STATE OF THE #SHEA Part 6: Surviving the "Parade" talk

Welcome #Shea shippers! If you're new to this series of blog posts, you might be interested in the following:

Introducing STATE OF THE #SHEA...
Part 2: Fracturing up "Fractured"
Part 3: "Love" & the Ultimatum
Part 4: Well it was lovely while it lasted (A rant. I guess.)
Part 5: How I'm facing the "Sex & Death" music

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OK, #Shea fans, I know it’s been a couple weeks since it aired… but a show of hands, please: who watched the “Sex and Death” episode of The Good Doctor?

Of those with their hands raised… who only watched it sometime during the week, via DVR or Hulu (or whatever), MAYBE because they couldn’t risk the possibility of the episode wrecking their Monday night/Tuesday morning?

Who watched it with only one eye open, ready to duck and cover if anything related to the “sex” part of the episode’s title proved too difficult to bear?

Who skipped the episode altogether? (If so, brace yourself if you keep reading because we’re talking about it. A LOT.)

As for me, consider my hand raised. And raised, and still raised, and… yeah. 

Actual footage of me watching "Sex and Death"

It wasn’t that the S&D possibilities were horrifically off-putting; it’s just that… well… I was still reeling a bit from “Mutations.” And knowing that Shaun and Carly’s intimacy issues were still front and center—even with all that had taken place in the previous ep—I wasn’t quite sure how I’d react.

At this point in the storyline, I think all #Shea fans kind of feel they’re representing Lea herself when they watch. Would she want to hear Shaun calculating the number of minutes until his and Carly’s next possible tryst? No! Would she have let Shaun out of the apartment in that Highlander kilt (in Shaun’s ill-fated attempt to “create an atmosphere” for Carly’s benefit)? NO! (Or, at least she would have tried to talk him out of it.) Would she want to be in on the conversations about the importance of “parades” (the euphemism for women’s orgasms utilized throughout the episode)? I don’t think so! Would she want to know that Shaun had, um, figured out how to give Carly “the best parade” by the end of the episode? I’d like to think that would be the tipping point (if nothing else was) for Lea; the point where she realizes she can’t be Shaun’s sounding board anymore because she’s too close in all kinds of ways.

Of course Lea was nowhere to be seen in “Sex and Death”; I figured she wouldn’t be, so there was no unforeseen disappointment there. That’s why we all became Lea-by-proxy, right? But you know what else was AWOL? A Shaun/Glassman scene of any length, any kind. Has anyone noticed they have not shared a scene since the super-charged one in the middle of “Fractured” that made us all cry? I suspect that’s about to change with the February 10 episode (“Influence”), but I have to presume this break in their relationship—sort of like the “break” with Lea—was deemed necessary in order to make Shaun’s renewed commitment to Carly all the more serious, and all the more his own personal journey. On the one hand, I guess it’s a relief that we didn’t have to see Shaun trying to discuss G-spots with Glassman over pancakes. On the other… well, I don’t know if there needs to be “another hand”, considering I was already uncomfortable waiting for Glassman’s reaction when Shaun announced he and Lea had slept together (when they, well… you know.)

That brings me to something I should admit before I get any further into “Sex and Death”: I’m perhaps at my absolute shyest when it comes to matters of sex. Especially talking about sex. Especially talking about matters of sex involving a character I feel rather protective of, for whatever reason. Which is why I started wincing back in season 2, when Shaun and Lea were discussing Jake and Shaun tried to confirm that Lea was interested in Jake “for the sex”. (And I know sex came up even earlier, when Lea was discussing reasons they shouldn’t live together, but it was in hypothetical terms at that point. By the time Jake was the subject, it was becoming all too real for Shaun.)

I didn’t think too hard about where TGD was going with #Sharly at the start of season 3, assuming they were going anywhere at all with it. Maybe Shaun would be seen dating Carly throughout the season; maybe he’d try a few different routes for romance. Maybe Lea would be helpful and encouraging; maybe she’d start to feel a little hypocritical in that role as the season wore on. So as #Sharly progressed, haltingly, this past fall, I was already surprised and nervous about what was coming. I mean, even when they showed the promotional shots of Shaun and Carly laying fully-clothed on the bed for the first time I got anxious for Shaun.

