I'm gonna hold your hand as I say this one more time: people weren't expecting wwdits to become a IWTV style drama or a dramedy. Just because some of us wrote fanfics like that, it doesn't mean that was our expectation for the actual show. All we were asking for was an extension of the vibe from season 3.
Season 3 found the perfect balance between comedy, plot and emotional bits. The cliff hanger, the whole fight scene, Colin Robinson farting himself to death while everyone was genuinely upset, Nandor's depression played straight and the humor of the episode built around it, not laughing at it. We didn't make that up, it all literally happened. I don't think it was an insane expectaction to hope the show would follow the line it established after such a massive tonal shift, especially given how the season ended.
And though I personally didn't read into details and come up with predictions like other people did after Paul Simms looked me in the eye and told me they just threw spaghetti at the wall and this is the shit and fart show ma'am, I can't call them delusional either, because reading too much into things WAS REWARDED NEAR THE ENDING OF SEASON 3. People were right, Laszlo was acting weird around Colin Robinson, he knew something we didn't and that information tinted all his actions through the season. If you thought something was off, you were absolutely correct.
Why would people expect the show that consistently gave us banger after banger and went from generic sitcom to an actual plot and interesting characters while successfully keeping the sitcom vibe to become dumber? Why is it delusional to hope a show that has always been well-written to... continue to be well-written???
what I don't understand is like .... they wrote the guillermo and nandor dynamic the way they did AND made both of them queer. like. nobody asked them to do ANY of that. so turning around and mocking everyone who very reasonably looked at what the writers of this show wrote and said "they are written like a couple" is just a baffling thing to do. imho
Exactly. And if you don't mind, I'm going to use your ask as an excuse to write out why I'm upset about certain things, because what you said is the root of my problem.
My disappoint doesn't come from Nandor/Guillermo not going canon in the traditional sense (at least not fully), but from the very 2010s-esque way everyone seems to be talking about fans post-finale. Basically saying they never intended Nandor & Guillermo to be anything but platonic and blaming the weird fans for wanting their pornographic whishes (🙄) to actually happen in the show, like they were not in any way responsible for creating those wishes, is insulting but, more importantly, not true. And they can't convince me otherwise because I was there, watching the whole thing unfold in real time.
I already mentioned being remotely normal about Nandor/Guillermo pre season 3 and there is a reason for that. During the first season the fandom was small. And by that I mean both Nandor/Guillermo shippers and also the people watching wwdits in general. During season 1, sometimes all you saw when going into the tags was about 5 of my gifsets in a row, for instance. Even if people watched the show, they didn't really interact with it in a fandom-y way. During the middle of s1, I complained about there not being Nandor/Guillermo fics at all and even between s1 and s2 I posted about there not being a lot. It was also this era when the first mentions of possible canon romantic feelings were brought up and it was by Harvey himself, who said he thinks Guillermo has feelings for his boss. This was, of course, only Harvey explaining how he views his character but I feel it's important because, as it's been mentioned before, Harvey came up with a lot of Guillermo's character, starting with his surname. He basically created current Guillermo. In the original pilot script, Guillermo is a 40-something, very bitter man. Quite different from our Guillermo and it's all thanks to Harvey.
But during this period, that is during s1 and s2, anything romantic between Nandor and Guillermo was purely accidental and mostly due to Kayvan and Harvey's chemistry. We all knew this, even if by s2 we did get the first articles about Nandor & Guillermo's relationship being maybe not fully platonic. By the end of season 2, the fandom has grown for sure but it was still nowhere near its current size. We also had Nandor say he treated Guillermo like a son, which was quite annoying but we at least knew where we stood with the show. Didn't stop us from shipping those two, of course, because fandoms have survived on less (Looking back, it is funny how much I hated that line when now it's just *vaguely gestures around*). It's important to note that after season 2, Jemaine left and Paul took over. And then came season 3.
There is a reason why I was so insane about the Cloak of Duplication and then Gail. The former canonized Guillermo's feelings for Nandor on screen for the first time and the latter showed that it was not just a single episode, throw away scene. Instead they continued with Guillermo being jealous of Nandor and his sexual partner. That was huge. But the fandom still hasn't blown up fully, that happened later during season 3. And I think it's important to say that because they wrote and filmed season 3 before the show blew up. They cannot say they wrote those scenes to please (or bait) fans. They weren't 'pressured' to do anything with Nandor and Guillermo. Season 3 was also when the very heavy Nandor/Guillermo promoting started. (Like the parody of The Bodyguard poster with 'Never fall in lo-', for example). Now, I don't remember if the first articles calling them the will-they-won't-they couple of the show came out during this season or later, but it was definitely past season 3. So by the end of season 3 the fandom has grown large and people were obviously very into the ship.
Now we can say shippers are pushy or annoying but fans can be annoying in general. People can be annoying lol. When your show grows big enough, annoying people you don't like are going to watch it too. (I'm sure if those annoying people are cishet men then this burden is easier to bear but I digress. I am a little bitter, after all). But at this point, fans had no reason to be pushy, we thought every sign was pointing to canon romantic Nandor/Guillermo.
At this point, the show saw how large the fandom has grown and how invested people were in Nandor/Guillermo. If that's not what they wanted, if they felt people were seeing things differently than how they intented, they could have pulled back. They had enough time between season 3 and season 4 to do that. But they didn't. Instead, they doubled down and continued to do the same for 2 more season. Even if by season 5 the latest we already had Paul saying weird things about the dynamic.
