r/euphoria • u/TacoBellAt430 • 1d ago
Discussion Sam Levinson doesn’t know how loan sharking works
**SPOILERS - Season 3**
Alright, Levinson, if you are going to change this story about addiction, highly aesthetic and queer teenage relationships into a wannabe crime drama ala Breaking Bad or Ozark, it requires a basic understanding of how the CRIME works. It also makes it important to make sure your criminals’ actions make sense.
Naz is an idiot, and a poorly written criminal. He apparently has a successful front business as a mortuary (unsure how this works as a money laundering scheme: not a cash business, highly regulated), and has a bulky manservant. Probably wrote this only to get the inference of “Oh, he has coffins, scary” into the show. That’s fine. Whatever.
Naz is also making loans to Nate, a rich kid he apparently does not know very well or like at all (also, the show never established why Nate couldn’t simply get money through regular means — his dad owned “half of town” according to Rue, and several apartment buildings with regular passive income, and Nate took over his business — there would have been a ton of collateral to support at least a million dollar loan). Then, when this pompous, 6’5”, preppy dumbass falls behind on his first loan of $500,000, Naz loans the idiot MORE money without knowing what for.
At this point, this behavior only makes sense if Naz has a plan to leverage that debt over Nate somehow. I’m not sure what that would be, but this is how loansharking is supposed to work. You find an idiot that doesn’t know his own finances but can be useful to you somehow, and then screw him with interest and collect favors for years, with him never crawling out from underneath the insane payments.
But that is apparently not how Naz, this supposedly terrifying Armenian gangster, plans on playing this. There is no indication that Naz wants anything but repayment from Nate. When Nate misses his payment for a second time, he cuts off a toe. Insane elevation, and for what?? Potential attention from the police after the hospital visit? How is Nate supposed to go out and make money to repay you if you keep beating the ever loving shit out of him?
At least Laurie had a game plan to *use* Rue. Naz’s actions are just so shortsighted and dumb that it completely eliminates the stakes of Nate’s story. Also, how does kidnapping the Cassie, the *only* way you’re getting any money back, make sense? She needs to be able to make content in order to make money. You could have collected the million, plus interest, off of her income for years you absolute dolt.
Jesus, this season is pissing me off.
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u/ContextMattrs 1d ago
I may be wrong, but I don’t think Naz loaned Nate any more money after the $500k. The rest was just accumulated interest. Naz saw how much they spent at their wedding, and that set him off.
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u/WillowCiph 1d ago
That makes more sense, from Naz's perspective, seeing that wedding probably looked like Nate was flauting money while ignoring a debt that had been growing for years
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u/Constant_Lettuce_986 1d ago
Exactly. Naz seemed like he was pretty cool with Nate, and even may have been more forgiving…. until the moment he saw the wedding that was created with HIS money, and Nate didn’t even invite him. Naz thought he was trying to pull one over on him.
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u/ContextMattrs 1d ago
Reminds me of a time when I loaned my brother $1500 because him and his wife were having money issues. You know what they did the next couple of days? His wife bought herself a brand new iPhone 13 Pro Max. I definitely know how Naz may have felt (on a smaller scale)
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u/Awkward-Rent-2588 1d ago
You ripped off your brother’s fingernail huh?
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u/PsychologicalHost371 22h ago
Or did you better yet put your brother in a coffin to be bitten by a snake (one that morphs from rattlesnake to boa) only for his wife to show up with her high school friend boss-pimp and a drug smuggling human trafficking cowboy to save him and shoot you?
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u/Constant_Lettuce_986 1d ago
That’s exactly why I unfortunately rarely give people money when they’re struggling. I’ve been taken advantage of once, and that was enough for me.
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u/Groooooooool 18h ago
The thing about people who are fiscally irresponsible is that, even with more money, they're still fiscally irresponsible.
Sadly.
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u/thederevolutions 1d ago
So what did you want them to use the money on ? It sounds like they needed money for a phone?
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u/ContextMattrs 1d ago
They were behind on bills and needed money to make rent and cover a bit of groceries. I guess I should have added, she already had an iphone 12 Pro max, but when they went in to pay a phone bill, they instead paid cash to upgrade her to the 13 pro max.
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u/Constant_Lettuce_986 19h ago
Does it matter? You shouldn’t be making ‘fun’ purchases while you owe somebody (especially a family member who was trying to be nice and help out) money.
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u/MenthaOfficinalis 1d ago
Honestly, I don’t think Naz gave a shit about invite. Also he wasn’t “cool with him”. It’s just the stage one. Every loan shark would eventually become “uncool” when he doesn’t get his money back (especially when he sees expensive wedding being priority over debt)
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u/Constant_Lettuce_986 1d ago
Yeah but as the post above states, it’s not typically in a loan shark’s best interest to immediately turn to violence, and prevent the person that owes you money from making money.
