Ted Lasso Just Rewrote A Beloved Character's Ending

Published Sep 12, 2026, 8:15 PM EDT

Casey Duby is an avid TV writer, watcher, and reviewer. She graduated from Emerson College in 2021 with a focus in Writing for Film and Television, where she wrote several pilots and watched countless more. She's been working in television ever since.

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Casey has experience working in TV development and writing scripted shows. Currently working as a Writer/Critic in Los Angeles, with an AMC A-List membership to boot, she is always hunting for the next good story and great theme song.

Ted Lasso season 4 features enough returning characters that it almost feels like its old self. The show returned despite its planned season 3 ending, and the characters Beard, Rebecca, Keeley, Roy, Higgins, Michelle, and, of course, Ted, returned along with it. The biggest change is in the players themselves, as Ted Lasso season 4 has Ted, Beard, and new addition Alice coaching a women's team.

Though fan-favorite characters from the AFC Richmond men's team are certainly missed, their absence isn't the reason season 4 is struggling to find its footing. In fact, season 4, episode 6, "Don't Jump Around Much Anymore" finally featured the most hotly anticipated guest star of the new season, and the return actually did a disservice to the beloved character.

Jamie Tartt Has Regressed Since Ted Lasso Season 3

In "Don't Jump Around Much Anymore," Rebecca, Keeley, and Roy attended the New Year's Eve launch party of Jamie Tartt's vodka brand. The episode revealed that Jamie, now with bleached-blond hair, has gone on to play for Barcelona while working on other business ventures on the side.

While this sufficiently explains Jamie's absence and sudden appearance in Ted Lasso season 4, it was Jamie's completely self-involved demeanor that dashed the exciting potential of the guest role. In "Don't Jump Around Much Anymore," Jamie made a spectacle of himself at the party, then became extremely disgruntled by his appearance on his vodka label.

He later even admitted that the final version of the vodka label came after he pushed the designers to redo an "amazing" label to reach "the Jamie Tartt standards" because he "always wants more." This all aligns with the Jamie of season 1, the Jamie who was completely superficial, arrogant, and preoccupied with appearances before Ted devoted significant effort to giving Jamie his redemption arc.

By the end of Ted Lasso season 3, Jamie was, of course, still confident and obsessed with his own looks, but he had become a normal person who allowed others to take up space and knew how to be a team player. His behavior in "Don't Jump Around Much Anymore" showed no such growth, and the character felt like a caricature of himself who retained none of the meaning of Ted Lasso​​​​​​'s past seasons.

Jamie Tartt's Cameo Is Part Of A Bigger Problem In Ted Lasso Season 4

Jamie is far from the only character who seems to be struggling to evolve in Ted Lasso season 4. The season feels like it's spinning its wheels as each episode sees characters repeating the same problem over and over again. To make matters worse, these problems are of their own making, with little rationale as to why they can't be solved or even exist in the first place.

Rebecca's consistent self-sabotage makes very little sense. Not only did she stand up her lovely boyfriend for three consecutive dates for the thinnest of reasons, but she has repeatedly, and inexplicably, kept things from Keeley that Keeley needs to know to do her job.

In a recent episode, Rebecca labeled Keeley as a "dreamer" and herself as a "doer," but her eventual confiding in Keeley has yet to have any negative consequence that would suggest why she kept things from her before or continues to do so now.

Similarly, Keeley and Roy's will-they/won't-they is struggling to find reasons to keep the two apart. Though they both clearly want to be together, Keeley employed the tired romance trope of forcing Roy to date other people. In "Don't Jump Around Much Anymore," Keeley conveniently overheard a drug-addled Roy tell the girl he's dating that he loves her, but missed the part where he called her Keeley.

Even season 4's Coach Chilton, Ted's new assistant coach and arguably the most compelling character of the season so far, has been reduced in recent episodes to a single problem that would be very solvable if the character could get out of her own way.

When Ted suspended Alice for failing to heed his advice to soften up on the players, Alice was forced to take meaningful stock of her behavior. While it's clear that her aloof demeanor masks a deep insecurity and desire to be liked, the Ted Lasso of prior seasons would have quickly engaged with this idea, talked it out, and shown heartwarming change.

Instead, Alice has made small, superficial strides to connect with her team, only to regress by each episode's end. Altogether, these repetitive plotlines create the sense that Ted Lasso is struggling to find enough story to get through the season, and in the process is robbing the show of what made it special: seeing characters make meaningful, lasting change.