If only the posterboard-and-sharpie signs were the most important varieties within this episode-!

But alas, the situation with Lim, Glassman, and of course Shaun became a lot clearer in “A Big Sign”… and equally as complicated. So I’m gonna start there.

VITAL SIGNS

(Do yourself a favor and read through the above series of Tweets, courtesy of reader Daniela… it’s the more concise version of what I think we all need to keep in mind on Lim’s paralysis storyline. My more meandering version is what follows…)

… But so far, it’s not how culpable Shaun is as much as it is how willing Shaun is to accept any culpability. To Shaun, “I saved your life” is the end of the conversation because, for him, saving lives was the very reason he got into medicine. (It’s also why the idea of shortening her life, a.k.a. Glassman‘s original possible solution with the resection of the liver, was off the table for him.)

Lim is through with keeping a stiff upper lip on her situation, though, and part of this next stage is getting real with the doctor she holds most responsible. Just how fraught is this scenario? Well…

• Lim has, until now, consistently been Shaun’s biggest professional supporter outside of Glassman.

• Lim has dealt with criticism (most notably from Andrews) that she’s coddled Shaun too much and not letting him deal enough with the realities of being a surgeon.

• And as far as basic apologies go, remember how she was the one to all but reach down Shaun’s throat and pull the “I’m sorry” out of him in S3’s “45-Degree Angle”?

• In her own mind, though, Lim surely feels she’s done the right thing in encouraging Shaun to trust himself with risky decisions.

• On top of all this, she was very fond of Shaun personally. (Who gave the best speech at the #Shea engagement party last season? HINT: It wasn’t Glassman…)

• But now she’s up against a doctor she trained who not only insists he made the right choice in “going rogue,” but through no real fault of his own, lacks the empathy to even begin to process the ways she is suffering. 

(I say “no real fault” for a reason. More on that in a minute.)

Here’s what I DO know: Shaun adores Lim. He respects her immensely, appreciates all she’s done for him, and (until now) has felt he could come to her for any reason. He may not yet understand all of Lim’s anger, but the severing of half their relationship– the friendship part? He can’t help but understand that after last week’s closing scene. If Glassman’s words can’t get to him yet, maybe Lim’s lack of them will. 

And now, on to the decidedly less “fraught” goings-on from last week…

SIGNS OF AN ONGOING EVOLUTION (The “Wet Cement” year)

Do the new married-people dinner plates mean that the “soothing” pattern Shaun chose when they first roomed together are now donated to Goodwill? Or are they just used for microwaving Triscuits & cheddar? #Shea Nation wants ANSWERS! (Remember, they were discussing who got the plates when Lea moved out at Carly's suggestion in my least favorite TGD episode ever, S3’s “Mutations.”)

Anyway, the dishes thing was a common issue if you have a dishwasher, and the writers must’ve seen this as a springboard to use with Julianne, Shaun’s marriage counselor POTW. (Fun fact: my husband and I haven’t had an automatic dishwasher since our days of living in an apartment in the late 90s, so scraping the dishes before washing is mandatory in this house if we don’t want a stopped-up kitchen drain!)

For one thing, I don’t know how easy it is to even find a therapist with such qualifications (though one with ASD “experience” is probably a different story). For another (as we well know), Shaun and Lea have been learning and growing in this relationship for several years now, so I’m not sure what even an ASD expert could tell these particular newlyweds that they don’t already know. And for a third (!) thing, #Shea was utilized in “A Big Sign” as a lighter subplot– much as Jordan’s “crush” was– to offset the growing tension of Lim’s storyline. To go any deeper than they did with Shaun, Lea, and Julianne in this particular episode would have felt out of place. Still, I’m left wondering if it was better to treat the “bad habits” conversation as if they were a typical couple when they aren’t. Was there a way to acknowledge the difference properly with Julianne?

TGD opted to keep the ASD/NT discussion between Shaun and Lea– and I must say, what I enjoyed about how they did this came not so much in the adorable, Love, Actually- esque conclusion (they just throw us the biggest bones to chew on sometimes with Shea, don’t they?) but that discussion (in the imaging room). That really made the difference this time. 

I mean, think back to when they first roomed together four years ago. In their first real face-off,  Shaun started with an agitated conversation (about the need to keep the TV remotes in their proper place, if I’m not mistaken), and Lea responded in not-so-kind with so much more agitation that Shaun practically shut down, leading to Lea’s famous first visit to Glassman‘s house (“I think I broke Shaun!”). 

Which brings me to my other nit-pick of the night with them: Even though Lea did say “Shaun, at some point we need to figure out a way (to differentiate via text if a situation is an emergency or not),”  I think the two of them would have had this kind of thing sorted out by now; this could be one of those casualties of different writers handling #Shea from episode to episode. If it was me writing, I probably would’ve had Lea say “Shaun, I think you forgot to add the (insert whatever symbol he is supposed to add for an emergency… or a non-emergency)”.

All in all, though, I embrace the idea of them touching on issues like this just after getting married. Yes, they have been together for almost as long as the show has been on the air as far as living in the same apartment goes. But, especially for Shaun, everything surely resonates deeper than ever– along with the importance of “not failing” as he would say. Hence his hilarious and short-lived meeting of the divorced… and, much more importantly, his interaction with a professional marriage “expert.” We all know how much he respects experts!

So please enjoy this gorgeous collage created by @EndgameShea…

WARNING SIGNS

If Combat Danni’s actions in last week’s “Change in Perspective” were the prologue for her issues with following orders, should her action of releasing her patient Katie from restraints be “a big sign” that CD is, as Lea called her last week, TROUBLE (trouble in all caps)? Park was none too pleased with her until he softened– along with us– hearing CD share the story of her leg amputation with Katie’s mom as a way of illustrating– and connecting– on the challenges of parental decisions.

SIGNS OF ANOTHER SHOE BEING OUT THERE SOMEWHERE, WAITING TO DROP…

“It doesn’t take a scientist to understand what’s going on, baby.”

So unlike CD, it seems Handsome Dan can do no wrong so far. He’s studly to many, modest, kind, escorts old ladies around the hospital, fist bumps to young patients… oh yeah, and as we learned last week, he also adores his grandmother. All we need is him knitting sweaters for disabled vets and/or rescuing kittens in his free time, and we’ll have a full house of just-too-good-to-be-true.

Little Bitty Signs (based on airtime this week) But Still Important…

What did YOU think of “A Big Sign”? Leave a comment and share your impressions!