i’ve been stuck on this review for a long time. ecotone is one of the most challenging pieces of media ever for me, very much above the level of other episodes in such category like family meeting and the real monster. i’ve watched this episode four times, i’ve taken notes and rewatched other episodes and gone to my own experiences and i’ve come to what i think is a fairly good interpretation. regardless, this episode (and of course everyone’s waiting) means so much to me. i can’t even understate how exponentially this episode in particular climbed in my favorite episodes list, i first placed it at #11 and in three days it climbed to #4, just above made in america and right below family meeting. i don’t even want to talk about this episode anymore to those who haven’t watched it. it’s just. if you’ve seen it you get it. it’s like a magic trick. [SPOILERS] (PART ONE, nate in the show…) i can’t speak for anyone else’s experience but this episode was a major subversion for me. this show makes its audience expect positive change, growth in all of these characters’ lives, and that’s what it (mostly) delivers on. nate sr’s death becomes the wake-up call for the cast, sending them to try to live better lives, which ends up extending to characters who aren’t affected by nate’s passing. this trend is clear in everyone: ruth learns to take control of her life, claire discovers who she is, and david accepts being gay along with making his love with keith work. even david pushes keith to better himself, forcing him to work on his anger issues. throughout the seasons, the entire cast begins to truly love themselves, very slowly evolving into being happier and more fulfilled people. except for one. nate is confusing. because while most characters grow into better people, nate only seems to continuously regress, disliking his environment no matter what despite him appearing to be following what would sensibly be the proper path. he reestablishes connections with his family, takes over his dad’s job as a funeral director, tries to settle down with brenda… and when that fails, mostly on his lack of presence in the relationship although moderately on brenda as well, he moves on to lisa hoping to have learnt his lesson, getting married and trying to raise a baby with her… and when that concludes, with nate being solely at fault had it not been for hoyt, nate feels directionless. he was doing what he was supposed to do, he was trying to make his love work and it was taken away from him by what seems like an unlucky and unfortunate event. he tried his best to progress just like everyone else, and his opportunity, his chance as he calls it, is stripped away from him. directionless for a full season, he returns to brenda and has a child with her, burying the memory of lisa. and even then, after going through this immensely long journey and finally settling back with who we imagine to be “the one,” nate still isn’t satisfied, he’s still depressed and unfulfilled. he spends his time far away from brenda, dissociating with meaningless tasks. and although he makes positive strides here and there, they are more often than not momentary and reveal themselves as failed promises. “…and i just feel like i had this once in a lifetime chance, and i fucked it up.” [3x12] why isn’t nate able to grow? he keeps trying, and time after time he fails, always to his own dissatisfaction. why? i questioned this anxiously as i pulled into the final episodes, keeping faith that even nate would complete his journey and fulfill himself. (PART TWO, nate in ecotone…) let’s talk about ecotone. this episode draws a lot of really smart parallels to the pilot, gathering the entire family together for nate’s death the same way they did for nate sr: both deaths are very sudden, both deaths involve the family members individually getting phone calls, both deaths involve one of claire’s boyfriends, and more. obviously these are cool references but i think they’re meant to be more significant than just that. what do we know about nate sr? a mysterious, complex man (1x6 room) who’s death left a very confusing message. both rushing into marriage and both seeing horrible violence (nate sr was in the vietnam war), nate sr and nate seem to have a lot in common. this makes a lot of nate’s plot as a character very ironic, trying his best not to become his dad until he devolves into him and eventually literally dies exactly like him. i think the parallels say more than that about nate, though. because really… why isn’t nate able to grow? is he just inherently self-destructive? is he unable to commit to others, and as brenda says, unable to commit to himself? or is he just destined with bad luck, unable to use an opportunity for something good? this questioned is heightened in the final season and especially emphasized pulling into this last stretch. i think a