{"id":424358,"date":"2026-08-05T09:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T09:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/424358\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T09:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T09:40:12","slug":"ted-lasso-review-jason-sudeikis-and-company-return-for-another-adventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/424358\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Ted Lasso’ review: Jason Sudeikis and company return for another adventure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After three years, \u201cTed Lasso\u201d has returned to the pitch. Did it need to? The third season finale, which seemed until now to be a series finale, brought most every character\u2019s arc to a satisfying, credible conclusion<\/a> \u2014 the less satisfying ones were just as credible \u2014 while pointing to a future you were free to imagine, or think nothing more about. Or you could write fan fiction. (People do.<\/a>) I loved the show, but its absence has not been a painful one.<\/p>\n

Anyway, it\u2019s back, beginning Wednesday on Apple TV, and I am glad enough. Strictly speaking, it\u2019s a new adventure, as one Indiana Jones movie might follow another, with Jason Sudeikis\u2019 title character returning to Richmond to manage a new women\u2019s soccer team, a project raised way back at the end of Season 3, and which now has \u201cbeen three years in the making.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where are we now? Star player Jamie Tartt has departed the show all the way to Barcelona; kit man turned coach turned competition turned kit man Nate Shelley is nowhere to be seen. But as much may be said of the whole of AFC Richmond, apart from Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein), who took over as manager when Ted returned to Kansas City, Mo., to spend more time with son Henry (Grant Feely, replacing Gus Turner), and Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt), who has turned into an uncommunicative mass of hair. This is not at all that team\u2019s story, though certain fans within (and perhaps without) the world of the series might prefer that it was.<\/p>\n

Four episodes out of 10 have been made available for review. The first is something of a hurdle, bogged down in contrivances to get Ted back to Richmond from Kansas City, where he has been \u201ctrying to help [Henry] become the best version of himself.\u201d The question is whether Ted, working part time as the assistant manager of a supermarket, is living the best version of himself. The answer, as everyone but Ted recognizes, is no. Naturally, he spreads sunshine all over the place, being who he is, but this is not the future you would have written for him, nor one suggested by the third season finale, where we saw him coaching Henry\u2019s soccer team. But it gives him a place to come back from.<\/p>\n

\"Hannah <\/p>\n

Hannah Waddingham, left, and Juno Temple in \u201cTed Lasso.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so club owner Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham), director of operations Leslie Higgins (Jeremy Swift) and queen of all marketing Keeley Jones (Juno Temple) show up on Ted\u2019s doorstep to propose that he manage the Lady Greyhounds, \u201cto lay the foundations of the Richmond culture that you created with our men.\u201d (He has not been checking his messages, apparently, necessitating this in-person, three-person visit.)<\/p>\n

In addition to dragging the pieces into place, much of the opening episode seems meant to satisfy an impulse to show off Kansas City \u2014 Sudeikis grew up in that area. There are multiple excursions for barbecue, each resulting in stained clothes for Rebecca. There\u2019s a trip to CPKC Stadium<\/a>, \u201cthe first privately funded stadium in the world solely for pro women\u2019s soccer,\u201d to see the Kansas City Current play. <\/p>\n

Finding the American Jazz Museum closed, Higgins (earlier established as a double bassist) wanders across 18th Street to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum<\/a>, where a friendly docent (Milan Carter) schools him on its history, including a long tribute to pitcher Satchel Paige, with oddly interpolated documentary footage. (Higgins ventures that their experience is \u201cquite similar to how women in England weren\u2019t allowed to play football for years,\u201d an idea his Black host shoots down with a well-aimed, \u201cMmmmm.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t do it for fame or fortune. They did it \u2018cause to not play would have been unacceptable,\u201d he\u2019s told. Or, as former AFC Richmond striker Dani Rojas said of soccer: \u201cFootball is life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Things improve in the more natural second episode (and improve from there), which takes us finally back to Richmond. Ted\u2019s only real objection to leaving Kansas City is almost too easily overcome by suggesting that Henry and his mother, Michelle (Andrea Anders), the ex- but not estranged wife, come with him. Having won over all doubters over the first three seasons, Ted needs someone new to charm, and that will be coach Alice Chilton (Tanya Reynolds), who had hoped for the manager\u2019s job. She\u2019s a little rain cloud of a person, dour and humorless, though perhaps rightly offended by being passed over. Reynolds, who\u2019ll certainly emerge as the season\u2019s star, makes a big impression by holding things in, acting almost entirely with her eyes, so that when she cracks a smile in spite of herself, it registers as huge.<\/p>\n

\"Jude <\/p>\n

Jude Mack as player Boots in \u201cTed Lasso.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the players, our attention is directed to Boots (Jude Mack), whom we notice because of her short-cropped hair, and because she\u2019s the goalkeeper, and has a quirk \u2014 though she\u2019s a powerhouse, \u201cnone of the big clubs will touch her because she won\u2019t wear gloves.\u201d (She prefers to keep things tactile. \u201cWhat\u2019s the point of life if you\u2019re not feeling it?\u201d Boots asks in another of the show\u2019s sampler sentiments.) Lizzie (Faye Marsay) stands out because she arrives to an open call with a cute child in tow and is older and more mature than the others, Gemma (Abbie Hern), by virtue of having unresolved old business with Alice, and having, like Ted, to be talked onto the team.<\/p>\n

The underdog aspect of it all will be emphasized, of course \u2014 a new team, in a money-losing second division, with second-rate locker room accommodations, seasoned with sexism that may or may not reflect actual British attitudes toward women\u2019s soccer. Feminist themes, always present vis-a-vis Rebecca and Keeley, not unreasonably take the foreground, with Rebecca overcorrecting the thought that she might not be one \u2014 a funny conversation with Harriet Walter as her mother comes out of this \u2014 and Tracey Ullman arriving in Episode 4 to be badass.<\/p>\n

By the end of that episode, there will have been enough sweet, celebratory moments to have rewarded your investment. (I gauge this scientifically by how often I choke up.) Where the story is going in any substantial way, other than, you know, win games, maybe get Roy and Keeley back together, do something interesting with Henry and\/or Michelle, it\u2019s too soon to tell. I assume it\u2019s going somewhere, but we\u2019ll find that out together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After three years, \u201cTed Lasso\u201d has returned to the pitch. Did it need to? The third season finale,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[4566,169269,9512,169270,48,52,51,47,50,49,2747,169267,169268,976,278,1860,31706,169266,169265,4610,8843],"class_list":["post-424358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-episode","tag-jason-sudeikis","tag-kansas-city","tag-keeley-jones","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-manager","tag-new-woman","tag-rebecca","tag-richmond","tag-season","tag-show","tag-soccer-team","tag-son-henry","tag-ted-lasso","tag-thing","tag-way"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}