#nate critical

[cacodaemonia]

This is probably an unpopular opinion among Ted Lasso fans, but the whole Nate storyline has both bored and irked me. Don't get me wrong, I adore this show and how sweet and wholesome it is, and I totally understand if people don't want to read any complaints about it. If that's you, stop reading here. 👍

Anyway: I have issues with the recent emphasis on forgiving someone like Nate.

I loved him at first, but then when he started to show his true colors I was very much in agreement with Coach Beard. Ted was always kind to Nate, always supported him, and the Nate turned on Ted because... his own father is a dick to him? My father was a much bigger piece of shit, but I don't treat people who constantly go out of their way to be kind to me like that.

I am not a forgiving person because I've seen over and over and over what happens to people when they keep on forgiving others for terrible behavior: they become welcome mats. That doesn't mean I dwell on the people who have wrong me—I just cut them off, don't let them waste my time, and my life is much better for it. So the whole 'forgive so-and-so for your own good' thing really doesn't make sense to me. Forgiving someone who has repeatedly wronged you or done something Very Bad to you opens you up to being treated like shit again—because, lbr, unlike in stories, most people don't completely change their personalities for the better. Yeah, it happens sometimes, but it's pretty rare.

So, back to Nate. Since the beginning of season 3, the audience has seen him... develop some? He's got a girlfriend, his dad was not mean to him once, he quit working for Rupert, and he's inexplicably a good waiter when just a few months ago, he was really into demeaning people and bossing them around. I haven't seen any explanation for why he would suddenly tolerate being a waiter, which—newsflash for anyone who hasn't done it—sucks. A lot of customers treat wait staff like garbage and I cannot imagine Nate handling that with a Customer Service Smile™, you know?

So all of that is kinda weird and not really super well explained, imo. But even weirder is that, unlike the audience, most of the other characters never saw any of these changes. For all they know, he's still the same Nate who was utterly awful for all of season 2. Characters like Jamie, Rebecca, Colin, and Isaac, who were varying levels of dicks at the beginning, showed the other characters that they wanted to make amends and worked to do so. They showed that they wanted to be better and gave others a reason to eventually trust them.

But Nate hasn't done any of this with the Richmond crew, so when Isaac, Colin, and Will (who Nate was particularly vile to) show up to invite him back to Richmond, I seriously thought the show was doing a weird dream sequence or something. My partner was equally baffled because it made NO SENSE. And yeah, I get that Ted has influenced people around him to be more forgiving etc. etc. but why would they invite Nate, who was horribly abusive to so many people on the team, back??? It would be like Sam inviting Akufo to dinner at his restaurant.

Anyway, I'm really not looking to argue with anyone. Sometimes you just need to vent, you know? And I just needed to vent about the Nate storyline, which I think has gotten really lame, and about how I take issue with the insistent forgiveness message of this last season. Yeah, I know it's fiction, but they are framing the show's messages as pretty explicit life advice. And the 'always forgive no matter what' message is simply not a universally good policy.

[isagrimorie]

btw i just had a bad dream that nate ford returned.

and i did not like the idea at all.

nate was okay for the og leverage, but i prefer leverage redemption team composition except that i want more hardison.

(aldis hodge is a lead of his own tv show, happy for him, sad for us!)

[antispopausandstuff]

a specific thing that bothers me about Adora's origins is that...

we hardly ever see her grieve her loss.

she has no idea what her culture is. she has no idea what her people are like. what her family was like. if they tried to look for her. if they even wanted her.

we see her efforts, her frustration, her feeling out of control, but then...

Horde Prime tells her that her entire planet is destroyed. that it's been crushed under his heel. that everything she wanted to see, everything she wanted to hear, to know, it's all gone.

but we never see her grieve this.

we see her grieve Catra instead.

Catra, who she moved on from.

Catra, who tried to kill her, hurt her, abuse her so many times.

Catra, who never wanted Adora.

it hurt me when i realized that i've never been taught more than racism and injustice about my cultures and had to teach myself about it.

i can't imagine how it'd feel to be the only one of your kind. and this goes for every character who's experienced this, not just Adora. but it sucks with SPOP the most since Adora's origins are hardly ever given a chance, because the writers just don't care.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

i still don't get how the friends to enemies to lovers in nimona was so much better written and healthier than the one in spop, when both were written by the same person.

