Ted Lasso Season 4 Episode 5 Review: “Riches of Embarrassment”

This Ted Lasso Season 4 Episode 5 review has to start with the scoreboard: Chelsea sells out Nelson Road, Richmond’s down 2-0 at the half, and somehow that’s not the part of the episode that’s a mess.

The first team speech of the season hits home.

“Riches of Embarrassment” splits right down the middle. Everything happening around the Lady Greyhounds this week is the best version of this show. Everything happening in everybody’s personal life is the show tripping over its own three-year time jump. Watch it Wednesday night and it feels scattered. Sit with it for a minute and you can see exactly what the season’s building toward.

Catch up on our Episode 4 review or head to the PX2S Ted Lasso Season 4 hub if you’re behind. New episodes stream weekly on Apple TV+.

TL;DR (For The Skippers)

• Richmond’s women’s team faces Chelsea in front of a sold-out Nelson Road, goes down 2-0 at half
• Ted gives his first locker room speech to this team and it actually lands, Richmond storms back in the second half
• Coach Alice Chilton cracks under the pressure of turning the team around, Ted meets her where she’s at
• Rebecca and Matthijs blow up over a jealousy spiral the show hasn’t earned, ends with him asking for a break
• Roy’s dating someone else while obviously still hung up on Keeley, and it is not a good look right now
• Beard and Jane’s subplot is still spinning its wheels, but it does nudge Ted toward being ready to date again

Ted Lasso Season 4 Episode 5 review: the pitch side is doing everything right

Alice Chilton finally gets put through the wringer, and it’s the best material she’s had all season. Watching her spiral under an embarrassing scoreline, then watching Ted talk her back down using his own history with Nate, is the kind of scene this show built its whole reputation on. Nothing flashy about it. It just works.

The locker room speech works too, because it doesn’t oversell the fix. Ted’s not out here promising the talent gap disappears if everyone just believes hard enough. He tells the team to stop letting the fear of looking bad keep them from playing, then the show lets the second half do the talking. That’s the Ted Lasso formula doing what it’s supposed to do, even if it’s simpler than the actual football strategy some of us keep hoping for.

Everything off the pitch is a lot messier

Rebecca and Matthijs have spent three unseen years building something the show now wants us to believe can implode over one conversation with Jelka. It doesn’t track. We never got the foundation for it. The argument snowballing into “let’s take a break” feels like the plot pushing the characters around instead of the other way.

Roy’s storyline is worse, and it’s not even the interesting kind of messy. He’s dating someone else, he’s obviously still hung up on Keeley, and the show hasn’t given him anywhere else to exist this season. No Diamond Dogs, no therapist, nothing outside his scenes with her. Juno Temple’s doing the heavy lifting to make Keeley’s half of this land, and it helps a lot that Barbara’s back in the picture reaching out to her. Roy’s side just isn’t pulling its weight.

Beard and Jane is a subplot that’s run its course at this point. It gets Ted to a stage manager who helps him realize he’s ready to date, so it does its job this week, but the road there is exactly the kind of jumbled filler that makes the episode feel scattered while you’re watching it.

We rate everything on the following scale:

PRESS X — This is worth your time. Go watch it, play it, listen to it.

YOUR CALL — Solid enough, flawed enough. Depends what you’re in the mood for.

SKIP IT — Not worth the time you’d spend on it. There’s better stuff out there.

So where does that leave the episode?

Scene by scene, this one’s uneven, no way around it. But back up and look at where the season’s headed and it starts making more sense. Alice is turning into a real arc instead of a background character. Ted’s getting written as an actual person again, not just a coach, for the first time in a while. The team stuff is landing right on schedule. The relationship drama is the wobble, and it’s wobbling because the show’s clearly steering everyone toward something by the finale.

As its own hour, this one’s shakier than last week. As a piece of the season, it’s earning its keep. That’s the split at the center of this Ted Lasso Season 4 Episode 5 review, and it’s why we’re not knocking it down for the mess.

Verdict: PRESS X

AJ Hanson

AJ Hanson has been part of games media since 2011, writing, streaming, and ranting about the industry long before it was his job. He runs the Galaxy’s Edge Discord, the go-to community for fans of Disney’s Star Wars parks, and works as Marketing Director for the Virtual Cantina Network, helping produce shows, interviews, and fan events. A lifelong Star Wars fan and unapologetic nerd, AJ’s focus has always been on building spaces where people can connect, argue, and celebrate the things they love without all the corporate gloss.