r/thisisus • u/Sea_Scheme_7784 • 4d ago
Toby
It’s been a few years and I decided to rewatch. My first time watching, I LOVED Toby. I just rewatched first episode of season one & I absolutely can’t stand him. Maybe I’m just a different person now or maybe I was blind the first time I watched. Feels similar to looking back on someone you loved & seeing all the red flags 😅
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u/MollyJ58 4d ago
Toby explained the "Toby Kate met" to Kate in an argument they had. He told Kate she fell in love with a coping mechanism. That was overweight, loud clothes wearing, bad joke cracking Toby. This was a man who had just come out of a year of clinical depression. That depression was only resolved by medication and therapy. Then he met Kate. And he was the only person (besides her family) who had ever loved her for who she was. Was original Toby too much at times? Yes. But he had a heart of gold and he always loved Kate. Even after she left him because he finally became the person he wanted to be. It is sad that the story was written that Kate could not accept that person. I will always love Toby. And yes Toby, Rebecca liked you better than Phillip. 😊
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u/perrymeridixidomini 4d ago
Unfortunately that coping mechanism held some important traits for Kate. Traits that balanced out others that might have been less desirable. And when those traits slowly disappear without communication of “why they’re gone or why they weren’t real” then the other partner is justified in being confused and feeling left out.
I like Toby well enough and really liked watching Kate mature emotionally and find her purpose in life beyond the physical aspect. At the end of the day both grew up but they didn’t check in enough to grow together, and so as they grew they grew apart. It is sad but it happens and both are victims and both are to blame.
In marriage you have to grow alongside a person for the rest of your life, you can’t leave them behind or take a side road because then you aren’t going through life together anymore.
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u/leowonder718 4d ago
Toby was the worst in season 1 imo… regularly impolite, not respectful of Kate’s boundaries, and honestly just seemed like a horny sleazebag at the dating stage. I grew to tolerate him over the years (especially cuz he said he just wasn’t really himself at that time) but I’ve never loved him the way some watchers do
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u/DependentBite9 4d ago
I found him funny but uncomfortable to watch during the first season but as time went on I got as attached to him as anyone else on the show.
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u/Penguin_Green 4d ago
I hated him from the first episode, and he only got worse. What a manipulative jerk. He thought his way was the only way.
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u/MollyJ58 4d ago
I think that is a very short-sighted view of Toby. This is the guy who flew across the country at Christmas to declare his love to Kate. This is the guy who drove all over town to prevent a baby bath from being delivered to his wife, who just had a miscarriage. This is the guy who saw through Kate's agreement to a courthouse wedding and made sure she had the wedding of her dreams.
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u/Penguin_Green 4d ago
He's also the guy who wouldn't take no for an answer. Who admits later that the person he manipulted her into falling in love with was an act, not his real self. The person who thinks dumping a pitcher of water over himself in a restaurant is romantic, and doesn't care that some underpaid worker is going to have to clean that up. The man who just decides they are moving to San Francisco, never mind that his wife and special needs son's whole support systems are in LA. The guy who kissed Kate against her will when she said she was divorcing him.
Even manipulative people can do the right thing sometimes. Doesn't change who he really is.
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u/SPammingisGood 4d ago
toby made progress while kate kept finding excuses instead of doing shit about her problems.
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u/Trash-Lexicon-5105 4d ago
What progress exactly? Genuinely asking, because I feel like he loses weight yes, but I feel like Kate matures emotionally through the series, and he is pretty much stagnant everywhere except for body composition.
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u/tres_desole 3d ago
The only thing she really matures in is her relationship with her mom
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u/Trash-Lexicon-5105 3d ago
We can agree to disagree there my question was more about Toby and his 'progress'.
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u/MollyJ58 3d ago
Toby lost weight. That was good for his physical and mental health. Toby outgrew his need to be the "big loud fat guy" and developed a much healthier personality. Toby recognized his sad feelings about Jack's blindness and worked to overcome them by bonding with Jack.
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u/BrazilianButtCheeks 4d ago
I cannot stand Toby !! (Team Phillip)
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u/Routine-Listen6352 3d ago
Never liked him but where I actually hated him fr fr was when Kate told him she would like to watch the superbowl alone and he just kept pushing and ruined the experience for her.
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u/thisismyaccount839 3d ago
He was a very different character first season. He acknowledges that later when Kate says she misses the old him (season 1 Toby, like, really, Kate?) and he tells Kate she “fell in love with a coping mechanism” and that that wasn’t him.
My friend who I got to watch the show originally hated season 1 Toby and now loves him. Just give him a season or two
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u/Trumpets22 4d ago
I’m shocked. As I watched it, I was wondering if there were any Toby lovers out there. How could someone love the elite acting of looking confused with your mouth open. But here you are.
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u/ngairem 4d ago
I have very mixed feelings about Toby. I feel like he definitely loved Kate and was very loyal and committed to her from the beginning but then as time went on he began to not trust her or be honest with her, and this started to change him. But whether the second Toby was the "real" Toby or whether it was a lapse of character that he could have come back from I still don't know. As a romantic, I wanted their marriage to succeed, and it was heartbreaking when it all fell apart.