State of the Shea, Pt. 76:The Greening That Gets to Me ("A Blip")
You know how an article sometimes starts with the dictionary definition of a word and you have to wonder is the writer going somewhere with this, or are they just desperately trying to fulfill their word count?
In this case I AM going somewhere with this (if you’re a regular reader you know making an article long enough isn’t a problem), so please allow me to direct your attention to definition #1 of “Blip”:
noun: an unexpected, minor, and typically temporary deviation from a general trend.
I thought about this definition as I pondered what I did and didn’t like about “A Blip,” and I come away thinking it’s possible the episode may have, more correctly, been entitled “Blips.” Plural. And I’m not just saying that because some of my favorite scenes had little to do with the meat and potatoes storylines. Hang in there, I’ll explain…
The Marquee Blip:
Shaun and Glassman
This was the blip we all cared about the most, this thing Shaun took note of that sent him into research overload mode the same night he learned about Glassman’s two missed sutures. (I guess he must’ve hopped on this as soon as he came back from that celebratory night out with Jared, huh?) The fact that this episode was about simply convincing Dr. Glassman to get his brain scanned ahead of schedule told us there’d definitely be more to this storyline arc.
I mentioned on the Twitter Spaces chat, which happens right after TGD airs Monday nights (watch your Twitter feed for more details!) that I cynically was thinking of this situation with Glassman as a way to give Shaun something to focus on till the end of the season when Lea gives birth to Steven/Aaron/Cantore*/whatever the name is.
Meanwhile, the speculation runs rampant…does all this mean Glassman is going to pass away, just as Baby Shea meets the world? I still say no, that this will be something minor (though the promos for the follow-up episode, “Half Measures,” try to indicate otherwise).
*Only applies if Shaun persuades Lea to name their son after Weather Channel star meteorolgist Jim Cantore.
I think the important thing to look at in this little arc, assuming it stays that way, is how is the dynamic between Shaun and Glassman compares against Glassman’s first round with a brain tumor in S2. Shaun is obviously four years down the road from where he was then. That could mean one thing to a Neurotypical young man, but something quite different to a Neurodivergent one like Shaun. There is the part of him that immediately had to have the answers no matter how much time it took, how much of Lea’s printer paper and toner got used up (But would S2 Shaun sweep into his wife’s office with a fresh ream on replacement paper and and plans for more toner? I doubt it), or how much space on the floor of his office as it would take.
Speaking of which… the scene with Park having to hop around piles of Glassman docs in their joint office was a low-key fave of mine. I loved the way it showcased the dynamic between the two men so effortlessly… Park tossing some sarcasm; Shaun catching it belatedly… as well as the way Park kinda mimicked the tone in Shaun’s “No” with a similarly-paced “Yes.” Park’s fly-by assessment that there was no real pattern for Shaun to go on may or may not prove to be true, but now that both men have settled into their new roles— as well as their office (after a rough start )— It was great to see them interact for a minute.
But back to Shaun and Glassman’s ways of communication. The burst-in-without-knocking stuff has admittedly grown old– I tend to think Shaun knows better by now– but at least that scene helped underscore Shaun’s later decision to leave a box of “new evidence” in Glassy’s office with a note rather than chase him down the hall with it. It also kept a stubborn-vs.-stubborner battle from erupting, since Lea dropped some knowledge at just the right time to diffuse the situation.
(That’s one thing that stayed the same from S2; except the scene didn’t end with Lea returning her lingerie-clad self back to short-term boyfriend Jake. Thank goodness.)
When it comes to Glassman four years later, well… I think he’s softened in some obvious ways (cough LEA cough). But when a certain determined “family” member gets into his personal AND professional business, all his wary cantankerisms shoot to the surface. Goodbye, Shaun. Next time knock, Shaun. WTF do you want NOW, Shaun.
(Yes, I embellished that last one a wee bit.)
So it took some emotional mining for Shaun to realize a heartfelt plea would mean more to Glassman than 20 crates of documented evidence. That’s not surprising. Fortunately, we know that every time Shaun bears his heart he seems to do it even better than the previous time. That makes it more than worth the wait.
NOTE: If you’d like to read the full text of the poem used in the final scenes of “A Blip”— Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limon— you can find it here.
Flirtatious Blip?
Jared and Jordan
Honestly, I think I like where this story is going but I’m not locked in just yet. It’s admittedly tough, knowing that while Jared Kalu is back at St. Bon’s for now, S7 is still up in the air for him (and everyone, at this point! But especially him.) But he’s been mostly front and center since he returned, so I’ll break this down:
Jared 2.0 has some significant identity/esteem issues that he continues to try to handle by overcompensating– buying a whole tray of designer coffees when “celebrating” with Jordan, inviting staff to a lavishly catered karaoke party– but when nobody’s looking (or, OK, when Jordan happens to be looking), he’s struggling with misfit-itis.
On a show that has reliably delivered a beloved karaoke scene in EVERY* season thus far… this guy somehow gets a phoneful of last-minute cancellations and finds himself wailing “Wonderwall” to absolutely nobody. WHYYY DID THIS HAVE TO BE A TOTAL BUST TO GET THE POINT ACROSS ABOUT JARED???? I scowled in my notes for the karaoke sequence. But… if the promo photos for “Half Measures” are accurate… this was a sub-Blip as well. In other words, I think I’ll be talking more successful karaoke scenes next week.
* When I say “every” I mean “no scenes in S4 but TWO scenes in two different episodes of S5” 😅 MY BAD! Thank you Ed Kihanya for catching the error!
