Ted Lasso Season 3 Finale Has a Tear-Jerking Connection to Guardians of the Galaxy
Ted Lasso chief Bill Lawrence has a pretty broad and varied body of work, but one of the key consistencies across it is his love (and use) of popular music. Almost every episode of Scrubs ended with some indie rock playing, and Cougar Town actually named all of its episodes after Tom Petty songs. So maybe it's no surprise that in "So Long, Farewell," the season 3 finale of Ted Lasso, there's a pretty meaningful needle drop in the final moments. What's arguably a little more surprising is that the song used has ties to the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise.
Even with over 150 episodes of Scrubs, Lawrence couldn't lay claim to being more closely associated with pop music soundtracks than James Gunn, so maybe it stands to reason that they would both make some similar choices. In any case, as the episode wraps up and most of the characters get their final ride into the sunset, "Father and Son" by Yusuf/Cat Stevens plays -- the same song used to drive home an emotional point at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2.
Stevens, who later changed his name to Yusuf Islam but continues to use both names interchangeably in his professional life, first wrote "Father and Son" for an abandoned musical starring Nigel Hawthorne, which would have been set during the Russian revolution. The song centers on a boy who wanted to join the revolution, which puts a strain on his relationship with his father, who is a conservative farmer. While the musical itself never happened, "Father and Son" is right up there with Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle" and Bruce Springsteen's "My Father's House," in terms of tear-jerking songs about tortured father-son relationships.
The cast and crew of Ted Lasso have long presented a three-season plan for the series, suggesting that today's episode marks "the end" -- if not of Ted Lasso, then at least of the story that the creators first set out to tell with the characters. The question of a fourth season has been hanging over the whole third season of the show, with star and producer Jason Sudeikis giving some pretty noncommittal answers along the way.
By the end of the episode, ome characters are more cleanly resolved than others, with Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) rebooting her love life and Keeley (Juno Temple) getting her PR film back up and running with Barbara (Katy Wix).
Still, two of those three characters laid the groundwork for a potential spinoff in the final moments of the show, with Keeley pitching Rebecca on the idea of a women's team for AFC Richmond. Rebecca seems fairly open to the idea, which suggests an open door to follow up on the world of Ted Lasso without having to undo anyone's happy ending in order to do so. A women's team would let Rebecca and Keeley continue their stories -- which ended on new beginnings rather than totally clean endings -- while presumably allowing space for other fan-favorite characters to duck in and out of the series as scheduling permits.
You can see all three seasons of Ted Lasso now on Apple TV+.