#nate leaving to work for rupert was all but a given

[providing-leverage]

hey you! did you see this headline?

I did, and I wasn't happy about it. Luckily I also did some further research. This article was posted today on goal.com and contains basically zero actual information, just a lot of empty words and more photos than necessary.

They credit the quote to 'a showbiz insider' on Twitter named MyTimeToShineHello. Last week, the Direct also ran a 'story' with this quote, though they're more skeptical about the source that, as far as I can tell, has no affiliation with Apple of JSudakis.

So we can all calm down. We don't know anything new about s4 and likely won't for a while, until they start filming and the involved parties are given permission to.

That said, here's what I want to see from s4 of Ted Lasso/the new show centered around the women's team

For it to not be called Ted Lasso. He made his choice to go back home, as controversial as it may be in certain corners of the fandom. Let him stay there. Leave him out of this, or maybe flash between crazy football stuff and Ted at the zoo or something.

Definitely do not let him coach a women's team. I don't think he's got any experience with female athletes and would be so underqualified. This time Rebecca is not trying to sink the club.

Speaking of Rebecca: give her screentime. Give her complex plots that don't hinge on her asshole ex-husband or have her dating one of her much younger employees. Flesh out Danish boat guy, that's fine, or skillfully write him out.

Keeley! I don't care what she's doing, as long as she has so much screen time! (I'm not a roykeeleyjamie shipper at all but I recognize that I'm in the minority here so I'm not going to talk ships right now, partially because I haven't made up my mind)

New characters on the women's team. And at least three of them have to be gay. There are several out female footballers, so I see no reason why we can't have So Much lesbian drama happening: exs playing together for the first time in years, new romances, hidden relationships, fake dating, whatever. Maybe get Colin and Trent in there for community friendships

Speaking of Colin, I want cameos from the entire AFC Richmond men's team. Maybe one of Dani's girlfriends is also a football player (it would fit him well, since football is his life) or maybe they share training facilities? They should for sure do some press events together.

I want to see the pub lads not liking the idea of a women's team but then Mae plays nothing but women's matches for a week straight and they come around to it, eventually becoming the team's biggest supporters.

Oh I also want Isaac to be friends with (maybe fall in love with?) the captain of the women's team, who should for sure be bisexual.

As for who should coach since Ted is not on the table: for sure get a woman in there. I like Beard and Roy and Nate together at AFC Men's but of them, I can only see Nate transferring to work on the women's team

Roy is head coach, after all, and Beard is always part of a set. Nate had his issues with respect and boundaries but he's learned his lesson and we already know from his success at Westham that he's capable of being in that leadership role. But this time he'll have a real support system and not Rupert manipulating him.

Back to Trent: PR and journalism are really closely linked so if my department head can go from a career in sports journalism to a PR professional, then I see no reason why he can't do the same. Maybe as a member of KJPR, which is an agency employed by AFC Richmond, or as an internal PR specialist.

Okay that's all I can think of right now bye

[laiqualaurelote]

Follow up question from your Ted/Trent one: would you elaborate on your S3 disappointment? Thanks for letting me pick your fascinating, insightful, brilliant brain!

You're very kind. My disappointments with S3 are manifold but I will try to sum them up here.

There was a pervasive wrongness to much of this season that had not previously been present, unlike in S1 and much of S2, where radical kindness was a driving force and storylines would seem to be heading towards a predictable trope, then be surprisingly and pleasingly subverted. Several S3 plotlines were handled in a way that left an unpleasant taste in the mouth, without any catharsis attached. The truly baffling Shandy storyline is a prime example of this. I thought at first that this was part of a wider plan (the dark forest, so to speak, from which we would eventually emerge) and defended the show to friends as such, but weeks went by and it became clear that a show that had once been meticulously, lovingly plotted in every detail had devolved into a haphazard mess.

Story arcs came and went with no perceptible purpose. The show promised Important Social Commentary (the attacks on Sam's restaurant, Keeley's sex video leaking) then failed to revisit these issues once the episodes in question were over. Plot points were hinted at, then never brought up again (Higgins broaches the subject of firing Ted to Rebecca; this is never returned to.)

