(Prelude to The Kiss, Part 2)
(Click here to jump to Part 1 if you missed it)
One of my favorite blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments in #Shea
history came just before one of the toughest scenes of theirs to watch (until
the rain of pain from the back half of S3, that is).
It’s from "Middle Ground" (2.2) when Shaun finally deals with his
feelings about Lea returning from Hershey… and rather than keep avoiding her
and deleting her texts begging to talk, he lets loose with the hurt felt in her
absence, concluding that she should “Please go back to Hershey, or anywhere other
than here!” before stalking out the door.
But ahead of all that, he placed a banana and a bowl of cereal
in front of her at the table as soon as she got out of bed.
That gesture was quickly eclipsed by the baseball he placed
on the table too—the one in its own case, the one that she initially gave to
Shaun when she left in S1. It served as the launching pad for Shaun to explain
himself, so its role in the scene was critical.
What the banana and the cereal represented was important
too, though. It showed kindness—or at the very least, a modicum of concern for
Lea’s physical well-being—even when he was angry with her. It’s not that I ever
really doubt that Shaun cares deeply about Lea, or even Glassman. But a
demonstrative nature isn’t on my shortlist of his most memorable traits—or
that of anyone with ASD, I’m guessing.
Such has got to play a huge part in Lea’s conflicting
emotions about Shaun over these three seasons. When she listed her character
flaws as reasons to disregard a love relationship with Shaun in “Autopsy,” she
wasn’t making up stuff to get rid of him—on the contrary, she was finally being
as brutally honest as Shaun has been with her. And while the naysayers can
wrinkle their noses all they want at what they perceive as a harsh, unfair
judgment of Shaun, they should also try to count the ways—over the course of
three years—that his words and/or actions towards Lea overtly expressed kindness
towards the woman he loves. I think we can count them on one hand, MAYBE two:
1) Shaun
said “I don’t care what happened in Hershey… but I care that you care” in “Tough Titmouse” (2.4). Those were the epic words that turned things
around between these two… though it only came after suggested-by-others
gestures fell flat, and Lea was literally on her way out the door again.
2) Shaun
secured the apartment Lea wanted badly in that same episode (but actually
secured it for both of them to share without getting her consent, so I’m not
sure this counts)
3) Shaun
proved Hubert the Fish died for reasons unrelated to Lea’s care in the final
minutes of “Hubert” (2.7).
4) Shaun
(eventually) gave Lea the privacy she requested with then-boyfriend Jake in
“Xin” (2.13), occupying himself with headphones before giving up and going to
check on then-ailing Glassman instead.
5) Shaun
convinced Glassman to interview Lea for the St. B job in “Influence” (3.14), but
arguably did it because he wanted Lea around more since they were no longer
roommates, so again… not sure that this counts.
6) Shaun
puts himself at risk when Lea is trapped in the earthquake in “Hurt” (3.19).
And yes, this incredibly heroic effort looks weird on the same list as stories of goldfish
and headphones, but that’s where we’re at.
It seems unfair to rattle off Lea’s list of overt kindnesses
in return— hiding/whisking Shaun away from the Glassman situation in the Season
1’s “Islands” two-parter, trusting/adjusting to his needs as a roommate in
Seasons 2 and 3, abandoning said roommate role at his insistence midway
through S3, cheerleading and commiserating as needed throughout the series, comforting him in his
most trying times. But that’s the point with neurotypical vs. non-neurotypical
in any relationship, but especially romantic love—it’s going to be lop-sided in
this regard. It will likely remain lop-sided, to some degree, for the duration
of the relationship. Even someone who is NOT “needy and so, so selfish” could
easily struggle. I know I would.
And even before love was out in the open between them—when
Carly was still front and center-- Lea’s simple needs as a platonic friend (to get
occasional time with him; to get his ear, his input, maybe even his advice)
were seldom met with much satisfaction that we saw. Furthermore, her ability to
remain a sounding board to Shaun through the first part of S3 gave her a BIG
window into what a romance with her best friend might be like:
bigger-than-usual communication issues (especially with everyday texting), social outing
issues, and demonstrative affection issues, to name just a few biggies.
So when the time finally came to talk about THEIR
possibilities together, Lea had seen things from several sides… enough sides,
she felt, to say there are things in the way here that will keep me from
moving forward with this.
