Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today.
Join today
Already a member?
Log in
Warning: Spoilers for the Ted Lasso season 4 finale follow.
Ted Lasso star Brendan Hunt revealed that Jason Sudeikis wanted Ted to step down from his role at AFC Richmond, and admitted that there was no guarantee the series would return for a fifth season.
The Ted Lasso season four finale aired on Wednesday and radically reshuffled the coaching staff at AFC Richmond.
Ted (Sudeikis), handed over his position as manager of the club’s women’s team, the Lady Greyhounds, to Alice Chilton (Tanya Reynolds), and instead became an assistant manager alongside Hunt’s Coach Beard. Former Richmond player and coach Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein), meanwhile, accepted a job as Chelsea’s new manager, leaving the men’s team without a head coach.
According to Hunt, who is also co-creator, executive producer and writer on the series, Ted’s request was never intended as a last-minute reversal. “That was something Jason wanted to happen from the beginning of the writers’ room,” he told Variety. “He saw Ted stepping down as just kind of fundamental to what the season was going to be.”
The first episode of the fourth season opens with a close-up of Ted’s name badge identifying him as an “assistant manager”, a detail that returns as a bookend when Ted ends the season in the same position at Richmond. Hunt described the misdirection as “a tiny little goose for the last moment”, dispelling the idea for fans who believed Ted’s season with the women’s team was only a temporary detour.
The fourth season was a surprise to fans as the series had been expected to end with its third season, with Ted returning to Kansas to be closer to his son Henry and Roy taking over as Richmond’s manager. Apple renewed the series for a fourth season last year, bringing Ted back to Richmond to coach the newly formed Lady Greyhounds and grappling with how much of his life he was willing to devote to football.
“The Henry thing is the main thing,” Hunt said. “The whole idea of bringing Henry to London this time, he thought in his head, ‘now I’ll have much more time with Henry’ – and it hadn’t worked out that way. He’s missed his games, and especially as he’s reminded by the Employee of the Year plaque that his record-setting father bequeathed him unwittingly.”
“You can be a little too devoted to your work, and it can be deleterious to your health,” Hunt added. “He just wants to make sure he’s with Henry more.”
Hunt explained that Ted’s decision was also influenced by watching Alice during the season. “She was almost ready when we first met her, and now she’s much more ready,” he said, adding that Ted was “just ready to be support personnel at this time, and have more of his free time, and see what he can do with it”.
Watch Apple TV free for 7 day
New subscribers only. £9.99/mo. after free trial.
Plan auto-renews until cancelled.
ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.
Ted’s new role is one of several major changes at Richmond. Roy’s move to Chelsea provides the former player-turned-coach a new challenge just as he and Keeley Jones, played by Juno Temple, are preparing to become parents.
Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham) proposes to Matthijs (Matteo van der Grijn) and manages to keep majority ownership of Richmond after Mae Green (Annette Badland) leaves her stake in the club to Rebecca in her will.
All the open threads leave the door wide open for another season, but, according to Hunt, “there’s not yet any indication that we’re going to get to answer those questions”.
On whether there could be a further season, Hunt said Sudeikis “plays the cards close to his chest, and I’m not privy to whatever poker game that I hope is happening between the powers that be”.
“I think we’ve always basically hoped we were coming back for more than one, but if it ends up just being one, then OK, that’s fine. It did end nicely,” he said.
All four seasons of Ted Lasso are available for streaming on Apple TV.