Who were our big winners and losers from season 3?
We said goodbye to AFC Richmond this week with Ted Lasso’s tearful, perfect finale. This was one of the greatest sports shows of all time, which was only really tangentially about sports.
Before season three began we took a company-wide poll to rank the characters from Ted Lasso. If you’d like to go back and read our justifications you can find that post here, but today we’re looking at who shocked us so much (for good and bad) that they no longer have a good fit in the overall rankings.
Biggest Riser: Jamie Tartt +8
It always felt like Season 3 was going to be “The Jamie Tartt Show,” and my goodness did Ted Lasso deliver. Jamie became the absolute hero of the show, taking everything the series stood for and personifying it perfectly.
There wasn’t one episode which didn’t contain major growth moments for Jamie to shine, but two really hammer home just how great Jamie was this season:
The bike ride/friendship expedition with Roy in Amsterdam
Going home to Manchester and visiting his mum
These moments really typified how Jamie used self-confidence as a shield throughout Ted Lasso, while remaining a damaged, huge kid trying to become an adult. Moreover, Jamie essentially admitted as much — finding his own path away from the trauma of his childhood and turning a page to become a self-assured man.
Jamie was absolutely wonderful all season long and deserves to leave this show as its biggest champion.
Biggest Fall: Dani Rojas -4
This honestly feels more like a result of seeing other characters’ developments, rather than anything that Dani himself does. Rojas is still the charismatic, extremely positive character we all knew from seasons 1 and 2, and outside of the moment where he switched to Demon Dani during the international break, he’s still a fan favorite. He still contributes to some of the funniest moments on the team and was a much needed comic relief character after some of the heavier moments this season gave us (“I just wished for us to get Zava”).
His character kind of takes a backseat to players like Colin, Isaac and Sam along with the attention that Jamie, Roy, Ted and Beard get, and there isn’t enough airtime for Rojas to be developed as a character. He’s still one of the funniest characters on the show, and will always be a fan favorite, but his fall was more a victim of circumstance than anything (just don’t ask Zoreaux).
Best Surprise: Colin Hughes
We didn’t initially rank Colin, only because there really wasn’t much to say about him. For the first two seasons of Ted Lasso he was more or less a background character — coming forward only to have a line or two and then drifting away.
This reclusive nature was the perfect counterbalance to him coming out in Season 3, because it really hammered home that so much of Colin’s life had been about hiding himself from others and putting up boundaries with his teammates for fear of rejection. Not only did Colin become a star on the pitch, but one of the show’s most important characters off of it.
Rounding out everything with Colin essentially coming out to the world (not just his teammates) by “kissing his fella” on the pitch after a win, something he’s always wanted to do, and you have a brilliant story of acceptance from an unlikely source.
Easily the best surprise of the year and one of season three’s bright spots.
Worst surprise: Dr. Jacob
This is, generally, a family website so I will self-censor my thoughts a bit.
But this guy can get ALL THE WAY UP AND OUT OF HERE.
Putting aside the whole doctor-patient confidentiality issue of …. wait, you know what, we cannot put that to the side. He was working as Michelle’s therapist, then Ted comes in and they have joint sessions as they reached a bumpy time in their marriage, Dr. Jacob suggests that Ted go overseas and give Michelle her space, and then he starts a relationship with her? The only thing Season 3 really missed was Dr. Sharon reading him the professional riot act. Or maybe the entire squad rocketing penalty shots at him as some sort of punishment. There are entire threads on the Ted Lasso subreddit dedicated to how unethical this is, with some therapists chiming in about how many different ethical standards, as well as potential state laws, this might have violated.
There was even a moment with Coach Beard regarding that day’s Wordle. The answer? “Ethic.”
But even if we can put that to the side for a moment, they then travel overseas, to Paris, and while Ted believes he will propose, they return without an engagement ring. There are some pockets of the Lasso fandom universe that believe she said no, or that it was “too early,” so maybe he did, but it is at least unclear.
Finally, at the end during the climactic match against West Ham, he is beyond disinterested, and openly mocking something which is clearly important to both Michelle and Henry. Even if we were to give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume this is some type of self-guarding exercise he is going through because at some level he might be threatened by how invested Michelle and Henry seem in Ted and AFC Richmond, it is not enough to counteract all … that.
