Thursday 27 June 2019

Atypical: Season 1, Episode 4- A Nice Neutral Smell

"She's a girl who wants to touch your peen..."

A surprisingly eventful episode here as we reach the season halfway point. It's played for laughs, but Elsa is racked with guilt for her infidelity, and ends up dumping her lover and committing to her life of Doug being nice and her kids taking her for granted.

But this episode isn't really about Elsa. It's not about Doug, either, and the alienation he feels at the autism group with the constant anal pointing out of his occasional slip into non-"people-inclusive language". Nor, even, is it about Sam, with his incident in the crowd at the athletics track with the ponytail, or that a lot of screen time is spent with him clumsily making his way towards a relationship with the rather cute Paige.

No; this is about Casey, whose record-breaking victory in the 400m isn't witnessed by anyone in her family, and whose proffered athletics scholarship to a posh school is pooh poohed by Elsa because she "needs" to be in the same school as Sam to look after him. Because Sam is the special one, and no one wants it to be about her- so it falls to a brave and lovely outburst by Evan, who insists that it bloody well is about her and it's time people started recognising that. It's a very good bit of writing. And I can't believe we're already halfway through the season.

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