State of the #SHEA Part 15B: What You (and I) Hope to See March 30

(NOTE: When I write for my skating-fan audience, as I’ve done primarily until this past January, I do as my fellow fans do and “try not to tempt the SkateGods” by assuming something really good is going to happen for a deserving athlete. So likewise, I’m trying to keep assumptions for the season finale of TGD to a minimum. Think of it as a protocol thing.)

It has been a long, long, LONG wait.

By the end of the “I Love You” episode of The Good Doctor Monday night, will #Shea fans feel their ship is officially setting sail?

Or did it set sail at the end of “Autopsy” (when the ILY’s were first spoken), but immediately hit choppy waters where it has been toiling ever since?

(I’m not as highly experienced a “shipper” as some of you, so forgive me if I screw up the terminology here and there)

Whatever you call it… whatever is taking place in the finale between Shaun and Lea… we have been given only the bare minimum of clues in the promos… and zero promotional photos. (There are plenty of promotional photos for “I Love You”; just none of Shaun and/or Lea.) Which is why the visuals I have here are pretty shabby, taken from their momentary appearances in the promo. But I thought we’d rather see these than nothing at all…

Speaking of which—what do #Shea fans want to see aside from the obvious? We can probably all agree we want to know, without a doubt, that the time has come for the stars to align and send Shaun and Lea over the bridge from friendship to boyfriend/girlfriend (might as well use Shaun’s preferred terminology for now). But what about specifics? Understanding, as usual, that their on-screen words and actions will have to be efficient and impactful… here are some of the “details” that have been suggested thus far:

Amy Danko

@FebWriter

Lea encouraging Shaun over the walkie-talkie to get out of there because they REALLY need to get a few things straight...

In my wildest dreams, when Shaun emerges from the building, totally drenched, Lea runs to him, launches herself at him, he hugs her back like he hugs Glassman while she cries, then she looks into his eyes and tells him, "You DO make me MORE, Shaun!" Or something like that.

Rose Amelie

@rose_amelie

Shaun and Lea talks. He explains to her that he can’t leave Vera. Lea, sad and very concerned understands. She says: “I love your bravery and compromise, and for that and other things I love you. Come back to me”. It’s kind of cheesy, but would encourage Shaun in that situation.

TONY (from the “Comments” in my previous post): 

As to something specific I'd like to see in the finale, here's my single-biggest hope: Lea correcting Shaun's "but I don't make HER more" statement. Because he very much does, and she KNOWS he does.

Sonya

@gl1tterycake

I don’t want Lea to die. That’s about it.

Andreas

@AndreasAachen

If I may dream… Lea tilting her head as in 2.4 (“Tough Titmouse”), acknowledging Shaun’s attempt to compromise with her needs, and both singing karaoke. ;)

AMY: (from the “Comments” in my previous post) 

Faced with the prospect of having the choice taken away from her in the most cruel manner imaginable, faced with a world with no Shaun Murphy in it at all, this is where Lea has to decide if whatever it is she's afraid of is worth never taking the leap of faith into a romantic relationship with Shaun at all.

Good Doctor Fans

@GoodDoctorFans2

Lea saying she loves Shaun with the earthquake and Shaun being in danger made Lea realize she loves him and would accept him he is willing to give him an opportunity to try their love.

Erin

@tncoffeerunner

I just want to see them hug/hold each other.

I resisted adding my two cents to any of these, but on Erin’s I had to say Honestly? Same here…

Because an embrace involving Shaun is always much more significant than that of a neurotypical person, so an embrace involving Shaun and the woman he loves, moments after a life-threatening situation has passed—yes, more than anything else I want to see that  need to see that  would like that very much (channeling Shaun’s words again).

But while I’ve got you here, I DO hope for a few other things:

1) That Lea is able to play a major role in getting

Shaun through whatever obstacles remain in his escape.  

Freddie Highmore has alluded to something “worse than the buzzing light in ‘Quarantine’” befalling Shaun during the earthquake; since he got through part one without excruciating difficulty, I’m guessing something—the rushing water, the perilous situation in general, a sensory factor we are yet unaware of—will endanger him even further. If so, Lea may need her voice and words to become the verbal version of her epic “Friends and Family” embrace… and also use her noodle (possibly some engineering skills if applicable?) to help guide him the hell outta there.

2) That Lea tells him he's wrong; he DOES make her "more" and tells him how (including reiterating that she loves him)

A LOT of us are hoping for this counterpart to the “Hurt” episode of course! It’ll be interesting to see how what the writers (of both episodes) chose to handle this.

4) That SOMEONE on the show is witness to Lea’s ability to do these things for Shaun.

This may not be possible, I know. Previews show most of the doctors (including Lim and Claire) back at the hospital tending to Melendez and others; Glassman has been back there for most of this crisis. Park will still be on-site, but obviously be tending to his young patient (who I’m going to guess doesn’t make it). So this is maybe a selfish wish on my part that Lea’s worth and deserved importance in Shaun’s life is clear to more than just us.

And if that’s not possible, I’d take the endorsement of Vera (Shaun’s current patient)… assuming she makes it out of there alive. Honestly, giving her physical state, I’m almost as concerned for her as I am for her doctor.

5) A race into each others’ arms…

Hopefully generated by whatever words have been exchanged at that point as much as the celebration of survival.

