I want to hear your thoughts on this. I still don't know what was fake and real, but this episode made me feel extremely uncomfortable.
spoiler
However, it's clear that the show recognized and tried to address what was clearly the exploitation of a fatherless child. I haven't fully formed my thoughts on this yet, but I feel like this show was a critique of reality TV and how it exploits the raw emotions of its participants for cheap entertainment. When shown with an innocent child who can't necessarily differentiate between what is real and what isn't, it becomes very obvious and very disturbing.
All in all this show was a work of art regardless, I can't tell if Nathan is a complete sociopath or was actually speaking to us when he was saying that it was all pretend. What a wild ride Jesus christ
Honestly think it was a masterpiece. It's a deeply cynical show that kind of eviscerates everything it touches in this weirdly earnest way. The concept of reality television, the idea of what Nathan is doing, almost every character in it—all of them are revealed as farcical in some manner, and morally confused at best. Best moment of the show for me is still when that guy had the emotional breakdown talking to his fake brother and then disappearing forever, but ended on a high with this episode.
the running part with the christian woman who wanted to be a mom was not my favorite part, and the part with the kids did not make me feel good. I can see it as a critique of the exploitative nature of reality shows, but he was basically doing the same thing with his show. having the kid and seeing the kid breaking down when they were explaining that he wasn't his real dad and his mom crying because she was worried about how it was affecting him was just heartbreaking. idk how I feel about the whole thing, and I kinda wonder if they intentionally picked kids with single parents or if it all happened "organically".
I thought the parts when he was trying to help people prepare for difficult situations were less bad, and the fielder method episode was hilarious. but bringing kids into it who really don't understand exactly what they're doing just didn't feel right
I think what's amazing about the show is that Nathan himself seems to realise that you can't do this with child actors. It's fucked. Like he clearly understands that, or else he wouldn't have made the last episode be what it was. I still think the best episode was the first since it was unabashedly hopeful and life affirming (despite making fun of all its subjects) in a way I've never really seen Nathan capture before, but the best moment is in that third episode as you said.
My honest question is whether this was all planned out, or if he was presented with this problem that he didn't expect and basically uses the show to address his mistakes. I don't know
I think that's part of the beauty of the show. We can't know. Maybe the show itself was all scripted, who knows? That's another level of meta to an already meta enterprise. My honest answer is that it was not planned, he was presented with this problem, and legitimately did not know what to do with it. That's the vibe I get, but we can't know for sure.
Did he really do it though? I mean just thinking about it it seems like he might have written that in? I dunno, kid actors aren't that good, but he's also kinda great at casting/finding people on his show.
That's the true art of the show. You've no idea if it's real or all performance.
"probably a chud"? The dude had a punisher skull keychain and casually says things like "don't act all Jewish". We're lucky if he's just a chud. But yeah that was a great moment in the show
I have a lot of thoughts about it, but never forget that whatever Nathan thinks his motivation is, the show exists to make money. So it's pretty gross, even if it's entertaining
Meh. The way he built everything up, it almost felt like a massive make-work project for aspiring actors.
You can bag on him for "being in the profit making system" when he highlights how child actors are treated, but that doesn't make his observations any less real or relevant. He could just as easily have ended on a total bullshit "look at how great child actors are treated"coda. If all he cared about was money, that would have been the smarter move.
Seriously. The actors on the show were fantastic, and that he was able to give so many of them so much screen time was really good.
I can’t tell if Nathan is a complete sociopath or was actually speaking to us
No reason it can't be both.
Oh yeah I think I got distracted there and put together two separate thoughts lol
That's good to see, I'm glad Remy is doing well. It was definitely a tough episode to watch
