Know Your #Shea Articles: The Good, The Great, and the WTF?

 

#SHEA Seeds…

 

As you’ve probably seen by now, the ABC promotions department released the “Official Trailer” for Season 4 of TGD this past week… along with the official promotional stills of the “Frontline Part 1” season premiere. As is often the case, no S4 #Shea stills of any kind have been released yet; however, in watching the 1:45 trailer we DO get one more image of Shaun and Lea “together” (via webcams) than had been previously revealed.

 It’s at the 30 second mark. After a quick reprise of the You make me more, Shaun moments ending S3… followed by everything in the opening of the 30 second promo (the good morning, the I miss you, the door-between-them shot), we see Shaun sitting on his bed, with Lea in his lap (as in laptop computer… calm down y’all, we’re only at the start of the season), followed by a wide shot of poor Shaun wailing “I don’t want to pretend… I want to be with you!”

--SNIFFLE— 

Oh, and there’s also a funny sequence in the trailer introducing the new 1^st year residents that concludes with a shot of Lea (w/o Shaun) in the St. B cafeteria, sitting amongst several of the newbies, telling them (re: Dr. Murphy) “At least you know he’ll be a totally honest boss”—which, if you ask me, looks like she’s saying it moments after Shaun has walked away from the table saying something very… Shaun-like. Because she looks like she’s over-selling a little (big smile), and the newbies we see look… less than sold (mildly horrified). But I digress. Let’s get back to Shaun and Lea’s computer chat.

And by that, I mean let’s get back to why does he still have a twin-size mattress with no frame or box spring?

This week, I (joylessly) I went back to take a quick look at the “Mutations” episode, for I knew it was the episode where Shaun’s bed was last featured for sure as he and Carly reached their… breakthrough. (I think Carly’s bed was the location of Carly’s “parade” and the opening minutes of 3.14 “Influence,” but I don’t need to know that badly 😉 so I didn’t check.)

Anyway- you know what I was checking, right? Did he and Carly… were they… on a twin-size mattress? With no box spring or frame? They did. They were.

I guess the show decided that while it was important to show Shaun’s place (now void of Lea) as the place he lost his virginity… they were only going to show THE BED for about 2 minutes or less, so why upgrade...!?

Or maybe they snuck a full-size in there for that episode (still no box spring or frame), knowing we wouldn’t think about it that hard. I guess I could go back and—

NAH.

My point is, I was getting ready to call out TGD Continuity Police for sticking him back on the twin mattress in S4, but instead I find myself shrugging and marveling at how Freddie and Jasika pulled that off as well as they did.

AND… hoping that perhaps they’re saving the “Shaun finally upgrades his bed” story for an S4 episode. Could make for a mighty cute prelude…

--

MOVING ON... I know it may come as a shock to some #Shea-shippers (not!!), but Our Favorite Couple is NOT universally adored… or even accepted… by TGD fandom. And while this fact has been underscored all summer, and now into fall, by the Melendez-mourners and/or Carly/Jasika-got-a-raw-deal club members, it goes further back than that. And for every level of #Shea appreciation, there seems a corresponding writer and/or publication website. With the new season almost upon us, I thought I’d dig a little bit and create a little guide to who supports… who doesn’t… and who stays fairly objective.

I shall be rating each of these on a 1-to-4 green apple scale 🍏 with 4 being the highest honor.😊 Let's start with... 

Daniel S. Levine covers all things TGD for popculture, and his job appears to be a straightforward one: recap the episode at hand, adding quotes if you can find ‘em. This recap of the S3 finale doesn’t go into great detail with Shaun and Lea’s saga during “I Love You,” but it doesn’t do so for any other storyline either. Supplemented with quotes from an interview David Shore did with TV Guide before the finale aired, Levine comes across as someone who knows the show- I’ve seen some writers who don’t even know how to spell Shaun’s name correctly, let alone get familiar with the nuances of TGD— and writes to get fans caught up, not fan the flames of debate.  

🍏🍏1/2

 

When my kids’ grade schools sold magazine subscriptions in fundraisers, Entertainment Weekly was an easy choice for me, TV & music news junkie that I am. (WAY too expensive for a subscription at regular price, so I only got the PTO discount for a year’s worth and moved on.) All this goes to say that I still enjoy EW online from time to time, so TGD on their radar is, I think, a good thing. Especially since they’re held in high enough regard to score “exclusives” from time to time. This article by Chancellor Agard, leading into the “Autopsy” episode, features quotes from Highmore and is similar in explanatory tone to the one I mentioned at the time from TV Line’s Ryan Schwartz (with quotes from both Highmore and Paige Spara). The difference is a considerably shorter, less in-depth piece from EW. But I think EW follows the word-count/attention span rules of a magazine like People, so this isn’t surprising. Maybe check in on EW if you only have a few minutes, and TV Line for the deeper dive. 

