I noticed, and im sure many others did too, that the end of season 3, ted comes home, henry comes out of the house, greets him, and michelle is at the door. Henry ushers ted in, and shortly after they are at a soccer game with henry, where michelle says " come on boys", cheering both on? Are they back together?
It wasn’t the feeling i was getting from that. But i think they left it up to personal interpretation.
I really hoped they’d get back together, but then she dated Dr. Jake and that really spoiled it. I’m glad they left it a little vague. Even if they don’t get back together I hope Dr. Jake is out of the picture for good.
I think we are too understand that they are a family even if they are no longer married or in love. The happy ending was Henry’s happy ending. His family is united and healthy
Brendan Hunt in the AMA said something along the lines of Ted and Michelle being in a “good place” as co parents at the end of the series. But I don’t think there’s any doubt that the writers have left the door open to the possibility of Ted and Michelle reuniting.
The series starts with Ted moving to a different country in order to save his marriage. I liked the idea that Ted’s journey was him coming to terms with the end of that relationship and finding happiness anyway. But the writers hint at a full circle - that maybe Ted gets what he wanted in episode one.
By the end of S3, Michelle seems to have tired of Jacob and kicked him to the curb. There were a few times when the direction and script wanted us to notice Michelle “softening” towards Ted: her smile after the Facetime call, their banter at the pub, her lingering look outside the taxi. Mae tells Ted “nothing is impossible”.
Ted never wavered in his love for Michelle, and he was super upset at the idea of Michelle marrying someone else. It seems that he’ll be staying in the house he used to share with Michelle and Henry. I suspect the writers knew that a lot of viewers wouldn’t like the idea of Ted and Michelle reuniting. But it seemed like it was what Ted wanted, and Jason Sudeikis. I wonder if a less ambiguous ending, where they clearly get back together, was pitched but rejected.
i mean… he was super upset at the idea of Michelle marrying someone else?
i thought he mostly got over he by the end of season 1
and when he found out from Henry that’s she’s dating someone, in ep1,season 3, he was still
doing fine in episode 2.
what bothered him was finding out it’s drJake the snake.
I dont see him
being bothered if she married some rando.
I kinda wish we got a bit more insight into their marriage. They’ve been together since they were about 20ish and if we take Andrea Anders and Jason Sudeikis’s ages as their characters ages, they’re about 45 when they split, and Henry’s about 10 at most, so they were mid-30s when he was born.
It could be that they waited for a while before having kids, and got lucky first shot at it, but I do wonder if they struggled to get pregnant for a long time, or if Michelle had one or more miscarriages, and the stress of that faced with Ted’s unrelenting positivity and can do attitude contributed to the break down. It also adds to the parent-child theme of the show- that it was a struggle for them to become parents.
Yes, I’ve wondered about that too. It is a bit of a mystery, why it took so long into their marriage for them to have Henry. I saw a copy of the pilot script online, and in it Ted is described as 40 years old, and Henry as 10. So that would mean he and Michelle had Henry aged about 30, which would be more understandable - they got together in college, established careers, bought a house, then had a child (then we might wonder why they had only one, but still).
My guess is that the character ages were largely because of practical/production reasons - I think the Ted Lasso script was probably written when Jason Sudeikis was 40 or close to, but not shot until he was 45. I’m not sure why Henry got aged down except that younger kids are kind of cuter.
In-universe, I think your theory about fertility issues is a good one. My other head-cannon was that maybe Ted was a bit fearful of parenthood and kept putting it off, because of what happened to his dad.
I thought she got engaged in Paris. Isn’t that why couples go to Paris? To get engaged?!
I just saw it as them co-parenting. Ted had told Michelle that no matter what they would always be a family.
I think that Michelle couldn’t be with Ted because of his relentless cheeriness that was his way of avoiding difficult confrontations. She starts to soften after he expresses his discomfort with her dating Jake over the phone - possibly the first time he’d ever said anything that indicated everything wasn’t peachy keen. Once he confronted his trauma over his dad’s suicide, and then the whole fuck-you-thank-you with his mom, Ted got to a place where he could be a functioning partner.
I think Michelle always loved him, and they clearly have a similar sense of humor. But his avoidance of conflict and inability to deal with trauma left so much of the emotional labor to her, and she couldn’t anymore.
Now that he’s home, and he can communicate his feelings and deal with them better, she might see him as the man she always knew he could be.
So I think they eventually get back together, and are healthier and happier than ever
This is exactly how I read the situation. Having someone who ALWAYS brings up a silver lining can be incredibly invalidating to your own feelings, especially when you know there’s more going on under the surface, and I suspect that was Michelle’s biggest issue with Ted.
I 100% think so, but I hear that most people disagree!
I dont know if they’re back together but she seems to be souring on dr Jacob during the final west ham match.
the actor who plays Beard confirmed that it’s supposed to be unclear, ambiguous. The point is that
Ted has become the best version of himself - as the show stated, that is the real goal, see his talk with Trent Crimm, Independent in season 1 episode 3.
He also
is back with his son. other stuff doesn’t matter.
I disagree. I think that even though Dr. Jacob was a manipulative POS, Michelle was always going to leave Ted. She fell out of love. Ted deserves better. I think they’re co-parenting, since for both of them, Henry is the most important thing.