Warning: The article contains SPOILERS for Ted Lasso season 3.Ted Lasso star and co-creator Brendan Hunt gives a thoughtful answer about that glaring absence from the season 3 finale wedding. As one of several significant reveals in the Ted Lasso season 3 finale, Coach Beard (Hunt) decides to stay in England, and he marries Jane (Phoebe Walsh) at Stonehenge. However, that development seemed questionable, given the absence of Lasso (Jason Sudeikis), Beard’s close friend.
During a recent Ask Me Anything session on Reddit as RealCoachBeard, Hunt was asked why Lasso was absent from Beard’s wedding and how it felt weird that Roy (Brett Goldstein) was the best man. The actor says that different reasons for Lasso’s absence range from plausibility to the nature of the relationship between Beard and Lasso. Hunt also shares a story of how, in real life, he had to miss the wedding of Ted Lasso co-creator Joe Kelly. Read his detailed response below:
“There are a few reasons. The first is narrative: Ted just got on a plane and left the UK, it would be anticlimactic and deflating if we suddenly see him back there before we even see his plane lands. The other is that that’s just the kind of friendship Ted and Beard have. Case in point is me and Joe Kelly, co-creator of Ted Lasso and one of the best friends I’ll ever know. A few years ago I get an email from him and his fantastic girlfriend that they are getting married in LESS THAN A MONTH. The email clearly stated “no worries if it’s too short of notice” which was awfully nice of them; I desperately wanted to be there but I couldn’t. They had scheduled to wedding the same day as a show I was doing in another city, if I recall correctly. So I missed the wedding, and guess what: no one cares! Our relationship is the exact same, our families live down the street from each other and we see each other all the time. So personally I think Beard called Ted and told him he could sit this one out, and Ted said thanks, because the ceremony conflicted with a big game for Henry’s soccer team. The history of their relationship IMO is long periods of seeing each other and long periods not. We have entered one of the latter, but the former will come around again at some point. They love each other, they will see each other again. They love each other, they will see each other again.”
Why The Ted Lasso Season 3 Finale Divided Viewers
Despite the confusing Ted Lasso season 4 updates, the season 3 finale, possibly the series finale, was the season’s best episode. It delivered the uplifting emotions closely linked to the Apple TV+ series, giving a glimpse into what the characters had been up to in flashforwards. But even then, the show’s future and the storytelling decisions left some uncertainty.
Despite how episodes stretched well beyond an hour, some of Ted Lasso‘s biggest developments happened entirely off-screen. Another divisive decision was to spend some of this potentially last season on minor supporting characters that were heavily involved in a short time before randomly disappearing. Nate (Nick Mohammed) and his redemption also didn’t reach a worthwhile conclusion after taking up a considerable amount of screen time.
The fact that the Ted Lasso season 3 finale can overcome those weak points, at least for some, reveals that there’s a version of the show that could still work in the form of spinoffs focused on other characters. But on the whole, especially since it might be the end of the sports dramedy, there has been an argument that the finale was hampered by the rest of the issues that plagued the third installment, particularly episodes that were too long without focusing on the important storylines and relationships.