6) A BONUS: Lea- “Can I kiss you?” Shaun- “Okay”

(Self-explanatory)

That’s it for now… we’ll surely have plenty to discuss in a few days!

State of the #SHEA part 15: The "Hurt" that Helps

There’s a sizable fleet of writers on TGD who handle scripts both solo, and as part of a team. And when the show takes on a two-part episode, as it’s now done once for each season it has been on the air, it also takes on the challenge of not only setting up/resolving more complex plotlines, but creating enough conflict, engagement, and tension throughout the first part to hook us through to the second. I suppose there are those out there who were simply intrigued with the earthquake concept, and more or less “tolerated” the individual stories to see what the cliffhanger final three minutes would bring—after all, “Hurt” appears to have pulled in more viewers than any season 3 episode to date (6.81 million viewers; a 1.0 ratings share) Those might be the same viewers who griped about how the earthquake didn’t look authentic enough. (Don’t ask me, I’m a Midwesterner… we get a lot more tornados than earthquakes!)

Anyway… when Shaun and Lea took their Road Trip to Remember in “Islands Pts. 1 and 2,” their words in both parts were written by the same two people (Thomas L. Moran and William Rotko). “Quarantine Pts. 1 and 2,” on the other hand, had the same director for both parts—Mike Listo, who also happened to direct the “Hurt” episode—but 2 different writing teams. Of course, Shaun and Lea didn’t have any scenes together until the very end of “Quarantine,” and they were in the very platonic, nicely settled-in roommate phase of their relationship back then.

Hardly the case now, which could have made it all the more difficult for the writing team behind “Hurt” (Liz Friedman and Adam Scott Weissman) to sync up with whatever’s to come with Earthquake pt. 2, a.k.a.  “I Love You” (written by Weissman, David Hostleton, and David Shore). But I really liked what I saw in part 1—plenty of points for discussion; some of them stand on their own, others depend on part 2 for resolution. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised that at least a few of the items on my “Hurt” wish list were addressed, even with the quake hitting before the opening credits even made it to the screen. (Efficient storytelling strikes again!)

I’ll run through my list from the previous post (in bold) as we make our way through this episode…

What’s the timespan on the show between the parking garage scene in “Heartbreak” and the start of “Hurt”?

In the opening pre-shaken minutes of “Hurt” we saw Melendez encounter Lea at the bar of the brewpub as she ordered two Klosch beers. Was she there with a friend? No… “It’s been a rough couple of weeks,” she said

CUT IT OUT, Glassy

in explanation. Which answers a later wish list question of mine. Then she gets a savage evil eye from Glassman, standing a few yards away. Which answers yet A LATER wish list question of mine. (Damn, Friedman & Weissman did this well.) Plus, we later see that Morgan’s hand surgery was so recent—less than 2 days ago—that she’s still officially a patient, with the hospital gown to prove it. She hadn’t yet scheduled the surgery when we last saw her, so again, a two-week span from “Heartbreak” to “Hurt” seems about right.

…I want to know if Shaun has told Glassman (or anyone else) what he almost did to Lea’s car…

This is still uncertain, as it was only referenced this past Monday night by way of the (lengthy) recap of previous episodes at the top of the show. I’m going to guess, for now, that both Shaun and Lea are keeping the incident to themselves.

How are Shaun and Lea doing, individually, prior to the earthquake?

For once, interestingly enough, we have a little more of a direct read on Lea than Shaun for this. When I initially heard she’d be at the fundraiser, I thought she was going as a guest of Glassman’s. Hardly! She went on her own, perhaps in an effort to forget her troubles (“It’s been a rough couple of weeks”) and get happy in her so-called superficial, selfish way. Just her luck that she endures an earthquake and falls through the floor instead…

Andreas also noted that not only do we have shots of Lea “bookending” this episode—it starts with her ordering her beer(s) at the brewpub bar and ends with that GORGEOUS closeup as Shaun’s possible fate

Natural disaster glam

becomes frightfully clear to her—but in what seems like a TGD first, neither “bookend” shot pairs Lea directly with Shaun. This could bode well for those of us pleading for more character development for Lea in S4 (hand raised high here).

As for Shaun? There’s not enough of him in hospital mode to tell anything, but arguably his entire, immediate effort to find and rescue Lea conveys much of what he’s felt and continues to feel. 

And of course his stellar “Lea makes me… more” monologue contained no trace of the anger in “Heartbreak”—though his sadness behind the current state of things was palpable. (As was Lea’s… we’ll get back to that.)

Are we privy to any conversation, pre-earthquake, between Lea and Glassman?

No, but again, that look… it’s still making me uneasy.

What is Shaun’s new encounter with GhostSteve about?

Wow, did THAT scene generate a lot of Twitter conversation. The last time we saw Steve ahead of “Hurt,” he was calming Shaun’s first-surgery worries in the middle of the night… remember?

STEVE: Surgery’s the easy-peasy part.

(SHAUN sees STEVE’s head emerge from the top bunk of a bunkbed they are sharing)

STEVE: You wanted this. Enjoy it.

SHAUN: I can’t… if I get distracted, if I get upset…

STEVE: If you do, Andrews has your back.

SHAUN: If Dr. Andrews has to take over, then I have failed.

