The release of The New York Times‘s poll of the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century got a lot of people talking, to put it politely. (Ted Lasso came in at no. 75, incidentally.) One thing I pondered was how voters came to settle on which long-running series made their ballots. They likely didn’t rewatch every installment of 30 Rock or The Office when they respectively gave those shows the eighth- and 11th-most votes in the pool. Heck, Tina Fey and Robert Carlock put four episodes of 30 Rock into the vault because they depicted blackface! 

Things like that clearly didn’t bother participants, because they were voting for the hazily recalled, fondly remembered vibes of those and many other shows on the list. They can’t recall the specifics, because the general energies of those series are what survive, not the physical evidence of their images and sounds, the communicated specifics of their plots and storylines. 

Co-showrunners Jason Sudeikis and Jack Burditt, and the rest of the writers and producers, are banking on the audience doing something similar with Ted Lasso’s season 4 finale, “Being Alive.” If we actually nail down the things that occur across all 10 episodes, in the order in which they occur, we may not pump our fist at Rebecca and Higgins outfoxing Zelda Southport (Tracey Ullman). Our hearts may not swell at Ted’s autodemotion and Alice’s ascent to the head coach job of Richmond Ladies. If we watch the show, we might not BELIEVE and…oh, you know what, forget it. 

Shows like Ted Lasso want their sequences to live in isolation of one another while making you think that they all connect into a larger, grander narrative design. Mae’s Deep Throat cosplay where she tells Higgins to “follow the anger” in Episode 8 is a funny bit, and it sets up the misdirect that Rupert is buying out Richmond’s shareholders. Zelda wasn’t initiating a hostile takeover out of anger, though. Now that we know Zelda’s vaguely articulated motivations for going after Richmond, how are we meant to process Mae’s line? It makes no sense. 

Henry (Grant Feely) may embody something similar. In the beginning of Episode 9, Ted apologizes for missing another of Henry’s soccer games. Henry somewhat acidly fires back, “I know, but you were busy coaching a bunch of girls.” During Mae’s wake, Henry asks Ted what will happen to the pub, and if he and Ted will have to move out of their apartment upstairs. Ted tells him that sometimes, life throws “big changes at you in bunches.” Henry shoots back, “Yeah, I know. I live in London now.” 

In isolation, one might slough these off as passing moments of preadolescent angst, especially at Mae’s wake, where a young kid is taking his first lesson in grief. They happen in two consecutive episodes, however. They also occur months after Henry was the one to jump all over Ted’s idea to move the family to London in the first place. 

There are also the moments of discordance that I’m fairly sure Sudeikis and co. don’t even understand as such. Matthijs shows up at Rebecca’s office with a big bouquet of flowers, not too long after Roy, upon informing Rebecca that he’s taking the manager’s job at Chelsea, reminds her that she needs to “take risks. Otherwise, what’s the fucking point? I deserve for good things to happen in my life,” quoting Rebecca’s own words back to her. Suddenly, an entire season of bet-hedging—with Matthijs, with Richmond Ladies, with her own feelings—just washes away, and when Matthijs walks through the door, she proposes. They kiss, they dance, the music swells, the romance washes over all. 

This confirms that the writers saw Rebecca’s actions in Episode 5 as her own fault, her own fear trying to block the happiness she should embrace with Matthijs. That scene is anything but, but why should you care? Look at the grand gesture Rebecca is making now! Behavioral logic only matters to the scene that’s in front of you, because all you’ll remember is vibes, my guy. 

Alice Chilton (Tanya Reynolds) marks the biggest case study of all. We can now see that every breadcrumb was laid for Alice to self-actualize, embrace her own vulnerability, and become a great coach in her own right. There is still more of her root trauma to unlock (she pointedly tells Roy, when looking for advice on how to be a good dad, “don’t disappear when you feel inadequate”), but the dithering Sudeikis and Burditt have taken on this front is patently ridiculous. 

What are you saving this for? The revelation of Ted’s father’s suicide came in the middle of Season 2, but we weren’t subject to hints, insinuations, and almost-confessions throughout Season 1 about it. The show has so much runway (the episode clocks in at a whopping 53 minutes, longest of the season and seventh-longest of the series), and somehow the writers still choose to hide the ball, while filling the airwaves with plotlines that have literally no meaning or consequences. 

Like Zelda’s failed takeover, for example. What did this do for any of us? What did this do for the characters? Rebecca and Higgins foil her plan before it is ever able to take off. Zelda has no reason for doing it other than that she is the self-proclaimed scorpion crossing the river. I’m so happy we had all of those allusions to that parable across the season, so that we can land on some of the weakest character motivation of 2026. Zelda and Rebecca even manage to maintain some version of a grudging respect after all of that. 

If the objective was to set up someone with whom Rebecca could do battle, I’m already falling asleep at the notion. Zelda’s scenes were just an excuse for Ullman to mug and say things that sounded like they were coming out of the mouth of a Sex Pistol. Big whoop. Fear of honest-to-god conflict—of honest-to-god stakes—is simply the show’s modus operandi. 

