‘Ted Lasso’ Power Rankings: Halftime Revelations, Physical Violence, And Baklava Nibbles

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: Jamie Tartt (we already heard him say “poop-eh” once before so I had to deduct some points here); Keeley (heartbent, diarrhea of the thumbs, etc.); Sam (I liked when he gave Jamie the finger); Higgins (what if the final episode of this show is Higgins on a cruise and nothing else happens); baklava (one of those desserts I never think about until someone else has it and then I’m like “oooo baklava”); Rupert (snake); Dani Rojas (a sweet man); Jade (I really thought Rupert was going to hit on her right in front of Nate); Trent Crimm (the chapter of his book on the Isaac-Colin stuff from this week will be gold on his press tour); seagulls (few things in life more devastating than buying a funnel cake at the beach and having a seagull swoop down and pluck all or part of it right out of your hands); Jean-Claude Van Damme (did the splits twice in Timecop); Bumbercatch (fittest guy on the team)

I don’t know what to make of Nate. He seems… happier, which is nice. The man is just a giant cauldron of insecurity and self-loathing and it all bubbled up and over the surface to turn him into a kind of anti-Ted, for a while, with the black outfits and the spitting and all of it, like a villain in a movie for kids. I half-expected him to show up one week with a white cat in his lap or a shark tank in his office. But things are turning around now. He blew off Rupert and the babes on Guys’ Night. He seems to like hugging Jade a lot. This is progress for Nate.

None of this should be super surprising. Ted Lasso is not a show that gets revenge on its villain by hitting them with bricks. It runs on a more “even your enemies are humans” kind of energy, which can be weird when all you want to see them do is fall down an open manhole. Your mileage may vary on how satisfying that all is. I’m just glad he’s not doing the spitting anymore. I did not enjoy that.

Think about this sequence of events:

We know how this all played out internally, how Ted remained calm and the team sorted things out and Roy matured a little bit (I said “a little”), but it all must have looked just hilariously chaotic from the outside. Picture, like, the coach of the New York Knicks doing exactly this and then Stephen A. Smith going on television to yell about it. The vein in his forehead might explode.

I am glad that he wants to support his friend Colin and I understand that it’s all a little strange for him but you really cannot be running into the stands to punch loudmouth goons in the face, even if it is all just very satisfying.

This is the first week in the history of these Power Rankings where Coach Beard does not take the top spot. It’s a decision I do not make lightly. I suspect he will be back up there next week and the week after that. But I slide him to number seven this week for three primary reasons:

I lied earlier. I did make this decision lightly. I pretty much just sat here and thought “I should put Beard at, like, seven this week” and then I chuckled a little bit to myself and now here we are. None of this has any scientific merit. I stand by it. Mostly.

GOOD NEWS: His favorite team, the Denver Broncos, won back-to-back Super Bowls during the formative years of his life, which has to be thrilling. I have seen my favorite teams win two titles in my life (2008 Phillies, 2018 Eagles), and that was a very good time that almost makes up for me watching them get to a championship final and lose like five or six times. I’m suddenly very jealous of Stevey Jewell. And angry. Which is pretty on-brand given the Phillies/Eagles thing I mentioned earlier.

ON THE OTHER HAND: The young man ate so much cheese dip that he did thousands of dollars of damage to his toilet. Twice. That’s… it’s just not ideal, Super Bowl victory or not.

Slotting her all the way up at five only because I imagine it was pretty cathartic for her to yell at Roy about something — the press conference, in this case — after he dumped her best friend for no good reason way back at the beginning of the season. I’m glad she got that off her chest.

I have said this before but I will say it again now because I still believe it with all my heart:

I lied again. I don’t actually know if I believe that. Mae might be a character that works best in small doses, and I don’t know if there’s enough action there to sustain a full series. But I really do like thinking about it and typing it and I had this visual of her in a hard hat and tool belt just pounding away on things with a hammer and I wanted to share it with you. Worth it, really.

I mean… good Good for Colin

This one is tricky. It’s nice that his big secret isn’t weighing him down too too much anymore and it’s nice that the team was supportive about it all, but I have to imagine there are healthier ways to reveal your sexuality to a room full of your friends and coworkers than “somebody yoinked your phone out of your hands and discovered you are gay and then got all fired up when some dipshit fan yelled the f-slur at the team and he charged into the stands to fight the fan at halftime and the whole team was very lost and confused about it all and you felt pressured to explain the truth if only to provide context.”

So, yeah. Good for Colin. I’m glad there’s progress on this front. I hope it makes him more comfortable in the long term. But it all seems very stressful.

Also, not really relevant to the rest of this, but I need to start calling people “boy-o.” Might try it out this weekend.

Roy’s week, in bullet point form:

He’s a good man. As good a man as you can be when you also have a history of headbutting people and things that upset you. It’s a sliding scale.

He’s a sweet boy.