S02.E09: Carolina Sphinx Moth

[paulvdb]

Quote

Nicholas is having a rough day and finds solace in Suze, which leads Genevieve to test Nicholas.

Air date: May 27, 2021

[possibilities]

I had a sphinx moth in my yard last summer. It was sitting in a planter and when it flaps its wings, they move so fast you can't see them. I took a photo with a camera, and was shocked by the actual wings appearing in the picture. I guess cameras focus faster than eyes.

Suze seems to have let go of her upset about the wedding.

 

[Evie]

Really good episode. I read Josh Thomas' interview in the New Yorker about his autism diagnosis so knew he was planning on incorporating it into the show. Thomas based the characters he played in Please Like Me and now Everything's Going to Be Okay so much on himself and his experiences, that as a viewer, the diagnosis is not that surprising. Looking back, I can see it. I liked that they had Suze bring it up because as a parent of an autistic child, I buy that she might see the signs. I really like the friendship between Nicholas and Suze. 

I liked that Genevieve helped him with the self-assessments. I felt that the scene with Matilda was probably pretty realistic with how she completely rejected it, gradually came around and then turned the subject back to her and Drea's disturbing shower curtains. The wedding can't happen just so those are never used. 

I can't believe there is only one episode left in the season. It really flew by. I hope this show is renewed; There is nothing like it on television, but unless it's getting good numbers on Hulu, I doubt it will be. 

[KaveDweller]

Man, Nicholas is having a rough day/week/whatever. I can imagine that it would be really hard to get a diagnosis like that as an adult.

I can't believe the season is almost over either. I have really enjoyed it, there is something about this show that is just so enjoyable.

If Matilda already made a wedding invitation for Alex, they must have a date and plan on doing it soon? I wonder if they plan to end the season with it?

[bros402]

This quirky show is so good. I liked how they handled Suze asking Nicholas about autism - but it did feel like the episode jumped around a bit - did we know that Matilda and Drea got an apartment?
 

11 hours ago, Evie said:

I liked that Genevieve helped him with the self-assessments. I felt that the scene with Matilda was probably pretty realistic with how she completely rejected it, gradually came around and then turned the subject back to her and Drea's disturbing shower curtains. The wedding can't happen just so those are never used. 

I can't believe there is only one episode left in the season. It really flew by. I hope this show is renewed; There is nothing like it on television, but unless it's getting good numbers on Hulu, I doubt it will be. 

I also liked that Genevieve helped out with the screener - and yeah, Matilda was realistic - and Nicholas described it perfectly, you have to construct something to appear normal and it takes so much work to keep it together.

how dare you, those shower curtains were amazing

The show is getting similar numbers to last season - it's lower in the #millions, but pretty similar in the 18-49.

[possibilities]

I wish the season was longer. We need more episodes!!!

[tennisgurl]

I cant believe we only have one more episode, it feels like this season went by so fast. This was a really good episode, I had been wondering if they would work Josh Thomas's autism diagnosis into the show and I think they did a really good job with it. I like that it was Suze who first brought it up, having a kid with autism probably made her very aware of the signs and is one of the few people around now who has spent a lot of time around Nicholas and is not a family member or boyfriend, and you can definitely look back and and see signs with Nicholas throughout the show. Getting that diagnosis as an adult must be a really confusing thing to deal with. It probably retroactively explains a lot but it also raises a lot of questions about what to do next, or if you "do" anything. 

 Genevieve helping with the internet test was nice, I think everyone's reactions to Nicholas possibly having autism were all very in character. Especially Matilda rejecting it right away, then coming around as Nicholas talks more about it, and then moving on immediately to talk more about wedding shower curtains. 

[possibilities]

I know someone who got diagnosed as an adult. I had known her for many years before that. She said the diagnosis was a HUGE relief. It explained EVERYTHING for her. I am a little surprised that the show is having Nicholas be so ambivalent about it. 

[Nordly Beaumont]

"My accent is Australia"

"Nope, I've seen Crocodile Hunter, and that's not you."

"Crikey!"

Loved it! It sounded like Nicholas just busted out the "Crikey" to make Genevieve happy.

When Genevieve pointed out that Suze and Toby were Nicholas's only friends, that had to make him stop and think. He not only doesn't make friends easily, but his only friends are two people who know how to relate to a person with autism.

