State of the Shea, Pt. 89: Inner Visions (“The Overview Effect”)
With a nod to the episode’s title– made so by something Park said (here’s a bit about Overview Effect, in case you’d like a refresher course), I’m focusing on the three stories that took center stage in this one.
So if you’re looking for discussions about Lim, Jordan, (dearly departed) Asher, Jared, Charlie, or Dom (though I’m wondering why he seemed to be back in the surgical rotation when he was assisting Morgan a week ago…?)-- you’re gonna have to look elsewhere.
Let’s start with the disturbing storyline (at least it was for me)…
Glassman and Hannah : Inches From a “Clean” Getaway (no pun intended)
That’s what I thought by the time Glassman pulled himself away from the pancake breakfast at the diner. We knew he was getting in over his head in the previous “Faith” episode, solving one big problem for patient Hannah (the physical one) but unable to solve the other, even bigger one (the drug addiction). How long until he extracted himself from this Maddie 2.0 situation?
It almost happened there on the first round of pancakes at the diner. (What is it with TGD and pancakes?? I swear I’m going to think of TGD whenever I look at a box of Bisquick from now on.) You could see it as more parallels dropped into place: Hannah ran track in high school, just like Maddie. Her specialty was the relay, just like Maddie. And she “thinks she has it under control”-- her habit, that is– just like Maddie. It was too much for poor Glassy, so he told Hannah about Maddie– briefly– and walked out after throwing down money for the pancakes. And a business card with his phone number on it.
Ugh, the business card… the rope he couldn’t resist tossing her way. And now she had his number in more ways than one. (Remember that addicts hone a unique set of skills to keep themselves afloat, and one of the biggies is MANIPULATION.) She “just” needs a ride. She “just” needs a bed for a few nights (I know he offered that before she asked, but having a guilty-conscience guy drive you to a homeless camp clearly triggers things.) She can’t do rehab because the time she tried was “the worst week of her life.” She can’t do a shelter “where you don’t even have to be clean” because she knows someone who got stabbed in such a place. An answer for everything except when are you gonna stop using this clearly vulnerable man–
Ah, but don’t forget, he’s a doctor. And next thing we know, he’s scared enough to risk his career to supply her with pills. When’s she gonna stop using him? She’s not. She doesn’t know how to.
In a poll I ran on Twitter/X last week about what TGD character most needed mental health therapy, Lim got the most votes (as I think she should have). Regarding Glassman, reader Daniela Vingiani noted that he could benefit from two specific things: 1) “Closure about Maddie” and 2) a heart-to-heart with Shaun…
Definitely yes to that second one– whether or not we’ll get to witness it is another story. However, I have to think some kind of Maddie closure is coming with all this (and without the benefit of actual therapy).
I thought some closure was on the way when Glassman’s house burned to the ground last year, but then again, that never turned out to be the traumatic turning point for him that I thought it was going to be. Is that because the writers still had something else in mind for him, and it’s now taken the form of Hannah?
In any case, they’ve created a doozy of a dilemma for Glassman’s final days with us. Not just personally, but professionally: we all saw Glassy take Lim out of the picture last week when he hid the fact that Hannah was staying with him, but Shaun, surrogate son and keeper of precious few secrets, won’t be so easy to foil (as we’ve already seen via previews). Will they find a way to wind all this into the betrayal Glassman felt because of Sean‘s actions at the end of Season 6? (No, I’m not letting go of that bone, dammit.)
Or will it be more about Glassman, the whole Glassman, and nothing but Dr. Aaron Glassman?
I can’t fathom the series will end with Glassman’s medical license revoked. Nor can I picture Hannah either dying, or having an epiphany about rehab (not yet, anyway). Kudos to TGD for creating at least one more big “what will happen” arc with a core character before it all ends.
(On a sidenote, I think about that scene where Hannah overdosed, and even though it was all make-believe, how strange it must’ve been for Richard Schiff to see his real-life daughter laying in another room, pretending to have suffered an overdose! How much “acting” was needed for that?!)
The Parnick Proposal(s)
I think many of us wondered if there would be one more wedding before the show ended. We thought about #Parnick, and we thought about #Jasher, but obviously only one of those can still happen. (Sigh… nope, nothing more to add about that this week, let’s move on.)
