It really does bug me how certain parts of the fandom do not seem to be able to discuss Ilya's very obvious, undeniable trauma without minimizing Shane's.
You never see the reverse. And admittedly that'd be very hard to do. Ilya's dad is awful from the very beginning. His brother is using him. The laws of his country are oppressive and terrible.
But it's possible to talk about that without pretending that everything is fine and good for his partner. (Disclaimer: this is about the tv series, not the books. One day I will read them and I'm sure I'll have many thoughts about that too. But not today.)
I've said before, I don't think that Shane's family is meant to be a perfect contrast to Ilya's terrible one. I think that they're meant to be parallels instead.
Yuna and David are good people who very obviously love their son. They're warm and affectionate and supportive. That part is a contrast, yes.
But they're also his managers. Yuna overtly, but David is always in support of her. And from the beginning, we see what that means:
In the same scene that we see Grigory Rozanov tell his son to listen and not speak, we see Yuna Hollander nodding and smiling through her teeth at racist microaggressions while subtly nudging her son to stay attentive.
That's a very deliberate parallel.
The next scene that we see Yuna, Shane has just learned that his rival orchestrated a joint ad campaign and is distracted. Yuna is pushing about Reebok hard - he has to be seen wearing them, he's the youngest person they've signed to a deal, he needs to represent the kids like him. There's no real opportunity for Shane to get a word in edgewise, assuming he'd have been inclined to do so.
But I don't think it's an accident that this scene is placed in between the reveal of Ilya's machination and the shower scene. This was a moment where Shane might have been able to talk to someone about what was happening, but instead, it's about brands and pressure.
The next major scene between Yuna and Shane is later: Shane's late to the restaurant. Yuna understands, she's already ordered his food for him. That part's very sweet. But when he starts talking about YouTube, her immediate response is "you should have been watching hockey." David's a bit better here - he expresses some interest in the videos that Shane claims he was watching, but then falls into line pretty quickly. "Is Rolex on YouTube" has a bumbling charm, but it also serves to redirect back to Yuna's business deals.
It bugs me a bit that David seems to have a warmer reception from the side of fandom that is willing to be critical of the Hollanders, because he doesn't really do anything different from Yuna. He's softer about it, but it's still the same pressure.
I've brought up episode four before, but I think that's where we see the crux of what Shane's relationship with his parents has become, in two important scenes.
One is in the montage, the orange soda ad, where Shane's in the wet t-shirt, being made wetter, and then Yuna comes over and adjusts his shirt to maximize the sex appeal.
To me, that's the single most disturbing scene in the episode. Because, yes, Shane is a grown man. And there's nothing wrong with a grown man taking part in sexualized ads. Even if he looks extremely uncomfortable.
But when your mother is the one who sets up the ads. When she is the one ignoring your visible discomfort and adjusting your clothes to expose more of your body...
In an ideal world, if you have a miserable time at your job and you want to complain, you could do so with your friends or family. In an ideal world, your parents, in particular, are supposed to be able to give you support and comfort.
But what happens if Shane has a bad day? What if the Reebok shoes give him blisters? What if the wet-t-shirt itches? What if the underwear set was really cold? What if the photographer makes mean comments? What if a director gets handsy? Can Shane complain to his parents? Would he?
Don't get me wrong, I think that Yuna would raise hell for Shane if she ever thought there was some kind of problem like that. But does Shane realize that?
Or does he think that any expression of discomfort would get the same response that he got when he said he didn't want to go to Wimbledon?
Folks have pointed out the parallel that both Scott and Ilya have basically lost a significant portion of their childhoods at the age of twelve, when Scott lost his parents, and Ilya lost his mom respectively.
I think it's significant that Shane would have been around the same age when, as he told Rose, the sponsors and crazy stuff started. When hockey stopped being fun and started being more intense. When his parents stopped being his parents and started being his managers instead.
It's not as profound a loss as Scott and Ilya had. There are times when Yuna and David do act like parents. We see that best in the fifth episode, when Shane is staying with them after his injury. When hockey and brands are off the table, they are able to act like his parents again.
They're alive, they love him, and they can learn to be better.
But it also says something that, after that truly lovely and honest scene between Yuna and Shane, that Yuna doesn't let her son cry it out until HE's done. She's the one who says "okay, enough. what's the plan?"
And then, it's back to branding, sponsorships, sports and money. And yes, Yuna is doing this for her son. But she's also, again, running roughshod over his discomfort - likely a big contributor to why her son has a meltdown at the dinner table.
A gilded cage is still a cage. A velvet fist is still a fist. And just because Yuna and David are warmer and kinder than Ilya's family was doesn't necessarily mean that beneath that the pressure is all that different.
I think a lot of the aversion to being critical of the Hollanders comes from the way that (from what I understand) they really embrace Ilya in the Long Game. I'm looking forward to seeing that develop in season 2. But we can accept that the Hollanders are good for Ilya while at the same time acknowledging that they may not have been always the best for Shane.
(That said, when I see folks talking about how Yuna can go out and get brand deals for Ilya like she does for Shane, I cringe. I'd like to think Ilya wouldn't have the same reliance that makes her dynamic with Shane uncomfortable, but maybe let her find him a different agent/manager anyway.)
