Ted Lasso Season 4 Finds The Only Believable Reason To Bring Ted Back In Richmond

Contains spoilers for "Ted Lasso" Season 4, Episode 1 — "Home"

The welcome-if-bumpy Season 4 return of "Ted Lasso" gets a bumpy start, thanks to Ted's (Jason Sudeikis) reluctance to leave his family behind despite the fact that his coach blood is boiling with need. The desire to return home and focus on his son Henry (Gus Turner) was the exact thing that caused him to walk away after lifting AFC Richmond near the top of the Premier League pyramid at the end of "Ted Lasso" Season 3. As such, it seemed like it'd take some serious suspension of disbelief on the viewer's part to see Ted dragged back to England. Why would Richmond not respect his express wish to be home again? Why would Ted even consider returning?

Fortunately, the show counters this particular issue early on. Apart from craftily showing us that Ted's missing coaching and revealing that Henry and Michelle (Andrea Anders) support him enough to move in Europe with him, the season premiere makes a genuinely good argument on why Ted and Ted alone can lift the Richmond women's team: He's the guy who created the Richmond Way, and no one else can do it.

Ted created the entire Richmond culture as it is today, and Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham), Keeley Jones (Juno Temple), and even the somewhat skeptical Leslie Higgins (Jeremy Swift) want him back because of this. If they want to recreate the Richmond men's team miracle, they need to instill the club's culture in the women's team from the ground up — and they know from experience that there simply are no substitutes for Ted Lasso.

A significant subplot in "Ted Lasso" Season 3 focuses on the newly freelance Trent Crimm's (James Lance) quest to write a book about AFC Richmond and the way Ted is transforming it. Trent has already recognized Ted's innate if unconventional talents as a coach and a motivator, and ends up calling his book "The Lasso Way." Ted's not having any of it, however, and requests Trent to rename the book in a manner that reflects the whole club's efforts to build their community together, instead of personifying Richmond's success in Ted himself.

Though Trent's work is ultimately released under the title "The Richmond Way," it's still the same book — a tale of what Ted brought to the sport and how he helped transform the struggling club into a top spot contender. Since Ted is a prominent Premier League coach who walked away at the height of his powers, there would be plenty of interest in the book. As such, the true amount of influence Ted has wielded over the club would likely be common knowledge by the time Season 4 begins. Whether he likes it or not, Ted is, quite literally, the personification of the Richmond Way, so it makes perfect sense that the club would pursue him to coach the women's team.  

"Ted Lasso" Season 4 is streaming on Apple TV.