Ted Lasso Season 4 Through Episode 7: I’m Still Waiting for Ted Lasso

I don’t know exactly how I feel about Season 4 of Ted Lasso yet.

That’s probably a weird way to start a review seven episodes into a ten-episode season, but that’s where I am.

I don’t hate it. Not even close.

I’m still laughing. I’m still smiling. There are moments that remind me exactly why I fell in love with this show in the first place. Jason Sudeikis still has this incredible ability through Ted to make me want to keep watching him, even when I’m not completely sold on everything happening around him.

But there’s something that worries me.

I’m a pretty big Ted Lasso fan, and if I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about this season seven episodes in, what does the casual fan think?

Especially after Season 3 wrapped up the men’s AFC Richmond story so well.

And before anybody goes there, my problem isn’t that we’re following a women’s team now.

I don’t care.

I don’t care that the acting sometimes feels even more over-the-top than it did before, which is saying something for Ted Lasso.

I just don’t know if this season completely feels like Ted Lasso.

At least not yet.

Did We Really Need Two Episodes to Get Ted Back?

My biggest problem with Season 4 might simply be how they’ve used their time. This is only a ten-episode season. That’s not a lot of real estate.

Yet we basically spend the first two episodes explaining why Ted left and figuring out how to get him back to Richmond.

By the end of Episode 2, I remember thinking: Okay. NOW Season 4 can start. Except we’re already 20 percent done! That’s a problem.

I understand why the writers wanted to show us how Ted ended up back in England. But did we really need all of it? Couldn’t some of the convincing have happened offscreen?

Start the season with Ted arriving at Richmond to coach the women’s team. Give us Ted walking into a completely unfamiliar locker room filled with players who have no idea what to make of this weird American football coach.

Sound familiar?

Because that’s basically how this entire show started. And I think that could have been perfect. Instead, Episode 3 almost feels like Episode 1. Three episodes into a ten-episode season is VERY late to finally start establishing the story you’re actually trying to tell.

Episodes 4 and 5 Finally Felt Like Ted Lasso

Then something happened.

Episodes 4 and 5 felt like Ted Lasso again.

FINALLY.

Episode 4 doesn’t even feature that much soccer, but it gets back to something much more important: Ted figuring out his players.

The Lady Greyhounds are divided into cliques and it’s becoming a problem. Ted’s solution is essentially to suspend them from soccer and force them into something completely different.

Pub quiz night. Because of course that’s Ted’s solution. He mixes the groups together, gets them interacting, and eventually the evening turns into a bar fight that lands everybody in jail. And somehow THAT is what finally starts making them a team.

That’s Ted Lasso.

It isn’t really about soccer. It never was. It’s about relationships. It’s Ted figuring out that the way to fix a soccer problem sometimes has absolutely nothing to do with soccer. And most importantly, we finally start seeing mutual respect develop between Ted and these women.

We finally get some damn heart.

Then Episode 5 takes that relationship onto the pitch. Richmond has to play Chelsea, at Chelsea, and things go about as badly as you would expect in the first half. But that disaster finally forces the women to stop playing as individuals and start playing like a team.

Then we get the halftime speech.

The emotion.

The team rallying around each other.

They nearly pull it off.

And then they lose on an own goal.

THAT’S TED LASSO!

Those two episodes have easily been the bright spot of the season for me. Which makes it even more frustrating that it took us almost half the season to get there.

Can We Please Just Put Roy and Keeley Together?

This is where some of my other problems start creeping in.

Roy and Keeley.

Can we just stop? We’ve been doing this for FOUR SEASONS now. They’re together. They’re apart. Roy wants Keeley. Keeley wants Roy. Jamie loves Keeley. Keeley chooses herself. Roy starts dating someone else. Roy still loves Keeley. We know where this is going.

Roy and Keeley are going to end up together.

Maybe the show surprises me and I’m completely wrong, but everything we’re seeing is pointing right back toward them.

Even Roy’s relationship with Erin ultimately leads back to Keeley. By Episode 7, Erin is essentially telling Roy that he’s worthy of being with the person he actually loves.

Gee, I wonder who that could be? I like Roy. I like Keeley. I LOVE Roy and Keeley together. That’s why this is frustrating! Stop spending so much time convincing us that these two people who obviously belong together might eventually figure out that they belong together.

Just give us Roy and Keeley and MOVE ON.

And Then There’s Rebecca…

I have a similar problem with Rebecca’s relationship storyline. I just don’t care that much. That’s not because I don’t like Rebecca. I do. I’m even fine with the relationship. It just feels like another storyline where I’m pretty sure I already know the destination, and yet we’re spending an awful lot of precious screen time getting there.