I have failed, and I have endangered a person’s life… and if I’m no good at the easy-peasy part, then what part am I good at?

STEVE: What do we do when we get all nutty like this?

SHAUN (thinks a moment): Blow out the candles.

STEVE: How many do you need?

SHAUN (thinks further): Three.

(STEVE disappears; SHAUN leans back on his pillow and exhales deeply through his mouth three times)

Flash forward to the Steve that Shaun encountered beneath the rubble in “Hurt.” Just the way he appeared—not in a kindly, I’m-by-your-side-

BOO!

whenever-you-need-me kind of way, but more like a scary, head-on, out-of-nowhere thing—was a jarring indication that this ‘visit” might not be like the others.

Why? The recurring reason I’ve seen proposed (and agree with) is that GhostSteve was this time representing Shaun’s internal dialogue—which, especially at this point in the season, has become rather savage. Just take Shaun’s actual lines out of the scene, and imagine him talking to himself instead:

You should be up there, doing your job…

You think rescuing Lea will make her fall in love with you.

It won’t. I used to believe in you… right now, I don’t.

She doesn’t love you. She told you.

She thinks you’re limited. You ARE.

      You are not her hero.

It doesn’t sound like GhostSteve because it isn’t GhostSteve.

I find it especially interesting, for all the discussion of “Love” this season (including its role in the title of the upcoming finale), Shaun/Steve is now telling himself that Lea doesn’t love him. Half of us probably rolled our eyes at that and said Oh, man, not you too (GhostSteve-as-Shaun’s-demons)? She DOES love him; I heard her say it herself! But in light of everything that’s been said and done since the moments those words were spoken by the two of them, it doesn’t FEEL like she loves him. When she said it, there was that momentarily flicker of joy on his face… but now, I wonder if he even remembers that moment.

Does Shaun actually find Lea and/or bring her to safety in this episode?  My guess is no… could it be that she gets out, either on her own or with assistance, while Shaun’s still deep into the crumbling structure looking for her?

And that’s exactly where we are, though that ambulance tailgate shot in the promo was a pretty big clue. Turns out it’s true… Shaun really isn’t “her hero” in that Lim and other first responders pulled her out first. But for at least two reasons I can think of right now, that’s good news for both of them.

1)   Shaun required himself to set aside his need to find Lea when he encountered Vera instead. He was able to get away with his singular search early in the episode, when the brewpub’s co-owner was in danger of permanent paralysis until a little burst of Shaun-Vision® spared her… but the second after he got his warning communicated to Claire and Melendez, he said “I need to find Lea.” And off he went. By the time he encountered Vera (and made his little “Hmm” sound of surprise/unexpectedness, which is somehow becoming one of my favorite expressions of his), his options were much more stark: somehow bypass this woman who clearly did need his help urgently (and keep seeking out a woman who very well might not), or put his own “fix it” needs aside and do his job.

Considering his trajectory of late, I’m guessing this decision was, for at least a moment, more difficult than Dr. Murphy ever realized it could be. But he made the right choice—and another step in his evolution was achieved.

2)   As things stood by episode’s end, Lea is now in a prime position to help save Shaun (rather than the other way around). Whether she knows he went “rogue” exclusively to try and help her is unclear to me; I’m not sure it would benefit either of them if she does know. But I think about the good that can come out of this dire situation—the boost it would give Lea’s flagging self-confidence, the power that the right words from her could have on him when he needs them most, the lessons in trust and surrender that might abound, especially for Shaun—and I’m even more eager for next Monday’s finale to come than I already am, if that’s possible.

 

Finally, I want to give a shout out to this device and the way it’s being utilized for #Shea’s quake saga. It made perfect sense for Shaun to be armed with a two-way radio as he searched the depths of the building, and it also made sense for Lim to tell him to keep the channel completely open (rather than open only when he pushes a button to speak) so that she could hear him at all times. So it doesn’t seem terribly contrived for Lea to be sitting there, walky-talky in hand, listening along. Sure we could quibble about the details—how did she happen to come across this particular radio tuned to that particular frequency, why is she able to hang on to it when someone in authority might need one, etc.—but it’s such a great way to move things along for them, I’m almost ready to call it another form of catapulting. But I want to see how it’s used in “I Love You” before entering that discussion.

Later this weekend I plan to do a post featuring what other #Shea fans have said they’d specifically like to see in the finale. I posed the question on Twitter the other day, but feel free to put your guesses in the Comments section of this post and I might share those too.

State of the #SHEA part 14: That's Great, The Season Finale Starts With an Earthquake

(Apologies to R.E.M. And to Talking Heads for the last post title. I’ll try not to make lyrics-as-headings a habit, but this one was… well… Simply Irresistible.)

(With additional apologies now to the late great Robert Palmer.)

(OK, NOW I’ll stop.)

The more the #Shea arc built over these past few episodes of TGD, the more apparent it became that it was going to take something drastic to get Shaun and Lea onto a more positive track. When Jasika Nicole (Carly) said something in an interview several weeks back describing the season finale as “mindblowing,” I started brainstorming (which sounds a little like “mindblowing” but isn’t at all). And in the notes section of my phone I had a note that read:

“Seven words: Shaun and Lea get stuck in the elevator”

Actually, I was thinking the “mindblowing” season finale of which Ms. Nicole spoke involved some sort of massive power outage affecting San Jose (and St. Bonaventure) in countless ways, including THE elevator—the one that provided the setting for a couple of awkward or difficult exchanges in S3—heading for a doozy of difficulty if Shaun and Lea were trapped inside it… with nothing between them except some extremely painful recent moments… a whole lot of time… and every consequence (general fear, claustrophobia, anything additionally triggering for Shaun) the situation might allow.

