‘Ted Lasso’ Season 4 Review: Believe Again
The previous season of Ted Lasso did not simply finish another chapter; it felt like a goodbye. Ted (Jason Sudeikis) returned to Kansas to his son and ex-wife; Rebecca remained at Richmond and started a women’s team; Roy stepped into a larger coaching role as one of the main coaches; Keeley continued building her own future, and AFC Richmond had transformed from the dysfunctional club Ted inherited, into something resembling the community he had always wanted it to be. Following that, season 4 of Ted Lasso begins with some compelling questions, like what happens after the happy ending? Is everything okay? Will Roy and Keeley finally get back together? And most importantly, is football still life?
Ted Lasso season 4 features new emotional stories
Three years after we watched Ted leave England, the series brings him back by first showing us the life he chose instead. We spend some time in Kansas City, where Ted is once again close to his son Henry (Grant Feely). That matters because his relationship with his son was ultimately the reason he walked away from Richmond.
But as we go through the beginning of the season, Ted’s return starts to turn into a realization that going home did not magically solve everything. And this thought stays with him for the next episodes.
That immediately gives this season an interesting emotional foundation. Ted has always been extraordinarily good at helping other people find direction, yet considerably worse at understanding what he needs to do to help himself. Returning to Kansas gave him something he desperately wanted, but in his case, wanting something and knowing where you belong are not necessarily the same thing.
But thankfully for him and his need to return where he belongs, Higgins (Jeremy Swift), Rebecca, and Keeley visit and convince him to return and help lead Richmond’s women’s football team. Ted is no longer the clueless American walking into English football. He understands Richmond. Richmond understands him. The challenge now is to discover whether the philosophy that transformed one group of players can work when almost everything surrounding it has changed.
Richmond’s men’s team is no longer the hopeless club everyone expects to fail. By the end of the third season, they are competing in the top tournaments and are one of the best teams in the current history of English football. In this case, the newly created women’s team provides a great opportunity to start from scratch. To bring in new ideas, new moments, new emotional scenes, and most importantly, to create new bonds between characters. This storyline also creates a wonderful environment for Ted to be… Ted again.
When he arrived in England for the first time, Ted knew almost nothing about football or soccer. His ignorance was one of the show’s biggest jokes. He did not understand terminology, traditions, or tactics, yet he demonstrated that coaching human beings mattered just as much as understanding tactics, and sometimes, maybe even more than that.
Now Ted returns with experience. He knows football. He knows Richmond. Furthermore, he knows what success looks like. Ted starts again, without the need to make him act stupid or clueless this time.
There is actually something beautifully realistic about discovering that the correct decision at one point in your life may not remain the correct decision forever. Henry is older. Ted is different. Richmond is different. Everything is different, but they are still the same in a way.
The evolution of Rebecca Welton and Roy Kent
One of Ted Lasso‘s most difficult challenges with season 4 is balancing nostalgia with the constant element of change. Fortunately, several essential pieces remain. Rebecca is perhaps the clearest example of how dramatically this world has evolved. The woman who originally hired Ted because she wanted AFC Richmond destroyed, is now effectively trying to bring him back because she understands exactly what he created and wants to keep doing that.
It says a lot about the journey of Hannah Waddingham‘s Rebecca. She gained a lot of respect and authority over three seasons without losing the vulnerability underneath it. Her relationship with Ted remains one of the show’s strongest because it has never needed to become romantic.
These are two people who entered each other’s lives when both were damaged by failed marriages and somehow helped each other rebuild. Rebecca bringing Ted another football challenge therefore feels less like an employer recruiting a coach and more like one friend reminding another of something he may have forgotten about himself and trying to reconnect once again.
Then there is Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein). Roy can make three irritated words funnier than another character’s entire monologue. Yet underneath the swearing has always been one of the show’s most emotionally complicated and emotionally vulnerable people.
Roy’s journey from a player who will retire soon to a legend to coach was essentially about learning that losing one identity does not mean losing yourself. That makes him particularly relevant now.
His relationship with Ted has changed enormously too. Ted is no longer the irritating American Roy tolerates. He is someone whose methods Roy has absorbed, even if Roy would probably rather headbutt a wall than admit it.
But the most significant moment is when Ted returns. He doesn’t say, “Oh great, it’s you again,” but he says, “Welcome back; it’s good to see you.” It’s more than anyone who knows Roy Kent would get, and that’s why it’s really meaningful.
Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt) remains the strange intellectual counterweight to Ted. His presence matters because season 4 cannot simply replace everyone and expect the Richmond atmosphere to survive. The absence or reduced presence of several familiar Richmond faces will inevitably feel strange, but it is necessary to start this new journey.
Final thoughts on Ted Lasso season 4
Perhaps the funniest and most interesting thing about Ted Lasso is that after all these years, football remains one of the least important things about the show. Football provides structure. That’s clear, but it’s used more as a background to tell the story. It creates victories and defeats. It gives characters objectives. It creates locker rooms where people who would otherwise have nothing in common are forced to coexist and connect with each other.
Ted’s newest challenge involves coaching women, but the deeper story is again about people standing at uncertain points in their lives and deciding whether they are brave enough to move and get help.
Ted spent much of the original series teaching people to believe in themselves. Now he has reached another moment where he must follow his own advice. Returning to Richmond does not mean Kansas was a mistake. Starting something new does not mean everything before it was a mistake.
Those are remarkably simple ideas, but Ted Lasso has always been at its strongest when taking simple truths seriously. But there are also moments when it feels like coming home. Not because Ted is back. Because the lessons of empathy and facing your problems are back. Because saying that asking for help is not a bad thing is back. The fundamental belief that people are more complicated than their worst decisions is still there.
That was always the real meaning behind “Believe.” It was never a promise that Richmond would win or that everything in our lives would be a success. It was a reminder that failure does not have to be permanent.
Ted Lasso came to England believing he was supposed to fix a football team and discovered that everyone around him was fixing pieces of him too. Years later, season 4 brings him to another crossroads. There is another team. Another challenge. Another collection of people who do not quite know what comes next.
And Ted still does not have all the answers. Thankfully, he never needed them. Because Ted Lasso has never really been about knowing how to win a football match. It’s about knowing how to lose one and still walk into work the next morning. It is about accepting that relationships end, careers change, children grow older, friends move away, we can be broken, and the version of yourself that once felt permanent can suddenly disappear.
Then somehow, despite all of that, you continue. You find another dressing room. You meet new people. You hang another sign above another door. And you believe again.
There is another quote from the show that is worth mentioning every single day, for us, to keep believing in ourselves: “I hope that either all of us or none of us are judged by the actions of our weakest moments, but rather by the strength we show when and if we’re ever given a second chance.”
Ted Lasso season 4 is now streaming on Apple TV+.
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