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Ted Lasso has killed off a fan favourite character who’s been on the show since the very first season
The ninth episode of the Apple TV show’s fourth season unexpectedly waved goodbye to an original star in what the actor has described as “the very best way”.
*Spoilers follow – you have been warned*
Pub landlady Mae Green, played by Annette Badland, died after travelling from Richmond to the Lady Greyhounds away match against Bristol City. After expressing concern about making the lengthy trip, Ted (Jason Sudeikis) invited her to join the team on the team bus.
At the match, she gives up her seat alongside Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) in the box so she can watch from the crowd, but the excitement becomes too much. Viewers learn that Mae has collapsed when Rebecca (Hannah Waaddingham) is told, and she walks into the locker room to discover from Ted that Mae has died.
Badland told TV Insider that she was “devastated” to learn the news when Sudeikis told her, and immediately asked: “Can she come back as an angel?” prompting Sudeikis to make some changes to the 10th episode.
“She is there as a presence, if not a full-bodied human being,” the actor revealed.
Badland has since come to terms with her character’s fate, stating: “It’s what Jason wants to say about the world of human beings, and I think that is terrific.”
She added to Deadline: “That’s what happens. You’re involved with folks, and they disappear. And she loved her life. She made the very best of her life and really relished it. So she went, I suppose, for her, in the very best way.”
Badland also confirmed that Ted Lasso wasn’t originally designed to return for another season, with the cast convinced it would just be three.
“We didn’t think there would be another,” she said. “Jason had said, ‘I’ve got a three-series arc, that’ll be it.” And then to go back, it’s very exciting because it’s a risk, isn’t it?”
Season four follows Ted as he returns to England to coach Richmond FC’s newly launched, second-division women’s team. This meant that the original stars who portrayed the men’s soccer team in the first three seasons do not appear in season four.
This includes a number of fan favorites: Toheeb Jimoh’s Sam Obisanya, Cristo Fernández’s Dani Rojas, Kola Bokinni’s Isaac McAdoo, Billy Harris’s Collin Hughes, and Nick Mohammed’s former AFC Richmond assistant coach-turned-rival-West Ham United coach, Nathan Shelley.