BUT, hospitals have backup generators, and “stuck” elevators may be the exciting plot devices they once were, and, well, suffice to say I like the earthquake idea a whole lot better.

Metaphorically speaking, it’s rather perfect for Shaun and Lea. Their relationship, on the surface, is in tatters. A chance at a romance beyond their early, flirtatious days failed to launch thus far; their enduring friendship feels downright irreparable after the “Heartbreak” episode two weeks back. How could they make amends after all that? Should they make amends without some sort of commitment on Shaun’s part to start dealing with his aggressive impulses?

I’m thinking of things in terms of layers. Consider S1 & much of S2 #Shea as the grounding layer (or “laying the groundwork”, if you prefer). Then Shaun glides past Lea at the end of S2, asks Carly on that date, and for the first half of S3 Shaun builds layers on his love life by way of his budding romance with Carly… only to have it all pinpricked by Lea’s “Friends & Family” consoling (and selfless, and necessary) embrace, leaving us to muse at the possibility that Shaun and Carly’s foundation was anything but solid.

By the end of “Fractured” (3.11), Shaun was committed to building something stronger with Carly. But by the end of “Unsaid” (3.15), Carly was committed to getting out of the relationship. Shaun’s love life layers still existed, but at that point they were bruised and dented and unsteady. None of that really mattered when it came to Shaun admitting his love for Lea—we all knew it was there long before he did—but with her complicated-yet-simple reasons for declining a romantic relationship out in the open by the end of “Autopsy” (3.16), her own battered love life layers now co-mingled with Shaun’s. And, consequently, there was nothing but trouble going forward.

Watch the end of “Fixation” (3.17), and you see Lea fusing her “layers” into something fierce enough to finally drive Shaun away. Watch the end of “Heartbreak” (3.18), and you see Shaun do something similar, but with arguably more painful results.

Enter the earthquake that comprises “Hurt” (3.19) and “I Love You” (3.20), and you’ve got the very ground beneath them shaking all those shoddy love layers into rubble. And—oh, I just thought of this!—there’s even something metaphorically lovely in there about a fault line (where “fault” may fall between Shaun and Lea, perhaps?)… but I bet one of my trusty COMMENTERS can work on that-!

Anyway, my most expected hopes to come from this two-part finale are 1) Shaun, and especially Lea, to come to some sort of reconciliation…even if it’s the kind only borne of a life-threatening situation “making two people question what really matters to them,” as Paige Spara (Lea) said in this TV Insider preview of “Hurt”… (Andreas, this is your cue to remind us via the comments what the technical term is for this!) 

And 2), as an extension of any such reconciliation… #Shea 2.0. Layers building anew. A fresh start. Much of what we loved about #Shea 1.0, but a little older, a little wiser, and a lot of dedication to figuring out what each needs from the other and how to get it.

What about a “Hurt” wish list? Well, let’s start with what most of us have learned so far, via promotional materials and preview articles:

1)  A major earthquake strikes San Jose; it appears most principle cast members are either at St. B’s (Lim, Park, Morgan, Claire, Shaun) or at a fundraiser at a local brewpub (Glassman, Lea, Melendez) when it hits.

2) {Note from me: Ah, clever writers, taking the two most prominent (potential) couples of the show and splitting their locations…}

3) Lim assembles a team of doctors that’s been assigned to go directly to one of the hardest-hit locations—the aforementioned brewpub—and assist in search-and-rescue efforts. While gathering the St. B staff to make

this announcement, Claire notes that Glassman and Melendez were guests at the brewpub that night.

4)  Glassman is the only one we see escaping the brewpub early on. Lim asks him to return to the hospital (where surgeons are in short supply). On his way out, he sees Shaun and informs him that Lea was in the building along with him and Melendez.

 5)  When Glassman can’t account for her current whereabouts, Shaun heads on into the building, determined to find her on his own.

6)   Additionally, by seeing the CTV (Canadian) promo and/or reading the list of guest stars in “Hurt,” we’ve learned that Shaun gets a visit during the search-and-rescue from brother Steve (played by Dylan Kingwell). The last time long-departed Steve “visited” Shaun was before and during Shaun’s first lead surgery (later aborted) in “First Case, Second Base” (3.5).

So that’s what we know. Here’s what I’d like to know by the end of TGD season finale pt.1:

1)   What’s the timespan on the show between the parking garage scene in “Heartbreak” and the start of “Hurt”? Typically it doesn’t seem to be much more than a handful of days between TGD episodes in general (at most), but the fact that Morgan is seen in all of the “Hurt” promos with bandages on her hands—

presumably from that risky surgery that Glassman urged her to reconsider last episode—I was curious if a little more time had passed than usual.