I wasn’t liking Jordan’s ongoing vibe towards Jared as the episode started, particularly when we got to that karaoke scene where she continued to dole out advice (“Maybe focus on being a resident rather than party planner?” she said, a little too cheerfully for my taste) and seemed unable to related to anything he was saying at a “friend” level (and really, why should she? He sounds like the quintessential poor rich boy a lot of the time).
But TGD was going somewhere with all this interaction of the past few weeks, and by the time J & J were treating themselves to blue corn tortilla tacos outside the St. Bon’s entrance, they very nearly met their destination. He’d taken some of her words of wisdom to heart (something along the lines of “you don’t have to let your past tell you where next to go”; it was directed at POTW Delilah but she definitely shot him a listen up glance as she said it), and next thing you know he’s scoring points with Park in the OR for the first time, and then… and THEN!...
Yep, Jordan and Jared had a moment. An adorable, something-on-your-face-here-let-me-help moment straight outta RomCom school.
And then Perez, headed home for the night, crosses in the background and catches sight of said moment.
And I said “GOOD!” at this development.
Danny Perez, as you recall, spent the first half of this season wrestling feelings for Jordan with one hand and his sobriety with the other… until sobriety lost, and he felt obligated to keep his distance from Jordan until further notice. (Did you note that Perez was nowhere to be found in the break room scene early in the episode when Morgan arrived with patient assignments?)
This was the first time that Perez had seen Jordan in the company of another captivating guy since all that went down, and I have to imagine there is now some sort of love triangle being constructed in Jordan’s honor. So why did I say GOOD! When I don’t know that I like Jordan and Jared together either? Simply stated, I don’t like when people start something they cannot finish. That’s Perez to me as of now. Yes, his addiction story is compelling, and of course I’m rooting for him to stay clean. But as strong a personality as Jordan is, I completely feel her vulnerability in matters of the heart and want her with someone who can treat her right. That’s not him.
It may not be Jared either, but he still gets the benefit of the doubt. For now.
What the WHAT? Blip:
Andrews and Villanueva
Meanwhile, alongside all the major plotlines of “A Blip,” we saw Andrews (a.k.a. president of the hospital) in some sort of romantic reciprocal relationship with Nurse Villanueva. Or, as I said when I first noted this development via the episodic synopsis… HUH???
For the last time we even SAW them in a conversation (the “Sorry Not Sorry” episode) last fall, Villanueva was in a minor work-related dispute with Andrews. He eventually saw the error of his ways, did the right thing, and if I recall correctly, invited her out for a beer after work. Some people did take that as him asking her out in a more official capacity, I was one of the ones that thought it was just a way to end a little storyline within an episode, no biggie…
But the way it was presented this in “A Blip” – written by Sam Chanse, who co-wrote “Sorry Not Sorry” as well– we were set up for a surprise if you think about it…
The camera follows Andrews as he walks into the cafeteria with two coffees.
He obviously sees the person for whom he’s carrying the coffee… speaks to them… and then get a swishpan that shows us that the person he’s talking to is Villanueva.
Their dialogue suggests that while they are not deeply entangled yet, they have been seeing each other in a social manner, maybe for coffee, maybe lunch, maybe a little more…hard to say.
(That was a relief, because when Andrews and Villanueva made it into the synopsis, I was trying to prepare myself for something totally unexpected, such as her at his house in the wee hours of the morning, or kissing in some clandestine location…something like that.)
But what follows after this eager signing of the consent agreement was almost as surprising. We see her hard at work at the nurses' station as he comes up to give some dining options for the weekend. She explains this weekend is a non-starter for her, mostly because they are desperate for nurses at St. Bon’s (as he surely knows). The two get into a little debate about the basic value (or lack thereof) of traveling nurses, then she gets back to work and he leaves.
THEN we don’t see them again until the end, when the coffees in the cafeteria sequence repeats itself with a twist…
“If you don’t value what the nurses do enough to treat us as a resource to invest in– not a line item to be cut– then how much can you care about me?” She told him with obvious regret “And… if that IS your point of view… it undercuts the respect I have for you.”
And seemingly, in the time it took for us to get used to the idea that these two were now a “thing”... they weren’t. I’ll be quite surprised if we ever hear about it again.
It was a complete head-scratcher for me. Was their sequence of scenes just the equivalent of a dramatized PSA about the under-appreciated, under-respected nurses of America?
OR… what was that definition of “Blip”again?
(an unexpected, minor, and typically temporary deviation from a general trend. )
Aha! Unexpected- check. Minor- check (no one else was involved in their scenes; they could have happened in any episode in the back half of this season except the backdoor pilot “The Good Lawyer”.) Temporary? Check!
If VillanAndrews, or AndrewNueva (hey, it’s a moot point now) were intended as the ultimate sub-BLIP, I can’t help but say WELL PLAYED. Still… as with every dead-end plot point… I can’t help but be a little frustrated, wishing that those precious minutes of screen time could be used more efficiently.
(And of course I’m not saying a storyline about underappreciated nurses is useless. I AM saying there are plenty more organic ways to work it into the show.)
And frankly, for my money, I’ll always prefer a sub-Blip like the one that came courtesy of Asher when he tried a little “WWSMD?”
(Lim’s retort about not wanting to know what he and Jerome did in their free time was spit-take hilarious, BTW.)
Anyway, Asher’s attempts to summon ShaunVision resulted in the unexpected, minor, and temporary fantasy of Jerome striding through his dreams with an engagement ring in hand– proving that “blips” can be entertaining AND productive. (#Jasher must have kissed and made up VERY nicely after the “Second Chances” episode, huh?)
So what parts of “A Blip” snared your attention the most? What parts had you already forgotten about until I mentioned them here? And what’s you guess on the Glassman glioma (cancer) recurrence? Hit the comments below and let me know!
