State of the #SHEA part 37: The Many Distractions of "Forgive or Forget"

 In a season where many TGD episode titles have had direct connections to #Shea, “Forgive or Forget” turned out to be… not one of them.

When I first saw that title back in April, and we were all trying to figure out what it had to do with storylines on the show-- well, frankly, it was a little alarming. There was already some concern about the meaning of the previous episode title “Letting Go” (with good reason, it turns out). Could “Forgive or Forget” be an extension of that letting go process? Was it about the different perceived ways Shaun and Lea might be dealing with a #Sheababy tragedy? Was Shaun moving on too fast for Lea’s liking-- or at least seemed to be? Was Lea caught up in blame, in dire need of self-forgiveness (even though the miscarriage was no one’s fault)?

Or… in the event that all was still well with the pregnancy… was “Forgive or Forget” about Glassman’s lingering guilt over deceased daughter Maddie (which seemed renewed with Lea’s pregnancy)? Was this the episode where Debbie was going to call him on the way it was consuming him, leading to an emotional breakdown on Glassy’s part unlike anything we’ve seen from him since S2?

(Not exactly, where these two were concerned. But I sure do like that option better than what we got in the actual episode. I’ll get back to the Glassmans.)

So let’s do a quick take on where “Forgive or Forget” took those theories:

• Was Shaun moving on too fast for Lea’s liking? No, two important things established early in the episode were 1) It was 3 weeks since the last time we saw them, and 2) As Shaun stated “All we’ve done is work and neither of us feels any better .” So it would appear that communication between the two of them keeps improving in the aftermath of the miscarriage.

• Was Lea caught up in self-blame-- or maybe I should say still caught up in self-blame, as there were strong indications of it in “Letting Go”?  Hard to say. She’s obviously still in mourning/still healing, but there weren’t any direct references to blame… if only because they were “distracting” themselves with the camp trip. We’ll have to see what comes from the Venga/Vamos 2 parter. 

• Was “Forgive or Forget” about Glassman’s lingering guilt over Maddie? Uh, no. You might say they went a different direction… or even re-visited an old direction.

• Was this the episode where Debbie called him on the way it was consuming him? No! That would have been better! Dangit, I’m still mad about this. I’ll get back to the Glassmans.

In other words, there was a lot of “other” forgivin’ and forgettin’ going on in this episode… with mixed results:

• Claire and her father Miles: can’t forget, CAN forgive! This was one of my favorite happenings of the night (aside from the #SheaObvious). Claire was due for some goodness, as maybe we all can agree. I assume this means we’ll see more of Miles in S5? 

• Case-of-the-week #1 (the teen and her parents)- forgive (though from my tenuous grasp of their issues, it seemed more about the parents needing to realize the error of their ways than their daughter struggling with forgiving them…? OK, I wasn’t giving the patients my full attention in this episode. There, I said it. Watch what I have to say about….

• Case-of-the-week #2 (Mushroom guy): forget…? As in, “Forget your crazy mushroom extracts as a means of curing your depression?”... “Forget your mode of treatment for this patient, Park”... “No, YOU forget YOUR mode of treatment, Morgan”... “Forget it; neither of you have any objectivity” (that’s Jordan speaking)? Or at the end… “Forget what I said about forgetting your mushrooms” (that’s Morgan talking to Mushroom Guy)...? Am I getting close on any of this? 

• Speaking of Morgan and Park: given the choices I guess this is more in the forget column-- forget being friends, forget being friends-with-benefits, forget we even know each other. Is that what Park was trying to say in another one of their locker-room conversations? Hmm. These two are a lot more fraught than they need to be, it seems. I guess the bigger problem lies with Morgan, but Park’s repeated attempts to redefine things on his terms is irritating too. Will this hot mess of a non-relationship reach some kind of boiling point in the season finale? Or will David Shore pull something similar to what he did last year with Claire and Melendez-- except rather than kill one of ‘em off before taking the relationship further, one of them will stay in Guatemala…? 

