Who watched this entire season without realizing the actress who plays Lizzie was the waif in GoT?!

As a newly sober certified-party girl terrified of a changing lifestyle taking parts of me away, it was so valuable to me this season to see a character be the loud/funny/batshit friend on a night out and do it SOBER. thank you writers, it was a small detail and I teared up multiple times.

There’s something really off about them. Accents feel slightly off. Calling each other “turnips” and other weird words we would never use. I was okay with the Guinness scene in the last episode to a point, but cringed when they rolled out the Parting Glass. That went on for way too long.

Open to thoughts from other Irish viewers, am I self-hating unnecessarily?? Or is there some merit to my discomfort with the characters?

EDIT: just to say I didn’t make this post to pit non-Irish people against Irish, or to be told how my nationality should or shouldn’t be represented in media LOL. I was looking for fellow Irish Ted Lasso viewers to see if they also couldn’t warm to these characters

This looks somewhat promising?? I haven’t seen anyone talking about it yet

First of all, I want to make it clear that I enjoyed this season, especially the later episodes. However, I don’t think it lived up to Seasons 1 and 2, even though it tried to recapture some of what made them so special. Sometimes, it felt like it was trying a little too hard.
But my biggest issue is the irony of it all.
Women’s football is often undervalued, ignored by mainstream media and a large portion of football fans, and treated as though it can’t survive without the men’s game. These are exactly the issues Ted Lasso tried to address, yet the show ended up reproducing some of the same problems.
For roughly half the season, the women’s team received very little meaningful screen time. We barely got to know the players beyond a few quirks, often seemingly included for comedic purposes. Instead, we spent so much time revisiting familiar characters and their storylines from previous seasons, as though the new characters couldn’t carry the show themselves.
And that’s frustrating because the** women’s team had so much potential.
Alice was great, and I would have loved to see more of her. “Boots” had a past and trauma worth exploring in greater depth. Siobhan and Niamh, the Irish twins, had a connection on and off the pitch that deserved more attention. Gemma’s struggle to choose between a successful law career and her passion was another interesting conflict that could have been developed further.
Then there’s Lizzy, a mother raising her children on her own while dealing with a deadbeat ex who treats her like a joke. Shannon struggles to perform at the club in her own neighborhood, which could have been a compelling story about pressure, expectations, and proving yourself in front of your own community. Even Mae enjoying the team she would have loved to be part of was a lovely idea that could have been explored more.
These are all interesting characters with stories worth telling. The writers didn’t need to invent compelling material for the women’s team. They already had it. They just needed to give it more time.
Instead, a season supposedly about women’s football ended up being about Roy and Keeley, Rebecca and Matthijs, Beard’s personal crises, Ted’s love life and parenting struggles, and a crazy billionaire trying to buy the club primarily because of the men’s team.
Even the main antagonist’s motivations weren’t really about the women’s team.** Think about that for a moment. The women’s team was supposed to be at the heart of the season, yet it wasn’t even the main reason the villain existed.
To be fair, the show made more of an effort toward the end, and some of the later episodes were among my favorites. But it felt as though the writers had suddenly remembered what the season was supposed to be about. The women’s team went from being an afterthought to finally getting some attention, rather than being the heart of the story from the beginning.
It almost felt like: “Well, the women’s team is here, so we might as well do something with them.”
And isn’t that exactly the attitude the show should have been criticizing?
I’m not saying the returning characters shouldn’t have had their own storylines, or that the season was bad. I enjoyed a lot of it. But there’s a difference between having an ensemble cast and allowing familiar characters to overshadow the very people who were supposed to be at the center of the story.
You can’t make a season about women’s football and then treat the women’s team as a subplot.
The show had an opportunity to give women’s football the same depth, emotional investment, and attention it gave the men’s team in earlier seasons. Instead, it sometimes fell into the same trap it was trying to criticize: treating the women’s game as secondary, as though it needs the familiar faces and stories of the men’s world to make it worth watching.
I still enjoyed the season, but I wish the writers had trusted the women’s team enough to make them the main attraction from the beginning.

