Releasing Abed: The Power of Friends

"This time you'll never get out!"

One of my favorite TV shows

   is NBC's Community.  My family doesn't understand why, and my friends don't seem to find it.  It's on Thursday nights, apparently opposite some show with dancing and celebrities?
  The premise is a bunch of diverse misfits attending a community college and melding a friendship.
  Most of them are, quite honestly, jerks.
  Rarely does an episode not involve a group meltdown.
  But.
  They all learn something from each meltdown.  Each episode sees increased self-awareness from one or more characters, and personal growth.

Abed, the character with Asperger's syndrome

  The reason  Community rates a post on this blog is Abed.
  The reason for the post now is the recent episode, "Virtual Systems Analysis," which shows Abed more autistic than he has previously been shown.



  i recognized him as an Aspie from early on.  It's fascinating to see such a person in college, when what i know is the screaming, give mom their hands full and then some years.
  (In fact, the story line has it that Abed's mom abandoned the family because she couldn't cope.)
  While the show does not take a great deal of mental effort to follow, it is fun and entertaining, something more than background noise.
  All the characters, including Abed, have grown as the series progressed.  And we in the audience have laughed and hurt and laughed with them.

"Virtual Systems Analysis"

  While cramming at the last moment, the group learns that their prof is ill and the test won't take place that day.

  No test till tomorrow!  We don't have to study now!  

  Annie encourages Troy and Brita to have a lunch date, though Abed and Troy fill every spare moment with their elaborate scifi simulations.  

  "Is this a social cue?"

  Abed doesn't think Annie will be an adequate substitute in the scifi scenario, but reluctantly agrees.  In the simulation room, her insistence on Abed attempting to think of others causes Abed to throw himself on the floor and make strange noises.

  Sound familiar to those who know autism?

  i had not seen this in Abed before.

A friend in the hard places

Annie doesn't seem to understand autism, but she knows friendship.  She rides out the bumps.  True to the show, it's harrowing and funny at the same time.

Life Lessons

  One of the things i love about writing is the serendipitous journeys of self-discovery.
  Dan Harmon, creator of the series, apparently didn't know anything about the condition when he started out.  But in researching, he learned more about this unusual character he had created, and himself.
  Is Dan Harmon an Aspie?  Who knows?  This is a spectrum condition, and, as some commenters on the cited article have unkindly pointed out, similarities do not a diagnosis make.
  And what about Abed?  Does his new insight forever release him?  Probably not.  That wouldn't be true to life.  But he's growing, expanding, becoming more than he was.
  And that's a good thing, for all the Abeds of life, and all who live with them.