The Ted Lasso Finale Avoided One Annoying Trope, But Stumbled Right Into Another

Big spoilers for the season 3 finale of "Ted Lasso" to follow.

From the beginning, "Ted Lasso" gave us a great blend of sports drama, an underdog narrative, and an absurd fish-out-of-water story of an American football coach teaching actual football, despite not even knowing what an off-side is. This worked wonderfully, combining British and American sensibilities, and mining great comedy and drama out of the cultural clash between the two. 

Though the show was never really about football — instead about the self-betterment of the team and its coach — there were still great moments of sports bliss throughout. We had excellent football plays like Richmond being promoted to the Premier League, Dani Rojas scoring a goal after a devastating mistake in season 2, Zava's incredibly over-the-top plays, or Jamie Tartt's extraordinary tiki-taka passes against Manchester City. 

Seasons 1 and 2 had a very clear and sensible goal: to avoid relegation and then to be promoted back to the premier league. But season 3 changed things because it turned the football side of the story into one all about getting back at former owner Rupert, and winning the whole darn thing, fulfilling AFC Richmond's Cinderella story. This would have been a mistake, an Americanization of English football that is too tired and cliche-ridden, going for an easy "victory is all that matters" that would run contrary to the core of The Lasso Way. 

Thankfully, that didn't happen, but the show did fall on one big and tired trope anyway.

In the final episode of season 3, AFC Richmond is on the verge of topping the Premier League and going home with the title, with a decisive victory against West Ham. Unfortunately for them, they fail, because Manchester City earns enough points in another game to claim the title. The players still rejoice and celebrate because they won Ted's last match with them and they didn't break their winning streak, yet they still lost the title. 

This is the best possible outcome for the show because winning would be too clean, too easy. After all, as good as the Richmond players are, and as good as Ted, Beard, and Roy are as coaches, it's hard to believe they would top the likes of Manchester City, Arsenal, or Manchester United just like that, without their vast resources and big name staffs — all in a single season. Besides, they don't need to either. 

Coming in second in the Premier League right after being promoted is already a huge victory and a Cinderella story on its own. This isn't American football, it is not only about winning the Super Bowl, it is not just about the final standings table, but about the overall seasonal journey, about the story, and about improvement. Take "Welcome to Wrexham," which follows Wrexham AFC's efforts to get promoted to the English Football League. Even though they missed promotion in the regular season, they still came up second in an incredible run, before finally achieving that promotion a year later. It is equally gratifying, and more dramatic than just winning on their first try. After all, Rocky Balboa didn't win the title on his first try, nor did Karasuno High win the Interhigh volleyball tournament in the first season of "Haikyu."

As much goodwill as "Ted Lasso" won with the football side of things, it still fell victim to a hugely tired trope — the "When You Coming Home, Dad?" trope. You know the one. It's where a parent is working their ass off at a hard job, maybe even a dream job that they love, but it doesn't matter how loving they are to their kids because if they spend even one second at work they could be spending with them (even though the kid probably doesn't want to leave their room and phone anyway), then they're a terrible parent. 

It doesn't matter how great Ted Lasso looks as a parent, or how stupidly healthy of a relationship he seems to have with his ex-wife despite everything — including the addition of a hugely unethical marriage counselor — Ted's mom still visits him all the way from Kansas only to guilt him into leaving his job because his kid misses him. Really? Sure, let Ted leave Richmond, but not for this. It could have been easy to have him leave because he felt like he had finished his job in making AFC Richmond and its players the best version of themselves, or to have him pull a Mary Poppins and depart after teaching one final lesson, flying away while the players sing about kites. But no, the show made the specific choice of following the old trope that if you like your job, or if you dare work just a second too long, you're a horrible parent who is forever scarring your children. Did we learn nothing from Spielberg's "Hook?"

One trope was avoided but at the cost of another slipping in at the last second. You win some, you lose some.