State of the Shea, Pt. 81: All You’ve Got to Do Is Turn Around (“Love’s Labor,” Part 2)
It was a little tougher than usual to track down the song used for the final scenes of “Love’s Labor.”
If you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw me and several others trying to hunt down a title and artist in the weeks just after the episode aired. Using the Shazam app got me nowhere (at first). Searching with some of the patches of lyrics didn’t work. Searching “Coming Home,” my guess at the song title, on YouTube wasn’t helpful. (“Coming Home” and its variations make for incredibly popular song titles… I should know; I wrote a song called “For You to Come Home” that was used in my wedding!) But eventually, a song by Aron Wright entitled “You Are Coming Home” was getting ID’d as The One. Even my Shazam search came back many days later with the message We found your song … which I didn’t know was a thing!
Anyway, here’s a link to the song in its entirety… and here are the lyrics, in case you’re interested. I’ll talk more about the song, as well as some lyrics that were left out of the TGD edit, a little later.
Just a few minutes after the S6 finale ended, I tweeted something to the effect of “Well done, TGD Writers. I mean it.” This might seem odd, given the complaints about some of the storylines that I alluded to in my last post and others before it.
But here’s why I said it…
The “Shore Tax” (a.k.a. Amount of suffering others had to endure while Shaun and Lea witnessed their son’s trouble-free birth) was relatively low compared to other season finales. Morgan still got the baby she’d hoped for, Danny didn’t die in the line of duty, and Glassman, while justifiably miserable, is NOT dealing with a return of his cancer.
We also got a long-awaited reunion, courtesy of Park and Morgan (and Baby Eden!).
The Danny/Jordan situation, while problematic as hell, ended in an interesting manner— and, dare I say, somewhat reasonably, under the circumstances. (But I’ll continue to resent the fact that Jordan wasn’t able to spend one moment with Lea the entire day, as far as we know.)
And I suspect it was difficult to decide how to handle Hill Harper’s likely, but still not set in stone, departure as the St. Bons President. (Particularly when Dr. Marcus Andrews took enormous pride in re-claiming the presidency not that long ago!) By creating a situation where he appears to be in the midst of an epiphany about What Matters In Life, the writers probably made the best of a tough situation. (I don’t think I can ever be sold on him and Villanueva as a couple, but that’s another conversation.)
Finally, the main event (Steven Aaron Murphy’s debut) was LOVELY. And we’ve gotta talk more about that, right?
As it became clear that the delivery would have minimal complications, I found myself somehow surprised that the only people present in the birthing suite were Shaun, Lea, Lea’s OB/GYN, and a nurse to assist. Why did I always picture this to be “busier”? I wondered. Then I realized I was thinking back 22 years to MY son’s delivery. Mine was complication-free as well, but at one point there had to be at least 8 people filling the room: me, my husband Dan, my OB/GYN, a nurse… and then my mother-in-law and at least 3 young residents, all observing me (from “down there,” as Lea would say) with my legs in the stirrups and less than an hour from delivering. My MIL was invited ahead of time. The residents, of course, were not.
I don’t think I minded that much until someone down at the foot of my bed started a conversation with the others that had absolutely nothing to do with the birthing process. The talking got a little louder. Someone started laughing. I beckoned Dan. “Could you…”
I must’ve been shooting them enough of a look for Dan to know what I meant. He spoke to the nurse— politely, but urgently— and she got the residents outta there.
Lea and Shaun didn’t have to deal with any residents other than Asher (and him for a very good reason, I might add), and they certainly didn’t have anyone’s mother-in-law present. What they did have was, by my judgment anyway, pretty much everything #Shea Nation could want:
No manufactured drama…unless you count the discussion about “using suction.” Since it was unclear (to me) whether suction was used or not, the “will he have a conehead?” worry felt like it was mostly a way to get to Shaun’s line “His head has a very nice shape… he is beautiful!”