2)   The timespan question is there because I want to know if Shaun has told Glassman (or anyone else) what he almost did to Lea’s car. If Glassman knows, perhaps he has re-planted the idea of Shaun benefiting from some sort of therapy prior to the evening of the earthquake. If Shaun has told someone else (Claire, Park), maybe one of them brings up the idea and it has a better chance of “sticking” than it would coming from Glassman. It might be especially meaningful coming from Park, who was there when Shaun’s lack of impulse control got himself arrested (“Autopsy,” 3.16).

3)    How are Shaun and Lea doing, individually, prior to the earthquake? Is Shaun showing signs of remorse? Has he returned to his more genial self at St. B? Does Lea show any visible signs of her own heartbreak? Have they successfully steered clear of each other? Is there any chance Shaun *has* to steer clear of Lea because she got a TRO (Temporary Restraining Order) after the parking garage incident? It seems unlikely, but hey, it also seems justified…

4)   Are we privy to any conversation, pre-earthquake, between Lea and Glassman? I know I keep asking for this and not getting it, but at least this time we’re certain they are in the same location in the same episode… what I’m wondering now, I suppose, goes back to the question of Glassy knowing about Shaun’s baseball bat moment and if/how he discusses any of that with Lea. Would he try to explain it away? How much concern does he have for Lea’s well-being coming out of that situation? (My guess is that we won’t really find out, as it will all get pushed aside when the tremors begin.)

5)   What is Shaun’s new encounter with GhostSteve about? “You’re not her hero,” Steve advises him in the CTV promo. Which is exactly what Shaun does NOT want to hear when he’s halfway through the demolished basement of a strange building, looking for one of the most important people in his life… so… what the hell, GhostSteve?? (I’m sure it’s all for a good reason, but still...)

6)   Does Shaun actually find Lea and/or bring her to safety in this episode? My guess is no, due to all sorts of obstacle potential (including his responsibility to care for any other victims he encounters along the way). In fact, some of us have noted that the shot of Lea now included in the ABC promo looks like it could be her sitting on the tailgate of an ambulance… could it be that she gets out, either on her own or with assistance, while Shaun’s still deep into the crumbling structure looking for her?

7)   And if so, what happens when she realizes Shaun is

still in there? (I want her to go in after him if that happens. Just putting that out there now.)

8)   And exactly when should we expect those dreaded aftershocks to jumble everything up? (Answer: the moment we think we’ve got this episode figured out. Of course!)

9)   Finally… how will this latest preview (featuring intriguing-if-not-all-that-revealing quotes from showrunner David Shore) go down after we’ve taken in part one of this two-course entrée?

So hold on to something this week, #Shea shippers… looks like everything we’ve watched these two deal with these past few months was merely a warm-up for the intense-a-fest starting this Monday night.

Don’t forget to jump into the comments and/or tag me on Twitter @KLBSt8ofSk8) with your own thoughts about the “Hurt” to come!

State of the #SHEA part 13: And You May Say to Yourself "My God, What Have I Done?"

We’ve got to talk about “Heartbreak’s” penultimate scene.

If you’re still “Team #Shea”, as I guess you are to some degree if you’re taking the time to read this, I’m going to assume you are not looking at the scene with the same eyes as the TGD viewers who are applauding Dr. Murphy’s approach (“Bravo Shaun!”…“Lea got what was coming to her!”… “I wish he’d gone ahead and bashed the car in!”)

You know what’s (not so) funny about that? After the “Fixation” episode concluded—and the Anti-Lea talk reached a fever pitch--  I wondered if what those viewers wanted, at this point in the story, was some sort of comeuppance for her. But I didn’t really expect them to feel like they actually got their wish. Certainly not like this.

I was hoping Shaun and Lea wouldn’t see each other in “Heartbreak.” If we saw Lea at all, I hoped it would be her talking to someone else in the cast. Or talking to herself. Or to Bertie the Fish (assuming he’s still around somewhere; not sure which of them got custody after she moved out of the apartment). Or a potted plant. ANYone or thing that would help her viewpoint be better seen.

Was it one more thing on my wish list for “Heartbreak  that was not to be? Well, not exactly. But we’ll get back to that.

AT LEAST THEY GAVE US SOME WARNING…

And here I thought the one-two punch of “Mutations” and “Sex and Death” would be the toughest episodes of TGD to get through this year. Nope. When Shaun, in a Weather Channel daze, wrapped in a blanket on his couch (where he apparently spent three days following the “Fixation” bridge scene with Lea) is Shaun in one of his more pleasant moments in an episode, you know you’re in for it.

So we got the dial turned up on his less charming traits— rudeness (a notch beyond “bluntness”), irritability, and self-pity for most of the episode, until Carrie Underwood’s Stunt Double went to work on Finn’s Mercedes (I think it was a Mercedes?) in the St. B parking lot. Then, in the time it took for him to do a little Q-and-A while bandaging Miss Jilted’s hand, we found Shaun saying “I like her” when the incident got discussed in the OR. Uh-oh.

His decision to seek out Lea’s Grand Torino with baseball bat in hand surely wasn’t helped by Shaun’s trip to a bar, where he threw back at least two shots in quick order—and if it was the drink he first learned to enjoy with Lea, I’m afraid “Tequila, STAT” will never be same. (As if the #Shea days of seasons 1 and 2 didn’t already seem long ago and far away.)

