REVIEW: Ted Lasso – Season Three [2023]

Rating: TV-MA | Episodes: 12 | Runtime: 30 minutes
Release Date: March 15th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Apple TV+
Creator(s): Jason Sudeikis, Bill Lawrence, Brendan Hunt & Joe Kelly

No, I never smiled. That’s different.

I either did a good job avoiding most talk about the latest season of “Ted Lasso” or everyone is crazy because the few bits that did get through seemed to skew very negative. Maybe I watched a different show—or, as I’ve found to be the case, most serialized media does work better when watched together rather than weekly—but I absolutely loved what Jason Sudeikis, Brendan Hunt, Bill Lawrence, and Joe Kelly did to provide their show a truly perfect ending.

It’s not like it was going to be an easy task either. Not when Season 2 did so much to break down the optimistic façade of toxic positivity while also breaking apart the core nucleus of characters into three distinct sectors (Nick Mohammed’s Nathan Shelley moving on to manage West Hampton and Juno Temple’s Keeley Jones opening her own pr firm while the rest remained at Richmond). Thankfully they realized it wasn’t about bringing everyone back for one happy ending, but giving each their own.

For being twelve episodes averaging almost an hour each, it flies by pretty quickly too thanks to a willingness to cut out the extraneous segues from one episode to the next. In many cases we’ll have transported weeks into the future. Losing streaks will have snowballed towards catastrophic lows and winning streaks towards catastrophic highs in the margins so that we can focus solely on how these people are reacting to them.

The show has never been about Ted Lasso’s (Sudeikis) x’s and o’s, but his ability to motivate and care for the people he loves even if he still cannot do the same for himself. How will he navigate the external noise of a media wanting to pit him against Nate as a rivalry (with Hunt’s Coach Beard’s help considering he’s lost all love for the former kit man turned prodigy)? How will he cope with his ex-wife dating a new man and his son’s struggles with their distance all while playing father figure for a ragtag bunch of talented footballers?

Enter Trent Crimm (James Lance), no longer of The Independent. The journalist is now freelance writing a novel about how Lasso and company have turned AFC Richmond around. He becomes our surrogate—a fly on the wall experiencing the chaos and drama in real time himself. His presence in the locker room allows for heavier subject matter (Billy Harris’ Colin Hughes being gay, Toheeb Jimoh’s Sam Obisanya juggling celebrity and politics via restaurant ownership and social media, and Phil Dunster’s Jamie Tartt coming out the other side of his trauma) to land without hijacking the plot.

He can crook an eyebrow when something interesting arises, directing our attention either directly (in the room) or indirectly (cutting away to let us into Nate’s and Keeley’s lives in ways that connect while also supplying space). Trent becomes the glue holding the season together, a floating narrative device that keeps everyone honest about their emotional growth.

All that and there’s still the wealth of romantic interludes beyond the scoreboard. Keeley gets a new love interest whose impact both helps propel her forward into this new career and knock Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) back to have to learn where he’s gone wrong (and, eventually, learn again). Nathan navigates the duplicity of his new boss in Rupert Mannion (Anthony Head) and how he operates in a transactional manner rather than the empathetic and personal touch both Ted and Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham) utilize at Richmond, figuring out that the former supplying its spoils quicker doesn’t mean any part of it is better—ultimately fueling positive confidence from within to counteract the negative self-loathing that had ruled his actions. Love for Rebecca, Colin, Sam, and others also comes and goes, enhancing story lines and evolving characterizations without needing to steal attention in the process. Lust has been replaced by life.

What these characters craved and lost in Season 1 and then demanded and won at a too-high price in Season 2 is suddenly no longer the priority. Yes, they all want to win. They all want to be loved. They all want to prove someone wrong. But to what end? If you’re willing to burn every bridge in London to get to the top of that hill, what will be left when you get there?

It’s a metaphor written into the fabric of this season both figuratively and literally with the answer being: lightning. Whether that volatile electricity will be good or bad is up to them, though. Will Keeley let other people dictate her future or retake the reins? Will Nate lose himself to the womanizing and materialism of his new mentor or will he realize success isn’t worth the suffering wrought by the resulting wake? Can Ted repair the broken heart that put him on a plane to England in order to heal his own soul like all the conflicted misfits he’s healed along the way?

Much like Rebecca telling Keeley that pursuing her dream and rising to her potential isn’t abandonment, Season 3 is putting every single character onto their necessary path towards the same. That’s how you pay it forward. You take the trust that is given to you and meet the occasion to give your trust to someone else. Maybe Ted Lasso is a bit like Mary Poppins in that way. It just so happens that he’s also (more so) Mr. Banks.

It’s that duality that makes this show tick. That complexity to be the fixer who also needs fixing. It’s why he’s endeared himself to the world as profoundly as he has the players and co-workers on-screen. He’s a mirror unto our own insecurities and uncertainty. A man trying his best who realizes that he can’t do so honestly or authentically without acknowledging the difficulty of treading water first. Ted sets the example. His presence makes it so everyone else can become a shoulder to cry on too … even Roy F*cking Kent.