State of the #SHEA Part 29: 15 Ways to Love (Decrypting With) Our Lea

“Lea was EVERYWHERE and I loved it. 

(More than 2 scenes + talked about in multiple scenes = ‘everywhere’”

-- Me, blogging about TGD 3.15 “Unsaid” a little over a year ago

Well well well… what a difference 12 months makes! 

It took three and a half years for Lea to take center stage in an episode, and who knows if she’ll ever be featured so prominently on her own again. But we can revel in the fact that “Decrypt” gave Paige Spara no less than a dozen scenes in which to shine. I wonder if she ever imagined she’d really get such an opportunity to carry an episode back in the early days of S3, as she (and we) patiently waited for #Sharly to run its course?

Helping to showcase Spara so nicely was none other than Freddie Highmore, in the director’s chair for the third time with “Decrypt” (his previous efforts were 1.15 “Risk and Reward” and, of course, 3.16 “Autopsy” with Shaun’s first profession of love to Lea). The unique challenge with this week’s episode came with the subject matter; tech issues just don’t play out with the same inherent drama as, say, a patient going into cardiac arrest. The initial discovery of the St.B network collapse allowed for some excitement-- cue Claire taking a hatchet to the cabinets that couldn’t recognize Olivia’s code-- but it got trickier after that.

Human interaction always helps, which made both Glassman (as the intermediary of sorts) and the cybersecurity insurance rep (as the sort-of bad guy) essential for Lea-- especially since the network hackers were unseen. But the rest of her work basically involved Lea-and-a-laptop here and Lea-and-multiple-computer-units there. And much of her time was spent in the hospital's server room, which, I suspect, is typically dimly lit with little room to sit OR stand. No wonder Highmore called it “that wonderful dark server room” (with a fair dose of sarcasm) during his interview earlier in the week with GMA3… I suspect making it look authentic was one of the bigger challenges of the episode.

And with the help of intense music, unique camera angles, good edit pacing, and of course Paige’s stellar non-verbal acting, we got as exciting an hour as we ever get from TGD. Did you notice neither of the actual medical operations during “Decrypt” required heroic efforts? I suspect that’s yet another reason Lea’s turn in the hero’s seat was special. 

So, with no further adieu (and with apologies to Paul Simon-- if anyone other than Tony Payne gets that reference, let me know!), allow me to delineate 15 Ways to Love Our Lea during “Decrypt”...

1) She has rough starts just like the rest of us.

Poor Lea slept through her alarm, stubbed her toe, got a parking ticket, discovered a flat on the Striped Tomato… and THEN she had to deal with Dr. Glassman as soon as she finally got to work? No wonder her guard was up the moment those elevator doors closed...

2) Nonetheless, her self-sufficiency shines through.

Glassman may have seemed presumptuous with his surprise
that a millennial such as Lea could change her own tire, but in reality, only 25% can (according to the 3 minutes I spent researching that fact). Guess what, though? As you might infer from Lea's self-admitted struggles for proper recognition, it turns out only 28% of those with careers in STEM (Science, Engineering, Technology, Mathematics) are women. Sounds like Lea’s an against-the-odds person in more ways than one! No wonder she’s so self-reliant. It’s a necessity...

3) Her struggle, as a woman in a male-dominated STEM world, is real.

I can relate to this one a bit myself, having spent time working
in the video production industry dating back to the 1980s and often being the only woman on a crew of at least a half-dozen men. Aside from the lopsided pay, crude jokes, and unwanted innuendo you tolerate, there is a deep-seated need to prove you can “hang with the big boys,” especially in a crisis. (OK, "crisis" isn't the right word for a video production problem, but you know what I mean.) It’s exhausting, to be honest. The longer you keep at it, the more exhausting it may become.

And when you’re exhausted, the vulnerabilities are bound to come out when you’re around a loved one-- someone you feel safe with-- during those times. Which leads me to Shaun and Lea’s “sandwich” exchange...