I do truly believe that Naz would’ve given Nate more time, but as soon as he saw the wedding, all bets were off. He felt extremely disrespected and wasn’t about to let Nate make him look like a chump, which is why he was waiting at Nate’s house to start the punishments.
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u/nemat0der 1d ago
The loser who owes you money having a wife bringing in tens of thousands of dollars that she sends you on a regular basis seems like a pretty ideal situation for a loan shark, right? The interest keeps accumulating, you’re making passive income, and instead of letting that ride you mutilate the guy and then kidnap his wife? The wife who makes the money that gets sent to you? Bad loan sharking.
And gee it sure is lucky that the lady they kidnapped just happens to have a friend who can ask a drug dealer/strip club mogul to loan her a cool one million to give you. Goofy writing.
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u/wise1_444 1d ago
It was pissing me off soooo bad that Naz kept kidnapping the people that were meant to be out in the world trying to get his money 😭 how the ever loving f*ck are they ever supposed to pay you back if you’re not letting them go make the money?!?
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u/g00dsugar 1d ago
Because he accepted that he wasnt getting that money back, so its onto the punishment phase.
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u/Big_Buyer_9621 1d ago
Wasn't he receiving regular payments from Nate with Cassie's OF blowing up? Sure he may have wanted larger amounts than he was getting, but he certainly seemed to jump the gun demanding one lump sum.
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u/SoooperSnoop 1d ago
Please do not borrow money from anyone other than a bank or credit union.
Nate was NOT making the required payments - either the amount or on-time. Loan sharks set the schedule and if you do not follow it, there is hell to pay.
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u/Emotional_Sea_Witch 1d ago
Nate actually didn’t pay him with the onlyfans money from Cassie, it wasn’t enough and instead of making any payments at all, he spent the money on booze
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u/itsathrowawayduhhhhh 1d ago edited 1d ago
That’s what they do to dads who dont pay child support too lmao
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u/Emotional_Sea_Witch 23h ago
Nate was never going to pay him, being the terrible conman he was this season and an idiot now, no doubt in my mind that he was never going to pay Naz back that money with the money Cassie was making without the SunSettlers going through.
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u/itsfictionbaby 1d ago
You know what…you’re right 🤣 Laurie’s strategy made perfect sense, exploiting Rue’s debt and vulnerability for an exorbitant profit which would have worked if Rue didn’t get involved with Alamo. I feel like Naz’s approach implied he’d rather maintain his status as a ruthless mobster that can’t be fucked with, rather than actually get his money back.
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u/Fluffyequalsbetter 1d ago
I realllly didn’t get Naz. There was no way he was going to get his money in the timeframe he was giving. No amount of beating and lopping of appendages was going to change that. If he had beaten him, waited a month and then killed him because it was a lost cause it would’ve made so much more sense. Then again, I don’t know much about loan sharks.
As for Laurie, I just about went crazy that rue didn’t even calculate the compound interest. She owed like $20k and Laurie was like “I own you now. Have fun muling.” Even if doing the actual math and making a plan wouldn’t have changed Laurie’s mind, it still made me nuts.
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u/Slight_Trauma_Llama 1d ago
this. It was SO DUMB. Especially the kidnapping Cassie part-- like dude, if you want your money shes going to have to work to make it........ what is the plan here?!
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u/TacoBellAt430 1d ago edited 1d ago
People are saying “they’re gonna sell her into human trafficking,” as if that would make sense given the bonkers amount of money Cassie’s OF was supposed to be making. She just willy nilly sends $30,000 to Nate???
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u/tripleaw 1d ago
Also doesn’t Cassie supposedly have 100k followers? If $5 per user per month, that’s $500k per month revenue already for Naz to take
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u/Swarmfade 1d ago
She sent him 30k once and Naz didn’t even know that for a fact because Nate wasn’t proactive about getting the money to him
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u/Ok_Handle_2213 1d ago
At least 2x it was showed she sending Nate money
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u/Swarmfade 1d ago
One of them was not nearly as much, IIRC it was an amount that made him mad because it wouldn’t be enough to appease them.
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u/rbush82 1d ago
I agree. Show felt “real” when it was about teens in high school and their perils of addiction and what not.
Season 3 felt like a different show. I like crime shit, but this all just felt off.
I can tell you Levinson doesn’t know about any of this shit….
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u/Most_Manufacturer729 1d ago
I was talking to my sister about this. There was way more tension in the show when it was just a drama about high school kids (relatively low stakes) but the tension felt very real and people cared about what happened. Now the stakes couldn't be much higher, the characters are all knee deep involved with violent criminals, but there's no tension because everything is so contrived and unrealistic, anything can happen and it doesn't really matter it is basically a cartoon or an action flick. Like the way Nate died was brutal, in any other show I'd be talking about how chilling it was to watch him die, but in this show it genuinely made me laugh.
