So I was going to make this a Reddit post (since up until this week that was the only place to have any kind of real discussion online about Crazy Ex-Girlfriend), but I took too much time to think it over so now it has to go here. I can't hold it in anymore.
Nathaniel is a poorly conceived character and lacks a genuinely earned change of character as a result.
Warning: This is a long rant, hopefully with a point at the end. I just have so many complaints I hoped I pulled them together in a coherent way.
First, to be clear, Scott is amazing. No complaints on the acting.
But the character? For a show that took stereotypes and showed the human behind them in a a way that was grounded despite the ridiculous nature of the show, they just fell absolutely flat with Nathaniel's character.
Obviously Nathaniel is the "rich boy/antagonistic lover" romcom cliche. I think that is the first part which created a hurdle, because CXG is set in West Covina, not Scarsdale. The other characters are normal and relatable. I've seen Josh and Greg get more criticism for their characters than Nathaniel (which is honestly so ridiculous to me) and I think part of it is because we all know Joshes who haven't learned to grow up and be someone a partner could actually depend on. We all know Gregs who are bitter and make sarcastic comments and bring down the vibe in the room. So it's easier to hate them because they're grounded in our world. But it's rarer to know a Nathaniel, so the show builds his character based not how real rich people act, but perpetuates the idea that movies and TV shows have put in our head about rich people.
Why is Nathaniel a jerk? BECAUSE HIS DADDY DIDN'T LOVE HIM! WAAAAAA! HIS DADDY WAS SO MEAN TO HIM! POOR NATHANIEL IT'S NOT HIS FAULT YOU CAN'T BLAME HIM FOR TRYING TO HAVE JOSH'S GRANDFATHER MURDERED!
I know that parent issues can come across cliche anyway, but really? The rich boy's daddy puts pressure on him and doesn't give him affection? THAT'S the best they could come up with? Some Logan Huntzburger knock-off?
I loved CXG from the beginning because of how real it feels despite its ridiculous tone. I remember watching the first episode and feeling so excited, because wow! West Covina was so much like the SoCal town I grew up in and the characters I could tell were already like people I actually knew! Nathaniel failed in this way.
I used to work on occasion with rich people as a legal assistant. I saw a few third-generation rich people that Nathaniel was supposed to be like. Do you know what kind of so-called "men" they were? They were all spoiled man-children whose daddies were bailing them out of their legal problems with money, lying, cheating, and committing perjury. They were able to use their family wealth to dick around, not do any real work, and yet keep living life high. Did they have good parents? Hell no! Did they have parents who pushed them to the point of perfection? Hell no! These spoiled rich babies always got whatever they wanted, no consequences. And that is what made their parents so bad.
For Nathaniel to be so rich he has his own private jet, and yet be pushed to work so hard is not the way it actually works with people that wealthy. Yes, for rich people who are still on the lower-end of "rich" their kids will have to go to a good school and pursue a career with money-making potential. But Nathaniel has little need to do any actual work.
If you want a more well-known comparison: Donald Trump is a third-generation rich person. After all that came out in the media, you can't tell me that Donald Trump was pushed to perfection by his daddy.
And then there are other things that bug me like, Nathaniel is a water polo player...but that isn't a rich person sport. Not in SoCal anyway. A kid from my high school actually went to Stanford to play on their water polo team (like Nathaniel) and I come from an area that is very middle class at best. West Covina should not have been the place he was first exposed to normal people! He even says that his water polo team were his brothers, who would have been made up of normal people because water polo is not a rich person's sport. Which makes me wonder why it wasn't until West Covina Nathaniel starts "becoming nice." You're telling me away from his dad, as an independent adult, spending HOURS with normal people including traveling for games and team bonding, and it takes a lady with big boobs and a quirky personality to make him "nice"??? I'm not quite as familiar with Stanford culture, but again, from the people I know who went there, it's not as much of a rich people haven as the east coast prestigious school (from my understanding). Then Nathaniel's parents house looks like it's straight-up from Gilmore Girls (again the Logan Huntzburger comparison) when rich people's houses in LA look nothing like that. Why in a show so based in California culture are they making him into an east-coast cliche? He's a mirror of Rebecca, sure, but then why make him from LA if they based his character off of east coast old money? California is new money! Even if the wealth is across generations, it is not at all like east coast old money at all!
So in terms of keeping the character based in actually seeing this type of person in real life? I'd give Nathaniel...2/10. Just because how cruel he is at the start is how real-life rich people act so he gets a point for that.
And another thing that annoys me about Nathaniel is how hard the writers went to try and make him sympathetic. Because if you have a character who is straight-up sexually harassing a female employee, cheating on his lovely girlfriend, verbally and mentally abusing his employees they have to make him even more uwu than the other romantic leads. So they always pull out things to try and make people say, "Awwww, but he likes the zoo! And monkeys! Look at him hugging that alligator all sad! And he reads Harry Potter?! He's just a lil nerd!!" (at the time people still liked Harry Potter) I just feel manipulated by these "isn't he so cute?!" additions to Nathaniel's character. I don't see them as a natural fleshing out of the character, I see them as the writers trying to wave me over to distract me from just how downright awful he is as a person. And that makes me resent him more. Like...ok, you go to the zoo Nathaniel...but you were still going to have an immigrant deported and ripped away from his family, you jerk.
