S03.E15: Unsaid

[Good Doctor Fan]

Hmm.  It didn’t occur to me that maybe Morgan and Park both complained.  Thinking on it though, I think that only Morgan complained.  She complained to Lim but asked her to keep it anonymous.  Park told Clair it was him to prevent any further damage to the team. (He really is a good guy!). 
 

And I agree with Lim I’m confused about Morgan.  I thought she was being human for a while ... but then she attempts to sabotage Shaun in the middle of surgery!  And then she makes a complaint on Melendez...  she’s schizo.  

[rmontro]

11 minutes ago, Fable said:

I am but I don’t know if it is for the same reasons.  It is starting to remind me a little bit of House in that the romantic relationships are starting to interfere and overtake the storylines. 

Well, in this and in House, there isn't much storyline left if you take out the romance.  There's the medical stories of the week, but other than that there's not that much ongoing.  And what there is moves really slowly.  But yeah, the relationships can get annoying. 

 

[statsgirl]

2 hours ago, rmontro said:

I disagree with that, I think women communicate in a much less direct fashion than men do.

I got curious and looked this up. There wasn't any research showing that men communicate in a more direct fashion than women do.

However I found this

Quote

females exhibit higher sensitivity to non-verbal cues: they better discriminate friendliness from sexual interest (Farris et al., 2008) and are more proficient in recognition of facial emotions (Montagne et al., 2005). Females without and with Asperger syndrome are better at recognizing emotions from dynamic faces than males (Golan et al., 2006). Moreover, females tend to better recognize emotions from faces than from voices, whereas males exhibit the opposite tendency.

So basically, Lea and Morgan did a lot of communicating that Shaun would have missed.

[thuganomics85]

I really am wondering if Shaun's knowledge of Gordon Ramsey exceeds his cooking recipes, because I'm trying to imagine what Shaun's reaction would be if he ever saw an episode of Hell's Kitchen!

At least they didn't drag out the anonymous complaint story, although I'm a bit confused over if Park made the initial one and then Reznick did one later, or if it was Reznick the entire time, and Park just said it was him to get Claire to quit talking about it.  Either way, I guess it would make sense for both of them.  I know Park tried to do the whole "I was doing it to help you" thing with Claire, but I really think it was just him being pissed over the events last week, and wanting to knock both of them down a peg.  Pettiness isn't beneath Park, to put it mildly.  On the other hand, Reznick is clearly doing this because she wants to try and get leverage incase they ever find out about her condition, and try to use it if they ever try and fire her.  Yeah, Park might be a dick, but Reznick is pretty much willing to risk lives by allowing her to keep her job, even if she possibly gets to the point that she would be negatively affected come surgery time.  So, she's back to being the worst again.  At least Lim seems to be suspicious of all of this.  But I wonder what Glassman is going to think, since he's pretty much in the thick of it now.

At least Melendez/Claire's friendship is intact and it might even be stronger now.  But if it ever does go down the romantic path, they are going to be dealing with way more than just a few anonymous complaints from their co-workers!

Shaun's love life has now just exploded, as Carly breaks up with him, since she believes he and Lea really do have feelings for one another.  Still unsure if it is fully romantic yet and if either one of them truly know it, but, yeah, their actions during karaoke really did say a lot.  At the very least, I do think Lea always wants to be the most important woman in Shaun's life, and will subtly find ways to one-up any potential opposition on that front, so their relationship really is a shaky one.  I do think it is important for Shaun to learn about romance and dating (plus, the sexy times!), but I do think he might want to take a break from all of that next season!

His motives might have been self-serving, but Park does have a point about how sometimes it is better to suck up to those who work under you, compared to the ones above you.  Especially since it has been shown a few times how nurses can have a lot of say in things.

Another week where both cases have happy endings!  Again, I'm just paranoid that this means something really, really bad is coming down the pipeline for everyone!  

[rmontro]

1 hour ago, statsgirl said:

I got curious and looked this up. There wasn't any research showing that men communicate in a more direct fashion than women do.

However I found this

Sorry I didn't make this clear before, but I completely agree that women read non-verbal cues better.  But it's my personal observation that men communicate more directly.

[ElectricCityy]

I appreciate the show exploring the romantic side of Shaun's life but we saw more than enough. Hopefully he stays single for awhile and doesn't shoot his shot with Lea again. If she's interested let her make the move.

I am completely on board with an eventual Melendez/Claire pairing. What can I say, I'm a sucker for slow burn. I hated when they forced the romance with him and Dr. Lim. They were a black hole of chemistry.

I didn't miss "Glassy".