• Ah, crap, I’m back to the Glassmans before moving on to all things #Shea…. OK, this discussion may or may not break out into a longer one over the summer, depending on how much conversation it continues to generate. For now, I’m going to do my best to keep my thoughts succinct…

• “Forgive or Forget” brought Glassman’s wife Debbie back to the show for the first time since the “Frontline” 2-parter that opened S4… only to have their marriage uprooted over the course of 3 scenes (3 ½ if you count Glassy discussing his apparent overbearing nature with Lim), and ending with the two of them separating.

• Word on the Twitter street is that this development was actually scheduled for earlier in the season-- with, one presumes, more than one episode to set it up-- but Richard Schiff (Glassman) and Sheila Kelley (Debbie)’s real-life battle with COVID resulted in them postponing and/or shelving those plans.

• Speculation on that same Twitter street spanned everything from Sheila Kelley has a new acting gig so maybe this was a necessity… to with the 2 remaining “newbies” (Asher Wolke and Jordan Allen) returning as regulars next year, they had to make cuts somewhere… to Well, Glassman and Debbie were kind of an odd match anyway that got married much too soon… it makes sense that it’s not working out.

• My take is probably in the minority, but here it is anyway: 

1) I agree that Glassman and Debbie got married much too soon, but TGD is taking the easy way out by not using the hasty set-up that TGD created (!) to explore the Glassman’s union (and they haven’t. Not really.) 

2) If COVID kept this storyline from moving forward earlier in the season, why not push the whole idea into Season 5 instead, rather than rush through the breakup as they did? (And if there was concern S5 wouldn’t happen, just leave the storyline alone… what would’ve been the harm in having Glassman’s marriage continue into oblivion?) 

3) Excuses about not knowing Sheila Kelley’s availability into S5 fall flat; no, we don’t know exactly what lies ahead for her career-wise but we DO know she’s married to her TGD co-star… if they insist on bringing Debbie’s role on the show to an end, I think it might be easier to work with her schedule than the average actor. 

4) As someone who has studied the visual medium-- both formally and on the job, during my 25 years in the industry (nothing NEAR the heights of network TV, but the industry nonetheless)-- I’ve always felt that scripted series in particular owe something more to their viewers than tends to be delivered. What I mean by that is that people pick up so many cues from TV-- how to interact, to problem-solve, to simply BE in the world-- and I don’t think TV writers/showrunners take that responsibility as seriously as they should. My point in this particular case is that IF the show opts to have Glassman marry a hospital barista after a very brief (and much delayed, due to his cancer) courtship, then I feel it’s the show’s job to play that unique situation out to the best of its ability. If the marriage ends in divorce after a few years of intermittent (but consistent) scenes of Glassy and Debbie doing nothing but bicker over small stuff (or “big stuff”; God knows gun control debates aren’t small stuff)... that’s one thing. To feature Debbie in slightly more than a half-dozen episodes over two years since they got married… only to use the same essential argument from their early days (HER GUN) as a launching pad to a larger problem that we have not been privy to see at all over the past 16 episodes (GLASSY’S DOMINEERING WAYS)... that’s something else. To me, that “something else” translates to a decision that Glassy and Debbie’s relationship wasn’t worth the time and effort, even though they made the time and effort to get them married in the first place… and that’s a hellalousy message to send to viewers.

OK-- surprise! That wasn’t very short after all. Excuse me while I put away the soapbox…

What am I here for again? OH, Shaun and Lea’s not-so-excellent adventure, 2021 edition--

I loved the self-contained nature of Shaun and Lea in this episode-- no hospital, no computers, no… distractions? Ah, but everything was a distraction, and while the camping trip may have simply kicked the can of their shared pain down the road-- all the way down the road to Guatemala, perhaps-- every distraction also created another suture to make their bond even stronger. (See what I did there?? Sorry, couldn’t resist)

You have to start this adventure knowing the potential comedy of errors that it can bring. Show of hands-- who here has camped and experienced any or all of the following:

(I’m raising my hand for each and every one of these)