🍏🍏🍏 1/2

Good Housekeeping used to be known as one of the “seven sisters” of high-circulation magazines targeted to married women. As you can imagine with the changing times, most of the “sisters” are now deceased… but GH, Better Homes and Gardens, and Woman’s Day have persevered. And as it happens, Content Strategy Editor Heather Finn covers TGD’s beat. And while her articles get quotes from other sources (rather than exclusive interviews) and glean social media for fan reactions, she did an admirable job capturing both sides of the reactions following “Friends and Family” as you can see here…  

🍏🍏🍏

And when the popular thing to do after the “Autopsy” episode was bash Lea for her inability to tell Shaun exactly what he wanted to hear… this article by Finn (which was subsequently picked up by Yahoo’s feed) is all about those of us leaping to Lea’s defense. You might recognize your own words in this article—I did; you can see them in the 8th graph near the end (if you click on "fan eloquently said" you can see my entire Tweet) —so maybe I’m too close to give this particular piece the full four-apple recommendation, but here it is anyway. Fight me! 😀  

🍏🍏🍏🍏

Heavy doesn’t provide bylines on its articles, but those that cover TGD manage to keep it friendly (or at least neutral) towards #Shea shippers one way or another. Most of what they provide are scene-by-scene recaps, supplemented with a fan reaction or two near the end. While it’s definitely worth noting that Heavy focused on the Melendez outrage for its S3 finale recap while steering clear of Shaun/Lea commentary (both for and against), it displayed a LOT of #Shea support in this piece that came out justbefore “Fractured” aired… in fact, look! More fellow readers!  

🍏🍏🍏

The good news is that ScreenRant seems to specialize in the ever-popular “Listicles,” aka “short-form writing using lists as a thematic structure” (Top 7 #Shea Smaller Moments, anyone?)… and from time to time, TGD gets ScreenRant’s attention. And they definitely did a thorough comb-through of the show to come up with The 5 Best (and Worst) Relationships, published 12/1/19 (just before “Friends and Family”). Which, as listicles go, was at least entertaining for fans of the show.

 

The bad news: Guess who got named #1 WORST TGD relationship?

 

I’ll just post what writer Katerina Daley said here, and then you can decide if you want to follow up with ScreenRant in the future. (I DO wonder if the F&F episode did anything besides piss Daley off further…?)

 

The most frustrating relationship on the series, almost from day one, has been the back and forth friendship-romance-whatever-it-is between Shaun and Lea, a girl so petulant and immature it's hard to believe that we're supposed to take her or their relationship seriously. Lea never once tries to really understand Shaun; instead, she's determined to push him outside his comfort zone, whether that means making him play hooky from work or imposing upon him as his roommate. 

Lea is constantly manipulative with Shaun, stringing him along for convenience's sake and never once clearly understanding just how much she hurts him in the process. It's really hard to believe that we're meant to hope these two find their way to each other romantically eventually, when Lea happens to be the worst possible option for Shaun of all.

😠 please. 

P.S. There has not been a specific #Shea mention in ScreenRant since this article, but if you’re a Harry Potter fan.. they did recently sort all TGD characters into Hogwarts houses… (different writer on this article, BTW)

Overall, ScreenRant doesn’t seem interested in a lot of #Shea support.  TGD, maybe. But it's a package deal. 

🍏🍏

BUT THEN Showbiz CheatSheet comes along and says “ScreenRant, hold my tequila shot…” with Julia Mullaney’s slam-fest The Good Doctor’ Fans React to Shaun and Lea: ‘What an Awful Ending.’

The dynamic changed for the two at the end of season 3’s finale — and most fans weren’t happy about it, proclaims Mullaney, going on to cite exactly THREE unhappy fans (not even providing usernames for these sources) as evidence that “the general consensus” was not supportive of Shaun and Lea moving forward as a couple. Guess she must have blocked all the "ecstatically happy about it" fans in those other articles I've mentioned... to say nothing of all y'all who keep coming to read this blog (THANK YOU FOR DOING SO!). Hmm. Quite an oversight there. 

All I can say is… I guess the website is called “CheatSheet” for a reason. 

🍏1/2

Finally, we have... HOT LIFESTYLE NEWS

(Which doesn't have a distinct, recognizable logo. 

Good sign, huh?)

And I don’t know who wrote this gem, but the title is certainly an attention-grabber: LEA WILL DESTROY SHAUN.

I'm not kidding. That's the name of the piece.

No interviews here, and not even a sampling (selective or otherwise) of social media input to be found in this no-holds-barred assault on Ms. Dilallo's character. The one source quoted is—surprise!—the aforementioned Showbiz CheatSheet. And since it’s not quoted directly, it is tough to tell the connection there—other than heartless speculation. In this case, Lea is only after Shaun for the opportunities and “comfortable lifestyle” she couldn’t attain otherwise, and will squeeze him and all his self-esteem away because “we’re not buying it” that she loves him. We?!? We who?? There’s not even a byline assigned to this drivel!

I really hope this particular Lea-hater/possible Melendez and/or Carly worshipper didn’t get PAID to write this. And if you see former fans of TGD sharing this article—or anything like it—feel free to call it out for the bullshit that it is.

If you care to give it any of your time at all. Because now… you don’t have to!

(You're welcome.)

The Roommate Years: #Shea's Top 7 Smaller Moments!

 

#SHEA Seeds...

The highlight of the week came early, when we were treated to an all-new footage S4 promo… and the endearing image you see above. Yes, COVID-19 is impacting the first two episodes of S4… and for Shaun and Lea, it’s definitely impacting the nascent stages of their budding romance as well. Take a look at this promo—which is actually a supercut of the newest 30 second promo, the semi-generic 30 second promo that preceded it, and the 15-second #Shea promo I showed last week—and you’ll see Shaun talking to her on the phone, Lea telling Shaun good morning virtually (over the computer), and both of them talking on opposite sides of the apartment door. (Many have noted that Shaun’s about to reach for a note that Lea must’ve slipped under the door.)

Before all this went down, were you able to catch last Sunday’s ComiCon discussion via Zoom with TGD cast? 

