State of the #SHEA part 11: It Was Called "Fixation" For a Reason

This was a tough episode of TGD to get through. Whether you were reacting to Shaun alone, to Shaun & Lea together, or would rather just focus now on #Melendaire (since they won my Twitter poll over the weekend, I might as well give those supporters an early shout-out), I think we all knew it wasn’t going to be about an easy resolution to Shaun and Lea’s next chapter of conflicts. And if you got a look at the CTV promo for the episode, you had a big hint about the bridge/walkway scene near the end.

On the other hand, that episode title really told us all we needed to know.

To be clear, Merriam-Webster’s definition of the word looks (in part) like this:

• FIXATION: an obsessive or unhealthy preoccupation or attachment. Synonyms: obsession, preoccupation, prepossession

Sounds like our Dr. Murphy when he gets in a certain groove, yes? (It should; “fixation on particular subjects and ideas” are one of five symptoms of high-functioning autism, according to THIS). And while fixations obviously can bring benefits, as we arguably see with countless solved medical challenges on the show…they turn negative as they “take over the individual’s life or interfere in their relationships with others” (according to that above link).

And this is where we find Shaun’s headspace—clearly still reeling from last week’s conversation with Lea, obsessed with the notion that he can change her mind about a romantic relationship—when “Fixation” begins. It shows up further not only in both of Shaun’s direct interactions with Lea (more on those in a minute), but in his work. Talking through his love life with his colleagues (so he can clear his head and focus on solutions to medical puzzles) is one thing… asking Claire to cover for him during a standard procedure so he can maximize his lunch break for “a time-sensitive issue” (that isn’t) is a bigger problem. And returning from said lunch break still distracted (from said fixation) to the point where Claire has to yell instructions in order for him to save their crashing patient? Yikes.

Of course he eventually focused enough to invent a whole new procedure, drawing inspiration from pimple-popping videos and getting to execute the whole thing himself under Melendez’s encouraging eye. (Leave it to Dr. Murphy to ultimately have one of his best days yet as a surgeon while the rest of his world keeps crumbling out of his control.)

But along the way, of course he couldn’t help but collect opinions from his fellow Bonaventurites (I may have to shorten that to BV-ites if I stay with that description of the docs en masse) that likely carried little weight, considering the way he challenged most of them…

 

"Sometimes people have to accept things
are as good as they're gonna get"

"What good does it do to give up if you're already heartbroken?"

"But shouldn't we find someone who makes us
a better version of ourselves?"

"...Find someone who loves you
the way you are."

… when the only opinion he should have listened to in the first place was the first one

he got: Glassman’s. 

But now let’s get back to Shaun and Lea’s first scene from “Fixation”. I think some of us picked up what was going to happen here just from looking at the promotional stills: A) Shaun invites Lea over to the apartment to B) Prove that he’s more able to change the “certain way” that he lives than she thinks he can, but C) Lea’s got Damn, he’s just not getting it written all over her face. 

The big reveal

Oh, HELP

Indeed, it was very much all of that. But what Lea said in response to his efforts is key:

“Your way of proving that you’re flexible and attentive to my needs is to pull me away from work—with no notice—make me drive all the way across town just so you can show me you un-alphabetized your beans. Doesn’t that seem a little inconsistent?”

It speaks directly to some key characteristics of autism, and even Shaun admits she makes a good point with this. Had he gone ahead and picked up the conversation with Lea later in the day (as alluded to in the script), maybe things would have been able to be discussed in a way that helped both of them. Or at the very least, it might underscore the fact that his perception of “the autism issue” is, so far, radically different from hers.

We’ll never know, because the next time we see them together is the bridge scene. And this is the one that really hurt.

 

One thing that hasn’t been talked about—surely because everyone’s focused on Lea’s gut punch choice of words—is why would Shaun now jump to “a real date” being what was needed for him and Lea? Doesn’t he have the insight to know her response?

But he doesn’t. I’m assuming it’s the incredible success he had with his patient that emboldened him to make such a move—in fact, he reveals that line of thinking as the scene unfolds—but as Lea says, he’s only proving her point all the more by not giving her some space, not taking her observations into consideration, and not taking “no” (for now) for an answer.

Which is why she had to bring out the BIG GUNS, as I’m calling ‘em, and say—in much clearer terms this time—what so many TGD fans are now hammering her for:

“Shaun, you’re autistic! You can’t ‘fix’ that!”

Followed by (after she collected herself; you could see how much she hated hurting him in that moment):

“You are who you are… and I am who I am… and the two of us will never work.”

“I understand exactly why Lea said what she said,” reveals fellow viewer/#Shea shipper Sonya (@gl1tterycake), who happens to be autistic herself. “It was horrible. It was cold. And, ladies and gentlemen, it worked… He left her the f--- alone.

“What Lea said doesn't make me hate myself as an autistic person," Sonya continues. "Quite the opposite: it makes sense. Why? These hard lessons are ones I have already learned. Chasing someone, changing yourself for them, hoping that if you're persistent enough you will eventually wear them down is not okay. Chick-flick conventions and grand romantic gestures are more likely to earn you a restraining order than a loving girlfriend or boyfriend.

“Shaun went too far, and he pushed her too hard.”

(She says a lot more thoughtful stuff, but I’m saving it for the next post)

One of the reasons I think it’s important to hear voices like Sonya’s is how seemingly unpopular an opinion she represents. For there’s a sea of viewer feedback right now that cries “Oh, poor Shaun! Why does your so-called ‘best friend’ who supposedly loves you have to be such a hurtful, evil bitch?”

So doesn’t that mean there might be a sea of viewers who aren’t appreciating both sides either? As I’ve said before—with TGD being a show told almost exclusively from Shaun’s perspective, it can be difficult to see anything else at times. 

"We really need Lea's point-of-view," urges fellow #Shea shipper Amy Danko. "At this point, she doesn't have anybody on her side... She needs somebody to understand."

Maybe Glassy’s it's-not-you-it's-Lea assertion early in the episode stuck with Shaun after all; by those final moments on the bridge he was no longer discussing his personal ability to change (fix himself), but his ability to “fix THIS”… which led to Lea’s stop-him-cold line.

By then, the “fix” itself had become Shaun’s fixation… the thing taking over his life; the thing interfering in his relationships with others. Though from the look of things by the episode's end, neither Lea nor Shaun will likely cross paths willingly in the near future. As Sonya said earlier about Lea's harsh-sounding words, "it worked"... Shaun's headed to (let's hope) the final stop on the Heartbreak Express, and he's traveling solo. 

But as she watched him go, Lea's eyes held enough heartbreak for a ticket of her own.