About 11/2, IG posts, and That One Deleted Scene We Need to Talk About

 

It’s been a hell of a week, hasn’t it?  (Aren’t they all, lately??) But when it came to developments related to The Good Doctor, it was more of a hell-YEAH kind of week. Thank goodness.

 

The big official news: ABC announced that TGD’s season premiere will be Monday, November 2… just SIX WEEKS from this coming Monday! (A not-so-big, official "poster" containing that info can be seen above.)

 

The much smaller, less official news pt. 1: a little over a week ago, Paige Spara (Lea) posted on Instagram a photo from the set, tagged it “Hello Season 4 💌”…

Paige's IG pic on bottom half...

Speculation on what we see in top half

… and the speculation started flying. Wasn’t the picture from the set representing Shaun’s (formerly Shaun and Lea’s) apartment? Or, more specifically, Shaun’s bedroom? OR… was it Lea’s (previous) bedroom? The shea.endgameIG account that I mentioned a couple weeks ago is all over this particular clue.

 

And the much smaller, less official news pt. 2 came amongst a series of IG posts by Sheila Kelley (Debbie) as she documented behind-the-scenes activity…

(This is just a screen grab... try this for playing the video.)

Yep, it’s about 9 seconds worth of video with Shaun and Dr. Glassman (as seen through an on-set video monitor), with the latter at the front door of ChezGlassy, and the former a fair distance down the path. Since the volume on the clip is extremely low, and not much is said, I initially was more intrigued with the shot itself—was this an example of social distancing, TGD-style?—but I should have known #Shea shippers wouldn’t let a little volume issue keep them from making as much sense of the audio as humanly possible!

Especially when the word that comes through the clearest is LOVE!

 

Did you give it a listen? What do you think?

 

I should add, too, that my curiosity continues to be piqued with regards to how soon after the S3 finale that scenes like this are occurring… two days? Two weeks? Longer? A lot of that presumably depends on how fresh TGD writers wanted Melendez’s death to be in the minds of the BVites. On the other hand, we keep hearing that COVID-19 is going to be addressed on the show in some fashion, and that’s a wild card that’s pretty impossible to play.

 

On the other (third??) hand, who cares, we’ll know in about SEVEN WEEKS-!!

In the meantime… I’d like to jump approximately seven weeks backward, for that’s around the time that TGD Season 3 was released on DVD. I’m not sure how many of us splurge for that—me, I’m borrowing a copy from my local library—but one unique feature is the collection of S3 “deleted scenes.” There are 27 in all; a few are so brief (20 seconds or less) that I can’t even tell for which episode they were originally written. But for #Shea purposes, there are three of the 27 scenes worth discussing.

 

“Wake Up” (presumably deleted from First Case, Second Base)—where GhostSteve alerts Shaun to the text on his phone about his first lead surgery, and Shaun does his “I am going to rock it!” declaration from his bed… before

realizing that if GhostSteve is giving him this news, it can only be a dream he’s having… not the real deal.

 

Of course, what happened on the show instead was Lea being there for Shaun’s

great news (and a whole lot of bouncing for joy from the two of them). I’m certainly glad they went with the Lea option on this critical scene, but I’d be curious to know how they envisioned the whole thing if it had evolved from the GhostSteve dream. Seems unusually challenging, at least in theory. Having GhostSteve appear mid-show (also in a dream) was a great alternative.

**

 

“I Have to Go” (from Friends and Family) —a scene which

answers once and for all the question Did Shaun let Carly know he was going to Wyoming before he actually LEFT for Wyoming? (Answer: yes, he did.)

 

Remember how both Lea and Glassy were telling Shaun he needed to communicate with Carly, and then we saw him reaching for his phone, and… nothing more was seen until the threesome was driving up to the Murphy

residence in Casper? What was deleted from the show itself was: a) Carly being very concerned for Shaun while Shaun maintained his “I won’t be sad if he dies” stance, b) Carly offering to come be with him in Casper the following day, only to be assured that wasn’t necessary because Dr. Glassman and Lea were with him, c) Carly looking rather shaken as she stammers “Lea is going with you?”, then looking enormously frustrated as Shaun hangs up shortly thereafter.

 

Followed by… nothing more until the Fractured episode. Which is understandable, given what was going on in Casper. But this scene certainly carries a certain gravitas that remained in Shaun and Carly’s next scene together, when Carly said (paraphrased) “I’m sorry about your father, but hey, why didn’t you answer a single one of my texts while you were gone?”

 

And again in their elevator scene, when she asked “Be honest—is there something going on with Lea that you’re not telling me?” (Before his cafeteria confession about spending the night in Lea’s arms, which came a little later in the episode)

 

**

Which brings us to…

“Medical Records” (from Friends and Family)

 

Now HERE is a scene that should’ve stayed. (In my totally biased opinion, that is.)

 

You should be able to see the clip here, but I’ll summarize it anyway: just after Shaun’s initial meeting with his (dying) father—the one where Shaun says all the angry things bottled up inside before storming out of the house—we find Shaun sitting (and rocking)  on a rock near the street, while Glassman and Lea hang near the Murphy mailbox, waiting for Shaun to calm himself down. Lea suggests to Glassman that it might be a good time for Shaun to go have a drink, and take a break from the family drama. 