• All “open” campsites are taken, and you’ve shown up w/o reservations

• Rain-- brief showers, day-long soakers, and/or thunderstorms

• The feeling that you’re “not camping but tailgating” (to paraphrase Lea)

• You discover at nighttime that you have a group of drunks nearby

• Tents that become too wet to sleep in

• Campers that sleep in cars instead (NOTE: I have friends who did this on our trips, but I wasn’t one of them)

• Not just rain but a TORNADO warning... and rain heavy enough to send your girl scout troop leaders to the nearest town to run all the sleeping bags through a dryer cycle while you, as the youngest member of your troop, weep with fear and homesickness in the back of one of the leaders’ cars while a much more mature girl scout (age 11 or 12) is tasked with calming you down… oh, sorry. Just me on that one? 😟

Anyway, this was one of those rare times when we basically knew how the story would play out, but were dying to witness the details in getting to that last shot of the night, back home on the sofa. And thanks to the deft touch of Thomas L. Moran and David Renaud-- two scriptwriters who have a lot of experience with #Shea by now-- the details were delightful, even in the sitcom-ish predictability within the first 20 minutes:

• 
  Their entrance was denied at Yosemite because Shaun didn’t realize how fast those “open” campsites get snapped up each morning (Veteran camper Lea probably would have thought of this, actually, but we’ll give her a pass because she’s not at the top of her game right now… or maybe she was just silently crossing her fingers because she didn’t want Shaun to be disappointed)

• The campground they choose instead is crowded, reeks of gasoline, and has RVs blocking any remotely decent view.

• Just as they get to enjoying themselves a little with the well-made fire and marshmallows to roast, a thunderstorm rolls up out of nowhere and takes them by surprise. (The most unrealistic development of the night in my book, but again, the first part of the story was built in sitcom-ish fits and spurts.)

• 
  Then, just as they get past the noise of the nearby drunks and get to enjoying themselves in the tent (and I do mean “just as”; not but one moment of romantic peace to be had on this trip!)... cue the leaky roof in said tent. 

Some of those little details in part one that I enjoyed the most:

• The urgency in Shaun’s voice when he briefly tried to argue with the Yosemite ranger about why they needed that campsite… his desperation to help Lea (and himself) escape for a few days was plain as day.

• 
  The campfire scene was quite possibly the sweetest 30 seconds we’ve seen of them in a while: Shaun taking enormous pride in his fire-building skills, in prepping Lea’s marshmallow for roasting, then sneaking his arm around her like they were on a first date at the movies… even that moment where we saw him put his hand over Lea’s head as if to try and shield her from the rain (surely that was a last-minute improvisation on Freddie Highmore’s part?). Since we haven’t been privy to a lot of Shaun and Lea just straight-up dating, those 30 seconds really hit the spot for me.

• Then came the complement of the tent scene, which was a look-how-far-we’ve come moment with that lovely mention of “the old apartment (building)”... and, as some of you pointed out, the revelation that Lea holds that memory of their first hug just as dear as Shaun surely does. Even the earplugs were a sweet little prop, both in

  
  
  the way Lea was unfazed by the mention that she snores (she’s probably heard that before anyway) and the way Shaun took it upon himself to tuck them into her ears-- uniquely intimate, I can’t help but think, especially as I’ve used those kind of plugs many times and can’t imagine anyone other than me handling them!

By the time the rain had stopped and a brighter day was upon them, though, they seemed at an impasse (Lea sleeping alone in her car; Shaun alone in the (still wet?) tent). They’re not-- not really-- for as soon as she sees Shaun sitting forlornly at the picnic table with his ever-present green apple, she seems inspired to try harder and make the trip work for his sake. The decision to “do the hike he has planned” isn’t exactly a no-brainer, with both of them walking on eggshells around the question (“Is that what you want?” “Is that what

you want?” “I think so”), but by the end of the conversation Lea’s taken the
lead on things… and even looks to have a spark of “old Lea” in her eye as she does so. 

Which is probably why Shaun looks happier in his next shot.

