Introducing STATE OF THE #SHEA... (A Blog about ABC-TV's "The Good Doctor")

*** NOTE: Scroll on down for FIGURE SKATING blog posts; there's plenty of them.******

If you’re anything like me, six weeks was a long, LONG time to go without a follow-up episode of The Good Doctor.

Arguably, that was the case for any fan of the show. How could it not be, given the emotional wallop of “Friends and Family”? But if you’re anything like me, you’re also what (I think) the cool kids call Team #Shea… and you’ve watched that final minute of the episode at least 3 dozen times now on YouTube… and all those synapses in your brain that laid relatively dormant during the first half of season 3? Yeah, those have been firing away with all the possibilities that seemed to shake themselves anew the moment Lea got her arms around a flailing, distraught Shaun—and without hesitation, he let her.

When Shaun got his flowers and his chocolates (“real ones”) and his best suit and stood there in front of Lea in the final minutes of season 2… only to walk right on by her and out the door/down the street/through the woods or whatever it took to get himself to Carly’s doorstep… I was happier about it than I thought I’d be. Yes, I’ve been Team #Shea from the moment a certain young surgeon with ASD went to collect the batteries he’d loaned to a certain young mechanical engineer down the hall in season 1. And when the first half of season 2 re-launched their relationship with, ultimately, new living quarters and a new set of rules, I remained cautiously optimistic that somehow the decidedly platonic twosome would find themselves on the same romantic page in due time.

But the final minutes of season 2 was not yet that time. We’d had numerous bonding moments by then, but we also had (sigh) “Jake”. Not that “Jake” was anything more than a Generic Boyfriend for Lea, but he was enough to reiterate It ain’t happening for Shaun yet, folks. Shaun knew it, and he mourned it, and stayed as pre-occupied as he could with Dr. Glassman’s illness until Dr. Han’s arrival forced Shaun to put all his energy towards keeping the career that never should have been in jeopardy in the first place. By the time Shaun had fought through all that (and a hospital stay of his own!), who knows if Jake was even around anymore. But he’d served his purpose, for Shaun was moving on.

Or, he thought he’s moved on.

Has he moved on?

I’ve never been fully convinced. And when he picked Lea over Carly to join him in Wyoming, my thought was Oh yessssss. I see what they’re doing here. And while the “Friends and Family” episode covered an achingly sad (and also infuriating) event, I couldn’t help but feel it lifted the hopes of #Shea ‘shippers the way an unexpected romantic interlude would for, say, a completely neurotypical, would-be, long-awaited twosome. You know why, right? It’s because even though nothing remotely sexual transpired between Lea and Shaun on that troubling night… the embrace, the way he reached back and pulled her even closer, the way she pressed her cheek against his, the locking of hands, it whispered/screamed THIS is still your woman, Shaun.

So while they did not sleep together in the way Glassman first thought when Shaun told him… in the context of his intimacy issues with Carly, they might as well have.

I know this is where a lot of fans break ranks with those on Team #Shea. To a fair degree, I understand why… they think she’s “a flake” (thanks, MORGAN) who has never taken Shaun seriously as a love interest beyond their road-tripping days of season 1. They think she sees him as more of a brother, or that she’s more representative of Shaun’s late brother Steve at this point in the relationship. They don’t see chemistry, they see a good-time girl who would only break Shaun’s heart if they were together like that.

I see it very differently, and thanks to a lot of online lurking (and a little bit of posting) during that long 6 weeks away from the show, I believe that not only am I—are WE—far from alone. In fact, #Shea ‘shippers are in the majority: every Lea or Carly? Poll I’ve seen has Lea winning handily—60% in some cases, but more often something like 70/30 over Carly. (This Good Housekeeping article from Tuesday had a 75/25 split in Lea’s favor last time I checked it.)

Which may lead you to ask… or even wail (at least in your mind)… how could TGD Writers have Shaun agree to move out of a living arrangement they spent a LOT of time developing for him, with a woman the fans seem to prefer for him? And what about that “I love you Carly”…??? Are they crazy?

I’m no expert—a professional writer, yes, but certainly not one connected to the show in any way, shape or form—but I feel fairly safe in saying they (TGDW) know exactly what they’re doing. And that we need to trust that it is, by and large, in line with what we think they should be doing.

There is so much more I’d like to get into, especially if it’ll be interesting and/or helpful to other #Shea ‘shippers as we navigate the proverbial Sea of Love during the remainder of TGD season 3. (Which has recently expanded to 20 episodes rather than the usual 18, according to The Good Doctor Scouts Twitter account.) But… especially to the many TGD fans I’ve recently met on Twitter who aren’t quite as happy right now with the show as they thought they would be after that break… let me put a few more thoughts out there for you to chew on while we wait for “Mutations” (the next episode):

A)    Shaun seemed torn between the two women in his life when “Fractured” started. Glassman suggested he “figure it out, and fast”; in Shaun’s mind, he has now done just that.

B)     To prove it, Shaun made a series of very bold actions and statements (for him, at least) in the final moments of the episode. Which is one of the things I’d love to talk about in another post, BTW.

C)    There are still as many as nine episodes of storytelling left to go on this arc. In other words, it ain’t over. And I have a hard time believing TGDW have invested the better part of three years cultivating Shaun and Lea’s relationship just to have Lea fade quietly into San Jose shadows the minute Shaun professes his love for another woman.

So keep breathing, team #Shea. As Steve might ask… “How many candles do you need”?

ONE MORE IMPORTANT THING: I’m not a Carly-hater by any stretch of the imagination…in fact, I think she’s absolutely essential to Shaun’s evolution. So if you’re here primarily to bash the character or the actress that portrays her (Jasika Nicole), you’ve come to the wrong place.

If, on the other hand, you’d like to talk about your own thoughts and/or feelings for #Shea, for The Good Doctor in general, or ask any questions, please do so in the comments! This is a very experimental post for me and I’d really like to hear from you.