And by things, I mean Shaun’s ASD.
So is that a form of prejudice?
When you look up synonyms for that word, you get slightly less
cringe-inducing ones like Preconception. Prejudgment. Predisposition. Bias.
Most of those options (including “prejudice” itself, of
course) contain the prefix “Pre,” meaning “before/earlier than/prior to.”
That’s why Merriam-Webster includes “an adverse opinion or leaning formed
without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge” in its definition of the
word.
That’s where the grey area lies in regards to Lea, I think.
Did she have sufficient knowledge to make her initial decision about Shaun? On
one hand, we say NO, SHE HADN’T GIVEN THEM A CHANCE YET. But on the other… it’s
not like she ruled out romance the minute she realized he was autistic. In
fact, it’s about as far from that possibility as one can get.
“One of the really important things [to remember], and
hopefully that comes across about this last scene, is [that the audience
shouldn’t hate Lea] for feeling the way that she feels. She isn’t prejudiced
toward Shaun because he has autism. It’s not as simple as that.”
“Shaun was right in that prior episode: Lea was being prejudiced. He does have limitations and
he does have weaknesses, but we need to look at the whole thing. So, we wanted
something to force her eyes open to recognize — not to reassess Shaun, but to
reassess herself and to recognize that she was wrong.”
So what do we do with these seemingly opposing viewpoints?
In all honesty, I wish that word (prejudice) had only come up once—when
Highmore talked about it. It’s not as simple as that, he said. Right.
Exactly. But it’s a powerful word, a dramatic word, and it lent enough to the
situation at hand that Thomas L. Moran and David Renaud used it as the exclamation
point in Shaun’s tirade at the end of “Heartbreak.” And then Shore referenced
that tirade in his interview, and in doing so over-simplified the use of the
word (in my opinion)… which was exactly what Highmore cautioned against. And,
exactly what we DIDN’T need when angry fans keep seeking fuel for their
#SaveMelendez fires.
But take the idea of prejudice away and Lea was still
dealing with a hell of a problem: she loved Shaun, but felt she couldn’t be
with him, so she was on the verge of losing his friendship completely.
What turns that kind of problem around? A crisis, of course.
One that put her on the verge of the most perilous possibility of all: losing Shaun
completely.
But as that possibility ebbed and flowed throughout the
night, Lea also got an amazing gift—the opportunity to see Shaun from sides
never in her line of vision before.
We also got to see (and at times, hear) more Lea than we’ve probably
seen since the “Islands” two-parter…
+ She started out huddled in a blanket sitting on
the side panel of a fire truck, pigeon-toed, somewhat inconspicuous, trying to
relay essential information to Shaun.
+
As her distress rose she grew feisty, chasing
down/hounding a firefighter about how to do his job… until she was informed the
pressure was actually on her to get him out safely.
+ Pacing
back and forth with the radio in hand, Lea made her pitch to get him to
leave; when he said he couldn’t leave without Vera, she made up something out
of desperation. When he called her out on “lying,” she hung her head, knowing
she had one job to do and she didn’t get it done.
+ When
she heard Shaun’s lengthy explanation of Civil War amputation techniques and
his ability to cut safely even under current conditions, I can’t help but wonder
if it fed into a new understanding of why his “certain way of doing things”
(borrowing her line from the pivotal scene in “Autopsy”) helps make him such an
exceptional doctor.
+ When
Shaun directs her to count to 180—hey, that’s one minute for each year
they’ve known each other!—she gets a new “one job to do”… which was certainly
harder than it sounded (he had to shout “KEEP COUNTING!” when she got lost in his
heroic actions).
By the way, did everyone realize Vera had long stopped “the screaming”
by then? That’s what tells me the count to 180 was as much (or more) about him hearing
Lea as it was about taking care of Lea’s needs. He was enduring one of the toughest
challenges of his young career; if the woman he loved couldn’t be right there with
him for it, having her voice in his ear had to be the next best thing.
+ (It
also served as an awesome device to rachet up the tension a little more. Well played, TGD writers.)
+
As Lea gritted
her way to 180, only to be faced with that deadly, climatic silence on the
other end of the radio which sent her into a tailspin… that’s when the ball
fell squarely in Lea’s court for the first time.
