Ted Lasso Is Back: Fans and Critics Can't Agree on the Verdict

Three years is a long time to miss a friend, and for a lot of “Ted Lasso” fans, that’s exactly what Wednesday’s return felt like. Apple TV+’s Emmy-winning comedy came back Aug. 5 with a fourth season that split its audience almost immediately. That’s right, even a show built on kindness can still start a fight.

The new season finds Jason Sudeikis‘ Ted three years removed from AFC Richmond, spending his days restocking shelves at a Kansas grocery store and raising his son. He’s eventually pulled back to England, this time to coach the club’s first women’s team, the Lady Greyhounds, alongside a scowling new assistant coach played by Tanya Reynolds. Hannah Waddingham, Juno Temple, Brett Goldstein, Jeremy Swift and Brendan Hunt all return, joined by a run of newcomers who round out the roster.

The rollout leaned pretty heavily into nostalgia. Weeks before the premiere, Sudeikis appeared in character during the FIFA World Cup Final halftime show, delivering a pep talk to a nervous Justin Bieber and unveiling a locker room sign that read “Beliebe.” More than a billion people watched.

That goodwill didn’t fully carry over to the reviews. Rotten Tomatoes‘ critic score swung between 91% and 78% before settling around 89%. Better than many, but a wide enough range to capture the split. The New York Post’s Lauren Sarnercalled the new season the strongest the show has been since its debut. Other critics were far less convinced, with IndieWire and the Daily Beast both describing the premiere as thin on story and short on justification for why Ted, specifically, needed to be the one running the women’s team.

Fans on social media broke along similar lines. One viewer, Kat Pettibone, wrote that she sobbed through the first episode because it brought back the magic of Season 1, adding that it defied her doubts entirely. Others online welcomed the show’s return while grumbling about the weekly release schedule, joking that waiting seven days between episodes felt like a throwback to an earlier television era. Not everyone was as generous. Critics pointed to the premiere’s decision to set nearly the entire hour in Kansas, delaying the return to the pitch that made the show a hit in the first place.

What both sides seem to agree on is that “Ted Lasso” is asking a harder question this time. The first season was about a underdog winning people over. The fourth is about whether that same trick can work twice for a show with of 13 Emmys and reputation for comfort viewing. New episodes of the 10-episode season arrive weekly on Wednesdays through Oct. 7, giving the show plenty of time to settle the argument.

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