The characterisation was a mass of unfulfilled potential. Why make the reason for Sam not being chosen for the Nigerian national team Edwin Akufo's cartoonish grudge, and not his S2E3 calling out of government corruption, which would have made far more sense narratively and given Toheeb Jimoh far more to work with? Why tell us repeatedly that Keeley is a PR genius, then fail to have her take charge of her own PR crisis? Instead of Shandy proving to be a bad hire, surely a better way to show Keeley learning to be a good leader would have been for her to integrate Shandy and Barbara's diverse skill sets and attitudes into a functional workplace dynamic. Why not show the most key milestones of Nate's reformation, especially his confrontation with Rupert when he quit West Ham? for that matter, why give the moment of a West Ham coach standing up to Rupert for ethical reasons not to Nate, but to George Cartrick? I think we were robbed of a truly meaty Nate villain-and-back arc.

The season finale was a mess. Ted barely seemed present. I'm not a Tedbecca shipper, but even to me the fakeout at the beginning seemed unnecessarily cruel (and a waste of time in a season where so many things were not adequately explored or given closure). The truly bizarre choices in the final montage, especially Beard's Stonehenge wedding with a conspicuously absent Ted, were the final straw. That Ted needed to return to Henry was, for me, without question, but the way it was handled was deeply questionable.

What bothers me a great deal is the lack of change. Characters either regressed (Roy and Jamie re: Keeley, Ted re: Michelle) or had no agency in major crises inflicted upon them. The opening and closing close-up shots are meant to be of the character that changes most over the course of the season. This holds true for Rebecca in S1, and Nate in S2, but not Ted in S3. What changes for Ted is circumstance: he is in London, leaving his son; then he is in Kansas, back with his son. He himself, however, is not shown to be changed to a degree significant enough to close the show on.

This is not to say it was all bad. There are things I love very much about S3: Roy and Trent's surprise dynamic; Nate/Jade; the Hey Jude scene; the strings exercise; Beard's Jean Valjean backstory; the entirety of Sunflowers, a near-perfect episode that deserved the Emmy writing nomination that was mystifyingly given to So Long, Farewell. It is only that we were asked to believe that the showrunners knew what they were doing in delivering us the final season of a three-season arc, and we did, and that belief was not rewarded. Therein lies my disappointment.

[bitterbitern]

Oh, Nate Shelley, Underkid!

So, as ever, I'm going to write about a show that's ended because it's when I re-watch and time has passed that I do my best thinking. Also, late at night before having to work the next day.

This may be a controversial opinion but somehow I really liked Nathan Shelley's character on Ted Lasso in Seasons 1 and 2 much better than in S3.

Further spoilers ahead for people who worry about that kind of thing for all of Ted Lasso.

Here's the thing: Nate in the first 2 seasons is more real, more three dimensional, more relatable in a way. He comes out of his shell but doesn't realized how tender and hurt he still is. He has bad boundaries and places inappropriate weight and responsibility for his happiness on others: Ted and Keeley in particular. And at the end of S2 when he's enraged at being abandoned and he blames Ted for not even having the picture of them together at the office (where *he* can see it), Nate embodied a self-righteous indignation that I have both lived and seen. It was refreshing to see a character move in that direction: here's the argument with someone you care about that just feels impossible to resolve. Here's the falling out in a relationship where both parties are just so hurt. Ted's at a loss for how to express understanding and Nathan wouldn't hear of it anyway. The audience knows that the picture is at Ted's flat, but it wouldn't matter to Nate if he were told, because he's not in a place where he can accept anything but information that confirms his pain and affirms his choice to leave the club and shield himself from connections that have become painful to him. And you know what!? I love that shit! I love it all; it's messy and it happens to people every day. It stayed with me because that energy is a very real facet of life in connection with other people that we don't see explored with such nuance and intention.

Ted Lasso S3 went and took that beautiful ball of fiery, complicated yet blunt rage and set it down on the ground where it rolled along for a bit and then kind of got into the goal; no longer intentional, the character just sort of oopsies and coughs and all the energy of transformation that he had was just fizzled out and the next changes were just flat. He's just sort of dismayed into trying to be a nice person again. I'm not saying Nate should have stayed trapped in anger and blame or that he should not have ended up back at Richmond in the end. His arc in season 3 just doesn't really see him dig into the path he'd chosen or the ending he arrives at. Yes, he's a dick to his players and tries out Rupert's style of business and life. And then he gets a girlfriend whose entire personality is flat affect and existing in a warm body, realizes that's nice, and Rupert's mean which is *not* good, and his dad is actually nice to him which does feel *good* and bam, it's all over with. Nate is returned to Richmond and forgiven. He and that poor woman who was given almost no characterization of her own are going to be together like she's a reward for him not being a total douche bag. We don't see Nate doing the kind of work that we saw Ted do; it all just sort of happens and this character who had such dynamism before is rendered mostly milquetoast by the end.

