State of the Shea, Pt. 90: Just a Song Before They Go (“Unconditional”)
NOTE: THOUGH I’VE NOW SEEN THE SERIES FINALE, I’VE WRITTEN THIS RECAP AS IF I HAVEN’T. SPOILER-FREE! ENJOY!
The penultimate episode of an TV series is perhaps more difficult to plan than the finale itself. How much of the script is business as usual, and how much hints that the end is near? How much time can be spent on fun stuff, and how much needs to still be dramatically engaging? Are there storylines that must be tied up before the last episode? Are there elements of the finale that would best be introduced before said finale starts?
It’s been done all kinds of ways over time, of course, depending heavily on how aware the showrunners are that the show is ending. Barney Miller, a sitcom that ran on ABC for 8 seasons, created a finale that consumed three of its final 22 episodes. WKRP In Cincinnati, a CBS sitcom that ended around the same time as Barney Miller, could only guess at its future (CBS had shuffled its place on the schedule mercilessly, crushing any long-term ratings momentum), and produced a pretty awesome final episode nonetheless.
On the other hand, The Mary Tyler Moore Show ended its outstanding seven-year run with a single-episode storyline (The TV station gets a new station manager who fires every newsroom regular except Ted Baxter). Not only did it win that year’s primetime Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series… that MTM finale was called “the gold standard of sitcom finales” by none other than Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman.
(Yes, I’m a devoted fan of all those shows and will talk about them on end with anyone willing to join me… but I can see you’re all here for TGD, so I’ll force stop myself and get back to it.)
So what did we have on the story-telling table as “Unconditional,” the penultimate episode of TGD, got started? We had Glassman housing and medicating a young drug addict (which almost sounds like a “jump the shark” moment for the show if you didn’t know Glassman’s tragic family history). We had Morgan and Park newly engaged, and in a rush to get married ahead of Eden’s adoption hearing. And we had the question of testing Steve for ASD off the table, leaving Shaun and Lea open to… what next?
If you’d read any TGD-related press this season (or simply watched the promo following “The Overview Effect”), you knew a big part of what next? was the return of Dr. Claire Browne for the last two episodes. Intriguing as that was– or was setting up to be for the finale– the other two stories dominated “Unconditional.” And if that sounds like a whole lotta nothing in the grand scheme of things, you’ve got to listen a little closer. I’ll explain…
“IT IS VERY GOOD TO SEE YOU!”
What #Shea supporter didn’t want to see an Auntie Claire visit to The Loft to meet baby Steve? It was short-lived, of course, but very fun; even the talk of the tumor in her breast was light-hearted at that point. And if you paid attention to what Shaun was saying, it was he who Claire had contacted about her personal medical situation in advance… meaning that back in the “Faith” episode, when Glassman was quietly fielding someone’s test results on the phone…? We thought it might be foreshadowing for Claire. But it wasn’t.
I don’t know about you, but I managed at this point to stash this realization into the nether regions of my brain… focusing instead on deceptively important exchanges like this:
“I do not need a Ducati to be a badass.”
You’d better believe I took note when Lim and Claire’s sliver of “girl talk” time included not only a reinforced revelation of certain needs (sleep, sex), but a reminder of Lim’s badassery in general. Then later, we caught Lim staring at her Ducati photo with a whole lotta longing. Come on, showrunners, you know we’ll watch her literally ride into the sunset on this show with the right context…
“I don’t know what to do.”
When a mini-arc introduces an entirely new character in the final episodes of the series, there’s a legitimate chance viewers will shout Who Cares?? at the screen, irritated that precious final minutes are being gobbled away by the wrong events and/or people. There could have been (and perhaps still was) a major case of Who Cares when it came to the Glassman/Hannah story on TGD– but it’s been said multiple times that the Shaun/Glassman relationship is the heart and soul of the show, so it gets to claim priority status. With that in mind, young Hannah clearly proved to be the catalyst that neither Shaun nor Glassman knew they needed. (And yeah, even this late into the season and series, they still needed it.)
Glassman was a sad sight for most of the episode, riding a roller coaster with Hannah that he was too emotionally invested in to do safely (to say nothing of his physical state, which he continued to keep secret at this point). When he had Hannah’s dad explaining the facts of drug addict life to him– even going so far as to speculate Glassman might be sleeping with the young woman– it was clearer than ever Glassy was in way too deep.
