User Reviews

I just watched episode S3 E7 of Atypical and even I am shocked by how much emotion I felt from these performances. As a "Special Education" teacher for 20 years, Sam's character is what drew me to this show 3 seasons ago, but the reason I was gasping for breath crying tonight was because of the writing and the supporting cast. This show is goodness and honesty. It is the joys and victories and the fears and doubts in all people. And it is real. I have never written an IMDB review and I might never again, but I wanted to make sure that I said my peace about a show that has forever changed me. Thank you to all the artists that created this show and this episode. It was lovely.

I actually paused the video several times during the last 10 minutes of this episode because I had to "examine" my emotions.

After watching it, I sat in the couch, speechless for a few minutes and then rewatched the last 5-6 minutes again.

Sams reaction is mind blowing - at first, in the car scene with Evan Tuba, we see the "Sam version 1" with a complete lack of empathy and within 30 seconds and the following dialogue, he kind of "reboots to v2" as if his mind has a new operating system update installed:

Sam: "Where is Casey?" Elsa: "...... she's very fragile" Sam: "Casey's not fragile!?" "Elsa: "She's heartbroken"

It's like the "essence part" from last episode enabled him to, maybe for the first time, to start get in touch with his empathy - and his facial expressions are just ..... wow .... so revealing. All of a sudden, Sam has this feeling of not truly understanding but having this hunch, that we're not all penguins with a fixed, stable essence. Suddenly, new bullet points needs to be added to the "this is Casey"-model in his head.

I'm actually thinking that his "bridge" to this was the heart-broken-metaphore, as I would imagine that Sam goes "Broken heart? Her heart is actually, physically broken?" and then realizes that it's a metaphore for "she's REALLY sad".

Still, we have the rational, logical question from Sam to Casey: "You're upset about the break-up? If it's making you so sad, then why did you do it?"

The main punch in MY "aspie-gut", is the following dialogue:

Casey: "Why do you seem down? Something happened with Paige?" Sam: "No, we had sex, actually." Casey: "OH! Gross. So why are you sad?" Sam: "Because I can't tell Zahid"

I get very emotional even just by typing this - reminded my SO much of the movie "Super Bad" - tears in my eyes, gasping for my breath.

We're all casualties.

Lyrics from ending credits music ("People say things change"):

Last night cross the room I Saw your eyes they were afloat You said that nothing felt right And you just can't let it go People say things change Yeah but I know better Unless you feel the pain People say things change Yeah but I know better Unless you stand in the rain You'll never let this go Last night through the haze I Felt like I was floating And it gave me such an insight That I thought I was your holy ghost People say things change Yeah but I know better Unless you feel the pain People say things change Yeah but I know better Unless you stand in the rain You'll never let this go