Move Over, Roy Kent: Ted Lasso Season 4 Establishes The Show's New MVP

Contains spoilers for "Ted Lasso" Season 4, Episode 2 — "Curiouser and Curiouser"

Let's not beat around the bush, because she certainly wouldn't: Alice Chilton (Tanya Reynolds) is the best character "Ted Lasso" has introduced in years. 

In "Ted Lasso" Season 4, Episode 2 ("Curiouser and Curiouser") Coach Chilton is coded as an intimidating and unnerving presence even before we see her. This proves to be true, albeit in a different way than you'd expect. Instead of a gruff force of nature á la Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein), she's a lithe, comparatively uncharismatic figure whose blunt intensity, social awkwardness, and utter lack of filter throw Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham, who also stars on Prime Video's "Ride or Die") completely out of balance. 

Despite her surface bluntness, though, Chilton might wind up higher on a list of "Ted Lasso" characters ranked by likeability than first impressions would suggest. It soon becomes evident that she's a highly organized coach with a genuine passion for the game. "Curiouser and Curiouser" also reveals that she cares more deeply about her players than just about any other coach on the show, to the point of following an injured player to the hospital to make sure she's as fine as she can be under the circumstances. 

Apart from her dedication, Chilton is a perfect foil to Ted (Jason Sudeikis), who immediately recognizes her talents. She doesn't understand his references and actively dislikes his "storytelling" method of coaching people. Most importantly, she has an interesting backstory: Chilton is a former Arsenal academy wunderkind whose career was sidelined by a series of ACL injuries and who transitioned to coaching to stay involved with the game.

If you take Coach Chilton's character apart, you can readily identify several traits that are familiar from the show's existing coach characters. Though she shows it in a different way, she has Ted's deep dedication to players, and the injury incident shows that she seems to have a similar ability to empathize with them at times of need. She has shades of Roy Kent's bluntness, and understandably enough, Roy is a fan. Her pre-injury status as a football prodigy clearly alludes to the show's previous "wonder kid," Nate Shelley (Nick Mohammed), and her offbeat personality and disregard of social norms are from the Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt) playbook.

While this all helps her slot into the existing cast of characters, it's already plain to see that the end result is more than the sum of its parts. While we're still at the very beginning of Alice Chilton's "Ted Lasso" journey, there seems to be far more to her than meets the eye, and Tanya Reynolds' wonderful portrayal infuses her with barely contained intensity, frustration, and clever microexpressions that occasionally crack through her habitually unimpressed poker face.

It was always going to be hard for a new character to join the established behind-the-scenes staff at Richmond, let alone stand out. With Chilton, it seems that the welcome, if uneven "Ted Lasso" Season 4 has done the impossible.

"Ted Lasso" Season 4 is streaming on Apple TV.