Is There a Way Forward After ‘Ted Lasso’ Season 3?

Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for the Ted Lasso finale

While the future of Ted Lasso remains a mystery, there’s a lot of potential for the series’ universe to keep expanding. Season 3 of the Apple TV+ hit series ended this week on what seems like a farewell note, but leaving plenty of open doors for us to peek through and see what may still be in store for us. While Jason Sudeikis, Ted himself, claims that the story they wanted to tell has come to its end, the series expanded on multiple fronts over the last (and final?) season, developing characters who used to be only in the background and even introducing us to some new ones.

One of Ted Lasso‘s premises is the importance of community. That’s the base and most important aspect of any sports club or team in the world, and it’s no different with AFC Richmond. The series has also relied on the club’s staff and even the fans to tell its story, creating a wide array of characters who could have their own stories told either individually or as a group. While Ted has left England and gone back to his family in Kansas City, there’s a lot still going on at Richmond, and we’d love to see it.

RELATED: ‘Ted Lasso’ Season 3 Didn’t Need to Go There With Ted and Rebecca

AFC Richmond Has a Locker Room Full of Possibilities

Football is played on a pitch by two teams of 11 players, with a bench of substitutes available during the match, too. That’s a lot of people, and we only scratched the surface of what Richmond’s team really is. We’ve seen them go from relegation to Premier League runner-ups, and, while Ted and his coaching team sure have their share of success here, no match is won by a coach, but by the players on the pitch.

So far, the Richmond team’s story has been somewhat simplistic, since the players mostly embarked on Ted’s philosophy and that has led to success. Some of them had very special development arcs, of course, like Sam Obisanya (Toheeb Jimoh), Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster), Colin Hughes (Billy Harris), and even Isaac McAdoo (Kola Bokinni), but most of the time the team was on-screen it was following their coaches’ instructions and advice, or just taking part in the natural locker room banter. Even some of those four aforementioned players had their personal development attached to issues outside the realm of sports, only Isaac being the one whom we saw grow into captaincy — and only for one episode, too. Inside the club, though, they all tended to act as part of a whole when it came to the team.

Showing this kind of common agreement between the men who are part of a single team is important, and contributes a lot to the series’ premise of community. The players themselves make one, and only they know what they have to overcome to play as a single unit on the pitch. For Ted Lasso, this portrayal of how footballers coexist within a team worked perfectly, because, as important as it is, the show was still mainly about the coach. Now, though, especially with a change in command, there are lots of new possibilities for us to know more about them.

More ‘Ted Lasso’ Could Show the New Coaching Team Learning To Work Without Ted

Ted got his well-deserved reunion with his family, but, as he said himself, “I know folks like to say ‘There’s no place like home,’ but there ain’t a whole lot of places like AFC Richmond.” With him gone, Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) was promoted to head coach, and that caught many of us by surprise because, well, Nate (Nick Mohammed) was right there, with experience coaching another of the League’s top teams, too. Still, Roy’s rise is not without merit or sense, but it does build an opportunity for the future.

Just like the players themselves, the coaches also form a team. The dynamics between them are the ones with the closest impact on the players’ performances on the pitch, and that’s been clear in the series. But, while Beard (Brendan Hunt) was the knowledgeable one, Roy the one with player experience, and Nate the creative one, it was really Ted who ultimately decided on tactics and served as the glue between that team. He was the nervous system of the AFC Richmond body, regulating all the vital functions.

Now, though, the team has to go on, and, while the plan of having Roy as the leader seems solid enough, it still leaves us curious to see how that will work out. He certainly was the person most affected by Ted’s inspiring presence and grew a lot over the course of the series, but he’s still Roy. He still has trouble doing things without getting in his own way, and there should be at least some level of tension there with Nate having more experience than him. Not that Nate is bad, we know he isn’t, but we also know he is overly ambitious and prone to be influenced by what the media says. By itself, that should be enough to spark anyone’s interest and fuel a whole series.

More ‘Ted Lasso’ Means More Rebecca and Keeley, a Women’s Team, and a Fan-Owned Richmond

Thankfully, Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) changed her mind about selling AFC Richmond with Ted’s departure. She is great as a manager and provides the kind of insight football (and sports in general) desperately needs. Not only did she grow into the owner position on her own merits, she now understands what’s the single most essential thing about football: it’s about the fans. So much so, she sold 49% of club ownership to them, although what that implies isn’t something anyone can be sure of.

Rebecca’s position as a “mother” to the Richmond community should play an important part in this new form of management. And, since Ted Lasso likes to use real-world football as inspiration, there’s even a precedent for that, too, as one of the Bundesliga’s (the German national league) top teams, Union Berlin, is 100% owned by the fans. Richmond’s “hybrid” system is not only something new, but it could also provide an interesting premise for a show, especially with Keeley (Juno Temple) on board pushing for a women’s team, which is also another home run of an idea, and the craziness we know to be inherent to the Richmond fans.

One thing Ted Lasso never lacked was ideas for plots. It’s understandable that Ted’s story may be at an end, as his arc is finished and Jason Sudeikis is certainly entitled to move on after sticking with such a great role for years. But there’s an abundance of possibilities when it comes to the series’ universe, and it would be a pity not to further explore them. We loved and believed in Ted. We still love and believe in Richmond. It should go on.