Welcome to Wrexham's final three episodes brings to a close a disappointing first full season for owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney as Wrexham lose out on the FA Trophy and the all-important league promotion in painfully dramatic fashion.
See, while last week’s 4-episode run gave viewers all the highs the sport has to offer, the docuseries finale offers a heartbreaking look at Wrexham’s failures, all amounting to having to endure another season stuck in the National League. Is it good television? Much to the dismay of players and people that live and breathe Wrexham, yes it is, but at the same time, Reynolds and McElhenney may have secured a few thousand fans all over the world rooting for their team.
“Hello Wembley” sees the team head to one of football and music’s most sacred temples, London’s Wembley, and the show does a fine job illustrating just how much this means for all the players, it’s a dream come true, especially at these lower levels — it’s the type of event attended by the likes of David Beckham, Kit Harrington, Reynolds’ Spirited co-star Will Ferrell, and even Ted Lasso himself. The team gets to play their hearts out for a trophy on the same pitch where the year before England lost the 2020 Euro to Italy, which surely must mean something for a team made up mostly of English players.
And yet, on that particular Sunday afternoon things just didn’t click for Wrexham against Bromley, a side 8 spots beneath them in the league table, but whose grit to lift the trophy speaks of the uncertainty that surrounds football when compared to other sports. Nevertheless, Wrexham real trophy is promotion, that is the reason this entire show exists, and thus why it makes up its ending.
Before that, viewers are treated to a special “Wromance” where author Liz Plank dives deeper into the intricacies of male relationships, love and friendship, tackling the role sports play in men and boys’ early lives. As Welcome to Wrexham has always told its audience, there’s something special about sports stories, and both Reynolds and McElhenney themselves are first-hand witnesses to how they influenced their own personal relationships with their fathers.
That message resonates with plenty of people at Wrexham, from adult men to young kids and the women that grew up loving the club, few more than local star Jordan Davies, who also gets a spotlight on the sort of year he’s had. If last week's Welcome to Wrexham was a feel-good joyride as the club ascended to second place in the National, all packed in with a nice selection of classic songs from FIFA, then these three are football drama.
Wrexham get a home-field advantage for their play-off match against Grimsby Town, it’s the perfect stage to cap off their cinderella story, yet on the opposite side of the field stands a rival with their own promotion dreams. As the owners say out loud, in any other tier of English football, Wrexham would get automatic promotion for finishing second, but not in the National where they now face Grimsby, a side that finished sixth, which pretty much sums up the tragedy and beauty of it all.
“Do or Die” features juxtaposed images of the 9-goal thriller between Wrexham and Grimsby Town with interview footage, and it’s hard to believe this would be the approach its director would have taken had the team come out victorious. The lead-up to the play-off carefully brings forward the injuries suffered by Wrexham’s reliable goalkeeper, Rob Lainton, as well as star center-back Aaron Hayden, both key pieces in a Wrexham defense that had an off day.
Wrexham ends up conceding 4 headers in 5-4 loss in the final minutes of extra time, a rare occurrence in football; and while Dibble’s form picked up from his first outing, he looks at fault for one of those goals. Hayden laments not being able to play, though it’s impossible to tell if he could have made difference.
From Grimsby’s perspective, it’s the fairy tale come true, so perhaps that’s why we get a moment with one of their key executives, and the image of former Wrexham captain Shaun Pearson hugging Davies is a testament to how small the difference is between winning or losing is in this sport (Grimsby won all their its play-off games in extra time). Over at Wrexham, it’s all loss, but Reynolds and McElhenny promise to bounce back, whereas the squad as a whole now sees themselves as potential league winners.
At the moment, Wrexham sits in second place in the league table just 1 point shy of Notts County, meaning a second season will likely invoke feelings of déjà vu for the players, as they will undoubtedly want to avoid another dangerous play-off run at all costs.
Right now FIFA 23, has just had its biggest launch ever, and one can’t help but wonder if football’s intersection with mainstream media play a part in that. Sure, FIFA was already one of the biggest games in the world, but Ted Lasso and Welcome to Wrexham must have turned at least a few people football curious.
Welcome to Wrexham ends on a bitter note for the players, the fans and the city, as well as Reynolds and McElhenney, however, it’s hard to argue that the two actors are not building something special. It’s hard to watch this series without rooting for Wrexham to go up, and with its current ratings and the way this campaign is going, a second season looks all but certain.