Stopping The Nate Hate.

Did Ted Lasso teach us nothing?

As season 2 went on, Nate got grayer and grayer. . . until he looked like his father.

WARNING: Ted Lasso season 2 spoilers ahead. Reader beware.

“You can tell a lot about someone by what they do with their pain…do they transform it, or do they transmit it.”- Richard Rohr

Yesterday I was a guest on an upcoming episode of the Ted Lasso Richmond Till We Die podcast. (Do check them out - conversations with cast members and more!) I love TV and I love religion (well, kinda) and so an opportunity to discuss the religious imagery in Ted Lasso season 2? I’ll just say what Ted would say if Diane Sawyer ever asked him on a date: “yes, please!”

The final question they posed to me was this: what storyline do you hope is played out more in season 3. It took me no time at all to answer: I want Nate (that little shit) to get a redemption story. The podcast hosts then regaled me with how much hate there is for Nate in the on-line Ted Lasso community.

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I get it. It felt like when he betrayed Richmond, he betrayed us.

But woven throughout Ted Lasso, there has been a strong thread of forgiveness and mercy, so I’d like to make the case, if you haven’t already, to give Ted Lasso a second watch with a special eye to Nate’s story.

Early on we see him mousily avoid everyone’s gaze, and no one even asks his name and when someone gets his name wrong he doesn’t even correct them. He shuffles meekly around the locker room, taking everyone’s abuse. His massive insecurity masks his massive talent, and no one ever suspects how brilliant he is.

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His shitty dad withholds approval even when Nate is lauded in the newspaper.

I don’t know who hurt Nate’s dad, but someone did. No one ends up being that big of a dick to his kid unless someone was that big of a dick to him.

Nate’s sense of himself is painfully diminished by having a bully for a father. He even spits at his own reflection in the mirror, because the only thing he sees when he looks at himself is the disappointment of a shitty dad, which breaks my heart.

And so when Ted comes along, asks his name and his opinion, we see him bloom under the sunlight of Ted’s attention. Which is lovely. But here’s the thing: IT WAS NOT ENOUGH.

And it never could be.

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Your wounds are not your fault, but their healing is your opportunity.

If one person (parent, pastor, teacher, friend, lover, etc…) hurts us, we cannot hand over the responsibility of healing that wound to someone who is a nicer version of them. If you have church wounds and go to a different kind of church where you are more welcomed and the pastor is nicer to you, that wound will likely resurface as soon as someone newer than you joins and the pastor moves on to showing them special attention now.

Every time a substitute disappoints me, the wound comes back. Because it wasn’t actually healed. I just slathered the Lidocaine of someone else’s acceptance on it. But that shit wears off. What am I gonna do then? Hate the lidocaine for not being an actual cure? Betray the Lidocaine? Talk shit about the Lidocaine to anyone who will listen? Or do my fucking personal work?

Healing can START in a more loving community, it can START by having a father figure who is not a bully pay attention to you, but it can never be completed by them. That shit is OUR work.

(Nate was not healed by the attention and acceptance of Ted, or else he would have turned and offered the same kindness to the new locker room attendant, instead of offering him abuse.)

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To see our own emotional confirmation bias is so often the key to our own freedom.

The first time I saw that scene in the locker room office where Nate finally tells Ted why he is so mad at him, I remember thinking, huh?

Often when a character finally gets told off I am like, finally! But not with this. Nate’s list of complaints against Ted made no sense to me, so much so that I wondered if I had missed something.

But when I watched again, I realized that Nate was not healed enough to stop taking everything personally. He viewed anything that was said to him or done to him as evidence he was being rejected.

EXAMPLE:

He suggested they run the “false nine” play.

Ted says “great idea Nate. let’s do it”

Nate says to Beard “it is a great idea so he will never say it’s mine. he will take credit”

Later, Ted (proving him wrong) says “we are gonna run Nate’s false nine”

Nate says to Beard “of course he’s calling it “Nate’s” - that’s so when it fails - and it will - he can blame it on me”.

