If the second episode of Ted Lasso’s season four was about making the case for Ted’s appointment as head coach, the third episode is about re-establishing the stakes behind AFC Richmond’s gamble on the women’s team. Indeed, in E3, audiences are treated to a number of context-providing curveballs, all of which are meant to underscore just how difficult it is to engender interest in women’s sports when the powers that be make it really freakin’ hard to do so. Despite Keeley’s best efforts, the Lady Greyhounds’ uniforms do not arrive on time for the group’s debut match, a completely preventable hiccup that threatens to undermine the team’s professionalism; a shareholders’ meeting full of shareholders who don’t care much at all about the women’s squad goes awry, in turn spooking spineless team sponsors; and even broadcasters complicate things unnecessarily when they decline to air the game on cable and instead push it to an ersatz streaming platform.
All of these roadblocks are worthwhile pain points to highlight, and drive home just how much progress we have to make (the mere existence of a women’s team is not enough, people!). And though the show does this effectively, working in some good laughs as usual, I only hope it can meaningfully expand on those issues and find something new and worthwhile to say about them by the end.