Lea roaming around early in the episode, taking care of work-related business, taking care of personal business (via her plea to Glassman)… gee, couldn’t they have worked a 30-second advice session with Jordan somewhere in there?? (I’ll try to let that go, I promise…)
Shaun initially seeming more excited about the birthing process itself than the arrival of his son (watching/announcing her contractions on the fetal monitor, taking care of Lea’s visible needs but not recognizing her “invisible needs” until she called him over to talk about them, and, of course, standing “down there” when he needed to be “up here” (with Lea). All was very much in character.
The fear, the joy, the absolute wonder as Lea held Steven for the first time— all was spot-on.
And of course, we were even treated to some very traditional follow-up activities such as Shaun cutting the umbilical cord and Jared taking their first Murphy Family photo. And while they surely received twice their weight in baby gifts, the one WE saw was the one that counted most.
Speaking of Mothers-in-Law (as I was a little earlier)... I had a comment on the previous post lamenting the fact that no one from the Dilallo family chimed in for the duration of Lea’s pregnancy and delivery. Much as I would’ve loved to see Pam and/or Mike again (and please, please, Donnie for the first time!), I didn’t hold out much hope for them to show during “Love’s Labor.” I suppose there could have been a brief FaceTime thing w/Pam & Mike somewhere during the ending montage, but it would have been a lot of talent coordination without a lot of payoff from a storyline perspective.
My fingers remain crossed for next season!
The Forgiveness Factor
The thing I found most intriguing about the use of “You Are Coming Home” was the way the lyrics sounded like a message from Shaun to Glassman rather than the other way around. In earlier, “simpler” times in their relationship, I can imagine Glassman promising to “calm the rivers” in Shaun’s mind, no matter how long it takes. But now, Shaun is more rooted than ever and Glassman is the one going adrift (in part, because of Shaun’s actions). Consider this lyric from the song that didn’t make it into the episode:
'Cause you stop looking for today inside tomorrow
It's like you're trying to pull clouds out of the sky
But we are somewhere between here and where the light goes
Caught somewhere between hello and goodbye
Regardless of who’s most at fault for the state of Shaun and Glassman’s relationship, it’s clearly in uncharted territory. Where does it go from here?
Ideally, an apology would come sooner rather than later. But we got a reminder of Shaun’s difficulty with “I’m sorry” when it took weeks for him to patch things up with Lim earlier this season. Here, we have another case of Shaun feeling he did the right thing, but tone-deaf to the other side of it (Glassman’s pain, his shame, his humiliation). Can this time be any different?
Is this a case of “the more things change…the more they stay the same” for Glassy? We’ve heard his tragic backstory with daughter Maddie for years, and at the heart of it seemed a lack of time, patience and understanding on his part (most of which tied into his perfectionist nature and workaholic mindset). The way he continues to speak of Maddie with such regret, you feel like he’d surely do it all differently if given the chance.
Shaun isn’t Maddie, that’s for sure. But the father-son connection between them has never been underscored so heavily (perhaps in setting up for this very situation). Now one of Glassman’s greatest joys in life is gone, and Shaun’s involvement with that is complicated to say the least.
Glassy’s first test has already come and gone– he chose to stay away, rather than set aside his feelings for the one life-changing day for Shaun. How will his decision shake out over time?
Will “not being there” for Steven’s birth be held against him by Shaun and Lea? Since all went well, I doubt it. (Especially with the appearance of Glassman’s gift, even though it was a copout)
But Glassy resorted to old habits: keeping his distance, rejecting reconciliation pleas, sitting alone with his glass of bourbon at the end of the day. He did what Glassy does when wounded (short of leaving town again), but in doing so, HE missed out. And he can never get that moment back with the two people he’s closest to in this world.
The part that made it all extra crazy– as I suppose was the intent– was the timing. If Lea had delivered Steven a week or two later, as I think her due date forecasted, perhaps there would have been enough of a cooling-off period for Glassy to make peace with at least being there for the birth. But to have all this happening one freakin’ day later-!
