{"id":623739,"date":"2026-10-07T22:10:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T22:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/623739\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T22:10:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T22:10:07","slug":"how-the-ted-lasso-season-4-finale-sets-up-season-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/623739\/","title":{"rendered":"How the ‘Ted Lasso’ Season 4 Finale Sets Up Season 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t[This story contains major spoilers from the Ted Lasso<\/a> season four finale, \u201cBeing Alive.\u201d]<\/p>\n

\n\tBetrayal, turnabout, an inevitable departure, genuine surprises, a spot-on Roy Kent impression and cryptic clues about what\u2019s next for the Ted Lasso gang<\/a> all abound in the season four finale of Apple\u2019s hit sports dramedy. Each character\u2019s fate gets either a satisfying-enough conclusion or a suitable lead-in to a yet-to-be-announced season five at AFC Richmond. (Yes, spoilers ahead.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe finale opened with a celebration of life for Crown & Anchor owner Mae (Annette Badland,), who died unexpectedly while supporting the Lady Greyhounds in episode nine. The mourning scenes carry real emotional weight, but they set off a tonally erratic episode. After Henry (Grant Feely) admits he wishes Mae could still help him with his homework, he asks how Ted\u2019s father died, and Ted, played by creator Jason Sudeikis<\/a>, lies to protect him. The audience knows his father died by suicide. Ted soon sits his son down and tells him the truth in an off-screen conversation.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe scene caps what was essentially Ted\u2019s non-storyline this season. After early hints of a thread about Ted looking for love in southwest London, our hero, like a seasoned coach, hovered over the show\u2019s numerous plot threads and offered heartfelt, often hokey advice. That may be the future of Ted Lasso on Ted Lasso, and Sudeikis\u2019 comedic charm and command of the character will certainly sell it for one or two more seasons \u2014 as his plan, revealed at the beginning of season four in a cover story <\/a>for The Hollywood Reporter.<\/p>\n

\n\tElsewhere, Roy (Brett Goldstein) is set up for either a spinoff or a dual story arc as a new dad at a new job after he accepts a dream offer to become Chelsea\u2019s head coach. As he tells a furious Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham<\/a>), though, he insists on finishing Richmond\u2019s season first. Before that revelation, in what may be the best scene of the season (the two do impressions of each other), he tells Ted, Beard (Brendan Hunt), Higgins (Jeremy Swift), Nate (Nick Mohammed) and Alice (Tanya Reynolds) that Keeley (Juno Temple) is pregnant and admits he fears being a bad father. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn the closing moments, as Roy cleans out his office, he finds a note from Ted promising he\u2019ll be a great dad, along with one of Ted\u2019s little green Army men. How can you resist spending more time in a world where Richmond has a football club, Keeley has a C-suite, and deep fears and childhood wounds are assuaged by a quick note from an American friend?<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Zelda (Tracey Ullman<\/a>) plotline then mercifully ends with as little fanfare as it arrived. At the shareholders\u2019 meeting, Ullman\u2019s scenery-chewing would-be usurper confirms she was the one secretly buying Richmond shares all season. Naturally, Rebecca and Higgins beat Zelda at her own game with a bit of turnabout involving her assistant, leaving a 49-49 percent split between the two women. The tiebreaker comes from beyond the grave: Mae, suddenly beloved just before her death, left her two percent stake in the club to Rebecca. The club\u2019s ownership threat appears resolved.<\/p>\n

\n\tThen there\u2019s Alice, who in her debut season<\/a> represented the heart of the show and delivered the arc closest to something from the world you and I live in. The angry, bitter player-turned-coach worked all season tirelessly for the fledgling Lady Greyhounds. Through gritted teeth and hard-earned emotional growth (so rarely conveyed in situation comedy), she earns the finale\u2019s most unexpected twist. With Ted, Keeley and Rebecca in her office, Alice learns that Ted has asked to be demoted to assistant manager, handing her the head coach job for the women\u2019s team. Since the season opened with her marching into Rebecca\u2019s office to ask whether she\u2019d ever even been considered for the gig, the scene in her dark workspace is a perfect bookend. (Rebecca, it should be mentioned, also proposes to her boyfriend Matthijs, setting up her next story in the blink of an eye.)<\/p>\n

\n\tSo, what of season five? <\/p>\n

\n\tApple has yet to confirm a renewal, as of Wednesday, when the finale was released. But Ted Lasso is still one of its biggest shows, and odds would favor a renewal. as we all know, and as Ted knows, things can change faster than an idiom loses relevance, but Sudekis had also mentioned a three-season arc in the Hollywood Reporter cover story this year<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tStill, season five has plenty to work with: Alice\u2019s new-coach struggles; Roy\u2019s bigger-fish, bigger-pond story with a new-dad backdrop; Rebecca\u2019s wedding (of the decade, presumably); and whatever becomes of Ted, be it women\u2019s team assistant coach, a move back to the men\u2019s side, or simply fluttering around AFC Richmond\u2019s premises, offering aw-shucks platitudes and mixed-metaphor advice to confused-looking Brits forever.<\/p>\n

\n\tTed Lasso season four is now streaming on Apple TV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[This story contains major spoilers from the Ted Lasso season four finale, \u201cBeing Alive.\u201d] Betrayal, turnabout, an inevitable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,165217,29297,111,139,69,127369,6680,437],"class_list":["post-623739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-hannah-waddingham","tag-jason-sudeikis","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-ted-lasso","tag-tracey-ullman","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}