Ted Lasso finale ending explained: how did Ted Lasso Season 3 Episode 12 ‘So Long, Farewell’ end?

This article (obviously) contains detailed and immediate spoilers for the Ted Lasso Season 3 finale, ‘So Long, Farewell’.

Ted Lasso has come to an end. The final whistle has blown, extra time has ended (all 74 minutes of it), and the players have all left the match. 

How did it end, though? Where did the Apple TV+ show leave its characters? Did Roy and Keeley ever reconcile, did Richmond win the league, did Ted Lasso stay in London or go home to Kansas? And, with so much ambiguity as to whether the show would return for a fourth series, how definitive was the ending really?

Here’s everything you need to know about Ted Lasso’s Season 3 finale.

Did Richmond win the Premier League?

It’s what the show has been building towards since its first finale, with Ted promising Rebecca they’d take the newly relegated team back to the Premier League and “win the whole f***ing thing”. In the end, though, they didn’t: Richmond’s last match of the season, which they played against new rivals West Ham, saw them win 3-2, but in an offscreen match their long-time foes Manchester City did well enough on points to win the whole league overall. 

What happened with Roy and Keeley?

One of the big questions across Series 3 of Ted Lasso was whether or not Roy and Keeley might reconcile and get back together. In the end, though, they never did: Roy and Jamie, immediately after a fist fight, ask Keeley to choose between them. She quite rightly and quite understandably dismisses them both, and Ted Lasso ends with all three of them still single and that love triangle quite pointedly split up. 

What happened to Rebecca?

Rebecca spent most of the finale wondering if she should sell Richmond. She only took control of it in the first place to spite her ex-husband Rupert – having let go of that, maybe she should also let go of the club itself? After a while, though, she decided to hang onto the club, and opted to sell a minority of ownership shares to the fans. 

She also has a chance encounter with a Dutch pilot and his daughter – not just any pilot, though, but the man on the boat that she made a connection with in Amsterdam. It’s strongly implied they’ll pursue a romantic relationship, and the suggestion is that the fortune teller Rebecca met with earlier in the season is right – she does get to have a family (although it’s left open to interpretation whether this means the pilot’s daughter, or the Richmond fans). 

What happened to Ted Lasso?

Ted, in the end, moved back to Kansas. For as much as he might’ve felt like there was unfinished business in Richmond, and for all the money he was being offered, he couldn’t escape the fact that he simply felt like he needed to move back home. (You get the sense that maybe Jason Sudeikis’ own feelings about Ted Lasso the show were bleeding into the text of the episode, just a little.)

The final scene of the show sees Ted coaching football – or soccer, now that he’s back in Kansas – at his son Henry’s school, doling out some of the same advice he once gave to the Richmond players. His ex-wife Michelle is there, supporting them both, but her new partner is conspicuously absent. Is that a hint, perhaps, that Ted and Michelle might reconcile? 

What’s the new status quo at the club? 

A final montage gives a quick look at where the rest of the characters end up: Sam gets a chance to play for the Nigerian national team; Trent Crimm’s book is a huge success; Roy Kent becomes the new manager of AFC Richmond, and hires both Nate and Doctor Sharon to help him at the club; Keeley starts a new PR firm with Barbara. We even see Beard get married to Jane at Stonehenge, with a wedding attended by every character apart from his best friend Ted.

Ted Lasso ends with Roy, Nate, and Beard adjusting the BELIEVE sign above the coaches’ office, while Keeley brings Rebecca a proposal for a new AFC Richmond women’s team. For all that the series is ending, it’s quite an open-ended conclusion, leaving the possibility the show might return for more. (Equally, the montage does also end with a smash cut to Ted waking up on his plane, meaning perhaps there’s room to imply this was a dream sequence, and therefore any new spinoff or sequel wouldn’t necessarily have to be strictly beholden to what was set out here. Speaking of which…) 

Will there be a Ted Lasso Season 4?

Good question. Given the extent to which the Season 3 finale seems to be about setting up a fourth season – to the point, really, of outright abdicating an actual ending – it seems almost certain, really. There’s not been a formal announcement as of yet, but a new series about manager Roy Kent trying to final win the Premier League (with, perhaps, a guest appearance or two from former Coach Lasso) is surely on the way.

One thing we can say for sure? It won’t be called Ted Lasso. After all, Ted’s inscription on Trent Crimm’s book – “One small suggestion: I’d change the title. It’s not about me – it never was” – seems like a message intended directly for the Apple TV+ development team. What will it be titled? Probably not “Roy Kent”, since Brett Goldstein is clearly on the rise himself and they won’t want a repeat of this problem a few years down the line again. Richmond Forever? The Richmond Way? AFC Richmond? Something like that. 

Ted Lasso is currently available to stream in full on Apple TV+. You can read more of our coverage of Ted Lasso here, including our review of the series finale.

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