Rebecca does messed up things, too. But the show gives her a diagnosis, she goes to therapy, they at least show her apologize to Josh about what she put him through, as well as the hormone-induced attempt to take a hit on Mona to Nathaniel, and own up to what she did to Paula. Nathaniel's response to trying to send a hitman to murder Josh's grandfather was "in my defense, I was promised sex." He never apologizes??? really apologizes??? to ANYONE??? He doesn't go to therapy or even get a life coach or...anything. I guess he does nice things for people (while reminding them HE'S NICE NOW and DEMANDING they get over the fact that he, again, TRIED TO HAVE THEIR GRANDFATHER MURDERED). I would argue that Nathaniel is way more messed up than Rebecca and doesn't do a fraction of the owning up to his past that she did, which imo is still lacking overall.
Like my dudes, Greg has his AA meetings, even Josh goes to therapy. But the objectively worst regular character on the show...doesn't. Huh.
And I think that's what drives me so bonkers about Nathaniel's character. Yes, Rebecca is this force that comes into West Covina and changes people's lives, but it makes sense for other people. She shows Heather unironic joy. She challenges Valencia's relationship with Josh, which pushes Valencia to grow. She gives life to Paula's dreams again. And I'd argue Greg is more changed by the result of their relationship (the DUI he got trying to drive to talk to her) more than Rebecca herself just being that amazing. But Nathaniel's character comes in hard and cruel. His actions and attitude are the kind that in real life, are above what I've seen ever actually change because it is so steeped in enormous privilege. Nathaniel would need to be drastically, drastically, and for a significant length of time humbled--not just pooping his pants in the office. And I'd say even that would likely be a stretch. The writers made him so unbearable to start that I can't believe even Rebecca could really help him change. Imo, they don't show it. They chalk it up to "he just wants to have sex with her really bad...and...uh...yeah his feelings are now just that strong for her. Mmmmhmmm, a woman really can change a man by his sheer desire for her!"
I just think they bit off more than they could chew with Nathaniel. I get they were going with another romcom cliche, but that cliche was too out there to start with and they jumped fully on board with it, not realizing that the strength of their characters are in how they reflect people we actually know. Nathaniel's character sticks out as not belonging or fitting in because he's simply a stock character they didn't add any real depth or nuance to or any earned change. His character being so privileged makes turning him into a good person all that more challenging.
And if I'm being honest? Since you've made it all the way down here...I do wonder what it would have been the response if Scott weren't so good-looking or white. Josh Chan, whose worst crime is a toss up between kissing Rebecca while with Valencia or leaving Rebecca at the altar without communicating with her at all about it, gets more derision from the fandom than Nathaniel, who again, would have orchestrated someone's murder without a second thought. I understand why Nathaniel is so popular, but it makes me worried that even a show as progressive as CXG with fans who have the same mindset still give such a quick pass to a handsome rich white boy.
A Crazy Ex-Girlfriend query: ok so obviously we are all super here for Rebecca’s happy ending not being about a guy, it’s great. But also, with 1 being your top choice for Rebecca to get back together with, and 3 being your last choice, how would you rank the love interests?
Also the Crazy Ex Girlfriend episode titles are genius. Like following the last two seasons as they came out was wild because people would be trying to guess so much from episode titles. We'd be fixated on the significance of a man's name or a punctuation mark and we'd be absolutely right about how significant it was. The feeling of absolute pride in Rebecca when we started seeing titles with I statements and periods at the end. When there was no man's name mentioned. The turning point of Josh Is Irrelevant. Fucking poetry right there.
So that eliminates your advantage, Josh, and yours as well, Nathaniel. Which leaves uh, Greg… whose advantage is… Yeah, what is your thing? Yeah, what is the thing you do that’s, like, good?
Gilmore Girls— “Let Me Hear Your Balalaikas Ringing Out” (2005)
“We always played that Rory and Jess saw each other for what they were. That was the great thing about that relationship. She saw Jess for exactly what he was, and he really got her. So it just seemed like a natural thing [for Jess to pull Rory out of her funk] because you needed somebody to do it. It wasn’t going to be Lorelai, and it just made sense for the relationship that we had set up with them that he would get her.” —Amy Sherman-Palladino
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel— “How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?” (2022)
“[Lenny] never looked at [Midge] like a female comic. He looked at her like a comic. What was so great about that and what you risked losing by having them hook up was that respect, that even keel partnership. I didn’t want to lose that. He saw her potential. He saw what she was. He was her guardian angel and her muse in a sense. The fact that then that’s the person who turns back on her to say you are blowing it… it was dramatically the perfect storm of events to happen to her. It doesn’t matter that he had sex with her the night before, he’s still going to turn around and say to her, ‘You are fucking blowing this.’ That is what their relationship was based on, and it’s why we love them together because he is that person to her.” —Amy Sherman-Palladino
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