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The character of Neil: a little contrived?

posted 9 years ago by graham_525
21 replies | jump to latest

In the second series, Neil obviously represents everything that Brent believes himself to be. Neil is good looking and popular with his staff, he can have a laugh with his staff yet keep them highly motivated. His staff respect him and he knows how to set high expectations without getting their backs up. Unfortunately, I think that in order to make Neil fit this "everything Brent wants to be" mould, the character was inconsistent. In particular, his relationship with Chris Finch. Neil is shown to have exactly the sort of camaraderie with Finch that Brent imagines he has. We know, as the audience, that Finch bullies Brent, and that he has no respect for him. I don't think Neil's interactions with Finch are consistent with everything else we see about him. He suddenly becomes comfortable engaging in sexist banter with Finch at an office party, the kind of behaviour he would give Brent a telling off for. Is this an inconsistency just to contrive Neil to be everything Brent wants to be, or is it showing that Neil is actually just a bit of a wanker underneath it all?

[–] UN_Jefferson 8 years ago

Neil wants everyone to love him, pathetic.

[–] bpjtuition 8 years ago

I think that Neil was a very realistic character. He was everything Brent imagined himself to be but at the same time lacked much of his heart and kindness behind the facade.

There was something slightly smug about Neil that was very much behind the surface but that audience subtly picked up on. His friendship with Finch was a fantastic observation of human interaction. Finch is a bully and a nasty, intimidating man. Neil appreciates this fact and Finch also appreciates that Neil is someone whom h has to respect and show admiration for.

Smug is the word that fits Neil's flaws more than anything else. So whilst Brent is insufferable at times and hopelessly deluded, as the show reaches it's conclusion we see that Brent is a tragic figure and that in some respects the seemingly perfect Neil is actually a haughty man full of himself.

[–] daveyh (634) 4 years ago

there was always something about Neil that didn't seem right but I couldn't put my finger on it - so thank you! His friendship with Finchy, joining in with the lewd jokes etc was inconsistent with what we see of Neil the rest of the time. There's a similar thread on here about Trudy being a contradictory character at times too.
I get that they wanted to show him to be everything Brent wanted to be though - maybe they could have had Finchy be so respectful of Neil that he behaved around him and would chastise Brent for not doing the same.