I really liked Maggie. She and Nate were perfect together. After all the drama he had to go through with Brenda and Lisa I found it especially more heartbreaking that he died right after they got together. They had something for sure.
shareI think I believe quite the opposite. Nate was always searching for something better. Something to make him feel good and not such a mess. I honestly don't think he would ever be happy because he never seemed able to look at himself and figure out who he was or what he really wanted. He seemed to define himself a lot by the people in his life. Not only that, but I found the way he treated Brenda to be callous and disrespectful. Brenda wasn't perfect but she was genuinely trying. She was far more willing to open herself up and actually try to compromise and understand. Nate didn't. He simply wanted what HE wanted without any regard of real life situations. I honestly believe that he would have divorced Brenda, got INSTANTLY with Maggie, and end up just as miserable as he was with Lisa and Brenda once he realized the "fairy tale" he thought he had ended up being something far more realistic: a relationship with problems like any other that are always going to rear up. Nothing is perfect but he always seemed to think he could make them that way.
shareI completely agree with you. That is what I have always said. He was never going ever be happy no matter what. He was with Brenda-got another chick pregnant-forced himself to be with her and couldn't stay away from Brenda. Gets with Brenda and still isn't happy. What did he really want? I don't think he even knew. He was a 20 yr old rebel in a grown 40 yr old man's body. The way he treated Brenda was horrible. All she wanted and tried to do was make him happy and it wasn't enough. If he had gotten with Jezebel Maggie then the moment he got bored and she complained then he would have put the blame on her and found some other woman. Maggie wasn't thinking with a full deck here. She would have known he cheated on Brenda and knocked the other one up while keeping Brenda on the side. And that what good man breaks up his child's home and future child's home because things get bad at home and he can't handle it so he goes and crawls into bed with his step-sister?
shareNow I May be wrong but in the beginning, Brenda was a huge slut sleeping with everyone. I mean . I only think he turned to Lisa because he was too afraid to make it real and tell his family and Brenda was going though this is too real so I'm going to bone everything in sight and gross if you asked me. I loved Nate. and Nate sensed it. I mean She went to a sex party toyed with some married man shopping had sex with two adolescents.her teacher and thought about others all while telling Nate she wanted to marry him. maggie was a little bit of Brenda a little bit Lisa I think they had a very good chance at making it.
shareI feel like you're vastly oversimplifying the entire situation.
What "sex parties" was Brenda going to after she and Nate had gotten married? What "two adolescents" did she sleep with after Nate and her got back together?
While certainly not perfect, and still full of self-doubt and insecurities, Brenda was exponentially more stable and mature during the later portion of the series in which she and Nate got back together and got married. They fought, it certainly wasn't always sunshine and rainbows, but that's what one would expect from a normal and standard relationship. And yet that didn't stop Nate from being thrown into an existential crisis and into the arms of Maggie, because he wasn't seeing his dreams of a perfect and spotless relationship met.
Brenda was willing to make it work, she willingly attended the Quaker service, despite clearly having no interest in being there, simply to support her missing husband. Even after Nate slept with Maggie, she wasn't skittish enough to abandon their relationship. Nate on the other hand, had already checked out of the relationship significantly sooner, and over conflict that was well within normal for an adult relationship.
Nate and Maggie would have worked for as long as Maggie didn't ask a single thing of Nate, for as long as she allowed Nate to retain his unrealistic goals of total and complete freedom. One of the key reasons for his continued attraction to Maggie was the fact that they weren't officially in any sort of relationship, he had no obligations or expectations as a husband or partner. That would have undoubtably changed had they ever entered a serious relationship, to which Nate would have surely repeated his pattern.
As he did with both Lisa and Brenda, he would have mentally cut and run the second he felt as though his independence was being compromised, which is absolutely unavoidable when you get into a relationship with another person. All of his behavior prior to the series suggests the same type of behavior.
It didn't matter who the woman was. As Brenda said in their original breakup, "the only reason why you stayed with me was because I was never really here." The only person who would actually be compatible with Nate is someone who expects absolutely nothing out of him, a person who doesn't exist.
Yours is the most common opinion, but I agree with the OP. And I'd wager Alan Ball does as well.
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I think it's great there's a forum to state your opinion and appreciate yours may differ than mine, but it's incredibly presumptuous to back up your opinion by claiming the writer/producer would agree with you and OP as well. You might consider making your own argument rather than assuming that someone whom you never met or spoken with, would agree with you.
"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it." Norman Maclean
I'm basing my opinion on multiple interviews with him that I have heard or read. He defends Nate whenever an interviewer starts talking about these kinds of alleged deficiencies in his character.
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THis ^
shareI absolutely agree! This is not a commonly held opinion, so I'm very glad to see it.
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Nate and Maggie complimented each other - he needed someone grounded, peaceful, quiet and slightly passive to counter his restless and sometimes high-strung ways.
Hard to say if they would've been "perfect" together in the long run but they had the most promising foundation for a lasting relationship.
