Michele StuevenThe unexpected hit TV series Ted Lasso returns for its fourth season to Apple TV today, and even if it’s been three years since we’ve seen its stars Jason Sudeikis as Lasso, Brendan Hunt as Coach Beard, Hannah Waddingham as Rebecca Welton, Brett Goldstein as Roy Kent, Juno Temple as Keeley Jones and Jeremy Swift as Higgins – the team hasn’t missed a beat.
After returning to his hometown of Kansas City, Ted is tracked down by his former AFC Richmond colleagues and invited back to Nelson Road to take on a new challenge coaching the women’s team.
Rebecca, Keeley and Higgins descend upon Kansas City with the same wide-eyed naivete that Ted experienced when he originally set foot in the UK. Rebecca becomes known on the boutique circuit as the Glamazon With Pajamas On, Higgins becomes an expert on Black baseball history, and everybody loves Kansas City BBQ.
Ted left AFC Richmond last season to return to his hometown of Kansas City to spend more time with his family. This season of the Emmy Award-winning show is much more family-focused with the addition of Ted’s mom and a spotlight on his role as a father.
With his trademark optimism still very much intact, we learn how the Lasso sausage is made and that, when it comes down to it, Ted is the same person on the football field as he is as a grocery store clerk, where we find him now.
(L-R) Brendan Hunt, Tanya Reynolds, Jason Sudeikis, Hannah Waddingham, Jeremy Swift and Juno Temple at the premiere of Ted Lasso at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on July 27 (Stewart Cook/Apple TV via Getty Images)
Rebecca, Keeley, and Higgins continue to run AFC Richmond, while Roy and Coach Beard now manage the men’s team. Mae (Annette Badland) is still the brusque landlady of the Coach & Horses pub and has new tenants renting the flat upstairs.
But if anyone weathered Ted Lasso’s departure the worst, it was Coach Beard, played by Co-Executive Producer Hunt, who also hosted the After The Whistle FIFA World Cup 2026 podcast with Rebecca Lowe from FOX Sports this summer. The Hollywood Fringe Festival regular reappears looking more like his Mess character in Absolutely Filthy, a role that won him an L.A. Weekly Theater Award for Leading Male Performance in 2013.
“Coach Beard is still in Richmond and the years have not been good to him,” Hunt tells LA Weekly over the phone. “Is it because of something going on with Jane or being in a natural state of decay when Ted’s not around? Maybe it’s a little bit of both. We find out before too long. The Ted effect is a powerful thing. He does the best he can with the tools at his disposal. Playing the role is just part of the job; it’s all connected – the writing, the producing, and the acting of it, but yeah, I love putting on that costume and saying the things people tell me to say. It’s a lot of fun.”
Beyond the club, personal lives remain as complicated as ever. Higgins is still happily married to Julie (Mary Roscoe), Beard is navigating an identity crisis after Jane (Phoebe Walsh) turns their latest breakup into a wildly successful one-woman show, and Rebecca is struggling to balance her long-distance relationship with Matthijs (Matteo van Der Grijn), who lives in Amsterdam with his young daughter. Then there’s the unpredictable fate of Roy and Keeley, the will-they-won’t-they couple everyone believes belong together.
Brendan Hunt in Ted Lasso (Courtesy of Apple TV)
The strong new addition is coach Alice Chilton, who is at the center of the women’s team, played brilliantly by Tanya Reynolds. Her analytical and highly stern approach is the complete opposite of Ted’s more intuitive style.
“The best part of the new season is bringing in this new team,” says Hunt. “Not just the characters, but the actors themselves. They’re all so young and fresh and up for it. There are some pretty good footballers among them as well. They’re pretty good at flipping on a dime as Brits are – comedy and pathos. It’s great having this new energy on board.”
Sudeikis and longtime friend Hunt, co-creator of the Ted Lasso character, have followed the men’s game for years, but were more recent converts to the women’s league while filming the show in London during the 2022 UEFA European Championship.
Hunt, who went to the last women’s World Cup in New Zealand and Australia four years ago and hopes to go to Brazil next year, credits the women in the show’s writers’ room for bringing in another season of strong women on the show. Plus, he says that the fact that he and Sudeikis didn’t have any brothers and grew up with only sisters makes them fairly versed in relationships with women.
Jason Sudeikis (L) and Brendan Hunt at the premiere of Ted Lasso in Los Angeles (JC Olivera/Apple TV via Getty Images)
“We kind of let the sport be its own thing,” says Hunt of the show that touches on the subject of women’s sports being inferior to men’s. “What the team is dealing with more is that they are in the second division of the league. The resources between men’s and women’s football are more stark the further down you go into the divisions. Sports is sports, and if you say you don’t watch women’s sports because it’s somehow not valid, it’s the most ridiculous take I can imagine.”
There’s no need to rewatch the last season to catch up; the momentum of the show continues as if no time has passed.
“There was no expectation of anything when we started the show,” says Hunt. “We never imagined it would be such a success. It’s about two things Americans don’t like – soccer and kindness. First off, we signed up to a streaming service that literally didn’t exist. We had no idea what was going to happen, so we said let’s just do the best show we can and hand it over to the world. People’s reaction to it was beyond our wildest dreams and beyond what we ever predicted, and I wish I knew why.”
Maybe kate.mf.davis put it best on Threads:
“I’ve been watching a lot of Ted Lasso this summer. My husband asked why I keep watching it over and over. I said in this world, I just need a place where people aren’t perfect, but they are trying to do the right thing and are accountable. It’s a make-believe world my soul needs.”
Rebecca and Keeley shopping in Kansas City (Courtesy Apple TV)