The conversation—which was not interactive as we’d heard it would be, but still quite enjoyable—runs about 42 minutes and can be watched here.

And WAY before all that went down, #Shea’s Roommate Years got mined for precious smaller moments…

#21-15 can be found here...  

#14-8 can be found here...  

And now, without further adieu!

**

7) “Do NOT text Carly that.” (From 3.7 “SFAD”)

IN SHORT: Carly’s away at a conference, trying to engage Shaun via text as the day progresses. When she sends the eyeroll emoji, apparently frustrated with something he’s said (or, more likely, hasn’t said), Shaun turns to Lea for help. Lea opts to soft-pedal Carly’s intent with the eyeroll… but that doesn’t seem to help Shaun develop an appropriate response.

BEST REMEMBERED FOR: Shaun’s adorable re-creation of the eyeroll emoji itself.

Clocking in at a mere 1:07 (more like 1:00, since the last 5 seconds of this clip is TGD logo), this one definitely checks the box as a “smaller moment” between Shaun and Lea. But, hilarious as it was, it packs plenty into that minute: the irritation people with ASD surely feel with onset of emojis-as-acceptable-communication (“You get all that from one fake face?”)… Lea deciding on-the-fly how honest she should be about her interpretation of an eyeroll… then, 15 seconds later, trying to spare Carly some ASD relationship reality when Shaun admits she’s not on his mind throughout the workday. Of course, throughout it all is Shaun and Lea’s endearing friendship… particularly handy in an episode where Shaun’s female colleagues were both busy trying to give an adolescent, soon-to-be-blind boy a great last “seeing” day.

6) “Should I change my pants with you in the room?” (From 3.1 “Disaster”)

SETTING UP THIS CLIP: While recapping his first-date to Claire—privately, unlike his full-on grilling by the St.B’vites at other points in the episode—Shaun reveals that he attempted to tell a joke during his dinner with Carly. “No!” Claire gasps. “Lea said I should,” Shaun immediately responds in his defense. Cut to a flashback of date night prep at Murphy/Dilallo headquarters, and Lea saying “No, that is not what I said!” as if she was defending herself in real time during Shaun and Claire’s conversation. The scene picks up from there, as Shaun emerged from his bedroom…

 

IN SHORT: In Lea’s only appearance in this S3 opener, she’s offering not only wardrobe advice but suggestions on what to offer—and NOT offer—as conversation. “You have to know how to tell them. You have to know… WHEN… to tell them,” she warns Shaun.

Shaun, knowing neither of those things, stubbornly goes ahead with his joke at the restaurant… thereby adding to the “disaster” that he perceived his date with Carly to be.

 

BEST REMEMBERED FOR: Speaking for myself, it’s “best remembered” as setting the tone for the Shaun/Lea dynamic of S3 (or at least the first half of it). And that tone was these two are still very important, but you’re not going to see them together much for awhile so pay close attention to every minute. (Or half-minute, in this case.)

I initially wanted to place this scene even higher in the countdown. Why? Because in the thirty seconds Shaun and Lea share the screen I came away feeling remarkably good about their relationship at that point:

 

-        “Does this tie look good?”/ “Yes, but not with those pants” immediately demonstrated the comfort level Shaun and Lea now had as friends/roommates. I loved the organic feel of that tiny exchange.

 

-        We see Lea kindly but matter-of-factly explaining first-date chatter to him, and we get instant confirmation of where she’s at with all this following a somewhat ambiguous reaction to his plans at the end of the end of the “Trampoline” finale of S2. (Translation: she’s being very supportive, even putting any plans of her own on hold for the evening until she can get Shaun as ready as he’ll ever be and out the door).

 

-        “Should I take off my pants…”/ “No!” is a testament to two things: 1) Shaun’s ASD challenges (he’s asking because he honestly doesn’t know what’s acceptable/appropriate), and 2) the ongoing need for boundaries in their relationship, especially if he’s testing the romance waters with other women. If she was just a roommate, Lea probably couldn’t have cared less where he undressed. But as “Friends and Family” confirmed later in the season, she cared about him much more than she was willing to verbalize. Telling Shaun to, literally, keep his pants on (twice!) was a good way to keep the boundaries in place as Shaun forged ahead.

 

And let’s face it—"taking off his pants with her in the room” is not something Lea is likely to object to for much longer. Which makes this exchange from 2019 even more precious.

5) “I AM going to rock it!” (From 3.5 “First Case, Second Base”)

IN SHORT: After some gentle teasing about his returning home late the night before (from Carly’s place), Lea finds herself advising Shaun through his latest dilemma—the “I prefer to only touch one thing at a time” issue—until a text from St. B eclipses all conversation. Shaun’s first lead surgery has been scheduled! He and Lea celebrate briefly—no hugs, just very exuberant jumping in place—before he bounds out the door for an exciting day of work.

 

BEST REMEMBERED FOR: “I AM going to rock it!”/ “Oh, hells to the yeah you are!”

 

Which is to say it’s remembered best for the absolute joy

Shaun felt in that moment, and the fact that it was Lea who got to share in it. We hadn’t seem him this happy since he asked Carly out for the first time, and we hadn’t seen him this happy alongside Lea since she agreed to become roommates (about a year earlier). This counts as one of their most treasured moments at ANY stage of their relationship.

