Ted Lasso Season 4 Premiere Review: “Home” Uplifts Women’s Sports & Fan’s Hearts

With the FIFA Men’s World Cup having just taken place and the Women’s World Cup only a year away, now feels like the perfect time for the return of everyone’s favorite sports show with equal parts heart and dad jokes — Ted Lasso.

However, reviving a show that has been off the air for three years is no small matter. Luckily, and intentionally, the final season definitely left a few doors open and a handful of seeds carefully planted for the potential of a renaissance at just the right time. In interviews Jason Sudeikis (Horrible Bosses) credited his personal experience with supporting women’s sports as part of the reason he felt there was more story to tell, and so Ted Lasso Season 4 was born.

This comes as no surprise, with the modern era of the Women’s Pro Baseball League debuting this month; the Professional Women’s Hockey League putting up some of its largest attendance numbers this past season; and amazing accomplishments from athletes like Kelsey Pfendler (the fastest person to row solo from California to Hawaii) and the Chawinga sisters, Temwa (with a cameo in this episode) and Tabitha, who helped Malawi make history by reaching the quarterfinals of the Women’s Africa Cup (WAFCON) — a World Cup qualifying tournament, just to name a few.

The original series finale ended with Ted returning to the States to be more present in his son’s life after multiple seasons of teaching a group of pro-athletes “The Richmond Way”—shorthand for how to care for your sport and your team, and of course to always believe.

The Ted Lasso Season 4 Premiere, “Home” sees the return of some very notable characters. Keeley (Juno Temple, Venom: The Last Dance) and Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham, Hocus Pocus 2) are as close as ever, and Higgins (Jeremy Swift, Snow White) is still very much in love with his wife. It’s made clear that Roy (Brett Goldstein, Office Romance) and Keeley may be on different pages in their current relationship, and Rebecca has found her bliss with Matthijs (Matteo van der Grijn, Lucky in Love), admitting that they’re still in the honeymoon phase due to distance. And while Ted feels like his old self at heart, it feels like he’s missing his heart. It’s clear he loves being there for Henry (Grant Feely, Obi-Wan Kenobi) and co-parenting with Michelle (Andrea Anders, Young Sheldon), but his spark is gone — as aptly pointed out by his mother, Dottie (Becky Ann Baker, Girls), who encourages him to consider taking the job back in England.

Standout moments from this episode were live shots from a real KC Current game at CPKC Stadium — the first privately financed purpose-built stadium exclusively for a professional women’s soccer team. As well as Higgins’s impromptu visit to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, a privately funded not-for-profit organization dedicated to preserving the history of African-American baseball. These real-life locations are great examples and reminders that sports belong to everyone no matter your gender, race, culture, ability, or background. And that inclusivity in the stories we tell about sports matters.

While it seems there have been mixed reviews regarding this return episode, it very much feels like a pilot episode. You already know the cast, but they’re ever so slightly different and the core tenets of this story are being rebuilt in a new image. This world building takes time, it’s not something that a typical returning season would have to spend time on, but this isn’t a typical return. It’s a rebirth of sorts, which requires patience for central themes to unfold. Of course, as fervent fans we want to get to the meat of the story, but we’re about to be introduced to a whole new cast of characters and stories that we’ll surely fall in love with, given enough time for the thoughtful foundation to be laid.

Of all the new faces yet to be seen this season, I’m most excited for Tanya Reynolds to be joining the coaching staff. Her deadpan delivery in Sex Education will be right at home in this series.

If there was ever a time to bring back some of the most beloved characters to support and uplift women’s sports, it’s absolutely now, and I cannot wait to see what the rest of Ted Lasso Season 4 delivers.

Ted Lasso Season 4 airs weekly on AppleTV every Wednesday.