The last time we saw Shaun drinking at a bar, all by himself, was when he was fired from St. B and avoiding a scheduled job interview in last season’s finale (“Trampoline,” 2-18). Not exactly a great memory… but when it came to the penultimate scene in “Heartbreak,” more than a few not-great memories cropped up.

WE’VE BEEN WARNED BEFORE

Because let’s face it—this was not Shaun’s first rodeo when it comes to offensive, aggressive outbursts (that yes, are a part of his ASD) at the expense of another:

+      In 1-10 “Sacrifice,” he struck Glassman (and then ran off) while they were arguing in the St. B  lobby about Shaun’s need for assistance and/or therapy.

+     In 2-17 “Breakdown,” while we were not privy to all that happened in Dr. Han’s office before security escorted Shaun away, we saw enough to know his behavior was clearly perceived as threatening.

+     In 3-16 “Autopsy”—just a few weeks ago—Shaun’s erratic behavior at the home of Jane Doe’s son got him thrown in jail (albeit temporarily).

I’d be remiss if I didn’t include a reminder, at this point, that Shaun’s childhood was shaped greatly by his father’s violent tendencies.

And now, we have Shaun handling Lea’s version of bluntness with a threat to vandalize the “Striped Tomato”—a beloved vehicle that once took these two on the road trip to remember—with a baseball bat, right in front of a horrified Lea. When he can’t bring himself to swing the bat anywhere but to the asphalt ground below them, he opts instead for a vicious inventory of everything negative about Lea that Shaun can think of to say… things he’s not only assessed from recent encounters with her but heard from the BV-ites, from Glassman, from Lea herself.  And being Shaun at that point, in a very downbeat episode of the show, it was A LOT.

Remind me again why Lea was evil for citing his autism as a reason things can’t work out for them?

“Heartbreak” struck a nerve for many of us. At the most basic level, Shaun’s behavior in that scene was more than unacceptable—it was criminal. And those that are better-informed on ASD matters than a layperson such as myself will tell you that violent behavior is a well-documented problem with autistic individuals. I mentioned over on Twitter this Reddit post by Andreas (a fellow TGD fan and frequent reader of this blog); it is an incredibly helpful look into the autistic-related behavior that not only shapes Shaun’s personality, but Lea’s reasoning thus far.

Speaking of Lea—who has obviously witnessed Shaun’s meltdowns before, but never one fueled in her direction—surely a part of her was confirming she’d made a good decision by the time Shaun walked away in that scene. 

But I’m willing to bet a bigger part of her was saying I deserved every bit of that. Not because she DID, but because she believes that she did. That kind of thinking is part of her bigger problem right now, as many of us have acknowledged. But self-esteem issues aside, some TGD viewers have come away from the “Heartbreak” episode hoping that if/when #Shea moves past recent events, Lea makes it clear that such outbursts are intolerable.

“IF/WHEN #SHEA MOVES PAST RECENT EVENTS”…?

Yeah, I said it. Remember the “catapulting” I discussed in the last post, and how Lea’s words on the bridge scene of “Fixation” felt like one of those moments? 

Technically speaking, Shaun’s unload on Lea in “Heartbreak” was a little longer, and a lot more verbose, than would seem to qualify as a catapult moment for the storyline. But I’d argue that the initial action of the scene—Shaun preparing to commit an act of vandalism—was the catapult itself. Because now, for all intents and purposes, the playing field has been leveled. Both have been crushed by the other’s words and actions in their own way. Everything important has been said; it’s been anything but pretty, but it’s out there now and that’s what counts.

So, um… bring on that earthquake?!?

(If you haven’t heard, San Jose gets rocked by a massive earthquake in the two-part season finale airing March 23 and 30… check out the promo here.)

AUTISM’S “DARK SIDE” MADE BRIGHTER

“Should autism be told as fairytale?” Andreas asked rhetorically at the conclusion of his aforementioned Reddit essay. And I have to admit, I think I’m guilty of wanting that at times. We’ve had three years to “meet” Dr. Shaun Murphy, get to know him, try to understand him. We want to see him in the light thriving, but if nothing else, we have to know by now that Shaun’s path to that destination is uniquely his… ASD shadows and all. (As is that of every autistic person on the planet.)

Initially I thought Shaun’s act of near-violence as something we might not hear about again; that it was perceived as the intense, eye-for-an-eye type of dramatic license necessary for Shaun to “get even” with Lea. But after taking in what my more knowledgeable fellow fans have said… I hope the time is coming next season for a deeper dive into Shaun’s well-established pattern of aggressive tendencies. As I understand it, such tendencies in autistic people CAN be curbed, in due time, with therapy and medication. Lea needs to know this, and hopefully, when the dust settles (literally) in the final moments of season 3, Shaun will be on his way to leaning into that very idea. 

And that journey, all by itself, would be far more compelling than any fairytale that comes to mind.

If you are so inclined, be sure to jump into the comments or tag me on Twitter @KLBSt8ofSk8 with your thoughts!

State of the #SHEA part 12: The Necessity of "Catapulting"

SHOUTOUT TO ALL MY COMMENTERS! It’s so gratifying to see my posts serving as launching pads for interesting thoughts, theories, questions. I can’t thank you all enough!

I don’t recall the name behind the Tweet, but something that went up on the TGD hashtag last Monday night after the broadcast made me laugh… which is pretty noteworthy, considering how stricken many of us felt by the end of “Fixation”.

