Atypical Episode 1 and 2 Review

I’m going to do an autistic review of some programmes 😲😨. This time I have chosen a programme called ‘Atypical’  this programme is on Netflix it talks about the main character who is autistic and how everyday things affect his life and how the family have adapted around an autistic friendly life. It is now on its second season- I personally love this show! I know the humour is bad but that’s is most humour for people on the spectrum. Each episode is about 30 minutes long.  I am going to do this two episodes at a time or else I will be doing 18 blog post. I don’t know how people usually review but I am going to describe the episodes in the scenes shown then round off with my thoughts between the good and the bad.  So without further ado here is my review. 

Just a quick warning there maybe some adult themes, but I tried to edit them out as best as I could.😀

Atypical  Episode 1 and 2 Review

 

Episode 1:

It started off okay the main character, Sam,  saying “I’m a weirdo, that’s what everyone says”,  he also explains that he doesn’t understand somethings everyone else can. He explains his form of stimming. Then we get to see Sam, that his point we still don’t know his name, then we see a woman; who is Sam’s counsellor. He lists things that he can’t do, like be in a relationship (hold that idea its quite important for at least the first season). It then mentions that he is on the spectrum. Then the counsellor, named Julia, mentions that people on the spectrum can date. It cuts to a scene where Sam is on the bus, you here him how it doesn’t really like the bus, mainly the feel of the seats. He then talks and shows us Sams interests- his are  anything related to Antarctica and penguins from Antarctica. We then get introduced to the family, his mum Elsa, his dad Doug and his sister Casey. We see all the family have a very literal conversations, it funny to watch, but all it is about is Julia, his therapist, asked Sam to consider donating his brain. Then they talk about Sam dating, his dad is up for it, his sister doesn’t really care but finds it funny and his mum doesn’t want her to and is kinda speechless.

Then the title start to role.

It cuts back to Sam at High School, here in the UK it would be college if you are wondering, he is shown wearing headphones to drown out the sound around him. He says that “it’s crowded, noisy & smells weird. Then we get a bit of a disorienting cut to where he works, a place called Techtropolis. This is where we also meet what seems to be his only friend- Zahid. Zahid from pretty much the instance we see him he is very inappropriate but in a funny way. 

Then we see Sam trying to sign up for online dating but then his sister, Casey, ‘tries to help’. His mum, Elsa, walks in and tries to convince Sam that dating is a bad thing. Then we follow Elsa and Doug, Sams dad, talking about Sam in cupboard or wardrobe of some kind. Elsa takes a box out of one of the shelves full of autism related things and they talk about Sam using his emotion cards when he was little and then about Sam dating. Elsa mentions to Doug “but he isn’t like us”. Then they move to Elsa’s fears about Sam “every time the phone rings I jump I  think he has walked over the road with eyes shut, again or had a freak out in the store or hit a police officer”. In the end Doug convinces her that it is a good idea and that they can go back to the way things were before there was any mention of autism and that Sam is now independent enough to help himself.

We then learn more about Julia, she also teaches about ASD and she mentions things about autism like some of the behaviours associated with the disorder. She is like the audiences personal guide to autism as well as Sam. Julia then comes out of a class she is teaching to talk to Elsa, you see from here that Elsa doesn’t have a few concerns about Sam dating she is dead against him dating. Julia mentions that “Sam has the same desire to be loved as we all do”. Elsa then says Sam is not ready yet.  

Sam mentions that he does a lot of research so he knows what to do and what to expect. Also to add to the research he ask questions. Sam also mentions he isn’t very good at picking up signs or social signals. He is saying this in the background as a woman is looking at Sam and smiling at him. Zahid helps with the signs...ish. He tells Sam to smile back at her. So Sam smiles back with direct eye contact and a giant smile, showing most of his teeth. This from the other end of the store. So the person disappears almost immediately. Zahid ends the seen with some sarcasm about the whole thing.

We then see Casey standing up to a bully, then it cuts to Elsa, Doug and Casey have a heated argument about why Casey hit the bully. Something then get said during this argument that gets said gets stuck in Sams head, this is shown to us as it blocks the ongoing argument and all we hear is this word. We then find out more about Casey. We find out that she does track sport and that she is very committed towards it. As Casey comes back from her run and the girl she helped from the bully comes to her house to say thank you and present her with chocolate cake. She also introduces her brother Evan. As they exchange hello’s Sam bursts out the door and shouts the word that has been stuck in his head towards Evan.  Evan doesn’t understand and get slightly aggressive but Casey get defensive and protects Sam. Sam explains slightly later on that  his sister doesn’t let anyone pick on him apart from herself.

We then come back to the therapy room where Sam is talking to Julia about scaring someone from across the room and Julia helps with the issue  firstly with the eye contact then the smile. Also she helps correct some of the research he did which was wrong in not of the best ways.

We get a scene with Doug and Elsa in a restaurant. We find out how good they are together, as Elsa worries about Sam and Doug reassures her about everything. It then go to a subtle argument about Doug not being able to get close to Sam and that Elsa is the only one of the two that has any connection to Sam.