+
Footnote #1: the way the water stopped rushing
when the two-way radio went silent would seem to indicate the entire space had become
flooded… but I think at last glance, the radio had still been several inches
above the waterline. Did anyone else notice that? (Though I suppose it could
be argued that the radio could easily have toppled into the water and shorted
out…)
+
Footnote #2: Some might argue that the
proverbial ball was initially in Lea’s court during those moments on the
walkie-talkie when Vera’s words seemed to be having their way with Shaun’s
mindset. I know I was one of the TGD fans Tweet-yelling LEA! You’re
UP! Start talking! out of fear that Shaun would send Lea on her way once he
got out of there. But I think we need to interpret her silence as both generous
and necessary. Generous because it allowed Shaun to keep his focus on his
patient—how would it have gone if she started professing her love over the
radio while he was sawing away?—and necessary because she probably couldn’t
figure out the right words to say in those moments anyway.
As a result, we got a Lea who is true to her so-called weaknesses
(“listen to me; I can’t even put a complete sentence together right now” from
“Autopsy”), and also a Lea who is growing out of one of them (selfishness). For
even when Shaun was safely out of the building, and all she wanted to do was
lay that kiss on him***, Lea still kept her distance until Shaun had completed
the job at hand (turning his patient over to the EMTs).
***Part 3 is gonna cover it. And cover it and cover it. Promise.
But back to that ball in Lea’s court.
+
It’s unclear how much time had passed between
“Shaun can you hear me?!?” and the firefighter calling Lea by name and
suggesting “it was time to go”.
But the shot of her standing stoically in front of the fire truck, arms
at her sides, keeping vigil for Shaun, telling the firefighter she couldn’t
leave yet, willing some good news to emerge from the badly damaged brewpub—that’s
when I saw a renewed spirit. She’d dealt with the very real possibility that
Shaun had perished as only she could at that point… with denial. As long as she
stood there, she didn’t have to accept anything.
+
And the moment she heard “we’ve got something,”
well… you know what she did. ZOOM.
Off she went, into the building, no helmet, no thinking, just instinct. That’s
our Lea.
“This was about Lea realizing she was wrong,” Shore said. So
what did Lea learn about Shaun? In a few words… everything we, as viewers, have
come to know and love best about Dr. Shaun Murphy. I mean, think about it—what
did she know about him from a professional standpoint prior to the earthquake?
+
That he’s a doctor doing his residency at St.
Bonaventure.
+
That he’s holding his own, three years into the
program (although she also knows of his struggles with Dr. Han a year earlier).
+
That he’s already delivered his first baby (during
the “Quarantine” 2-parter in S2).
+
That he got his first lead surgery last Fall.
+
That he’s prone to being pre-occupied with the
details of his latest patient to the point of disregarding their conversations…
sometimes walking away from them entirely.
I probably missed some stuff—those two-minutes-or-less
exchanges are sometimes a little too fleeting to properly absorb—but in a few
MORE words now, what did she learn?
+
He covers all the bases (pacing out the pain meds,
explaining what he’s doing, shifting focus as needed)
+ He knows his stuff
+
He’s innovative
+
He’s the epitome of grace under pressure
+
He does incredible work under the most trying
conditions
+
He takes huge risks, but they seem to pay off
It’s funny to think of how, early on, I thought an ideal “earthquake
scenario” would be Lea needing to make heroic efforts of her own to save Shaun
and/or get him through a meltdown—to prove, I guess, that she was as invested in
him as he was in her. Silly Kelli! What she really needed was to see him
as she’d never seen him before.
I know many of us have #Shea “playlists” of apropos songs
for the couple—and I ask that you HANG ON TO THOSE LISTS for future blog
purposes, please—but two lines of a John Mayer song I heard this week made me
think of them:
'Cause if you give
me just one night
You're gonna see me in a new light
It makes me smile because it underscores how unique this
twosome is. The song (entitled “New Light”) is about a guy who has been
friend-zoned by a woman seemingly forever, and he’s imagining that he could
change the entire trajectory if she’d give him a chance… give him “just one
night.” Shaun was basically asking that very thing of Lea during their argument
at the end of “Fixation” (3.17)… and my goodness, look what’s happened. One
tremendous, (literally) earth-shattering night later, she’s all his.
And they didn’t even see each other until the morning after!
Only in #Shea land, folks.
Part 3-- the finale to this finale recap-- coming next week!
