Ted Lasso is officially coming back for another season — and the new focus could give the show another go at a sapphic storyline.
Apple TV+ made the announcement on Friday morning via a press release that confirmed months and months of speculation.
"We all continue to live in a world where so many factors have conditioned us to 'look before we leap,'" star and creator Jason Sudeikis said in a statement. "In Season 4, the folks at AFC Richmond learn to leap before they look, discovering that wherever they land, it’s exactly where they’re meant to be."
Ted Lasso, which followed the titular coach (Sudeikis) moving to the UK to work with a struggling football club, allegedly aired its final episode back in March 2023. But even then, there were hints both within the narrative and from those involved with the show that there might be more stories to tell.
Specifically, the season three finale saw Keeley (Juno Temple) pitching the idea of a women’s team to club owner Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham). Although some initially wondered if this might open the door for a spin-off, Sudeikis confirmed season four of Ted Lasso will feature his character coaching a women’s team.
It took the "feel good" series until the third season to get around to including any queer storylines or characters (or rather, to acknowledge that several of the existing characters had secretly been queer the entire time). So centering the show around a woman’s football club is no guarantee of sapphic inclusion, but considering there are so many openly queer female players in the sport, it would be a tragedy for Ted Lasso not to dive into that.
Season three of the show introduced two queer storylines — one that centered around AFC Richmond player Colin (Billy Harris) struggling with coming out to his teammates, and another that featured Keeley exploring her bisexuality with Jack (Jodi Balfour), a billionaire investor in her marketing firm.
As much as we adored the idea of it, the execution was controversial. Ted Lasso was beloved, in part, for its messages of redemption and hope. Characters who repeatedly made terrible and even cruel decisions were given a chance to redeem themselves within the narrative. It was jarring, then, that Jack was ultimately painted as more of a two-dimensional villain. While she initially came across as a charming and supportive girlfriend, that abruptly shifted into something controlling and thoughtless. To add insult to injury, it felt as if Jack’s failures with Keeley were explicitly used to contrast her ex-boyfriend, Jamie (Phil Dunster), working through his own redemption arc.
Messy sapphic characters are absolutely delightful, and only portraying queer relationships as healthy or "good" gets tiresome fairly quickly. But in a show like Ted Lasso, this particular discrepancy stuck out, even if we all assumed Keeley and Jack were doomed to fall apart before the season’s end.
So much remains unknown about season four of Ted Lasso, including whether Temple will return (she’s reportedly still in talks). And there were certainly other controversial decisions throughout the second and third seasons that have some fans hesitant to celebrate its return. But in a time where relatable, humanizing stories about LGBTQ+ people are extremely important, we’re keeping our fingers crossed that Ted Lasso takes another run (or two, or three) at sapphic stories this time around — and that it does so with the same thoughtfulness and care that meant so much to people when it began.
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