Ted Lasso gave fans the Ted/Nate showdown they needed, not wanted

You know the one – the moment where Ted finally pushes past his inherent amiability and desire to see the good in people and just lets rip on Nate, telling him how he let him down and betrayed his trust.

That wasn't to be in the season 2 finale. Instead, that was the episode where Nate got his turn, tearfully telling Ted how small he has been made to feel in his company and how lost and abandoned he felt.

So, going into season 3, fans were still waiting. In fact, even after the fourth episode, which saw Richmond finally take on Nate's team West Ham, they may still be waiting.

That's because episode 4 did in fact deliver a showdown between the two former friends/now rivals, but in typical Ted Lasso fashion, subverted expectations while doing so.

Right from the off, Ted Lasso chose not to play into the presumed Ted/Nate rivalry. The first episode of season 3 did indeed see Nate baiting Ted at a press conference, but he did so after being seen visibly suffering from intense anxiety.

The only difference between his anxiety and Ted's is that while Ted is able to process this through kindness and selflessness, Nate only knows how to feel bigger by making others feel small.

In this moment, it became abundantly clear that Nate's was not a redemption arc, but nor was it a villain arc. It was something significantly more complex, more hopeful, more... Ted Lasso.

The series recognises there are no real villains, and if there are they certainly don't come in the form of Nathan, who started the series as an optimistic, warm-hearted kit-man. The closest you will find here is Rupert, whose self-obsession and spite drive him.

Nate isn't anything like this. He's just processing his own lack of self-confidence in the worst possible way, digging himself into a hole of loneliness for which we are invited to pity him, rather than scorn him. In the end, he just wants to impress those he admires, and who of us can't relate to that?

In episode 4, Ted and Nate are both clearly apprehensive about seeing one another, and Nate admits to Rupert that he's planning on apologising to Ted, regretting the way in which he left the team.

When they do come face to face, Nate hides in the corner of a lift, after which they have a brief, awkward discussion, albeit through their alternative forms of awkwardness – Ted gets smiley, light, playful; Nate gets quiet. They are then cut off by Rupert's entrance before Nate can apologise.

Even the most 'confrontational' moment in the episode is one defined by absence, when Nate doesn't shake Ted's hand after the match, something we discover was an entirely unintentional slight.

The whole episode was a masterclass of two people wanting to admit how they feel – one hurt, the other remorseful – and failing to do so. This is how confrontation works in Ted Lasso. Not with revenge, but with regret.

Perhaps the smartest thing this week's episode did was to address the Nate hate head-on, explaining why fans' desire for fiery, confrontational retribution would never be the answer or as satisfying as it may at first seem.

In the episode, Roy and Beard were the viewers, fervently wanting Ted to finally drop his guard, get mad and show his team the video of Nate destroying the sacred Believe poster. He refuses.

Still, after a lacklustre first half, the pair decide to take matters into their own hands and show the team the video themselves. The team get angry... too angry. They get destroyed in the second half as they come onto the pitch violent and undisciplined, lacking any control. Their hatred has brought them down.

When Ted refuses to even scold Beard and Roy, they call him a "f***ing a***hole". The fans may well feel this way too, wishing for him to finally get mad with someone, anyone. But that wouldn't be Ted, and that wouldn't be the series we have come to know and love. Ted may need to open up more but he doesn't need to get angry – he needs to get honest.

There are of course still plenty of chances for fireworks between the pair later in the season. There are certainly further discussions to be had and truths to be unpacked.

But one has to imagine that when these truths do come out, the characters will reveal them in a manner following the Ted Lasso credo from season 1, that "if you care about someone, and you got a little love in your heart, there ain’t nothing you can’t get through together".

It may not be what some fans want to see after Nate so cruelly trampled on Ted's trust – but it is absolutely what's right for Ted, for Nate and for the biggest-hearted comedy series on TV right now.

Ted Lasso seasons 1-2 are streaming now on Apple TV+ and season 3, episode 4 arrives today, Wednesday 5th April, with new episodes weekly — you can sign up to Apple TV+ here.

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