S3 had a lot expectations placed on it and certain choices were made that I don't think served it (the "Hey Jude" sing along thing??) but overall, I feel like it mostly stuck the landing and I enjoyed much of it. Nate's story line however, gets a thumbs down from me.

[youbutstupid]

Character analysis of Nathan Shelley (SPOILERS FOR TED LASSO)

Nate is such an interesting character and I wholeheartedly believe he is a good person, however a lot of fans are in disagreement, so let’s talk about who Nate is.

When we first see Nate, he is the kit man for the Richmond team and he is very passionate about what he does, but he’s also very underrated. He’s shocked that Ted remembers his name and he is constantly harassed by the other players, particularly Jamie, Isaac and Colin (we are their character developments later).

He is so willing to be a part of anything Ted gives him, including his excitement of being able to contribute a homemade shoebox made by him and his niece for suggestions. It’s clear that he’s amazing at what he does and he has a clear mind for football, his dad even said he has an ability to see what others see. It’s obvious he just wants to be a part of the sport in any way, whilst also pleasing the impossibly high standards his father set for him.

Ted and Beard were the first ones to ever notice how amazing Nate was and how the club stereotyped him as just a timid nerdy kid. They gave him opportunities to contribute to the sport whenever they could until he was eventually promoted to assistant coach, and at this point everyone at the club knew his name

However he still wasn’t happy, partly due to his father. No matter how much Nate tried to show his father how he had become successful and how he was making a difference in his field, it wasn’t enough, and that crushed Nate. He wanted to be the type of man who could get the best seat in a restaurant for his parents, the type of man who his dad would be proud to call his son.

Not only that, but he wanted credit. After years of not having his words heard and having his name unknown, he still doesn’t have that despite how much he has given to the team and how he was a lot of the brains behind Richmond’s later success. Roy later says ‘it’s part of the job’ but we all know it’s a completely different story for Roy, Ted and Beard than it is for Nate. Roy is an ex football legend, Ted is the manager of the club and Beard has always been front and centre with Ted, so Nate has never gotten the same assistant coach privileges as the others as his name is the only one people don’t know.

He tries to be cocky and assert dominance like Rebecca taught him; he tried to make himself big to get his name out there. But he misunderstood what that meant completely, and ended up hurting Ted and the entire team in the process before he blew up and left.

He then left for West Ham and it was clear Rupert wanted Nate for 4 reasons

1. He is genuinely good at what he does

2. He wants to hurt Rebecca

3. He sees Nate as impressionable and wanted to shape him into as awful a person as him

4. Nate was big in the press at the time and would bring publicity from the scandal of him leaving Richmond

And Nate goes to Rupert because he wants his name big and wants to hurt Ted.

For a while Rupert’s plan works, Nate is following him and is doing what Rupert to do. However, the moment Rupert faces Nate with a decision which is truly morally wrong (possibly cheating on Jade) he stops immediately. He leaves Rupert no matter the consequences. It was the first sign to the audience that the Nate we all knew from season 1 was still truly there.

Jade helped Nate overcome his issues and even his dad reconciled with him to the best of his ability. Nate was shown he was enough even without a big name and millions to spend. And that’s when we see him reconcile with his team, labelling himself as the assistant to Will, putting himself at an even lower rank than he was when he started Richmond in the first place.

Nate had to learn a lesson that no one else in that club could have dreamed of having to learn. And it’s from that we get the quote from Ted: ‘I hope that either none of us or all of us are judged by our actions in our weakest moment.’ Late season 2/early season 3 was Nate’s weakest moment: he didn’t know who he was or what he wanted or where he stood or who he trusted. He was going through a life lesson that no one could understand and it is for that reason that the club forgave him and Ted forgave him and pretty much everyone else forgave him.

Nate was a good person before his breakdown and he was a good one after his breakdown, the bit in the middle was all just fuzzy. Whilst no one was obligated to forgive him, as their anger to him was justified, they still did as they too had been taught by Ted that everyone, including themselves, has or will go through a moment where you lose your way, but you shouldn’t be penalised for finding your way back.

[roykent6]

the Trent/Ted hive really stays winning huh!!!!