I really loved this show. A real roller coaster ride... 😊
I don't know, Lisa pretty much fulfills all the characteristics you just named and they had a tough time. I think if he would've lived he would've been happy with Maggie for a short time and then gone back to having a stressful relationship, or he would've simply gotten bored with her as she wasn't anything of a challenge especially compared to Brenda.
shareAgreed, he would be bored after a while and miss the intensity he had with Brenda. Then he would cheat all over again. He was never satisfied with what he had.
shareNate and Maggie complimented each other - he needed someone grounded, peaceful, quiet and slightly passive to counter his restless and sometimes high-strung ways.
Hard to say if they would've been "perfect" together in the long run but they had the most promising foundation for a lasting relationship.
I agree with the OP. It's not that I didn't like Brenda but her relationship with Nate was a little toxic. All the conflict and infidelity took its toll, and as a result, some of the love was lost. Brenda should have written Nate out of her life and stuck with Joe. She would have been better off, just as Nate would have been better off with Maggie.
shareBrenda should have written Nate out of her life and stuck with Joe.
She would never have been happy with Joe. Although for different reasons, they weren't matched either. She wasn't really a fit for anyone on that show. Too self-destructive.
Alan Ball has stated in interviews that Nate was the only character who didn't grow, that he went backwards, that he was afraid of his own mortality. That compliments the common perception that Nate and Maggie were not a match made in heaven. Had Nate lived, he would have eventually freaked out and treated Maggie as badly as he treated Brenda.
As for Maggie... Really great people don't fool around with men who are cheating on their pregnant wives.
Had Nate lived, he would have eventually freaked out and treated Maggie as badly as he treated Brenda.
Alan Ball has stated in interviews that Nate was the only character who didn't grow, that he went backwards
Had Nate lived, he would have eventually freaked out and treated Maggie as badly as he treated Brenda.
Are you really asking for a link? Seriously?
Please don't take this the wrong way, but I think the themes of this show were a bit too mature for you. You should try watching it again when you get a little older. Again, please don't take that the wrong way.
Mr. Bolton
Lol, ok troll. Thanks for putting it so kindly.
shareI disagree with the OP. I liked Nate, he wasn't a bad guy...but the grass was always greener on the other side for him. He wanted to find happiness in a relationship but truth is that couldn't happen until he found happiness in himself. Maggie was great, she was. However as soon as the honeymoon stage of the relationship ended Nate would have grew distant and eventually the next girl he connected with would become what he thought he needed for happiness. The cycle would repeated with Maggie.
shareLet me play the Romantic a moment and totally defend the OP. Everyone's quick to assume that Nate was a shallow cad of a man who didn't have any love in him. But does the series really assume that? Frankly, neither Brenda nor Lisa is likable, and I'd be fairly miserable married to them. Both he married out of guilt, in different ways. But the irony of George's eulogy, about Nate the idealist, is that Nate achieved peace through ABANDONING IDEALISM. With Maggie, he's finally, for the very first time, in love with a woman who's not a symbol for death, or one he has an outside duty towards. Lisa was a shrew and Brenda had no spiritual depth---Maggie's kind and gentle, with a tenderness and depth to her, and she's lived enough sadness to really understand him. I really don't see why their relationship would be doomed. It sounds great.
Of the two interpretations, I choose the more powerful. If it plays as Nate achieving peace and then dying, fulfilled in anticipating, truly and with no self-deceit, a peaceful domestic life, then that's so much more moving than Nate on another delusion. Let's have some faith in Nate Fisher.
I disagree. Maggie was just a mirage. I think Nate would have found that once he trudged through the desert enough to actually reach her, she would have appeared every bit as flawed to him as Brenda or Lisa. The only reason he felt the way he did was because she was something different. That, and Nate is a fairly weak human being - if he would cheat on his pregnant wife to avoid actually communicating with her. The two of them together was just wrong. I think the fact that he died right after they got together speaks to that.
But I am saying nothing against Maggie as a character and a person. I liked her a lot. I think she was a real sweetheart. Her and Nate would have ended up like Lisa and Nate. That's just kind of how Nate was, though well-intententioned and good natured, he was always trying to find something better (which is a good quality to have in many areas of life, just not with relationships).
Maggie was not as nice and innocent as people seem to believe. She willingly pursued a married man whose wife was pregnant. Even if she didn't pursue him, she was very receptive to Nates advances. Maggie also knew that there might be something wrong with Brenda and Nates baby and knows first hand how hard it was to take care of a sick child. Nate and Maggie would never have worked,I am a strong believer if he does it WITH you he will do it TO you.
share[deleted]
Nate was incapable of being happy. He blamed everyone but himself. He would have destroyed Maggie and wanted Brenda again.
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Didn't Alan Ball himself state the same? I completely agree.
He was so unlikeable, to me, by season 5 that I couldn't tolerate him anymore.
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The only sadness I found regarding his death in the end was what it caused those who loved him. He was so unlikeable. A selfish childman.
Don't f@ck with me fellas! This aint my first time at the rodeo.