Watching the new season of Ted Lasso is like visiting an old friend. You get that same feeling of warmth, excitement and nostalgia as these familiar characters return. It’s a bit like waiting all summer for the football season to start. You know roughly what you’re going to get, but that doesn’t make the return any less enjoyable. Sometimes, after all, you just want to spend time with characters you already know and like.
Football is what it’s all about as Richmond AFC venture into the women’s game, bringing Ted back from the USA to manage a team of girls who have for too long been on the margins of the men’s squad. Underappreciated and slightly looked down on, their journey feels like a deliberate echo of Ted’s own experience in season one, when the American ‘fish out of water’ coach was thrown into the insular world of English football.
It’s a familiar Ted Lasso setup outsiders facing judgement, overcoming obstacles and learning to believe in themselves. It works because it immediately taps into what made the original series so appealing, although there is a danger that it could become a little predictable if the show simply repeats the same formula.
All the main characters are back, with club owner Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham), Keeley (Juno Temple) and Leslie (Jeremy Swift) travelling to America to convince the unfulfilled Ted to return to the job he loves most. It’s never really in doubt that they will succeed, so Ted heads back this time with his family to take over the women’s team.
All a bit predictable, but fun nonetheless.
Episode 2 is much better, with Ted meeting his new squad and, in what could be a masterstroke, the introduction of former coach Alice (an excellent Tanya Reynolds). Her disgruntled, deadpan demeanour works brilliantly alongside Ted’s relentlessly cheerful outlook. There is a great contrast between the two, and Alice has already become one of my favourite new characters. Hopefully, there is plenty more to come from her.
Roy and Keeley are another highlight. The chemistry between Brett Goldstein and Juno Temple is still brilliant, and some of my favourite scenes from the first two episodes were the ones they shared. There is an ease between the two that makes their scenes feel completely natural, and, if I’m being honest, I really want them back together. I’ve always loved the dynamic between Roy and Keeley, and these episodes reminded me just how good they are when they’re together. You don’t necessarily need a huge storyline for them just put Roy and Keeley in a room together and it works.
Rebecca’s own doubts about the women’s team also provide one of the more interesting threads so far. Having operated for so long as a woman in a male-dominated world, she worries that she is simply paying ‘lip service’ by investing in the women’s game. It’s a nice inversion of the usual feminist caricature, with Rebecca questioning whether good intentions are actually enough.
I do think Rebecca has become a slightly less engaging character, though, and at times I found her more irritating than I did in previous seasons. Hannah Waddingham is still excellent, but some of the sharpness and vulnerability that made Rebecca so compelling earlier in the series seems to have been replaced by a character who can occasionally feel a little too abrasive.
All in all, Ted Lasso season 4 retains the charm, wit and feel-good whimsy of its predecessors. It may not be breaking new ground just yet, and some of the storylines feel deliberately familiar, but perhaps that is partly the point.
There is something reassuring about returning to Richmond and seeing these characters again. The real test will be whether the season can build on that familiarity rather than simply repeat it. For now, though, it’s lovely to have Ted back.
Indeed, watching Ted Lasso again is like seeing an old friend and remembering why you liked them in the first place.