It Still Stings: Ted Lasso Chickened Out of Its Best Romance

Editor’s Note: TV moves on, but we haven’t. In our feature series It Still Stings, we relive emotional TV moments that we just can’t get over. You know the ones, where months, years, or even decades later, it still provokes a reaction? We’re here for you. We rant because we love. Or, once loved. And obviously, when discussing finales in particular, there will be spoilers:

In May of 2023, Ted Lasso concluded its three-season run with a controversial ending that blatantly refused to give closure to the series’ various storylines. The funny and heartfelt series that follows an American football coach as he struggles to transform the mindset of an failing English soccer team won viewers over not simply with its whimsy positivity, but its ensemble cast of characters. While the cast is filled with over a dozen central characters, there were three that stole viewers’ hearts.

The relationship that got the shortest end of the stick was undeniably the potential throuple of Richmond coach Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein), player Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster), and PR assistant Keeley Jones (Juno Temple). The show traced this budding relationship initially with Jamie and Keeley, then Roy and Keeley, and then through Jamie and Roy until all three sides of this love triangle touched. The steady transformation of each of these characters and their relationship with one another made fans question whether or not the writers would truly go there, and just when it seemed like it was the only logical choice, the writers fumbled it in the series finale.

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When we first meet each of these characters, they’re at a crossroads in their life: Roy, the golden boy of Richmond, is in the twilight of his career after a knee injury; Keeley wants more from her life than being a model; and Jamie’s de facto bad boy reputation is causing his life to become stagnant. While Keeley and Jamie are initially in a relationship in the show’s first season, they break up, leaving her and Roy room to quickly fall in love and become the series’ main romantic relationship.

But this doesn’t leave Jamie out of the picture. Through his Season 2 arc, he’s given the space to confront his traumatic childhood and become a fan favorite, and it’s then that his relationship with the two slowly begins to grow. Season 3, however, is where the potential of this throuple began to really set in. In its final season, Ted Lasso’s writers make a case for not only queerness with Jamie, but polyamory for him, Keeley, and Roy.

In the wake of a shocking and out-of-character breakup between Roy and Keeley, the coach’s relationship with Jamie only grows stronger. Roy begins to train Jamie away from the rest of the Richmond team, allowing them time alone to get to know each other more intimately. The series sets up Roy as Jamie’s childhood hero-turned-practice partner, and it feels like the central plot of a 100k word fan-fiction on Archive of Our Own—and the show is all the better for it. Slowly, every interaction between the two starts to feel like the set up for a rom-com, and their connection to Keeley makes it even more so.

In Episode 11, “Mom City,” Jamie, debilitated by his anxiety of having a game in his hometown, brings Keeley and Roy to his childhood home, where they meet his mother. At the end of the visit, it’s revealed that Jamie has a poster of both Keeley and Roy in his childhood bedroom. Though it’s played for a slight gag, what this scene really signals is not only Jamie’s bisexuality, but his longing desire for both of these people, who now exist as his sole romantic prospects. It’s clear that the two have since changed his life for the better, and with both of their help, he was forced to become a gentler version of himself.

With Keeley, the men are able to become more vulnerable than they were in Season 1, and in turn, it allows their relationship with each other to grow. Through the ways she influenced them during the series’ run, Roy is able to become more heartfelt and thoughtful, and Jamie is encouraged to wear his heart on his sleeve. In turn, when Keeley has distanced herself from the two of them to find her own way, it’s clear that Jamie and Roy enjoy each other’s company. The three of them, no matter how they couple off, work together better than any other dynamic in the series.

It’s a true love triangle where all corners touch, which is a choice that most shows and films haven’t been brave enough to take. Before the dreaded series finale, the relationship between Jamie, Keeley, and Roy was never motivated by jealousy or “teams”—ala Jacob and Edward in Twilight. By contrast, within their triangle and amongst all of their separate pairings, their common denominator has been mutual attempts at building respect, communication, and accountability.

For a while, it felt like the show understood how queer-coded both Jamie and Roy were by pairing them up like this, while also allowing Keeley to explore her own bisexuality with her new girlfriend Jack (Jodi Balfour) when she’s away from the boys. The continued commitment to Roy and Jamie’s relationship paired with the constant infatuation the two men have for Keeley (and the end of her ill-fated relationship with Jack) opens the door for polyamory as the answer to this quirky love triangle as they all come boomeranging back towards one another. When Season 3 began to wind down, it became impossible to see a future for these characters where they aren’t together.

It’s clear that these characters have the capacity to love each other fully, while understanding the differences each relationship can carry. This is what makes the dynamic between the three of them the most refreshing on the show. There are very few shows, or films for that matter, that have managed to pull off showcasing polyamourous relationships. Other than Netflix’s Sense 8, Ted Lasso had the potential to become a big step not only for representation, but for shows actually listening to its fans’ inclinations and following the story where it naturally would lead.

But instead, after building up the close bond between these three, the series pivoted: deciding that more than three explicitly queer characters was too much, and instead forcing viewers to watch the series’ best relationship crumble before them in the final episodes’ last minutes. The series completely failed these three in a flash; with Roy and Jamie forcing Keeley to choose between them, and getting into a physical altercation in the process. Of course, this leaves her not wanting to date either of them.

Roy and Jamie’s conflicts with each other predated their mutual love for Keeley, and it’s through their love for her that they were able to learn to care for each other as well. Along with this, Keeley was allowed to care about both of them in different ways, maintaining different relationships with each of them on her own terms. It’s the perfect setup for one of the best relationships of the decade, and over a year later, it’s still frustrating to think about how it crumbled. Ted Lasso had the potential to make television history, but, instead, they proved that their understanding of queerness and love is quite superficial. Instead of ending on a satisfying note, they left their dedicated fans and beloved characters in freefall, forcing them to exist in a limbo that left much to be desired.

Kaiya Shunyata is a freelance pop culture writer and academic based in Toronto. They have written for Rogerebert.com, Xtra, The Daily Dot, and more. You can follow them on Twitter, where they gab about film, queer subtext, and television.

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