Warning: This article contains spoilers for “Ted Lasso” Season 4.
Another season of “Ted Lasso” has come and gone, once again leaving many questions for the future of the show.
To start with, the finale saw Ted (Jason Sudeikis) step down as head coach of Richmond’s women’s team, ceding his position to Alice Chilton (Tanya Reynolds). The episode also threw Roy (Brett Goldstein) and Keeley (Juno Temple) a curveball, with the former taking a head coaching position at Chelsea while the two prepare for their first child. And then there’s the fallout of the Episode 9 death of Mae Green (Annette Badland).
So what do these changes mean for the future of the Apple TV series? Are Roy and Keeley gone for good? And what does the “Ted Lasso” crew think of being referred to as “‘Bluey’ for adults”? Showrunner/Coach Beard actor Brendan Hunt reveals all to TheWrap in the wake of the season finale. Check out our Q&A, below:
Congratulations on another season. I want to start by complimenting you on the Heisenberg look that you pulled off at the end of the show. How was it going through Beard’s newest look?
In a way, to some level, it’s just like the endgame of my master plan. I haven’t shaved my head in a while, but I’ve done it a couple times in my life, and it just it feels great. It feels good. If we come back, I don’t even know for sure if that’s going to be Beard’s new look going forward or not, if he just needed this final, symbolic purge to get him through these last bits of Jane’s emotional landmines, but yeah, it feels good. You ever done it?
I have not. I like the length too much. I’ll do it one time just for you. I’ll send you photos.
Perfect. Thank you.
So it strikes me how many things in this finale feel so well seated from throughout the season. I think of the assistant manager sign on the door, which was a pretty strong recurring visual throughout the season. When you guys entered Season 4, how much of that stuff did you know ahead of time?
Most of it was planned out in terms of big things. Assistant manager for sure. That was pretty much a Day 1 thing from Jason: ‘We should have an assistant manager character and Ted should give her the job,’ and as with so many things that happen in the writers’ room that, on some level when he said that, I was like, ‘Really? I don’t know. OK. Alright. You’ve been right about all the seasons so far.’ But over time, as it gets closer, it’s like, ‘Yeah. Oh, of course. That’s great.’ So yeah, that was very intentional, and that’s why the opening shot is Ted’s assistant manager name tag at the supermarket. We start at assistant manager, and then we end there.
It seems like we finally settled the will they/won’t they between Roy and Keeley. But obviously they have these new things that are taking their lives in different directions. When you look ahead to the potentials for Seasons 5 and 6, is this their exit to the show, or is this just the latest beat in their adventure?
I think latest beat in their adventure, primarily. I mean, certainly it provides wiggle room if they need to go off and be, you know, James Bond and Wonder Woman — not that Gal Gadot’s doing anything but a great job, love Gal Gadot. But yeah, we’ll have to take that as it comes in terms of what their lives are like. But they’re definitely two people in the cast whose lives are getting busier and busier. But yeah, we don’t think it’s an exit by any means.
That’s good to hear. Speaking of people whose lives have gotten busier, you brought all of your players back for this episode. How long did you know you were getting all of the Seasons 1-3 cast members to reassemble for this shot?
We didn’t know for sure until fairly late in the game, because casting wouldn’t want to go out to them too early. But we knew storywise that they would show up at some point. At one point we talked about them coming out to the FA Cup game against Chelsea, and I think that was when we finally landed on it should be at the end, because it’s meant to be a transitional moment in a real, like, passing of the torch between where we were and where we are now. So I think saving it for the end was the right move.
Was everyone there on the same day? Was there any compositing there, or was that truly just like you got the whole band back together for the shoot?
There was one person who was composited, and I will leave it to you to try to figure it out. But I say our VFX department is too powerful, and you’ll never know.
I couldn’t tell. One thing I love that you guys do this season is that you show how the “BELIEVE” sign means different things to different people — how, for the men, they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, we just need to believe and we’ll be fine,’ and for the women, they’re like, ‘Well, not quite.’ Could you talk to me about where you guys landed on that idea and how you altered the meaning of the show’s most iconic symbol for this new era?