The Tweet said something to the effect of I see all these people complaining about wanting to see more medical drama and less about (Shaun’s) love life… all I can think is that if you aren’t able to handle the eight minutes a week that the show devotes to the doctors’ personal lives, maybe you’re watching the wrong show.

Amen to that, and pardon me while I pull on my producer cap for a minute… because while the duties of a producer vary widely, depending on the type of production being done and the seniority level at hand, producers almost always have to keep an eye on the proverbial clock.

If you’ve been reading State of the #SHEA since I started it in January, you know I’ve been discussing the time breakout of certain TGD episodes as they relate to advancing Shaun’s relationships with both Lea and Carly. It’s a very delicate dance when it comes to that “eight minutes a week” (which is probably closer to 12 or 14 depending on what’s going on, but you get the idea). It’s why characters like Dr. Andrews and Dr. Lim are sometimes absent from the canvas for entire episodes despite being part of the (full time?) cast. It’s why Morgan’s R.A. issues aren’t front and center with every operation with which she’s involved (yet). It’s why we haven’t seen Glassman’s new wife Debbie since 3 x 09 “Incomplete”, and why we may not see Carly for the remainder of the season (assuming she remains a part of TGD at all). Those 12 to 14 minutes have to be metered out so that every character appearance, camera shot, and spoken word has maximum impact. The amount of minutes in an episodic, scripted TV drama are pretty finite from week to week.

I’ve been thinking about that with regards to the Shaun/Carly/Lea arc this season, and now that we’re reaching the season’s end I’m especially mindful of how ambitious this arc truly is.

Essentially, this arc breaks down into 3 parts:

1)   The development of Shaun and Carly’s relationship (Episodes 3x1 “Disaster” through 3x10 “Friends and Family”)

2)   The conflict that Shaun and Lea’s relationship creates within Shaun’s relationship with Carly (Episodes 3x11 “Fractured” through 3x15 “Unsaid”)

3)   The re-definition of Shaun and Lea’s relationship (Episodes 3x16 “Autopsy” through the forthcoming 3x20, which was announced this week to be titled “I Love You”)

So, say Shaun’s portion of the “personal stories” in an episode comes to around 6 minutes max (with “Friends and Family” being a very notable exception to that rule this season). If you do the math, that means the writers had about an hour’s worth of minutes to A) establish Shaun and Carly’s relationship, B) build it through a litany of early peaks and valleys regarding physical affection, only to C) have Lea be the one Shaun seeks, and receives, in the dark hours surrounding his final confrontations with his father.

The writers then got about half that time (30 minutes over 5 episodes) to D) deal with the fallout from Wyoming and Shaun’s renewed commitment to Carly (including the consummation of that relationship and a bit of “smooth sailing” time),  E) develop trouble-in-paradise as Carly’s jealousy of Lea grows (which also requires time for Lea to re-assert herself on the storytelling canvas), F) find a way for Carly’s jealousy to be justified, which causes her to not only break it off with Shaun, but also cue him towards Lea.

Which then leaves the writers with approximately another 30 minutes to G) have Shaun come to terms with his true feelings and confess them to Lea, H) have both Shaun and Lea deal with the fallout of their “confession” conversation, and what that does and doesn’t mean for their relationship going forward… culminating in I) whatever the end-of-season goal for #Shea happens to be. (Obviously, with three episodes still to air as I write this, there’s a hot mess of unknowns on this last bend of the arc.)

That’s an incredible amount of story to get through—mostly via scenes lasting no more than 2 or 3 minutes—in a year’s worth of medical drama. And that’s not even factoring in the need for all this to be done at a pace and style that makes sense for an autistic lead character! Seems like a first-of-its-kind situation to me… especially in a medium where diversity of any kind has been slow to come by, let alone the kind that involves disabilities.

How on earth have the TGD writers managed to keep pace? The term I’ve coined for it is The Catapult… a minute or less of dialogue and/or action that propels the plot far beyond what is typically covered in that amount of time. The Catapult has probably been utilized in all TGD story arcs at one time or another, but for our purposes—surprise!—I’m honing in on Shaun and Lea.

Catapult #1: After the first nine episodes of season 3 kept Lea’s screen presence to a minimum, “Friends and Family” stirred the pot not only with the subject matter, but Shaun’s choosing of Lea over Carly to join him and Glassman in Wyoming. The majority of the episode took moments from scenes here and there to re-introduce Shaun and Lea’s friendship—which was very welcome all by itself—but The Catapult came when Lea rushed to soothe Shaun during his meltdown. 

In that final 45 seconds of the episode we saw Shaun and Lea reach a “new level of intimacy” all their own; a very unique kind that was innocent and blameless, yet still shook Carly’s faith to a point where Lea unwittingly went from being roommate and confidante to Other Woman Who Has To Leave Her Own Apartment. Oh, and Shaun swiftly transitioned from being torn about both women to making very definitive choices (agreeing to kick Lea out, telling Carly he loved her, losing his virginity to her in the following episode). All that… as the result of 45 seconds of gripping, dialogue-free emotion.

Catapult #2: Five episodes later, the time had come for Carly to break up with Shaun because of Lea. But how could that come about when a) Shaun appeared unaware of his feelings, b) Lea appeared unaware of her feelings, and c) Carly appeared to be feeling more certain that all was well? 

