The Crown & Anchor is shut, it's raining, and Baz, Jeremy and Paul are sitting at the table they've held for four seasons with nobody behind the bar to tell them off. Ted Lasso Season 4 Episode 10, "Being Alive," opens on Mae's wake and spends most of its runtime showing how much of Richmond she was quietly holding up.

That turns out to be literal. Mae saves the club after she's gone, keeps the pub with the people who loved it, and gets the closing montage in her own voice. The finale is at its best when it's dealing with grief and honesty. It's at its weakest in the boardroom, where a takeover plot the show spent weeks building gets tidied away so neatly that it barely registers looking back.

Catch up on our Episode 9 review or head to the PX2S Ted Lasso Season 4 hub if you're behind. The full season is streaming now on Apple TV.

Ted finally tells Henry the truth

Last week the show muted Rebecca when she broke the news about Mae. This week it does the same thing with the most important conversation of the episode, and it works just as well the second time.

Henry slips out during "The Parting Glass," and Ted finds him upstairs wiping his eyes. He misses Mae helping with his homework. Then he asks how his grandfather died and whether he was Ted's age. Ted backs the falling-down-the-stairs version and promises he's good on stairs. It's a sweet dad line, and it's also a lie, and the show knows that.

Ted knows it too. A few days later he's asking Beard whether his parents ever lied to him, admitting he went a bit "serpentine." Then he sits down next to Henry at the kitchen table, apologizes for missing games, and tells him what really happened to his father. We never hear a word of it. We don't need to. Ted's panic attacks in Season 1 started with that story, and it's taken him four seasons to tell it to his own son. Sudeikis plays both scenes small and lets the gap between them do the work.

Mae's will is the best twist the season had

The shareholders' meeting goes the way you'd expect at first. Zelda walks in, reveals she's been buying up shares through Hugo, and explains she was never after the women's team. She wants a Premier League men's side, because that's the only way she thinks men in football will listen to her. Then Higgins springs his own trap: Hugo sold the Milk sisters' shares back to Rebecca, and it's 49% each.

The tiebreaker comes from Elaine Pinter on a video call, complete with a proper Pinter pause. Mae's 2% goes back to Rebecca. The pub goes to Baz, Jeremy and Paul, with a single instruction: "Don't f*ck it up."

We loved this. Mae buying those shares earlier in the season looked like a throwaway beat, and the finale turns it into the thing that keeps Richmond in the right hands. Then Mae reads Mary Oliver's "When Death Comes" over the closing montage; the three lads are pulling pints, and Alice's framed photo of the squad with Mae on the bus is hanging on the wall. Annette Badland said she'd still be part of the finale without appearing in it. She's the spine of it.

Zelda deserved a better exit

The trouble is everything around that will. Rebecca and Higgins were ahead of Zelda all along, so the big reveal plays like a sketch rather than a threat. Rebecca forgives her on the spot and flips the scorpion and the frog into a story about a woman who keeps saving the scorpion because that's her nature. It's very Rebecca. It also drains the stakes out of a plot the season spent weeks building.

Zelda's motive was the most interesting idea in the whole takeover story: a woman who's decided the only way to be heard in men's football is to own a piece of it, and it gets one speech before she's marched home with Hugo. Tracey Ullman deserved more than that.

Roy grows up without a broken car

In our Episode 8 review we complained that Roy and Keeley were being pushed together by car breakdowns and dead Tube trains. The finale gives Roy two proper scenes instead.

The first is a Diamond Dogs meeting, with Alice welcomed in as a Cat Person and Nate dropping by. Roy's terrified of messing up a perfect kid, everyone offers advice, and Alice lands the best line: don't disappear when you feel inadequate. Nate being happily married and coaching Poland is a bit tidy considering where his story went, but it's a warm scene and it earns its spot.

The second is Roy telling Rebecca he's taking the Chelsea job. She panics, then admits he's handling it exactly right, and he reminds her she's the one who told him to get out of his own way. He ignores her handshake and hugs her. Later he finds a note from Ted saying he'll be a great dad with one of Ted's little green army men and puts it straight in his pocket. Brett Goldstein has been great all season, but this is the first time the show has let Roy change because of something he decided.

Alice gets the job

This is the ending the season needed. Ted spends one scene staring at his dad's Salesman of the Year plaque, walks into Rebecca's office with biscuits, and asks about the manager role. The job goes to Alice, with Ted and Beard as her assistants.

A season about women's football ends with the man whose name is on the show stepping aside for the woman who'd been doing the work. Tanya Reynolds has carried the Lady Greyhounds since Episode 2, and she gets the title to match. The finale even pays off the running chair gag, which we won't spoil beyond saying Alice had more to do with it than we thought.

Rebecca proposing to Matthijs, pencil skirt and all, and Isaac shaving Beard's head are the dessert. Both are fun. Neither needed much time.

What's missing is the match

We never find out how the Lady Greyhounds' final game ends. We see a sold-out Nelson Road, Shannon making her first start for her childhood club, Lizzie walking out with her boys, and the men's squad in the stands. Then a title card tells us there are 112 days until next season.

We get why. The full stands were the win, and the result isn't the point. But the players have been the thinnest part of Season 4, and the finale cuts their last match to make room for everyone else's goodbyes. Shannon and Lizzie get glimpses when they could have had a moment.

TL;DR (For The Skippers)

Richmond holds Mae's wake at the Crown & Anchor, and Henry takes her death harder than he lets on
Ted tells Henry the stairs story about his grandfather, then goes back and tells him the truth
Roy gets offered the Chelsea head coaching job and takes it, staying on to finish the season at Richmond
Keeley's viral video sells out Nelson Road for the Lady Greyhounds' final match
Zelda reveals she was behind the takeover, Hugo Riddles turns on her, and Mae's will hands her 2% stake to Rebecca for a 51% majority
Mae leaves the pub to Baz, Jeremy, and Paul
Rebecca proposes to Matthijs, and Alice becomes manager of the Lady Greyhounds with Ted and Beard as her assistants

We rate everything on the following scale:

PRESS X — This is worth your time. Go watch it, play it, listen to it.

YOUR CALL — Solid enough, flawed enough. Depends what you're in the mood for.

SKIP IT — Not worth the time you'd spend on it. There's better stuff out there.

So where does that leave the finale?

"Being Alive" isn't as sharp as "Mae Rides the Bus," and the Zelda plot ends with a shrug. But the things that matter most here are Ted and Henry, Mae's will, Roy and Rebecca, and Alice getting the job, and all of them land. Ted himself still seems a little lost by the end, even with everyone around him sorted, and that's a more honest place to leave him than a bow on top. Whether there's a Season 5 or not, this works as a place to stop.

Verdict: PRESS X

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