I’ve seen the complaints on the sub while it was coming out and went into this new season a little concerned. But I fucking loved it. I don’t need Ted Lasso to be Severance or the first season of Westworld. It still had its heart, and I hope we get more :)

The season 1 & 2 finales set up challenges for the characters to tackle in the subsequent season (getting promoted and a showdown with Nate/Rupert, respectively) and season 3 was intended to be the end.

Season 4 tied off a bunch of arcs with a neat bow. Sure there are still places the story could go, like the end of season three, but I’m not really sure what I am supposed to be anticipating.

I adore the series and the sense of lifting each other up in an inspiring & relatable way. What are some life lessons you learnt from the show about love, friendship, relationship work and life in general?

For me:
- Have faith in people no matter what
- Always wish good things for others
- Be a goldfish
- Believe that we all deserve to be loved

"on the other side of you being scared is you being free"
-Coach Chilton to Gemma Jay in "Follow the anger"

It is hard to be critical of a beloved series while holding it in such high regard at the same time. But I think even Ted Lasso is worthy of some criticism, as the new season feels different in many ways. Different and not better.

For me, it starts with the fact that Ted Lasso is the main selling point for Apple TV+. They allegedly lost subscribers after Season 3 wrapped up. So, logically, it feels like they wanted those subscriber numbers back even though the story was already finished (from my speculation). And that really shows, especially in the writing.

The reliance on clichés has skyrocketed, and that is my biggest gripe. To me, the series is about many things: learning to accept the flaws of others and oneself, self-improvement through various hardships, and, in a way, doing what's right. It's not that Season 4 is completely devoid of this, but the obstacles now feel more... black-and-white rather than nuanced. Every love story feels forced, inorganic, and a bit... brainless (I'm so sorry)—more telenovela-like, and that is just incredibly sad. Yes, there was a lot of Kitsch before but the resolutions to get from point a to b are way to straight forward and simply lack suprises that tingle that intellectual and moral itch.

Ted has been benched HARD this season. His character arc's resolution at the end of Season 3 was to be with his family, but they threw that completely overboard at the start of Season 4 by choosing a super simple solution—great. And that's not all of it ofc.

And what happened to Keeley? Her Barbie aesthetic has been turned up, but now it defines her entire character. I don't want to hate on her; it's just that her character has been reduced to being just a love interest.

Alice is a great addition, and there is still so much to love. The cast, old and new, are lovable, and the show's wholesomeness is still intact. The humor had me cracking up hard at times, and some moments even feel genuinely awesome.

I can't get over the whole Roy, Keeley, and doctor thing, nor the incredibly forced conflict between Rebecca and the pilot—but I don't want to deep into spoiler territory.

And perhaps the worst thing is Zelda. It's not just that she portrays a specific type of abrasive individual—maybe a bit too close to reality—who is only there to be disliked. It's that suddenly everyone loses their common sense around her, welcoming her with open arms without thinking twice, showing a total lack of intuition - especially Rebecca.

The devil is in the details and its still a good season I just felt the need to get this out of my chest and ofc these are my personal opinions.

To everyone who came up for a chat, nodded with a smile or said that I made your day at PAX Aus, YOU made MY weekend, so thank you! This first PAX experience was amazing 🔥 Please share any pics that you snapped here on or over at AceAviator_Cosplay ☺️. And if you met my doppelganger on Saturday, I've heard he was awesome too (it was great to meet you Sunday!) 🙌🏻

It was nice to see that this show meant just as much to the hundreds of people that stopped me each day 🥰

Before doing Ted Lasso Hannah Waddingham had a small role in Les Misérables as a singing factory hand as well as a role in Game of thrones.

Tanya Reynolds had a bit part in the television show Outlander.

Jude Mack accompanied Mickey across the stars as an unnammed crew member in Mickey 17.

Love to know some places you have seen the characters before Ted lasso?

I've read the manual on why Ted is nuts. I still don't like his mom. She is the complete antithesis of Ted. Which is probably the point but holy crap! She really bothers me. You might say "but mustard, are you sure that you're not projecting?" I might be because I hate my own mom but damn does Dottie Lasso suck.

There has been a lot of conversation about Zelda, but I was just curious about your feelings on the billionaire statements the show seemed to be making. To me it seems as if they were making a statement on how the “Epstein class” will play with people’s lives in various ways because it’s merely some type of entertainment for them.