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It starts with Shaun bringing Lea her favorite sandwich (turkey/avocado/swiss on wheat w/mayo, for those adding that nugget to Lea's file alongside "Skittles"). It's a lovely gesture on Shaun's part, but in his effort to connect with his hard-working ladylove he fails to process Lea’s need to focus from both her body language (not looking at him when she answers him) and tone (cuts him off; she’s too busy to talk so she speaks very quickly). 

So when he launches into his patient-of-the-day story, his inability to "read the room" rubs Lea the wrong way. So much so, in fact, that Lea tells Shaun something he’s probably never heard from her before: you’re just like all the other men I've ever had to deal with.

Unfortunately (also, of course), she didn’t mean this in a good way. And, honestly? She probably didn’t mean it at all. She knows Shaun; she knows better than to associate him with any of the ignorant, thoughtless mansplainers around which she’s had to bite her tongue through the years.

But, as mentioned before, she was BUSY… too busy to talk, and also too busy to wait for Shaun to explain why he said “it’s different” in response to her asking if he’d interrupt Glassy with a sandwich and conversation during a brain surgery. He’d continue his thought a little later in the scene (“It’s different because you can’t bring food into the OR”), but by then, she’d already decided in her haste, and in that moment, that Shaun didn’t respect her.

Can we talk about how perfect it was for the scene to end with Lea getting an excited look on her face, saying “I’ve got to go,” then immediately leaping to her feet and running off without another thought to the man sitting alongside her…! It was clear that this wasn’t an “I’m so frustrated I can’t be around you right now” thing; rather, it was the equivalent of all the times Shaun has had some sort of epiphany about a case that prompts him to address it ASAP. This time, Shaun was the one left behind. What better visual to help him appreciate Lea’s importance, right?

Except he already appreciated it… he just needed more time to express it, as we saw later.

(Worth noting: Remember when, during the painful baseball bat scene in “Heartbreak” last season, Shaun said “You acted like you cared about me… but you don’t even respect me”…? Thomas L. Moran was involved in both that script, and “Decrypt”… so he’s responsible for both sides of the “respect” discussion, I guess you could say.)

*** BACK TO THE LIST***

4) Her impulsive nature extends to the very words that come out of her mouth.

Case in point for “Decrypt”: the tail end of Lea’s server room exchange with Glassman...

Lea: If I can find a mistake in their encryption software, I might be able to get our data back. Of course I’ll also have to retrace the attack chain to find the exact “door” they came in, otherwise, we might as well toss every computer we have into the recycle… bin…” 

Glassman: If you’re trying to convince me to not pay the ransom, you maybe shouldn’t have said that last part.

Lea (nods) I realized that as I was saying it.

5) Her intentions are as honorable as those of her medical-minded co-workers.

From going all out to keep ransom money from the “bastards,” “bad guys,” etc. to bickering with the cybersecurity insurance rep, to calling the corrupted server her “patient” as she diligently salvaged it from the recycle bin…my goodness. Glassman should find her some sort of honorary St. B lapel pin after what she accomplished.

6) She knows her stuff, and it shows.

More importantly, it negated any last reason Glassy had to doubt her (at least from a professional standpoint). With every exchange they had, he couldn’t help but silently marvel at her dedication, quick-thinking, and dogged determination to “save the hospital”. 

By the way, someone needs to create a drinking game to correlate with every time Glassman rests his face in his left hand. They wouldn’t be able to drive after this particular episode…

7) She doesn’t back down from a (huge, can’t-be-done) challenge.

Some may wonder how someone with a low self-image such as Lea would pounce on the challenge within “Decrypt” rather than back away from it. In my experience, those with image/esteem issues can often dive into their work (to prove themselves, get validation, etc.) with considerably more success than they do their personal life.

Also, in Lea’s case, there’s that boss/would-be father-in-law with whom she’s just starting to get along in a very real way… not that she consciously had time to think about that during “Decrypt,” but to get an opportunity to impress Glassy the Grouch in a way that has nothing to do with her role as Shaun’s girlfriend? YES. Sign her up. 

