Why ‘Ted Lasso’ Ended Episode 9 With a Tribute to Anthony Head
The actor who played Rupert Mannion died in June at 72. He didn't film Season 4, but his character is at the center of the episode that honors him.
- Ted Lasso Season 4, Episode 9, “Mae Rides the Bus,” ends with a card that reads “In Memory of Anthony Head.”
- Head, who played Rebecca’s ex-husband, Rupert Mannion, in Seasons 1 to 3, died in June at 72 from complications of pneumonia.
- He didn’t film Season 4, but Rupert is at the center of Episodes 8 and 9, which is why the tribute landed there.
Ted Lasso said goodbye to its villain this week. Season 4, Episode 9, which Apple TV released on Wednesday, Sept. 30, closes with a card in memory of Anthony Head, the British actor who played Rupert Mannion.
Head died in June at 72. His daughters, actresses Emily Head and Daisy Head, announced the news on June 5.
Why was ‘Ted Lasso’ Season 4, Episode 9 dedicated to Anthony Head?
Because it’s the end of Rupert’s story this season. The character drives the plot of Episodes 8 and 9, even though Head never appears on screen.
Season 4 finished filming in January 2026, months before his death, and Head was not part of it. No storylines changed after he died, and there were no formal plans for him to return.
According to Deadline, producers felt the card belonged at the close of Rupert’s two-episode arc. Running it earlier would have spoiled the twist that ends Episode 9.
Is Rupert in ‘Ted Lasso’ Season 4?
Only as a suspect. Spoilers for Episodes 8 and 9 follow.
Someone is quietly buying up shares of AFC Richmond. Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) and Higgins (Jeremy Swift) go looking for the buyer, and Mae, the pub owner, tells Higgins to “follow the anger.” The trail points to Rupert, who denies it.
Episode 9 reveals the real buyer: Zelda Southport, the eccentric investor played by Tracey Ullman, who has been working through an associate named Hugo Riddles. She paused her purchases while Rebecca blamed Rupert, which made him look guiltier.
Her next target is the shares that protect Rebecca’s 51% controlling stake. The episode ends on a cliffhanger, with an usher bringing Rebecca bad news about Zelda during the team’s game in Bristol.
That’s where the title comes from: Ted invites Mae to ride the bus with the team to Bristol, and she ends up giving the pregame speech in the locker room.
Rupert, the billionaire whose divorce left Rebecca with AFC Richmond, the club she first tried to sink to spite him, was the series’ closest thing to a villain. He was recurring in Seasons 1 and 2 and a series regular in Season 3, as the new owner of West Ham United.
“It’s just so good to be a part of, even though I’m the villain,” Head said in an Apple TV featurette released for Season 3.
Who was Anthony Head, and how did he die?
An English actor with more than four decades of stage and screen work, best known to Americans as Rupert Giles, the librarian and mentor in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003). In the U.K., he was King Uther in the BBC’s Merlin and the Prime Minister in Little Britain.
Before all of it came the Nescafé Gold Blend commercials, a soap opera in coffee ads that ran from 1987 to 1993 and aired in the U.S. as Taster’s Choice. In 1990, he played Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Show in London.
His daughters said he “passed away peacefully of complications due to pneumonia, surrounded by his family.” Pneumonia is an infection that inflames the air sacs of the lungs, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
His death came six months after that of his longtime partner, Sarah Fisher, the mother of Emily and Daisy. Fisher, an animal welfare campaigner, died in December 2025 at 61. The couple met in 1982.
Tell Giles I figured it out and I’m ok. Well, I don’t have it figured out and I’m not ok.
Sarah Michelle Gellar, on Anthony Head
Sarah Michelle Gellar opened her tribute with Buffy’s last message for Giles, from the Season 5 finale. From the Ted Lasso cast, Brett Goldstein called him “a brilliant actor who played the worst person in the world,” and “the best person.”
The Ted Lasso Season 4 finale streams on Wednesday, Oct. 7, on Apple TV.
Anthony Head, on and off 'Ted Lasso'
4 photos · swipe
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Hannah Waddingham as Rebecca Welton in the first Ted Lasso trailer, in 2020. Rebecca got AFC Richmond in her divorce from Rupert. (Apple TV) -
Brett Goldstein as Roy Kent in the Ted Lasso Season 4 trailer. Goldstein said Head played “the worst person in the world” and was “the best person.” (Apple TV) -
Anthony Head on Lorraine in October 2015, telling the story of how he nearly turned down Little Britain. (Lorraine / ITV) -
Anthony Head on This Morning in February 2021, from home in Bath, promoting the dark comedy School’s Out Forever. (This Morning / ITV)
More from Movies & TV: how Dennis Haskins, Mr. Belding on ‘Saved by the Bell,’ died at 75, what’s in Netflix’s new Matthew Perry docuseries and how Apple TV’s ‘Widow’s Bay’ broke the Emmys comedy record.
— Bruno Monteiro
Sources: Apple TV (Ted Lasso Season 4, Episode 9, “Mae Rides the Bus,” Sept. 30, 2026); Deadline (Nellie Andreeva), Sept. 30, 2026, for the producers’ reasoning and the production schedule; Emily and Daisy Head, statement to the Press Association, June 5, 2026; Collider (Kendall Myers), Sept. 30, 2026, and Show Snob (Matthew Fox) for the Episode 8 and 9 plot; The Independent (Caitlin Hornik), Sept. 30, 2026; RTÉ, June 6, 2026, for the tributes from Sarah Michelle Gellar and Brett Goldstein; Ready Steady Cut (Jonathon Wilson), Sept. 30, 2026; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NIH), for the definition of pneumonia. Photos and video: Apple TV (“Richmond Till We Die” featurette and Ted Lasso trailers); BBC / Lucas and Walliams (Little Britain); This Morning (ITV); Lorraine (ITV).
Reported from Apple TV on Youtube.
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