Season 1 Episode 1 - Part 13 / Если не можешь богом быть ты, буду я
Next time we hear Ilya speak Russian, he's sulking.
Not casual irritation. Not playful rivalry.
Full-body, hotel-room, staring-at-the-TV-like-it-personally-betrayed-him sulking.
He’s just lost his first ever face-off with Shane Hollander. Worse - his team lost the match. Worse than that - Shane is now on TV being gracious about it in his post-game interview.
He is media-trained, polished, deflective, refusing to brag even as the interviewer basically hands him the opportunity on a silver platter.
Perfectly gracious. Impeccably unrevealing. The league’s favorite golden boy.
And Ilya? Ilya is spiraling in Slavic.
We don’t know if he speaks French (I personally doubt he’s conversational enough to follow that interview live), and he is absolutely not turning on subtitles. Instead, he decides to provide his own voiceover.
Timestamp -18:50:
As pretend journalist: Мистер Холландер… Как это, быть идеальным? “Mister Hollander… Kak éto, byt’ ideál’nym?” Literal: “Mr. Hollander… What is it like, to be perfect?”
As pretend Shane: Просто отлично. Спасибо, что спросили. “Prósto otlíchno. Spasíbo, shto sprosíli.” Literal: “Just excellent. Thank you for asking.”
And then, as himself - deeply, cosmically annoyed: Ещё на французском. “Eshchó na frantsúzkom.” Literal: “And in French, too.”
The official subtitles go harder. They give us: “Mr. Hollander… How does it feel to be perfect? Fucking perfect. Thanks for asking. In fucking French.”
And listen.
The Russian is good. The translation is emotionally effective. But they are doing slightly different jobs.
Let’s break it down.
Как это, быть идеальным?
This is such a Russian construction.
Not “How does it feel?” but literally “What’s it like, being perfect?”
It has that rhetorical flavor. The kind of thing you mutter while glaring at the TV. It’s accusatory without sounding dramatic. Dry. Tight.
Ilya is stewing.
Просто отлично. Literal: “Just excellent.”
Now here’s where it gets delicious.
If this were a real Russian interview, a sincerely polite athlete might say:
Спасибо, очень хорошо. (Spasíbo, óchen' khoroshó - “Thank you, feels good”)
Великолепно. (Velikolépno - “Great!”)
Замечательно. (Zamechátel'no - “Wonderful!”)
But Ilya chooses Просто отлично.
Prósto. Just.
It flattens the emotion. It sounds controlled. Neutral. PR-safe.
There is zero profanity here. Zero.
Which is important.
First, “Shane” (and real Shane) would never curse in an interview.
Then, if Ilya wanted to swear? Russian could supply him with a full Olympic‑level vocabulary of profanity. He has options. Many, many options.
But he doesn’t use them.
Instead, he mimics Shane’s tone. Calm. Polished. Inoffensive.
The English translation adds “fucking” to raise the emotional temperature for an English-speaking audience. And I get why. English sarcasm often needs intensifiers to feel sharp.
Russian doesn’t. Russian can devastate you with restraint.
So, the Russian version - clean, composed, annoyingly gracious - is actually far more character‑accurate.
The humor comes from contrast:
Shane: impeccably polite.
Ilya (internally): dying about it.
Спасибо, что спросили. “Thank you for asking.”
Peak performative politeness.
In Russian, this can be sincere. But oh, so often, it’s sarcastic.
And in this context? It reads like Ilya echoing that carefully calibrated, league-approved humility.
You can practically hear the internal eye‑roll.
He’s not mocking Shane’s words. He’s mocking the persona.
Ещё на французском.
This one is my favorite.
No verb. No flourish. Just: “And in French.”
It’s not even structured as a full sentence. It’s an add-on. A bitter little annotation.
Like: "Of course. Of course he did that too. Of course he’s perfect in two languages. Just kill me."
Ilya is mocking a man who is so perfectly behaved it’s unbearable.
The subtitles add profanity again.
But the Russian stays clean. And that’s the brilliance of it.
Russian expresses bitterness through understatement. Through clipped phrasing. Through omission. You don’t need to say "fucking". You just let the dryness do the work.
Putting it all together.
Shane is polite, humble, careful, publicly flawless.
Ilya is competitive, insecure, hyper-aware, watching too closely.
So, this little Russian monologue is not really about Shane being ridiculous.
It’s about Ilya's own insecurity.
He’s not saying, “Shane is ridiculous.”
He’s saying: “Of course he’s perfect. Of course he’s doing this right now. Of course I care way too much.”
It’s jealousy, admiration, self‑loathing, and longing all braided together. A crush dressed up as contempt. A meltdown disguised as analysis.
And the Russian phrasing captures that better than English ever could.
