8) She’s passionate about her work (even if her current work isn’t her absolute PASSION)

So thorough were they with Lea as a character in “Decrypt,” they even found a way to recap her S1 work history (for those who weren’t aware of her background building software for self-driving cars). Those who’ve been with TGD since the start also know that the reason Lea moved back home to Hershey, PA-- to pursue her passion for automobiles by trying to help keep her late grandfather’s body shop (That’s what it was, right?) afloat. 

When she returned to San Jose in S2, her crushing “what happened in Hershey” disappointment was palpable at times. Still, she regained a job that seemingly combined her love of cars and computers… until she determined it to be part of “a rut” in her life. Which ultimately led her to (finally) be part of the St. B team.

Given all that, it seems unlikely that being the IT director at a hospital satisfies every career aspiration she’s ever had. But that doesn’t mean she phones in her efforts. Ever.

9) She'a a hilarious name-dropper.

For those who were wondering (I certainly was), Sidney Crosby plays in the NHL for Pittsburgh-- home to Spara herself-- and, according to Wiki, is "widely regarded as one of the best hockey players of all time."

"Beer leagues," on the other hand, simply exist for the love of the game.

(Thanks to Amy D. for catching the reference!)

10) She works well with others... even when it's difficult.

"Decrypt” was the first episode of TGD that featured Lea with Glassy more than Lea with Shaun. The “you don’t respect me” thing with Shaun…? We knew that wasn’t accurate; we knew they’d work that out. The dynamic with Glassy was more complex because even though the two of them had a breakthrough in the “Parenting” episode, we hadn’t seen them working on something independent of Shaun until now. (The closest we saw was Lea’s initial St. B’s interview last season, which was a total bust until she revealed her own mad hacking skills... and then he admitted he needed her.) 

What was especially endearing about the structure of the script was that, on the surface, they started and ended the episode in almost the same way: a one-on-one conversation that elevated quickly (no pun intended, regarding that first scene) to where both were talking over each other... then settled down with calmer words from Glassy and a response from Lea that, while equal in intent, was delivered with a fair amount of restraint.

The difference came with the poker game at his house in the final seconds of the closing music montage. There Lea is, no Shaun to be found, a guest in Dr. Glassman’s home, hanging with him and his poker buddies and holding her own. Who knew…?

11) She still needs to be reined in at times.

As awesome as her impulsive “if I had a mic, I’d drop it” moment was, Glassman was correct to grill her a bit, and require her to get all the way from 95 to 100% before taking her victory lap.

12) She seeks advice from Shaun even when things aren’t perfect between them.

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Here it is, in case you blinked

What she really sought during their impromptu heart-to-heart was permission to do what she felt was necessary for the hospital, regardless of risk. Shaun, for his part, was fine with “advice” when she made a medical analogy for him. But when that analogy went sideways, with Shaun blurting “I don’t know what you want me to say” in frustration, Lea quickly decided she was asking more of Shaun than he could give… which led to a quick apology, a quick kiss (we’ll take it, thanks!), and a quick exit. Almost.

Because this time, Shaun had the rest of his thought about the “can’t bring food into the OR” thing ready to go. And he made sure she heard it.

Which was vital, because in doing so (and concluding with an assurance of respect that was good as gold), she no longer needed his permission to trust her instincts… because she felt able to give herself that permission.

13) Her crises of confidence are counterbalanced with episodes of fierce brilliance.

Self-explanatory. Did you watch the episode? Yeah… self-explanatory.

14) She knows how to enjoy a moment.

Even if it really is, you know... just a moment.

15) If Lea Dilallo can finally win over Dr. Aaron Glassman... she might be able to win over damn near anyone.

And what's not to love about that?