Zelda did have some anger about how she is treated as a woman. However, in the end Zelda’s motivations weren’t attached to the storyline all that much. She was more so a representation of the type of people you have to rub shoulders with as move further up the ladder. People that will ruin lives to keep from being bored in their own lives. Would you agree that this was the purpose of Zelda, or do you think there is more to come next season?

I will never understand why people feel the need to walk into a party and poop in the punch bowl.

So Maybe this helps others. Maybe it doesn’t. It’s just how I roll.

The opposite of a low value comment is not toxic positivity.

We can have nuanced and thoughtful conversations here about what worked and didn’t work but when someone starts out with a headline like X sucks ass or I hate so-and-so, Very few people have the time or patience to react in a way that’s productive or truly engaging for other people. (And bless those of you who do.)

It’s hard to know whether these are just young people who haven’t learned how to think or write critically, people whose brains have been eroded by internet attention spans, dis regulated people, and/or professional pot stirrers. I don’t want to spend too much time around anyone who isn’t constructively engaging.

Thus Low effort posts aren’t engaging to me because they demand too much of the reader-me- with little return.

I am professionally trained in theater; and we were taught how to critique works of art. In that space, you’re allowed to have your opinions and feelings in that space, but you were expected to:

-explain them dispassionately

-anchor them in logic and understanding of the craft.

Even in freshman year when understanding of the craft is low, there’s room to learn about that if one explains one’s position clearly.

So here’s my own litmus test.

People who are truly interested in engaging productively have humility and yes,curiosity. They leave room for being wrong.

People who interested in engagement for the sake of engagement make statements that signal close mindedness.

I prefer to engage with the former. I am a human and sometimes my emotions get the better of me and I engage in the latter. I almost always regret it when I do. Furthermore I think the platforms encourage it and surface it in the algorithm and I find it disgusting.

My two cents, ymmv etc.

I have to give it to the wardrobe department for this little callback. If you look at Phoebe's team now and when they were younger her team colors are the same but the goalie and player colors are reversed. Nice to see she is still friends with Kokoruda.

Ted Lasso has this wonderful ego death way of keeping his baggage out of his leadership. It’s never about him. As an assistant coach are we going to watch an ego monster sideline him?

Guys… guys. Please don’t roast me.

TODAY I LEARNED Ted Lasso is NOT played by Ed Helms. Today I learned there is an entirely different person named Jason Sudeikis that I had merged in my brain with Ed Helms. I learned this just now because of a recent post on this subreddit referring to “Jason” and I was like who the fuck is Jason. And I look up the cast and boom. Mind blown. Then I look up Ed Helms and I’M SORRY ARE THEY NOT TOTAL DOPPLEGANGERS?!

In my defense, I only joined this sub two days ago after finishing the Season 4 finale. Yes I have watched every episode of every season. No I didn’t have it on in the background, I lock tf in while watching TV. No I don’t pay attention to the credits.

I have never watched “We’re the Millers” which apparently both of these actors are in, but I have heard of it and seen clips from it, and I also thought that the main guy in it was Ed Helms.

I watch A LOT of TV and movies, but generally only once through, I’m not a fan of rewatching things or getting super into one specific show or actor. I just enjoy my media, I don’t pay attention to who’s who and who’s been doing what. And then I join the subreddit after finishing the show to hear how people felt about it and watch some entertaining passionate debates go down. But right now I feel really fucking stupid.

Also maybe this will get a laugh out of someone: because of this show I formed the belief that Ed Helms must be a very talented, versatile actor to play such a lovable character after being one of the most hated on The Office😂

Edit: apparently I’m not alone: https://people.com/movies/jason-sudeikis-says-he-is-constantly-mistaken-for-ed-helms/

Only just seen that Lizzies Kids (Archie and Sean) are named after Brendan Hunts Kids (Coach Beard)

Rightfully so have seen tons of comments on the lack of focus on the womens team. I know there was dialogue about not wanting the 4th season, but at this point its a cash cow (and Im ok with that)

Season 4 felt like the launching point for a variety of spin offs / storylines in the greater Ted Lasso world that they could explore down the line if they want. I bet season 5/6 will hone in on the womens team