State of the Shea Pt. 84: In Search of Those Needing “Critical Support”
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“Critical Support” is one of those episode titles that leaves you scratching your head a bit. You know you never heard those words spoken in the episode of TGD that bears its name, so instead you think about WHY that title was chosen. Who was in particular need of critical support?
Was it a nod to actor Bria Samone Henderson (aka Jordan), who was written out of this one episode because her mother had passed and she was attending her funeral? (Probably not, but I like the idea of it anyway. If anyone’s in critical need of support, it’s a daughter who’s just lost her mom.)
Was it more about the various goings-on with the regulars of the show than the Patients Of The Week? (Well, yeah… that’s almost always the case, after all.)
Did anyone play with the words a little, as I did, and think about how they are almost opposites – As in, Can one be critical of someone and supportive of them at the same time? The answer to that is YES, but so much of it comes down to specifically WHAT is said, and HOW you say it.
This leads to me to think (unsurprisingly) that the situation with Shaun and Charlie lent itself most easily to the title. But there was enough room under that umbrella for just about everyone.
As I touch on each of the storylines of “Critical Support,” I’ll pull lines of dialogue from throughout the show– Something I hope to do in all the episodes of this abbreviated final season (including eps I’ve already written about!). Let’s gooo…
“... It’s the next big step to something you’re not sure you want.” — Kalu to Asher, regarding the latter’s aversion to hanging with Jerome’s family
I’m starting with the #Jasher developments of the episode because they were both relatively minor in nature, and the least connected to other storylines… though I wonder if that will still be the case given what we know thus far of the “Who at Peace” and “M.C.E.” episodes. (I’m late on writing this update, but it’s still before seeing “Who at Peace” on 4/2.)
Anyway… as I sought a “critical support” tie to #Jasher it simply boiled down to the one line I wrote in my notes to summarize: Jerome feels Asher’s participation in things involving his family is vital to their growth as a couple… and with some prodding from Kalu, Asher bends. Yes, there’s more to it than that, as Kalu’s above quote confirms (WHY did Asher need prodding in the first place?) But this time around, Asher got out of his comfort zone, sat amongst the hockey-loving crowd that is Jerome’s fam, and appeared to enjoy himself more than expected. “Critical support” successfully administered, for now…
“Okay. Let’s go save a hand.” – Park to Dom
It can’t be easy being med student Dominick Hubank. Not only is he struggling to get a grip on his hemophobia as he puts himself through the paces of this surgical round of study… he’s a big guy somehow caught in the shadow of his diminutive, loquacious classmate. So when he talks, I listen with both ears– whether he’s keeping it real with Morgan (more on that shortly), or having little heart-to-hearts with Park.
Dom’s aversion to blood makes for a fun sight gag, but the deeper dig into the character produces a young man who’s determined to honor his family and his athletic past by not giving up. The “support” Dom needed most came in the form of Park’s compassion, which was lovely to see… especially when it caused Park to be wrapped in a bear hug near the episode’s end.
“Think of me like Bill Bellichek but meaner and with better hair.” Morgan to Dom
On paper, Morgan’s dilemma about assigning the best guardian(s) for Eden looks like a match for the “critical support” theme. And dialogue-wise, Morgan’s key scenes provided several of my favorites for the episode. But as a whole, I had trouble with it.
Part 1 was Morgan initially asking Lea if she and Shaun would accept the role of Eden’s guardians if she and Park should die. Lea’s honored, and promises to discuss it with Shaun that evening. So far so good.
Part 2 was Morgan and Lea a day later, with Morgan adding that she wants them solely in charge of Eden if she dies (and Park is still alive and well). Why she would wait to drop that nugget of info– and not mention it the first time around– felt contrived to me. Besides, Morgan’s gotta know that her idea of “a secret” is not in line with other women’s, right? Especially one who is married to a man who “can’t keep a secret”?
***
LEA: Are you insane? You can’t lie to Park, and I can’t lie to Shaun.
MORGAN: It’s not a lie, it’s a secret. Every marriage has them.
LEA: Sure, like how much I spend on hair color, and how often I use his toothbrush… but this is too big.”
***
PAUSE… Oh, Thomas L. Moran, I love your writing and I love #Shea with all my heart but you have no idea how much I DID NOT WANT TO THINK of Lea using Shaun’s toothbrush. (Is that a thing?? Why would it be a thing? Do people keep toothbrushes in remote corners of their home that they are unwilling to walk to at tooth-brushing time so they just grab whatever’s in front of them? And more to the point, there’s ONE bathroom in Shaun and Lea’s place… I need answers. Seriously.)
But, I digress… the bottom line of Part 2 was that Lea wasn’t going to be a party to Morgan’s “secret,” so Morgan had to re-think her next move…
Part 3. Morgan (and Eden, this time in a front-carrier) shows up in the gallery during one of Park’s surgeries, where Dom is observing and answering questions Park is lobbing his way. Next thing we know, Morgan’s muting the room (at first glance I thought she’d locked them in there!) and pitching a new question: How’s Park as a professor? Her demand for “Blunt, brutal honesty” leads to Dom giving a stunningly detailed narration of Parnick history… which further leads to Dom re-asserting Park’s awesomeness as a professor, calling him a “great guy who’ll be a great dad, stepdad, or whatever label you need him to be for you.”
(NOTE: I love the way Eden was riveted to Dom’s every word in this scene)
WHOA. While I can’t claim all that to be out-of-character for Dom– we barely know him, after all– I definitely didn’t see this conversation coming AT ALL, let alone weighing heavily into Morgan’s decision to appoint Park as Eden’s guardian after all.
