Today I’m reflecting on:
Spencer Reid showed up very briefly on Criminal Minds, and it was an Autistic sucker punch for me. (This post is overt-spoiler-free, but there’s a fairly strong hint.)
TV shows only show a slice of the life of the characters. Usually when characters disappear from a show, unless they’re killed or move away, it feels like they just fell off the writers’ radar. When they reappear again, it tends to feel like, hey, this is someone that the characters have been hanging out with, communicating with, interacting with, just not on screen.
We’re currently binging “Fresh Off the Boat”, and when the Other Chinese Family (S5.13) shows up a second time after several episodes away, it feels like there’s been interaction off screen. And Marvin’s daughter Nicole disappears and reappears as it’s convenient to the stories.
But when Spencer shows up for a BAU event, there’s a feeling that nobody has really been talking to him, except maybe the person (unclear who, if anyone) who told him about it. Despite all the bluster of the show acting like the characters are friends and not just co-workers, that’s how this felt: Spencer had become Somebody That They Used to Know.
When Penelope was gone briefly and was being brought back, I felt like characters were actively engaging with her off screen. She was a friend. But when Spencer comes back for an event that Spencer very much should have come back for, the script even lampshades his presence, as if it’s somehow strange for him to be there.
This has been and continues to be my Autistic social experience: I exist as a co-worker. I exist as a member of a group. When I stop existing as part of that universe (even for two months every summer), I. Stop. Existing. There’s no off-screen, back channel communication going on, no meetings for coffee and scones.
And that’s not to fault the BAU here, entirely. Spencer isn’t the sort to reach out, either. It’s in the Autistic pragmatism of his nature. Sure, he cares about people, but he doesn’t know how to have interactions with them that aren’t goal-oriented. It’s the Dual Empathy Problem, but I feel like it’s the Autistic person who winds up losing out.
A repeated line from the episode: “I don’t know how to do this.” Yeah. I don’t.