Nat and Kevyn’s dynamic is a lot more interesting that I think people give it credit for (not as a healthy ship but as a window into Nat’s character, background, and relationship patterns). I’m actually really eager to see where it goes in the post-rescue timeline of Season 4.
Kevyn is the catalyst for Nat’s father’s death. Her dad catching them together in her bedroom is what triggers the violent outburst that leads Nat to grab the rifle. I’ve always imagined there’s some resentment Nat carries toward Kevyn because of that. He’s a living reminder of one of the most traumatic moments of her life. Seeing him over and over is almost a form of self-punishment, forcing her to relive her guilt and wonder if things would’ve been different if she had never invited him over in the first place. Her best (and arguably only) friend is inextricably linked to the memory of her father’s brains splattered on the ground.
And I imagine Kevyn carries a fair amount of guilt too. Imagine almost getting beaten by your crush’s father, running for your life, then finding out later he died in a gun “accident” that same day. Does Kevyn ever wonder if he should’ve stayed to protect her? Does some part of him feel responsible? Does he ever suspect it wasn’t really an accident at all?
Then, Nat gets on the plane for Nationals and Kevyn is under the impression that she died, for almost two years. The idealistic image he must have created of her during that time, in his grief. He was a teenage boy completely in love with her for years, and now she has just died tragically young, frozen in time before she had a chance to disappoint him. There’s no way he didn’t develop a glorified image of her in his mind, a fantasy. And, therefore, it must have been incredibly jarring when the real Natalie returned home as a shell of her former self. She might try to act like her former self, or live up to the fantasy Kevyn has created of her, but she can’t put on the mask anymore and the reminder of how much she has changed is unbearable for her, so she ditches him and avoids him for decades.
And their dynamic is so mutually manipulative when they reunite in the adult timeline. Nat is obviously using Kevyn for answers on Travis’ death, fully aware that he has always had feelings for her and intentionally using that against him. She grabs the old mixtape he made her because she knows he has been clinging to a past version of her, and the nostalgia of seeing that tape will make him see past the hardened version of herself she has become.
And Kevyn is using Nat too. Nat tells him Travis, someone she very obviously loved deeply, has just killed himself, but that doesn’t stop him from confessing his feelings for her and trying to kiss her that night. Nat pulls away, starts crying, and admits she can’t stop thinking about Travis, making it very clear that she is in an emotionally shattered state and nowhere near ready to enter a relationship with someone else. And yet he still pursues her.
She kisses him to seal the deal on her emotional manipulation, but also because she’s swept up by this nostalgic feeling of being with him, and the scrap of hope she’s clinging to amidst her intense grief over Travis. Kevyn represents a kind of life boat she is clinging to. Later that night she’s shown back in her motel room washing her mouth, visibly conflicted. Interestingly, a deleted portion of the scene shows her teenage self standing behind her. I think this symbolizes the version of herself Nat is trying to recreate while she’s with Kevyn. But that version of Nat is not real to her now, leaving her to perform a role that no longer fits while her younger self mourns who she has become.
Then Kevyn gives her Travis’ autopsy records, positioning himself as the person who can save her, help her, fix things for her. Nat says she “owes him,” and Kevyn immediately cashes that vulnerability in by asking her out again. When she turns him down, he literally drives to her motel to convince her otherwise.
And on that date, Nat has an obvious trauma flashback severe enough that she has to physically isolate herself to calm down. Kevyn once again steps into the role of the understanding savior, reassuring her that he accepts her trauma and loves her anyway, before sleeping with her that same night while she is actively grieving Travis and very likely still emotionally destabilized from the flashback.
Kevyn genuinely cares about Nat, but there’s still an undeniable selfishness in the way he approaches her vulnerability. He wants to be needed by her. He wants to be the person who finally “rescues” Natalie Scatorccio, and that desire repeatedly overrides the reality that she is drowning in grief, addiction, trauma, and emotional instability throughout almost all of their interactions in the adult timeline. I can’t help but wonder how much of Kevyn’s “knight in shining armor” savior fantasy is connected to the guilt he still holds over running away when Nat’s father caught them together decades ago.
