Warning: This post contains spoilers for Season 4’s fifth episode.
The Ted Lasso writers know to how bring wayward characters back into the fold, from regretful saboteur Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) in Season 1 to temporary traitor Nathan (Nick Mohammed) in Season 3. Season 4’s redemption arc would appear to belong to Lady Greyhound assistant coach Alice Chilton (series rookie Tanya Reynolds), whom Ted suspends for a match in the final moments of Episode 5 after she berates the team at the halfway point of their match with Chelsea.
“To stand there in the middle of a game and tell a bunch of athletes that they’re an embarrassment, it’s so brutal. I can’t imagine ever saying that to someone, ever,” Reynolds tells Gold Derby about that scene.
“But if you’re playing a character, you’re not thinking, ‘Oh, I’m being a dick, I’m being a villain,'” the actress continues. “It’s about trying to understand — and trying to rationalize — for Alice why this is hurting her. Why she finds them losing literally offensive, and why she thinks that telling them that they’re pathetic is gonna be helpful in any way, which she obviously does. You have to believe that Alice really thinks that she is right in doing this. If she thought that it was wrong, she wouldn’t say it.”
So why does Alice unleash on the team as they walk into their locker room? “I think it comes from a place of she would do anything to be on that pitch and playing this game,” Reynolds muses, alluding to the injuries that ended her alter ego’s career. “She’s still grieving the fact that she can’t do it. She’s seeing these players, and she’s thinking, ‘You have no idea how lucky you are that your bodies are working properly and that you can run about in a way that I can’t.'”
Prior to the halftime blow-up, the normally stoic Alice had already lost her cool earlier in the episode when the players gathered around Ted to pepper him with questions about his dating life and sartorial choices. She was simultaneously frustrated by the ladies not focusing before the biggest match of their careers, and bothered by the fact that they’ve never taken the time to ask her anything personal.
“She’s not exactly inviting questions, or warmth, or friendship,” Reynolds notes. “She’s this self-fulfilling prophecy where she thinks no one is interested, so she’s incredibly standoffish. She doesn’t let anyone near, so no one goes near. But like any human being she wants friendship and connection, and she wants to feel respected but also liked by these players.”
After the ladies chip in to buy Ted a pair of jeans, Alice lashes out at indecisive Shannon at practice, telling her to, “Stop playing like you know you don’t belong on this team.” (Gasp!) Teammate Gemma — who has her own history with Alice’s intense coaching style — asks Alice to back off… and ultimately earns the team 15 laps.
The situation feeds Alice’s self-hatred, Reynolds says, as well as her complicated feelings toward the gaffer, who encourages her to lower her temperature via a barbecue metaphor.
“Alice spent her whole career trying to be taken seriously to the point where she’s become this incredibly professional, almost robotic-like machine, and it’s not yielding the results that she wants,” the actress explains. “Then she sees Ted come in, and everything about him is the opposite of what she’s ever thought is the right way to do this job, and he’s just kind of constantly proving her wrong.
“She’s envious that all these players, who she does respect an awful lot, love him immediately,” Reynolds adds. “They’re already buying him gifts, and they don’t know anything about her. That’s probably gutting. She’s like, Why can’t I be like him? Why don’t people like me? What’s wrong with me?”
This being Ted Lasso, it’s not really a spoiler to tease that next week’s New Year’s Eve episode could be a time of forgiveness. “I like that we’re able to show her with her tail between her legs and really trying to connect, trying to be a person with these people,” Reynolds hints.
As for our other burning questions about what’s to come in the second half of the season, the actress answered them rapid fire.
First: Will we ever find out what gift Ted gave Alice, then took back once she rescinded her resignation in Episode 2?
“Yes, that comes back,” she promises.
Second: We’ve also heard Roy say that he finds Alice funny. Will those two get some screen time together?
“There is definitely a scene where we’re together,” Reynolds says. “But I don’t want to reveal anything because it has quite a few spoilers in it.”
Third: Rebecca and Alice shared some memorable moments in Episode 2. Will there be others?
“They have a really nice journey, which is that they are quite separate for a while but they both help the other out in kind of big ways… but it’s also quite subtly done,” she says. “So yes, there is some nice stuff coming up with Rebecca.”
And finally: Jason Sudeikis has said that he told Reynolds the final shot of the season when he was convincing her to play Alice. What was her reaction to hearing it?
“Pleasantly surprised,” Reynolds shares.