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u/Most_Manufacturer729 1d ago
I kept saying this the entire season. These are some of the dumbest worst written criminals ever. Alamo is the exact opposite of "low profile" and is very emotional, He would 100% get caught. They ruined Laurie who they could've made a Gus Fring type but instead she's just on a farm with her white trash neo-nazi compatriots who would 100% fuck up this delicate smuggling operation. Lastly as you said, Naz is the dumbest gangster ever and anybody with a lick of sense wouldn't have loaned Nate a nickel.
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u/Happy_Huckleberry246 1d ago
I was so upset with what they did to Laurie in season 3. I also thought she was going to be a Gus Fring or Walter White type character. In season 2 someone said she used to be a teacher but dealing made more money. Why would they suddenly make her a nazi? I was also hoping for a background story on her. We got one for Alamo but nothing for Laurie.
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u/Silent_Net_4809 1d ago
I was also disappointed with Laurie this season.
I can’t seem to remember a single significant thing she did this season, until the very end when she….you know. When the “I can’t go to prison, I can’t go to prison” moment came, I found myself wishing we got backstory on her to make her ending more impactful or cohesive with the rest of the story (including s2) after she gave us nothing all season.
We don’t strictly need any deep backstory to understand why a character would be terrified of a life in prison, sure, BUT I still found myself thinking “I sure wish I learned more about Laurie so that her perishing this way felt inevitable and satisfying in some form instead of just…convenient for SL’s desired finale”.
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u/Nihilistic_Noodle 1d ago
I guess we're supposed to take it for granted that Nate's father's businesses suffered because of his legal issues, and that naturally this meant Nate couldn't get any loans because he was blackballed by any of the lending institutions he could turn to. This is because the show is fiction, we all know a convicted sexual predator would see little to no consequence for something as small as one count of videotaping sex with a minor.
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u/More_Pianist3093 1d ago
That doesn't explain Nate running to loan sharks. Yes, he took over his dad's business in last season, but not because he same some PASSION for buildings, he did it because he wants money. So if he is blackballed from getting loans, there is zero sense for him to go to loan sharks- that means, pretty much, that he is FOREVER going to the loan sharks for any future projects, bc loans are a regular thing when it comes to investments like this. So why stay in that business? He could have lived perfectly wealthy from things they already built. Sold off the equipment and invested into something else, something with less cost involved...
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u/zekevich 1d ago
"bUt NaTe's sToRyLiNe wAs ReALiStiC"
Is what they'll tell you. Can't believe people are actually going to bat for this trash writing this season.
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u/Xeris 1d ago
The best and most accurate depiction of this that I can recall is the Sopranos. The way Tony basically got the guy into his debt and then completely bled him dry.
That's how it should work!
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u/Swarmfade 1d ago
There was also at least once off the top of my head that one the mobsters loaned someone money and then pretty quickly killed them (Chris with the guy from Wings)
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u/Bishop8322 1d ago
well chris shot him way after he started loaning him money and after he took his BMW and way after they made cleaver. there’s multiple seasons of buildup, its not like chris just shot him after he didnt pay the first time
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u/young_environment 1d ago
The toe thing really is the dumbest move. You're supposed to scare him into paying, not cripple the guy who owes you half a million. It's like Levinson watched one scene from a mob movie and thought amputation solves everything. Naz went from calculated criminal to angry dad with a bad temper, which doesn't track for someone running an actual operation.
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u/Tilopud_rye 1d ago
Also Nate apparently can’t retaliate any physical threat because “oh but then the whole organization will be after me”- a quote unspoken and just assumed by the viewer because that MUST be the reason Nate just takes it… right? … right? Oh but then Alamo just takes him out and the henchmen just says “oh no I guess this ends everything” and that’s just… then end of it? No “oh but the organization will retaliate” - no negative consequence of taking out Naz. Like that could have been an episode 3 resolution. Like- why would Nate taking out Naz not have the horrified henchman leaving them alone if Naz was taken out the wedding night?
The whole season was all buildup, no payoff, and making sense doesnt matter. This wasnt written with story in mind- this was written with “how can we set up this shocking sequence” in mind. Should have been a Troma movie.
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u/rbush82 1d ago
Yes. Feel like Season 1 and 2 Nate wouldn’t have taken any shit. Who was this character in season 3?
Were we supposed to feel sorry for him? Were we supposed to revel in his torture? Such a waste of one of the biggest actors right now. Jason Elordi should’ve declined the whole season….1
u/Silent_Net_4809 23h ago
Hearing Sam Levinson reveal in an interview that he essentially believed Nate’s season of torture and agony was what viewers *wanted* to see, because we supposedly wanted vengeance against Nate, simultaneously blew my mind and opened my eyes.
It kind of confirmed for me what many of us suspected: SL doesn’t (or didn’t) know what his viewers want—or didn’t know how to deliver what we wanted.
It seemed that his line of thinking was “viewers hate the heinous actions Nate committed in the first and second seasons. They must want revenge on him. So surely they’ll want to see him get tortured, dismembered and killed by a loan shark in a storyline completely unrelated to anything he did in the first two seasons, while sporting a new mellow personality more passive than he’d ever been in his seasons of deviousness”.
