Ted Lasso 03X12: So Long, Farewell
dir. Declan Lowney
Rated:
image: ©2023 Apple TV+
The most unlikely man to coach an English football club – in deference to the Brits, who formalized play of the sport in the late 19th century, I’ll eschew the term soccer, although there is compelling evidence that it was our friends across the pond who invented the now-hated term in the first place – is seeing himself out. He’s doing so alongside characters from several other shows touted as the best of their crop of prestige television. In the last month, HBO powerhouse series Succession and Barry both took a final bow. Now, it’s time to say so long and farewell to the irrepressibly upbeat Ted Lasso.
The transformation of the show itself over the course of its three-season run irked some early supporters. What started as a lighthearted half-hour sitcom about a fish-out-of-water American football collage coach being hired to lead a team in a sport he knows nothing about blossomed into a heartfelt dramedy about human beings connecting with one another.
In the series finale episode, So Long, Farewell, Ted and Co. head into the final match of AFC Richmond’s season hoping to win the league championship. Ted has also made the decision that this final game will be his exit from the team and the country. Being half-a-world away from his pre-teen son is more than he can bear.
Episode writers (and co-creators of the series) Joe Kelly, Brendan Hunt (who also plays Coach Beard), and the show’s star, Jason Sudeikis, take their time to say goodbye. At 75 minutes, this is the longest of the show’s 34 episodes – plus a four-minute animated Christmas short about a missing moustache – and it’s filled with poignant moments.
The first of these comes in how the team decides to say goodbye to Coach Lasso. Based on the episode’s title, you can probably guess at the routine the players put on as a sendoff. What’s unexpected, and also comically touching, is the absolutely bonkers reaction the team has when Lasso sincerely responds to this show of affection with a simple, “Thank you, fellas. That was perfect.”
From here we move to a bravura, almost-four-minute-long tracking shot as we zip between the characters at the center of a simmering love triangle. We see model-turned-PR-professional Keeley, player-turned-coach Roy Kent, and footballer Jamie Tartt as they make plans in the final days of the season. It all has an exuberant, last-day-of-school feel to it.
Meanwhile, journalist Trent Crimm – formerly of The Independent – has finished the first draft of the book he’s been working on about the team. He hands over a copy to Ted and Coach Beard in the hopes that they will provide him feedback. (It quickly becomes clear that Trent is also quietly hopeful that the two will like his work.)
“Wonder Kid” Nate Shelley is back in the fold as the team’s new (old) kit man after his stint as head coach of the dreaded West Ham United. The two teams will face each other in the final match. The owner of West Ham, Rupert Mannion, is, of course, the former owner of Richmond, and he desperately wants to beat the team now owned by Rebecca, his ex-wife. Rebecca acquired Richmond in their divorce settlement, setting Ted Lasso’s plot in motion. Rebecca is contemplating selling the team if she can’t convince Ted to stay on as head coach; his effect on her has been that pronounced.
That idea gets to the root of what makes So Long, Farewell such a poignant and emotional cap to the series. Again and again over the course of the episode – and, more broadly, across the entire series – what’s emphasized is saying the hard things. Those things aren’t necessarily hard to say because they are hurtful or disrespectful. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. They are hard to say because of who’s saying them. Ted Lasso is a series that foregrounds the importance of people (but, more specifically, men) letting our fellow humans know how much we mean to each other. That can seem like an insurmountable goal when you’ve been raised in a culture that teaches men the only acceptable emotion for them to display is anger and/or aggression.
Our first breakthrough of the episode in this regard is Nate crumbling in front of Ted as part of his apology for turning his back on Richmond and treating his friends and colleagues like dirt because of his own insecurities and perceived slights against him. The way the episode resolves Nate’s tearing down and ripping up of the team’s beloved “Believe” poster in the previous season brought tears to my own eyes – one of many such instances occurring over the course of the episode.
There are plenty of moments included in So Long, Farewell that tickled my funny bone as well. Coach Beard makes (what he thinks is) a fatal mistake when he plays a video for the team before the big game. He made the inspirational video to highlight the incredible moments the group has shared since he and Coach Lasso arrived. I laughed through my own tears as Beard looks at his now (because of him) weeping football club and realizes this might not have been the best strategy to get them pumped up for the game.
