The Ted Lasso Power Rankings are a weekly analysis of who and/or what had the strongest performance in each episode. Most of the list will feature individual characters, although the committee does reserve the right to honor anything from animals to inanimate objects to laws of nature to general concepts. There are very few rules here.
Season 3, Episode 4 — “Big Week”
HONORABLE MENTION: Dani Rojas (I did not like seeing Dani get angry and play dirty); Shandy (she remains a firecracker but the thing about firecrackers is that sometimes they can go off in your hand); Jade from the restaurant (she’s so mean and I want her and Nate — I’m sorry, “Jason Jelly” — to have 10 babies); Higgins (sometimes I wonder what he’s up to when he’s not at work); Mae (runs a tight ship); changing your name to whatever you want (all fun and games until one of your friends changes their name to your name and then chaos descends upon your personal life); Michelle Lasso (get it together, lady); Dr. Jacob (still hate him); Rupert (I appreciate that he usually wears black to remind us that he’s evil); Trent Crimm (the thing we need to remember about this Nate business is that the thing with the sign will almost definitely end up in his book and be a public relations nightmare for a lot of people); Keeley (the Shandy thing is going to be a problem); Sassy (straight shooter)
10. (tie) Barbara the CFO (LAST WEEK: Unranked)
Barbara fascinates me. Such a strange woman. Jumps straight to “sperm donor” when Higgins told the little “my son was in a car accident”riddle. She’s kind of obsessed with Rebecca. She was maybe too into the violence of the second half when Richmond got mad and started playing dirty. I bet she would be frothing at the mouth at a UFC event. I bet she’s seen Wrestlemania in person. I feel like she might have an exotic/dangerous pet at home. A snake, a scorpion, maybe a couple of piranhas.
Again, fascinating.
10. (tie) Will Kitman (LAST WEEK: Unranked)
He’s a sweet boy.
9. Roy (LAST WEEK: 5)
Tough week for Roy, what with his on-field tactical strategy failing against Nate and his motivational tactic of showing the team the video of Nate ripping the sign… also failing. Tremendously. Just a massive miscalculation on all levels. And Keeley was kind of making googly eyes at Jamie during the Bantr videos, which is also not great given the thing where Roy clearly has feeling for her and is probably regretting the breakup on some deep dark level of his soul where he buries his feelings.
That said:
- I did enjoy watching him punch the whiteboard
- I love how seriously he is taking his role of trainer with Jamie
- I bet Jamie would pronounce googly “goo-gleh”
This last one has very little to do with Roy, admittedly, but I’ve been thinking about it since the middle of the first paragraph of this section and needed to tell someone.
8. Jack Danvers (LAST WEEK: Unranked)
Probably not the most important aspect of the whole “Keeley’s new boss showed up for a game in which the sweethearts she’s trying to build a dating app around played like a bunch of rowdy hooligans” thing but I do think I should mention that I noticed and appreciated the Apple TV+ synergy of bringing in Jodi Balfour from For All Mankind for the role, if only because it allows me to once again tell you what a good show that is.
Also, Rowdy Hooligan would be a good name for like a professional wrestler or British rapper. Something to file away.
7. Zava (LAST WEEK: 3)
Unless I misheard, and I do not think I did, Zava — who continues to just mangle inspirational quotes, as seen above — has at least four children that he let name themselves at age 7, and the names those four children chose are: Angry, Dirty, Ugly, and Smingus Dingus. He is basically raising the seven dwarves. I love him and them very much.
6. Jamie (LAST WEEK: 2)
Jamie is:
- Starting to take his training seriously after a lil puke mishap
- Possibly on the verge of being in two separate love triangles (Keeley/Roy and Keeley/Shandy)
- Not passing to Zava in games, which is something he’s going to have to get over at some point
- Still dressing kind of like a secondary member of a C-list Orlando boy band from like 1997
Please imagine how weird it would be to be strolling through a park and see one world-famous athlete puking from exercise while another world-famous athlete sits in front of him on a bench eating breakfast. You would text everyone you know.
5. Nate (LAST WEEK: Unranked)
Here’s the thing with Nate…
ON ONE HAND: Everyone saw the video of him ripping the sign in a rage a while ago, and Rupert is playing to his worst impulses, and he continues to wear black and never smile like the villain in a Disney movie, and he did that weird thing where everyone got off the elevator and it was just him and Ted left in there and he stayed in the back facing the corner like a little boy who had just gotten in trouble at school, which probably says more about his mental state right now than any line of dialogue he’s said all season.
ON THE OTHER HAND: His team did win, thanks in part to Richmond melting down but mostly to his tactical skill. He appears to be inching toward fixing his relationship with Ted, even if his boss and the world are conspiring against him a little bit. He didn’t spit at anything in a blind rage this week. This represents progress.
Good for Nate.
4. Helping out a stranger in need (LAST WEEK: Unranked)
The specific example here — Jack handing Keeley a tampon under the divider of the bathroom stall — might not apply to about 50 percent of the population, but the sentiment is the same. You can do stuff like this so easily, too. Let’s say the person in front of you in line at the coffee shop is fumbling with their wallet and looking flustered, or maybe their card got declined or isn’t swiping right. Pay for their order. Even if they get some fancy drink and a snack, the total comes to like $8. You can handle that. And it feels great. It doesn’t have to be money, either. Hold the door for someone carrying a million bags. Make a silly face at a crying kid whose mom and/or dad looks like they might heave their cell phone through a window.
Little things. It’s a good start. Do it for selfish reasons, if you want, just to feel superior to all the other jerks who don’t do it. No one else needs to know that part.
3. Rebecca (LAST WEEK: 10)
Rebecca lost to Rupert’s team and didn’t seem to be having a blast at halftime when she was shouting “HAVE FUN” at Ted with a fire in her eyes that could have set off the smoke alarms in the stadium if she hadn’t walked away in time. That… wasn’t great. In a more normal week where more people on this show have little triumphs and successes, she might not have even cracked the top ten.
But.
Everyone else was doing very bad this week and she did get the satisfaction of telling Rupert to stop screwing around with his assistant and that probably helped to drive home once and for all that she’s better off without him. I don’t know. Weird week for everyone, I guess.
2. Ted (LAST WEEK: 9)
Ted:
- Lost the big grudge match again Nate
- Watched his team flail and maim for an entire half of soccer without really doing anything about it
- Still doesn’t seem to understand the basics of the sport he is being paid handsomely to coach
Which is… bad. Like, objectively. And Sassy correctly identified, to his face, that he’s a mess right now, in a few ways. Which is… true, but also bad. So, with all of that working against him, why is he ranked all the way up here at number two? Two reasons:
- It was kind of a big step for him to confront Michelle — in the most gentle way you can possibly imagine — about the thing where she’s now dating their marriage counselor and bringing him around Henry
- He was right about not wanting to show the team the video of Nate, as we discovered shortly after Roy and Beard did
It would be funny if this is all leading up to a series finale where everything Ted has been bottling up finally explodes out of him and he becomes a supervillain who tries to blow up the moon. Let’s keep an eye on this
1. Coach Beard (LAST WEEK: 1)
I mean…
Like…
I don’t know. I can’t really defend leaving Beard at number one this week. He made zero good coaching decisions and Ted is falling to pieces and he’s not doing a great job of monitoring that. I feel like he’ll tighten it up, though. He did give Nate a good hard stare, too. That’s something, I guess. I don’t know.
I don’t know.