Nonetheless, I was truly surprised to hear Morgan talking about getting married at the top of this episode. But that was the point of the whole thing; there was no proposal before that, there was no ring, there was not even any discussion we’d witnessed. In fact, just a handful of episodes ago we had Morgan ready to keep Park off the paperwork for being Eden’s guardian because they’d only been back together a short time. (Shhh– I don’t think we’re supposed to remember that part, unless she fully felt that way until an offscreen consult with her attorney changed her mind…)
So when she brought it up as something to take care of the way one “takes care of” ordering lunch, we all went huh?? Just as Park did.
But it made sense that when it came to this incredibly serious step in their lives, they would both take a step back into the immature cat-and-mouse games they played when they first fell for each other:
At-work karaoke, confetti cannons (okay, ONE confetti cannon), and Morgan down on one knee… but no dice. Not Park’s style.
In-office, apologies for round one, a cool story about a ring… this time Park was sold. (So was I.) But oops, the nonsense inscription on the ring gave her away, and Morgan crawled away with her tail between her legs… (Just kidding. She left with a toss of her hair and a quick last-word to Park’s line about sleeping in the guest room… same as it ever was.)
But when it came time to get serious about getting serious, they nailed it. (OK, it was director Tracy Taylor and scriptwriters Yaou Dou and David Hoselton that nailed it, but you know what I mean.) From the music choice (“Burning Stars” by Mimicking Birds) to Park watching Morgan dancing with Eden from afar, to us watching him join them… but not before getting down on one knee himself and clearly getting the answer she had been seeking earlier.
In case it isn’t clear by now, I LOVED everything about #Parnick in this episode. I loved the comedy they provided, counterbalancing tough situations for both Glassman and #Shea (as I’m about to get into). I loved what it brought out in both characters, which is to say the things that we’ve come to appreciate most in Morgan Reznick and Alex Park.
And, for me, it was the return of the catapult (a term I used often in previous seasons to describe sudden leaps in certain story arcs). As steady-eddie as their reunited romance has been in S7, the writers needed to get Park and Morgan from zero (relatively speaking) to proposal in one episode– and they managed to make it authentically and beautifully #Parnick. What more could we ask for?
The Steve/ASD Question
“How often do we make the right decisions when we’re afraid?”
It was a great question that Glassman posed to Lea at the end of their conversation in “Overview,” even if it was intended to be rhetorical. Aside from the fact that he should have been asking himself that very thing (Doctor, heal thyself!), it cut to the heart of what weighed heavy on Shaun and Lea’s minds this time around… and TGD viewers as well; the question of a #Shea baby inheriting Shaun’s ASD simply goes with the new territory broken in their unique-to-TV relationship.
It started with Shaun, as we figured it would, and it didn’t take long to see that his analytical causes of concern (perceived lack of eye contact and verbalization, etc.) were nothing compared to the agonizing memories of his parents, especially his father, wondering what was “wrong” with him. (Kudos to scriptwriters Dou and Hoselton for Shaun’s “not ‘wrong’... just different” line early in the episode, providing a gentle correction to Lea’s slip that we’ve probably all made at one time or another.)
It’s been a minute since we witnessed one of Shaun’s flashbacks, let alone felt them shape an episode of TGD. Back in S1 it was a common occurrence, giving us the backstory we needed to help understand the intriguing Dr. Murphy. But seven years later… it’s not that Shaun has outgrown the flashbacks so much as they’re far less necessary now.
I posted a comment on Twitter shortly after “Overview” aired, wondering what it would be like for Shaun and Lea to find their way to a solution with Shaun explaining what he’s remembering in his mind eye at times like those. But as I think a couple of people mentioned– he’s never done that before, so it seemed unlikely he’d start now.
And it’s true. Flashbacks for a fictional character in any medium serve unique glimpses into said character’s point of view, and it’s especially helpful when they communicate differently. How often, though, does anyone say I was just thinking back to when such-and-such happened to me, and that’s why I feel as I do about this? Let alone someone who has challenges with traditional communication in the first place?
(Case in point: Glassman didn’t urge Hannah to come home with him by saying “I just remembered how I felt locking my daughter out of the house, therefore I can’t bear you staying in this camp tonight…” The memory shaped his actions for sure, but he didn’t share them– they were way too private.)
Nothing about Shaun and Lea’s respective takes on the Steve/ASD question was that unexpected, was it? Shaun’s childhood recollections were a good bonus (I have trouble classifying them better than “good” when one involved traumatizing him with a spray bottle– stupid dad/monster/jerk– but I digress)...
and Lea had more awareness than I expected about the most appropriate time to test a child, but that made sense too. It’s been on her mind dating all the way back to S4 (“Teeny Blue Eyes”), when she was pregnant the first time and asked Claire about the genetics of it all. Perhaps she breathed a small, private sigh of relief at the discovery that diagnoses typically can’t be made for the first couple of years, and had settled into the idea of “enjoying the magic of watching our baby explore the world” before Shaun’s concerns overtook the situation.