Nat (after stealing his gun while he’s sleeping and using it to go on a heist) tells the other survivors how “nice” Kevyn is with sincerity in her tone, which I think shows how poorly Nat is accustomed to being treated by men, as well as the desperate, vulnerable state she is in; reaching out for any form of love and connection she can get even when it’s unhealthy and based on a lie.
And then the next morning, when Kevyn confronts her about the gun and Nat immediately lashes out, accusing him of still clinging to a “high school crush” on her, the tragedy is that she’s right. Kevyn insists he accepts Nat’s trauma and loves her anyway, but the moment her trauma manifests in an ugly, inconvenient, real way, he walks away. He loves the idealized version of Natalie he preserved in his head after the crash, not the reality of the deeply damaged woman who came back.
At the same time, the scene is undeniably an act of self-sabotage from Nat. She senses intimacy and vulnerability getting too close, and she detonates the relationship before she can risk it.
Nat and Kevyn both seem to have used this relationship as an attempt to recreate or relive their teenagehood or live out a version of their lives that could have been. Their conversations revolve around past memories and nostalgia.
Adult Kevyn is dissatisfied with the life he ended up with rather than consciously chose. He’s recently divorced, stuck in a job that feels more like a something he fell into than one he passionately pursued, and he probably knows that the goth, anarchist teenager he once was would be horrified to learn he grew up to be a cop with a failed music career, a failed marriage, and weekends spent at children’s soccer games. Nat embodies the rebellious, reckless, alive version of himself that he lost somewhere along the way. He romanticizes memories of running through alleyways with her, stealing chemistry lab equipment to make bongs, and listening to Nirvana back when it felt like it belonged only to the two of them.
For Nat, her dynamic with Kevyn gives her a glimpse at the version of herself that could have been if the crash had never happened, or, going back even further, who she could have been without the trauma of her father’s death. Trauma fundamentally altered her relationship to herself. After the guilt of her father’s death, and especially after everything she did in the wilderness, she doesn’t allow herself to love or create any form of happiness in her life, believing she doesn’t deserve it. She runs from stability, never even allows herself to have a home address, and destroys any potential of peace that presents itself to her.
Kevyn offers her a vision of an ordinary life. A healthy relationship with a man who is kind to her and has a stable position in life. A home. A family. Standing on the sidelines of a soccer game, cheering for a kid. The small, mundane comforts that most people take for granted. He presents a tantalizing “what if,” a version of Natalie who chose life instead of punishment.
And after a lifetime of self-loathing, Kevyn’s idealization of her feels intoxicating. His unwavering belief in her offers a kind of validation she’s rarely experienced (akin to moments in the wilderness she thrived on, such as being cheered on when she brought food back to the group or when she was initially crowned as the new leader). What begins as manipulation (a means of getting information about Travis’ death) slowly starts to feel like a genuine attempt to imagine a future for herself after losing the last thing that gave her life direction: the promise she made with Travis.
But that’s also why the relationship is so inauthentic. Neither of them is really seeing the other as they are in the present. They’re both in love with possibilities, with ghosts, with alternate timelines. What draws them together isn’t compatibility so much as longing. The relationship becomes a vessel for grief, nostalgia, and regret. And for Natalie especially, that hope is less a sign of healing than an act of desperation, a last attempt to find something worth living for before the darkness closes in again (and, as we see, it does catch up to her again once the fantasy of Kevyn fades).
In their last scene together at the reunion, Nat watches Kevyn finally let her (and the idea of her) go, and at the same time, she stares at Travis’ photo in the memorial case and accepts that he ended his own life and broke their promise. In that moment, the two final scraps tethering her to life are both shattered: her brief fantasy of an ordinary happy life with Kevyn, and the desperate distraction of her hunt for Travis’ supposed killer, both of which briefly prevented her from really sitting with the reality that she is deeply alone by her own design. And we know what she decides to do immediately following this scene.
And then, at Lottie’s compound, they both end up dying on the same night in the exact same way and are wheeled out on body bags right next to each other.
I’m excited to see this important gap in their timeline, this post-rescue period where Kevyn’s glorified ideal of Nat and the hollowed out shell she has become after the rescue collide. Kevyn is an essential piece of Nat’s story, whether we like him or not.