The back half of the episode is hardly what one might call by-the-book in the mishaps department, but with a whopping seven scenes (some considerably shorter than others) taking us from Shaun’s fall to Lea’s last chug of the tequila, I’m not inclined to detail every moment of them. But a few favorites:

• Lea simply noting he’s “really cute” and referring to him as “my hero”. Sure, it was at heart a way to set up the accident, but I don’t think she’s called him “cute” since S1… another throwback to the old apartment, if you will.

• The bit about Lea not being able to run fast enough because (per her off-screen admission to Shaun) she used to ditch P.E. class out of her hatred of running. Not particularly relevant to the emergency (could anyone other than a highly trained athlete speed TWO HOURS back to cell service?), but a good Lea Fun Fact to have… and fun that Shaun knew all about it.

• 
  The tequila in the backpack… I love the idea of Tommy Moran (who apparently is responsible for the original “Tequila, STAT!” line that is now a #Shea classic) sitting around, musing on how he could work their alcohol of choice into yet another context. To him, I say: Well done sir!

• 
  Shaun and Lea “prepping” for the surgery, which provided the biggest opportunity to date of seeing them actually bicker… but admittedly there was a hell of a motivation for it, and the result was a pretty good give and take-- a “healthy exchange,” so to speak)

• I don’t know if they were deliberately alternating Lea’s “in surgery” shots with the actual OR sequences at St. B as a means of further connecting Lea to all the other St. B’vites… something we saw to great extent in the three episodes ahead of “Forgive,” and will certainly see in the Guatemala episodes… but it was mighty effective. And if

  
  
  viewers were truly more interested in the “real” OR stuff than what they got in between, I might need to go around and check some pulses. LOVED seeing Lea pull out her lip balm as a solution to dealing with the “slippery” blood; when she shot the cap out of her mouth and off to the side of the action I smiled extra big. Also (since we talk about her self-esteem all the time), interesting that rather than saying to herself “OK, Lea, you can do this” straightaway, she said “OK Lea, apparently if you can hem your jeans, you can do this”-- in other words, borrowing Shaun’s example to build herself up.

The ambulance shot (where Lea got an honorary MacGyver badge from the EMT, at least in my mind’s eye)...

And the gratitude conversation that started with Shaun in the ambulance, and continued with Lea at the end… not much to say about those, really; I just enjoyed those layers of icing. SO. MUCH. As I’m    guessing you did too.

And since we got a number of little throwbacks in this episode… whether it was the apartment-speak, or the Glassmans’ gun debate, or even if you want to put Morgan and Park’s ongoing issues into this category… it was indeed interesting that they repeated a montage song for the first time: “Sons and Daughters,” which I believe someone said was first used in S1’s “Intangibles”... I found these last lyrics (repeated over Shaun and Lea’s final moments) interesting in the current circumstances:

I’ll build the fire

You fetch the water

I’ll lay the table

In our hearts, we still pray for sons and daughters

These quiet hours turning to years

State of the #SHEA part 36: I'm Not Always Like This ("Letting Go")

 

You say you wish you could find some way to help

To not to be so hard on myself

So why is it easy for everyone else? 

I’m not always like this

There’s always tomorrow I guess

(from “Turn Out The Lights” by Julien Baker)

If we think of “Decrypt” (from earlier this season) as the closest thing we’ve had thus far to a “Lea” episode (on par with the episodes titled “Lim” and “Claire”), I suggest we consider the “Letting Go” episode as “Lea, part 2”. I know it was about how both Lea and Shaun are dealing with the miscarriage, but an unexpected amount of the hour was devoted to just Lea… which we all know has been extremely rare, at least until this season. And, perhaps thanks to another woman-penned script (thank you Doris Egan, whose last work here was “The Uncertainty Principle”), we got some LONG looks at Lea’s pain.

And that’s important-- not just because she’s the title character’s life partner for the foreseeable future, but because the actual miscarriage happened within her. Twenty-two weeks of her body, hormones, and state of mind adjusting gradually to the miracle of life, and suddenly the miracle is gone. If it takes several weeks for everything going on within her body to reverse course and return to “normal" (and it does), imagine how much longer it can take emotionally.

