How Reacher, All American & Ted Lasso Gave Us Characters Worth Rooting For

Television is at its best when we care about the people at the center of it.

This week, these characters gave us plenty of reasons to care, delivering everything from emotional vulnerability and righteous defiance to unexpected humor and scene-stealing charm.

Here are our Characters of the Week who stood out and made their mark!

Sybylla Melvyn – My Brilliant Career

Sybylla Melvyn resonates with viewers because she rejects societal expectations and prioritizes her goals first.

That’s ambitious today, but in 1901 Australia, it was almost unheard of. Philippa Northeast gave a layered, authentic performance as Sybylla.

She longed to become an author, but her family needed her to enter society and marry a rich man to help pay off the family debt.

What an awful burden. Sybylla agreed to visit her rich grandmother only to learn more about the culture for her book.

Sybylla was so relatable because so many women are still torn between finding love and a career, but societal expectations were different 125 years ago.

Women were supposed to be obedient to their husbands and take care of the home, while Sybylla was spirited and unpolished with her own dreams.

She found it more challenging than she thought when she faced suitors who wanted to guard her heart or push her toward a solitary career.

Jason Knightly – Paris Is Always a Good Idea

We’ve learned a lot about Chelsea, and in Paris Is Always a Good Idea Season 1 Episode 4, Scott Michael Foster brought his A-game as we finally dove deeper into Knightly.

Knightly showed such vulnerability as he revealed not only his feelings for Chelsea, but his family responsibilities.

He was the real deal, and not just the rival work dude. He knew little quirks about Chelsea, but he also knew how to save the day so they secured their donation.

This was Jason Knightly’s moment to show who he really was, and I liked it.

After seeing Knightly let Chelsea go to explore her unanswered questions, I was totally invested. That move meant he loved her enough to risk seeing whether she returned, and that took integrity.

Amina Sims – All American

Amina has been advocating for standing up for what she believes in, no matter the cost, though it became way scarier when she witnessed it at Dinsburg than when she was actually part of it at Crenshaw.

On All American Season 8 Episode 6, the ICE agents never said why they were inspecting the school, but they acted like the teenagers were violent thugs and wouldn’t even let the guidance counselor return to her classroom for her ID. That set Amina off.

While I still don’t think getting in their faces was the best idea, she’ll always speak up for her classmates or her teachers. In her opinion, staying silent was wrong.

Amina and the others only locked themselves in Preach’s classroom because they were terrified, yet almost everyone looked towards her for answers.

It was awful watching her and Preach be arrested along with the guidance counselor.

Coach Chilton – Ted Lasso

There is so much compelling storytelling to mine from Ted Lasso returning to Richmond to coach a women’s team.

But it’s Coach Chilton and what she has to navigate and what she triggers in those around her that makes Ted Lasso Season 4 Episode 2 such an interesting watch.

The hour dives into addressing the elephant in the room with Chilton as a female coach having to play second fiddle to Ted when they’re trying to make history for women, and on the surface she appears to be this prickly woman with a demeanor that frames her as the antithesis of what Lasso brings to the table.

But she’s also the embodiment of every woman who is more than qualified or something who gets placed on the back burner and is often sidelined for a man.

Instead of coming across as one-dimensional and resentful, we see so many layers to Chilton, from her icy demeanor to her vulnerability when she first sees that locker room.

Soccer, or rather football, means something to Chilton — her passion runs deep, and she makes quite the impression and already feels like the character who may steal the season.

Jack Reacher – Reacher

Reacher is back, and the first three episodes made for one heck of a fun season premiere.

So much of that is because Reacher feels fully in his stride as a character, and we got all forms of his personality coming at us in full force in the most delightful ways.

Reacher was absolutely hilarious, from his dry, direct, literal responses that often drove people insane to his creative nicknames for goons (Snack, Crackle, and Pop, anyone?). There wasn’t a time in any of the first three installments of the season where he didn’t make you laugh.

Hell, even seeing this massive mountain of a man squeezed into the passenger seat of a small SUV with the most adorable white kitten chilling in his arms

But beyond being literal, practical, and hilarious, we also saw glimpses of a man deeply troubled by what took place on that train, wracked with guilt over his inability to save Anna, and willing to put it all on the line to get justice for her.

Over to you, TV Fanatics! Who were the characters who had you talking this week? Let’s hear it below!