Ted Lasso Season 4 Episode 9 Review: Mae Rides the Bus
Mae has been pulling pints at the Crown & Anchor since the very first episode, and for most of that time Ted Lasso used her the way every pub uses its landlady. She was always there, and she was rarely the point. Season 4 started changing that, and Ted Lasso Season 4 Episode 9, "Mae Rides the Bus," finishes the job. She gets a seat on the team coach to Bristol and the floor in the away dressing room before kickoff, and she watches the Lady Greyhounds win promotion from the supporters' end. Then Rebecca pulls Ted aside after the final whistle, says something we never hear, and his face does the rest.
This is the best episode of the season. The ending is a big part of why, and it's going to sit with people for the whole week before the finale.
Catch up on our Episode 8 review or head to the PX2S Ted Lasso Season 4 hub if you're behind. New episodes stream Wednesdays on Apple TV.
TL;DR (For The Skippers)
Keeley faints during the Southampton loss, finds out she's pregnant, and tells Rebecca before anyone else
Ted invites Mae to ride with the Lady Greyhounds to Bristol, where she tells the squad she once wanted to play and never got the chance
Richmond go 2-0 down, Gemma comes back from injury to score a penalty, then agrees to come off when her knee flares up
Lizzie puts Richmond ahead and Shannon seals a 4-2 comeback that clinches promotion
Zelda is confirmed as the buyer behind the share grab, with Hugo Riddles going after the Milk sisters' stake on her behalf
Rebecca gets word of an incident involving Mae in the stands and breaks the news to Ted
Mae's speech is the heart of Ted Lasso Season 4 Episode 9
The locker room scene is the best thing the show has done this year. Mae stands in front of a squad of professional women footballers and tells them she wanted exactly what they have, back when it wasn't on the table for girls like her. That line has real history behind it. The FA barred women's football from its members' grounds from 1921 until 1971. Annette Badland plays it without a drop of self-pity, and when Mae tells them they're talented and they belong on that pitch, it lands like something she's been waiting her whole life to say to somebody.
Then she turns down the VIP seats and goes to stand with the supporters. That one choice tells you who Mae has been since Season 1. She's a fan first. She wants to be in the noise with her people, and that's where she is when Shannon breaks through and scores the fourth.
Why Mae's death is deserved
"Deserved" is a hard word to use about a character dying, so let me be clear about what I mean. The story earned this. Season 4 has been about the Lady Greyhounds and what the women's team means to the people around it, and nobody at Richmond has carried that more visibly than Mae. Her joy in the stands at their first match was one of the season's quiet highlights. This episode gives her the bus, the dressing room and the promotion in a single day, and then it stops. Plenty of shows would have given her the day and tucked her safely back behind the bar.
The title warned us. You don't call an episode "Mae Rides the Bus" and hand a recurring character a pre-match speech like that unless you're building to something. It still worked on me, because the writers never let the dread take over. Everything up to the last few minutes plays as pure celebration: the comeback, Shannon finally getting out of her own head, the dressing room going off. The show lets you have all of it before it takes anything away.
And why it's so hard to watch
What makes it hurt is where Ted is in his life right now. He's living above her pub this season. He's leaned on her with Henry. Mae stopped being the landlady who once doubted him and became family without anyone making a speech about it, and the show trusts us to have noticed. So when Rebecca comes over, muting her words is the right call. Hannah Waddingham carries the moment with her face, and Jason Sudeikis just folds. We don't need the dialogue. We know what it is.
There's something cruel and something kind in her going at the exact moment the Lady Greyhounds reach the place she dreamed of for them. She saw it. She won't see what comes next. Both of those are in Ted's face, and the episode is honest enough to leave them there without explaining.
The rest of the episode pulls its weight
Last week I complained that Roy and Keeley were being pushed together by broken cars and dead Tube trains. This week they get a proper scene. Keeley has to sit out the Bristol match to keep her blood pressure down, Roy stays with her, and he recreates the whole game with her makeup while giving the calmest commentary of his life. When she tells him she's pregnant, he says it's the happiest he's ever been. No manufactured crisis, no misunderstanding for the finale to clean up. Brett Goldstein playing Roy Kent as a man who is simply, openly happy is worth the episode on its own.
Gemma's arc gets its payoff too. An episode ago she was chasing a hat trick in a game that was already won and paid for it with her knee. Here she hits the penalty, feels the knock, and agrees when Alice wants her off. That's growth you can actually see on the pitch, and it's what hands Shannon her moment.
Zelda finally showing her hand is the one thread that feels like it's mostly waiting for next week. Watching Rebecca pass useful information straight to the woman working against her is painful, and it means the finale has a lot of ground to cover.
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 episode?
"Mae Rides the Bus" is the episode Season 4 has been building toward, and it's the first time this season the show has asked its big emotional moment to do more than resolve a storyline. It takes the most dependable person in Richmond, gives her the best day of her life on screen, and then lets her go. The tribute card to Anthony Head before the credits makes those final minutes even heavier. One episode left, and for the first time in a while I have no idea how Ted Lasso is going to get its people through it.
Verdict: PRESS X