Incidentally, we see Shaun pouring himself into his work as part of his own grieving process… and while it’s easy to attribute some of this to his ASD keeping him at arms’ length from his own emotions, my research indicates the workaholic approach is common for men in general. 

(Okay, maybe this comes as little surprise to those of us who have witnessed more than a few men desperately keeping certain feelings at bay.)

Anyway, the episode picks up only a few days after “Dr. Ted” ends, and while Lea isn’t exactly hiding her sorrow from Shaun, she does manage to find enough of the right words to convince Shaun she’s at peace with the time-heals-all-wounds theory. The moment he sets out the door with an assured nod in Lea’s direction, we get that extra 10 seconds watching her face transform ever so slightly… just enough to confirm how difficult a day it’s going to be with nothing to come between Lea, her sadness… and her silence. 

Because she can’t quite put her feelings into words yet, you may have noticed:

• She “speaks” in song lyrics… a lot of song lyrics.

• She does the channel surfing, flops back to bed, then plays games mindlessly on her phone until the battery dies (which made me think of the way she and Shaun first met… sigh… such innocent times)-- and in between all this we see her let a call from her mom go to voicemail. As she scrambles to find a power cord that will allow her to continue the games, we hear “The Rush” by JJ Wilde:

Last night I came out, I was so damn manic

I don’t even know where I went wrong… But I went wrong

And it’s times like these, I swear to God 

Oh that my mother can’t see me and if she did

I don’t know how I would keep it together

• It was then that Lea shut off the music, grabbed an outfit (all-black, I couldn’t help but notice), grabbed her coat and bag, and headed to the office. And more lyrics (the aforementioned “Turn Out The Lights”):

There’s a hole in the drywall still not fixed

I just haven’t gotten around to it

And besides, I’m starting to get used to the gaps...

• There’s a third set of lyrics in Lea’s “Letting Go” story, but I’ll get to those in a bit. First, I want to talk about this exceptional sequence in Lea’s little corner of St. B.

• When she speaks to others at work, she’s not really speaking so much as she’s putting on a brave face and listening. 

• It’s the dance I think everyone has to do when recovering from deep personal grief and returning to The Real World simultaneously: Head up, keep breathing, keep it together, seamlessly let well-wisher #1 know you’re OK as you make your way to the elevator…

• Allow yourself to unglue just the slightest bit if you’re blessed with time alone in the elevator (as Lea was). Personally, I’ve found a locked bathroom stall to be a decent place to regroup too…

• Do it all again as well-wisher #2 happens upon you shortly after exiting the elevator. With any luck at all, you’re almost to your destination by now…

• But in Lea’s case, she didn’t make it in there in time to miss well-wisher #3 (Nurse Villanueva). You could see it in her shoulders before she turned around to greet the nurse; it was that Damn-I-was-inches-from-a-clean-getaway stiffening. A.K.A. one more element to note in Paige Spara’s outstanding contributions to this episode.

• At first I didn’t know quite what to make of Villanueva’s revelation that she, too, had suffered miscarriage(s). It felt a little like she was minimizing Lea’s experience by sharing her double whammy of sorrow with a “hey, it happens” approach. But now I’m thinking more about the scene as a whole; how she’d asked Lea how she was doing, Lea offered a tepid “I’m good,” and then Villenueva mentioned her own miscarriages. Seems more like she may have been saying It’s OK, I know “good” is impossible right now. 

• I’m a little relieved that the only visual reminder Lea had in this episode was the very pregnant lady passing her by when she first entered the hospital. I was afraid they’d have Lea happen upon something more personal-- a book of baby names she kept in her drawer at work, for instance-- that would send her into tears in a heartbeat. But there was enough going on with her already-- I wouldn’t rule out events in one or more of the remaining S4 episodes “triggering” her to tears. 