And by the way, if I were to nit-pick one flaw with Glassman’s storyline in “Love’s Labor,” it would be Lim asking him to come to advise in the OR before the scrubs from their previous time in the OR were even laundered. It feels ridiculous. I feel like he would have refused. Offer to advise from the gallery, sure. But to ask him to come to his (metaphorical) playground and be reminded every 12 seconds that he can’t touch any of the equipment now…it was too much.
And about Parnick … a saga of Pride (In the Name of Love)?
Setting aside my primary complaint about the entire split– that Park’s anger (or dismay, or whatever it was) was unjustified because Morgan only said “I want it” (referring to the East Coast job); she never accepted the position– this breakup/reunion story got better as it went along…
At first, all we had was the sniping. Been there, done that, what was the point?
Then, later in the fall, came Morgan’s decision to try and conceive a child. There’s probably much more to analyze there– was Morgan’s decision out of character, or a natural progression for a woman of her age and status? How much was it borne out of her split from Park (I’ll show everyone how much I DON’T need a man to live my best life)? And how much did that very decision ultimately factor into their getting back together? Oh, wait, I’ll take a crack at that last one myself.
On paper their story this season feels a little dated, don’t you think?: Woman loses man, woman carries on with her life while man finds himself still pining for her, woman eventually becomes a single mom by choice but soon wonders if she can “have it all” (dream child & dream job), man swoops in and promises to help her make it work, woman and man are back together. But what we’ve got to take into account are the well-defined personalities at hand… and how the past year affected them.
Morgan laid low and licked her wounds mostly in private (except in Park’s presence), then became laser-focused on her new goal of motherhood… took her lumps when that didn’t happen in timely fashion… then re-adjusted her laser on little Eden as the child’s situation became more dire. All the while she slowly opened the door to Park’s possible return to her world, but as the dumpee the first time around, there was no way she’d initiate such a conversation. Especially now that– thanks to Eden– she’s a “package deal.”
Park, whose mood shifts are considerably subtler than the days when he and Morgan pranked each other constantly for competitive gain, kept his mixed emotions to himself all season. At most, his St. Bons colleagues saw a man struggling to get along with his ex in tense situations. But the man who resumed dating other women mid-season, yet gazed at Morgan’s dating app profile all alone in his kitchen?? The man who clearly had lingering insecurity issues to work out once he was faced with the guy who contributed most to the breakup of his first marriage? THAT man was one tough cookie to crumble.
But it wasn’t like Morgan became some damsel in distress as a new (I think a better term is “sudden”) mom, and Park wanted nothing more than to rescue her and be a hero. (Eh, okay, it was a little bit like that.)
Morgan became more human, for lack of a better term. She softened in Eden’s presence, and with that vulnerability came more of a place for Park in her life.
And with Park as an experienced parent, the scales started evening out between them. Something that doesn’t get talked about much is the problem that cropped up (in the back half of S5) of Morgan having far more discretionary income than Park. (Here’s a reminder– when Morgan chose a house for them to move into where she’d be in charge of the rent/mortgage and he’d be in charge of the utilities and “shirtless lawn mowing, shirtless pool cleaning,” etc. (sorry, that proposition still makes me uncomfortable.)
He agreed to it as a sign of his commitment to the relationship, but it sure felt like that decision would be their downfall… all the way until Morgan’s job offer did the trick instead.
But back to the end of S6!
As I said earlier, it would fall to Park to right this wrong for #Parnick fans… and, thick-headed as he can be on matters of the heart (especially his own!), it took an epiphany moment with his POTW (you know, Kevin’s Dad from The Wonder Years) to nudge him over the edge. Lucky for him, Morgan’s response was not Wait, what are you saying?? but What took you so long??
Because, after all, this is Morgan we’re talking about.
**
That’s all I’ve got for “Love’s Labor,” dear readers! What about YOU? What did you think of the finale as a whole (or even in small bits and pieces)? Remember, leaving a comment is FREE and painless!