 

But it’s easy to forget the significance of the conversation they were having prior to that text. Lea was now giving advice about something much more intimate than first-date protocol—and this time, Shaun took it. Him being him, he named Lea as the source of said advice when talking to Carly later that day—which displeased Carly, although Shaun was oblivious to her displeasure.

 

Is it any wonder, then, that Carly approached Shaun at work (less than an hour before his lead surgical debut!) and essentially showed him how to feel her up? At the time this episode aired, I must admit Carly’s bold move took me by surprise. (And the timing of it still does, though the debate about Carly’s early sexual “pushiness” rages on.) But in retrospect, it comes off as Carly’s first counterstrike in Lea’s general direction: So, Lea told you to tell me you want to touch only one thing at a time…? Well here’s “ONE THING” for you! Tell Lea how you feel about touching THAT!

(And oh, BTW, I’ve got another one you can touch. But not until later.)

 

I’m going overboard, but given what happened (and didn’t) all the way until “Fractured,” six episodes later… I think it’s noteworthy.

4) “You proved that just because something is hard doesn’t mean you can’t do it.”  (From 2.9 “Empathy”)

I know this is an unusual choice, as the Lea-teaches-Shaun-to-drive saga was scattered throughout “Empathy” and, cumulatively, took over seven minutes to unfold (longer if you include the final scene with them picking Glassman up for his appointment). But since it was far from the lead storyline of the hour, and yet something involving #Shea by themselves for four complete scenes… I’ve gotta include it.

But not all four scenes.

There’s the “visualization” scene in the empty parking lot, the

“panic” scene (when Shaun froze in the midst of traffic), the “pep talk” scene at the apartment where Lea dropped some cool-but-flawed analogies between driving and surgery that got Shaun back behind the wheel…

… which brought us to this one (the one I’m officially including in the countdown):

 

Wow, talk about checking all the boxes! Of course it’s easier to do when you have three other scenes setting up before it, but here… we had triumph (he’d successfully navigated the intersection he’d had trouble with previously). We had turmoil
(soccer kid runs out into street blindly, causing Shaun to swerve and knock over a trash can). We have the drama of Shaun’s self-doubt trying to overtake him as he returns to saying I can’t do this. We have Lea scrambling to re-encourage him when he’s twice as resistant as before. We have her clutch delivery of this task (Who else could have done so? Not so fast, Glassy…)

We even have a touch of chivalry (Shaun going over and opening Lea’s car door, even while distressed), a fair dose of TGD humor (“That soccer ball was a dropped Metzenbaum”/ “I... know, right??”), and last but not least, Shaun’s infectious optimism melding with Lea’s determination, bringing us all the way back around to triumph by the time the scene ends.

Now that their relationship has been re-established and upgraded, let’s hope a few episodes of S4 can spare THIS amount of time, development, and #Shea dedication!

 

(p.s. I looked it up… a Metzenbaum is a type of surgical scissors designed to cut delicate tissue. Keep that fact locked away until a TGD trivia game emerges!)

3) “That was NOT a good joke, Lea!” (From 3.10 “Friends and Family”)

IN SHORT: Lea, trying to get Shaun’s mind off of his troubling reunion with his dying father, convinces him to make a pit stop at a nearby lake so they can run in and back out for an off-season “rush”. Trouble is, Shaun doesn’t recall his dislike for a lake’s accompanying muddy banks until once they’re already there. When Shaun turns out to be inconvincible—despite some heavy persuasion attempts on Lea’s part—she hits the lake alone, disappearing under the surface just long enough to send Shaun into a panic. She emerges just fine, but not before Shaun has offed his shoes and socks in preparation to hit the water looking for her. (The consequential mud on his feet later triggers a memory for Shaun that, combined with the pancake house plea from his mother the following morning, prompts his decision to pay his father one more visit.)

 

BEST REMEMBERED FOR: Maybe nothing sticks out for #Shea fans, aside from this being a rare-at-the-time 2:30 of uninterrupted Shaun and Lea. But the more I’ve watched this scene, the more I’ve thought about how it fits into that sub-stack of #Shea moments that is fraught with the will-they/won’t they palpitating energy of an all-neurotypical twosome on the cusp of Something Bigger.

Ask yourself this: had Shaun willingly stripped down and hit the water alongside Lea… would this scene have ended as innocently as it did?

I mean, think about it. It’s a moonlit lake, and these two are completely alone. They have a romantic history (of sorts) together. He’s dating another woman, but he’s invited THIS woman. They’re in desperate need of a distraction from the misery at the Murphy house. Lea has proposed something that requires stripping down to their skivvies, and while Shaun never comes close to doing so, she certainly follows through. Then comes the flirting… and I don’t mean an endearing nudge of the shoulder like she did during S1. I mean body language. I mean facial expressions. I mean…

 

LOOK

                                             AT   HER.

                                                                                                               

Had Shaun been more aware of such things, and been more in-the-moment in general that night, he could have made an excellent case down the road for Lea leading him on in brutal fashion… for someone who would then turn him away once the declaration of love was made, I mean.

And of course, I don’t mean to suggest Lea was deliberate in toying with Shaun when he was especially vulnerable. In fact, he seemed completely unresponsive to her charms that night once “time for action” arrived. What I am saying is that this was, perhaps, another indicator that Lea was more attracted to Shaun than she realized. Either that, or she was fully aware but didn’t worry about Shaun figuring it out because of his ASD and/or devotion to Carly.

Either way, it was an innovative manner for the show to both re-introduce their chemistry (remember, Lea had been completely AWOL from the show for the two episodes leading up to this one), AND move the storyline with Shaun’s father along.

