Not to sound like a conservative grandma but Zendaya is so skinny and has such a specific body shape I find impossible to imagine her pregnant. Which is why I'm convinced it was Mike Faist that gave birth to their daughter in Challengers, there is no other explaination

I find so weird the way people talk about Tashi as a coach. They talk as she was a dictator,that is just ovepressuring Art,doesn't care about his well being ,all controlling and is manipulating or forcing him to play all his career or do things against his will or that would go against his well being just because she just cared for winning.

What is tashi forcing Art to do,drinking his green smoothie?" She chose him because he is the only one that let her control him" ,control what?,his routine of exercises?" He accepted his coaching because he didn't want her to leave him" Accept what ? Her coaching that is right and worked and made him win grand slams. "he just played because Tashi" wasn't Art already a tennis player when he met tashi,wasn't he already professional and playing already masters 1000,the second most important competition after a grand slam when he invited Tashi to join his team.?.!!!

He isn't doing things that other tennis players won't do to have a successful career,waking up to practice and making exercises before a match,diet,watching and studying a match he lost. In no moment is shown that he doesn't have passion for tennis anymore because Tashi or is tired of her exploiting him like many say. He is tired of tennis life itself something he chose and knew that you have to do to be an elite player,and will live with another coach too not just Tashi. The life of a tennis player is exhausting,demanding,competing all the time,with a lot of physical and mental work that can cause a person to want a pause. People act like Tashi was shown in one scene forcing Art to practice even if he was sick or to do this things that would impact his health or some weird thing.

Even the pressure,Tashi didn't even pressure him to win new Rochelle,he was the one asking for that ,she was the one telling him that he was the professional competitor and must matter to him not her judgement,he was the one asking for coaching because he needed a reason to win now that his passion for tennis and wining isn't the same anymore. Did tashi say something when Art told her he wanted to retire?. I think people take too seriously Patrick's words of Tashi wanting a lapdog and Art not retiring until Tashi let him,create a complete image of Tashi in their heads that doesn't go with what the movie is really showing. There are even people saying that Art didn't speak to much to lily because Tashi didn't let him he is just a player for her.... The girl is barely there ,to show how when both are working,they didn't have too much time for her even when both of them are shown wanting to have more time with her,both Tashi and Art. Yeah,their tennis life could be consuming but that doesn't mean Tashi is a manipulative,controlling coach dictator.

tashi is far and away the most interesting character in challengers, at least to me. all the takes i see where tashi is just a means to an end for the two boys to explore their attraction to each other. sorry thats just not the movie i watched. this girl is so tragic and the tragedy she experienced is a blackhole coming to suck all three of them in. everything she had was taken away from her, and she keeps going, but shes dragging along her stolen potential everywhere she goes. into her marriage. into motherhood. and its a buffer that keeps her from truly being with art, or truly being with patrick, or truly being with anyone. bc between her and anyone else is the version of her that should have existed. gone in one instant. through no fault of her own. and people might know that version of her is always there lurking, but shes the one that can feel it.

the “lily is actually patrick’s daughter!!” theory is one i cannot get behind. tashi duncan had her whole life planned out, controlled. the one unpredictable thing in her life was her knee injury which completely threw her off course. every choice she makes is a concious one - she has weighed the pros and cons of it all before making a decision. yes, even cheating on art in atlanta. but there is not a chance in HELL that she wasn’t tracking her cycle or on long form birth control or something akin to her knowing her windows. you really think patrick zweig’s daughter wants to cuddle and watch spiderverse? that child would be bouncing off the fucking walls. lily was certainly planned between tashi and art. maybe i’m wrong and i’m willing to be wrong, but the way tashi is written i cannot imagine her having an unplanned pregnancy with patrick. regardless, art is lily’s father in every sense of the matter.

what’s really funny is art thinks talking about patrick’s dick twice in the sauna scene comes off straight and not really gay

FOUND family??? you think i just found them like this??? babes this is FORGED family. Me & the bros were scrap metal in a junkyard (very valuable, very sharp, very dangerous, uncared for) and we GOT IN THE FUCKING FIRE TOGETHER. WE did this. we said I AM NOT LEAVING YOU and melted into each other for better or for worse (it’s for better) and we are A FUNCTIONAL UNIT now. DO NOT SEPARATE. BATTERIES FUCKING INCLUDED. FOUND family my ass, we built this non-nuclear family unit from the ground up, don’t devalue this!!! it was is and will be a labour of love!!!