lot of it has to do with his parallels. nate does not do what fulfills him. what truly makes him happy, what really allows him to grow. he does what he thinks an adult should be doing, what he thinks adults are expected to do, while neglecting what HE wants. nate sr’s death acts as a wake-up call to the cast, forcing them to reflect and giving them a drive to do what truly makes them happy now that they are freed from their father or husbands expectations. nate, however, is not freed. his “wake-up call” instead acts as a call to the action of being an adult, something he has been neglecting his entire life considering the state we see him in the pilot. filled with grief, confusion, and the burden of what his father would have thought of him, he tries to do what he thinks he would have liked, along with what the “rules” set by society support. immature, rambunctious nate tries to live like an adult. so… he becomes a funeral director. he progresses his relationship with brenda, but finds himself dissociating once he learns about his amv. when that fails, seemingly not to his fault due to brenda’s cheating (of course caused by his dissociating) along with his amv, he moves on to lisa, thinking that’s the next logical step an adult would take. she’s already pregnant with his baby, and what else is there to do? once that fails, again, seemingly “not by his fault,” he finds himself directionless.. he’s been making all the right steps that adults should make, but external factors keep ruining his relationships. he’s so directionless that the second he gets closure on lisa, he goes home and asks brenda for a baby. because what else is there to do? and then we reach this final season, where there’s nothing left to ruin brenda and nate’s relationship… and it’s still not working. nate tries to keep his mind occupied with other women, or religion, or whatever will keep him busy and away from the silence, while brenda gets closer and closer and embraces it. nate just can’t figure out what’s wrong. (PART THREE, “the ecotone dream”) and i don’t think he figured it out. even though he takes a step in the right direction before his death by breaking up with brenda, he takes a few steps backward by immediately moving on to another woman, “as an adult should do,” being maggie. maybe she’s who he really, truly wants. maybe he’s still not living for himself and he’s just going through the motions. regardless, we get to see what he wants. nate and david’s dream, “the ecotone dream,” made me cry very hard. harder than everyone’s waiting, although i definitely cried more overall on that episode, this single scene brutalized me. it’s the first time we get to see what really fulfilled him, what he actually wanted. wow this paragraph is going to be difficult. he wakes up in his childhood bed on a sunny day, not a care or responsibility in sight. he gets up and breathes for a second. the horn honks. it’s his dad, seemingly an upbeat and relaxed version of nate sr, and his brother. david is a hippie here, which i think is saying less about him and more about nate. he wishes david were more like him, less tight and obsessed with the business and more relaxed and close with him. his dad, being the undertaker, walks him to his death, while his brother comforts him. they smoke weed in the car. david and nate laugh together. nate sr scolds them the way a father scolds a young teenager, but plays along with their bit right after. nate laughs so hard that it can be seen as maniacal, but also seen as an intense overflow of happiness. they’re all young and alive and happy and they’re laughing. maybe it’s just trying to show how absurd the overall situation is, that nate’s life is ending at such an awkward and abrupt point. they pull up to the beach. two white birds fly off, the same sort of bird that pecked on his wedding cake in 5x1. it was what he really wanted, who he really was, that always conflicted with the fake adult life he was trying to lead. everything is beautiful and nate is smiling for the first time in a long time. the ocean is shimmering and the birds are flying, he’s got no responsibilities or societal pressure, and he’s surrounded by those he truly loves. for the first time in really the entire show, we see what nate really wanted; what really fulfilled him… nate never wanted to be an adult. that just doesn’t fulfill him. he’s too childish, too rambunctious, too young-spirited. this is originally posed as something brenda and nate both share, but that becomes less and less true as brenda genuinely matures. nate acts as an adult without being one, he lived for others and for concepts created by others. he never got the real wake-up call that he needed to be happy, to live. GOOGLE DOC ⬇️ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B4-qJMo8GEan5xnPuMsN7wXqqDE5IDgXF-8ZRB2jOrk/edit thank you guys for waiting 🐺🩷