 

P.S. When Lea told Shaun that the “warm, tingly feeling” one gets from a quick dunk in a freezing lake was “the best high there is”… and Shaun thought a moment, and decided “That can’t be true,” were any of you thinking he was about to follow with something about sex probably being better?

Or was that just me?

I think the TGD writers could have gone down that road, but I’m not sure where it would have led to. Besides, they were saving all the big emotional guns for a certain catapult at the end of the episode. I love what this scene ultimately was… two and a half minutes of #Shea getting back into shape for the highly-eventful second half of the season.

 

2) “My life is better with you.” (From 2.13 “Xin”)

IN SHORT (more long than short this time, sorry): Dr. Glassman, still housebound and feeling exceptionally lousy from his chemo treatments, has flat-out told Shaun he doesn’t want his medical advice anymore and urges him to leave. Back at the apartment, a distraught Shaun has just updated Lea on all this when we catch up with the two of them.

 (Although we don’t see Jake this time around, the fact that Lea’s in her camisole and robe again—and exits to her bedroom and closes the door when she’s done talking to Shaun—implies Jake is waiting for her while she takes time with Shaun. That implication gets underscored later in the episode when Shaun puts on headphones—then leaves the apartment altogether—as Lea carries on with Jake in her room. But I digress…)

She advises Shaun to lay low with Glassman for awhile, but of course the conversation she and Shaun have is much quieter and even-tempered than when Glassman advised the same thing… so it resonates with Shaun this time. “Thank you, Lea,” he says just before she returns to her bedroom. “My life is better with you.”

And he turns back to look her way in time to catch the warm smile she offers in response. “Mine too,” she responds.

BEST REMEMBERED FOR: The tenderness of those last lines.

But to really appreciate what was being said, you have to take into account the way Shaun was introduced to the phrase earlier in the episode…

“Xin” is the one with the autistic roommates/sexual partners (Javi and Lana) that has Lana requiring brain aneurysm surgery, and has Shaun and Morgan trying to convince Javi to join them in the OR since Lana will need to be awake throughout the surgery. When Javi balks at the idea, citing his extreme light sensitivity, Morgan takes a different approach:

“You should do it because you love her,” she tells an initially alarmed Javi. “Your life is better with her. You’re a better person with her. You need her. That’s what love is.”

(And immediately we see the wheels turning in Shaun’s head as he considers this definition of “love”.)

“I don’t love her,” Javi says after some thought. “She’s my roommate.”

(And immediately we see the wheels turning some more for Shaun.)

So yes, Shaun is essentially quoting Morgan when he says what he says to Lea. But, especially without Glassman to talk to at the time, Shaun was piecing together an understanding of romantic love all his own. It would be another year before he put all the pieces together, summoned his courage, and professed his love to Lea out loud in that same apartment. At this point and time, my life is better with you was the biggest sentiment they could share.

That’s why it carries so much weight in the back half of S2, and why I put it so high on this list. Lea may not have realized what her reciprocation was specifically saying to Shaun, but that didn’t make it any less real on her part.

As you may recall, Javi changed course post-operation and told Lana “I think I love you” despite the fact she was his roommate. Shaun heard that part too. He didn’t follow suit with Lea, but by the next episode (“Faces”) he was getting much more curious about love itself… and much more real about his feelings for the Jake/Lea coupledom.

Which takes us to… #1!!!

 

“You want to… talk about last night?”

(From 3.11 “Fractured)

IN SHORT: They, uh, talked about ‘last night.’

 

I’ll get back to that in a minute. But think about what typically leads to a woman asking a man (or man asking woman, etc.) that question, in a hotel/motel room, the morning after ‘last night’. Was this—Shaun and Lea, holding each other tearfully (and fully clothed) all night—different from that?

I say yes and no, for while nothing happened in the traditional sense… something happened. And everything changed as a result.

Obviously the scene with The Embrace was way too pivotal to count

as a “smaller moment”. But rather than push the action back to St. Bonaventure (and a couple weeks later) at the start of “Fractured,” TGD writers kept the Casper motel room, the rumpled clothing, Lea still curled up asleep as Shaun sat on the edge of the bed, looking calmer than when we’d left him but deeply puzzled in thought. No jumping ahead; Shaun and Lea were doing the morning-after thing.

What could they say, though? Shaun was on the verge of realizing something new (or was it??) about his feelings for Lea, but his commitment to Carly remained intact. Lea was, I believe, realizing something new (WAS it???) about her feelings for Shaun, but if his relationship with Carly wasn’t keeping her quiet, her own fears and doubts were certainly doing the trick. Plus we have Shaun as difficult to read (and as short on words) as ever on the morning after… and oh, yeah, the man had just lost his father hours after being verbally assaulted one last time by him. What to say, indeed.

So when Lea suggested that yes, perhaps they should talk about last night, it’s not surprising that Shaun was startled (responding with “Why?”) and remained succinct as Lea veered towards the reason she’d stayed all night (“I feel better now… thank you.”)

Lea knows him well enough by now to know when he’s done talking about something personal, so it was up to her to figure out the right thing to say in that moment, with vulnerability still lingering all around the two of them. She kept it simple (“I’m glad I could help you”), but gave a for-what-it’s-worth suggestion too (“But I don’t think we should tell anybody I stayed all night… people might get the wrong idea.”)

He said Okay, then got up and started packing… and by the end of the week, he’d be asking Lea to move out of their apartment. I guess that’s the way it goes sometimes.