The thing about Challengers outsider POV - and I love playing with outsider POV so I'm still enjoying these, not hating - the thing is while the most obvious outsider POV is the press / fans / etc. realizing they are in a throuple, if we are all being real here this relationship is never going public. They are the exact kind of celebrities to be fully aware of where the cameras are and that bisexual throuples technically committing enthusiastic-consent adultery do not get Uniqlo sponsorships. They could only be forced into questions at gunpoint and the answer would still be "No Comment." Art is dying happily in his mansion-sized closet and his wife and boyfriend are joining him 🤣

The only people who believe they are fucking are the in-universe rpf fandom (a broken clock is right twice a day) and the occasional paparazzi out for a quick buck who generally spin it as "Donaldson is having an affair!!!" (Which Donaldson is just whoever's pic can be framed more scandalously. It's a low bar.)

We can have a fair fight.

Tashi's nearly the most chill coach I've ever seen. The fact she didn't curse him CLEAN OUT when she was reviewing his game with Du Maurier and he walked in and turned the volume off and just had "he played well that day" to say for himself is crazy. That man was coasting hard on husband privileges lol. If I had that kind of blasé attitude after getting crushed in a game that should have been easy, my high school tennis coach would have had me do ten laps around the court before we even discussed the matter again. The "Tashi is an evil, controlling coach" narrative is a genuine laugh riot.

People underestimate how stubborn Art is because he doesn’t talk a lot, and when he does, he usually speaks softly. Tashi and Patrick took minutes to reconcile in Atlanta, yet Art held out for YEARS and had to be cornered in the sauna to speak to Patrick at all. It’s also a safe assumption to make that the main reason things didn’t go further with Art and Patrick after the hotel scene is that Art wasn’t ready to admit he wanted that and Patrick knew better than to push him.

Patrick and Tashi took the fact the three of them would be better off together in stride, but Art held out with dogged determination to try to make the traditional heterosexual monogamous thing work. He persisted with that until all parties involved were so miserable they had to basically stage an intervention behind his back.

Art played tennis at an elite level until he didn’t feel like it anymore, and even though he wasn’t willing to say that until the end of the film, his actions did. Tashi couldn’t beg, threaten, berate or bargain him into doing his damn job with some level of competence to save her life. She had to figure out how to get him to WANT to do it, because MAKING him do it was off the table. Not to imply the other two don’t have their own character flaws, just to state Art’s actual issue isn’t that he’s just so submissive and agreeable, it’s that he’s stubborn as hell, but too conflict-averse to state it clearly when he thinks what he wants is in conflict from what others want from him.

Sincerely the way I don't agree with many Challengers takes is because many of them are based on this idea that Art since the beginning didn't have passion,drive,ambition and love for tennis like Patrick. where this idea came from?. The movie is telling you he is in a losing streak because he is falling out of love with the game,but is something recent,he is fighting with a desire to retire vs wanting to love the game again,that is very understandable after a surgery,lack of confidence returning and living the demanding life of an elite player and winning almost everything in his career with the desire of living other aspects or his life. But where is shown that he didn't have the passion or drive during most of the flash backs? He even became a better player when he was in Stanford without Patrick and became a professional with success without Tashi, because when Tashi met him again he was already playing in the big league of tennis like Cincinnati not challengers or low level tournaments,so even if it still connects to Patrick and Tashi,Art's drive isn't just about Tashi or Patrick's validation. He had also played for himself all his career,when he tried to stay just for tashi he began to lose,Tashi gave him the ultimatum of leaving him and it didn't work.

I think people confuse Art being ice and Patrick being fire with less passion or love for the game,when that is about having different styles of playing tennis that can be reflected also in their personalities. Patrick being more explosive ,raw,improvisation while Art being more precise ,in control and calculated. And may be it show us Patrick being more confident,taking risks quickly but not that Art loved tennis less.