[itsclydebitches]

To add to that gif-set, Ted's "This is still their team, we're just borrowing them" when he let public watch practice, with Rebecca's "Just bc we own these teams, doesnt mean they belong to us" in the newer episode

Ooo nice catch, anon! I want to re-watch the episode solely for all the callbacks and references. It feels like every scene was a nod towards some earlier moment, usually as a way to highlight someone's growth, which is real nice to see as the series winds down. I've actually wanted to tackle Ted's "This is still their team" moment since it aired, especially because the fans come to watch - and are crucially excited to watch - BEFORE Total Football begins the winning streak. I think it shows the profound growth of the town too (as shown through our pub trio) that we've gone from "Wanker! Wanker! Wanker!" to support even while Ted is losing/in the middle of (from an outsider's perspective) changing tactics in the middle of the season. Even if they won't admit it (as, again, seen in the pub scene when Henry is visiting), the town believes in Ted now, even when Ted isn't actively proving why they should.

The only thing I'm meh about in that episode Nate's continued off-screen development where we suddenly slam into an episode and discover he's made some huge leap forward without, from our perspective, any catalyst for it: he wants to apologize to Ted! He's got the confidence to snag a girlfriend! He leaves this high-powered job because it's the Right Thing to Do! I mentioned in another post that I think they took Nate too far into antagonist territory and his issues are too complex for him to just ~magically~ improve. Especially when he's in an environment that, by logic and his history, should be exacerbating his worst tendencies, not encouraging him to question them. So I would have actually liked more callbacks for Nate as a means of helping him work through some of those challenges. Instead, we're continually bombarded with new information: Nate has quit his job, Nate's father actually just wants him to be happy, Nate can play the violin and has been labeled a "genius" long before Richmond, Nate is sneaking into the club to give apologies...

I mean, it's not bad (I thought, in a vacuum, that moment with Will was extraordinarily lovely, taking Nate back to his kitman roots and having him embrace "Wonder Kid") it just doesn't feel earned to me? No one can claim that Nate hasn't improved tremendously over the course of this season, which is what I wanted, but I wish we could have seen a more nuanced depiction of how that came about, especially given just how deep into self-hatred and anger he was at the end of Season 2. It feels like Season 3 opened with a far more chill Nate than the one we last saw and since then he's just been improving in leaps and bounds... but without the support that, Ted Lasso argues, is necessary for improvement in the first place. So Nate grows because it's the last season and he has to, not because that makes any sense after two seasons of stewing in a warped perspective of events, being cut off from everyone who could help him see clearly, while simultaneously being manipulated by the one man in this show who is truly excellent at making people think the worst of themselves.

Seriously, Rebecca only escaped Rupert's influence after divorcing him and taking on three years of hard emotional work with Ted to steer her, but Nate sees through Rupert while actively under his thumb and with most of Richmond hating him (as shown by Beard still making target dummies of him)? Ehhhh that's real convenient for the short time-frame of the series.

[siyteefe]

Ted Lasso Season 3 Wish List

Okay so here’s a list of all my wishes/predictions/fears for season 3:

I want Sam and Rebecca to be a thing. I do think it’s an HR nightmare for Rebecca to be dating a player, so I don’t know how that can actually happen but I just love them. He’s too young to stop playing and focus on his restaurant, I’d hate for him to leave the team to date her, so idk. Or maybe he gets the call to play for the Nigerian National team and goes away at the end of season 3 to play back home and they do long distance!

I don’t know if it’s implied that Jamie’s mom has passed away, but if not, I want to see Jamie’s mom (and I want him to cry when they’re together) We’ve seen the dad twice, Jamie handled him, I don’t think we need to see him again unless he’s literally being arrested for assault and banned from Wembley for life, so I’d love to meet Mrs. Tartt

Sam’s parents fly out to see him play! I mean, they have to, right? 

In season 1, Ted was an excellent coach; he knew exactly what his players needed to hear and truly united a disjointed group. In season 2, of course we see him take a step back, leaving Nate and Roy to coach for the most part, and they do not have that wise, fatherly touch. I want Coach Lasso back in season 3, solving conflicts, using metaphors and manufacturing scenarios that help people grow, and maybe help Colin come into his own this year (he is a strong and capable man)

Edwin Akufo is coming back and it’s gonna be bad. I’m so scared about what he has planned. I don’t think he needs to team up with Rupert or Nate at all to wreak havoc on Sam’s life or Richmond as a whole and that makes me even more worried. Maybe he buys Cerilium Oil and straight up destroys all of Nigeria (evil overlord billionaire type stuff) 

I don’t want Nate to return to Richmond. He’s entitled and a narcissist and has been since day one when he had no power and it just got worse once he was given power. He thinks he’ll be respected as a head coach for West Ham United, but he’s a mere bargaining chip for Rupert and will be disposed of as soon as the team loses to Richmond. He won’t get the respect he thinks he’s owed because he is a terrible leader and he’ll realize that when he’s fired and no team wants him.