I can say that with the apropos shrug, now that we know things worked out for these two by season’s end. But back in January when “Fractured” aired for the first time, we were coming off a six-week hiatus that felt like… oh, I don’t know, maybe seven bewildering, pandemic-soaked months… and the what-happens-next aspect of #Shea was rather gut-wrenching.

But with dialogue so simple, wrapped in acting that had to be delicate enough to capture a dozen emotional branches in about a minute and 20 seconds, I think this scene hit us the hardest of all of #Shea’s smaller moments.

(And as codas-to-scenes go, Shaun's We slept together followed by Glassman's perfectly delayed Did you use protection? is TGD perfection. Cracks me up every time I watch it.)

What’s YOUR pick for the top 3? What would you have ranked lower? Higher? I wanna know! Lucky for both of us the Comments section is great for that kind of thing!

A "Roommate Years" EXTRA!

Starting this post with a few more updates... I'm now calling this part of the post #SHEA SEEDS...

-- What you see here is the 15-second promo that ABC started running (again) this past week for S4 of The Good Doctor. As you see, it's different from the more generic, 30-second promo I posted here last week in that this one is all about #Shea and helps reinforce the idea-- at least for me-- that their best days are ahead of them and will be in broader focus than ever before.

--Also spotted this week was a TV Guide interview with David Shore where he said the following about Shaun and Lea in S4 (courtesy @endgameShea) 

--And, if you're looking for more about the Sunday night NYComicCon virtual Q&A with TGD cast & crew, including David Shore, Freddie Highmore, and Paige Spara, this might help:

--Something I didn’t get to in last week’s post: a new crop of 1^st year residents, A.K.A. additions to the S4 recurring cast, has been announced! Here’s an article about them…

--And here’s Andreas’ take on the new residents. More opinions are always welcome in the comments! 

But we’ve still got all of October to get through before #Shea’s “best days” get started—and by my count, I still have 7 of those Smaller Moments (from The Roommate Years) to count down…so…

 That’ll be next week. This week, I’ve got a Roommate Years Extra for you!

Now don’t be mad… by the time you finish this article, you’ll probably be able to figure out exactly what seven scenes will make the list AND will be ready to challenge me on the order of importance.

AS A REMINDER: “The Roommate Years” is what I’m calling that spread of time that started after Shaun and Lea (and Hubert the Fish Albert the Fish) had worked out their living arrangement kinks, and ended just before the “Superbass” karaoke night catapulted them to The Next Level, whether they were ready for it or not.

So, let’s pose this as a series of questions:

 

Why didn’t anything from 2.6 “Two-Ply (or Not Two-Ply)” OR 2.7 “Hubert” get included?

 

There were multiple great scenes in both these episodes, including some very important ones for #Shea history (the fight over the remote control, the subsequent makeup-but-you’re-annoying-to-live-with-but-we’re-doing-this-anyway… and I know you can name the crucial scenes from “Hubert” on your own). But it’s impossible to call them #Shea’s Smaller Moments when, in both cases, the entire episode is named for something directly related to these two. So I moved past classic “discussions” like this…

And this one about Hubert looking bored…

Why not include more from 2.12 “Aftermath” than Lea’s dancing scene in the opening of the show?

Mostly because everything else in the episode that pertains to #Shea is ensemble work. The whole episode takes a different pace as it explores everyone’s “Quarantine” recovery, but the Shaun/Lea/Glassman stuff in particular is relaxed, casual, curious, fun… different. Arguably a lot of smaller, semi-ambiguous moments strung together, I suppose, until Shaun comes home from Glassman’s and… meets… Jake. Which pivots us right into the next part of the S2 arc. Definitely not a smaller moment.

But here’s some of the “racing” sequence to placate your “Aftermath” needs anyway:

 

Why did you consider the final #Shea scene from 2.18 “Trampoline” a smaller scene?

Tough call on “Do I look nice?”, to be sure. It was Shaun making a decision about his immediate future that had become very necessary, whether Lea knew it or not. The fact that we were collectively unsure of any hurt on Lea’s part (as he literally passed her by for another woman) is perhaps what tipped this into the “smaller” bin for me. Had the flowers & chocolates been for her? Had he asked her something else? Had she responded differently? Completely different dynamic.

Why not do a countdown of Lea and Glassy’s best scenes too? They’re almost guaranteed to be discussing Shaun and/or Lea’s relationship with him in some capacity…

Frankly, there aren’t enough of them. YET. But I’m making a note for the future!

In the meantime, enjoy this memory of Lea running to Glassman for advice during “Two-Ply”:

Why skip past the “Jake” scenes?

Because who wants to see that guy again?

Just kidding. It’s actually about the weight the scenes carry overall… Shaun’s interactions with Jake and/or Lea are important to Shaun realizing his feelings for the latter. And a case could be made, too, for Lea coming to terms during this time with feelings for Shaun by actively avoiding the possibility with him (and taking up with a new stranger instead). 

Could you share one anyway? Please?

Oh all right.... here’s the early morning/OJ sequence from 2.13 "Xin":

See you back here next week for the rest of the list!

MORE Very Good #Shea Music Videos That Aren't Sheree-Lynn's

 

WE ARE LESS THAN ONE MONTH FROM THE SEASON 4 PREMIERE…

!!!

So, related news keeps coming. Which… and I might speak for more than myself here… is a true blessing to my Twitter feed, particularly in a week like the one we just had.

