Ted Lasso Season 4: First Impressions

Believe it!

Ted Lasso is back for it’s fourth season on AppleTV+. After years of anticipation and hearing rumors of ‘will they/won’t they’ make a fourth season, Ted and Coach Beard are back on our screens.

The fourth season of Ted Lasso began premiering this past fall, with it’s first episode being released on August 5th, 2026. Since then, an episode has been released per week, on every Wednesday. This season will have 10 episodes total, with the finale being aired on October 7th of this year.

While some years have passed in the show setting, this latest season revolves around the idea that Ted is brought back to London to coach the very first AFC Richmond Women’s football team. It resumes what was hinted at in the season 3 finale of Ted Lasso, which was that Rebecca and Keeley wanted to start a women’s organization for the club.

As someone who really enjoyed watching and binging Ted Lasso so many times on my own and with others, I’m really excited to watch some new content. I can’t lie though, I am a little apprehensive about what is going to befall our favorite characters now. I usually believe that when you’re able to create a solid and satisfying ending to a show, which is rare these days, it’s best to just leave it there. I was pretty pleased with how the third season played out, and thought that if the show wasn’t going to be picked up again, I would be okay with the closure every character received. I want to put those doubts aside however, as we’re about to dive back into the world of football and puns, and we can’t reminisce about the past as there is a whole other season to start binging.

I know that I’ve been a bit behind in watching the show, but I’m here now, and I’ve finished watching the first episode! I am hoping to do a weekly review of the episodes that have already come out, and the few that will be aired in the following weeks. I’ll be recapping the episodes, writing down my own opinions, and predicting what might come next for the future of AFC Richmond.

Let’s start with episode one of season four: “Home”.

*Warning: This post contains spoilers for the first episode of Ted Lasso, season 4*

MISSOURI-KANSAS BARBEQUE

The episode begins with Ted’s new look: grocery store assistant manager. Rather than staying with coaching, which many of us thought would be his natural path, it seems like Ted is still his positive self, just while stocking shelves and encouraging teenagers to make good choices. Ted is still co-parenting his now teenage son, Henry, with his ex-wife, Michelle. While the two are not together romantically, Ted and Michelle continue to support one another and most importantly, their son.

Coming to Kansas City for a surprise visit, all the way from London, is Rebecca, Higgins, and Keeley! The three show up at Ted’s place with some suspicious reasons for visiting, but shortly move on to some KC barbecue. As Rebecca stains her shirt for the third time, the truth comes out—Rebecca wants him to coach for the new AFC Richmond Women’s football team, and that’s the main reason for the surprise visit. While in KC, the group plans on checking out a brand new stadium that was built for an American Women’s soccer team, and they want Ted to join them. Unlike last time, Rebecca wants him to be her coach because she genuinely believes in him. Ted’s first thought, however? No, thank you.

Ted’s reasoning for saying no to Rebecca’s offer is the same reasoning for why he left London in the first place. He wants to be there for Henry—being a present father to him is more important than anything else. But even Ted can see that what’s he’d doing isn’t living up to his fullest potential. Ted’s different; he isn’t acting proud of what he does, like back when he was a real coach. He doesn’t even coach for Henry’s soccer team anymore, just sits on the sidelines. As the episode continues, Ted realizes more and more that what he needs to do, he has to do for himself. Just like he supported his family, they will support him too. The episode ends with the three Londoners heading back and getting on their plane, and Ted asking Michelle and Henry if they would want to move to England.

The answer is yes. Ted’s back!

FULL CIRCLE MOMENTS

So that’s how we’ve got the ball rolling. The episode obviously needed some motivation to get Ted to want to go back to England, especially after ending the show (season 3) with him choosing to leave England. While it was clear that at some point, Ted was going to take Rebecca’s offer (because otherwise, how would we have a show to watch?), I think the writing of this episode still felt very natural and very in-character. I really enjoyed seeing all of these character’s interact again, and I am very curious to see how Ted’s family dynamic will work with everyone moving to London with him.

In all the previous seasons of Ted Lasso, we’ve witnessed him living alone and being a head coach, and the internal problems Ted has to deal with because of that loneliness. Now though, it seems like the whole family is coming too, which I think could make for some interesting new side-plots that we have not seen Ted deal with before.

Either way, I am looking forward to continuing season 4—it’ll be nice to see some familiar faces and some new ones as we soon (I hope) will be meeting the AFC Richmond Women’s team.

Season 4 of Ted Lasso is currently streaming on AppleTV+.