‘Ted Lasso’ Power Rankings: Everyone Is Just Going Through A Lot Right Now, Okay?

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.

HONORABLE MENTION: Higgins (a good man); Jane Payne (the joy in her face while getting FaceTimed into a funeral was somehow both sweet and haunting); comfortable shoes (impossible to overrate); Isaac (I like how much Isaac enjoys being captain and I like that the young guys on the team treat his declarations like the Gospel); the frustrated vicar (please stop swearing in the church); Rebecca’s mom (we like her); Dr. Sharon (slowly moving up the list of characters I would watch a spinoff about, like she hops from team-to-team and sport-to-sport each season, starting with my beloved but troubled Philadelphia 76ers); Nate (the whispering with Rupert is going to be a problem); Sassy and Nora (fun to picture these two on a family vacation to Ibiza); Rupert’s stupid baby (imagine what an awful teenager this kid will be)

10. My sweet prince Dani Rojas (Last week: Unranked)

If we as a people are ever invaded by aliens that understand our Earth languages and can grasp the general concept of feet, we are going to have a really hard time justifying why we sometimes wear uncomfortable shoes on purpose even though we all have sneakers sitting in our closets. It’s madness, really. We should all be wearing sweats and slippers every day. Stop and think about it for five or one thousand minutes sometime in the near future.

Maybe I’m just lashing out because it hurt me physically to see Dani in pain like this while wearing dress shoes. But maybe there’s a point in there, too. Too soon to tell.

9. Rick Astley (Last week: Unranked)

What a fascinating life Rick Astley has lived. Born with a magical singing voice that does not fit his body, had a worldwide smash number-one single, kind of fizzled out, was absent from public life for a couple of decades, became maybe even more famous because rascals on the internet discovered his song and used it to goof on each other, leaned into that a bit, and created a nice little second act for himself. He seems to have a good sense of humor about it, too. Pretty wild.

Or, to sum things up using only titles of sections of his Wikipedia page…

Success, retirement, renewed success. That’s a full life right there, buddy. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes with a surprisingly soulful voice.

8. Jamie (Last week: Unranked)

Jamie’s big “I’ve changed, I’m not so selfish now, I think about other people and their feelings in the moment and I try to take that into account before I act” moment was slightly undercut by the thing where he saw his ex and her new boyfriend bickering a bit and swooped in to declare his never-ending love to her at the funeral of her best friend’s father.

Timing, Jamie. Come on.

7. Roy (Last week: Unranked)

As someone who is also uncomfortable with death and real emotion, in general, and uses cheap and/or bad jokes as a forcefield to avoid bad vibes, I understood Roy very deeply this week. He’s a good man. You just have to give him a minute.

It’s going to be so awkward when he finds out about the Jamie thing, especially after that hug the other week. I do not expect or even want them to fight but now I can’t stop picturing what that would look like. We’ve already seen Jamie throw a punch. We know he has that in him. I feel like Roy had a youth filled with scrapping but hasn’t tossed a fist in well over a decade. Is it weird that I think Jamie might win Like that his bottled-up rage is somehow more dangerous than Roy’s ever-present anger because Roy vents his out so often that the little needle on his gauge never swings fully over into the deep red I don’t know. I don’t know. I need to stop typing this paragraph before it consumes me.

6. Sam (Last week: Unranked)

Think about this one for a second: He got dumped by his brand new girlfriend in a closet right after her father’s funeral. That’s some tough business right there. Part of me wants to take issue with some of this, with how some characters on this show get big arcs about feelings and growth and the kinds of things that add layered depth, but Sam gets yoinked around a bit and just keeps smiling. It’s strange. Sam can be sad, too.

Another part of me likes that he’s wonderful. There’s a lot to process here. This is a situation we will continue to monitor.

5. Ted (Last week: Unranked)

This show is quickly becoming a very huggy affair. Everyone is hugging and crying a lot. This is not a complaint as much as it is an observation. I kind of want to see a full-on chart with crisscrossing red arrows that diagrams which characters have hugged each other so far and who might hug each other next. It would look like one of those conspiracy yarn walls you see in a character’s apartment to let the audience know that they are onto something and/or losing their mind. I will build it if I have to.

Anyway, yes, this was a lot. And it started to really pull back some layers on Ted, to show why he is the way he is and that his whole personality is more than relentless positivity and a mustache. That’s good. And it makes sense. There was always something dark in there. There had to be. It’s good he’s confronting it and it’s good he has someone who can help him through it, even if she does charge for house calls.

4. Breaking into song in unison kind of out of nowhere (Last week: Unranked)

Weirdly powerful. You know this from seeing it on television shows and movies, with examples including this episode of this show and also the “Tiny Dancer” scene from Almost Famous, but it’s even heavier when it happens in real life. I was once in a small crowd that started belting out the lyrics — chorus only because no one knew the verses, which was hilarious — to “Hero” by Enrique Iglesias and now that song owns a nice little two-bedroom condo in my brain. Probably will forever.

The point here, I suppose, is that brains are weird. And music is good. You are welcome for these profound observations.

3. Keeley (Last week: Unranked)

I know I kind of made this point already but, really, what a weird day for Keeley. She went to a funeral for her best friend’s father, uncovered a secret romance, and had two world-famous athletes profess their love to her separately in a span of about 45 seconds at the aforementioned funeral. That is a lot to unpack. I usually like to pull a screencap for each character that includes a funny/notable line of dialogue but, in this case, I think the face alone says it all.

Part of me hopes members of the team just keep telling her they’re in love with her. All of them. Just have them form a line and give them all flowers and turn this into The Bachelorette. Everyone is already in suits and on a scenic estate. We’re well on our way.

2. Rebecca (Last week: Unranked)

Real big old whirlwind of an episode for Rebecca, a character who started this show as a taller British version of the evil owner from Major League and has since become one of its most sympathetic characters. That’s some kind of trick, really, especially when you factor in the thing where she’s a billionaire who literally just started and broke off a fling with a much younger employee. Put these facts down on cold and unforgiving paper and she comes off as a villain.

And yet! There we all were this week having emotions as she dealt with the death of her father, and her crappy ex crashing the funeral, and the realization that she needs to grow on her own a bit before she can let someone else into her life in any meaningful way. There’s a reason this show and Hannah Waddingham just collected a whole bunch of trophies last week. Everyone here is pretty good at their jobs.

1. Coach Beard (Last week: 9, 7, 5, 3, 1)

This is an incredible way to greet anyone at any time anywhere but it’s even better when you realize that this is how greeted his boss at her father’s funeral.

Just a champion doing championship-caliber things.