[DearEvette]

10 hours ago, rmontro said:

10 hours ago, Fable said:

I am but I don’t know if it is for the same reasons.  It is starting to remind me a little bit of House in that the romantic relationships are starting to interfere and overtake the storylines. 

Well, in this and in House, there isn't much storyline left if you take out the romance.  There's the medical stories of the week, but other than that there's not that much ongoing.  And what there is moves really slowly.  But yeah, the relationships can get annoying. 

 

When you think about it, though, Shaun's romance is the only romance the show really has shown in months.  Claire and Jared were kaput in S1.  Ditto Melendez and his wife.  He and Lim called it quits back in early November, same time we last saw Debbie (Glassman's wife). 

It feels like the show cleared the decks of all other romance so they could concentrate on Shaun's.  And since it seems to be some tv law that you have to give your lead character a complicated romance, well, there you go.

Outside of the medicine of the week stories, the personal stories of the regular characters seem more trauma based than romance based.  Claire's family issues and her resultant spiral and now her recovery.  Morgan's family issues and her RA.  Park... well he has no life outside of mentioning his ex-wife once or twice.  Melendez and Lim don't seem to have any lingering after-affects of their involvement.  They haven't even backslid and had a one -off hook up.  So it feels like the show has really put that behind them.

For now the only romance shenanigans still on the horizon is the aftermath of Shaun/Carly's break-up and whatever they plan to do with Shaun/Leah.  We might get a ramp up to Claire Melendez but my guess is if they do decide to go there,  it won't be til around the finale to give us something to chew over while the show is on hiatus.

[Virtual]

There is one glaring constant that has become so frequent of an occurrence at St. Bonaventure, that no one even bats an eye to it happening, and I find it extremely funny. That happening being people talking about their personal lives so often during work, even during a procedure. Most namely Shaun talking about his relationships with his friends or girlfriend. While I find it realistic that Shaun would do that (what guy wouldn't be excited about moving steps forward with his girlfriend? Add his autism into it as well), I feel that if this happened at a real life hospital, all of his co-workers would repeatedly tell him to focus on work and to not mention his love life, or worse, report him to HR.

I suppose I knew it would happen eventually, but plot armor is now separating Shaun and Carly and declaring Lea the one that Shaun loves. Shaun was just looking at her as a friend, but now that Carly said that to him, he's going to believe it by the looks of the promo for the next episode. It's a mistake on Shaun's part. Lea got his hopes up in Season 1 when they kissed on the road trip, that he might finally be able to form a relationship with and date a girl, only for her to promptly announce on that same trip that she was moving away to Pennsylvania. Months later, she comes back with bags outside Shaun's apartment and acts like nothing happened. That's why I'm glad that Glassman later called her out on it; I do think it sunk in to her when she heard it from him. And later when Shaun got demoted and then fired by a boss who wrote him off from the start due to his autism, she acted like it wasn't a big deal and seemed annoyed when he would talk about it. I know that she has been there for Shaun during some other bad events, and I do like her for that, but I just don't think she is the best relationship option for Shaun at this point in time considering everything that has happened between them that hasn't been addressed yet.

I get the impression that both Reznick and Park put in a complaint about Melendez, and that Morgan put in hers after she heard that there was already a complaint out. It would look worse if they tried to fire her when her boss had the whistle blown on him twice. But I clapped big time when Lim realized everything that was really going on (except for Morgan's medical problem, but I think she might suspect something now), and said that she would let go anyone if it was deserved, no matter what complaints were floating around.

I could only laugh watching Morgan try to upset Shaun when he took over her procedure, and seeing none of it working. She is just bad at trying to rattle people. This isn't the first time she's tried to upset Shaun, and she has never succeeded in doing so! And he's the EASIEST person at the hospital to upset!!

I guess the best news for my hopes of continued character development, is that there will be a 4th season of this show.

[Fable]

Relationships are a real part of life, and I see no reason not to include them on TV shows, but I really don’t like when shows get consumed by having them as the main focus.  I still enjoy this show.  I was just responding that I enjoy it less because of the ongoing Shaun/Carly/Leah drama.  I brought up House because the House/Cuddy relationship ended up being a show killer for me, and I eventually quit watching, only returning for the finale. 

Edited February 19, 2020 by Fable

[rmontro]

6 hours ago, ElectricCityy said:

I appreciate the show exploring the romantic side of Shaun's life but we saw more than enough. Hopefully he stays single for awhile and doesn't shoot his shot with Lea again. If she's interested let her make the move.

Well, the preview for next week showed Shaun approaching Lea and saying "I'm supposed to tell you how I feel".  I'm just hoping his feelings are that he just sees her as a friend. 