Not all the jokes land. After the disastrous first half of the final match, Beard yells to his team to “Shut your butts and sit your mouths down!” before saying, “You know what I meant!” Perhaps because of the dire situation the club is in in that moment, the joke lands with a thud. Classic dad humor out of Ted’s mouth saves the day: “Well, fellas, if you’re looking for a pep talk from me, you’re in trouble. ‘Cause I’m like Michael Flatley at 11:59p.m. on St. Patrick’s Day. I’m tapped out. You know what I mean?”
The show also can’t resist in turning its central villain into a cartoonish version of cinema’s most famous big bad: Darth Vader. In episodes past, we’ve seen Rupert Mannion’s office and the distinctly familiar design of the window behind his desk that looks out over his empire. It’s almost identical to the window that looks out on the forest moon of Endor as the evil Emperor Palpatine schemes to crush the pitiful band of rebels in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. For So Long, Farewell, the costuming department gives the philandering Rupert an all-black ensemble with a long, flowing coat that is unmistakable in its evocation of Darth Vader’s cape. It’s not the most subtle costume design, but I’ll confess, its playfulness left a smile on my face.
Stateside, Dr. Jacob, the man who is dating Michelle, Ted’s ex-wife, sits down to watch the match with Michelle and Henry, Michelle and Ted’s son. Jacob’s flippant attitude about the game and insults to the sport mark the character as an easy villain for the audience to hate, and it comes off a bit like lazy writing. It’s also unnecessary, considering a doctor who behaves as unethically as he has is all the reason we need to not like or trust the character.
Getting back to the saying-the-hard-things motif of the episode, one of the show’s biggest goals is achieved when hard-ass Roy Kent asks to join the Diamond Dogs. That’s the club that Ted, Coach Beard, Director of Football Operations Leslie Higgins, and Nate formed near the beginning of the series. The club serves as a way for the men to talk through personal struggles, to seek advice when a burden in life gets too heavy to shoulder alone, or to generally bro-down with one another as only men can.
Roy wants advice and comfort concerning the situation between he, Keeley, and Jamie. While Leslie doesn’t address the specifics of Roy’s issue, he does offer up some sage advice that the rest of the Dogs wholeheartedly endorse: “Human beings are never gonna be perfect Roy. The best we can do is to keep asking for help and accepting it when you can. And if you keep on doing that, you’ll always be moving towards better.” It’s a wonderful sentiment which only tangentially hits on one of Ted Lasso’s main throughlines. The goal of life – which most of us ignore in our pursuit of fortune and glory – should be to work on becoming the kindest, most empathetic, best version of yourself.
Another way Ted Lasso has exemplified that ethos is in the way the humans portrayed in the show connect with one another. The best way to do that is to be honest with those you love. We saw it between Nate and his father, as well as Ted and his mother, over the course of the last few episodes. One of the most radical things we see in So Long, Farewell (and in society-at-large) is two men saying “I love you,” to each other, as we see Ted and Coach Beard do in the episode’s final minutes.
It’s a beautiful moment in a show that encourages personal growth and self-reflection – we see Ted reading the book How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan in the final minutes of the episode, a book that wrestles with these issues and that I enthusiastically recommend – and that, while you’re watching it, makes you remember that love and understanding still are and always will be an option.
Why it got 4 stars:
- The reaction to the final season of Ted Lasso has been mixed. Some people downright hated it. I thought it was a beautiful conclusion to a show that found a wonderful voice over the course of its three seasons. But yeah, a few of the final episodes might have been a bit too long.
Things I forgot to mention in my review, because, well, I'm the Forgetful Film Critic:
- Upon reflection, I think my favorite character on the show is Dani Rojas. His exuberant catchphrase, “Fútbol is life!” is exactly how I feel about the cinema. Cinema is life!
- Many tears were shed by me over the course of this episode.
- Rebecca’s chance encounter at the airport was the height of contrived, but I really didn’t give a damn. It was a wonderful moment.
Close encounters with people in movie theaters:
- Ted Lasso is available exclusively on Apple TV+. It really sucks that you can’t rent or buy it on platforms like Amazon, Vudu, or other such services. Even if you have to pay, everything should be available without having to subscribe to a streaming service.