"Do you like the poem I chose?" Brenda closes her eyes, makes an oh, JUST what I needed right now face and snaps that she hated it. "Mystical, maudlin crap," she critiques. Nate, sitting in the shotgun seat in his wedding suit, says Brenda just didn't understand it. ["That line right there -- before he even mentioned Maggie, just that dismissive, I'm-the-smartest-guy-in-the-room line and the matching tone -- is everything I've always hated about this character. Fuck off, Nate." -- Sars] TWoP of episode 61 All Alone.

Nate draws our ire because he acts like this enlightened, thoughtful, smug human being, and then, every time the shit hits the fan, he soils his pants and runs whining to the nearest wounded stranger for a pat on the head and a little dose of the kind of unconditional positive regard that only a stranger can give. regard.
more Heather Havrilesky 6/26/05

Nate's all excited about the lack of sermon: "People just sit silently and wait to be filled with the presence of God." He tries to sound like he's kidding so he doesn't seem completely uncool, but he's totally doing that thing where you actually kind of mean it. Al Franken calls it kidding on the square, which is a handy phrase because there's going to be quite a bit of that going on this week. TWoP of episode 59 Singing for our Lives.