I want to say that I have never done this. But the fact is, I DO THIS SHIT ALL THE TIME. I attribute motive and meaning to everything others say and do - not based in facts but based in how it confirms whatever negative thing I already believe to be true about myself or them. It’s gross. But it’s also human.

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So . . . what do I want for Nate?

Healing.

I want to see Nate’s pain transformed. I want to see him be forgiven. And for sure I want to see him forgive himself.

OK, ok. I really just want all of this for me. And I want it for you. Imagine if we could all just transform the shit that has happened to us and stopped transmitting it everywhere, blaming the people who love us, and being dicks to the people we could be helping instead.

I want to see Ted stand outside Nate’s door at Christmas with a big flip-chart that says:

You hurt me.

And unless you make some meaningful amends you’ll always be a little shit.

And I forgive You. Merry Christmas.

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So, to me and to you and to everyone else: Please do your work.

You’ll find you’re already worthy of love and appreciation.

You can stop trying to prove yourself to your dads.

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In this month’s Q and O (a monthly feature for paid subscribers) I asked what movies and TV shows portrayed faith and prayer in ways you actually thought were beautiful and not just cartoonish or delusionally over-sentimental. Here’s a list I compiled, that I am making available to everyone:

Faith and prayer in TV and films

(sorry for the weird formatting on the numbers!)

1. Closing scene in Places in the Heart (1984)

2. Father Mulcahy on MASH

3. Afterlife on Netflix

4. Places in the Heart - Communion scene at the end

5. The Green Mile

6. Kill A Mockingbird - when Scout finally meets Boo Radley and there is that total unconditional love for him

7. 2nd season of The Babysitter's Club - Episode: Claudia and the Sad Goodbye

8. Ben Kingsley from House of Sand and Fog

9. Bagdad Cafe

10. Fleabag

11. episode from ER called Hell and High Water -

1. Call the Midwife

2. Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof

3. Trip to Bountiful

4. The Good Place - finale

5. it’s a Wonderful Life

6. Tree of Life

7. Chocolat

8. Lars and the Real Girl

9. The Tender Bar

10. Nothing Sacred

11. The Mission with Robert DiNero

12. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, MO

13. Steel Magnolias -

1. Shawshank Redemption

2. The Rev on British television

3. (60's) star trek series

4. Ted Lasso

5. Ride Upon The Storm

6. Midnight Mass -

1. Chaos Walking

2. Wit with Emma Thompson

3. The Spitfire Grill -

1. A Hidden Life directed by Terence Malick

2. Soap -

1. Wings of Desire

2. The Expanse

3. Gentleman Jack, S1 E8

4. Posiden Adventure

5. Pose

6. Interstellar with Matthew McConnaughey

7. Encanto

8. 1995-Star Trek voyage - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Puw5yaC7epM

9. The Sea of Trees.

10. Rectify

11. Magnolia

12. Sweet Land

13. Chicago Fire - the chaplains

14. First Reformed

15. Die Marquise von O

16. Virgin Spring

17. Rev

18. The Man Who Planted Trees - 

1. Bruce Almighty -

1. The Thornbirds . . . https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085101/

2. The Way

3. Life Is Beautiful

4. ​​The Eyes of Tammy Faye

5. The Chosen - S1 E1

6. second Lord of the Rings

7. The Green Mile

8. Calvary

9. Rudy

10. Nomadland

11. Grey's Anatomy - https://www.pinterest.com/pin/548876273321019960/?d=t&mt=login

12. Contact with Jodie Foster

13. The Green Book

14. Doctor Who -

1. Chariots of Fire

2. Whiskey Drinkin Preacher -

1. Sweet Land

2. Evil

3. Tender Mercies with Robert Duvall

4. Grantchester

5. Enchanted April

6. Joan of Arcadia

7. The Shack

8. Five Finger Death Punch -

1. Priest- https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110889/

2. Saved

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this amazing list!!

If you’re not part of the subscribership, you can join us (paid or free) at any time!