Part 3A was that brief locker room scene near the end that had Dom hugging Park; apparently Morgan’s eavesdropping there sealed the deal on her decision…
For Part 4 is when she and Park are stretched out on their bad, with Eden between them, and Morgan tells Park she’s told the attorney to make him Eden’s guardian if she dies. “I know– you already told me that,” Park says, puzzled. “I was lying,” Morgan says casually, “But this time I’m not.” Then the music cranks up, she kisses him before he can shoot her anymore WTF? looks, and back they go to loving on Eden as the scene changes.
To quote Janet Jackson at the close of her 1989 hit “Miss You Much”… That’s the end???
Morgan goes through this whole episode planning to “secretly” keep Park off the living trust— which might have kicked a big fat hole in their reconstructed relationship in any other season— but one intriguing conversation-with-a-stranger later, she changes her mind? And then when she confesses her initial lie to Park, his only response (if you can call it that) is Well, I guess Morgan’s gonna be Morgan! All good!
Perhaps I’ve just got my overthinking cap on too tightly again, but I call bullshit on the tidy bow they tried to squeeze on this plot development. Yes, I’m glad there wasn’t a wedge driven into their love already, but… AAAUGH. Let’s move on…
“Not my first rodeo.”— Glassman to Lim
The dueling co-presidents storyline continued, and I’ll go ahead and say the one in critical need of support here is Lim– at least, to her way of thinking. Glassman has settled into a groove with this gig, one that involves pool tables and letting the less important issues drift into the ether… and “being an ass” (to offer a Lim-to-Glassman quote). Lim, as we well know, tends to take on more than her share with a “somebody’s got to do it” mindset that has gotten her in trouble in the past (as MamaLim reminds us in “Date Night” – my review of that episode still to come, obviously). And here, in “Critical Support,” she was hitting her boiling point.
Between you and me… when she offered to help Park with his surgery, saying she had time because “That’s what CO-presidents are for” (meaning Glassman)... I half-expected her to say something like that straight to her co-prez’s face, just to cruelly rub it in that he’s no longer able to help with ANY surgery.
But she didn’t, and their mutual let’s-call-this-whole-thing-off routine near the end of the episode was quite civil… but then they saw Charlie looking like a sad rag doll in the elevator, and it quickly became clear that mom and dad weren’t getting divorced after all.
Because…
“I’m sure you believe that, Shaun, but it’s simply not true.” - Lim to Shaun
Conflicting advice aside, Glassman and Lim found themselves juggling both the “critical” AND the “support” when it came to the Shaun and Charlie situation. It was THE time for the co-presidents to get on the same page and tell Shaun what he needed to hear, and they said much that needed to be said right there, in those two minutes:
1) He bears a certain responsibility to work and adapt to Charlie that he’s dismissed too easily.
2) He’s not only refusing to make allowances for her ASD, he’s refusing to acknowledge what was done for him in the past (by folks like Lim and Glassman and Andrews– not early-stage Melendez, and definitely not Han).
But when Shaun pulls his own “I’m an attending now, I call the shots” card and leaves, they look almost as defeated as Charlie did in that elevator.
Speaking of TGD’s resident Swiftie…
What an up and down (and then WAY down) episode for Charlie. By the time we got to her final conversation in Shaun’s office, that “Top or bottom?” question she inappropriately chirped to Asher early in the show felt light-years away.
For then came her streak of interrupting and ill-advised directions…
(“Please, can’t you just… be quiet?”)
Then came her (also ill-advised) explanation of why the things she “did wrong” weren’t actually mistakes…
(“I understand that ASD is considered a disability, but you are capable of being silent. If you want to remain on this case, that is what I expect of you. To observe and nothing else. Do you understand?”)
Then things finally looked on the upswing for her, when her curiosity finally scored her bonus points in the OR…
(Shaun’s wary “Do it quietly”-- instructing her on feeling up the “live organ” like an exasperated parent– made me smile with the hope he might be on the way to cutting her a little more slack.)
But then he had to go and say the worst thing later on…about how someday she’d make an “excellent pathologist.”
(SEE? Charlie doesn’t even know the history involved in that comment, and yet she knew to feel like she’d been sucker-punched when she heard it.)
So what’s Shaun’s deal…?
Why is he putting Charlie through some of the same sufferings he endured? Is it—
Because he can’t get past his own insistence (rigidity) that she shouldn’t be a surgeon?
Because if he had to go through that stuff, so should she?
(But what about his “you are nothing like me” statement?)
Because he’s challenging her to prove him wrong, just as he proved the others wrong?
Because he has issues with the way she handles her ASD? The way she brings it up to explain certain shortcomings (e.g interrupting)… to get out of doing things e.g. “reading textbooks” (I’m more of a visual learner…)... to refer to it as a disability (taking note of his words “I know ASD is considered a disability…”)
I think about the two small head-rubbing stims in this episode (when Shaun rubs his head with the palm of his hand as a way to self-soothe)... and the way he cut the conversation short with Glassman and Lim… and especially the way he spoke like those professional wounds of the past happened yesterday. And it just feels like this whole thing goes deeper than Shaun is stating right now. Or, more to the point, able to state.
Maybe– and I hope this is it, for it would be even more of a “full circle” experience than it already has proven to be– his feelings have to do with some sort of reckoning about what it is to have ASD. What it means to justify your actions (attributing it to ASD) vs. being required to adapt for NT majority. What it truly means to him to be someone’s “hero”... meaning the barriers he has broken down, the pathway he’s made easier. To be able to acknowledge that there WERE some who “made it easier” for him… Glassman, Lim, Andrews… and all his colleagues (Claire, Morgan, Jared, Park).
But don’t ask me how they’ll get to there from here just yet— I’ve no idea!
And Lord knows I might just have the overthinking cap on too tight again.
(What do YOU think of the “Critical Support” episode of TGD? Hit up the comments and share your thoughts!)