It cuts back to Sam and Casey at home, when Evan knocks on the door and says thank you  for helping his sister and then asks out Casey. Sam then cuts in before there is any real answer, Sam found someone through the online dating site. Casey helps Sam with the social interaction. The girl he found “wants to go out for coffee?” In the background you hear Sam talk about how loud and odd environments affects him. As he turns up to his date with his noise cancelling headphones on, then he tries some of the bad bits of research, which didn’t really help and because of all this his date leaves.

We go back to Techtropolis and the woman who smiled at Sam comes back. So Zahid pushes Sam to ask her out and he does in the most awkward way possible. She says yes. We come back to this arc later.

But it focuses back at Sam’s home and Doug gives Elsa a leaflet for a dance group to help her get back to going to ‘the normal life’. Elsa goes then gets invited to have a few drinks with some of them. She then starts flirting with the bar tender.

We go back to Sam on his date with the woman at Techtropolis, yes you have read it right Techtropolis. It is a very literal date but the woman sees it as him being honest. She asks him some more information about him. So he mentions a whole list of things then mentions that he hasn’t had sex before. It cuts back to Casey as she convinces Sam to have sex.  As it goes back to Casey, Evan knocks on the door to chase an answer from Casey he bribes her with chocolate but we aren’t told but it looks like she says yes at that point (I couldn’t tell). It quickly goes back to Elsa flirting even more with the barman.

We then go to Sam and the woman (we still know her name through any of this episode) in her dorm room. We hear Sam talking about that he doesn’t like being touched if he does get touched it has to have pressure. I thought I would mention they both still have there clothes on. They start to kiss then before anything happens more than that she touches Sams face softly, he then panics and pushes her away from her unfortunely  it meant of the bed as well. Sam tries to apologise but then he starts asking what is wrong with him and calls him  some not nice words.

Sam comes back home upset with Casey and Evan talking to each other. Evan then helps Casey with sorting Sam out. He then mentions his ‘first time’ with both Sam and Casey in the room. He then assures Sam by saying “nobody is normal”.

It starts to end with Sam talking about penguins aren’t always like people. As Elsa finishes flirting with the barman. Then Sam and his dad talk about how well Sam is doing and Doug tells Sam what he needs to look for. To cut so of the autistic processes short he think he needs to ask out his counsellor, but thinks he should ease the path he would do this by donating his brain; as that is what a penguin would do in the wild, but a stone not a brain. All of this is unannounced to his family and his counsellor.

Review:
I thought  this was a good first episode, lots happened before the title rolled the first time. It is kinda like a experience a form of autism if you haven’t got it, lots of information thrown at you then a slight break then it starts again. It does a good job about explaining autism, well for higher functioning people; we are still waiting to see something for the low functioning autistics. I will say firstly it has bad puns and jokes, but that part of autism- if that they were going for brilliant, if not might want to rethink the comedy structure. We only see the things that are important to Sam so his friend, Zahid, as well as his family and therapist. Its nice not to see the bulk but it good to see how autism affects each person differently due to their role in Sams life. Elsa is constantly worried, Doug is constantly pushed back by Sam and Zahid is just... a very odd person. In my view anyway. From not including autistic friendly organisations they did a really good job at grounding autism and what makes someone autistic. From this first episode its a good rough start of getting people slowly use to the characters but also an autistic world where nothing is normal and everything can be literal.

Episode 2:

It starts with Sam acknowledging that he want to date Julia, his therapist. To his path to that he is going to look nice everytime he goes and sees her. He then admits looking nice is hard. After a comedy scene with his dad Sam then talks about chickens and how they mate. This starts to play in the background as it shows Elsa with the barman, an shot from the last episode, then it shows her with Doug. Then it goes over to Cassie and Evan.

It then shows Sam have a therapy session with Julia. Sam attempts small talk  with Julia, to get to know her better, he then get  a shock when he finds out Julia has a boyfriend. It then goes back to Sams bedroom, he talks about using replacement behaviours. As Sam is explaining it to us it show him using one of them, in this case walking around his bed in a circle. We then see Doug, his dad, seeing him uses this and he talks to him to we what the issue is. Sam then talks to his dad about Julia and that see had a boyfriend, Miles. Doug then says to Sam that the boyfriend could just ‘go’, but he doesn’t realise that it is Julia; Sam’s therapist. Nevertheless the two start to bond from this input from his dad.

It then shows Elsa at an autism network meeting, its a room full of parents who have autistic children. Elsa talks to the group about how well Sam is doing but also lonely she feels with Sam doing so well. She mentions also that these aren’t really Doug’s thing so he doesn’t come to them. We have a short cut scene with Sam and Zahid. Zahid tries to show Sam how to steal a girl by showing, or at least trying to. He attempts to chat up a girl with her boyfriend right next to her. We then go back to the network meeting, where Elsa is talking to one of her friends there about their son, Christopher. We learn that Christopher as regress after being mainstreamed. Elsa suggests using music therapy for him. She tries to look for her card, then finds outs that her bank card isn’t in her purse- its at the bar.