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QUICK NOTE ABOUT THE UPCOMING EPISODE:

I know speculation is once again running rampant regarding the next episode ("We're All Crazy Sometimes," airing Monday 3/8). Obviously I didn't have time to talk about it here, but I plan to write a new "speculation" post next week, ahead of the episode. If you've ideas about the "Crazy" episode that you'd like to share, please post them either:

A) In the comments section of THIS post

B) Via a DM to me on Twitter

C) Via email: KLawrence997-at-gmail-dot-com

State of the #SHEA Part 28: Shame, Shame ("Irresponsible Salad Bar Practices")

 

Another splinter under the skin

Another season of loneliness

I found a reason and buried it

Beneath a mountain of emptiness

Shame, shame

-- Foo Fighters, "Shame Shame" 

--

As Dr. Claire Browne and Dr. Enrique “Boardshorts” Guerin leaned on the railing in that final shot of TGD’s 2/15/21 episode, bonding in the wake of all the eye-opening that had gone down in the past couple days at St. B, I thought about Claire’s last lines about “having to make white people comfortable” to get where they were in life (“they”= People Of Color)... 

And I thought of all the intriguing, maddening and crucial things in the episode that had little to no representation in the episode’s promotion… and of TDP (That Damn Promo) we did get, which had us #Shea supporters tied up in knots for three long weeks… and I thought, All that hype over a dream kiss that never came close to becoming real, that ultimately served as the comic relief subplot! Shame on you for toying with us, ABC. 

But then I thought about the concept of shame itself, and how its presence was felt in so many parts of the episode I’m kind of surprised it wasn’t the actual title… and that’s when TDP made more sense-- albeit in its own, twisted way.

Episode 4.9 was NOT named “Shame,” but “Irresponsible Salad Bar Practices.” We know why now, and don’t worry, I’m still covering all things #Shea (such as they were) in this post, but the episode was also informative, intriguing, greatly upsetting… and from what I can tell, not all viewers would attach those adjectives to the same aspects! Let’s jump in-- 

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Shame (The Headliner):

Lim’s refusal to address her PTSD sends her to her breaking point

It’s been difficult pinpointing the rise and fall of story arcs this season, in part because of 1) the COVID 2-part season opener throwing things off balance from previous seasonal set-ups, and 2) the staggered delivery of episodes due in part to COVID in real life (5 weeks on, 6 weeks off; 3 weeks on, 3 weeks off). So after Lim shared some pretty dark moments onscreen with Claire (in 4.8 “Parenting”), I kind of expected Lim’s storyline to tread water for a few episodes, with its dramatic climax arriving somewhere around episode 14 or 15. And I kind of pictured that climax to involve a tragic patient situation on Lim’s watch. Yes, I knew Glassman was paying her a Claire-requested welfare check this week, but I thought she might skate through it somehow while her disdain for Claire’s “help” intensified. 

But as it turns out, this is the ONE part of the ABC promo represented with accuracy... in that the PTSD storyline was intense, and important, and came to a head when Lim suffered a panic attack right in the middle of Rio’s surgery. For about 10 long seconds, she turned away from everyone in the OR and struggled to get a grip while her team awaited instructions on dealing with the air embolism that had formed. 

She ended up making a “nice save,” as Park called it, but the next time we saw Lim she was returning to her office and staring down an unfilled prescription for sertraline (an anti-depressant). By the end of the episode she’d informed both Andrews and Claire that she’d begun taking it-- a HUGE step, given not only the resistance she’d shared with Claire in previous episodes but her concern about her vulnerability as a rare woman of color in the Chief of Surgery position.

It appears, then, that Lim is on the downswing of her PTSD struggle. I tend to think that will open up some time for TGD to focus on neglected story arcs-- Morgan and Park are at the top of my list, and we’re around the mid-point of the season. Seems a good time for a shift in the momentum.

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Shame of Claire realizing she profiled Zara upon her arrival to the ER...

AND-- Shame of St. Bonaventure in general, via two sets of statistics

Think of Zara’s case as a portal into Black History Month… the kind of Black history that’s more tragic than triumphant. 

It started with Claire doing a bit of racial profiling when Zara entered St. B’s ER unit, so right from the start an interesting choice was made (having a fellow black woman doing the profiling). To be honest, I thought her making negative assumptions of Zara might have more to do with her Mom than anything else (a loud, singing, “messy” black woman who appeared to be on something? That was Breeze, in Claire’s mind.) But I see two reasons the writers opted not to go there: 1) it interfered with the very important points they were making, and 2) as it happens, Claire just referenced Breeze in the previous episode, telling Lim she’d embodied her mom when she’d (drunkenly) argued at the bar over Lim’s PTSD management. If she were to see “Mom” in Zara too, it might seem as if Claire still has lingering issues with her late parent. (Which she probably does, but…not relevant in this particular episode.)

