05/10/2024
Saw this and had to share. Some insight as to why Brooke and I love Ted Lasso. A second chance. Something we’re blessed with and some we don’t take for granted.
The Nate h8 is misplaced. Socially awkward and bullied his whole life. Knowing that he was actually good at things (from the violin to seeing the pitch) and never getting the affirmation and encouragement from anyone…until Ted comes to town and remembers his name. Gets him involved. Promotes him. But then Nate’s insecurities start to take over again. He starts to feel left out. Unappreciated. Not taken at all seriously. Ted laughs in his face when Nate suggests he’ll talk to Issac to get him straight. When Nate tells Ted he felt abandoned by him, he meant that in his bones. He told Ted that Ted made him feel like the most important person in the world. He had never gotten that from anyone. Not even his own father who had, as Mae teaches us, filled Nate with all of his own sh@t. We learned that Nate inherited his father’s insecurities and awkwardness from his mom and sister. So Nate did the only thing that he felt like he could do. He lashed out. Remember what Ted said, though, “hurt people hurt people.” This show could have taken Nate in a completely different direction. In any other show, he probably would’ve been turned into the classic Shakespearian tragic character and forced himself to embrace the false image of himself he created. But that was never who he wanted to be. He h8ed himself for it every time. He was never comfortable in that skin. But Jade SAW him. And that was all he needed. To be accepted by someone that HE loved. When Rupert tested him at the bar that night, he’d had enough of that version of himself. He always knew who he was. He just never knew that who he was was truly who he wanted to be, until that moment. Remember the words to the song that was playing? “ I hope you find someone to love you for all that you are. I hope I find someone to love me for all that I am.” The magic of this show, the Tao of Ted, is that it recognizes that good people (from Rebecca to Nate) can make mistakes and not be DEFINED by them. Beard represents everyone of us who questions whether or not Nate was redeemable. But then he remembered that Ted was right. We should be judged not by our lowest moments. But by what we do with the second chance if someone loves us enough to give us one.