And he obviously wouldn't love tennis like Tashi, especially when Tashi lost the opportunity to play and still had that hunger in her all her life,bu If we use tennis as a fourth character or a metaphor for their relationships,I think one the reasons Tashi is with Art is because she can still talk with him in some way the same language of what she loved the most that is tennis,for her tennis is a relationship,like being in love, understanding each other, and we saw it since their first conversation,Art wanting to talk about points or noticing her scream or connecting with both playing in Stanford, Art falling for her after watching her play and noticing her backhand. And may be Art losing passion for tennis is a metaphor for their marriage crumbling,because he and Tashi weren't talking the same language anymore. But also during all their relationship Tashi couldnt give everything from herself to Art because she couldnt play tennis anymore,she is giving what she can. So how didn't he love tennis like Patrick but just had discipline all his life?

I don't agree with this idea of Tashi comes back to Patrick because he had the passion and love for tennis that Art didn't have,at contrary I think she isn't with Patrick because she felt Patrick's didn't love tennis enough,how can you love something and not have commitment to it, and commitment to tennis is also a metaphor to comminment to a relationship with her.But Tashi is fire and ice,so she live with each of them very different aspects of her,not that fire is just the real her or that is the only side with passion and love for tennis. Oh god this is so long !😅

many such thoughts of arts religious background and being raised by his grandma making him think women are goddesses (as he should) and how that prevents him from seeing the flaws they might possess. many such thoughts of how when art likes someone they are on a pedestal and can do no wrong in his eyes and will withstand anything thrown at him like an acolyte taking on gods will. finding pride in the burden even as it wears on him overtime. many such thoughts on how when someone (in the case of the movie, patrick) expresses a flaw or does something to knock themselves off the throne art has placed them on, he turns on them completely. turning them into something devilish and unworthy in his mind. many such thoughts, yes.

Ppl calling Art a innocent baby are COMPLETELY ignoring how much a snake and a fucking manipulator he is when he wants to. The sudden ego he had in the sauna scene is CRAZY, LIKE, DID HE STUTTER?? He didn't even hesitate to say how much he thinks Pat is shit compared to him, I WAS GAGGED. 😭

Patrick slapping Art's erect cock not even a minute after making out with him passionately in front of Tashi and then them NOT ending the night fucking each other senseless despite being horny as hell and frustrated was so crazy tho… the repression… the denial... the yaoi trope of it all...

Ok but I hate how these gum scenes are used so much in TikTok against Tashi. " Look at Art,how happy he was with Patrick,now with Tashi she stole his soul" . That is why "Patrick and Art endgame,erase Tashi".

Please,Art was smiling in that scene but he was jelous of Patrick. Also,how can you compare a 17 year old that had never played professional and is just practicing with the aura and calmness of champion in his 30s going to an important professional game to play. And in Art's case,he has lived not just the glory of the sport but also its brutality. In no point in the movie is told that he was tired of Tashi or that his loss of passion for his craft was because her or something related. If Tashi is erased ,Art would be chewing that gum crying.

Patrick is a closet fan. When he repeatedly compares Art negatively to himself by suggesting Art's a lapdog, he reveals how he really feels about himself. He speaks of how beautiful Tashi was when she played when they're in the car together. Well, the time to be at her games cheering her on is when you were her boyfriend, Patrick. What he wanted to do is worship Tashi, but his ego and pride make him feel like he shouldn't. He was also jealous of how Art could show how impressed he was by her without feeling intimidated or feeling inferior for it. He wanted Tashi to care about his tennis; that's why he called her about it all the time. That's also why he eventually asked her to coach him. He was embarrassed to even want what Art had no problem humbling himself enough to ask for.

It's actually normal for your significant other to be your main cheerleader; Patrick's idea of that being lapdog behavior shows a misunderstanding of what--besides dick and charm--people expect from a boyfriend. It's also not being a dog that lets her punish you to get back to the baseline in your relationship after a fight to follow through with what you promised and support your partner. Art and Patrick were still effectively in a boyfriend competition, and Art won by getting over himself enough to still be there to support Tashi. It wound up being more than the subtle sign it would have been if the game went fine when the game wasn't fine, and he was therefore able to be the first person at her side when she was injured. People say Patrick couldn't have known that would happen in a dismissive way, but in reality you never know when ANYTHING might happen to someone; consistency is how you avoid getting caught flat-footed and leaving the last thing you said to someone to be something awful.