But what if you aren’t on social media? I know at least a few of you have indicated as much, so it’s for you especially that I’m doing the occasional TGD roundup… this week it goes like this:

·         The first 30-second promo to contain (a few seconds of) new footage is out! Which is to say, it’s mostly old stuff overlaid with some new (?) critical raves. Lea appears twice (amongst the old stuff), so of course we’ll take it. Hopefully we’ll get a trailer with more S4 in it later this month.

·         As for that new footage, we know it’s new because of one key feature: the name badge/lanyard that all the docs are wearing, at least for the “Frontline” 2-parter that opens the season with a pandemic-centric storyline. As this Entertainment Weekly article states, “the doctors now wear photo badges on top of their personal protective equipment so that their patients have something to relate to, since the doctors' faces are covered by masks.” The same article indicates those first two episodes will “follow Dr. Shaun Murphy through the months at the heart of the pandemic”, which of course piques the curiosity as to how many months will be covered through those first two episodes, and how Shaun and Lea’s relationship will be represented over that same timespan… 

·         In other news… and thank you Tony for mentioning this in last week’s comments… TGD cast and showrunners will be part of NYComicCon, which is a virtual event being held NEXT WEEKEND (October 8-11). TGD folks will join in next Sunday, October 11 at 7:45 PM EDT via YouTube! We’ll presumably get the rest of the needs-to-know for this exciting opportunity as the week progresses… but in the meantime… WHAT WOULD YOU WANT TO ASK A CAST MEMBER OR SHOWRUNNER IF YOU HAD THE CHANCE? Post it in the comments!

·         One more thing, for those of you on Twitter: might I suggest you follow @EndgameShea if you haven’t already? It’s the new Twitter account run by the same fabulous team that blesses Instagram under the handle shea.endgame. So the Twitter account is especially welcome if you don't do Instagram.

To pass the time until then, or when the world is too much (again) and you need to expand your happy place…I’m here to remind you that YouTube is your friend! And not just because Sheree Lynn Blizzard has released ANOTHER great #Shea video since I interviewed her… (if you haven’t seen it yet, take a lookbut then hurry back)

Because… I’ve got a new batch of #Shea tribute clips produced by fans other than SLB for show and tell this week!

I displayed several such clips back in August, hoping to introduce fans to at least a few of the better-done ones that hadn’t yet seen much of an audience… and I’m happy to report that at least one of them (“The Scientist,” released in July) has had a SIGNIFICANT boost in views since then: 78 when I posted about it; over 1300 as of now! It might have done that whether or not it ever got mentioned here (all social media word of mouth is valuable for something like that), but it’s great to see nonetheless.

So as you take a look at the dozen clips on this list, I ask the same thing I did last time… if some of you find a clip that’s new (to you, anyway) that you really enjoy, I encourage you to go post about it on your social media of choice. Let’s continue to signal-boost #Shea fans as much as we can!

Oh, and if you “know” any of these video creators… point them this way (to the blog), if they aren’t reading already! (Special thanks to Sheree and others who have already done this!) And if YOU YOURSELF happens to be behind any of these… say so in the comments and take a bow!

NOTE: You may notice that some of these videos are better than others in terms of editing, sound mixing, etc. I did too, but I’m not taking technical quality into account very much.

On the other hand, I admittedly AM more likely to include a clip running, say, longer than two or so minutes because I know those generally take more effort to create, and to hold the interest of the viewer. I have made some exceptions; you’ll see those included as “Honorable Mention” videos.

--

SONG: “I Can See Your Halo” by…J2 (cover of Beyonce’s “Halo”)

PRODUCER: Carolina Edits

RELEASE DATE: 4/5/20

LENGTH: 3:34

VIEWS TO DATE: 1.7K

“Carolina Edits” used to be “Valentina Soler”, in fact, her video Dimelo was featured in my August post with the old username. But by any moniker, she makes thoughtful choices of video, voiceover (including music pauses here and there for said VO), and effects. And if you watch this one, you’ll see just a hint of Spanish-language Shaun and Lea around the 2:44 mark. (She did something similar with Dimelo.)

--

SONG: “I Knew You Were Trouble” by Boyce Avenue (male cover of the Taylor Swift song)

PRODUCER: Shaun The Good Doctor

RELEASE DATE: 4/3/20

LENGTH: 3:25

VIEWS TO DATE: 1.7K

Gotta include these upbeat songs whenever I can… and before you get all skeptical about the song title, we all know it fits their narrative in its own way. Take a look at the way the Striped-Tomato-hits-rock sequence from “Islands” is used here…works, doesn’t it? The video is also noteworthy for rarely-used clips from 2.4 “Tough Titmouse” (the one where Shaun hoped bringing Lea a donut would smooth things over for them)… and let’s just say the clip chose for the lyric “Now I’m lying on the cold hard ground” is very well-played. 

-- 

SONG: “Not Today” by Imagine Dragons

PRODUCER: Minhas Musicas

RELEASE DATE: 4/10/18

LENGTH: 4:08

VIEWS TO DATE: 32.8K

It’s gotta get easier and easier somehow/But not today… is the understandable refrain on the song chosen for this creation, and that makes particular sense when you see that it was released in April 2018, when Lea had not yet returned from Hershey (unlike many of the others in this collection produced post Season 3 finale). No dialogue is featured; just a lot of lovely S1 greatest hits.