Most of the observations from the other women were about Lea having feelings for Shaun (not all, but most).  So maybe Lea has developed feelings but Shaun has moved on.  But as we've seen before Shaun can be confused about his feelings - remember when he was so upset because he was comfortable with Lea touching him?  I hate to say it, but this whole mess is a good example of the complications that can arise from having close opposite sex friends,

[Annber03]

7 hours ago, DearEvette said:

When you think about it, though, Shaun's romance is the only romance the show really has shown in months.  Claire and Jared were kaput in S1.  Ditto Melendez and his wife.  He and Lim called it quits back in early November, same time we last saw Debbie (Glassman's wife). 

It feels like the show cleared the decks of all other romance so they could concentrate on Shaun's.  And since it seems to be some tv law that you have to give your lead character a complicated romance, well, there you go.

Exactly. Especially considering the fact that Shaun is autistic-this show provided a good opportunity to see how somebody with autism deals with and handles a romantic relationship. Which is why it personally didn't bother me that it got so much focus, because it was something a little different from the usual types of romances we see portrayed on TV. I wish it had a happier outcome, and that we'd been able to see a few more happy moments between Shaun and Carly during their time together, but I am glad that the show explored the storyline and idea in and of itself. And if the storyline proved inspiring and helpful to others out there in the process, all the better.

[rmontro]

12 minutes ago, Annber03 said:

Exactly. Especially considering the fact that Shaun is autistic-this show provided a good opportunity to see how somebody with autism deals with and handles a romantic relationship. Which is why it personally didn't bother me that it got so much focus, because it was something a little different from the usual types of romances we see portrayed on 

Good point.  And for another take on a person with autism handling a romantic relationship, see Atypical on Netflix.

[catrice2]

20 hours ago, Fable said:

I am but I don’t know if it is for the same reasons.  It is starting to remind me a little bit of House in that the romantic relationships are starting to interfere and overtake the storylines. 

I never watched house, but I can see that...

[Court]

I don't even buy that Shaun is in love with Lea. He did have feelings for her but they're long gone. Why can't shows just let people be friends? It is possible!

Lea steamrolls Shaun and everyone else and has zero respect for boundaries. Her behavior in the elevator was begging Carly to be jealous. She just wanted the attention. I see zero evidence that she is in love with Shaun either.

 

Edited February 20, 2020 by Court

[bros402]

2 hours ago, Court said:

I don't even buy that Shaun is in love with Lea. He did have feelings for her but they're long gone. Why can't shows just let people be friends? It is possible!

Lea steamrolls Shaun and everyone else and has zero respect for boundaries. Her behavior in the elevator was begging Carly to be jealous. She just wanted the attention. I see zero evidence that she is in love with Shaun either.

 

Me either.

The only show in recent memory that has pulled off a male-female platonic relationship with nobody even trying to engage in relations at any point is Elementary, which was great.

[chitowngirl]

On 2/18/2020 at 1:55 PM, aemom said:

You force Lea to move out of the apartment - which in a real life situation would be a complicated and very shitty thing to force someone to do that quickly.  Then Carly is upset that Shaun is still friends with her.  Now she breaks up with him because after one karaoke song, she is convinced that they are pining away for each other.

This sounds like Emily’s behavior in Friends.

 

On 2/18/2020 at 3:56 PM, CarpeFelis said:

And the eating off Shaun’s plate — ARGH. Do that to me and I’ll be sorely tempted to stab your hand with my fork! It seems really out of character for him not to be severely annoyed by that.

Shaun probably wasn’t upset by it because he got used to her doing it when they lived together. He doesn’t read anything into it other than it’s something she does.

[TurtlePower]

On 2/18/2020 at 8:27 AM, tinderbox said:

I’m one of the few who doesn’t like Carly or her relationship with Shaun so this apparent breakup is music to my ears.  I like Lea.  Who knows where this is going?  That said, less emphasis on Shaun’s sex life would be fine with me.  

I don't like Carly, either. For someone so smart--and should be able to do a lot of research on autism--she doesn't seem to understand Shaun AT ALL. I did not like how Carly forced Shaun to make Lea move, constantly questioned him and manipulated him--poor Shaun went right along with it. Given that, I was also happy to hear of the breakup, although I wonder what Shaun is actually going to say to Lea. Maybe he'll be mad at her because whenever she's around, his life becomes problematic (it wouldn't surprise me if the show did the opposite of what we think will happen). 

I like Lea this season. She's been a good friend to Shaun. 

Edited: The eating off Shaun's plate, though. Yeah, no. Don't do that, Lea. I don't even do that to my best friend unless I've asked first. 

