The episode opens with Ted as an assistant manager at a grocery store, using his overtly positive methods to teach an employee that Stealing Is Bad. His relationship with Michelle isn’t exactly romantic again, but they’re on quite friendly terms, laughing over how Henry’s principal can’t distinguish 38-year-old Public Enemy lyrics from the poetry of a troubled kid in the 2020s. What is clear is that Michelle and Ted don’t love their respective jobs, and that Henry—about to graduate in a matter of days—is also unhappy (as suggested by his messy room and sullen attitude). It’s an effective setup for how this trio wants and needs a break from their current existence. Lo and behold, opportunity arrives in the form of Keeley, Rebecca, and Higgins.
They’re in town to recruit Ted as the coach of the soon-to-be-launched Lady Greyhounds. To be specific, Rebecca wants him to foster the same culture that he did for AFC Richmond’s men’s team. You’d assume that she’d opt for a female coach, but Rebecca swiftly dismisses a contender named Alice Chilton, who has thrown her hat in the ring. Rebecca’s flown across the Atlantic for a reason, after all. And it’s not just to enjoy the local barbeque (or spill it all over her expensive clothes, a recurring gag in this episode for some reason). Rebecca wants Ted back for the right reasons this time. As she tells her boyfriend over FaceTime, she is sincerely hoping that Ted will say yes because she’s seen how he can transform the players and turn them into winners. When Ted refuses because he needs to be with his kid, all she can do is remind him that sometimes, home is a state of mind.
And Ted’s mind has been only on football and his time at AFC Richmond, as evidenced by how his room is essentially a shrine to the team he once coached. There are framed photos of Roy Kent, Mae, Beard’s wedding (that he didn’t even attend!), and Earl the dog. (Who is keeping a picture of their best friend’s nuptials on their work desk? But the point is made, I suppose). Not to mention a lot of AFC memorabilia adorning his walls. Clearly, Ted wants to be back in the hallowed halls of this football club, exchanging banter over biscuits with his pals. He admits this to no one, despite Michelle and his mother, Dottie, urging him to follow his heart. Ted is understandably frustrated that the folks who wanted him close by are now encouraging him to go back to the U.K. On that score, his mom doles out some random advice: “A boy needs to see his dad do what he loves,” she tells him, ending with “You’ll figure it out.”
Again, it paves the way for Ted to accept the job, but “Home” spends a long time getting there, without digging into the emotional core of how and why Ted misses London and football. All we get are a few disjointed remarks about it, including the fact that he can’t coach Henry’s soccer team because it’s tough to delineate between dad and coach, as if he weren’t a pseudo-parent to the dudes of AFC Richmond. Either way, all of this ultimately ends with Ted realizing he’s gotta go back.
Before he does, though, Ted Lasso goes all in on the Kansas City of it all. It just comes across as too broad and gimmicky. Do Rebecca and Keeley really need a reminder of the value of “women helping women” from the owner of a boutique called Dazzle Me Moi? They’ve seemingly been working on the Lady Greyhounds for two years at this point, and they’re passionate enough to visit the U.S. to meet Ted. They know why they want to do this, even if financial reports suggest that women’s teams don’t do as well as the men’s. Similarly, Higgins takes an unplanned trip to the city’s Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and gets inspired after hearing stories of players like Satchel Paige, who defied the odds set against them by a bigoted society. So the Kansas trip acts as a hamfisted reminder to Rebecca, Keeley, and Higgins that—to quote Reese Witherspoon—”women’s stories matter.” It’s obviously preachy, but hopefully, season four tempers down this tone as it goes on.
It’s not like “Home” didn’t excite me at all. It is nice to have a cheery Keeley back on my screen, to hear Ted Lasso-isms like “You can always give up tomorrow,” and to see that Ted has learned to openly talk about his dead dad. There’s some growth here, but the premiere would’ve landed better if it were a tight 25-minutes at best. As it currently stands, the premiere is a rough stepping stone to season four, but I’ll take Ted Lasso‘s most famous piece of advice—be curious, not judgmental—as we dig into it every week.
Stray observations
- •Higgins: “Did you hear the news?”
Rebecca, with enthusiasm: “About the new Hermes collection?”
Higgins: “We have very different TikTok algorithms.”
- •It is an excellent detail of Rebecca’s to throw in that she finally binged Breaking Bad and found it to be hilarious. And I love to see that Higgins is still very much a sweet wife guy.
- •Another good detail: Ted’s childhood bedroom has a dartboard on the wall because of course it does. His mom is emptying their house because she’s moving. What are the chances Dottie will also join her son in London?
- •Keeley’s most interesting bit of non-work information is that she’s really good friends with Roy now. Does he think of it the same way? TBD.
- •Am I supposed to believe that a grown, polished woman needs to watch a YouTube tutorial on how to use a stain remover pen?
- •It’s unclear if Anthony Head filmed any new scenes as Rupert for season four, but I’ll be thinking of the terrific actor, who made it easy to hate the loathsome guy he played in Ted Lasso.
Saloni Gajjar is The A.V. Club‘s TV critic.
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