Lassoism.com - Ted Lasso Blog
Review: S04E09 - Mae Rides the Bus
October 6, 2026 - Lassoism.com Editor
I want the full experience. (Ted Lasso/Warner Media)
"Mae Rides the Bus," the ninth episode of Ted Lasso's fourth season, is structured as both a sporting climax and a deliberate exercise in continuity. Aired on September 30, 2026, the penultimate hour sends AFC Richmond's Lady Greyhounds to Bristol needing a win to secure promotion, then layers that result with a pregnancy disclosure, the unmasking of a share-acquisition plot, and the death of Mae Green. The episode's densest effects come from how those turns echo earlier seasons rather than from the events in isolation.
The match is staged as a corrective to Ted's first campaign. Where his debut season with the men's side ended in relegation, his first season with the women's side produces an improbable promotion to the Women's Super League. Richmond trail 2–0, Gemma converts a penalty before withdrawing at half-time on medical advice, Boots accepts the gloves Beard has been urging, and Shannon finishes a 4–2 comeback. Even the celebration is framed against memory: after Lizzie's go-ahead goal, a teammate pulls the side back into focus, a visual rhyme with the men's equalizer that once felt like salvation and still ended in relegation. Ted's verbal habits travel with him. Confronted again with the Harrigan twins' names, he still renders Siobhan as "Cinnabon," a running mispronunciation the show declines to retire.
Mae's expanded role is itself a callback. Earlier in the season she functioned as Higgins's source in an All the President's Men homage, telling him to "follow the anger" rather than the money. Here Ted invites her onto the team bus after she notes that a drive of that length is impractical at her "level of seasoning." She asks for the full away-day experience, poses with the squad, and delivers the pre-match talk. The speech supplies the episode's clearest historical reference: she wanted to play, but came of age under the long ban on organized women's football in England, and describes a right foot "like a rosebush." She then chooses the stands over the directors' box. House of Pain's "Jump Around," previously the soundtrack to Roy Kent's knee injury, returns over the public-address system as the crowd, and Mae rise. The song has become the show's recurring omen for a medical emergency. After the final whistle her seat is empty; a steward reaches her on the ground; Rebecca is told there has been an incident involving Ms. Green. The penultimate episode of a season once again ends with Rebecca delivering unwelcome news to Ted. The credits run in silence and carry a dedication to Anthony Head, who played Rupert Mannion and died earlier in 2026. Rupert's lawyers have already cleared him of the share purchases, so the tribute arrives only after that character's off-screen arc is closed.
The remaining reveals are equally continuous with prior setup. Keeley's faint leads Caroline to ask about her last period - eight weeks earlier - and a set of tests confirms the pregnancy. She tells Rebecca first, then Roy, who has only just reconciled with her; he receives the news as the best thing he has heard. Zelda, meanwhile, is shown to be the buyer Higgins and Rebecca had suspected was Rupert, working through Hugo and now close to the Milk sisters' shares. The twins' synchronized telling of an escaped pig named Oo Goobley earlier in the hour is not merely comic: their finishing of each other's sentences previews the diamond shape Ted then uses, with the pair at its center, to manufacture the equalizer.
Reviews treated the hour as consequential and overcrowded in roughly equal measure. The sporting reversal and Mae's address were widely credited; the pregnancy and the death were more often described as compressed, the former arriving almost immediately after a reconciliation the characters themselves call recent, the latter abrupt for a figure who, until this season, had remained largely atmospheric. The title does double duty. Mae literally rides the bus to Bristol, and the episode then places her, in the older television sense, permanently offstage.
With the finale next on the slate of episodes, the Lady Greyhounds are promoted in all but name, Roy and Keeley face parenthood at the start of a renewed relationship, Rebecca's control of the club is under direct threat, and the dressing room must absorb the absence of the supporter who had been present since the Crown & Anchor first appeared. "Mae Rides the Bus" is most precise when it treats those outcomes as variations on earlier Richmond stories - relegation and promotion, a song that precedes injury, a name Ted still cannot say, a truth delivered by Rebecca at the edge of a season - rather than as isolated shocks.
Our Rating: 9/10
The match is staged as a corrective to Ted's first campaign. Where his debut season with the men's side ended in relegation, his first season with the women's side produces an improbable promotion to the Women's Super League. Richmond trail 2–0, Gemma converts a penalty before withdrawing at half-time on medical advice, Boots accepts the gloves Beard has been urging, and Shannon finishes a 4–2 comeback. Even the celebration is framed against memory: after Lizzie's go-ahead goal, a teammate pulls the side back into focus, a visual rhyme with the men's equalizer that once felt like salvation and still ended in relegation. Ted's verbal habits travel with him. Confronted again with the Harrigan twins' names, he still renders Siobhan as "Cinnabon," a running mispronunciation the show declines to retire.
Mae's expanded role is itself a callback. Earlier in the season she functioned as Higgins's source in an All the President's Men homage, telling him to "follow the anger" rather than the money. Here Ted invites her onto the team bus after she notes that a drive of that length is impractical at her "level of seasoning." She asks for the full away-day experience, poses with the squad, and delivers the pre-match talk. The speech supplies the episode's clearest historical reference: she wanted to play, but came of age under the long ban on organized women's football in England, and describes a right foot "like a rosebush." She then chooses the stands over the directors' box. House of Pain's "Jump Around," previously the soundtrack to Roy Kent's knee injury, returns over the public-address system as the crowd, and Mae rise. The song has become the show's recurring omen for a medical emergency. After the final whistle her seat is empty; a steward reaches her on the ground; Rebecca is told there has been an incident involving Ms. Green. The penultimate episode of a season once again ends with Rebecca delivering unwelcome news to Ted. The credits run in silence and carry a dedication to Anthony Head, who played Rupert Mannion and died earlier in 2026. Rupert's lawyers have already cleared him of the share purchases, so the tribute arrives only after that character's off-screen arc is closed.
The remaining reveals are equally continuous with prior setup. Keeley's faint leads Caroline to ask about her last period - eight weeks earlier - and a set of tests confirms the pregnancy. She tells Rebecca first, then Roy, who has only just reconciled with her; he receives the news as the best thing he has heard. Zelda, meanwhile, is shown to be the buyer Higgins and Rebecca had suspected was Rupert, working through Hugo and now close to the Milk sisters' shares. The twins' synchronized telling of an escaped pig named Oo Goobley earlier in the hour is not merely comic: their finishing of each other's sentences previews the diamond shape Ted then uses, with the pair at its center, to manufacture the equalizer.
Reviews treated the hour as consequential and overcrowded in roughly equal measure. The sporting reversal and Mae's address were widely credited; the pregnancy and the death were more often described as compressed, the former arriving almost immediately after a reconciliation the characters themselves call recent, the latter abrupt for a figure who, until this season, had remained largely atmospheric. The title does double duty. Mae literally rides the bus to Bristol, and the episode then places her, in the older television sense, permanently offstage.
With the finale next on the slate of episodes, the Lady Greyhounds are promoted in all but name, Roy and Keeley face parenthood at the start of a renewed relationship, Rebecca's control of the club is under direct threat, and the dressing room must absorb the absence of the supporter who had been present since the Crown & Anchor first appeared. "Mae Rides the Bus" is most precise when it treats those outcomes as variations on earlier Richmond stories - relegation and promotion, a song that precedes injury, a name Ted still cannot say, a truth delivered by Rebecca at the edge of a season - rather than as isolated shocks.
Our Rating: 9/10