If Rebecca ends up happy and in a long-term relationship, great. I want that for her. I just don’t need Season 4 to spend this much time convincing me. Especially when we’ve barely gotten to know some of the women Ted is actually supposed to be coaching.

Episode 7 finally starts correcting that by showing us more of what these players are dealing with away from Richmond: childcare, money problems, transportation, jobs and the reality that playing professional women’s football doesn’t necessarily mean you’re financially secure.

That’s interesting!

Give me more of THAT.

Are Ted and Michelle Getting Back Together Too?

Then there’s Ted and Michelle.

His ex-wife and son moved across the world with him so Ted could chase this dream again. That’s already a pretty massive thing for an ex-wife to do. And especially by Episode 7, I can’t shake the feeling that we’re heading toward Ted and Michelle finding their way back to each other. Maybe I’m wrong.

But they still clearly care about each other. They’re making huge life decisions together. Yes, some of that is obviously because they’re parents and they love their son. But I don’t think that’s all of it. They’re both lonely. They’re in another country together.

And Ted’s attempts to move forward romantically haven’t exactly gone anywhere. Episode 7 has him finally work up the courage to ask someone out, only to discover she’s already seeing somebody.

So are we eventually putting Ted’s family back together too? Roy and Keeley. Rebecca and her relationship. Ted and Michelle. Maybe all three stories end completely differently than I expect.

Because right now, it feels like we’re spending an awful lot of Season 4 getting to romantic destinations that seem pretty obvious. And that’s never been the relationship I cared most about on this show.

Ted Lasso Was Always About Ted and His Team

The first three seasons obviously had romantic relationships. That’s not new. But they usually felt like smaller stories orbiting the thing that actually mattered.

Ted and Richmond.

Ted and Beard.

Ted and Nate.

Ted and Roy.

Ted and Rebecca.

Ted and Jamie.

Ted and the players.

That’s the heart of Ted Lasso.

And Season 4 sometimes feels like the show has reversed that formula. The side stories are taking up so much space that the actual relationship between Ted and his new team occasionally feels like the side story. There are exceptions.

I haven’t talked much about Alice, but I actually like what they’re doing with her. There are some interesting parallels developing between Alice and Nate, particularly with her insecurity about Ted forming a relationship with the players and where that leaves her. Episode 5 really starts pushing that conflict.

THAT’S a storyline I want to see develop. Because it’s connected directly to Ted, the coaching staff and the team. It’s connected to the reason I’m watching Ted Lasso. And all of this reminds me of another show.

The Quantum Leap Problem

Anybody who knows me knows that my favorite television show of all time is Quantum Leap. The original Quantum Leap worked because Sam Beckett couldn’t really form lasting relationships with the people whose lives he leapt into.

He’d arrive.

Help them.

Then leap away.

So the one constant relationship in Sam’s life was Al. Sam and Al became incredibly close because they were basically all each other had. That relationship was the string that tied the entire series together. Pun absolutely intended. Then the Quantum Leap revival came along.

Suddenly we weren’t just following the leaper. We were spending all this time back at the project. We had multiple characters and multiple relationships and multiple storylines happening away from the person actually leaping. Some people probably loved that expansion. For me, it felt like Quantum Leap was trying to be two different television shows at the same time. And by expanding the world, they lost some of the intimacy that made the original so special.

I’m starting to get that feeling with Ted Lasso. The world has gotten bigger. The cast has gotten bigger. The stories have gotten bigger. But I’m not sure Ted Lasso ever needed to get bigger. Maybe it actually needed to get smaller.

There Are Still Three Episodes Left

Here’s the important part:

I’m still excited.

That’s why I can’t call Season 4 a disappointment. Not yet. There are three episodes left, and we’ve seen enough flashes of the old show that I know it’s still in there. Episodes 4 and 5 proved it. And even Episode 7 spends more time finally letting us understand the women as people rather than just giving us another collection of Richmond players.

So there’s plenty of time. Bring the focus back to Ted. Bring it back to Beard and Alice. Bring it back to these women. Make me care about them the way you made me care about Jamie, Sam, Dani, Isaac and the rest of the original Richmond team.

Give me Ted slowly figuring them out while they slowly figure him out. Give me the ridiculous jokes. Give me the soccer. But most importantly…

Give me some damn heart.

If Ted Lasso can spend these final three episodes focusing on Ted, his staff and the Lady Greyhounds, I think there’s still every chance that when the credits roll on Episode 10, Season 4 will feel like Ted Lasso after all.

And despite all my complaining, I’m still really excited to find out.