I’m finding this “analysis” surprisingly hard to write.

Obviously, one reason for that is the timing– two episodes remaining in any season of TGD is a kind of weird place…

In S1 at this point, Claire’s mom was re-entering her life (and taking advantage of her)... Andrews was dealing with infertility complications in his marriage, and Shaun was finding out (via Park) that his new neighbor Kenny was “not Lea” in more ways than one... he had a criminal history.

In S2, Dr. Han’s era of leadership was taking its toll on most everyone at St. Bon’s, but no on more than Shaun (who had just been transferred to Pathology, and was one episode away from getting fired altogether by Han).

In S3, Shaun had just come thisclose to destroying the Striped Tomato in a drunken rage… his and Lea’s relationship (such as it was at the time) was in tatters… Morgan was about to get a procedure done that might or might not spare her surgical career from the grip of RA… and Claire had just admitted to her therapist that she was in love with her boss (Melendez).

And in S4, Shaun and Lea were healing from the loss of their unborn child at varying paces… Claire had finally found her way to some forgiveness with her estranged father… Park and Morgan were on the outs… and Glassman and Debbie were (seemingly suddenly) over.

We’re used to being on the precipice at this point, and yet here’s what my scorecard says about S5 thus far…

So will it be some sort of next step involving St. Bon’s financial situation, assuming things haven’t magically improved with Andrews back at the helm? Is there big trouble ahead for Park and Morgan? Is someone leaving the cast? (Not trying to start anything here; just acknowledging we’ve seen a major character depart the series twice in the past two season finales.) Or will an issue emerge that we’ve yet to lay eyes and ears on?

Here is the “official” synopsis ABC released for “The Lea Show” (Which, you may note, is very different from the 100% Lea-free promo we were given for the same episode) :

Sophie (Hollis Jane Andrews) takes Lea out for a day full of luxurious wedding planning.

And after a near fatal oversight, Dr. Lim senses an underlying issue is behind nurse Villanueva’s (Elfina Luk) unprofessional behavior.

Guest starring is Hollis Jane Andrews as Sophie and Antonia Thomas as Dr Claire Browne.

If you are interested in taking a look at a very short CTV promo for the above episode– and yes, it is MUCH MORE SPOILERY than ABC’s offering– you should be able to see @EndgameShea’s Twitter post about it here.

And here’s what for provided thus far for “Sons,” the season finale airing May 16:

Shaun and Lea make a big life decision and are pleasantly surprised by the support they receive from their friends at the hospital. Meanwhile, when Dr. Wolke’s parents show up with a revelation, Asher struggles to accept that he and his father may never truly understand one another in the season finale.

While concern for the unknown is, no doubt, fueling a fair amount of anxiety, I decided to grab that “big life decision” bull by the horns and turn it into a Twitter poll… or two…

But enough about what may or may not be to come… let’s talk some SHAUN SHOW.

I hope you’re not disappointed that I left my stopwatch in the other room when re-watching this episode… in retrospect it would’ve been interesting to compare the amount of time spent on the “reality recording” to the amount of regular TGD we saw… (be warned, I might do that with “The Lea Show!”)

But maybe that’s because there was a lot to take in, for I tried to take note of the most valuable parts of the reality show storyline… which amounted not only to some of the things that were said, but ways and means to get them said. And honestly, the whole Shaun-getting-to-study-Sophie’s-footage thing was an interesting conundrum to me as a producer (for in a less cut/dried situation, it’s tough to imagine a program’s subject being allowed so much access to the raw footage) The real ethics question at hand, though, was the decision to use Shaun’s OR mistake in the program. So I’ll stick with that. 

Before we get to the #Shea stuff, though, there were several happenings in “The Shaun Show that deserve a mention… 

Speaking of relationships with Shaun… It’s easy to see why, at least in the beginning, Lea was hoping to tell a sanitized version of their story for the cameras. “Bonding over a mutual love of pancakes and karaoke” is adorable, and did indeed sound great as she and Shaun strolled into work hand-in-hand.

Case in point— at the start of all this, Lea didn’t see herself as strong enough to deal with this critical issue from their past But she was. (Oh look, Shaun was right about that too!) All in all, it was as thorough an analysis of Lea’s “initial rejection” as we’re ever likely to get and I think it was beautifully written (and magnificently acted by Paige Spara, of course).