Even the “easy” part– trying to comfort Glassman at his lowest– was tough for Shaun, but he did it. (And I was so touched by the moment I placed it at the top of this post.)
“I don’t want to fight anymore,” Glassy sighed in regards to Hannah, so tired and sad, his crumpled form in stark contrast to Shaun’s rigid one. Do you think they were trying to mirror the final scene from “Expired” in the pharmacy storage room, when Shaun was the devastated one? Wasn’t this Shaun trying to express to Glassman “I got you” as he hasn’t really done since Glassman’s cancer battle in S2?
In any case, given what we learned later… I suspect Glassman was telling us he didn’t “want to fight anymore” in more ways than one.
“Dr. Glassman didn’t fix me. He loved me.
“I’m not like other people. Other kids called me ‘weird’... my parents didn’t want me… so that was how I saw myself. But Dr. Glassman saw that I could be more. And now I see myself as so much more… because Dr. Glassman loved me… unconditionally.
“I am still different. I will always have autism… but now I’m proud of that. You will always be an addict, even if you stop using drugs. But Dr. Glassman sees you can be more. Why can’t you?”
So Shaun said to Hannah– just minutes after sitting with Glassman, which perhaps gave him the final boost of inspiration and confidence he needed. Then, two scenes later, Hannah finally tells Glassman she wants to try rehab after all.
Were Shaun’s words really that transformative? I have to admit that skeptical me says no– he’s good, but he’s not THAT good. Nonetheless, artistic license reigns supreme, and they weren’t going to let this story carry into the finale, or end on an even more tragic note.
And much more important than that… I have to presume that the story came and went not only to give Glassman as much closure as they could on his guilt-ridden memories of Maddie, but to allow Shaun to make up to Glassman (for last season’s struggles) as best he could. Would I have appreciated a more concrete apology? Of course. But TGD has proven over seven seasons that it very much has its own ways and means for doing stuff like that– another thing we can talk about in later posts– and we can either go with it, or bitch about it.
Lord knows I’ve done both, but this time I’m going with it.
“... And I’ll keep on teasing you because I know it turns you on…”*
*I may not have this quote from Morgan just right, and I can’t find the clip on YouTube as I write this… please feel free to correct me in the comments and I’ll change it!
After Hannah’s situation was rectified and Claire looked to be on the road to recovery, St. Bon’s best was more than ready to celebrate– so much so that everyone showed up at Park and Morgan’s impromptu wedding at 2AM, no questions asked. (Gotta love the magic of TV reasoning!)
A few notes on #Parnick’s nuptials…
Also love that Shaun and Lea were the official witnesses; it felt like they were passing the wedding “torch” forward.
Though they didn’t show it, apparently Charlie caught Morgan’s bouquet, which was a nice touch. (You can see her with it in several post-ceremony shots, like the one above.)
It was a heartfelt bop of a wedding celebration– you could feel TGD’s cast toasting its seven years on the air simultaneously– and it was the perfect cure for what ailed us.
For approximately four minutes.
Then it was time for the Shore Tax to be collected.
But first, allow me to briefly address two other things…
With ABC announcing its 2024-25 Prime Time schedule the same day that TGD’s “Unconditional” episode aired, The Powers That Be couldn’t resist putting an ad for TGD’s replacement series– a.k.a. The one that will take its current Tuesday timeslot– during a TGD episode. Of course I understand the logic behind it; the thought that some viewers will have the TV fired up on ABC Tuesday nights and will watch damn near anything they offer. But (and this is what I wrote down while watching “Unconditional”)...
THIS IS LIKE THE GUY WHO GETS A NEW GIRLFRIEND BEFORE THE OLD ONE MOVES OUT, AND THE NEW ONE COMES IN AND STARTS MEASURING FOR WINDOW TREATMENTS WHILE YOU’RE STILL SPACKLING UP THE HOLES WHERE YOU HUNG STUFF.
I know… It’s a business, Kelli. It’s called “Show BUSINESS” for a reason. Yeah yeah yeah. Now get the hell out of my apartment, High Potential (if that IS the new show’s real name).
One we kind of saw coming, and maybe have for a long time… the other, not so much. But hey, they did say Claire would be back for TWO episodes… I suppose we knew better than to presume Claire and Kalu would spend the finale “simply” making life-changing decisions about their collective futures.
Are you ready for the series finale yet?