Power-Aspie

How easy navigating a complex world can get when you have simple concepts for the enemy – it’s the men! Now, have you bothered to consider how you would feel when for your whole life next to everyone, including your own father, tells you that you are not enough? That you are less than others because of how your brain is different from most? How much energy you had to gather every day to prove yourself to be worthy to be granted the rights others enjoy effortlessly? To be accepted among the mighty neurotypicals? For Shaun, Lea’s wish to have a doula is just another variation of his lifelong struggle to be enough – and it comes from the person he loves and trusts most. Of course, it is hard for him to accept her wish, especially since the doula is poaching his dominion – medicine. It is a great leap in his character development to accept his limits and step aside for the benefit of his partner.

Glassman did ask him, but while Shaun did acknowledge that statistics show doulas having a positive impact, he still did resent the idea – without really knowing why. SAUN: Lea wants to have a doula. GLASSMAN: Okay, and, uh, you don't? SAUN: Research shows that doula-assisted births have fewer complications, decreased length of labor, and increased breastfeeding rates. GLASSMAN: So, you do want a doula? SAUN: N-No. I can precisely measure the time between contractions and get the right washcloths and I've mapped out the fastest route from the OB floor to the cafeteria for ice chips. I don't want Lea to have a doula. But... they are good. I am very bad at massages. GLASSMAN: So, you... you want Lea to have everything that she wants, but you don't want her to want a doula? SAUN: Yes. […] This all is a strong indicator that Shaun felt diminished by Lea choosing a doula (over him) but wasn’t able to properly access and communicate his emotions concerning the issue. That is consistent with Shaun’s since episodes 2.02/03 well established pattern of comorbid alexithymia. You did not get an answer why Shaun was against the doula because Shaun did not know the answer.

Tough Noogies, The Good Doctor never was the avergage medical drama but rather the coming-of-age story of an autistic individual sugar-coated with medical drama. Parenthood with ASD is an important yet often neglected issue. It is about time that it is featured on prime time TV.

Actually, it was Lea’s own office she turned into a make-shift clean room. She even wore an electrical grounding wristband. It was Park who extracted bone marrow in a janitors’ closet in 2.11 Quarantine Part Two. And Melendez and Claire transplanted the marrow in a linen room. Shaun and Claire operated on a liver on a police car’s trunk in the middle of a highway in 1.03 Oliver. Wanna nitpick more on a work of fiction or does the term suspension of disbelief ring a bell with you?

Actually, Lea never did decrypt the data. She restored the network by using discarded hard drives that were not compromised: LEA: Turns out one of my techs spilled coffee on a server, didn't want to tell me, so he switched it out three days before the hack. His screw-up might just save our ass. GLASSMAN: So it's not encrypted? LEA: No, but it is corrupted from the coffee and dust and dirt. I found it under a pile of junk in the recycling bin. But if my patient pulls through, I'll be able to restore the network without having to pay the hackers a dime. […] LEA: I fixed the server. It's still missing the last 96 days of records, but it's totally malware free, which means we can restore the network with... With three hours to spare. Script writer Mark Rozeman has ASD, Richard Schiff and Sheila Kelley’s son has ASD, Freddie Highmore has people with ASD in his personal life, The show has an autism consultant checking every script. Seems to me like there is already some experience with the condition accumulated in the show’s team. Of course, autism is a wide spectrum, so there always will be someone who finds themselves not represented by a single drama character. Tough Titmouse.

As a work of fiction, The Good Doctor should be interpreted by the language of storytelling. Symbolism is an important element of The Good Doctor. The show has applied a rich amount of symbolism throughout its run. Shaun holds dearly to a plastic scalpel his dead brother Steve gave to him. Hubert the Fish and its successors were a promise for Shaun and Lea as a family of sorts. The baseball Lea “borrowed” to Shaun, which sat beside his brother’s photo and watched over Shaun having sex for the first time. After the scalpel, Lea’s car, the Striped Tomato, is probably the most important and long-lasting icon of the drama series. Beloved Grandpa Rod’s car represents Lea’s fond childhood memories since 1.11 Islands Part One. It is her connection to a carefree past before her struggles as woman in STEM began. The car also is a reminder of how the bond between Shaun and Lea was forged on that decisive road trip. The time when Lea showed trust in Shaun by having him drive her priced memorabilia, empowering him. The moment Shaun took his life into his own hands and experienced his first kiss. When the Striped Tomato got towed away, Lea had already learned about her pregnancy. As the car was taken away from her, she felt her childhood as well as the carefree days of romance slipping away. The event marked her final transition into adulthood. The following quest for retrieval wasn’t just a fierce try to hold onto these carefree times, the combined effort of Shaun and Lea again enforced the idea that the couple faces challenges best as a unit. Just as they will have to work together now as expectant parents: “…this is about having my back. Were a team now Shaun, working together for a common goal…”

Just because there's someone with autism performing the role, that doesn't mean they'll make it realistic, the script will have the performer do wathever it wants for drama.