We then come to Casey who has a talk with her coach about hitting the bully, from last episode. Casey finds to that she has to apologies to the bully so her team can have their bus and compete. So begrudgingly apologies to the bully, who accepts it but also mentions that she is brave because she is dating Evan. We the go back to Techtropolis, where Zahid again some really inappropriate tips of ‘stealing a woman’, which Sam really can’t do subtly, but somehow Julia hasn’t realised.

Doug tries to be helpful and pick up Elsa’s card from the bar. Doug asks if he can pick up a card to a barman, its the one we saw flirting with Elsa. The barman says no, so Doug phones Elsa to say that it is okay. Elsa picks up the phone and Doug says he passing her to the barman and that he is tying to get her card back. The phone then gets pass to the barman, who we find out is called Nick, Elsa hears his voice panics and puts the phone down. Nicks says that no one is there and he can’t get the card.

We then go to Casey and she is with her track team training. Casey asks her team why Evan got kicked out of their high school. They mention that Evan got arrested. We then go to Sam, he goes and ask a group of people some questions, to add to his research. They start to turn on him and bully Sam. Sam says that “he knows when he is being picked on, but doesn’t always know why”. Sam then freezes and a person from the group stops everyone else bullying Sam. He then runs away, then it shows Sam at home in is room looking more like a turtle (that was how I saw it). He starts using another replacement behaviour where he repeats the five native penguins from Antarctica. Elsa then knocks on the door as his dad came up to see if he could help. Elsa mentions that he had to be up from school, he has been completely silent the whole time and that Sam locked his door. Doug then knocks on the door, Sam opens the door and only lets Doug in. Elsa in then surprised, as it has always been there for him until now. So Doug say to Elsa to pick up her card whilst he tries and help.
We see Doug trying to start a conversation with Sam, he just uses simple questions to get the ball rolling. Then Sam explain what happened at high school. Doug explains to him that some people are bad. Doug then explains to Sam the reality of trying to get a girlfriend. Doug then accidently gets himself roped into something he doesn’t know yet.

Then it goes to Elsa she walks into the bar to get her credit card back. She then looks for Nick she then finds him. She panics then walks in front of a dart and get hit by it. It then goes to Doug and Sam, Doug says to deliver the chocolate strawberries (one of Zahid’s ideas) to Julia. He meant leave them by the door, but Sam decides to open a window and put them on her table. Doug realises what is happening and pulls Sam out of there, not before understanding the person Sam was talking about is Julia- his therapist.

We are then with Casey home she is with Evan, she askes him why he got kicked out of school. She finds out that he stole some brass instruments. Casey laughs and makes fun of him because she thought it was something worse.  Evan leaves to pick up her sister, not before kissing Casey. We go back to the bar and see Elsa getting first aid from Nick. They start flirting again then they give each other their phone numbers.

We then are in a car with Doug and Sam. Doug tells Sam he can’t like Julia because it would be a conflict of interest and he would have to get another therapist. Sam translates this as he needs a practise girlfriend , before he dates Julia. I’m not sure this completely right?  Anyway Doug tells Sam to date a girl his own age. Doug then promises Sam that he won’t tell Elsa about this.  It then goes to Doug and Elsa talking about their days. Doug says he had a good day with Sam, which seem to never happens by the sound of things. Later that night Nick texted Elsa, it then ends with Elsa looking at the text.

Review: This episode is alright compared to the first it is a lot less information thrown at you, but I’m guessing it was a choice made. You should adapted and be use to or getting use to the autistic bubble that Sam has around him.  I can’t say I am a big fan of the Elsa story line so far between her and the barman, Nick. It just feels a bit off putting, it could be my limited emotions but I do feel parts of this one were a little cheesy in places. I like they continually give ‘normal’ people something to laugh or guess about with Sam especially things like breaking into someone’s house. As he followed the rules of Julia but also followed what his dad said. Although there are some cringy or cliché  bits, I think there as to be some.  Life is often full of some cliché bits and to get people recognising Sam is autistic they have had to use them. The cringy bits come from how people deal with Sam may that be his mother or his very usual friend Zahid. 

Overall: this is a good start of getting the ball rolling and hopefully people talk or watch more about autism. I thought it was brave but yet good they didn’t get people like the National Autistic Society involved as they believe they things like comedy, however cheesy is bad publicity for people on the spectrum. In the UK the National Autistic Society helped with a show about autism. It was called the A word, by the second season it was more like an autistic child had got caught up in domestic argument because someone couldn’t cope. It also didn’t give us a good view of the child’s view just the family themselves or the parents, which to me felt wrong. Anyway back to ‘Atypical’, I understand their use of cliché and stereotypical things because how else are views going to realise who the autistic person is with more then a couple characters. It also help the viewers to see how vulnerable  Sam is, but also you get to understand his level of thinking and reasoning.  

If you enjoyed this review please share it around, comment or subscribe at the top ^. Please ask any questions you want. Have you seen Atypical before and did you enjoy it? Also, what did you think about my review of episode 1&2? If you want me to talk or focus on something please email me in the email at the side ⬅way I think in the tab. I hope this wasn’t too long.  Thank you for reading. 😃