Edited February 20, 2020 by TurtlePower

[statsgirl]

Lea explained eating off of Shaun's plate by saying that she used to work fulltime in a place with a gourmet chef, now she's working parttime in a place with a cafeteria. It sound like a "pity me" excuse.

The Canadian promo has Shaun saying that if he goes to Lea and she turns him down, he won't have a girlfriend.  I'm afraid that this is going to get dragged out.

9 hours ago, bros402 said:

The only show in recent memory that has pulled off a male-female platonic relationship with nobody even trying to engage in relations at any point is Elementary, which was great.

Instinct did it too. It helped that he was not just married but also gay.

I agree that platonic friendships between male and female leads are few and far between. Try Killjoys. Male/female BFFs and the only shippiness was from the fans.

23 hours ago, Fable said:

 I brought up House because the House/Cuddy relationship ended up being a show killer for me, and I eventually quit watching, only returning for the finale. 

Same. There seemed to be a lot of behind the scenes stuff going on with House that drove the relationship storylines but I hoped that David Shore had learned his lesson and wouldn't repeat his mistakes.

[possibilities]

All Rise has a male-female platonic best friendship, too, at least so far.

I would love it if this is what happens:

3 hours ago, TurtlePower said:

Maybe he'll be mad at her because whenever she's around, his life becomes problematic (it wouldn't surprise me if the show did the opposite of what we think will happen)

I'd like to see Shaun become clear enough and strong enough to not be blown around by what other people are telling him. That includes Carly. He could be angry at Carly for telling him what he feels instead of owning up to her own insecurity or confusion. She doesn't need to trust him or see things the same way he does, but she was pulling rank and not owning her own stuff in the way she framed her decision.

[Granny58]

On 2/18/2020 at 12:14 AM, statsgirl said:

Morgan is wrong that women express more non-verbally than men do. Both sexes express the same amount, it's just that women are better at decoding non-verbal behaviour.

Yup!  I  know...not much of a comment but so glad you said this. 

On 2/19/2020 at 1:14 AM, rmontro said:

Sorry I didn't make this clear before, but I completely agree that women read non-verbal cues better.  But it's my personal observation that men communicate more directly.

it's my personal observation that men don't communicate at all.  

[sleepysuzy]

My hope is that Carly was 100% wrong in her assessment of Shaun's feelings for Lea. As someone whose affect tends to be atypical, I hate hate HATE when people tell me how I feel. I want Shaun to be angry that someone is "reading" him like that.

[rmontro]

2 hours ago, sleepysuzy said:

My hope is that Carly was 100% wrong in her assessment of Shaun's feelings for Lea. 

Could have been Carly's "insecurity" talking.  Although I'm not sure I like her objections to Lea being dismissed as insecurity.  I guess to even things out, Carly should find some guy to hang out with, lunch with, or move in with, so they can both see each others perspectives more clearly?

[DearEvette]

In show, it is tempting to believe that Carly may simply be insecure or projecting and that Shaun really has no feelings for Leah.

But meta-show it is hard to argue that as a case. The reality is as a character Leah's only real purpose is to be in some sort of relationship with Shaun.  She isn't a doctor and had no affiliation with the hospital and no real interaction with any of the other characters.  She has no relevance to the medical stories.  For the longest time the only person she interacted with on the whole show was Shaun.  As a matter of fact, Leah is the only regular character of her type on the show -- someone who exists solely as part of the personal life of one of the characters. 

Take her out of the show, it affects no one except Shaun.   To keep her close to Shaun, the writers first  contrived a way to make her and Shaun roommates.  Then they contrived a way to create interaction with  Glassman (the one person Shaun has the biggest emotional connection to).

Later they made a point to draw a pointed contrast to the ease of intimacy he has with her vs. the hard work it took to create even the most casual touch with Carly,  and now they've contrived a way to put her in the hospital.

If they wanted the audience to believe that Carly was reading something that wasn't there, there were a ton of different ways they could have written Leah.  But as written, the cues are there for the audience in the same way they are for Carly, imo, to draw the same conclusions as Carly. 

[statsgirl]

Lea is such a Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Quote

Film critic Nathan Rabin, who coined the term after observing Kirsten Dunst's character in Elizabethtown (2005), said that the MPDG "exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures."

The problem for me is that I think she would be worse for Shaun than Carly is. She's possessive and when it comes to her wants and Shaun's needs, it's hers first.

[rmontro]

35 minutes ago, statsgirl said:

The problem for me is that I think she would be worse for Shaun than Carly is. She's possessive and when it comes to her wants and Shaun's needs, it's hers first.