Ted, meanwhile, barely inhabits the concept of a main character anymore, which is of course the point, you see. His journey has been to learn that he isn’t the right guy to lead a women’s team, and so he steps aside to let Alice take the big chair, now that she’s ready. He wants to spend more time with Henry, too, as Henry’s previously cited mini-snits so obviously revealed. Well, I’ve got news for you, Ted: assistant coaches don’t have less work to do; they have more of it. They are the ones showing up early, setting up cones, carrying the bags of balls out to the training pitch, and often picking up the tactics slack. How exactly Ted will find more time to spend with Henry is beyond me. 

We apparently will get no resolution about Ted’s dating life, either. He asked one woman out who wasn’t available. Does that mean he will just continue being alone, buried in nothing but work and family? If so, what was the point of all the dating talk in Episodes 5-7? Are they trying to keep room for Ted and Michelle to get back together, or was that just a weird-ass series of knowing glances by Michelle in several Season 3 episodes that don’t count anymore, either? I’d love to know, guys! 

Mae’s death remained a tool for people to get in their feelings and nothing more, which corroded any of the emotional power that Episode 9 was supposed to deliver, or that the haunting rendition of “The Parting Glass” by Niamh and Siobhan (Aisling Sharkey and Rex Hayes) should have evoked. Just ignore that; we needed to feel the weight of her passing in the moments Sudeikis et al. demanded it, narrative and emotional coherence be damned. 

Ted Lasso isn’t necessarily that much of an outlier among ostensible TV comedies in this regard. The difference is that the show always touted pretense to something more important, more substantive, and more affecting than the usual “friends we made along the way” thematic cores of most sitcoms. It is in that pretentiousness that proves the show’s downfall, so much so that Mae delivers “When Death Comes” by Mary Oliver in voiceover in the finale’s concluding montage, which of course lands on Ted’s new office placard of “assistant manager”, linking to the season’s opening scene of Ted working in a supermarket.

The season concludes as so much of Ted Lasso concludes: back at the beginning of an ever-repeating cycle, while selling you hard on the idea that it has continued to push forward. All we can hope is that the raucous, sold-out stadium in Richmond’s final match will be the team’s new normal. Alice and the players deserve to be respected.   

The audience does, too.

GAME NOTES

• You could listen to Brandi Carlisle’s acoustic cover of the theme song in this episode’s credit sequence, or you could get in your feelings with the newly released Returning to Myself (Sad Gay Version). I know which one I’m picking! 

• Lizzie once again has childcare troubles, as her too-cool wannabe rock star ex bails on her for the final game of the season. Like so many other hanging chads in the series, equipment manager June (Remi Shorunke-Sameul) promises Lizzie the kids have a surprise for her, and then…they walk out on the pitch with her? That’s something that happens at every game in England. How is that an exciting surprise?

• The three knuckleheads lurking inside the Crown & Anchor have now been named its new owners in Mae’s will. Cute, but these are not characters in whose fates I had a whole lot invested. 

• Nate returns for a glorified cameo. He’s married to Jade (Edyta Budnik), who I’m sure you all remember is Polish, and thus Nate has apparently become head coach of the Poland men’s national team. Good for him! Their new baby looks cute, too. Nick Mohammed is a gifted physical comedian, and it’s depressingly unsurprising that Sudeikis, Burditt and director Matt Lipsey couldn’t sell the gag of him trying to jump on top of the bookcase for the Diamond Dogs reunion. 

• The tracking shot of Dani, Isaac, Jan Maas, Colin, that French guy, Zoreaux, Bumbercatch, and Sam applauding in the stands is key jangling personified. (Ditto Will’s one-shot wordless appearance as Isaac’s barber assistant.) What are Colin and Sam even doing there? They play for other teams! There’s a good chance they have games that weekend! 

• What roles will Roy and Keeley have in the sure-to-be-announced Season 5? It’d be nice for their walk out of Richmond to be their proverbial ride into the sunset, so that the show might actually clear some space to focus on the women’s players. 

• Seriously, what is the point of Michelle other than to remind us that Ted was married once? 

• A critic once described Mary Oliver as “the poet laureate of the self-help biz and human potential movement.” Those who would defend Oliver’s work tend to lean smarmily into “it’s darker than you think” retorts. No wonder a piece of her work would end up in an episode of Ted Lasso; they both see the world the same way. 

• If there is one thing you take away from this season (and from these recaps), it’s that you should go support your local women’s team, whether they’re an NWSL club or a lower-division squad. Go to games. Watch games on TV. Talk about your team online. Support them with all you have. We’re less than nine months from the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Brazil. Buckle up!!! 

Evan Davis is a contributing writer to Decider. He hosts Expected Own Goals, a podcast about women’s soccer.