So Alex will be at the wedding, I wonder how that will go. I like Alex (for the most part... I don't like how he banks his complaints and barfs them all over Nicholas later, rather than just saying "I need more room for my stuff" at the time when he needs more room for his stuff). I think I like his relationship with the girls more than his relationship with Nicholas. I think he's good for them because he's more empathetic than Nicholas (dealing with Barb, for example). Anyway, anxious to see how it works out.

Did Suze know her dress was awful? She's such a kook, I really couldn't tell.

[MsNewsradio]

5 hours ago, possibilities said:

I know someone who got diagnosed as an adult. I had known her for many years before that. She said the diagnosis was a HUGE relief. It explained EVERYTHING for her. I am a little surprised that the show is having Nicholas be so ambivalent about it. 

A lot of people have difficulty accepting diagnosis, even if it's something they've actively gone after for themselves. Especially when diagnosed later in life, while it is on the one hand a massive relief to have everything come into focus, it also means reassessing your entire life through that lens, which can be overwhelming.

I sought diagnosis for over a year. I, like your friend, was extremely relieved when I finally got it because it explained SO MUCH, especially things I never would have thought were related (like sensory issues). Would never have connected those dots! At the same time though, there was some sadness...maybe if I had known growing up, I could have had some supports that would have made things less difficult for me socially, or the fact that, yeah, people who didn't know me previously might look at me and think of me first and foremost as my diagnosis and not be able to look past stereotypes and stigma. 

I didn't read it so much as Nicholas being ambivalent about it, but as part masking, and part almost a sort of avoidance of dwelling on it. Especially after that exchange between him and Genevieve about how it's easier to be "woo, autistic pride" about a third party, instead of yourself. Internalized ableism can be a big hurdle. A lot of Nicholas' reactions to things externally also don't seem to completely match up with the emotions he's internally processing (which goes in line with the conversation he has during the picnic with Matilda about him masking). 

I'm kind of glad they had Nicholas not rolling initially with the diagnosis and having some resistance, the same way they had Matilda and Genevieve have the knee-jerk reactions of "no way" to the possibility. They really do a lot to avoid cookie cutter "everything tied up neatly" responses to things on this show, which I appreciate. 

Really love this show...I hope it gets another season.

[possibilities]

I guess I just get really sick of seeing internalized oppression. I come from the disability ghetto and the people in my life love ourselves. It's draining that we get so little representation and the little we get is 99% about what a bummer it is to be us. It's like if all stories about LGBTQ people are about how self-loathing we are, which is also untrue and an over used device that makes me ambivalent about seeing "people like me" portrayed at all. I get that some people have more trouble than others with self-love, but I think that someone like Nicholas, who is surrounded by support and well-steeped in a culture of love and acceptance and disability savvy, would be the kind of person who really ought to get the characterization. It makes it look like "even in the best circumstances, this is tragic" which is not a message the world needs more of.

[bros402]

17 hours ago, possibilities said:

I wish the season was longer. We need more episodes!!!

I know! I would love if this show had even 13 episode seasons. 10 episodes is criminally short!

13 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I cant believe we only have one more episode, it feels like this season went by so fast. This was a really good episode, I had been wondering if they would work Josh Thomas's autism diagnosis into the show and I think they did a really good job with it. I like that it was Suze who first brought it up, having a kid with autism probably made her very aware of the signs and is one of the few people around now who has spent a lot of time around Nicholas and is not a family member or boyfriend, and you can definitely look back and and see signs with Nicholas throughout the show. Getting that diagnosis as an adult must be a really confusing thing to deal with. It probably retroactively explains a lot but it also raises a lot of questions about what to do next, or if you "do" anything. 

 Genevieve helping with the internet test was nice, I think everyone's reactions to Nicholas possibly having autism were all very in character. Especially Matilda rejecting it right away, then coming around as Nicholas talks more about it, and then moving on immediately to talk more about wedding shower curtains. 

They worked it in well - but autism tends to present differently in boys versus girls. I was given a diagnosis as an adult, but I already had a pile of diagnoses that pretty much added up to autism (so pretty much everyone assumed I had autism) - but getting it confirmed helped (Now I have access to more services if I need them).

Yeah, their reactions all felt in character.

4 hours ago, Nordly Beaumont said:

"My accent is Australia"

"Nope, I've seen Crocodile Hunter, and that's not you."

"Crikey!"

Loved it! It sounded like Nicholas just busted out the "Crikey" to make Genevieve happy.

When Genevieve pointed out that Suze and Toby were Nicholas's only friends, that had to make him stop and think. He not only doesn't make friends easily, but his only friends are two people who know how to relate to a person with autism.

