Agree that a journalist wouldn’t reveal his source, but it wasn’t needed either. It’s completely obvious who the source is even without spelling it out. I guess if you don’t think much of the audience…
I thought the Banksy joke and Beard’s NSYNC line were great.
I thought Sam was an outside back? Not impossible to score a hattrick from there, but unusual.
Saying you’re dedicated to using your wealth for good and then doing the giant vanity project that every other billionaire does had me rolling my eyes a bit. Also, the line about an African team winning the world cup soon has nothing to do with club soccer. Is that just complete ignorance of the writers or is there an implied giant development system attached to him buying a club? And if so, wouldn’t it be Morocco winning the WC rather than “an African team”? Just a weird line.
But overall I liked it and thought it was one of the strongest episodes of this season.
I think in any real world Nate gets fired on the spot. I suppose we can have a complete repeat of the Rebecca scene from season 1 and Ted forgives him. What I think will happen is that he gets a time out, is contrite, and works his way back into the good graces of management and takes over as head coach when Ted comes back to the USA at the end of next season.
It’d be very 90s, but I kinda want a full heel turn. Nate gets fired, but then picked up as head coach of a premiership team that are Richmond’s rivals next year.
…there was always a toxic element to Nate’s character in season one though. It didn’t come out of nowhere. I’ve been around people like him in real life.
The “roast” scene in the locker room in episode 7, season 1? That was Nate. The real Nate. All the seething resentment that he had built up all came out at once. It was played like it was “constructive criticism”, and his observations were undeniably accurate. But Nate’s not a nice guy. He never has been. And I think they’ve been consistent about him all the way through. Its just that if you aren’t looking for it: you don’t see it. They played the scene for laughs.
Regarding Trent Crimm from the Independent: there is journalist precedent for “outing sources” and that is when the source tells a journalist something, then at the end of it says, “but all of this is off the record right?” Being off the record is something that needs to be established before talking, not afterwards. Most journalists would still probably regard what Trent Crimm from the Independent did as unethical. But for a real life example of this here is Politico journalist Alex Thompson doing just that here:
(Many journalists disagreed, scroll down to read the discussion)
As to what Ted will do?
I don’t think Ted will do anything. Not about what Nate said to Trent. Ted won’t see that as a failing by Nate, but he will see it as his own personal failure. It goes back to the therapy. He was too trusting. He was too open. He shouldn’t have listened to Dr Fieldstone. He gave away the soldier, he put his defences down, and he got hurt.
Ted won’t go back to 'business as usual." But he won’t look at Nate the same way again. Ever. And Ted will start to notice things that he and others overlooked because they saw Nate as a “nice guy.” Ted’s going to finally see Nate’s toxic behaviour, see Nate bullying the Kit Manager, and its going to be that which will push Ted over the edge and make him take action.
I had that exact thought today. At the time, it was played as “the nice quiet guy stands up to the bullies and now they respect him.” In retrospect, it was “the quiet asshole finally gets a chance to safely vent his rage because the boss is standing right behind him.”
Good episode. I still would prefer the show to focus more on the soccer/football aspect, but I realize now the type of show I am watching and I can choose to watch or not. It is still a good show and very much worth continuing to watch. I agree that in any real world situation, Nate gets the bum’s rush out the front door of the stadium.
One question for you soccer/football fans. In my limited knowledge, I thought there was a playoff to determine promotion. The show seems to be setting up a win/lose scenario for the final match to determine if there is a promotion. What if the game is a draw?
The first time we saw Nate, he was yelling at Ted and Beard for even stepping on the pitch. But in this episode, the Ghanaian billionaire landed his helicopter on it and no one seemed concerned? (And by the way, Higgins said something about how that guy inherited a $1.2 billion company from his father. That’s a lot, but not so much in the world of big-time football clubs.)
The top two teams in the league get promoted automatically. Teams 3-6 play a little tournament, and the winner gets promoted. So if the last match is “win and get promoted,” then they must be guaranteed a top-2 finish with a win. If they’re in that position, then not winning would almost certainly put them in the playoff at least.
Just for fun, I checked the last ten years of EFL Championship league tables. The fewest points between the teams finishing in positions 3-6 was 5, which would make it impossible for a team starting the final weekend in 3rd place to end up as far back as 7th.
So, yes, unless something very rare is happening, the Greyhounds have at least made the playoffs.
In terms of close calls between 2nd and 3rd, half of the seasons there are two points or fewer between those places, including a dead heat on points in 2016 (resolved by goal differential). If they’re playing the team ahead of them in the table on that final weekend, it would likely make for an extremely tense and dramatic match.
That’s probably the simplest way for the show to set things up for story purposes. Have Richmond in third, a point behind the second place team, who they happen to be playing in the final game.
And given there’s a playoff, the meta analysis would say they win, right? It’s not dramatic to lose and then just play more games. Of course we already think they get promoted for the 3 season arc.
The only appropriate thing to do would be to fire him.
And the thing is, I think they’ll do that, since it sets up a Season 3 storyline where he’s employed by another team. Hell, I even have an idea how it would go down.
INT. REBECCA’S OFFICE
TED
Did you do this?
NATE
(whines about not getting credit blah blah blah)
TED
Well, I’m not going to fire you…
REBECCA
I will then. Get out.
(A lower hanging fruit would be he winds up with whatever team they have to beat in Episode 12 to be promoted back to the EPL.)
My prediction. Nate gets let go. Ted employs the scheme that Nate suggested and it works perfectly for the win. Ted gives Nate all of the credit at the press conference in answer to a question from Trent Crimm (The Independent).
Nate’s complaint was that Ted would take credit for his idea. But that’s not how Ted operates. Early in the first season, when Nate was still just the kit man, Ted was perfectly willing to let Trent Crimm know whose idea he was using.
I don’t see how that makes a Moroccan club attractive for a player. Brazil and Argentina are huge, but you’d never convince an up and coming player to leave Europe to head back unless it’s the twilight of their career.
The audience would know, but Ted wouldn’t automatically assume it was Nate. Because Ted is nice and trusting. So Ted would worry about who had blabbed from the small group who knew about it.
Absolutely howled at the Banksy joke.
He’s an ideologue, dedicated to some Pan-African vision in which the continent as a whole moves forward even if there are little internecine squabbles about things like jollof. He’s buying the Casablanca team because it’s available; he’s trying to buy Sam because he sees him as representative of the “best of Africa”.
It’s not an entirely rational worldview but I get it. Plus this is a guy who filled a museum with actors, so he can go big with his whims if he wants.