• With Lea only there to “let her phone charge to ten percent” (I think the explanation she gave was legit), The last scene she had at the hospital was the one with Jordan-- and it was surprisingly poignant. Not only did it give a voice to things Lea probably couldn’t yet articulate (“you’re mourning your future”), and MAYBE (fingers crossed) provide foreshadowing in the event Shaun and Lea choose to formally honor their child’s memory… it allowed Jordan to be a part of the connections we witnessed with all the leads as Shaun and Lea left the hospital in “Dr. Ted”. (Incidentally, did anyone notice Wolke was completely absent from this episode?)

• When Shaun comes home early and says they should talk (as per his direction from Glassman), she’s got nothing to say… other than to kind of curse the guy who said they should talk. 

• Shaun didn’t know what exactly they needed to talk about, and as I think we’ve discussed a time or two, he was probably afraid to start the conversation out of great fear of saying the wrong thing. So they sat, socially distanced, you might say, and neither one said anything for about 15 seconds (which feels a lot longer in TV-time). How truly unusual for Lea, who is well-versed in telling Shaun what’s on her mind. Once it became clear that she wouldn’t/couldn’t talk in the way Shaun was hoping, he had to be somewhat bewildered and uncertain what to do next. No wonder he leaped at the opportunity to take Pam Dilallo’s phone call when it broke the silence. 

• Oh, and in case it wasn’t clear by this point of the episode…

• Lea can’t bring herself to talk to her mom, either.

• As many of us had heard ahead of this episode, Julie Werner (the actress who played Pam Dilallo earlier this season) has “Letting Go” listed on her IMDB record of TV appearances. Since her name was not on the official press release of guest stars, I opted not to bring up the possibility in advance-- but, of course, my curiosity was piqued. When all was said and done, Mama D’s VOICE is what made the “appearance”… and what an important part it played. (BTW, Julie Werner’s name did indeed appear on screen with all the other guest stars, so let’s make a mental note that it’s not always the ABC 30-second promos that are misleading…!)

• Bless his heart, Shaun gave 50 of that 60 seconds with Pam his best shot. When it became clear Lea hadn’t yet told her about the miscarriage, he went along with Pam’s stroller talk (which contained a subtle dig on Lea’s judgment, did you notice? Is it any WONDER Lea fears what Mom will say about losing the baby altogether? But I digress...)  

• Shaun made a considerable effort to be polite through his discomfort-- much better than I expected, to be honest. But when Pam ignored Shaun’s efforts to sign off the call, chirping on instead about baby girls and gender-appropriate onesies… well, bless her heart, she inadvertently gave Shaun a way to tap into his own pain.

“That’s stupid. Why would you have to change it-- a girl would like dinosaurs just as much as a boy! Dinosaurs are fascinating! You need to shut up!”

OK, three things:

    1) I’m sad all over again, simply because we won’t get to see Shaun opening the world of dinosaurs to his child anytime soon.

    2) What a great way for Lea to see she’s not alone in her grieving. Not only did Shaun do what Lea’s surely wished to do many, many times (tell Mama D. to zip it)... but she got to see him “not be himself” (as he said later) without him inadvertently taking out his feelings on her. 

    3) The call, from the moment the phone rang to the moment Shaun put it back down on the counter and backed away from it like it had bitten him, was alternately gripping, heartbreaking, and shockingly hilarious. I must admit I shrieked with laughter when the call was over, so loudly, in fact, that my 20-year-old son came in to see what I found so funny. 

They were already on the next scene, so as I tried in vain to explain (he’s only vaguely familiar with the premise of TGD), I reached for the remote and said “Here, let’s back it up and you can see for yourself...:”

“No, don’t do that, you’ll fall behind and you’re trying to live-Tweet--” he semi-protested.

“TOO LATE!”

I don’t think it helped him understand my laughter much better, but hey, I got to watch the scene twice. No regrets.

• When the Mama D. incident prompts Lea to open up a little to Shaun, it doesn’t have the desired effect. 