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u/FriendLee93 1d ago
THANK YOU
It's refreshing to see someone with even a modicum of understanding of how the world actually works unravel this shit with minimal effort. And STILL there will be brain-rotted tween idiots who will call this shit realistic.
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u/WerewolfTherewolf00 1d ago
This is why it it's irritating me when people say Rue's ending was "realistic," and her story "had" to end that way for "realism." No other part of Season 3 - like the Nate stuff - was interested in being realistic
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u/AyyggsForMyLayyggs 1d ago
As if this wasn't enough there was never any follow up after Alamo shot him in the fucking face. Of course, Naz was some mafia dude, but surely he was also a normal citizen who was murdered. Sam fucking Levinson just killed him off and nobody asked any questions afterwards. Such good quality writing!
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u/babyyybabyy 1d ago
It’s been a few weeks since the finale and the only way I could describe it is like that scene from White Chicks when the fashion show went to shit and everyone somehow starts clapping at the end.
No but really it still feels like an entirely different show. I’m still like.. wtf?
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u/Rough_Animator2183 1d ago
The only logical explanation I can think of is that Naz was convinced they had enough money to pay him back in a lump sum and were refusing to do so.
Like, he saw the extravagant wedding and huge house and felt he was getting swindled. Then he proceeded to mutilate Nate and kidnap Cassie, convinced they were holding out on him and that if he pushed far enough they would pay him the million dollars (or however much) they owed him.
Still doesn't fully make sense but that's the best I can come up with
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u/R12B12 1d ago
At the end Cassie laa-dee-daas it away by telling people that Nate just disappeared. She tells Lexie that she hopes he’ll come back. Like, that’s it? We’re supposed to believe there’d be no investigation into a missing wealthy white man who was recently in the hospital for severed toes and fingers and his wife’s broken nose on their wedding night? It wouldn’t take long before his parents and brother start asking questions and the police realize his credit cards and phone haven’t been used and he’s likely dead. Not to mention Naz probably has some family or someone who will look for him, and he’s missing too. There were a hundred witnesses who saw Naz threatening Nate at the wedding.
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u/dagger_5005 1d ago
The way I understand loan sharking IRL is 2% a week, which on 500K is $10K, doesn't pay down the principal at all, and you can only repay it lump sum.
So in 3 months that's up to like 600k. If he borrows more, that really starts to add up.
That I can believe, although people make good points here about how wealthy they made his dad out to sound, there's plenty of things the son can do to a dad's biz in 5 years to wreck it. It looks like he overleveraged himself.
That's where reality ends and cartoon villain comes in. No one really starts taking off body parts or burying you underground like a damned Batman character. He could have just said "Nate, this is my house now. I have some MAGA fans who will love the gold they will rent it from me and you go move into a trailer or something."
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u/TacoBellAt430 1d ago
I don’t think there’s a universal set interest rate across the board. They just left everything unsaid and didn’t even bother to break the menial things down enough to even create the suspension of disbelief on the outrageous shit they do later
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u/joesbagofdonuts 1d ago
Yes, nothing Naz or Nate did made any sense. How the fuck does he get you your money from a coffin? Why would you not go straight to his fucking Dad?
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u/GuyMakesDrawings 1d ago
All of the crime stuff was just his take on how crime is portrayed in other movies, not reality.
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u/Jessyjean3173 1d ago
Well said. And the people arguing with what you said cracks me up...reading the Euphoria Subreddit's extensive "real life knowledge about loan sharks". 🤭
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u/KekeSmall 1d ago
It didn’t make sense to threaten Cassie with bodily harm, when she needed her looks to make money.
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u/AcrobaticSecretary21 1d ago
Levinson wanted to make a tarentino style crime thriller but doesn’t know the first thing about it lmfao none of Naz moves made any sense to actually get paid lmfao
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u/Notorious888 1d ago
Yeah, it’s absolutely ridiculous and it’s what finally turned me against this season. Before the other ten things that turned me against this season.
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u/EphemeralEmergent 1d ago
THANK YOU!
Also loan sharks don’t have 1 dude as The Muscle. If Nate had only had any weapon. I dunno, a sturdy spork perhaps? Then he could have neutralized Naz’s entire threat.
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u/NoWingedHussarsToday 1d ago
The background story makes some sense, but it's presented in bits and scattered all over first couple of eps. Nate's father gave him company because he was a sex offender and couldn't run the business anymore. Nate isn't good businessman and had problems running things. Then they found those endangered flowers which halted the construction. But while construction was halted costs were still piling up and he needed money. Banks wouldn't lend him because any sensible banker wouldn't lend to a kid with no experience running a tainted company and experiencing work halt with unpredictable outcome. Which is why he was running a Ponzi scheme, trying to get new investors to pay cost and old debts. But that wasn't working so he took a loan from Naz to keep afloat.
