it's pretty much impossible that this story ends with Nick financially ruined. The worst that can happen to him is that he is made to live off a broad allowance waiting for his or Kayla's parents to die so he can be rich again. It's actually incredible to me how Nick can have a million safetynets and golden parachutes laid out for him and still be such a hopeless fucking disaster. Literally every problem he has is self-done. He could unplug from the internet, live off his mother-in-laws teet and live comfortable not lifting a finger till the day he dies.
If he wanted to live like a degenerate with a second wife, swinging and doing drugs he could've done so in private with the insane amount of money he's leeching from his and Kayla's parents. I genuinely don't understand how he let it come to this point.
He will never be destitute. One day he will be exceptionally rich (far richer than would live as he does/ has, for sure).
It's never been about that.
It's about someone - someone who knowingly* and willingly put themselves out there - puffed up their own mitre-hatted head, believed the hype, and streamed a live show of
Proverbs 16:18.
* I don't just mean knew he was doing it, but someone who knew all of what "it" entailed.
Specifically, someone who had zero reason to do any of it - but did it, does it, and triples down on it daily.
Nick's hubris is easy to observe without guilt because he will never, ever have to worry about a thing. Oh, I'm sure he's had some sleepless nights (and I don't just mean the coke-filled ones), but he has, at bottom, loved it, even with hardships of driving his own kids around when that bitch of a nanny fucked off.
But at the end of the day, he has a certain future at a level of security 99.99% of people will never have - with money, a wife to grow old and forget this unfortunate moment with, enabling parents, and 5 kids (odds are some of them will still love him).
He will always have the LAWPOPE license plate he can point to to remind himself he was a "star" so important and disruptive that an entire county government schemed to persecute him - but that he fought the law and ended in at least a draw. He will always know he pulled a 20-something Minnesota 6 [
side note: don't agree with that assessment, but it's funny] who begged him in all her broken glory to be with her, and he will believe he made the noble choice...and will frequently replay what he can remember of their sexcapades.
He will remain in his mind an iconoclast, like Jesus before him, and a Biblical and legal scholar too clever to be understood by the envious prudes of Scandinavian origin and the petty, two-faced lawtubers who left him in his hour of need.
He will take comfort in the arc of his self-told story of a nerd-made-Hot-Topic-badass who pulled himself up (bootstraps!) from Section 8 ghetto denizen to skinny legend, and will fondly recall attending his sultry summer VIP soirees with famous gimmick artists and the hot side piece on his arm and under his desk.
So, of all the cows, Nick and his unearned protection against real consequences for his actions is the least troubling to observe or to mock. He is the gift of guiltless contempt and amusement. Every opportunity and obligation to Do Good, and no interest in it.
The worst Nick has suffered is embarrassment and exposure, and a minor threat of losing his possessions aka family, blunted by the one wise choice he made in his personal context (choosing a wife with a poor sense of self). And though the criticism and exposure may sting for a midwit narcissist, it's an outcome of his own making, and it will provide him fodder for heroic stories for
years. So all in all, pretty good.
With any luck, he will cleave to what has worked so well so far.