So Alex will be at the wedding, I wonder how that will go. I like Alex (for the most part... I don't like how he banks his complaints and barfs them all over Nicholas later, rather than just saying "I need more room for my stuff" at the time when he needs more room for his stuff). I think I like his relationship with the girls more than his relationship with Nicholas. I think he's good for them because he's more empathetic than Nicholas (dealing with Barb, for example). Anyway, anxious to see how it works out.

Did Suze know her dress was awful? She's such a kook, I really couldn't tell.

I laughed so hard at "crikey!"

I hope that Alex and Nicholas get back together, I love them together.

I really hope Suze knew her dress was awful, because hooooo boy that was bad.

1 hour ago, possibilities said:

I guess I just get really sick of seeing internalized oppression. I come from the disability ghetto and the people in my life love ourselves. It's draining that we get so little representation and the little we get is 99% about what a bummer it is to be us. It's like if all stories about LGBTQ people are about how self-loathing we are, which is also untrue and an over used device that makes me ambivalent about seeing "people like me" portrayed at all. I get that some people have more trouble than others with self-love, but I think that someone like Nicholas, who is surrounded by support and well-steeped in a culture of love and acceptance and disability savvy, would be the kind of person who really ought to get the characterization. It makes it look like "even in the best circumstances, this is tragic" which is not a message the world needs more of.

I don't think this was showing that an autism diagnosis was tragic - to me, it felt more like him going "Wait.. I have autism? But Matilda's the one with autism!" - he just needs some time to adjust and understand his diagnosis.

[SparedTurkey]

5 hours ago, possibilities said:

but I think that someone like Nicholas, who is surrounded by support and well-steeped in a culture of love and acceptance and disability savvy, would be the kind of person who really ought to get the characterization.

Not too sure about that, given what his mother and his relationship with her seems to be like. He has no real support networks outside of his younger siblings who he is guardian of and a dead father who put a lot of thought into the girls and made Nicholas the keeper of the key...

I didn't see him as wholly negative about the whole thing. If he was, he would have dropped it and not done those tests with Genevive.

[Evie]

I think Nicholas just needs some time to process it. He could have stopped at the assessments, but he was starting the process to be formally diagnosed at the end. Josh Thomas didn't seem to think his diagnosis was tragic, so I trust that Nicholas ultimately won't either.

Edited May 30, 2021 by Evie

[MsNewsradio]

8 hours ago, possibilities said:

I guess I just get really sick of seeing internalized oppression. I come from the disability ghetto and the people in my life love ourselves. It's draining that we get so little representation and the little we get is 99% about what a bummer it is to be us. It's like if all stories about LGBTQ people are about how self-loathing we are, which is also untrue and an over used device that makes me ambivalent about seeing "people like me" portrayed at all. I get that some people have more trouble than others with self-love, but I think that someone like Nicholas, who is surrounded by support and well-steeped in a culture of love and acceptance and disability savvy, would be the kind of person who really ought to get the characterization. It makes it look like "even in the best circumstances, this is tragic" which is not a message the world needs more of.

I get those concerns completely, and agree that's a storyline that is told all too often, but I didn't get any sort of "this is tragic" or "it's a bummer to be disabled" narrative sense from this episode. Nicholas having to pivot from a previous ADHD diagnosis, and what the family knew as autism and autistic trait manifestation (as Genevieve said, she thought she knew everything about autism, but what she really knew everything about was Matilda), doesn't mean he's self-loathing about it. The time lapse in the episode is a little wavy, but he's known he's autistic from a self-diagnosis standpoint for what, a few days? A couple weeks? I don't think there's anything wrong with having him need to take a beat to reassess and come to terms with that. It is a reality that yes, people who don't know Nicholas from any other standpoint may just view him as "Nicholas, the autistic guy" instead of just "Nicholas". Acknowledging that isn't a bad thing. And I do think it serves as a bit of a note for non-autistic viewers that it's something we deal with, even from well meaning people or friends. My friends and I end up joking about it sometimes, because some folks really do trip all over themselves when they "figure out" I'm autistic (e.g. I mention it in passing in conversation, because it isn't a secret, lol) and all of a sudden they seem to think they need to act like different people around me. 