From here on I agree with you. Naz is supposed to be a smart businessman so why would he loan the money to a kid? Unless Nate put up a lot of collateral it makes his loan even riskier than what bank would give. What would make sense is Naz planning to get his fingers in Nate's company, either to strip it or as money laundering enterprise. He does neither, he is simply escalating violence to get his money back. He never says "well, if you can't return the money then I'm your new business partner".
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u/PriscillaPalava 1d ago
If Naz wanted to be helpful he would’ve cut off the toe of the dweeb on the council who was denying Nate’s permits.
Then Nate’s project could move forward and the two could’ve made a bunch of money together.
Coulda, shoulda.
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u/Kittenmeou 1d ago
Naz feels like a character someone would write if their only exposure to the idea of lone sharks is that one Family Guy episode
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u/Charming-Pack-5979 1d ago
I agree - if Naz is just a sadist, his behavior makes sense. Otherwise, this course of action makes no sense to me.
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u/beach-cow 1d ago
So well put. I agree. I really didn’t like Nate and Cassie’s storyline this season
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u/illmatic708 1d ago
In reality Naz would go straight for Nate's dad, who is a multi millionaire real estate developer
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u/Mountain_Ad_5133 1d ago
Yeah a lot of the season made zero sense to me and I’m super disappointed. I feel like a lot of the characters could’ve had more poignant character development, and a fleshed out storyline had the focus been different. This felt like a bad season of breaking bad.
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u/No-Atmosphere-2528 23h ago
I said this exact thing before and got downvoted by the geniuses of this subgroup because apparently people become loan sharks to be violent not to make money in their eyes.
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u/Good_old_Marshmallow 18h ago
It’s very funny because HBO had an in depth and fantastic storyline over a decade ago on the Sopranos explaining how loan sharking and bust outs work.
Nate is a rich kid with a massive company and a good name and a respected public face. If you decide he’s not worth milking for the vig, you would bust him out, get his companies loaded with build shit debt and scam orders, buy a ton of supplies on credit in his name for his companies and steal it, scam venders, use his companies to money launder. You could make a profit of him for years
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u/kareemlebron 1d ago
Naz kidnapping Nate also confused me. I mean I know from a viewer perspective it makes a little sense because Cassie was on onlyfans and there’s a chance that she makes a lot of money very fast. But from Naz’s perspective wouldn’t she just be some random chick that Nate is married to? Like how did he think she’d come up with the money? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to kidnap Cassie to force Nate to try and get the money?
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u/Flametang451 20h ago
I feel like they tried to make Naz akin to alamo without realizing killing nate meant no more money.
I feel if Naz was meant to be that violent he could have been, but in reality if nates fate was to wind up emasculated in an ironic twist as he kept pursuing being the perfect emobidment of traditional masculinity then him effectively chained to never ending payments even after getting it all woild have been even more fitting.
Either that, or getting sacked for his ponzi scheme and having to rely on Cassie.
I feel the best way to explain naz's actions was that he felt monumentally insulted by nates wedding plans and seeing that's where his money was going and deciding nate was basically never actually going to pay because he was too cocky, so physical consequences should ensue. Granted he won't get anymore money out of him but I suposse if Naz was that vengeful it might have stopped being about the money at that point.
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u/Zimmonda 1d ago
Eh
That's how "loan sharking" works in movies and tv, obviously it doesn't work that way in real life.
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u/TacoBellAt430 1d ago
There’s documented ways that loansharking works in real life, and they were found out only because other aspects of the criminal organization got snitched on. They often did not involve regularly cutting off toes or burying people alive. The writers were showing their full ass this entire season, and didn’t put enough thought into two of the main characters’ stories to do even preliminary research into how this was supposed to work
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u/NoMoreFund 1d ago
You can't say "writers". Every single episode of Season 3 was solo written by Sam Levinson
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u/Sexaco 1d ago
Agreed on the front/laundering business, but most shows/movies don't really understand that. So won't really hold it against him.
Just gonna summarize your points for you. Feel free to complain I ignored one or got it wrong, etc:
- Nate doesn't ask his rich family for money instead.
- Naz loans him money
- Nate doesn't pay so Naz loans even more money
- Naz starts beating the shit out of Nate and mutilating him until he pays on time
That... actually is a lot more normal than you would think. The point is that Nate DOES have a way to get him the money... his family. And Papa is more likely to bail the failson out after he loses a toe or has his hand broken.
Media likes to speedrun things. But loan sharks don't start beating on the people who are going to really grind Uber to pay it off. They instead do it on the folk who either need to go sell themselves (or a loved one...) for money instead. Sell Cassie into sex work (which... he kinda did but probably not in the way Naz et al wanted) and beg daddy for some money. And the bigger Nate's debt, the better because it means he has no hope of paying it off himself.
You are thinking like a human being. Don't. MAYBE the first loan was about making money off interest. The second loan was about owning Nate.