--

SONG: “Kiss Me” by Ed Sheeran

PRODUCER: Carolina Edits

RELEASE DATE: 9/29/20

LENGTH: 5:24

VIEWS TO DATE: 69

Don’t let the intro to this one fool you… it’s about 55 seconds into the clip, after the Shaun-asks-for-his-batteries-back scene, that it really gets started. The Friends and Family Embrace comes not long after that, and when you see and hear the lyrics chosen for that moment you’ll be quite taken by their utter accuracy. From there, it’s mostly about the song itself, and the selections made during the instrumental section (really good use of the S1 scene of Shaun standing on a crowded bus, looking at the “pine trees’ text Lea sent him, getting lost in the memory of her… SIGH). And yes, all the #Shea kisses are timed out beautifully with the “Kiss Me” refrain of the song. 

And as you can see by the date on this, it’s a brand-new release from the one who gave us the “Halo” clip I mentioned earlier… let’s show Kiss Me some extra #Shea love! 

--

SONG: “Love Me Back” by R I T U A L/ Tove Styrke

PRODUCER: Cutiejea

RELEASE DATE: 11/7/19

LENGTH: 2:58

VIEWS TO DATE: 1.6K

Another intriguing song choice; it’s a male/female duet and the resulting refrain “Please don’t love me back” could be used by both Shaun and Lea at different times (Shaun when he was still figuring it out for himself; Lea when she’d figured it out but feared what would happen once HE did). Only contains video through the 2.1 “Hello” episode, but that includes some lesser-seen bits from both parts of the “Islands” episode.

--

SONG: “Snow” by Sleeping at Last

PRODUCER: Miss Zombie

RELEASE DATE: 12/14/19

LENGTH: 2:41

VIEWS TO DATE: 9.9K

This song is holidayesque, but in a somber-as-snow-to-rain way. This tribute, which includes Friends and Family footage but is mostly about S1 and S2, captures some of fragility of Shaun and Lea’s relationship as well as its underlying strength. 

-- 

SONG: “The Light” by The Album Leaf

PRODUCER: NatalieProductions

RELEASE DATE: 9/4/20

LENGTH: 5:40

VIEWS TO DATE: 2.4K

This is a completely different production from “Light” by Sleeping At Last (the artists mentioned in the previous clip), which I featured last time around. “The Light” is an all-instrumental entry by the fan who gave us “The Scientist” earlier in the summer, and the music provides a bright, shimmery backdrop as the #Shea-to-date story is recapped, mostly chronologically, through dialogue and voiceovers.

-- 

SONG: “I Like Me Better” by Lauv

PRODUCER: Mari

RELEASE DATE: 1/17/19

LENGTH: 2:19

VIEWS TO DATE: 7.7K

For those of us who adore seeing Paige Spara in the official music video for this hit by Lauv,  here’s a shorter edit of the song intercut with S1 & S2 clips from the show. Those who voted this same song to be part of our #Shea Ultimate S.O.S.Playlist are sure to enjoy! 

-- 

SONG: “You’re My Sunflower” by Shaun Reynolds (Feat. Esmée Denters)  (Cover of “Sunflower” by Post Malone/Swae Lee)

PRODUCER: M O O D

RELEASE DATE: 4/12/20

LENGTH: 2:49

VIEWS TO DATE: 55.9K

M O O D has drawn sizable views for the “I Can’t Make You Love Me” edit I featured last time, and is doing the same with this clip—which has the benefit of including the S3 finale kiss footage, and good amounts of S1, S2, and S3 in between it all.  And although the lyrics are not included on screen, you can read them in the descriptor section below (especially helpful to someone like me who is not a big Post Malone fan).

AS FOR THE HONORABLE MENTIONS…

 

SONG: “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” by Sleeping At Last  (Cover of The Police song)_

PRODUCER: QUINN

RELEASE DATE: 1/15/18

LENGTH: 1:52

VIEWS TO DATE: 16.8K

 

Apparently #Shea fans are also Sleeping At Last fans—3^rd time that band appears here! Anyway, with this clip running less than 2 minutes it clearly doesn’t have as much content (and time invested) as other ones. But it’s lovingly crafted just the same, and gets bonus points for a very good video choice on the “even though my life before was tragic” line. Dang, the whole song is such a good fit for Shaun’s POV…

--

TITLE: Lea falling for Shaun for 2 Minutes Straight

PRODUCER: ItsGigiBitch

RELEASE DATE: 5/18/20

LENGTH: 2:01

VIEWS TO DATE: 1.7K

Exactly what the title says it is. It’s “not perfect”, as the descriptor beneath the video will tell you—audio levels are too hot and the edits are a little wonky—but the sentiment is pure. 

-- 

 

TITLE: Lea Dilallo | scene finder [S1] (also S2 and S3 available)

PRODUCER: scene seekers

RELEASE DATE: 2/26/20

LENGTH: 1:18

VIEWS TO DATE: 3.4K

Last but definitely not least, here’s one of my favorite discoveries of late… a supercut for each season of TGD featuring JUST Lea speaking, reacting, etc. at a brisk pace. The marvelous detail to look for is in the top left corner of the screen, where each clip is accompanied by both the episode number in which it was featured AND the time into the episode that it occurred! Apparently the scene seekers channel does this for multiple characters in multiple TV series… I’m just glad they’ve chosen to give Lea a place of her own in that universe. I’m only posting the S1 clip here, but if you follow the link over to YouTube, you should find S2 and S3 easily.

This one might be for LeaGeeks only, but maybe you qualify…?  I surely do.