I’d love to see Ted actually show that he’s learned a thing or two about soccer and not still be oblivious to the rules 3 seasons in. Let’s show some growth, come up with a play that’s not American football inspired.

I hope Roy and Keeley find some kind of work-life balance in their relationship and they stay together. I feel like their relationship will be strained or they’ll be “on a break” for the first half of the season and then they’ll find each other again towards the end.

More team shenanigans! More Jan Maas! More Dani Rojas! More Isaac McAdoo! I love all of them

Higgins might be my favorite character, he has the best jokes, he’s the most stable character, I love his wife and family - too cute. I’d love for him to get a storyline, playing on the few heart-to-hearts he’s had with Ted, Keeley, and Jamie. He’s a great husband and a great father so maybe he helps someone in that regard.

Okay so similarly to Ted making a bet with Rupert to con him out of his seats in the owner’s box, I think they’ll place another bet leading up to the final showdown between the two teams or just the final match of the season and if Richmond wins, they get Nate’s contract or Rupert has to resign, idk and if Rupert wins, Ted has to go back to the states or Rebecca has to sign over ownership of Richmond back to him since the club is the real love of his life? 

I kind of want Ted to yell at someone. Could be Rupert, could be Akufo, could be Nate, Could be Jamie’s dad, literally any of the established villains.

I don’t want Ted to end up with Rebecca , or Dr. Fieldstone, and I don’t want him to end up with Sassy. They’re too English for him, he needs someone who thinks his puns are funny and who doesn’t like tea (bare minimum criteria -I know Sharon doesn’t like tea but still, I don’t like the idea of him dating his therapist either). Maybe he finds someone on Bantr and they connect with humor and weird regional colloquialisms <3

[chainofclovers]

Ted Lasso 2x6 thoughts

I felt like the physical embodiment of a series of iconic reaction GIFs while watching this episode. I felt like Higgins gagging on air and right and wrong choices. As an invested, non-casual Ted Lasso viewer, I feel quite absorbed in the experience of every episode, but I’m not usually a LOUD non-casual Ted Lasso viewer. At one point last night, I shouted “This is the wackiest show ever made!” at @bristler, and that doesn’t even sound like something I would say. And by “wacky” I just meant “all the emotions are happening at once.”

This episode was absolutely great and I knew that every single Rebecca Welton feeling I have would intensify because of this episode and that is exactly what happened.

This is me bravely writing down my episode thoughts after only one viewing (just like last week) and a bad night of sleep! Copious spoilers and emotions ahead...

This show goes all in on hats! A lot of bad hats for giving bad relationship advice and making bad decisions! Feel like you’re gonna do something correctly? Just put on a bad hat, that’ll snap you right out of it. Just had a revelation that you are almost certainly in an abusive relationship? Your girlfriend is hiding in the parking lot with a terrible hat for you! (I love this show.)

Dark forest dark forest dark forest dark forest.

I truly, truly, truly do not mean this to sound judgmental of any other fan, but it’s taking everything in my power not to just type “dark forest” in the comments of every person who is outraged that LDN152 is not Ted.

Gonna get my initial thoughts on the Sam=LDN152 reveal out of the way. I honestly like this choice.

First, I like this choice because of who LDN152 isn’t. I think about how awful it would be if she’d matched with Rupert and realized she’d been manipulated by him and charmed by him all over again, and how, when she gets the same reveal the audience already has, she would end up retraumatized by having been charmed and taken in by Rupert all over again. I think about her matching with Nate (if he’d redownloaded the app) and the inadequacy of her assertiveness advice and how Nate is one of the only non-Rupert characters who’s used sexist language against her and how Nate’s insecurities would be like water trying to co-exist with the oil of Rebecca’s insecurities. Nate and Rebecca are fond of each other and seem to want to be in each other’s lives, but a romantic squishing together via dating app would set them both back lightyears. I think about her matching with Ted, a man currently on a parallel-to-Rebecca trek through a very painfully dark forest, a man swinging wildly between performative attempted wit and utter panic. A man she trusts with her professional and personal challenges. [Her challenging mother comes to town and Keeley and Ted are the people she wants with her at lunch.] Ted and Rebecca, with all their current limitations, and with all the ways the forest obscures the view, are trying to be there for each other in their real, non-romantic comedy versions of their lives, and the discomfort of matching on an app seems like the kind of thing that would make them rear back from each other instead of bringing them even closer together. It is not time. It is so profoundly not time that I would have been furious if the writers had continued the “maybe it’s Ted?” line of thought for another second longer than they did.