Anyway, I thought the Zara story was exceptionally well done. Between the current pandemic, and vaccination efforts for said pandemic, there have been many stories brought to light regarding racial disparity in health care. But it’s not the kind of thing that will gracefully find its way into medical drama scripts very often. (Not that it should have to be done “gracefully,” but suffice to say there’s a fair amount of viewers out there who bristle at something that feels even remotely like a lecture rather than “entertainment.”)

So TGD went with the Go big or go home strategy, and created a story with multiple touchpoints… including:

• The aforementioned racial profiling

• The pleasure of a POC getting care from an all-POC surgical team (that won’t “talk down to her”)

• The fact that doctors are 22% less likely to give pain meds to black patients with the same symptoms as white patients-- a statistic you can also find right here in this Women's Health article from January

•  A brutally honest admission by the hospital president himself (Glassman) that when it came down to it, ALL the hospitals in the region had low numbers of POC patient satisfaction (But St. B was, apparently, the best of the bad)

• A report assembled (offscreen) by Lea, at Claire’s request, which backed up Glassman’s words with the revelation that St. B was systematically under-treating POC “by a considerable margin” with regards to pain management. 

Will we ever see a follow-up on this topic on TGD? That remains to be seen. With Claire’s pain management report largely overshadowed by Lim’s discussion of her PTSD, we saw very little reaction to the report itself, and zero indications that it will be a topic at the next St. B board meeting.  And the fact that the episode’s dialogue ended on a rhetorical question from Claire --“We had to (make white people comfortable), right? To be here?”-- reminds us how open-ended and ongoing the race conversation is, and has to be.

But with Zara’s story having closure (including as satisfying an ending with Claire as we could realistically hope for), I’d like to think the message has been received by at least a few (thousand? million?) more people.

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Shame (subplot): Shaun is terrified of his “work crush”

(This, as regular readers of this blog know, sparked a firestorm of preliminary speculation and/or debate, both with this post and this follow-up post)

So! How are you feeling about it now? Relieved Lea handled the situation so skillfully? Disappointed that it didn’t open up to deeper drama? Angry that Shaun’s dream kiss with Dr. Cintia D’Souza went on for about 20 freaking seconds (while Shaun and Lea’s physicality for this episode involved nothing more than linking arms as they left the hospital together)?

It all started with Morgan pitching her version of Claire’s Flirting Trifecta while she, Park, and Jordan watched Shaun and Dr. D’Souza from afar. Would Shaun have gotten D’Souza “in his brain” if those three hadn’t teased him about it?  We’ll never know, nor will we ever know much about D’Souza at all. But from what we did see, she seemed a perfectly nice young woman who at least found Shaun attractive… and if we don’t want to go so far to say Shaun was instantly drawn to her, perhaps we can agree he was responding (via mild body language) to being found attractive by an attractive woman. That makes sense, right? Let’s pretend it does because I’m moving on…

Next up was Shaun’s DREAM… a.k.a. the only place where “Do you mind if I lower the volume by four output levels?” sounds like foreplay…

Whether you watched the scene or skipped it out of sheer discomfort/dismay, you probably know by now that not only did Shaun dream-kiss the second-year radiology resident, but he kept on kissing her… which (briefly) turned into a horizontal kiss... all the way until D’Souza quietly disappeared, and Shaun sat up, startled as hell, in bed alongside a sleeping Lea. 

Why did they do so much with that when an “almost kiss” (with Shaun waking up the moment before it happened) probably would have sufficed? My guess is that director Felipe Rodriguez made that decision, opting for a more languid transition from the dream (and Shaun’s waking from it) to the final scene of the act, which was back at the hospital. And let’s face it… if it were a year ago, and Shaun had a dream about kissing Lea while sleeping alongside Carly, we would have appreciated that sequence to pieces. 

