Spoilers ahead.
With a title like “So Long, Farewell,” you’d think the last episode of Ted Lasso marked a definitive end to Apple TV+’s beloved comedy series. And it some ways it did—the mustachioed titular coach steps down as manager of AFC Richmond and returns home to Kansas to reunite with his son—but it also left some doors open for the Lasso-verse to continue and expand.
The final moments of the season 3 finale tease some potential spinoff angles, most notably one focusing on an AFC Richmond Women’s Team, which Keeley proposes to Rebecca in the closing montage. It’s also possible that the show could just continue on without Ted; the series and characters are widely loved enough that audiences would continue watching without Jason Sudeikis in the lead role. In fact, Roy Kent ends up succeeding Ted as the club’s manager, marking a new chapter for the team that could warrant new seasons, or a new series as a whole. As Vulture points out, we’ve yet to see them win the Premier League title.
And when Trent Crimm hands in his manuscript of his book about Richmond, Ted urges him to ditch the title The Lasso Way because “It’s not about me. It never was.” Might Sudeikis be referring to the series as a whole?
While we don’t know whether any of these proposed spinoffs will get the green light—and remember, the Writer’s Guild of America strike is ongoing, so the wait will be long if a deal isn’t reached—Juno Temple, who plays Keeley, vaguely weighed in on the possible focus on an AFC Richmond women’s team.
Keely and Rebecca “want to help women believe in themselves because they’ve done that for each other, and they know how good that feels and how much strength it gives you,” she told Deadline. “Even when you take a knock, you’ve got somebody that can help support you.”
That’s something we’ve seen between the two of them over the past three seasons: a wholesome, supportive female friendship thriving in a very male-dominated work environment and sport. Even Temple notes how the bond between the two characters “has created such an amazing conversation about how female friendships need to be viewed in this industry as extraordinarily important, powerful, brilliant, and uncompetitive, just loving relationships.”
As for what the duo could do next, she added, “I think it would be amazing to see how they would continue to do wonderful things together and also how that then would bleed out into other women passing that on to other women.”
We’ll have to wait and see if that idea ends up materializing into a full-blown series, but if one thing’s for sure, it’s that viewers aren’t ready to say “So Long, Farewell” at all.
Erica Gonzales is the Senior Culture Editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage on TV, movies, music, books, and more. She was previously an editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com. There is a 75 percent chance she's listening to Lorde right now.