Second, I like this choice because of who Sam is. I know. He’s not an appropriate match for her. The power dynamics are all messed up and their ages are all wrong. But this does introduce a potentially interesting parallel between Rupert and his younger women and the scrutiny Rebecca would risk herself and Sam experiencing if she goes for it. Rebecca seems to have tried to put away her Rupert-related trauma, but the specter of Rupert is lurking, and I do see that being a good person making an ethically complicated decision with another good person is very different from being an abuser setting out to take advantage of multiple people...but there are parallels she might have to reckon with. Also, Sam is a kind person with a strong ethical center and a well-documented interest in Rebecca. He and Ted helped each other feel more at home in London during a time of deeply missing other homes, and Sam has internalized a lot of Ted’s ways of living in a way that might genuinely appeal to Rebecca even if she doesn’t fully realize why. The writers on this show don’t write messes for the sake of drama. They write messes because life is painful and complicated and also very funny. I’d be shocked if, however this Bantr thing plays out, it isn’t painful and complicated and also funny.

(I am already a little worried that whatever happens next is going to activate some very ironic fan reactions given this is a show whose thesis statement is about withholding judgment. This fear is based not on Ted Lasso-specific knowledge but on unfortunate patterns of fandom, but...you can fear the impact of racist, sexist, and ageist tropes on two beloved characters without embodying those tropes as a viewer. You can watch characters make decisions that could subject them to harmful scrutiny without performing that harm yourself.)

Ted Lasso is a fictional character who tweeted about the joy of eating out (you know...at the Crown and Anchor) the day before 2x6 launched and during 2x6 Rebecca invited him to eat out at the Crown and Anchor. (I love this show.) I am so, so, so fond of all the little lunch-y things in this episode. Ted can’t bring Henry his lunch because he’s “at work” aka living in London. Ted and Beard surprise each other with secret sandwiches on Fridays. Rebecca is overwhelmed by her mother’s visit (her mother’s performance of a harmful pattern) and wants Keeley and Ted there. The scene at the Crown and Anchor, as painful as all the divorce/separation feelings were, was also so homey and lovely in terms of these characters being friends, being at home in a place despite the very not-at-home feelings emanating from Deborah. The Bake-Off viewing! Ted being the designated driver (probably a good thing on this particular day)! Rebecca feeling discomfort but not shutting down! Also cute British pub feelings. Evidence that Rebecca has talked to her mom about Ted! About personal things about Ted!

Naaaaaaate. His bursts of confidence and insight. The pain and insecurity and anger almost literally bubbling under the surface.

I cannot say enough good things about Higgins. He’s grown so much, and his decision to be honest with Beard regarding his concerns about Jane was absolutely impeccably done. Many, many trusted people in Higgins’ life told him not to do it. They are all good people, and they were all wrong. Sometimes one human being’s honesty makes the difference for someone who is struggling, and that’s exactly what happened here. Beard truly heard Higgins. And of course he didn’t immediately break things off with Jane. But he heard Higgins, and when Jane showed up Beard’s face looked different than it ever has, and Higgins words are with him as he walks off into the night with Jane and that might save him. And Rebecca witnessed it.

And I’m so glad she witnessed Higgins’ choice in the midst of this very difficult experience of a) trying to find Ted because she knows he’s in pain and being unable to and b) watching her mother repeat a pattern that Rebecca herself was able to break. It taught me so much about Rebecca. The way she was punished (and described the experience using the language of punishment) for having an honest reaction to her mother’s decision to leave her father the first time. The way she was taught that love is conditional, that love and reconciliation are things you can purchase with gifts. The way her mother uses the language of self-help without internalizing what it would take to heal, and probably has little use for actual therapy. The way her mother drinks alcohol as a way to feel free.

I don’t even know how to think, much less write, about everything with Roy’s coaching and his image and how Ted feels about it and all the fatherhood things Jamie brings up and all the fatherhood things Ted is missing w/r/t Nate and everyone except for Rebecca taking at face value (or willfully deciding to take at face value) the idea that Ted’s panic attack is actually just him needing to go barf up a fish pie. Ted hugging his backpack in Sharon’s office. Rebecca trying to find him, and Sharon being the one who does. The words “I wanna make an appointment” being the words that conclude the episode at the exact midpoint of the planned-for show. Halfway through the middle season. The moment Ted realizes he’s never going to be okay if he doesn’t give therapy a try.

I also can’t say enough good things about the moment with the team and Sharon, the way she agrees to one drink, the way it’s clear that she adores them all. Sharon is exacting and professional without being cold and calculating, and everything she does in this episode is such a gorgeous model of assertiveness, patience, and moderation...three things Ted struggles with the most.

