'Ted Lasso' Season 4 Episode 4 Recap: Why Does Rebecca Not Trust Zelda Southport? 

AppleTV’s sports comedy series, Ted Lasso, continues its 4th season with another entertaining episode, this time having the AFC Richmond women’s team get into trouble with the law and even land in jail. Before that, both Coach Lasso and Coach Beard deal with their own problems with regards to their professional and personal lives, respectively. Meanwhile, Roy Trent decides to get back into the dating game, not really to find a lover but more to prove a point, and seems to have a change of heart in season 4 episode 4.

Spoiler Alert

What troubles do Ted and Beard face?

Ted Lasso season 4 episode 4 begins with two familiar characters from the previous seasons, Trent Crimm and Dr. Sharon Fieldstone, sitting down to record a podcast. After having been a successful sports journalist for years, and then having written his book on Ted Lasso’s unique style of coaching with the Richmond men’s team, Trent Crimm now has his own podcast, where he talks about various unusual matters with regards to sports. For his latest episode, he has invited Sharon on as his guest, to discuss sports psychology with her, relying on her to share information from her time as the team therapist at AFC Richmond. The entire 4th episode of this season plays out while Trent and Sharon discuss matters on their podcast, just as similar things are happening with the Richmond women’s team. Thus, as Sharon describes what she feels to be one of the most difficult problems with running a sports team, Coach Ted Lasso faces the same issue at his office.

It has been a fairly successful start to the league for the Lady Greyhounds, as they are yet to lose a game, having won two games and drawn two. Ted is naturally very impressed by the performance of his team, and is excited to see what they can achieve throughout the season, but he misses the intensity and joy of managing a football team which he once experienced with the men’s team. The biggest reason for this is that he can no longer walk into the dressing room freely and discuss tactics, or even congratulate his team like he could do at the men’s team. He now has to ensure that the players are dressed and therefore comfortable with him walking into the dressing room, and Coach Alice Chilton is especially mindful of this, as she wants to protect her girls’ respect and honor at all costs. Once Ted does get to enter the dressing room at present, after a hard-earned win by the team, he notices something that immediately makes him realize the next, and much more significant, problem that he is about to face at work.

While talking to the team and congratulating them, Ted very casually mentions the great defending and immediately notices the attackers not taking his praise very well. When he then praises the attackers, and especially latest recruit Gemma, the midfielders pull a long face. Similarly, praising the midfielders gets the attackers and defenders evidently irritated. It is clear to Ted, and the same is confirmed by Alice very soon, that the team is no longer thinking or acting like a united group, but have actually split up into three separate cliques, the attackers, the midfielders and the defenders. The players are hanging out and befriending only others who play the same position as them, and so there is no sense of unity. When Ted later confronts them about the matter, each group presents numerous complaints against the others, making their self-centered attitude all the more visible.

Despite being told that the formation of cliques is a very common problem in sports teams, Ted initially thinks of letting the matter resolve itself, and does not want to do anything about it. But he soon realizes that the players are still divided amongst themselves, and are growing even more fiercely defensive about their own respective cliques. In order to solve the issue, he calls for all training to be cancelled the following day, and makes it compulsory for every player to attend a trivia quiz at Mae’s pub as a sort of team-building exercise. While Ted hopes that their problems will be solved at the pub, this is unfortunately where Coach Beard’s problems begin. Beard’s problem is entirely pertaining to his personal life, as opposed to Ted’s being a professional difficulty. 

As Beard goes to the washroom during a break in the middle of the trivia game, he sees a poster and freezes. The poster is later revealed to be one advertising a new play by his estranged, or divorced, wife, Jane Payne. We haven’t yet found out what had happened between Beard and Jane after their happy marriage at the end of season 3, and why they are no longer together. But the poster, which shows the rather long title of the play written by Jane, suggests that they had had some problems with regards to becoming parents. The image used in the poster also has a caricature of Beard on the side, which means that Jane has written her play only to slander and foul-mouth her ex-partner. As a result, the coach is left stunned and traumatized for hours, pulling out of the trivia game even, despite having had a perfect score up until he saw the poster. Beard does get out of the state hours later, but the mystery surrounding his breakup with Jane remains unsolved for now. 

How is the problem with the cliques finally solved?

Ted’s plan to resolve the cliques problem ultimately works out, even though it leads to some smaller troubles for the team. Ted’s plan is simple, to distribute the team members among three different groups, but by mixing up their cliques of attackers, midfielders, and forwards. In this way, the players are essentially forced to gel with each other, even though they are not particularly fond of their group members. It must also be mentioned that the issues between the players of the different positions are rather superficial, for they would have outright refused to participate in the trivia quiz otherwise. It is almost like the young women want to get rid of the problems between themselves but are initially unaware of how to do so. Thus, Ted’s strategy works brilliantly, as all three teams are equally invested in the trivia quiz and want to win it.