• Next thing we see is Shaun soothing himself on the patio, toy scalpel in hand. A real conversation takes root this time, but in typical pace for TGD scenes, it only lasts a minute. When Lea took a breath and brought up Claire’s mention of a miscarriage support group at the hospital-- followed in short order by Shaun’s latest medical epiphany, and subsequent exit-- at first I wondered why they brought it up at all. Given what we now know about the remainder of the season-- camping trip for #Shea next week, followed by the two part mission trip/finale--it’s pretty much a given that we aren’t going to see Shaun and Lea sitting in a circle with other formerly expectant parents. I even wondered if they’d given such groups a shout-out as a simple PSA; a follow-up to the slide presented at the end of “Dr. Ted”--

• 
  No, no, no. Lea hints at a way to help drill down
  on their pain, and Shaun instantly bails himself out of the option-- his way, perhaps, of indicating he’s just not ready. It was an interesting reaction on Lea’s part…  rather than linger on Shaun’s seeming non-reaction to her suggestion, she looks more bemused than anything else: Good for you, Shaun, you’re getting your mojo back. Me, not so much.

• Speaking of Mojo... 

  Quite a bit has been said (in social media outlets, if not here on my blog or in the comments) about Shaun’s standout qualities as a doctor and surgeon falling to the wayside this season. Considering his preoccupation with Lea’s pregnancy in recent months, it seemed they were setting up the extremely difficult balance Shaun would face in S5 as both his personal and professional demands intensified. Now that this is a moot point, the timing of Shaun’s extraordinary return to form-- especially piggybacked onto an almost-as-extraordinary misdiagnosis-- is something to watch closely, especially during the mission trip. Yes, the synopsis has Shaun “thriving” in Guatemala, but somewhere along the way he’ll surely encounter his own grief in ways he can’t imagine. I’m quite eager to see how it unfolds.

  But back to the final acts from “Letting Go”...

  • Shaun really triggered the gamut of feels with Dr. Andrews as he hasn’t in quite some time-- intense frustration, embarrassment/anger, sympathy, amazement (the look he gave Shaun when he got that second diagnosis correct-!!)... and then, as they headed out of the hospital together, he slipped into the advisory role in a way Glassman hadn’t quite managed earlier in the episode with his answer to why be with the newly-retired surgeon Dr. Nakano: “We love the same thing, and he knows no one would understand his loss like I would.” 

  
  

  • I know it’s nothing new for TGD regulars or patients-of-the-week to somehow say the very words Shaun needs to help resolve his conflict at hand. But for some reason, it was especially nice to hear it from Andrews this time. 

  
  

  • If it had turned out Shaun was straight-up confused when he got home and heard Lea put the garbage disposal status at the top of her “newsworthy” items, who could blame him? He responds best to verbal cues, after all. But after learning all the things he’d learned that day, he was able to move past the face value of what Lea was saying and doing: 

  
  

  • Multiple unwashed mugs on the table (something Shaun would have freaked out about in the early days)= she feels like a mess, inside and out

  • Didn’t call the landlord yet for the garbage disposal= feels she can’t get anything done/can’t be counted on/can’t do anything right

  • It’s “her fault” if they get bugs (because of her failure to call the landlord)= It’s her fault things are as they are

  • 
    
  • While interpretations like these are
  • incredibly subjective of course, Shaun got the gist of it. Enough to gently put his hands on her shoulders, “steadying” her in a way that was almost as powerful as the embrace that followed. 
  
  
  
  
  

  Maybe she was detailing the non-events of the day because she was afraid to ask for what she really needed from him. Maybe his non-response to her earlier suggestion of the support group caused her to try and keep all the heartbreak to herself. Maybe she needed to articulate her emotions in a way she thought only SHE would understand…

  What were those last lyrics of the night?

  I think if I fail again

  That I know you’re still listening

  Maybe it’s all gonna turn out all right

  I have to believe that it is… have to believe

  When I tell you that it is… Oh it’s not for my benefit

  Maybe it’s all gonna turn out all right

  Oh I know that it’s not 

  But I have to believe that it is

• 
  

Shaun was listening… and even when her verbal communication failed her, he wordlessly found a way to meet her where she was. 

Maybe the true “letting go” is still to come for them, but the journey has definitely begun.