{"id":204,"date":"2019-12-14T15:56:32","date_gmt":"2019-12-14T15:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amylangston.com\/?p=204"},"modified":"2025-12-26T18:49:36","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T18:49:36","slug":"autism-on-camera-atypical-season-1-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/2019\/12\/14\/autism-on-camera-atypical-season-1-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Autism on Camera: Atypical Season 1 Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Atypical <\/em>is a Netflix Original series first released on August 11, 2017. The first season consists of eight episodes, each between 30-40 minutes in length.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The series protagonist is autistic Sam Gardner (Keir Gilchrist), a senior at Newton High School in the fictional Webster, Connecticut. Sam lives with his mother Elsa (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a hair stylist, his father Doug (Michael Rapaport), an EMT, and his sister Casey (Brigette Lundy-Paine), a sophomore track athlete. The series is an exploration of life at home and school for an autism family, and Sam\u2019s endeavor to understand the world around him. Sam\u2019s special interests are Antarctica, penguins, and wildlife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The central conflict is Sam\u2019s search for a girlfriend. He has a crush on his therapist, Julia Sasaki (Amy Okuda), but begins exploring with quirky fellow senior Paige Hardaway (Jenna Boyd). He receives bad relationship advice from his friend Zahid Raja (Nik Dodani), a wannabe womanizer and coworker at Techtropolis, a Best Buy copycat. Rounding out the cast are Evan Chapin (Graham Rogers), Casey\u2019s love interest, and Nick (Raul Castillo), a bartender Elsa begins an affair with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know that this show, like any television\nshow, is a family dramedy watching ridiculous stunts that wouldn\u2019t happen in\nreal life, and the autism piece drives and explains the drama, or is played for\nlaughs. But in doing so, we are served a caricature of autism. Sam is funny\nbecause he\u2019s weird, not because he\u2019s witty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In general, I found Atypical season\n1 to portray autism stereotypically and not very positively, namely that Sam displays\na very limited grasp of social rules for his age. Yeah, I know this is part of\nthe autism equation, but autistics can be educated in these matters, and Sam is\nimplied to have received such an education, and there\u2019s little to show for it.\nHis actions were cringy to watch (more on the specifics later).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an example, Sam is frequently\nshown to not know the meanings behind common words and phrases. Something was\nsaid to him about throwing curveballs and he said, \u201cWhy would I want to throw\nballs?\u201d Unless he had genuinely never heard this turn of phrase before,\nautistics do know symbolic meanings and figures of speech that are commonly\nused and have a singular meaning (trickier is gauging one person\u2019s implied\nmeaning). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, I am pleased to report that there are other aspects of autism that are very accurate. Keir Gilchrist\u2019s acting is overall very good (as an aside, Gilchrist is not autistic, but the actor who plays an autistic teen on the show, Anthony Jacques as Christopher, is <\/em>autistic). Sam\u2019s interior narration is a window into autistic perceptions and thought processes. Because so much of autism is internal perceptions, this is a very important addition to the show. Similarly, Sam\u2019s investment in and thought linking with his special interests is on point, and he is shown at least briefly to have a true talent for drawing. His reactions to sensorial stimulation and unexpected events, his stimming and panicking are also done very well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From here, I\u2019ll discuss one of the\nworst parts of the show: Sam\u2019s parents. They are terrible at parenting. I have\nno doubt that they love their children, but at best they are ill-equipped to\nraise an autistic son. After Sam\u2019s initial diagnosis, Doug left the family for\nseveral months and during the show, Elsa begins an affair. In both these cases\n(heavily implied, in Elsa\u2019s case), this was due to the pressure and challenges\nof having an autistic son. I know it is difficult to have a special needs\nchild, but is that really what healthy adults do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Autism is shown to both burden and\nburn out Elsa, and she\u2019s resigned herself and Sam to a son who will \u201cnever do\ncertain things\u201d and \u201calways need certain things.\u201d But strangely, it\u2019s almost as\nif she doesn\u2019t want <\/em>more for Sam. She sometimes checks in with Julia,\nwho encourages Sam to reach out of his comfort zone and try new things, and\nshe\u2019s also suggested Elsa see her own therapist. Once out of Julia\u2019s sight,\nElsa flips the bird. I mean, really?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The worst part about them though, is how overprotective they are. I\u2019ll draw from the most notable example. Spoilers for the final episode are below.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the final episode, Sam has\ndecided that he does not love Paige. He really loves Julia, and wants to pursue\na relationship with her. The episode begins with Sam having a meal with Paige\u2019s\nfamily at a restaurant. He turns to Paige and breaks up with her, telling her\nit is because he doesn\u2019t love her and he walks out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He decides it\u2019s time to confess his\nlove to Julia, so he drops in on her unannounced, with a box of chocolate-covered\nstrawberries, and says that he is in love with her and wants to date her. She\nis not pleased, to put it lightly, and is very angry and upset with him. Sam\nwalks away from this very upset and distressed, and I don\u2019t know if it is\nbecause her reaction, the fact she said no, or both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the thing though. His\nparents evidently don\u2019t admonish him about any of this. In fact, they\u2019re angry\nwith Julia, not him. This is a prime example of the poor parenting coming from\nthese parents. They\u2019re inclined to protect Sam from distress, but doing this\ngets him into trouble. His actions can be not only rude (even by arbitrary\nstandards), but hurtful, like what he did to Paige. Sam needs to be counseled\nabout the actions he takes. Taking some social skills classes isn\u2019t enough\u2014his\nparents also need to be active in encouraging his prognosis. They\u2019re both too\navoidant and overprotective at the same time. They are not preparing him well\nfor adulthood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an aside, Julia the therapist is\nportrayed with more than a few implausibilities. She is 26-27, already has a Ph.D.,\nis a professor of \u201cclinical psychology\u201d, and practices individual psychotherapy\n(in her university professor office, I might add). Doug finds out from Sam\nearly on in the show that he has a crush on his therapist, and this should have\nbeen a major red flag that would compromise the integrity of their therapeutic\nrelationship. But because Sam insisted that he needed to keep seeing Julia,\nDoug buried the issue, another bad parenting move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a final verdict, I found the storylines uninteresting, the depiction of autism too exaggerated for my liking, and most of the characters unlikeable, except for Paige. Some viewers might find her annoying, but I thought she was sweet, accepting, and responsible. She would be great for Sam. Another thing I did like was the cinematography and the music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Autism accuracy: 2\/5 Acting: 4\/5 Cringe factor: 5\/5 Overall rating: 2.5\/5<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Atypical is a Netflix Original series first released on August 11, 2017. The first season consists of eight episodes, each between 30-40 minutes in length. The series protagonist is autistic Sam Gardner (Keir Gilchrist), a senior at Newton High School in the fictional Webster, Connecticut. Sam lives with his mother Elsa (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a … Continue reading Autism on Camera: Atypical Season 1 Review<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":231,"href":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions\/231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amylangston.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}