The situation is helped even more by a group of arrogant men, who recognize the Lady Greyhounds and talk trash to them, stating that they are inherently losers for being women and trying to play football. Gemma fights back with the obnoxious men, who are also participants in the trivia quiz, and the matter stays limited to verbal banter until it gets out of hand. In the final round of the quiz, one of the women’s teams faces off against the men’s group, and although Gemma’s team is already out, she goes and helps out her Richmond teammates, showing her sense of loyalty to the group. While Gemma sticks by the rules of the game by only suggesting the answer to her teammates, and helps them win the competition, one of the men tries to accuse her of cheating.

Gemma now fights back more sternly, and her teammates now join her efforts as well. This is when the goalkeeper of the team, Boots, joins the fight and turns it into a literal bar scuffle, by breaking a beer bottle and smashing it into the obnoxious and abusive man’s face. This is the moment when all the Lady Greyhounds members become united again, and fight against the men, which ultimately gets rid of the clique problem. It does also result in them getting arrested and taken to the police station, where all the players, along with Ted and Beard, get locked up behind bars for a few hours. But the young women celebrate it as a win, after having finally reunited by getting rid of their internal problems. Both Ted’s plan, as well as the indirect help from the group of outsiders, who do not even consider women’s football to be a sport, funnily enough, makes the team get back together, which will definitely push them towards more victories on the pitch.

Why does Rebecca not trust Zelda Southport?

Season 4 episode 4 introduces a new character named Zelda Southport, when Rebecca and Keeley attend the Women’s Football Business Summit. The keynote speaker at the event, Zelda, is one of the managing partners at a company that has been exclusively making investments in women’s football over the last few years. But contrary to the entire room’s assumption about Zelda’s speech, she is extremely blunt and direct in calling out the double-standards of businessmen who invest in women’s football, as they clearly don’t actually care about the sport. In her piercing speech, she suggests that investors follow women’s football instead of just using it as a platform to build their reputation as being philanthropic and supportive of women. She totally believes that nothing significant is being done for the sport, and while her words make the men in the room feel hurt and disrespected, Keeley can’t keep from admiring the woman. 

Keeley convinces Rebecca to go meet with Zelda right away, and she is ecstatic when the latter promises to help out the Lady Greyhounds in every possible way. Although Keeley is very keen on getting Zelda onboard, Rebecca states that she will make time in her busy schedule to sit down for a meeting with Zelda and then discuss any possibilities of them working together. In a later conversation with Keeley, Rebecca admits that she is unable to trust Zelda, at least so far, for the woman has a shady past, having been arrested in the past for threatening a club owner, and then having changed her original name to either act cool or hide her real identity. 

Towards the end of the episode, it is Zelda who gets the entire Lady Greyhound team, and their coaches, freed from the police station, that too without paying the bail. Such is the woman’s reach that she simply convinces the police officers to forget the matter entirely and let the team walk out of jail without any repercussions. While Keeley’s admiration for Zelda once again grows after this incident, Rebecca does not look too happy. For now, it seems like Rebecca has a hunch that Zelda’s intentions are not exactly what she states them to be, or that her means of achieving her goals, which might involve shady dealings or even violence, will not align with her own. It also seems like Zelda and her actions will ultimately serve as a lesson learned the hard way for Keeley, for it is Zelda who reveals news of the Lady Greyhounds having been arrested to the media. Zelda Southport is ready to do anything for PR, and whether Keeley and Rebecca will be able to keep up with her will be interesting to watch.

Does Roy finally get a girlfriend?

Finally in this episode, Roy and Keeley address the feelings that they still have for each other, with Roy suggesting that they give themselves another try at romance, after having remained just friends for the last few years. Although Keeley does seem to have feelings for Roy, she suggests that he get to know himself and his choices better first before diving back into a relationship with her. She directly asks him how many women he has dated in the years after their breakup, to which Roy honestly replies that he has not been on any dates, for he has always been sure that he wants to be with her. This response does not convince Keeley, and she tells Roy to go on dates with 10 different women first, which initially sounds like a terrible idea. He too treats the suggestion like a blind order that he must complete at all costs, meaning that he tries to speed through dates with 10 different women, simply to count them as proof of him still being interested in Keeley.

However, this gradually starts to change, as Roy hooks up with the bartender at the bar where he was taking all his dates. During the act, he pulls a muscle in his knee, the same injured one that had forced him to retire, and has to be rushed to the hospital by his sister, Jenni. The doctor is one of Jenni’s close friends, Erin Beaumont, who agrees to see the patient only as a favor to Jenni. What seems to make Roy feel an immediate attraction for the doctor is her absolute refusal to take him or his injury too seriously. Erin acts disinterested in Roy, which funnily makes him interested in her. Despite having reluctantly come to the clinic only because of his sister’s insistence, Roy wants Erin’s number by the end of the appointment, making it quite possible that he will finally try to get a girlfriend after all this time. 

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