It’s right there in the theme song: “I guess this might well be it.” Ted Lasso may or may not be concluding for good after its third season wraps up next month. But although heaven knows everyone has tried, it’s been strangely difficult to confirm speculation surrounding Lasso’s fate—with everyone from star and cocreator Jason Sudeikis either downplaying the possibility, or being stubbornly coy.
If the Emmy-winning series does call it quits after three seasons, it will be the latest hit show to end on its own terms alongside some august company: Netflix’s Stranger Things and You, Prime Video’s Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and HBO’s Barry and Succession, most of which air their final episodes this spring. The Handmaid’s Tale is also set to end sometime this year after six seasons. But despite season three officially being at the halftime point, everyone involved with the Apple TV+ comedy has refused to definitively declare this season the show’s last.
Rumors about the show’s three-season run began back in 2021. “The story that’s being told—that three-season arc—is one that I see, know, and understood,” Sudeikis told Entertainment Weekly. “As far as what happens after that, who knows? I don’t know.”
His fellow executive producers shared differing viewpoints about whether or not Lasso should end now. “The initial story Jason had in his head is a three-season arc, [but] I’m hopeful there’s more Ted Lasso stories to tell after three seasons,” said Bill Lawrence, who has since cocreated Apple TV+ dramedy Shrinking with Lasso’s Brett Goldstein. “Hey, in my head, I’m like, Ted Lasso moves home and he should coach the professional team that’s a block away from Jason’s home in real life.”
But Brendan Hunt made the case for quitting while the team was still ahead. “I think it would be pretty cool if, in the face of how much everyone likes this show, that we stick to our guns and really just do three seasons,” he told the outlet. “But even as committed to that idea as Jason may have been, none of us were prepared to the degree to which people love this show…I think that could make hard-hearted old Sudeikis soften up a little bit.”
Speculation well and truly ramped up when Goldstein spoke with UK’s Sunday Times last June. “We are writing it like that. It was planned as three,” he said when asked about the series ending, before quipping: “Spoiler alert—everyone dies.” Goldstein would later tell Variety that determining the show’s fate is “a hard decision. Because it’s this wonderful thing, and these three seasons feel really perfect. Do you gamble? Do you leave the table? Or do you keep going because you have more?”
Perhaps the closest thing to confirmation came around the show’s March premiere, when Sudeikis told Deadline: “This is the end of this story that we wanted to tell, that we were hoping to tell, that we loved to tell. The fact that folks will want more and are curious beyond more than what they don’t even know yet—that being season three—it’s flattering.” He added, “Yeah, I think that we’ve set the table for all sorts of folks…to get to watch the further telling of these stories.”
And that’s been the company line ever since. Essentially, Ted Lasso is sort of, basically over for Sudeikis—but could return in future form with some of the show’s other players.
Various AFC Richmond personnel echoed similar sentiments to Vanity Fair at the show’s season three premiere in Los Angeles. “It is the end of this particular story thread,” said Hannah Waddingham, who earned an Emmy in 2021 for her performance as team owner Rebecca Welton. “You’ll know why once you see it.” She continued, “I genuinely have no idea what’s next. I’m not sure Jason even knows what he wants to do, but I’d love to see a spin-off series with Keeley [Juno Temple], Rebecca, and Higgins [Jeremy Swift]. There are so many characters that are beloved that it would be reasonable for them to do a spin-off. We will have to wait and find out.”
Savannah Walsh
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