(NOTE: the Shea Endgame IG account created a hashtag this week called #WhereIsMySheaKiss, for obvious reasons… if you are on social media and are inclined to raise your voice on the matter, please consider tagging posts appropriately!)

Speaking of Carly, I was surprised she got a mention (first time anyone’s uttered her name on TGD since her final appearance during last year’s “Autopsy” episode). But she was mentioned for good reason-- Shaun was comparing his current situation to his prior one. It was telling the way Shaun asked, with so much sadness, if his attraction to D’Souza meant he was supposed to be with her (instead of Lea). In a totally Shaun way, it made sense to ask the question. But it was also crystal clear that he’s already with the one he feels he’s supposed to be with. 

During this scene, did Park win back anyone who wanted to throttle him early in the episode for telling Shaun love and attraction weren’t mutually exclusive? I mean, this time he WAS the one who put Shaun’s initial fear to rest with the assuring “You’ve loved Lea for years…”  (In other words… "This is nothing like when you were with Carly, dude.")

Next up, we had Shaun and Lea in the cafeteria (so much for that “nice dinner” Jordan suggested), where Shaun stated his Work Crush as if relieved just to be able to label it. Once he got to describing his dream, Lea cutting him off with an irritated “OK, I get it” was the closest thing we saw to her being upset by what she heard. And as she clarified soon after, there was little reason for her to be jealous when Shaun harbored no real-life intentions towards Dr. D’Souza.

Still Shaun seemed ashamed by the very thought of a non-Lea attraction… and that’s when Sherlock Dilallo took matters into her own hands. Was she checking out the “competition” when she stalked D’Souza in the cafeteria? Certainly. But she’d also wiggled her way into Shaun’s busier-than-usual brain by then, channeling just enough of his sensory-sensitive ways to come up with a plan for D’Souza defeat. 

And that plan? Nothing short of delightful. Only in #Shea land would a woman help her man in this way-- especially when it turned out that D’Souza’s cinnamon scent and peculiar affinity for earlobe massage were actually mild turn-ons to Shaun (eek!). But it was D’Souza’s Irresponsible Salad Bar Practices that proved her downfall… the focus that allowed Shaun to manage the “discomfort” that his crush had become.

(By the way, it took a deft touch to keep Lea being “serious” about D’Souza’s negative qualities without sounding like she was mocking Shaun’s ability to be totally turned off by them. Kudos, once again, to Paige Spara for striking just the right balance in that scene.)

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Shame of Shaun for having questions about pregnant transgender man Rio, and his relationship with Eli 

TGD brings it once again with the unique cases, and as always, Shaun has so. Many. Questions. that he doesn’t filter the way an NT doctor might. Often the script meets this with surprisingly open patients (“That’s okay, I don’t mind questions” after a fellow doctor gives the mildly reprimanding “Dr. Murphy…”), but this time Lim kicked Shaun out of the room the moment he started questioning how a gay man could consider himself “gay” when his partner was still biologically female. It wouldn’t be the only time Lim’s patience with Shaun ran thin this week-- she also brought an abrupt end to his “What makes a man?” wonderings in the ER later in the episode-- and given her own struggles, we could lay this at the feet of the PTSD monster without much argument. But especially in the first scenario, it could also be a sign of things to come for Shaun... less shocked/amused tolerance of his blunt queries, more “go figure it out, Murphy.” 

Which apparently he did, affecting him enough to offer the rare apology to Eli on his way to convince Eli to continue supporting Rio, even if he wasn’t in agreement with his choices. That was my favorite Shaun scene of the week, BTW (that didn’t involve Lea I mean). Cynics might see it as a crutch TGD leans on too easily, but I always enjoy it when Shaun finds a way to connect with patients-- and their loved ones-- through his personal ASD struggles. 

Curiously, the script paired Shaun’s frustrations with the trans relationship (“If I don’t ask questions, how can I understand?”) with his frustrations over Dr. D’Souza, even seeming to attribute both matters to his brain “not behaving the way he wanted it to.” Ultimately, scriptwriters Sam Chanse and Liz Friedman (about time I actually named them!) decided his questions about Rio and Eli were better left unanswered, at least on a scripted TV series like TGD. Which meant Shaun ended up defaulting to “the kissing dream” twice-- once with Park and Jordan, and again with Lea-- as a way of exhibiting Shaun’s need-to-know without actually delving into more conversation about it. 