What a dark forest. What an excellent group of humans.

[masterthespianduchovny]

I’m going to be honest: I dislike Nate right now.

And that’s perfectly fine.

I understand that this show loves to redeem people, however, as I said in another post, you can only redeem someone if there are negative feelings and/or you believe that person wronged someone or whatever. If you have positive feelings and excuse what they did, what exactly are they being redeemed for?

Despite loving Rebecca’s character, when I rewatch season one, I don’t like her at times. I dislike a lot of what she did back then. It doesn’t matter that I know she tells the truth eventually, the stuff she did was still fucked up. I’m not going to preemptively excuse her actions because I know the end goal.

Take Jamie for instance, his behavior was not okay. We know why he behaves that way, but it still wasn’t justified. We are still allowed to dislike him and what he did then. We talk about the negative effects of the bullying Nate received from the players, yet some try to excuse Nate’s bullying and his actions?

Wrong is wrong. Jamie being verbally abused by his dad didn’t justify how he treated others just like how Nate’s father (and bullying by others) is emotionally abusive doesn’t justify Nate’s behavior.

Although we understand the context, Nate IS being a fucking backstabbing asshole right now. Some may hate to hear that, but this isn’t an unfair opinion or unflattering light of him. This is exactly how he’s behaving.

There are some who has a ton of sympathy for Nate, but I’m not one of them. Please believe, I do hold some sympathy for him, but I have a limit.

So here’s reasons why Nate is on my shitlist and I’ll wait until he’s actually redeemed to forgive him.

1. Calling Rebecca a shrew. It’s not the fact that he literally called Rebecca this, but that he immediately verbally attacked the woman. We can say, “oh no, she’s the owner so he had reasons to think…”

No, Nate literally attacked Rebecca for no reason at all. She had little to no interaction with him and has never disrespected or harmed him in anyway, yet he has these intense feelings of dislike in the moment based off what exactly?

Nate attacked Rebecca because she is a woman. If you disagree, what other reason it might be? The reason I believe it was due to her gender is because she’s been defanged so to speak. So he doesn’t fear her like he used to. But Nate also practices in casual misogyny ie his shoe remark to Rebecca and Keeley. That may not seem like a big thing, but how is that an involuntary response??? With him believing he got fired, he doesn’t wait for answers, he immediately attacks her. And I had to ask myself, would he have done this with a man? With someone like Rupert? No fucking way. Nate can’t even directly challenge Ted who is a ray of sunshine, but attacks someone who he literally ran away from in fear in the pilot. Although Nate respects power, he respects male power the most. He skipped over Ted and Beard and went straight towards Rebecca. The fact that this even happened has always been disturbing to me. And Nate is fucking lucky that he hasn’t said any of his comments to old Rebecca (not age, but personality. 🥺) because she would have fired him. Only due to her relationship with Ted and him getting to let her guard down and find her old self that she frowned and shrugged Nate’s comments off. Most bosses at the very least would’ve talked to Nate and he didn’t get even that.

2. Projecting his daddy issues onto Ted. I understand that nate is going through some tough shit and has been for literally decades, however, that doesn’t mean make someone your stand in dad because they were nice and kind. Ted treats Nate like he does the other coaches, but Nate wants a special and unique relationship that will never exist. Ted is not his father and he didn’t ask for the job or the responsibilities.

I understand that people go through shit and latch onto those who made the rough times easier. I get that. However, all this animosity, scheming, and resentment because Ted isn’t giving the attention he wants. That fucking unfair to Ted. He didn’t ask or sign up to be Nate’s father figure. Yet he’s being punished for not being something he never wanted to be. Never even thought about it.

And because I’ve seen/partially experienced this shit, people getting mad at you for not being who they projected onto, it makes me upset at Nate. Because people like this really do become resentful and manipulative and that is not okay despite their own hurt that they’re dealing with. Why does the person you projected on have to suffer for something they’re unaware of and have no obligation to fulfill?

Nate isn’t just trying to blow up Ted’s professional career, he’s doing it via one of the cruelest ways: using his mental health against him. Thereby exploiting Ted’s trust in him.

Ted has literally changed Nate’s life for the better and rather than have a man to man talk with him, he cowardly tries to sabotage Ted in one of the worst ways imaginable.

3. His cognitive dissonance about how coaching works!!!

This seriously irritates me because, on some level, Nate knows that the very system he’s criticizing is how it works across ALL team sports and with reason.