As SparedTurkey said, as well, it doesn't appear Nicholas was raised in the same sort of supportive environment the girls were. He saw his father on occasion, but was primarily in Australia with his mother, and it's been implied that Nicholas has been treated somewhat as an afterthought by his dad on occasion as well (e.g. leaving nothing to Nicholas while taking time to make sure the girl's had items from their mother or himself), whether by distance or circumstance. So while he was likely raised to be a cheerleader for Matilda, and that there was nothing wrong with being autistic from that standpoint, that's different than when suddenly that spotlight is turned on himself. 

If there was an episode arc about Nicholas refusing to pursue diagnosis, or going into a depression post-diagnosis, I could see the negative/tragic angle, but the episode did show him eventually coming to terms with it, both in explaining to Matilda why he believed he was, and the end scene where it looked like he was pursuing a formal diagnosis.

As the characters said, and have shown, they are very positive in regards to autism and acceptance, and Matilda has also been from a position of being an advocate for herself and very matter of fact/positive regarding her autistic identity, so I don't think it hurt to show some hesitation as the flip side of that. 

[bros402]

16 hours ago, MsNewsradio said:

I get those concerns completely, and agree that's a storyline that is told all too often, but I didn't get any sort of "this is tragic" or "it's a bummer to be disabled" narrative sense from this episode. Nicholas having to pivot from a previous ADHD diagnosis, and what the family knew as autism and autistic trait manifestation (as Genevieve said, she thought she knew everything about autism, but what she really knew everything about was Matilda), doesn't mean he's self-loathing about it. The time lapse in the episode is a little wavy, but he's known he's autistic from a self-diagnosis standpoint for what, a few days? A couple weeks? I don't think there's anything wrong with having him need to take a beat to reassess and come to terms with that. It is a reality that yes, people who don't know Nicholas from any other standpoint may just view him as "Nicholas, the autistic guy" instead of just "Nicholas". Acknowledging that isn't a bad thing. And I do think it serves as a bit of a note for non-autistic viewers that it's something we deal with, even from well meaning people or friends. My friends and I end up joking about it sometimes, because some folks really do trip all over themselves when they "figure out" I'm autistic (e.g. I mention it in passing in conversation, because it isn't a secret, lol) and all of a sudden they seem to think they need to act like different people around me. 

As SparedTurkey said, as well, it doesn't appear Nicholas was raised in the same sort of supportive environment the girls were. He saw his father on occasion, but was primarily in Australia with his mother, and it's been implied that Nicholas has been treated somewhat as an afterthought by his dad on occasion as well (e.g. leaving nothing to Nicholas while taking time to make sure the girl's had items from their mother or himself), whether by distance or circumstance. So while he was likely raised to be a cheerleader for Matilda, and that there was nothing wrong with being autistic from that standpoint, that's different than when suddenly that spotlight is turned on himself. 

If there was an episode arc about Nicholas refusing to pursue diagnosis, or going into a depression post-diagnosis, I could see the negative/tragic angle, but the episode did show him eventually coming to terms with it, both in explaining to Matilda why he believed he was, and the end scene where it looked like he was pursuing a formal diagnosis.

As the characters said, and have shown, they are very positive in regards to autism and acceptance, and Matilda has also been from a position of being an advocate for herself and very matter of fact/positive regarding her autistic identity, so I don't think it hurt to show some hesitation as the flip side of that. 

iirc Nicholas's dad left when he was 12. Matilda's 18, so, bare minimum, Nicholas is 30 now.

The last big time it sounds like Nicholas saw his dad before the final time sounds like the time that was described in season 1, when Matilda kept having meltdowns and Genevieve kept mispronouncing suicide (I believe they said she was 4) - so Matilda was 6 I (think?), so Nicholas was 18 at minimum, probably closer to 20. So he potentially hadn't seen his father in person for 6-8 years, then didn't see him again until he was dying 10-12 years later. It very much seemed like they were distant but pleasant with each other, from what we saw in the pilot. However, Darren seems like he would've tried to reach out to Nicholas, maybe via phone calls or sending money to his mother (who is not the most supportive person.

19 hours ago, SparedTurkey said:

Not too sure about that, given what his mother and his relationship with her seems to be like. He has no real support networks outside of his younger siblings who he is guardian of and a dead father who put a lot of thought into the girls and made Nicholas the keeper of the key...

I didn't see him as wholly negative about the whole thing. If he was, he would have dropped it and not done those tests with Genevive.

Yeah - Nicholas did not grow up in the healthiest household and he still doesn't really have friends - and now he relies on his 16 (?) year old sister or his boyfriend for advice on most things.

I didn't see him as being negative about it at all.