Interesting tactic, huh? It makes me wonder which came first, frankly… the pregnant trans man storyline, or the D’Souza flirtation? As complex a story as it was, I think it was the former. After all, had Shaun been of the mindset that he needed to kiss D’Souza in real life...well, it’d be a story of its own and we wouldn’t be talking about this the same way. But perhaps Chance/Friedman thought of this the way so many of us did at first glance (Shaun betraying Lea, even with “just” a kiss? No way!), finding instead that his panic over the possibility could serve many purposes… not the least of which was a way to divert away from his Eli/Rio stream-of-consciousness efforts. 

Then came along the SHAME of ABC’s promotional department…

And let me just say off the top here that those editors had to work H A R D to find a shot of Lea looking “unhappy” in this episode. The fact that they were able to take this shot of Lea

(from the hilarious “Good news for you, bad news about Dr. D’Souza” scene), slow it down a tad, and turn it into part of their contrived drama? Genius. Seriously. 

But as the episode wrapped up, and I was thinking those Shame on you, ABC thoughts I mentioned earlier, I thought about the episode as a whole: In THIS corner, we have a gay couple, one of whom is a transgender man who happens to be pregnant. And in THIS corner, we have a black woman who is not afraid of demanding the care all patients are entitled to… even if it makes white doctors and/or hospital administrators uneasy.

In fact, if you look at the episode synopsis officially released by ABC for the “Irresponsible…” episode, you see a whole lot of careful wording:

Lim is challenged by the unique circumstances surrounding a pregnant patient with an aggressive tumor. Elsewhere, after misdiagnosing a patient, Claire makes a disconcerting discovery about certain practices at the hospital.

Don't ask if they could have been any vaguer with that description-- they couldn't, short of Lim did something and then Claire did something after doing something else.

Why bypass both unique (Rio) and vital (Zara) stories in favor of Lim’s PTSD and Shaun’s much-too-long dream? That’s why I was saying shame on ABC… I thought they’d chosen the easy way out. But as several of you mentioned when I posed the question on Twitter, they probably felt they had to downplay the controversial aspects of the script simply to get it an audience.

One look at the IMDB comments for the episode proves that point:

So over it! How many times to we need to be told the White people are the root of every evil in the world??? So over it.

The election is over. Can we just enjoy a tv show without politics?! I've never seen so much garbage in an episode. Stop talking about race and just see each other as humans without colors.

I've never hated an episode more than this one. Too PC if there's even such a thing. Don't watch this one and wait for the next is my advice.

I get some woke bs but come on man how much can you cram down someone's throat at one time? 

I'm ok with shows having a political inclination but this episode only goes to show that if that inclination turns into a plot device itself nothing good comes from it. No subtlety, no nuance, just in your face politics… This is not what made this show great. The only decent part of the episode was Shaun and Lea.

Well, as they say, even a broken clock is right a couple times a day. 🙄

“Irresponsible Salad Bar Practices” was penned by Liz Friedman and Sam Chanse, and while Friedman is a familiar name among the TGD scribes, Chanse is a new voice (you can find out more about her here). She’s a Brooklyn-based writer who tends to focus on theater; with her name now associated with an episode like this, it’ll be interesting to see how often she’s asked to contribute to TGD in the future.

If the general viewing audience is more reflective of the IMDB comments than the ones I’ve made here, well… maybe we won’t go down roads less traveled for a while on TGD.

In which case save that last “shame” for me, and anyone else who hoped for better.

NOTE: if you thought well of TGD’s “Irresponsible...” episode, please consider going to the IMDB site yourself and rating it… it currently has a 4.9 out of 10, which I hear is the lowest in quite some time.  

ANOTHER NOTE: The comments within this blog are another great place to share your thoughts on the show/episode/#Shea; whether you enjoyed what you saw this week or not, I’d love to hear from you!