[icedsodapop]

The way White pop culture writers often do not consider how race will affect how characters of colour get perceived or written, the way White pop culture writers can also be quick to assume the worst of characters of colour, the way White pop culture writers refuse to put any intersectional thought or analysis for characters of colour when they are writing their latest thinkpieces and recaps:

[leverage-ot3]

parker in the inside job is so real to me

parker, who has had a very complicated relationship with the concept of ‘family’, who blew up her abusive foster parent’s house, who bounced around the foster system before ultimately making a run for it

who was caught pick pocketing a world-renowned thief and taken in under his wing where he molded her into the best thief that ever existed, where he then ‘released her into the world’

archie took her in, yes, but he didn’t really take her in. he kept her at arm’s length, letting her live in empty warehouses and learning how to pick locks and beat security systems instead of going to school or learning what familial love was

he raised her, but only barely

and leverage did a great job of adding subtleties to her to have her come off as neurodivergent, most likely autistic. she was never what society would deem as ‘normal’, especially back then. and then archie tells nate to his face that she would never fit in, not anywhere

(and nate is mad. eliot is mad. rightfully so.)

parker is different from most people, thinks differently and acts differently. but that’s not wrong, and not her fault. but archie couldn’t see past that and take her in as she truly was, not when he had an ‘actual’ family at home. she wouldn’t fit in and that was something he wasn’t willing to risk, try or explain

and then archie calls parker asking for her thoughts on the steranko situation and she doesn’t even hesitate because his family is on the line. his real family. and he’s her father in a way no one had ever been before and looked after her in the only way she knew how and that meant something to her and she couldn’t have something like that happen to him

not on her watch

[lunar-years]

okay. at risk of being too harsh on Ted...

I genuinely do not think he's a very good coach. And I do not mean that just in the obvious "well he doesn't even know anything about the sport he's head coach for" way, even though like, yeah, duh that really is a crucial point. I mean it in like, he's genuinely not as good at managing and delegating and working alongside his fellow coaches! The way he acts and the ways he manages the team so rarely feels...collaborative? I've been thinking about it a lot after reading posts from other blogs about how he constantly brushes off/ignores Beard's advice and also sends Jamie mixed messages and stuff and it's like. YEAH. It's all very "Ted makes the final decision" about everything and that's deeply goofy because Ted literally knows the least about the game out of all of them!!

We see him ignoring Beard's advice to bench Roy, and ignoring that Beard is actually trying to help the team win, as it is their job to do, until Beard finally snaps at him in s1. When he decides to reject Jamie he doesn't pause to consider it or discuss it with anyone, and even afterwards when he does have the coaches "take a vote" it feels...very performative? Like no matter what they said, it was always going to be Ted's decision in the end, and if they disagreed with what he'd already decided he wanted to do, he was just going to do it anyway.

Then he gets in Jamie's head about being a team player and passing the ball a to the point where it's actually hindering Jamie's role on the team and the strength of his performance. And even though Roy recognizes that, rather than going to Ted about it and making different suggestions, he comes up with the whole signal thing which in hindsight sort of feels...very much like Roy trying to package his complaint in a way that will be digestible to Ted's approval? Like, "oh we'll give him the signal so he doesn't feel bad about playing the way we need him to play. but ONLY when we give him the sign don't worry we'll still control it!" Instead of just being like Ted, look, I don't think your strategy for Jamie works at all and here's what we need to do instead.

It almost feels like none of the assistant coaches really feel comfortable questioning Ted's judgement...because he doesn't foster a space for them that welcomes that kind of feedback from them. Even with the Zava thing, he doesn't listen to Jamie, and Roy and Beard don't question it, BUT Roy offers to individually coach Jamie. Because Roy knows what's happening with Zava is bullshit, and he'd rather pull Jamie aside and deal with the problem himself in the way that he can, rather than talk to the head coach about how it's bullshit. And the ONE time Beard and Roy go off and try something against Ted's wishes (showing the Nate video), it massively backfires and they scramble over themselves to apologize while Ted feels even more vindicated in never valuing their input. It's like a never ending cycle of bad management. and the WORST part is that Ted will TELL them he wants to know their thoughts and hear their strategies, but then he doesn't follow it or he just goes off and does his own thing, so it results in like...a level of unintentional condescension, I think.