Something we talked about early on was, does Ted pull out another believe sign? Has he had it at every job? Does he leave it behind? Because he’s clearly left this one behind. We know that. We see it with Roy and Beard and Nate.
We started going a direction of, well, it can’t just be the same thing. It can’t just be another yellow sign with blue print. But then, if it’s not going to be the same sign, it doesn’t really mean the same thing. We did some research about the differences between coaching men’s teams and women’s teams, and there’s a fair amount of scholarship on that. But one of signature things that they say, and this was from a woman at USC who does this research — I wish I had her name — but she said one of the typical things is that women’s teams just ask more questions. If you ask a men’s team to jump, they will say, ‘How high?’ If you ask a women’s team to jump, they will say, ‘Why?’ And they’re not resisting. They’re sort of challenging. But if you just answer their questions, they’re good. So that led us to, ‘OK, it can’t just be believe. It’s believe, and…’ OK, believe and what? Well, let’s leave that up to the individual. That was kind of the journey of it, which then allowed us to do a little dovetail detour into ‘Yes and,’ which is certainly among our favorite maxims. It all just kind of coalesced together nicely.
Is that dynamic, the fact that women’s teams often ask more questions, something that makes Alice more built to be the head manager than Ted, who is a little less confrontational in some respects than Alice, who sort of more innately understands that feeling that they’re all having?
I don’t think Ted’s elevation of Alice is based at all on any failings on his part. He just sees her readiness. He sees that she has grown, and because she has put work into growing and she’s been willing to grow, he is ready to find a way to have more time in his life to connect with his son and with himself, really. The timing is right.
Going into the season, I wondered how and if you all would address Anthony (Head’s) passing, and I love the way that you did it in Episode 9. That’s kind of a character you can’t reputation launder, but Anthony was such a good guy by all accounts, and you sort of sneak that memorial into an episode with the death of Mae, who is this wonderful person as he was in real life. Could you talk to me about linking that fictional character death with this actor death and giving him like a proper memorial?
Anthony was beloved by all of us. He didn’t pass until well after we’d been finished shooting, and we hoped all along that we might be able to still see him. Actually, we had some some stuff in mind for Episode 10, and we were told that he was just in no shape to do that and were like, ‘Oh, OK, gosh.’ But by the time we got that horrible news later on, well, we do still have this Rupert plot point still in there, so it just came to make sense that, when we do our ‘In honor of’ title card, that really should come when we’re dealing with Mae as well, because that just wouldn’t have quite made sense earlier.
For my final question before we run out of time, one thing I’ve seen online a lot more than I had before is people comparing this show — I think “‘Bluey’ for adults” is the way that they’ve phrased it.
We should be so lucky! Are you kidding me? It’s the f–king best!
That’s what I was going to say. I have a baby cousin who’s two years old. I’ve had to watch a bit of “Bluey.” It’s wonderful. Do you guys enjoy being this sort of sweet spot for adult entertainment that is so warm and welcoming, but also deals with some real issues?
We can’t decide what people think of the show or what it is, and we’re just trying to make a comedy where people go through stuff for real and try to treat it with a modicum of of reality. But hey, if that is in any way though a reverse way of making “Bluey” a punchline, I will fight people to the death. “Bluey” is a f–king masterpiece, and I get to watch it because I have a five-year-old and two-year-old, but it’s not for them. It’s for me. Every f–king episode is so smart and so funny and so good, and it all adds up to something more than what it is. They don’t have American actors on that show very often. They’ve had Lin-Manuel Miranda. I know that. They’ve had some people who’ve been in American media, your Rose Byrnes, your Claudia O’Dohertys, you know, legends. But oh my God, my dying wish is just to be on “Bluey” one time. Sure, by then my kids will be 20 and 17, and they won’t care anymore. They’ll be like, “Ah, stop bothering us, Dad. Stay in your home.” But oh, what a great f–king show.
We’ll make it happen.
Thank you!
