she was serious. In the final montage moments, she’s still friends with both but crucially not romantic with either — or so it seems. A pretty good endpoint for her character, as neither of the two dudes is really ready for a relationship with her.

Roy’s arc is more complicated but more deep — his journey over the entire show has been self-improvement and honesty about himself while slowly being able to be vulnerable (and admit it). When he finally asks to be a Diamond Dog, debasing himself by looking silly in front of his friends, it lets him put down his walls and ask for meaningful help and admit his fears of not being able to change.

Higgins’ excellent advice (which is really par for the course for him) is that Roy needs to keep asking for help, accepting it, and that will keep him moving toward being a better person. Crucially this leads to him finally accepting help from Dr. Sharon in the final montage, as this show has done great strides in showing the benefits of therapy even when (and especially when) people are resistant to the concept.

No wonder he’s the new club manager as he’s finally self-actualizing. For his best friend’s part, Jamie is shown hanging out with his father in rehab — forgiveness only goes so far, after all, but rehab can be an example of really doing the work. Jamie’s father has been shown as one of the few truly unforgivable people on the show, until now — and this episode continued to drop that down.

Former Richmond coach George, memorably fired by Rebecca in the first scene of the series, has been shown to consistently have the worst opinions and is always wrong. He’s sexist and likely a little racist, but this episode shows that he has a line in the sand — he will not play his beloved game dirty. Unlike his new boss Rupert, the only villain left in the show (other than the simple nature of time and the unfairness of the world) is taunted by his beloved home team audience in a clear reference to Ted getting taunted in a similar way in his first few episodes of the series.

Although we saw a little vulnerability from Rupert at the Super League meeting when Rebecca talked about his backstory, we now know he was about to be in serious trouble from Bex and Miss Cakes. The two had little ‘pause’ screen jokes in the final scenes, when Ted Lasso looks at newspapers in the airport — Bex is selling placenta recipes (satirizing such things as Goop) and Miss Cakes is on the ‘Lust Conquers All’ show. But they were always minor characters in the scheme of things.

The show tells us a big theme too — that ‘perfection is boring’, and perhaps it realizes that the show could never hit the heights it once hit, is it an apology or a retort? Either way, the show has managed a whole lot of amazing lines through its three seasons, some close to perfect as I can imagine — I mean ‘fight forward, not back’ is an absolute all-timer.

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Otherwise things wrap in expected ways — the team wins the match but not quite the whole thing as Man City is just a little better than them. Colin gets to finally kiss his boyfriend on the pitch, Trent releases his book that he changes from ‘The Lasso Way’ to ‘The Richmond Way’ — because although the show was called Ted Lasso, it was about more than just one man rather the way we all deal with trauma and how we might heal from it.

From the final moments with Dr. Jake, we know he’s a classic American soccer hater, and his little jokes might’ve gotten a polite laugh from Michelle once but not anymore. Although the ending is intentionally ambiguous as to whether or not Ted and Michelle are still together, it’s clear she ain’t with Dr. Jake. And Dr. Sharon can’t help but root for Richmond, ending up working there full time as a mental health expert.

Isaac gets to hit a penalty goal so hard it goes through a net, Rebecca’s ex-boyfriend gets a ball in the face, Zoreaux becomes a superhero when he gets to play in a Jean Claude Van Damme reboot, the team becomes the ‘fourth’ thing when they all believe in each other and themselves, and there were many, many callbacks and references to the show until now. A lot. Some I appreciated more than others were Roy putting up his niece’s drawing with tape on it (like Ted did to Keeley’s photo in Season 1), Ted finally understanding offsides, and that beautiful ‘running man’ dance calling back to the very first episode of the show.

Of course I also liked the random fan showing up saying Ted should’ve stayed and become a legend, just like he said Ted was a legend for doing something so stupid as to coach soccer without knowing anything about it back in Episode 1 of Season 1. But Ted knows he only needs to be the legend who is a father for his son, and that’s why we end on his face, just like how we started this season. We did the same with Rebecca in Season 1 and Nate in Season 2, and this time the change is from Ted starting the season with a sad face watching his son go home to this time as Ted has a bittersweet one — he’s with one family but not the other.

Although I’ve seen some consider the final montage as a dream or fantasy of Ted’s, I think it’s pretty clear it’s not meant to be that — did he even know about Rebecca’s mysterious Dutchman and if it’s a fantasy, why wasn’t he in them either? I think it’s more about a parallel narrative choice — here’s what happened to them, now here’s what happened to him.

In the end, Ted Lasso remains an excellent show, even if I thought there were some missteps in the final season. Maybe the finale didn’t hit me as hard as some other episodes did, but it did a shockingly great job of building a host of great characters that I will really miss if they’re really gone. We still don’t know if the show will return in some form or another, either as a spin-off (like Keeley’s AFC women’s team idea) or simply a fourth season, and the show’s creators have implied they aren’t sure either.

But I hope they don’t rush the decision, as even though I know I’d be happy to see them again, I’m also happy to see them leave in such a lovely way. If Ted Lasso stayed at first season quality all the way through it’d likely be my favorite show of all time — for now it’ll have to simply remain one of them.

What did you think of the finale? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.