At the end of the day, I do not think Ted has bad intentions or is going into this stuff intending to walk over the other coaches, but it happens because his purpose and goal for the team is fundamentally misaligned with what the other coaches value. Ted wants to make the team better by changing the culture at Richmond (at least until he checks out and loses interest in even that) and Beard & Roy (& Nate) want to focus on helping them win matches. I also DO think there's something in all of this that could have been a very compelling major factor in Nate's downward s2 spiral. I've always said that to me the most lackluster part of Nate's arc was not his redemption but his downfall--which had a basis that was severely under-explored onscreen. When he leaked Ted's panic attacks, it felt so severe and sudden a leap because there wasn't enough to back up Nate's headspace throughout the season, even thought the basis is THERE. The foundation for Nate feeling ignored as a coach and having his input constantly undervalued is THERE. They just don't ever let the characters properly explore it, or god forbid allow Ted to reckon with how he's ostracized all of his coaches to some extent.

[foldbaron]

“Winter’s Crest Festival Time” – Matthew Mercer (as Pumat Sol)

“Silent Mind”- Laura Bailey (as Imogen)

“Twelve Days of Grogmas” – Travis Willingham (as Grog), Ashley Johnson (as Pike)

“It’s Critmas!” – Laura Bailey, Taliesin Jaffe, Ashley Johnson, Matthew Mercer, Liam O’Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, Travis Willingham Produced by Habib

Vocals by Laura Bailey, Taliesin Jaffe, Ashley Johnson, Matthew Mercer, Liam O’Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, Travis Willingham

Additional Background Vocals by Habib

All Instruments by Habib

Mastered by Jeremy Henry at La Villa Mastering

Executive Producer – Peter Habib

Creative Director – Sam Riegel Album Art:

Art & Design – Nate Gonzalez of Moon Life and Jordyn Torrence

Cast Member Illustrations – Adelle Kincel

[adorawasright]

catra is so skinny it baffles me how ppl make her to be this. curvy and buff??? lol

[notagoldfish]

The problems of season 3 are vast and deep, but the finale itself could have been made so much better if it had ended with Ted on a Zoom call with the Diamond Dogs, pulling Henry into frame and showing them howling together. This would indicate that Ted not only intends to keep his Richmond family and support but also that Ted intends to open real, honest lines of communication with his son and take a different path than his father.

(And we'd get to see Trent got to keep his Diamond Dogs placement even after he left Richmond.)

[boasamishipper]

i can tolerate a lot of things from writers and showrunners but outright condescension and disdain for their fans is not one of them

[antispopausandstuff]

i fucking hate nate for saying that adora using the phrase "for the honor of greyskull" was just because of her need for routine and not because, y'know, GREYSKULL IS RELATED TO HER.

"she never actually needed to say it-" SHUT THE FUCK UP, NATE STEVENSON.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

this is what i don't get. if nate really wanted to portray catra as this innocent and compassionate person, why does he keep describing her as such an asshole, even post-redemption?

he could have easily said something like “catra stole adora's shirt because it was comfy” and it would have sounded cute and romantic, but he had to go and specify that catra ripped up adora's clothing just so that she wouldn't wear it. because.. yeah. that's so romantic and not shitty at all.

[grapecaseschoices]

once again, i think it is so very fucking strange to include a route/path in an INTERACTIVE book and the maximum exploration of it is '????? welp i don't know! ???' in a scooby doo voice.

there is no reason why a resistant detective not be allowed options as to WHY they're resistant to start a relationship with N or F (and I say this as a huge F-fan who agrees when the narrative is like 'why am I doing this?' yes why are you resisting the hot adorable one??). If this journey is given, then I - as the player - should be allowed to explore it as fully as the game/writer's skills allow.

And I know this isn't as far the game/writer's skills allow, because we are granted variations on how to treat a past with Bobby and a future with Douglas, we can decide on our relationship with the Captain and the Mayor - side characters to varying degrees - but we CAN'T choose why the detective might be hesitant to start something as important as a ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP with MAIN CHARACTERS???

make it make sense to me.

please. i beg.

[piperslovebot]

I’m a Jay stan, but it’s weird how he was the one telling Nate to move on from Nikki only to be like “you’ll feel lost forever until you deal with the fact that you still love Nikki”.

Jay was the one telling Nate to move on from Nikki, and when he goes on that journey, he snaps him out of it???

[misssakurapetal28]

You know, I understand that SPOP didn’t really have enough episodes or time to flesh out the story or anything else, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I HAVE to like it.

It didn’t serve, and that’s it’s downfall. If Nate came out and said that he did what he believed that it could for the show at the time with very little episodes and time, I would understand, but I don’t have to agree with the end results. Also, there are things in the show that turned out bad, but could’ve been avoided.