I'd just be upset because she's eating my bacon.

It's crossed my mind a few times that if there is no relationship with Lea, why do they need the actress anymore?  What purpose would her character serve on the show?  She can serve as the person Shaun is talking to, then he suddenly has an epiphany and rushes away.  Or be Glassy's assistant who gets on his nerves and shows him how out of touch he is with computers.  But that's about it.   

[Trini]

Lea's there to be Shaun friend. I just wish they'd have other friends for him. They've mostly neglected his relationships with the other doctors. I wish they'd let him develop a deeper relationship with one of them. My preference is Claire, but Park works for me too.

Edited February 21, 2020 by Trini

[bros402]

49 minutes ago, Trini said:

Lea's there to be Shaun friend. I just wish they'd have other friends for him. They've mostly neglected his relationships with the other doctors. I wish they'd let him develop a deeper relationship with one of them. My preference is Claire, but Park works for me too.

I think Park could be an interesting friend for Shaun - they could be an interesting combination, they aren't very alike, but Park could be a good person to help Shaun interpret some social cues as he was a cop - he seems to have a heightened sense of people's minute reactions, he could explain it to Shaun in a more clinical fashion.

[rmontro]

13 hours ago, Trini said:

Lea's there to be Shaun friend. I just wish they'd have other friends for him. 

Well, he is autistic, so it may be more realistic for him to be a little more isolative, which he isn't.  He's probably not going to have a large group of friends that he hangs out with.  If for no other reason than he appears to work long hours and is very focused on that.  Maybe they could show more office parties.

[bros402]

9 hours ago, DarkHorse said:

Please let the Carly Shaun fiasco be over now! There was never any chemistry between them anyway and Carly always seemed to view Shaun as a science experiment. It seemed once she finally got him to have sex she was already going cold on him and trying to find any reason to cool things off. So now he's addicted to sex/orgasms and she dumps him because she keeps feeling insecure about Leah. 

The whole thing always seemed really off to me and I am sure if Shaun was a female autistic and was being pursued in the same way there would be an outcry about how abusive it is. 

Carly wasn't pursuing Shaun. Shaun initiated the relationship. If Shaun were a woman with autism, she would probably be more socially adapted - given that autism tends to be more tricky to catch in women.

[bros402]

19 hours ago, DarkHorse said:

I don't watch every ep so must have missed how it started. The ones I saw were all about Carly hoping for sex with him so I figured for some reason she pursued/initiated the relationship. Makes a little more sense now that she would be confused by him. 

Nah, Shaun appeared at her door at the end of the Season 2 finale to ask her out on a date.

[rmontro]

23 hours ago, bros402 said:

Nah, Shaun appeared at her door at the end of the Season 2 finale to ask her out on a date.

I always thought there were some missing scenes in there somewhere that we weren't privy to.  That showed some sort of connection stirring between them, because it all seemed very out of left field to me.  I know they had been working together, but I didn't catch any kind of romantic or sexual vibe between them.  Or maybe that was my oversight?

[bros402]

1 minute ago, rmontro said:

I always thought there were some missing scenes in there somewhere that we weren't privy to.  That showed some sort of connection stirring between them, because it all seemed very out of left field to me.  I know they had been working together, but I didn't catch any kind of romantic or sexual vibe between them.  Or maybe that was my oversight?

I liked them together, but yeah, there wasn't really any significant buildup to it.

[KaveDweller]

21 hours ago, bros402 said:

I liked them together, but yeah, there wasn't really any significant buildup to it.

I think that was intentional because we were supposed to be surprised in the finale last year. Everything was pointing to him asking Leah out, but then he showed up at Carly's house.

[jabRI]

On 2/17/2020 at 11:26 PM, Deputy Deputy CoS said:

Claire has caught her catch and is now reeling him him. Next time they will be bed. It won’t end well for him.

So men and women can't be friends?? Professional colleagues?

[jabRI]

I don't get what Morgan's end game is. She has RA, it's not going to go away, and being a surgeon is off the table for her. There are plenty of other lucrative medical fields she could go into. She fools people for what, a year, then what??

[Deputy Deputy CoS]

5 minutes ago, jabRI said:

I don't get what Morgan's end game is. She has RA, it's not going to go away, and being a surgeon is off the table for her. There are plenty of other lucrative medical fields she could go into. She fools people for what, a year, then what??

Given her conduct with Shaun and Claire, her goal is take down as many of her colleagues with her. She tried to rattle Shaun with no regard of the open patient on the operating table. She doesn't care about Claire's nor Melendez' careers.

Such a destructive person has no place in being a doctor.