It goes without saying by now that it doesn't excuse his behaviour bla bla bla but imagine you're Nate Shelley in Ted Lasso's masterpiece episode Rainbow. You've spent years of your career humiliated and harassed and belittled and ignored. You've spent years of your life consumed by terror and self-doubt. You can't even get a bloody window table at a restaurant. You finally achieve your dream job as coach but the first time you volunteer to speak to a struggling player 'as a big dog' your adopted father figure boss laughs at you. You get coached in asserting yourself (by the girl you're secretly nursing a neon-red crush on), you actually ask for what you want, you get your window table, you're big, you're bold, you're beautiful, you're riding high and to celebrate this seminal moment in self-confidence and empowerment you show up to the game in your spiffy emotionally-significant suit -
and then
- and fucking then
Roy Kent - your idol, your hero, your defender, the man dating your secret crush, the 'big dog' who coached the struggling player in your stead - rocks up, in a better suit, joins your coaching team, all to the soundtrack of the entire goddamn stadium literally chanting his name. I'd have bitten through a steel bar.