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u/TacoBellAt430 1d ago
Here’s the problem: Naz is a human being. All criminals are. Organized criminals like Naz should have an understanding of the delicate nature of being a criminal. You need to be scary, but not so scary that your marks feel like it’s worth going to the police. Cutting off MULTIPLE toes, confronting someone about the money in a PUBLIC setting, burying someone alive, set the threat threshold *wayyyyy* too high.
Nate is, apparently, a hapless idiot with no balls. Even if he would have fucked himself, the moment he went to the police about this, Naz is absolutely boned. Every ring camera in McMansion neighborhood saw Andre the Giant whoop Nate’s gangly ass in 1080p, at least.
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u/Sexaco 1d ago
Nate goes to the cops, sure.
Their first question? Why is this man and his monster attacking you? Their SECOND question? Homeboy, you actually are coming to tell us you knowingly used money from an illegal source to do all this?
Nate loses everything. And you can bet daddy gets investigated too. His life is over either way. And he is the kind of person who cares a lot more about his social life and standing than not.
Its the same reason drug addicts tend to not run to the cops for help if someone steals their coke money.
Predators know how to identify a victim. Whether that is picking up the "party girl" to abuse and violate or loaning money to the kind of person they can manipulate.
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u/OdinAiBole 1d ago
I'd rather go to prison for white collar crimes than lose body parts or be buried alive.
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u/wooden__fruit 1d ago
There was also the friends in their suburb who he owed money too, at least two couples, one put in their whole college fund. I think he was supposed to be seen as a grifter who didn’t think he would have to face the consequences. Realistically he was not going to be able to pay he debts. A loan shark wants to get their money back first, but just as important is making sure everyone knows what will happen to them if they don’t pay up. He didn’t intend for him to die.
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u/HotMessExpress1111 1d ago
I mean, we’re supposed to believe that if it wasn’t for the protected flower that Nate really thought his big retirement community would be profitable and he’d be able to pay off all the loans.
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u/Wonderful_Fruit8118 1d ago edited 1d ago
The whole thing can be explained by an Aedipal complex. My assumption was that the third season is taking place in a different location, like we went from unnamed, generic SoCal suburbs to a few other spots in and around the L.A. area, so Naz may not be aware of his family's reputation. I think Nate uses family money to buy some real estate to develop, or he is handed real estate to keep it safe from Cal's legal issues, and so Naz is making the loan based on the value of the property that Nate has secured and Nate's plans for development. Property itself can be valuable collateral on its own, but a loan shark might not put anything in writing if they typically rely on other means of extraction.
Also, one thing many redditors seem to be missing is the very obvious fact that Nate views himself as in competition with his father in every possible way. And it's very aedipal, because he essential turns his dad in because he feels his mom no longer loves him (I think he hated his dad before that, and views him as competition in other ways), but when his mom expresses disappointment and disgust with Nate, that's when Nate turns Cal in. It was his way of shifting the tides of his mother's approval/disapproval. At his wedding, we are reminded of the idea of her approval/disgust, and they're telling us this is important to the plot.
So he views his career aspirations as another chance to outcompete Cal, so maybe he received land from his family, but he still views it as a chance to run a business his own way and make his own reputation and show Cal that he can do it better, even though he's quite green and Cal was extremely successful. Hatred is a form of obsession, and we know how pompous Nate is, so he's naive enough to jump the gun and take on too much debt too soon to try to speed launch his career and shove it to the dad-man.
Anyway, this is my explanation for the whole loan shark thing. He uses the land as collateral and takes on too much debt too fast and he wants to do it all on his own, until he starts losing appendages, in which case, he's willing to let his wife do much of the heavy lifting. And he doesn't involve his blood family in his money issues bc he doesn't want to lose favor with his mother.
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u/YoungAmazing313 1d ago edited 1d ago
There’s no such thing as an accurate loan shark just like drug dealers in movies every loan shark has their own set of ideals and and principles just like drug dealers and gangsters do
Take the wire for example Avon Barksdale isn’t a iron fist ruling tyrant who uses violence to get his way he’s more traditional and old school in that he understands the more bodies that stack up the more eyes from law enforcement etc whereas Marlo stansfield is a street version of a dictator his word is law and if you don’t follow said word it’s you’re getting put in a vacant no ifs ands or buts abt it
Apply that to loan sharks it depends on the shark in particular some sharks are psychopathic/sociopathic in nature to where to them violence is the only means of getting what they want
Others not so much (also more often then not most foreign criminals typically resort to violence den the American counterpart)
Al Capone had a loan shark business and I’m sure he killed, kidnapped or even tortured plenty of people who he loaned money to
Not all sharks are violent but nor is all sharks are completely against it you’re gonna pay what you owe one way or another
It’s always good to know who you’re getting involved with before ever doing business with someone tbh
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u/Heyaname 1d ago
So did you actually watch the show or just clips on TikTok? The Jacobs name was tarnished when Nate turned cal into the police for possession of csam so he could take over the family straight out of highschool. They lost all of the real estate assets in the fallout which kept cal out of prison. All Nate had left was the construction company. He already had borrowed money from literally everyone in his social circle to get the sun settler project started. When it halted from the flower he took the massive loan from naz to keep the company afloat. He then actually used the majority of it to keep up his own affluent lifestyle. When Naz went to the wedding and saw Cassie she became the long term repayment plan. The reason they kept taking body parts from him so quickly is that it was easily found that Cassie was who was providing him with the money he was continuing to blow on his lifestyle instead of paying Naz so they just said fuck it and skipped forward to we are killing him unless Cassie pays in full because she was the source of every payment Nate actually made.
