It’s been three weeks and I can’t stop thinking about the Nathan for You finale

The Comedy Central program, Nathan for You, aired its season — and possibly series — finale last Thursday and it was a humdinger. For those unfamiliar with Nathan for You, I’m not entirely sure why you clicked on this article. Regardless, a seven-second-or-less explanation of the show would sound like this: an awkward comedian tries to solve the issues of small businesses by making hilariously over-the-top suggestions. Wearing a full body fat suit to sneak chili into a local hockey stadium that wouldn’t act as a vendor for the chili. That type of thing.

The season four finale was a bit different. The episode starts off with the noted mission of the feature-length episode (90 minutes) being to find a long-lost love of one of the show’s returning “characters.” I put characters in quotes for multiple reasons: Nathan for You is not a reality show per se, but it lives in the reality TV sphere. Host Nathan Fielder interacts with real, unscripted people, but he consistently finds some of the strangest and most morbidly fascinating people you’ve ever seen. This makes sense: it’s a comedy show.

In William Heath, a man who first entered the Nathan for You world as a Bill Gates impersonator in earlier seasons, Fielder finds his non-violent Robert Durst. A profile of this septuagenarian unfolds before our eyes. A man who chased an acting dream in his youth and — perhaps without his full awareness — has finally become the most interesting “character” in a television program in his golden years.

In the finale, Fielder also takes the time to explore whether he, as an artist who has put his career before his love life, is going to suffer a similar fate to Heath. I find this to be an interesting — if someone explored — concept, but it’s telling that this subplot (which Fielder might argue is the actual main plot) is entirely overshadowed by the portrait of Heath in this finale.

Heath is a man who can be read many different ways. He comes across as endearing in almost a pathetic way when we are re-introduced to him early in the NfY finale. He’s an older man who keeps showing up unannounced at the Nathan for You offices, delivering gifts for Fielder and the NfY cast. During these visits, he mentions a long-lost “one who got away.” A woman whom he truly loved but was driven away by his mother, as well as Heath’s chase for a career in Hollywood.

However, as the episode unfolds, Heath begins to say things that come across a bit creepy. He’s caught in lies, or at least having left out important details of the story of his long-lost love (notably: he cheated on her). Fielder begins to question how things will go if Heath actually is re-introduced to this woman whom he hasn’t seen in decades. The most disturbing of these incidents is when Fielder hires a woman to play the role of Heath’s long-lost love to see how Heath would treat this woman. Heath seems entirely clueless as to how an actual human should act in this position (re-meeting an ex whom you haven’t so much as talked to in decades — and is now married). He presses in far too close for comfort, and goes as far as to caress the thigh of the hired actress, telling her to leave her husband and start a life with him. It’s one of the most uncomfortable moments of TV in recent history.

Heath has a recurring tick where he will ask women “if they know who this is” when talking to them on the phone without saying his name first. It’s as if you taught Pennywise how to flirt. It’s wildly uncomfortable, and it’s hard to tell where it comes from. Does it come from a place of over-confidence? As a man of very good looks in his youth, did this sort of weirdly playful interaction once read as acceptable? Or even cute? Has he never adjusted from that perception? Was it always this creepy? Was Heath always this creepy?

There’s an instance late in the episode that was among the most arresting moments I’ve ever seen on a reality-based television show: Fielder and Heath finally track down Heath’s long-lost love. Fielder (wisely) says that they should call her before just showing up at her door with a bunch of cameras and an ex-boyfriend from nearly 50 years ago. Heath starts his phone call with the patented “do you know who this is” tick, and his face shows a sort of jealous anger when she not only can’t guess who it is, but tosses out another man’s name as a guess. Halfway through the call, it becomes clear that she is happy with her life (she has many grandchildren and has been married for over 30 years). None of that is the moment, though. The moment comes when Heath has realized all this, and he seemingly changes tacks in the conversation. Heath’s mother comes up, and he pokes and prods his ex with questions on his mother. Previously in the episode, Heath told Fielder that his mother hadn’t approved of this long-lost love. When his ex confirms this, Heath turns to Fielder with excitement. It’s as if he’s seen the writing on the wall in terms of not winning back this long-lost love, but he “needed this win.” The “win” of not winning his love back, “but he was definitely right about that one thing he told Nathan earlier in the episode.”

It’s an interesting glimpse into Heath’s mindset. At the end of a several-month excursion that ended with the real-life equivalent of a massive needle to the balloon of his excitement, Heath still needs to prove his worth. I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely sure what it means. I could slap some grand conclusion on this piece, turning Heath’s conversation into a metaphor for the man currently running our country, or spin it as a metaphor for the generational gap in communication that seems to be greater than ever in our country.

But really: it is just incredible television. It’s the type of moment that when you see either in real life or on your television screen seems to slow down time and sticks with you for a longer time than would seem to make sense.

So for that, I’d like to say thank you Mr. Fielder for creating the most interesting moment on television this year, and, I guess, thank you to Mr. Heath for your strange, strange mind that we can only hope to glimpse into.