He wants to be a damn head coach soooo bad—does he think ideas, plans, plays, etc only comes from head coaches???

What does he think assistants are there for?

For those who aren’t familiar with sports and coaching, literally every team sport has a head coach and then assistants under them. These assistant typically specialize in a given thing.

In American football, I believe there are like defensive coaches, strength and conditioning coaches, etc. there are coaches who watch a lot of tapes to learn the opposition and how to make plays to hold them exploit their weakness and tailor plays around that.

Like on the professional level there are so many types of coaches and, hell, not all of them want to be head coaches. Some of the greatest coaching minds aren’t head coaches.

For example, the American basketball team the Chicago bulls fired their coach Doug Collins in like 1989, I think. He was a good coach, but one of his assistant coaches had a basketball IQ out of this world. Doug refused to listen to him, but management fully supported this assistant coach. Now the other assistant coach they were grooming to take over, Phil Jackson, if you’ve heard of him, DID listen to this basketball genius. So much so that when he became head coach after Doug was fired, he continued to implement The Triangle offense that came from this basketball genius, which Phil was known for until he retired.

Nate’s upset that Ted gets all the credit for if they win, he does realize that Ted also gets all the blame for if they lose. Ted has always highlighted his coaching staff and everyone who helped him. He has always stressed that he wouldn’t be where he is without them. And when he loses, he takes full ownership. He doesn’t pass the blame at all.

Does Nate seem like someone who’d take ownership for losing?

Does Nate seem like someone, at this moment, who’d appropriately give credit to assistant or anyone else who helped him?

Would he even listen?

What makes Ted a great coach is that he gives others opportunities to step up to the plate and if/when they succeed, he allows them to shine.

Ted sees the fuller picture, for the most part, and knows how to address his weaknesses and who’s stronger than him in what area. He realized that the team needed a presence like Roy on the team. He knew he needed someone like beard who could absorb insane amounts of knowledge. He saw that Nate had potential coaching ability.

But Nate doesn’t understand the importance or value of this. He also doesn’t understand how instrumental Ted’s philosophy has been in transforming the culture of the team. That this is also a reason why the team is playing better.

So like, yeah, I’ll forgive Nate when he’s redeemed. But these three things are what really irks me about him. Just because I understand why he is acting this way doesn’t mean I have to excuse it when he’s being a dick to others, complaining about shit only due to his ego, and doing fucked up shit like leaking someone’s mental health struggles so he can gain an advantage over them.

Does he think that if Ted leaves/gets fired that he’s getting the job??? I mean hopefully whatever he has going on with Rupert works out (before it inevitably goes wrong) because this isn’t going to turn out how he thinks it will.

[hacash]

Yeah, to be fair I think a lot of the fandom discussion about Nate leaving for West Ham and framing that as a betrayal is extrapolation - taking our sense of betrayal as members of the audience, and imposing it on how we think Ted/Rebecca/Roy/the team will react. When in all honesty we don’t know how any character will react to Nate leaving because we haven’t seen those scenes yet - I imagine there might be some sadness that he left (particularly given that it’s indicated he left Richmond without saying goodbye) but I’d be disappointed if there’s a plotline where everyone is angry at him for leaving the club and that’s seen as justified.

And while as an audience I think we’re meant to be gutted with Nate’s leaving (it was a painful moment!), I think where fandom falls down is presenting Nate taking another job with West Ham as a betrayal on a par with the leak of Ted’s mental health problems. Because while Nate may have angry motivations behind it (it’ll taken season 3 to show whether he took the job because he felt Rupert was giving him more recognition or because he wants to be working with a team that can specifically deny Richmond their shot at the trophy), the actual action itself of ‘taking a job at West Ham’ is not an evil action, and I think some of the audience need to take a bit of breather over it and wait to see what happens.

(Regarding the characters being happy for Nate and Nate getting miffed about it: I’ve definitely spitballed about a scenario where Nate gets indignant that no-one is treating his ‘villainous actions’ of leaving the club with the respect he thinks it deserves. But that wasn’t entirely meant to be taken as a serious prediction for season three {although I think Nick M could make that incredibly entertaining} :))

This has NOTHING to do with the rest of the show and I will have thoughts about that later but I'm Begging writers to realise that people leaving a job and joining a new one, yes, even at a company owned by someone your previous coworkers hate, is not a betrayal or personal.

You take a job because the money/position/location/whatever suits you. No one takes a job for revenge of all the stupid fucking things. I feel like I've seen this on so many sports shows and I just want to introduce them to AskAManager.