Ted Lasso ostensibly ended with season 3 a couple of years ago, but its popularity on Apple TV has proven to be so enduring since then that it’s coming back for a surprise season 4. The third season of Ted Lasso aired way back in 2023, and it was touted as the show’s final season.

Although Apple never officially described it as a series finale, Ted Lasso’s season 3 finale, “So Long, Farewell,” had all the telltale signs of a series finale. It was jam-packed with callbacks to earlier episodes, it resolved the story that began in the pilot episode, and it sent Ted back to Kansas, seemingly as a definitive conclusion to the series.

But, almost immediately after season 3 scored massive streaming numbers, we started hearing talk of a fourth season. It was all in Jason Sudeikis’ hands, and he eventually came up with an idea that he liked enough to reprise the role. Ted Lasso season 4 is expected to arrive on Apple TV this summer, and it’s all because the audience demanded it.

Ted Lasso Season 4 Will Bring Back Apple’s Best Comedy

While it’s definitely surprising that Apple is reversing the ending of Ted Lasso and bringing it back for a fourth season, it’s not all that surprising, because Ted Lasso is the show that put Apple TV on the map. In the same way that Stranger Things can be thanked for the majority of Netflix’s early subscribers, Ted Lasso can be credited with most of Apple’s subscriber base.

Ted Lasso first premiered in August 2020, when the world was still dealing with lockdowns and social distancing, and there was no end in sight for the dreaded COVID pandemic. With its tale of togetherness and found family and the power of optimism, Ted Lasso ended up being the show we all needed in 2020.

The series is based on an NBC Sports ad campaign. The character of Ted Lasso was created to advertise U.S. broadcasts of Premier League football games, and Sudeikis and Bill Lawrence decided to give that marketing mascot his own half-hour show. It seemed like a terrible idea, doomed to fail, but it had a lot more emotional depth than anyone was expecting.

Ted Lasso is dressed up as a traditional fish-out-of-water sitcom, planting a boorish American football coach in a world he doesn’t understand: the world of English football and UK culture. The first couple of episodes get some high-concept yuks out of that premise, but the show quickly becomes something much deeper and more profound.

As we find out that Ted is going through a divorce, we start to see that his relentless positivity is a facade covering up a deep well of anxiety and insecurity and depression. As Ted works on himself, he inspires everyone else to do the same. The series becomes a touching exploration of mental health in sports.

Ted Lasso Season 4 Has To Be Great To Justify Undoing Season 3’s Ending

As excited as I am for Ted Lasso season 4, it feels like Toy Story 4 all over again. The third installment provided a definitive ending to this story, and felt like a fitting farewell to the characters, so there’s no point in doing a fourth. Cynically, it feels like this is more of a business decision than a creative decision, reopening a finished story to make some more money out of the I.P.

But I’ll be glad to be proven wrong when the show returns this summer. Ted Lasso season 4 will have to be really great to justify undoing the ending of season 3, but who knows? Maybe they have something great planned. If Sudeikis signed off on it, then at least it’ll be true to the character.