Why Ted Lasso Season 3 Returning To Nate's Character-Defining Moment Doesn't Really Work
This post contains spoilers for the fourth episode of "Ted Lasso" season 3.
When it comes to charting the course of Nate Shelley's rise to villainy, everything leads back to A Taste of Athens. Nick Mohammed's former AFC Richmond kit man and assistant coach has spent all of season 3 so far managing West Ham United, poring over internet chatter about himself, and generally coming across as simultaneously arrogant and insecure. Nate wasn't always bad, though: he used to be an endearingly awkward part of the show, until a minor storyline about getting a seat at a restaurant revealed his quickly-inflating sense of self-importance.
Nate first visited A Taste of Athens, an apparently not-that-upscale restaurant in Tooting, in the season 2 episode "Rainbow." That time, he approached the hostess stand with a palpable sense of insecurity, as if he'd rather die than actually be acknowledged by the hostess, Jade (Edyta Budnik). At the same time, though, Nate eyed the window table of the eatery with a sort of hunger, as if it were the physical embodiment of success. He asked to make a reservation at the table for his parents' 35th wedding anniversary, but Jade said she has to ask the manager, Derek. "I know Roy Kent," Nate said sheepishly when she told him she couldn't promise anything. "Is he your dad?" she answered, unimpressed.
A quest for confidence
This is the episode of "Ted Lasso" in which, for the first time, we see Nate get a true sense of confidence. His quest to be more assertive begins when Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) tells him about the peacocking gesture she does before important moments, making herself big in order to feel confident and shake out nervous energy. But when Nate needs a pick-me-up after returning to the restaurant with his parents and being denied the window table, Rebecca's gesture doesn't work. Instead, Nate spits on his own reflection in the mirror, a nasty, self-loathing, aggressive habit that he still continues to this day.
By the end of "Rainbows," Nate got his window table for his parents, but his first pass at assertiveness didn't go off without a hitch. He put on a cool guy air, whistling to his parents despite his dad's pointed response that he's "not a dog." He also asked Jade for her number, a request she declined, saying she's picky. This is a bit of a strange moment for both Nate and the show. On the surface, Keeley (Juno Temple) and Rebecca seem to be telling Nate to act like he's somebody; believe in yourself, they may as well be saying, and others will believe in you.
This is where Nate's 'assertive' persona was born
That's not how Nate's first two trips to A Taste of Athens come across, though. He seems out of character, subtly but decidedly pushy, and like a bit of a customer service nightmare. He looks unsurprised but hurt when his request for Jade's number doesn't work, but his sense of rejection here feeds into an overall troubling attitude toward women, which reappears later when he kisses Keeley. Nate, it seems, hates putting himself out there but also feels slighted by the fact that women don't want to be with him. His obnoxious persona at the hostess stand, which soon begins to become the way he moves through the world in general, doesn't help much.
Now, a full season later, we see Nate return to A Taste of Athens. It's a brief scene that seems as if it's meant to be resonant, but whatever point it was trying to make didn't quite land. Nate is equally anxious before heading into the restaurant this time, but feigns confidence again when speaking to Jade (who, hilariously, is once again spraying cleaner in the air and waving it away with menus when he walks in). He clearly wants Jade to remember him, and she seems like she doesn't. "Sorry I've not been around much," Nate says, looking for an excuse to talk about his new manager job. "You haven't?" she asks. Nate also wants Jade to know he bought lunch for his whole staff, except for the trainers, who he jokes eat like cows — because they're vegetarian.
Local heroes eat for free
Nate is clearly looking for something here, and it's the same thing he's been seeking ever since he first came to A Taste of Athens. He wants special treatment; to be seen as a somebody and adored for his fame and talent. Yet when the manager, Derek, appears and does just that, Nate doesn't seem satisfied. "Do you know who this is?!" Derek says, shaking his hand and insisting he'll never have to pay for his food there again. In terms of a status upgrade, that's way better than the window. Yet Nate seems more preoccupied with the fact that Jade doesn't remember his name.
The restaurant bit has always been a weird way for "Ted Lasso" to tell us about Nate's state of mind, for a few reasons. You can tell a lot about a person based on how they treat customer service workers, yet on his first visit, it seems as if we're meant to consider them the entitled ones, not Nate. For us to have a baseline sympathy for the man, even as he turns to the show's equivalent of the dark side, we have to understand how mistreated he's felt his whole life. But when I watch the restaurant scenes, all I see is likely a man who immediately assumes the world is against him, and decides to make that someone else's problem.
Will Nate ever be satisfied?
There's also the fact that what Nate actually wants seems to have less and less to do with the status symbols he's preoccupied with. When Keeley tells him he can get lots of perks in "Rainbows," Nate insists he doesn't want any (except, perhaps, maybe groupies). "I know what I want," he declares. "A window table at a restaurant!" But getting the window table and the love of the restaurant manager doesn't turn out to be enough for him. He seems to be a black hole of validation. If Nate walks away from the restaurant this time still feeling more bothered than happy, it seems to me that there's only one reason for Nate to keep coming back to A Taste of Athens: to ask for the attention of a woman who doesn't care about him.
Watching all three scenes back to back, it's clear that Budnik is playing Jade with tremendous neutrality; it's possible she means to talk down to Nate, but it seems much more likely that she genuinely doesn't know who he is, and isn't interested in soccer, and is simply trying to do her job. In the most recent episode, she's poker-faced once again, but the camera lingers on her as Nate leaves, and it's possible to imagine the scene as a bizarrely underwritten set-up for a future flirtation. Are we meant to think that this random restaurant woman can see through Nate's egotistical tendencies, or that her not knowing who he is makes her advice about his life all the more valuable? Is Nate showing up here again in hopes that his transformation from mumbling assistant coach to star manager will make her eager to strike up a conversation with him?
This full circle moment didn't exactly land
Either way, Nate seems disappointed by the latest exchange, and Jade seems totally inscrutable. Much of "Ted Lasso" season 3 has featured plots that feel a bit like one step forward and two steps back, as with Ted's relationship woes, Rebecca's competitiveness with her ex, and the focus on a flashy star player. Nate's plot is threatening to go in the same direction, revisiting a setting that's meaningful for the character and fans without actually doing anything particularly new with it.
Sure, we see that Nate finally gets special treatment now, but has anything really changed? He's still overcompensating for his own insecurities, Jade is still disinfecting menus and not responding to his attempts to charm her, and the positive recognition Nate's receiving still does little to squash that need for validation inside of him. It's perfectly possible that this stagnation is itself stealthily the point of the scene, but its lack of narrative focus is just one more way that "Ted Lasso" has felt as if it's treading water so far in its third season. Do Nate's issues stem from romantic insecurity, a lack of approval from his family, an obsession with fame, or something else entirely? The character's arc remains stubbornly muddled, making this full-circle moment feel less than complete.
Villain or hero, I'd love for Nate to leave Jade alone – and try a new restaurant, while he's at it. "Ted Lasso" streams new episodes on Apple TV+ each Wednesday.