Glassman equates that way of thinking to “running away,” adding that of course Lea would suggest it—“isn’t that what you always do?” he snarks. “The hours are too long… you don’t like your boss… you run home to the family business…”

 

“I’ve never run away from—” Lea begins to defend.

“And don’t even get me started on…” Glassman begins to say, speaking over her, before Shaun walks over and cuts both of them off.

“I need his medical records,” he says in reference to the terminally ill Ethan Murphy.

 

Glassman tells him no; he has already studied them plenty. Shaun says he needs to look at them anyway, but Glassman still says no. His point: Ethan is definitely dying, no need to verify it, but what Shaun DOES need to do is decide if “that tirade” (Glassman’s words for Shaun’s earlier outburst) is going to be the way he ends things with Dad.

“What do you want him to say?” Lea counters when Shaun remains silent. “Just because his dad says 'sorry' doesn’t change the fact that he’s a violent, abusive jackass and his mom is totally complicit.”

 

“Yeah, his dad’s a jackass. Join the club,” Glassy responds, apparently in reference to his own behavior towards his now-deceased daughter… which, echoed throughout the episode, is why Glassy feels compelled to then ask, “Is there ever a chance for forgiveness? Ever?? Because now’s the time, Shaun!”

 

Shaun maintains his silence, while Lea remains unconvinced. “His dad ripped a rabbit out of his son’s arms and heaved it against the wall,” she all but growls at Glassy. “He deserves to die miserable and alone.”

 

And just when Glassy looks Lea’s way… almost as if to say Okay, point taken… Shaun pipes up one last time. “I need his medical records…”

 

“No!” Glassy and Lea say in unison.

And that’s where the scene ends.

 

Now as you might recall, the next time we saw these three was at the bar: Lea got a round of tequila shots (which both men declined), and Shaun was studying those medical records after all… eventually reaching the same conclusion as Glassy (“There’s no hope. He’s going to die”). And then came the brief what-to-do-next conversation that concluded with Shaun agreeing to go to the lake with Lea. So… no big deal cutting the “Medical Records” scene from the episode, right?

 

Except here’s the thing. Of the 27 deleted scenes on the S3 DVD, it didn’t seem that any one episode had more than three… except for this one (Friends and Family). Which had a total of FIVE deleted scenes: “Medical Records,” “I Have to Go” (the Shaun/Carly phone call mentioned earlier), and three others relating to the hospital action going on with the star football player while the Casper family reunion played out (one where the player was being admitted, surrounded by his entourage… one where the player’s surgery was nearing completion… and one where the player’s “people” told the BVites they’d done well.)

 

So… again, my totally biased opinion:

 

1)      The three scenes from the hospital were deleted with good reason… they were utterly expendable. (The most dramatic moment was when Melendez got to kick the player’s entire entourage out of the ER, including the team physician.)

2)      The two scenes related to Shaun’s story were deleted because there wasn’t enough time to include them. No, they didn’t create gaping holes in the narrative with their absence, but…

a.       It was unclear whether or not Shaun had taken Lea & Glassman’s advice to call Carly, and consequentially, it was unclear later on what Carly knew about Lea’s involvement in the Casper trip.

b.      While the “Medical Records” scene was arguably more about Glassman and/or Lea than it was about Shaun, all three characters have been intertwined since the “Islands” episode in S1. If Glassy is preaching forgiveness right out in front of Shaun’s family home, it’s important. If Lea is preaching compassion for Shaun’s situation when Shaun is too distraught to voice it himself, it’s also important. If those two “preaches” collide, and Glassy gets thisclose to playing the you’re-no-good-for-my-surrogate-son card (we all know where he was going when he said “And don’t even get me started on…” right?), then… yeah. Fairly important!

 

3)      And while the hospital action of “Friends and Family” did result in one significant development—that of Claire shaking off her risky-behavior phase, and getting herself into therapy— I can’t help but feel they could have gotten that accomplished without a full-steam-ahead case of the week…

 

4)      … Because, as reader Allan Verissimo pointed out when the S3 DVD was released, Shaun, Glassman, and Lea (and even Carly) should have been allowed to carry the episode. Or at least 75% of it, if the remainder was to go towards Claire’s issues. Imagine what we might have been treated to alongside those deleted scenes: more flashbacks… more Shaun and Lea bonding…more Lea and Glassy butting heads… maybe a scene of Shaun with one or both of them preparing for his “I forgive you” speech…? Or even an opportunity for Lea to share something personal without getting cut off by anyone? (I know, I know… pushing it too far, right?)

 

I guess it’s not right to think of it as an opportunity wasted; obviously what WAS included in that pivotal episode was enough to get everyone where they were headed.

 

But I hope… especially for David Shore, and #Shea specialists like Thomas L. Moran, who wrote “Friends and Family”… that they came away from the experience with more conviction to take TGD even farther off the beaten path of St. Bonaventure’s corridors every once in a while. Four seasons into this series, I think everyone involved (including the viewers) can more than handle it.