The End Of Ted Lasso Season 3 Will Touch On Coach Beard's Mysterious Backstory
This post contains spoilers for "Ted Lasso," up to season 3, episode 9 "La Locker Room Aux Folles."
If you haven't learned enough about Coach Beard on "Ted Lasso" already, that may change before the end of season 3. Portrayed by Brendan Hunt, who doubles as a writer and co-executive producer for "Ted Lasso," Beard has always juggled a certain mystique with bursts of too much information. In the show's most recent episode, "La Locker Room Aux Folles," he had to be pulled out of a press conference for getting into a heated argument with a journalist about who was a better guitarist, Joe Walsh or Jimmy Page.
This had nothing to do with Premier League football, of course, but it's just one example of how Beard has been known to lose his composure — in this case, shouting non-sequiturs like, "Jimmy Page is a f***ing court stenographer on Adderall!" and "'Stairway to Heaven' is a glorified fingering exercise, and you all know it!"
There's also Beard's on-again, off-again relationship with the obsessive Jane Payne, played by fellow "Ted Lasso" writer Phoebe Walsh, and his zany Amsterdam stint in a David Bowie cover band, Piggy Stardust — a nod to Hunt's real-life past. The infamous season 2 episode "Beard After Hours" spent the whole night following Beard around London, but in a recent interview, Hunt indicated that the end of season 3 will reveal more of Beard's past and his stateside origin with Ted. The actor told Awards Radar:
"I do have a backstory [for Beard]... but I'm afraid I cannot share it with you. As that would be tiptoeing dangerously close to a spoiler. You see, we see a few more things about Beard coming up in these last few episodes."
Is more Beard/Ted really a good thing?
"Ted Lasso" season 3 has a lot of balls in the air right now with its various subplots, and somehow, it's going to have to wrap everything up within the next three episodes if it wants to deliver a satisfying ending to the three-season arc that the show's creators have long discussed. In some ways, you can already feel the show putting the pieces in place for Ted to move back to America to be with his son, possibly taking Coach Beard with him.
Having Roy Kent take over for them at the next press conference in "La Locker Room Aux Folles" is just the latest sign that the two American coaches may be on their way out, but the Lasso-verse could still continue in another form after the current series ends.
Some viewers may have already seen more than enough of Coach Beard in "Beard After Hours," which earned mixed reviews, with some reactions on social media even calling it a jump-the-shark episode. Like the Christmas episode, "Carol of the Bells," "Beard After Hours" was a fill-in episode written after Apple TV+ decided to expand "Ted Lasso" season 2 from 10 episodes to 12 at the last minute.
Since then, we've seen much more filler added to "Ted Lasso," padding the average runtime of episodes to one hour. Meanwhile, the tide of critical opinion has turned against the show further, with The Atlantic declaring in recent weeks that "'Ted Lasso' has lost its way," and USA Today adding, "'Ted Lasso' season 3 is collapsing before our eyes." It's starting to feel like the show may have strayed from the path, but it's never too late for it to rebound and deliver some funny answers for those curious to know more about Beard's backstory.