Instead it seems they decided to pull back in season 6 but by then it was too late. People were expecting them to come through on the thing they have been teasing for 3 seasons. And then they blamed the fans for not liking what they offered up instead. For wanting 'pornographic scenes'. Because it's 'not that kind of a show'. They say this about a show with an episode called The Orgy.
And even while saying all that, they didn't stop them from teasing the fans until the very last moment. Nandor's 'you know what would be cooler than being friends' is just cruel lmao. And that's why it felt more like mocking to me. Not only because of what happened in the show, but because when I watch those scenes, I can't seperate them from how the cast and crew talk about the ship and the fans in interviews. They apparently now think it's stupid and weird but will gladly tease it in the show for whatever reason? It's funny because fans are weird and kinky, I guess. Things unheard of in relation to this show.
I also don't understand Kayvan and Harvey's complete 180 turn. During the early seasons, Kayvan was not really into the idea of the ship, saying it's a bit toxic due to the power imbalance in their dynamic but he seemed to go full throttle later, even overtaking Harvey in hyping the ship up. And then in the first post-finale interview, he says that 'Nandor is never going to have sex with Guillermo', even if the show left that door open with the last scene. And then there's Harvey, who was the first to say Guillermo has feelings for his boss, who is now championing the repserentation of platonic gay male friendships on tv. In his case, I can give him the benefit of doubt, because he must have his own experiences with that and it's not my place to dismiss or doubt them. I do find the change strange and have complained about it but it's more understandable than Kayvan's. (EDIT: I didn't read this interview after the finale but it just makes things even more confusing, if I'm honest.)
I tried to be as coherent as possible and write out all my thoughts about this topic but I most likely still missed some things. I don't really like to talk about my feelings and thoughts this elaborately because I find it difficult to fully express myself but I tried my best because I felt like I was going insane.
I do want to also add to my sudden numerous WWDITS/Nandermo posts that while I have enjoyed this season (somewhat) and the 'Nandermo' they've given us for what it is, I can confidently say at this point that there should have been more. I absolutely agree with everyone saying there should have, could have been more, and even if the last episode confirms somehow without a doubt that Nandor and Guillermo are a couple or in love etc, as great as that would be in the moment, I will always lament that it could have (arguably should have) happened a season ago. Two seasons ago, even, maybe more! I agree that what we've gotten so far and whatever we're in store to get in this last episode will not be able to live up to the tension they've constructed between these two characters over the past six seasons. It may still be sweet and cute, but there's really no way they can do all of that slowburning justice in the very last series finale ep (I'm open to being proven wrong, but I just don't see how that would be possible atp). As others have mentioned, it makes me think about all the repetitive plots that kept being used again and again across the seasons (Laslzo wants to protect Nadja and that offends her bc she can fend for herself, Guillermo leaves the house for the 50th time, Nandor 'falls in love' with some random person, etc) and how any of those repetitive plots could've been swapped out for focusing on new concepts and conflicts, such as new layers to the Nandermo dynamic. I would have liked, say, a season of Nandor having to confront feelings for Guillermo he can't run from anymore (it would have been more interesting imo to see him 'stop running' earlier on instead of trying to entrap hapless women over and over again), a whole subplot about that maybe, and his failings and triumphs at dealing with that and what it means to court someone he actually has feelings for, etc, I think that could have had a lot of comedic and character growth potential. There's literally a mile-long laundry list in my head of things that COULD have been done (with and without Nandermo) that maybe one of these days I'll get around to writing out and posting if anyone wants to use them for fanfic or fanart inspo or just to compare notes lol.
But yeah idk, I'm enjoying this season for what it is and as much as I can, and the last ep had some very juicy Nandermo moments, but I guess the thing is I think they should have happened much earlier and I think it's indisputable that this show will end as one with tons of mysteriously untapped potential- and while I can't wait to see the fix-it fan works that address all of that, it's still disappointing.
I want to stay out of it, I really do… but people in the WWDITS tag who are like, “I stopped watching years ago and it looks like I made the right choice, [insert other negative shit about the show here]” - what on earth is WRONG WITH YOU?
I mean, you stopped watching a show you weren’t enjoying - a very healthy choice! Well done! So WHY are you crawling back here to bring the mood down and gloat in everyone’s face about parts of the show you didn’t even watch?
Please know that when I read posts like this, I’m imagining a toddler sitting on the floor of a room bawling their eyes out so people will pay attention to them. No offense to toddlers, at least they’re acting their age. The rest of you, please grow up.
Also, I don't think I need to convince anyone that the bed scene was a joke, but a situation in which Nandor and Guillermo aren't friends with Nadja Collin and Laszlo, don't even know who they are (some couple, some guy) was no one's most perfect ending. That was obviously a ,,haha shippers only care about their pairings and don't give a fuck about anything else, even when it makes this show this show"
also just the fact that this season was all over the place from episode one and I've been holding off on saying it for a while because you know. let it play out. but all of the other seasons felt much more well constructed and nicely tied together than this one. yeah, it's a sitcom but also...all of the other seasons are written in a way that made them feel much more hmmmmmmmm how do I say it idk idk I'm literally just yapping but it makes sense in my head. I don't think that season 6 will be a frequent rewatch for me it just felt...messy and the first few episodes seriously had me doubting whether they were gonna recover it
