#if he’s smart he thinks everyone is homophobic until proven otherwise

[heavencasteel420]

My issue with the “Who else would be in charge? Steve?”/“You know, Steve’s grown a lot” exchange is that there are two main possibilities for how we’re supposed to read it, neither of which really make sense:

Steve is no longer a cruel bully like he was in S1, but Jonathan believes he still is. Steve is obviously no longer a cruel bully—he apologized for his actions at the end of S1 and is kind to children/lesbians—but the idea that Jonathan still thinks he’s like that is frankly absurd, and I don’t know why Nancy would think he meant that. They’re not close, but he presumably heard the beginning of Steve’s apology to him. He’s been present on many of the occasions that Steve has helped fight various UD threats. He was charitable, apparently to the point of dishonesty, in recounting Steve’s actions at the Halloween party to Nancy. He never expresses worry about Steve hanging out with Nancy/his family/the kids. He never says that Steve is mean or violent. If he truly thinks Steve is a bad guy, he’s been extremely circumspect and blasé about it.

Steve is smarter/less of a goober than he was in the past, but Jonathan still thinks he’s stupid/a big goober. I think it’s pretty clear that Jonathan thinks Steve is kind of a dope. He suggests that it’d be absurd for Steve to be in charge (something you would say of a dim-witted person, not a mean one) and I think also scoffs at him saying something silly once in S2. However, Steve, while not unintelligent, is kind of a ditz, and if anything has become more of one since S1. I don’t know why Nancy would think he’d become smarter than when they’d dated.

There are also two outside possibilities that make a little more sense:

Jonathan specifically means that Steve is ill-suited to a leadership role re: UD stuff because historically he’s not been proactive about it, and Nancy means that Steve was more proactive this time around. This would be a very specific thing for Jonathan to mean, and a slightly exaggerated positive evaluation of Steve’s response on Nancy’s part (he’s not as receptive to Nancy’s concerns or requests as he could be).

Nancy’s response isn’t really about Steve at all. She’s just needling Jonathan because she knows something’s up and is pissed off that he won’t tell her. This isn’t very nice, but it’s understandable that she’d be frustrated.