NFL
By: Rick O’Donnell
Finally, AFC Richmond is back. Jason Sudeikis announced on the New Heights Podcast that they’re working on season four of the hit series Ted Lasso. While little to no details have emerged about the story and who will return, fans still have a reason to celebrate. Yet, there was one more detail that Sudeikis let slip and we can’t help but wonder if they’re making a big mistake.
In that same interview, it was said that Ted will be coaching a women’s team when the series returns, but is that the right way to go? If they go this route, Ted Lasso could easily become one of the many “reboots” that swapped male leads for female counterparts, often with little success.
That’s not saying there isn’t a place in the show for a female sports storyline, but should Ted really be the coach here when there’s a much better option on the table?
If I were the creators/writers of the show, there’s a much better way to keep the show’s spirit while also exploring the growth of women’s sports.
Maybe the pivot was caused by a majority of the reoccurring cast moving on, but if not, they have a chance to introduce new faces to the show in a refreshing way, while still developing characters fans have come to love.
The obvious solution is to need Ted on both teams but doing neither.
With their dynamic by the end of season 3, the new men’s coaches should be taken over by Beard and Nate. Both men looked up to Ted as a mentor and both would want to honor him after Ted gave them a second chance. However, in doing so, they try to coach “the Lasso Way” but neither quite pulls it off leading Rebecca to lean on an old friend. The hilarity of Nate or Beard fumbling their way through a Led Tasso bit or replicating the hokey Kansas charm would write itself. Both men try to become the new Ted while trying to get Jamie to be the next Roy and that’s a whole story.
The women’s team should be coached by none other than Roy Kent himself and a female assistant coach. Yeah, it might make it challenging to write the locker room scenes, but let’s face it. Roy has a way with women throughout the series. His niece loves him, Rebecca respects his brutal honesty, and he does great coaching Phoebe’s youth team. All it would take is Rebecca turning to him to get the team off the ground because he has a way of connecting with the women in his life and she wants someone she can trust with the new venture.
From there, you take the struggles of living up to his playing career as a coach and combine them with the challenges of getting a new team/league up and running and there’s another ship without a rudder. The ties that bind both of them? Ted Lasso.
It wouldn’t be that far of a stretch either. In both scenarios, Rebecca would realize there’s no coaching “the Lasso Way” without Ted Lasso. She offers him a position at AFC Richmond overseeing both teams, say as a director of football operations for both clubs. Higgins stays on with the men’s team but reports to Ted. Ted mentors the coaches who took his place and the show goes on.
The men’s team still hasn’t “won the whole f–ing thing,” and Keeley and Rebecca are struggling to get fans interested in the new women’s club, which doesn’t just seem like another remake with an all-female cast. The foundation for Ted Lasso season 4 has been there the whole time, but they have to live up to their own success.
