How Harry Styles ruined season 3 of Ted Lasso
Issue No. 18
Now that we’ve all had some time to sit with the Ted Lasso series (season?) finale, I think it’s time to admit that it was unsatisfying. I’m sure there’s plenty of people out there who thought it was great and perfectly wrapped up the show they loved, and I envy that. I wish I felt that kind of resolution, but instead I was left feeling like “That was it?”
I wanted to wait until we saw the full season before I made any judgements, rather than trying to guess episode by episode what the end game was. But now looking back on the season as a whole, I have the feeling it was rushed which left open threads and head scratching rather than a satisfying closed arc. Yes, there are references and callbacks to past seasons which give the illusion of feeling complete, but nary an easter egg does a closed thread make. For example, the storyline with Nate should have been the biggest through-line carrying the season, but most of the important developments happen off-screen. Maybe there was concern from the creative team about the dramatic moments being too heavy-handed, but I would argue that those moments were just non-existent.
In addition to open threads and questions, the plot didn’t make sense and the characters we grew to love fiercely acted in ways completely antithetical to the growth we had seen right before our eyes. (I’m looking at you, Roy and Jamie.)
Some threads that I thought were confusing or just downright strange:
What was the point of Zava and Shandy?
What was the point of Rebecca’s “signs?”
What was the point of Sam’s restaurant? Was there supposed to be a romantic storyline with Simi? Or were they trying to tease him and Rebecca again?
What was the point of Barbara? Did Katy Wix really leave Ghosts for this?
What was the point of the Keeley x Jamie x Roy love triangle? Why make me root for any of them if their ending was just going to undo all of the progress they made throughout the series?
What was the point of Rupert hitting on Jade? What was the point of Rupert being called out if nothing eventually came of it?
What was the point of Ted this whole season?
What was the point of Dr. Jake hating on football in the last episode?
Why did it feel like they shoe-horned Dr. Sharon into the most random places at the start and end of the season and then have her back in the flash-forward?
For all my gripes, there were parts of the season that I really enjoyed. The episodes in Amsterdam and when Ted’s mom come to visit were excellent, but they would have been more excellent if they played more of a role in building up to the finale, which seemed to forget everything that came before it.
The real scene-stealer this season was Trent Crimm. Seeing him become a fully integrated member of the team was so joyful to watch and seeing him take responsibility for his past behavior with Roy and be a voice of reason and encouragement for Colin showed glimpses of what the show’s really about. And his outfits were incredible.
Allegedly the season underwent major rewrites while in production so that could be one possible explanation for the disjointed feeling of the season. And this was the first season that Bill Lawrence (known for shows like Scrubs) did take a step back to oversee Shrinking, which Lawrence created with Ted Lasso writer and Roy Kent himself, Brett Goldstein, and Jason Segel. All of this to mean that Jason Sudeikis had a larger role behind the camera as showrunner which could also explain why there seemed to be so much less Ted in the season.
As for why the season felt rushed, it seems to me that there was no reason for it to be rushed. Maybe the creative team felt pressure from the audience or even from Apple to finish the new season and get it out quickly, but that doesn’t make sense for the very fact that this ending is supposedly the ending that was always meant to be, part of the three-season story that Sudeikis and Co. always meant to tell. There were reports in late 2022 of the production being delayed, which may have put pressure on the creative team, but I would argue that fans might have been willing to wait a little bit longer for a more cohesive final story.
It probably also didn’t help that around the filming of Season 2 in January 2022, Sudeikis’ real life partner Olivia Wilde had been seen with Harry Styles, who was starring in Wilde’s movie Don’t Worry Darling. It would make sense that we wouldn’t see any effects of this news on Sudeikis’ work in Season 2 because the season was already written presumably before his relationship with Wilde ended. But as the Sudeikis-Wilde-Styles saga continued, with Wilde being served custody papers at her premiere at Cannes Film Festival, the couples’ former nanny coming out with supposed texts shining both parties in unflattering lights, and Wilde’s alleged feud with the other star of her film Florence Pugh, by the time the third season was being written between late 2021 and early 2022, the events in Sudeikis’ personal life might have affected some of the creative choices related to his character.
My theory is that Jason, the creative team, or all of the above didn’t love the added attention and pressure on Sudeikis, and by extension the show, because of the events in his personal life and for this reason, Sudeikis wanted out as quickly as possible. Another factor that corroborates this theory is that if you look at the other actors and writers involved with Ted Lasso, many of them have gone on to other opportunities, likely because of the love felt for this show and its characters as well as cast and creative. Brett Goldstein, who plays Roy Kent, has been working with Bill Lawrence on Shrinking and is going to be in the MCU, Hannah Waddingham recently hosted Eurovision, and Toheeb Jimoh has a new Amazon series and is starring in Romeo and Juliet at the Almeida Theatre in London. Sudeikis, for all of his name power that he brought into the show, hasn’t spoken much about what his plans are after retiring the mustache. It would not surprise me in the slightest if we don’t hear much from him for a while.
Of course I’m not actually insinuating that Ted Lasso’s lackluster final season is in any way the fault of beloved famed popstar Harry Styles. Or that it’s necessarily the fault of anyone, because at the end of the day, this is television, not rocket science. It could be that Ted leaving was always part of the plan, a kind of Nanny McPhee “When you want me, but no longer need me, then I have to go,” thing. And the show has been left open in such a way that there are lots of storylines that could continue without Ted. It has been said that some of the best shows in television history ended when audiences were still wanting more, as opposed to overstaying their welcome and driving the story into the ground. But the way this season ended seemed messy and again, rushed so I’m still left wondering what happened? And am I really supposed to believe that this is the ending that was always meant to be?
