Apple’s hit show “Ted Lasso” returned for a fourth season, and critics who watch the show for its politics found plenty to complain about — even though the season is built almost entirely around the complaints they prioritize. The show’s writers seem to have spent the whole season answering grievances about women’s sports, and the critics still found reasons to call it a failure.
What Happened in the Premiere
The season premiere opens with Ted working at a grocery store in Kansas City, where he casually steals food from his employer. When a coworker asks whether he worries about getting caught, Ted says he doesn’t — “probably due to my deeply ingrained white male privilege.”
Before the show has established its new story or given viewers a reason to care, the joke arrives. It feels planned, as though the writers are informing the audience precisely what kind of season this will be.
After finding out that the American Jazz Museum is shut down for a private event, Leslie Higgins heads over to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum instead. There, a tour guide details how Black baseball players — among them Satchel Paige — were barred from opportunities in Major League Baseball due to segregation.
The comparison between Higgins’ experience and the former prohibition on women playing soccer in England came across as forced and overdone. The writer’s wife rolled her eyes, and the writer wondered aloud if there was any point in continuing to watch. They turned the show off.
Rebecca’s Feminist Crisis
The second episode centers on whether Rebecca is sufficiently feminist after hiring Ted to coach AFC Richmond’s new women’s team. Alice Chilton, who helped construct the team, tells Rebecca she is resigning after being passed over for the head-coaching position.
Alice inquires of Rebecca if she had considered her for the position before departing. Rebecca denies it. Alice presses further, asking if Rebecca had considered any woman at all. Rebecca again answers in the negative.
Rebecca falls into a state of fear about whether she has shown enough support for women. She starts reading books about feminism and gives a difficult speech at a press conference where she declares that women are “just as capable and compelling as men” and that “the future is female.”. After that, she brings forward the manager of Richmond’s women’s team, “who just happens to be a man.”.
Laughter comes from how desperate Rebecca appears on screen, while the real issue remains unresolved: whether a man like Ted should ever have been given the chance at all.
Ted’s Track Record With Richmond
Recall how Ted guided Richmond through relegation, brought the club back up to the Premier League, and then pushed it to second place after entering the final day of the season with a shot at the championship.
Ted was overqualified to coach a brand-new second-division women’s team. Yet the show treats Rebecca’s decision to hire him as evidence that she might have failed women.
The opening quartet of episodes bring up a familiar set of complaints about the treatment of women in sports: pay that falls short, inferior facilities, inadequate media coverage and a lack of financial backing. It could be argued that these problems stem from capitalism rather than from any secret plan to keep female athletes down, but I will leave that point alone.
The narrative then moves into a run of storylines built around women athletes, as though the authors were working from a checklist and needed to cover every one of them. A player quits the team after getting pregnant. A single mother shows up at open tryouts with her child, unable to find anyone to watch the kid. Sponsors warn of withdrawing their support, while male shareholders ridicule the whole concept as a waste of money.
Zelda Southport, a wealthy investor in women’s sports, delivers a speech accusing executives of using women’s soccer for “reputation-laundering” while hiding their “fake allyship.” She invokes the “patriarchy” for good measure.
The writers aren’t attempting to conceal their political messaging at all. Instead, they’re openly embracing it as the whole point of the story.
The Promotional Campaign Made the Target Audience Clear
On Aug. 5, the day Season 4 premiered, “Ted Lasso” co-creator Brendan Hunt appeared on Sarah Spain’s podcast. Spain is a radical left-wing activist who has referred to Vice President J.D. Vance as a “demon” and launched a personal smear of Sophie Cunningham for arguing against “biological men” in women’s sports.
Spain’s show was picked by Hunt for the promotion of the new season, and it felt like a deliberate decision made with that purpose in mind. The next evening, Jason Sudeikis, Hunt, Juno Temple and many others from the new cast showed up at a private “Ted Lasso” event held at the Paley Museum. Megan Rapinoe, who is also a radical far-left-wing activist, took on the role of moderator.
Sarah Spain and Megan Rapinoe were the ones whose approval the creators of “Ted Lasso” sought out directly, knowing full well whose endorsement would carry the most weight.
How the Writers Made Their Priorities Clear From the Beginning
The show’s writers weren’t hiding their message. They made it explicit from the opening sequence. The joke about white male privilege, the comparison to the Negro Leagues, the focus on Rebecca’s feminist credentials — all of it arrived quickly, before the show had established its story.
| Episode | Focus | Tone |
|---|---|---|
| Premiere | Ted stealing at the grocery store, the Negro Leagues museum scene | Forced |
| Second episode | Rebecca’s feminist crisis, Alice’s resignation | Desperate, uncomfortable |
| First four episodes | Women’s soccer oppression, salary, facilities, media coverage | Checklists, forced comparisons |
The table demonstrates a season’s structure itself became the complaint. The show is where each item is simply a grievance being addressed rather than any genuine progress. It’s a matter of ticking off grievances instead of resolving them.
Why Critics Could Still Find Reasons to Complain
Critics complained about the show’s politics, and the show delivered on those complaints. The writer’s review of the transcripts confirmed that gender politics aren’t a minor component of the new season. They are the season.
The writers’ priorities were laid bare at the start, and the critics who track those priorities still found much to take issue with. The takeaway is that attempting to satisfy people who will never be content is a fight that cannot be won.
What the Writer Thinks Hollywood Should Do
The writer’s honest reaction is exasperation. The show’s political messaging is the entire plot, and the critics who watch for that messaging found plenty to criticize anyway. The writer argues that Hollywood should stop ruining good shows trying to chase that approval.
The writer’s wife agreed there wasn’t any reason to keep watching. So they turned the show off.
After sitting out for three years, the season came back with a chance to prove itself once more. It succeeded at pleasing its critics while still losing them. There was much to complain about, and the show provided ample reason for every complaint.
The writer’s view is that Hollywood should stop ruining good shows trying to chase that approval. The show’s writers made their priorities clear from the beginning, and the critics who watch for those priorities found plenty to criticize anyway. The lesson is that trying to please people who are never satisfied is a losing battle.
Source material: “Reaction to ‘Ted Lasso’ shows left-wing critics are never satisfied, so why does Hollywood keep trying?,” Fox News.
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