After Ted Lasso's First Big Showdown, Is There Still Hope For Nate? Here's What Nick Mohammed Says

nate coaching on ted lasso season 3
(Image credit: Apple TV+)

Warning: Spoilers ahead for Ted Lasso Season 3, Episode 4. Go kick the ball around a bit until you've caught up!

Everyone with an Apple TV+ subscription has finally been able to enjoy Ted Lasso Season 3 for a few weeks now, and the story is rolling right along. Fans have been treated to more of the show’s tremendous mental health discussions, gotten a bummer reveal about a popular couple, and seen the wild effect of new player Zava on his AFC Richmond teammates, but we’ve also watched former kit man-turned-assistant coach Nate continue to embrace his villain era…Sort of. Nick Mohammed has opened up about whether or not there’s still hope for the character after Richmond and West Ham’s first big showdown.

What Did Ted Lasso’s Nick Mohammed Say About Nate As Season 3 Continues?

I know most viewers probably despise Nate right now, and likely have since he betrayed Ted and left the team at the end of Season 2, but I feel bad for the guy, as it’s clear Nate is his own worst enemy. Even though he’s (technically) gotten what he wanted by being the manager at West Ham, he’s obviously still miserable, and his first big match against his former club didn’t come close to making his problems any better. Mohammed spoke to Town & Country about what’s to come for the one-time bullied kit man, and it seems that more trouble is on the horizon, but it could lead to a hopeful conclusion:

It's evident that as much as he has been romanced by, or seduced by Rupert, in terms of the power and the glamour and possibly now even seeing him as a father figure—because you know, Nate has also delivered this win for West Ham, which Rupert's delighted about—he does feel like he's in Rupert's inner circle. But I think we know that Rupert is not a force for good and that that relationship will become frayed [laughs] and that Nate is a pawn in all of this. More to come for sure.

It was already a miracle that Rebecca managed to land superstar footballer Zava for Richmond by berating him as he used a urinal, so it felt fitting that the team’s first big match against a West Ham ruled by her horrid ex-husband, Rupert, and Nate wouldn’t go well. The team was still reeling after realizing that someone ripped their BELIEVE sign in half, and after being shown during the match’s half-time that the mystery person was, in fact, Nate, they took all of their aggression to the pitch. 

This meant that they failed to be even remotely competitive against a West Ham that’s been training hard with Nate’s insults in their ears, and did so much fighting on the field that Zava was the only one to manage a goal, so they suffered a spectacular loss. 

As Mohammed noted, though, while this win has further ingratiated him to Rupert, Nate is very torn over wanting to keep his new boss happy and wanting to make amends with Ted, whom he almost apologized to before their match. It’s possible that no Ted Lasso character is hurting more than Nate, but there’s still a good person underneath the West Ham cloak, so it sounds like he will eventually see that Rupert is gleefully using him to get back at Rebecca. That will probably make things even more confusing for Nate, but could finally lead to his redemption, and that’s definitely something that I think most fans are eager to see.

Adrienne Jones
Senior Content Creator

Covering The Witcher, Outlander, Virgin River, Sweet Magnolias and a slew of other streaming shows, Adrienne Jones is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend, and started in the fall of 2015. In addition to writing and editing stories on a variety of different topics, she also spends her work days trying to find new ways to write about the many romantic entanglements that fictional characters find themselves in on TV shows. She graduated from Mizzou with a degree in Photojournalism.