Speaking of “Teeny,” I couldn’t help but notice several parts of “Overview” mirroring not one, but TWO classic episodes of #Shea milestones. The final scene, with Shaun, Lea, and Steve awaiting an appointment with the pediatric neurologist– could you feel the final-scene-from-”Teeny Blue Eyes”-vibes as much as I did? And how ironic that a) that scene contained the pivotal decision for them to go through with Lea’s first pregnancy (rather than abort)... and b) The episode was called “Teeny Blue Eyes” because of Lea’s early visions of the child as a boy with blue eyes just like Shaun’s… and now here she was, rocking Mr. “Teeny” himself!
Did your brain just explode a little? You’re welcome.
Anyway… the episode I found myself comparing this to the most was not “Teeny,” but “Two-Ply (Or Not Two-Ply)” from S2. Talk about how-far-they’ve-come moments…!
The cold open of the show started with inklings of what was to come… Shaun indicating Steve should be tested, and Lea indicating she felt differently.
(In “Two-Ply,” it opened with new roommates Shaun and Lea mildly discussing things that were important to Shaun, but not so much to Lea, like toilet paper.)
During the course of the day Shaun gathered a little input from others about his concerns– which gave us Charlie’s delightful line about how a diagnosis this early would likely lead to a misdiagnosis, and “you’ll be disappointed to find out your child is just typical later on.”
(In “Two-Ply,” Shaun gathered evidence (pictures) of the way TP rolls at the hospital were hung (“by professionals”) to prove his point. Which hilariously led to Shaun asking Claire what Lea’s IDGAF response meant.)
Midway through the episode came the big dust-up, with Shaun getting very serious about getting Steve tested NOW and Lea getting very OH HELL NO about it. When the volume level became too much for Shaun to bear, he muffled his ears, cried “STOP TALKING!” and fled to another room.
(In “Two-Ply,” the big dust-up came when Shaun’s idiosyncrasies sent Lea over the edge, yelling to the point where Shaun’s body language and lack of eye contact made her quickly realize she’d gone too far.)
A little later we saw Lea relaying the argument to Glassman, seeking his advice (which of course he gave; he loves Lea like a daughter now).
(In “Two-Ply,” Lea made her way to Glassman’s house for advice, famously declaring “I think I broke Shaun!”. (And he grudgingly gave her advice, wary as hell of his young woman who might or might not have Shaun’s best interests at heart.)
Then came a heart-to-heart, with Lea asking early on for a kiss (to see if Shaun was back to feeling open enough with her to oblige… he was) and then some confessions on Lea’s part about being afraid she wasn’t up to the challenge of being the parent of an ASD child, and her own spin on Glassman’s words (“That’s the thing about being afraid… it doesn’t always make sense.”) As stated during the argument, there wasn’t much of a way to compromise on this matter…
(It wasn’t about trying to get used to each other’s quirks, as it was in “Two-Ply”...)
So Lea found herself bending to Shaun’s request… which even HE withdrew by the end of the episode.
So what do you think that last flashback– with brother Steve and the mint chip ice cream– did to turn Shaun‘s mindset around?
Was it the idea that it doesn’t matter if Steve has ASD, as long as he has someone (or someONES, being Shaun and Lea) who love and support him completely?
Was it a processing of Lea’s/Glassman’s words about fear not leading us to make sensible decisions?
Was it just a nice way for the writers to escape the entire ASD question in a sweet, somewhat ambiguous way?
It’s one of those things that, sadly, would have been so interesting to explore if TGD had been granted a couple more years on the air, and they could’ve bumped Steve’s age up a little bit to the point where they could have a conclusive test.
It’d have been so interesting to see how Shaun and Lea handled it– whether Steve was on the spectrum or not. And of course they may still do something with that if there’s a time jump in the series finale… I think I alluded to that in my final wish list for the show earlier this year.
But given the time they have, and the way they are choosing to tell it, I think they did a fine job… All the way to Shaun deciding it wasn’t so important to find out early after all.
It was a strong episode for TGD– maybe their best yet for S7.
Are they saving the best for last?
I hate to say we’re going to find out soon, but…
What did YOU think of “The Overview Effect”? How do you feel about the stories that were highlighted? What stories are on your mind that have yet to be resolved? Share your thoughts in the comments, won’t you?
