Ted Lasso and Rebecca Welton lived happily ever after… just not with each other.
In the Apple TV+ comedy’s presumed series finale, Ted returned to Kansas to take a more active role in Henry’s life, while Rebecca formed a family of her own with the Dutchman and his daughter. But many a rom-communist wanted Ted and Rebecca to wind up together, and were let down when they went their separate ways.
During a post-finale Reddit AMA, Ted Lasso co-creator and star Brendan Hunt (aka Willis Beard) addressed #Tedbecca ‘shippers and revealed that the writers considered a romance between the football coach and club owner — but only “out of professional responsibility,” he said. “Never with enthusiasm.”
“We have been taught by years and years of television that when there is a male lead and a female lead, they end up together,” Hunt argued. “That can be hard conditioning to see past.”
But it’s not like the signs weren’t there… right? One Reddit user listed off more than a half-dozen alleged indications that Ted and Rebecca were meant to be together — including, but not limited to: the biscuits (and Rebecca’s nails being the same shade as the biscuit box for all of Season 3), the fake outs, the green matchbook and the significance of Sept. 13, 1991. In response, Hunt conceded that Ted and Rebecca “are soulmates,” but maintained that “that does not require romance.”
Hannah Waddingham, who played Rebecca, seemed to suggest the same thing in a recent interview with our sister site Deadline. “If you have chemistry, you have chemistry,” she said. “And, you know, who’s to say that people that walk into your life at any given point couldn’t be more than they are? But for whatever reason, your own cosmic sources are spinning you off in a different direction” — and in the case of Ted, “the most driving thing is that man needed to get back to his boy.”
Of course, none of this stopped the series from teasing ‘shippers. The May 31 finale opened with Ted walking into Rebecca’s kitchen, asking if she’d like to discuss what had happened the night before. It wasn’t until Coach Beard entered (wearing in a red thong, no less) that we learned that Ted, Beard and Jane all crashed at Rebecca’s house due to a gas leak. Asked for her take on this latest fake out, Waddingham told THR, “I don’t think that was added as a thing to wind up these #Tedbecca ‘shippers. I think it purely was to titillate, and I thought it was brilliant.”
Do you think Ted and Rebecca should’ve been endgame? Drop a comment with your thoughts below.