Maybe we should just call this Catapult The Magic of Karaoke. For it took just over 30 seconds of Shaun and Lea laughing, dancing, and slo-mo mic-sharing together to get the message across to a crestfallen Carly that the two of them were in love and needed to be together—even if they didn’t fully realize it themselves.

The more I think about it, the more I’m utterly impressed with the way Sal Calleros and Thomas L. Moran (the writers of “Unsaid”) pulled that off. They found a plausible situation where Shaun and Lea could run into each other with their respective dates (Shaun might not normally end up in a large, crowded bar, but he was there to celebrate the mute child’s surgical breakthrough.) They ramped up the tension a hair when Lea crashed Shaun and Carly’s PDA attempt. They added an element to the sequence which hearkens back to Shaun and Lea’s unforgettable road trip (the karaoke). And through it, the created a space where Shaun and Lea could again, innocently and blamelessly (like with Catapult #1), shake poor Carly to the core with the realization that Shaun was with the wrong woman. And that SHE’D have to be the one to tell him. They did all that in just over 30 seconds.

Catapult #3 was, in some ways, maybe the most challenging yet—and the first one to engage dialogue over action. I may pull it out of Catapult contention by season’s end, depending on what happens from here… but to me, for now, “Shaun, you’re autistic… you can’t ‘fix’ that!” qualifies. Not because it sounded cruel (to the point of uncharacteristic) coming out of Lea’s mouth, but because that sentence instantly propelled the twosome to a point of estrangement. When Lea found herself walking wordlessly out of the apartment at the conclusion of “Autopsy,” there was still quite a bit of oh-God-where-do-they-go-from-here in the air. Shaun took that uncertainty and fueled it into the duration of the “Fixation” episode. Lea took that uncertainty, and tried to roll with whatever came next—remember that during the apartment scene in “Fixation”, she described their confession conversation as “having left things in a weird place”. But when Shaun kept pressing forward without listening, kept insisting without awareness, Lea knew exactly where “things” needed to go, and she took them there—with just seven words. 

Now, was this the right thing to do from a scripting standpoint? That’s what I ask myself every time I’ve seen the character of Lea further vilified this week on social media. Is it possible that, in the show’s interest/need to get these two to the rock-bottom “Heartbreak” of Monday’s episode… they might have taken things too far? Which is to say that IF something were to happen before season’s end that, yes, “catapulted” Shaun and Lea in some other (daresay, positive) fashion… can viewers still be enticed to jump aboard the good ‘ship #SHEA and put the closing scenes of “Fixation” into perspective?

I certainly hope so, but as I said earlier, much of this storyline is uncharted territory in prime-time TV. Catapult moments have been deeply effective for #Shea, but the risk for such a moment over-shooting its mark is always there. Conventional wisdom with this show is to trust the writers, and trust the process. Heading into these final three episodes of the season—the latter two apparently punctuated by a MAJOR event (see Freddie Highmore’s recent interview)—I plan to keep my trust intact.

**

WISH LIST FOR “HEARTBREAK”

I’ll be honest—I kind of want this episode over with already because the impatience demons are doing tap dances in my brain with a collective eagerness to jump to the 2-part season finale. Plus, I think three weeks in a row of Shaun on the low end of love is wearing ALL of us down. But if you read what I wrote up there about The Catapult, you know every moment of this show counts… especially this late in the season! So here are some things that I’m hoping to see, in some capacity, in “Heartbreak”:

*      Lea in reactionary mode. Assuming she’s in this episode at all, which is by no means guaranteed… I want to see how Lea’s doing in the aftermath of “Fixation”. We’ve talked a lot on this blog (and in the comments) about the need for Lea’s side of things to be better represented; while I don’t expect that to happen overnight, I’d appreciate a scene. Any scene. By herself, or in conversation with someone that isn’t Shaun, or in a music montage at the end of the episode with the lyrics doing a lot of the work… seriously, I’m not picky.

*      Claire in counsel mode. We know she’s visiting Shaun at the apartment; what I’m hoping is that she’s got more to say than another spin on what she said last week about accepting things and moving on. (Offering some insight to Lea’s potential POV would be a nice alternative.) While I’d obviously enjoy her paying Lea a work-break visit as well, she apparently has more going on with Dash this week… so I think her personal time on this episode is already maxed out.

*      Glassman and Lea. They’re overdue for another scene together. I don’t know that they’ll get the kind I’m hoping for until the two-part finale, but one possible reaction Lea could deliver this week—based on her track record—is an attempt to give two-weeks notice at St. B. I say attempt because if she does this, I presume we’d see her doing so in Glassman’s presence. I also presume she wouldn’t actually go through with it. But a minute or so of preliminary conversation between them could be enough to tip Glassman (and us) off as to her state of mind.

        *      One thing I admittedly DON’T wish for this week, for once, is Shaun and Lea trying to talk to each other. It would appear that Shaun is done “fixing” (for lack of a better word) and is just trying to get through the day in “Heartbreak”… if Lea’s feeling remorseful, I hope she’s able to keep it to herself for now.

If you’ve got your own wish list for “Heartbreak”, or any other thoughts to share… jump into the comments, or tag me on Twitter @KLBSt8ofSk8).