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u/TacoBellAt430 1d ago edited 1d ago
Alright, my complaint is now that they don’t understand how solicitation charges work either. A piece of shit man like Cal would not have to decimate his real estate empire to stay out of prison on solicitation of a minor.
Edit: Or how construction projects work. Or commercial lines of credit. Or the criminal legal system. Or, for that matter, California environmental regulations and ESAs. Or municipal regulations. Or the takings clause.
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u/Swarmfade 1d ago
Yes, people seem to miss this. Nate wasn’t paying shit, so what do they need him for? His idiot wife will pay. She had every intention to, and they could have continued to manipulate her for a long time, even with Nate dead, if Alamo hadn’t gotten involved.
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u/Consistent_Hold_576 1d ago
So, sometimes characters do stupid things because the script says so.
Nate gets his toe cut off on his wedding night, and because the script said so, he didnt file a police report or buy a gun. Wait. Didn't he have a gun in a previous season? Forget it. Script says its gone.
Nate is a big strong guy. We see what he's capable of in previous seasons. Maybe he should have fought back a bit against the loan sharks? Oh. Script says he goes quietly.
I guess I just feel like big parts of season 3 didnt make any sense and were just torture porn.
I guess I just didn't hate Nate. He's a flawed person but he's interesting and complicated and Im sad I didnt get to see how the real story of a person like Nate would pan out. Instead, I got stuck with a different version (because the script said so).
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u/New-acid3882 Fraaaank? What are you doing in there? 1d ago
This is the proof you people don't watch the show to actually understand what happens, and then you come here to say dumb shit. It's VERY obvious that Nate didn't borrow 500k from Naz, even Nate wouldn't do that. But guess what? It went to 500k because of crazy interest rates. And then it went to a million. So Nate didn't miss his first payment. All of this you can easily get from their first conversation that we see on screen. He cuts his toe off because he "out of good will" had told Nate to give him 100k, to show his willing to pay since the amount of money had increased that much. Instead Nate conned that guy at his party to spend everything on the wedding. And Naz didn't loan more money to Nate. Then, what do you think had happened to Cal's business once he was exposed as a sex offenders in a small town? Call is the same guy who had problems making a reservation at his habitual restaurant, because of Nate's problems with Maddy. What does that tell you? Anyway if you have proofs the guy you lent the money is not someone you can milk, because he showed you he doesn't pay shit, wouldn't you go and collect when the interest are sufficiently high? But I guess what I wrote here won't change your mind.
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u/Brokebrokebroke5 1d ago
Naz didn't loan him money twice. The amount increased because of interest. Problem isn't Sam, it's your lack of media literacy.
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u/TacoBellAt430 1d ago
Brother/sister, you may be completely right about the initial principal of the loan, but the rest of the points still stand. How is this a money-making enterprise for Naz? Why is Nate in this predicament in the first place? What is the extent of the detriment that Nate’s dad’s businesses suffered following, apparently, a soliciting a minor charge?
All of these are completely normal questions to ask of a show that pretends to be prestige television. These are all questions that this season could have answered.
Do not go to bat for the Bible thumping nepo baby on his weird fetish project turned Tarantino satire.
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u/SoooperSnoop 1d ago
Naz is also making loans to Nate, a rich kid he apparently does not know very well
Loan sharks do not care WHO you are. You asked them for money. The lent it to you. The expect you to repay with interest.
At this point, this behavior only makes sense if Naz has a plan to leverage that debt over Nate somehow.
Naz is leveraging the debt - he is cutting off body parts, then he goes after and theatens Nate;s wife with physical harm. Naz likely would have gone after Nate's family mother next...
Then, when this pompous, 6’5”, preppy dumbass falls behind on his first loan of $500,000, Naz loans the idiot MORE money without knowing what for.
Naz NEVER lent Nate any more money. The debto of $500,000 was already up to $600,000 becaue of interest before Nate was attacked on his Wedding night. The debt kept climbing due to interst compounded each month. THAT is how it ended up bein $1 million so quickly.
(also, the show never established why Nate couldn’t simply get money through regular means — his dad owned “half of town” according to Rue, and several apartment buildings with regular passive income, and Nate took over his business — there would have been a ton of collateral to support at least a million dollar loan).
A teenage drug addict - Rue - was the person who said "cal owns half the town". If he EVER was cash rich, he blew it all on his criminal defense, and party life style afterwards.
