How the ‘Ted Lasso’ Season 4 Finale Sets Up What Comes Next

Betrayal, turnabout, an inevitable departure, genuine surprises, a spot-on Roy Kent impression and cryptic clues about what’s next for the Ted Lasso gang all abound in the season finale of Apple’s hit sports dramedy. Each character’s fate gets either a satisfying-enough conclusion or a suitable lead-in to a yet-to-be-announced season five at AFC Richmond. (Yes, spoilers ahead.)

The finale opens with a celebration of life for Crown & Anchor owner Mae, who died unexpectedly while supporting the Lady Greyhounds in episode nine. The mourning scenes carry real emotional weight, but they set off a tonally erratic episode. After Henry admits he wishes Mae could still help him with his homework, he asks how Ted’s father died, and Ted lies to protect him. The audience knows his father died by suicide. Ted soon sits Henry down and tells him the truth in an off-screen conversation.

The scene is serviceable for a finale, but it also caps what was essentially Ted’s non-storyline this season. After early hints of a thread about Ted looking for love in southwest London, our hero, like a seasoned coach, hovered over the show’s numerous plot threads and offered heartfelt, often hokey advice. That may be the future of Ted Lasso on Ted Lasso, and Jason Sudeikis‘ comedic charm and command of the character will certainly sell it for one or two more seasons.

Elsewhere, Roy is set up for either a spinoff or a dual story arc as a new dad at a new job after he accepts a dream offer to become Chelsea’s head coach. As he tells a furious Rebecca, though, he insists on finishing Richmond’s season first. Before that revelation, in what may be the best scene of the season (the two do impressions of each other), he tells Ted, Beard, Higgins, Nate and Alice that Keeley is pregnant and admits he fears being a bad father. In the closing moments, as Roy cleans out his office, he finds a note from Ted promising he’ll be a great dad, along with one of Ted’s little green Army men. How can you resist spending more time in a world where Richmond has a football club, Keeley has a C-suite, and deep fears and childhood wounds are assuaged by a quick note from an American friend?

The Zelda plotline mercifully ends with as little fanfare as it arrived. At the shareholders’ meeting, Tracey Ullman‘s scenery-chewing would-be usurper confirms she was the one secretly buying Richmond shares all season. Naturally, Rebecca and Higgins beat Zelda at her own game with a bit of turnabout involving her assistant, leaving a 49-49 percent split between the two women. The tiebreaker comes from beyond the grave: Mae, suddenly beloved just before her death, left her two percent stake in the club to Rebecca. The club’s ownership threat appears resolved.

Then there’s Alice, who in her debut season represented the heart of the show and delivered the arc closest to something from the world you and I live in. The angry, bitter player-turned-coach worked all season tirelessly for the fledgling Lady Greyhounds. Through gritted teeth and hard-earned emotional growth (so rarely conveyed in situation comedy), she earns the finale’s most unexpected twist. With Ted, Keeley and Rebecca in her office, Alice learns that Ted has asked to be demoted to assistant manager, handing her the head coach job for the women’s team. Since the season opened with her marching into Rebecca’s office to ask whether she’d ever even been considered for the gig, the scene in her dark workspace is a perfect bookend. (Rebecca, it should be mentioned, also proposes to her boyfriend Matthijs, setting up her next story in the blink of an eye.)

So what of season five? Apple has yet to confirm a renewal, as of Wednesday, when the finale was released. Jason Sudekis mentioned a three-season arc in a Hollywood Reporter cover story this year, but as we all know, and as Ted knows, things can change faster than an idiom loses relevance. Still, season five has plenty to work with: Alice’s new-coach struggles; Roy’s bigger-fish, bigger-pond story with a new-dad backdrop; Rebecca’s wedding (of the decade, presumably); and whatever becomes of Ted, be it women’s team assistant coach, a move back to the men’s side, or simply fluttering around AFC Richmond’s premises, offering aw-shucks platitudes and mixed-metaphor advice to confused-looking Brits forever.