Saturday 21 March 2020

Atypical: Sam Takes a Walk

“I had sex so I’m not angry!”

The penultimate episode, then, and there are many character threads coming to the boil, I think more so than either previous season, yet this short episode does not feel overloaded.

Casey is still devastated after letting go of Evan. Sam is struggling with parallel feelings about being un-homied by Zahid, despite the fact that his relationship with Paige is going swimmingly. Again we have an art assignment- a piece of angry, political art- as a metaphor for the episode.

But much of the episode is about Elsa and Doug, away in a hotel to watch Casey with her athletics, finding themselves reconnecting with nostalgia over an old board game made by Sam as a child. Other developments are less promising- Izzy has dumped Evan for her, but Izzy seems to be getting nervous, wanting to “take it slow”. And Casey is shocked to see her kissing a boy at the party later. Things are as complicated, and no better, than they were. This is very good, nuanced writing.

Everything is up in the air, then. And, to link to an exciting finale, Sam learns that Zahid is off to elope with Gretchen on the day of his final nursing exam. Penultimate episodes don’t get much better than this.

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