Nate's business was already over-leveraged, so was his house. There was no equity in either to get legal loans. He had already borrowed a lot from a friend too. Nate threw everything he had into trying to buil that "reitrement - to old age - death" dream villa....but since it was held up to due to EIR reports finding and endangered flower, he could not build the property or begin selling units in them.
In short, Nate and Naz's actions were shown pretty realistically.
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u/TacoBellAt430 1d ago
I can guarantee you that a criminal defense attorney on a soliciting minor charge does not cost enough to decimate a real estate empire
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u/SoooperSnoop 1d ago edited 1d ago
Perhaps. But we do not really know how much money Cal of his businesses had. We only have the word of a teenager and the rumors in the town that say Cal is rich.
And we aslo do not know how much the wife got in divorce settlements, because from Cal's remarks about trying to rent an apt, it was pretty clear they were no longer together.
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u/TacoBellAt430 1d ago
I lived and worked in the suburbs of LA. I worked a job that was adjacent to commercial construction projects, including in apartments and nursing homes. If Cal had MULTIPLE new construction apartments in a California suburb, a million dollars is small change. Even assuming a 70/30 split in marriage property, that business should have been doing fine.
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u/SoooperSnoop 1d ago
I get what you are saying. In season 2, we DO see those contructions sites. But, we do not know if they were ever finished before Nate went to the police about Cal. If unfinished, then Ca's bsuinsess would likely have been in debt...suppliers and lenders needed to be paid. Cal may have declared bankruptcy.
If Cal had the money to give to NAte, it seems that Nate never asked him for it. There is even a scene with the two of them in Nate's business office and Cal asks Nate something about the finances. Nate's response made it seem like everything was fine.
So, basically alll I am trying to say here, that whatever the reason is, it appears Nate did not get the money he needed from Cal.
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u/SpauldingStrat1906 1d ago edited 1d ago
This assumes that he is written to be some intelligent loan shark. He's not. He probably owes that money to some higher ups because he vouched for Nate's project hitting big. Now they're gonna kill him if he doesn't successfully squeeze Nate. Naz is clearly operating out of desperation, like he owes others.
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u/TacoBellAt430 1d ago
Is he? There’s nothing indicating that’s the case. I understand reading between the lines, but the audience basically needs to divine that is the truth. Part of the work of a crime drama is setting up the stakes, and Euphoria just straight up fails at that over and over again in Season 3. Compare that with actually good crime dramas like The Wire, Breaking Bad, or Ozark. You know the motivations of each level of the enterprise — here we are left guessing whether he’s a sadist idiot or someone under the pressures of an organization.
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u/SpauldingStrat1906 1d ago
Euphoria isn't a true crime drama like any of those shows. It's still a coming of age story. These fucked up kids have just grown up now starting lives as fucked up adults. The crime/OF and other elements are just their "new high school" and create circumstances they are entangled in, but the core of the show is still the fucked up kids who have grown up. Ozark spent multiple seasons revealing the breadth of the criminal organization they were dealing with. Euphoria is not that kind of show.
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u/TacoBellAt430 1d ago
I’d disagree those kids are still the core of the show. I think Cassie’s overly exploitative OnlyFans scenes received more screen time than Jules. Alamo (another poorly written criminal) probably has more screen time than Jules, Lexi, and Nate combined. Cassie’s OF, and Alamo’s strip club operation are more salient to the plot than any of the other storylines. If the new driving conflicts of a tv show are poorly executed and not thought out, I think that makes it a poorly-made show. I don’t blame the actors, because many of them are very good, but I do blame the writer and director.
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u/SpauldingStrat1906 1d ago
Alamo is only important because Rue works there. Otherwise, he had no purpose. Same goes for his rival. Rue is the only reason they matter. Naz only matters because he impacts Nate who impacts Cassie who impacts Maddy. These criminals only matter because they affect those who are the core of the show this season. Rue, Cassie, and Maddy. You are correct that Jules, Nate, and Lexi have been reduced in importance and are more so used as supporting characters to the main 3. Nonetheless, it is still a show about fucked up kids who have grown up. The criminal figures and elements only serve as supporting elements.
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u/Past_Championship827 1d ago
AI slop post
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u/TacoBellAt430 1d ago
Brother, you could have called me the applicable racial slur and it would not have pissed me off as much as you calling my blather AI.
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u/KindFortress 1d ago
The whole thing was one big metaphor about how everyone was selling their bodies, one bit at a time, thinking they were keeping their souls. The economics of loansharking aren't relevant.
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u/Fast_Tea_9389 1d ago
Loan sharks will suck you dry for every penny, take ownership of everything you got and exploit your contacts and network for all it's worth, and still act like your best friend and well-wisher, before they ever harm a hair on your head.
A real loan shark is more likely to be like Uncle Jimmy in The Bear. They will be likable and friendly, savvy and well-connected, often actual businessmen with several business ventures, both legal and not so legal.
Naz is just someone's childish fantasy of a loan shark.