So suffice to say, I was relived for more reason than one when Shaun couldn’t get comfortable in Carly’s arms ahead of the “Friends and Family” episode. Post F&F, I didn’t expect a #Sharly breakup (yet) but I DID think they might slow things down a bit. But given how things have gone the extreme opposite (!!), perhaps it was my own discomfort that kept me from seeing it on the horizon… oh, I don’t know. From “I love you, Carly” onward I’ve been a little lost. (OK, a LOT lost.)

Still, believe it or not there was a lot to like in “Sex and Death”. Away from #Sharly matters, there was a rare Morgan-centric “A” case at St. Bonaventure (I’m still trying to figure out if this was the “sex” part or the “death” part, LOL)… there was another small link in the chain that might become #Melendaire, if you’re into that pairing (me, I’m on the fence for now)… there was Oliver, the terminal, yellow suit-wearing, bucket-list “B” case of the episode that became an even sadder story once he was shown to be in remission. And without Shaun on his immediate mind for the last 2 episodes, Glassman has found himself re-challenged by his brain surgeon “roots”… an interesting, though perhaps inevitable, part of his own remission story.

As for the promised “new level of intimacy” with #Sharly—may it please, please be the last elevation on this particular mountain—here was the good and bad, as objectively as I could possibly see it…

--GOOD: An absence of “direct contact” scenes (see “Mutations”)

--BAD:  It was a shame they had to start Carly’s first appearance of the episode almost right out of the gate with a variation on “I’m glad you’re (sexually) satisfied… but what about me?” It would have been kind of sweet if she was, instead, still with him in the celebration of this momentous step in their relationship, to say NOTHING of the breakthrough this is for Shaun personally. But this episode was a tale of continued “progress”, so the victory lap was limited to Shaun’s giddy opening moments with Morgan, in the hallways of the hospital.

And, for those who grow exponentially more upset with Carly in particular, I know all this feeds right into the notion that she only gets more selfish and demanding as the season wears on. The next two episodes, based on the info provided thus far, might shed a lot more light on the possibility of this dynamic overtaking the relationship. (More about that in future posts.)

--GOOD: All the “assistance” Shaun received from his St. B buds. Park provided the all-important euphemism of a “parade” as I mentioned earlier, but it was Claire, Morgan and (especially) Dr. Lim that provided the best #Sharly-related scenes of the episode, in my opinion.  (And Claire finally appears to be back in Shaun’s regular line of foot traffic, so that’s rewarding in itself.)

--BAD: Remember what I said early on about my discomfort with sex talk? That was the tradeoff with this episode: a lot less action, but a lot more… conversations. Ugh. At least the talk wasn’t as much between Shaun and Carly themselves as it was the inhabitants of the doctors’ lounge/breakroom. While all the “parade” talk was very well-written, I was more than ready to leave it behind by episode’s end.

--GOOD: Love it or hate it, but I’m going to think positive and say the “satisfied” shot of Carly at the very end of the episode—a shot that neatly paralleled Shaun’s look at the end of the “Mutations” episode—was a good thing. As in, OK, great… Shaun’s happy, Carly’s happy… we can move on now, right???

I actually can’t think of a BAD counterpart to that one because I’m still thinking about that last line. The three episodes that we’ve seen since the start of the new year have been difficult (UNDERSTATEMENT) for #Shea shippers, and part of that is due to this #Sharly acceleration. But the two-week break that followed “Sex and Death” seems appropriate—it was a relatively light episode in terms of the titular character’s recurring drama. The calm before the storm. Or, if you prefer, the dark hour just before the dawn. However you see it, “Influence” looks to up the dramatic ante as Shaun unwittingly becomes an online viral sensation… and with lines in the synopsis suggesting Carly is still unhappy with Shaun and Lea’s relationship (the exact words:  Dr. Carly Lever’s efforts to separate Shaun from Lea are challenged), I guess we’re in for something interesting.

For fear of jinxing it, I’m just gonna leave it at that.