Heartguard

…and I'm like, did you not watch the episode?

That's literally THE WHOLE POINT.

Like the entire thesis of the show is that these characters don't change. And the finale is a commentary on both that AND how when documentaries end… the people in them keep living their lives.

Like most mockumentaries ignore the fact that in real life "storylines" don't get wrapped up. It's not even subtext -- it's TEXT. Guillermo literally talks about it in the episode.

If their thesis was that they don't change, then they have failed every step of the way.

I don't see Lazlo's relationship with Colin as indicative of growth. Part of it was how Guillermo's short term experience with them only gave the illusion of growth among Nandja, Lazlo and Colin. Colin's reversion at the end of his "kid" storyline was literally foreshadowing for this.

They've been telling us this is coming for quite a while. The groundwork was there already.

That's the point.

The finale was not a reversion, it was a perspective shift. It was Storytelling parallax. Subversion of narrative expectation is not a bad thing. It wasn't reductive. Arguably it's more complex. And Guillermo, arguably the protagonist of the show, did have an arc throughout the series.

The episode was it's completion, where he had to learn that while he had changed and grown over the six years of the show, the people who were his closest friends weren't capable of it -- and he chose to accept them for who they were.

You can not purposefully make your finale intentionally unsatisfying, claim that was your entire point all along, and then act shocked when people are unsatisfied with it. It is an absurdity.

You care about a story fitting into the rigid structure that you personally prefer.

…and I'm like, did you not watch the episode?

That's literally THE WHOLE POINT.

Like the entire thesis of the show is that these characters don't change. And the finale is a commentary on both that AND how when documentaries end… the people in them keep living their lives.

Like most mockumentaries ignore the fact that in real life "storylines" don't get wrapped up. It's not even subtext -- it's TEXT. Guillermo literally talks about it in the episode.

If their thesis was that they don't change, then they have failed every step of the way.

I don't see Lazlo's relationship with Colin as indicative of growth. Part of it was how Guillermo's short term experience with them only gave the illusion of growth among Nandja, Lazlo and Colin. Colin's reversion at the end of his "kid" storyline was literally foreshadowing for this.

They've been telling us this is coming for quite a while. The groundwork was there already.

That's the point.

The finale was not a reversion, it was a perspective shift. It was Storytelling parallax. Subversion of narrative expectation is not a bad thing. It wasn't reductive. Arguably it's more complex. And Guillermo, arguably the protagonist of the show, did have an arc throughout the series.

The episode was it's completion, where he had to learn that while he had changed and grown over the six years of the show, the people who were his closest friends weren't capable of it -- and he chose to accept them for who they were.

You can not purposefully make your finale intentionally unsatisfying, claim that was your entire point all along, and then act shocked when people are unsatisfied with it. It is an absurdity.

…and I'm like, did you not watch the episode?

That's literally THE WHOLE POINT.

Like the entire thesis of the show is that these characters don't change. And the finale is a commentary on both that AND how when documentaries end… the people in them keep living their lives.

Like most mockumentaries ignore the fact that in real life "storylines" don't get wrapped up. It's not even subtext -- it's TEXT. Guillermo literally talks about it in the episode.

If their thesis was that they don't change, then they have failed every step of the way.

I don't see Lazlo's relationship with Colin as indicative of growth. Part of it was how Guillermo's short term experience with them only gave the illusion of growth among Nandja, Lazlo and Colin. Colin's reversion at the end of his "kid" storyline was literally foreshadowing for this.

They've been telling us this is coming for quite a while. The groundwork was there already.

…and I'm like, did you not watch the episode?

That's literally THE WHOLE POINT.

Like the entire thesis of the show is that these characters don't change. And the finale is a commentary on both that AND how when documentaries end… the people in them keep living their lives.

Like most mockumentaries ignore the fact that in real life "storylines" don't get wrapped up. It's not even subtext -- it's TEXT. Guillermo literally talks about it in the episode.

If their thesis was that they don't change, then they have failed every step of the way.

a lot of yall didn't live through the 90s and 2000s when off camera non-sexual not-shown-only-implied queer relationships in media were all we got. we held onto every last crumb and watched the creators deny any gay intent (because of network censorship etc.) and we just accepted it.

I do NOT want to go back to that. WWDITS brought us back to that.

the creators intentionally hit every textbook romantic beat with nandermo and teased it for years and then turned around and essentially said the fans were sick perverts for wanting them to kiss on screen when they literally showed lazlo giving bodyswapped nadja doll/colin robinson who lazlo was a father figure for backshots but noooo nandermo is too kinky because it's his boss??

don't act like it's out of character because nandor is shown to be forward with his affections towards women and sexual with men, and has spent his whole character arc searching for a wife. guillermo has spent his whole character arc coming back to his love for nandor again and again in new ways.

yes their love is pure and transcendent and whatever but showing them kiss or fuck doesn't sully that!! it deepens and confirms it!! sex is not impure!!

yes nandermo is canon, it's confirmed in the finale in the implications and stolen glances. but that is NOT ENOUGH for me. it's a cop-out.

saying "these two are kissing but only when the cameras are off" does a disservice to gay fans who remember the time when that's all we had.

(It's almost three am but I am fuming, I've been collecting these for a while, my evidence, I WILL write a detailed post about this in a few days but I wanted to leave this here in case anyone else wanted to see how fucking deep this goes)

HYPOTESIS: Nandermo is textbook queerbaiting, not in spite the characters being queer but BECAUSE of it. The ship was used deliberately by the writers, the actors and the marketing in order to bring lgbt viewership to the show with NO intention on ever delivering on their promise.

Also the show presented itself as queer, marketed itself as queer and went to win GLAAD awards two years in a row then proceded to have no m/m or f/f couples for SIX seasons. Their queer rep were just jokes.

WHAT'S QUEERBAITING:

(I hate that I have to use wikipedia and dictionary.com but the actual articles about it are behind paywalls and I am poor)

Okay on to WWDITS

Let's talk marketing:

These are from season 3, 4, 5 and 6

Season five:

The show is over, it had six seasons, where were my m/m or f/f couples? Because I sure as hell didn't see one apart from the one episode with Freddie, that's it, that's all we got. Apart from that it was just jokes.

---

But that's not about nandermo, you say, it's just about queerness, then what about this: FUCKING HEAVY HANDED NANDERMO MARKETING FOR YEARS:

OR THIS:

How about what the show's socials were posting, this is from season 3 or 4

Now let's see what the writers were saying (this is before season 5):

The infamous that's his boss moment came from this:

But before that we had:

This is Harvey in 2022:

Here's Harvey today:

And here's Kayvan in 2022

Here's Kayvan last year:

And today:

But I'm glad, you know? Because the Guillermo that I knew and loved for years would NEVER have chosen mortality, at least not permanently. Maybe temporarily, so that he could have a redo on his turning, but with Nandor this time, the way it should've always been. But not permanently. I mean, what would he do? Get a human job and live a boring little mortal life? Not the monster fucker I know and love! This man paved his path to immortality with the dead bodies of the lambs he brought to slaughter and hardly batted an eye! He'd never give it up after all that! What terrible writing that would be!