This isn’t how foreshadowing on The Good Doctor works. Events are usually foreshadowed by rather insignificant or disjoined details. For example, Morgan’s rheumatoid arthritis was foreshadowed by her struggling to open a jar of pickles in 3.01 Disaster. And the earthquake was foreshadowed by Morgan discovering an earthquake kit in Claire’s trunk alongside her mother’s ashes in 3.04 Take My Hand. What is remarkable about season 4 is the mere number of mentions and cases involving pregnancies and abortions, as well as work-life balance as an often-recurring theme with many characters and conversations. The overarching theme for all characters in this season is obviously to cater more to their private lives than before and avoid being consumed by their demanding work.

You're right. But when you compare the numbers of cases with seasons 1 to 3 (18-20 episodes each), you'll notice a significant rise in pregnancies and abortions in the first 10 episodes of season 4 alone.

The pregnancy story arc has left a long trail of foreshadowing: 3.10 Friends and Family: Glassman talks with Lea about parenthood and asks her about her plans. 3.11 Fractured: Glassman asks Shaun if he used protection while sleeping with Lea the night before (without having sex). 3.15 Unsaid: Shaun tells Carly that Lea is not getting pregnant because she always uses protection. 4.01 Frontline Part 1: expectant single mother without support system. Lea forgot her ID bage at Shaun's apartment. 4.02 Frontline Part 2: same single mother gives birth; Park delivers and nurses the baby, his conversations with Kellan setting the topics of work-life balance and expectant parents being insecure. 4.04 Not the same: expectant single mother, pregnant with twins while her own body tries to kill one fetus, her boyfriend left her after suggesting an abortion; woman had already an abortion with 15; the doctors discuss to abort one fetus to save the other; Shaun finally delivers one baby early. Jordan reveals that she chose career over motherhood. 4.06 Lim: woman surprised by unplanned pregnancy, chooses elective abortion; Jordan reveals that she had an abortion herself; empath Rose, an old lady, gets morning sickness because her nurse is pregnant. 4.08 Parenting: a father has stepped down from parenthood and plays “coach” instead; Glassman claims that Shaun and Lea’s relationship is moving too fast; the episode title with an A-plot about Lea's parents claiming that she doesn't think ahead. 4.09 Irresponsible…: a couple is surprised by an unplanned pregnancy, originally planning on termination but keeping it. Can't really say you haven't been warned, folks...

They sure do use birth control. It was established as early as in 3.15 Unsaid: But Lea also has been portrayed to be forgetful about things: her very first scene in 4.01 Frontline Part One has her searching for her ID badge in Shaun's apartment. She also said that about herself in 2.06 Two-Ply (or not Two-Ply): "I know I forget stuff a lot." Finally, it was aluded almost every episode this season that the couple has a healthy sex life and the Pearl Index isn't about jewelry. This story arc has been in the making since 3.10 Friends and Family, when Glassman talked with Lea about her becoming a parent one day in that motel room in Wyoming. That was the episode that set the wheels into motion for Shaun and Lea becoming a romantic couple.

Mark Rozeman, one show's writers, has ASD himself. He's credited for Quarantine Part Two, Trampoline, Fractured, Fault, and the upcoming Teeny Blue Eyes. He was involved as staff writer in many other scripts as far as I remember the end credits. So, I may suggest that the problem is not the depiction of autism in the show, but your individual perception of ASD.

The show has been diving into these thinkgs my people have to deal with on a daily basis for three and a half years now - it is the basic premise of "The Good Doctor". But a baby is a taboo now for you? Why? Uncomfortable with the idea of autistic folks being parents?

All medical dramas I have ever seen dove into the private lives of the main protagonist. There’s office politics, workplace sex, there's relationship drama. This whole talk about The Good Doctor veering away from its path when the autistic lead character’s private life is touched is nothing more than a poor evasive defense to hide the ableism and prejudice against people with ASD.

In real life, Lea got pregnant at the worst moment possible: Shaun hasn’t secured a post-residency position yet; he even isn’t the frontrunner in that race but Claire. Shaun even lacks the ambition to actively participate in that race. Lea’s career is on the raise. How the young and unprepared couple could take care of a baby is open to questions. How will the couple achieve work-life balance with Shaun working long shifts while Lea holds a 9-5 office job? Shaun’s ASD is bound to complicate the situation further. From the perspective of storytelling, this is just the right moment for Lea to be pregnant. It will provide new challenges with high stakes to the couple, and it might provide Shaun with a cause to fight for his job at St. Bonaventure in the last year of his residency. Finally, parenthood with ASD has not been covered a lot. Even science only recently has begun to investigate it. The show can boldly go where few have gone before: normalizing the idea that autistic individuals can be parents.