Ted Lasso Season 3 Episode 1 Review: Smells Like Mean Spirit

As runaway Apple TV+ hit Ted Lasso returns for its third (and presumably final) season, fans might be nervous about whether the beloved comedy can stick its landing. After all, the show already has a lot of narrative balls in the air and adds even more in its third season premiere, an extended opening that wrestles with everything from on-pitch problems like Nate’s new job as head coach of West Ham United to personal issues like Ted’s growing identity crisis and the state of Roy and Keeley’s relationship.

As premieres go, Ted Lasso Season 3 Episode 1, “Smells Like Mean Spirit,” is serviceable, if not great. There are a handful of moments (like AFC Richmond’s team trip to explore the local sewer system) and the dueling press conferences between Ted and Nate that absolutely recapture the best of the series’ oddball heart. But there are also moments that feel superfluous or worse, like backsliding for many of its characters.

Part of the problem is that Ted himself seems at a loss, adrift in a sense of purposelessness that in, some ways, feels as though it came out of nowhere. Despite AFC Richmond’s unprecedented success at making it to the Premier League (despite the fact that the entirety of the U.K. sports media is picking them to finish dead last), he’s no longer entirely sure what he’s still doing in England anymore. 

Though the show doesn’t state this outright, Ted’s crisis of direction seems directly connected to his son’s recent visit to the U.K. Season 3 appears to pick up roughly six weeks from the conclusion of Season 2, as young Henry Lasso waits for his flight back to America. Ted, seemingly having some sort of delayed reaction to the dissolution of his marriage, is fretting about leaving his son again, and is especially taken aback when Henry spills the beans about the fact that his ex-wife has a new man-friend.  

Given the events of last season—and Ted’s therapy sessions with Dr. Sharon—it’s hard not to view some of this subplot as backsliding in a way, but perhaps it’s necessary to set up the series’ endgame, which certainly at this moment feels like Ted moving on. (In fact, Ted feels weirdly checked out of a lot of this episode, and I can only hope that’s something that course corrects as the season continues.)

Ted isn’t the only character that almost feels like they’re stuck in a holding pattern as Season 3 begins. Despite all her growth over the past two seasons, Rebecca is once again as obsessed with her ex Rupert as she’s ever been, furiously consuming every scrap of media coverage of his new team, insisting that Ted focuses on nothing but beating West Ham, essentially reframing the team rivalry as a direct competition with the man she was once married to and hauling him to her office for a dressing down when he doesn’t seem to agree with her.

Can anyone remember the last time Rebecca treated Ted like an employee instead of a partner or even a friend? 

And then, there’s Nate, who got everything he theoretically wanted last season—humiliating Ted, getting a head coaching job, and all the fawning media coverage he could ask for—but who’s still miserable, still desperate for the approval of a father figure, and, unfortunately, still largely written like a cartoon villain.

There’s certainly something thematically interesting about the fact that Nate has seemingly gotten everything he ever wanted and it’s just made him the worst possible version of himself. But, unfortunately, Ted Lasso still doesn’t seem terribly interested in making Nate’s heel turn any more complicated than it has to be.

His press conference, in which he spends most of it trying to come up with mean jokes and/or buzzy internet-friendly one-liners that disparage both AFC Richmond generally and Ted, specifically, is a festival of awfulness, as Nate repeatedly looks to Rupert for approval and overtly embraces the idea that the only way for him to be a man is to be cruel. 

In theory, it seems as though the text from his mother, which reveals that Nate’s father will always find something to be critical of him for no matter how much success he achieves is meant to provide some sort of reason for why he acts the way he does, instead, it just seems to give Nate even more justification for punching down. (Particularly when Rupert gives him a sports car as a reward for his performance.) 

Are we meant to be hoping Nate somehow sees the light here? And if not, at what point do we all start hoping to see him face some consequences for these objectively terrible actions?

Many viewers probably predicted at the end of last season that Roy and Keeley’s relationship was in trouble, so the fact that they’ve apparently broken up during the hiatus won’t come as much of a shock. What it is, however, is disappointing, as Ted Lasso has never felt like a show that was quite this predictable.

Because it’s equally apparent that the pair will find their way back to one another, once they each learn to prioritize their hearts over their careers, one has to wonder why this isn’t a journey we could have seen them take together. After all, the Roy/Keeley relationship has, at least thus far, been one of the most surprisingly mature and well-handled not just on the show but on television entirely at the moment, and the fact that Ted Lasso has defaulted to assuming the only way to make viewers care about this pairing and/or their story was to break them up is so tiresome. (Particularly when Roy has so little to do this week on his own.)

In the end, the Season 3 premiere is a mixed bag. There’s a lot of table setting and far too little of the trademark comedic warmth that made so many of us fall in love with this show. But, the flashes of its trademark brilliance—Ted’s self-deprecating press conference in response to Nate’s insults, the sewer system as an extended metaphor for self-actualization— make me hopeful there’s still reason to believe.

Stray Thoughts and Observations:

• For all that I hate the Roy/Keeeley breakup, I do love the idea of Keeley striking out on her own and her journey from WAG to independent businesswoman is an easy one to cheer for.
• I hope future episodes do a better job balancing the show’s many characters—it feels like Sam, Isaac, Dani, and even Roy to some extent had so little to do here.
• I hate Rupert, but Anthony Stewart Head is an amazing performer and absolutely deserves that promotion to series regular even if his character doesn’t do much beyond glower in the background for most of the episode.
• Roy’s niece Phoebe remains this show’s secret weapon.

What did you think of the Season 3 premiere of Ted Lasso? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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New episodes of Ted Lasso premiere Wednesdays on Apple TV+.

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