#3: Atypical // Grape Movie Marathon.

Sam, an 18-year-old on the autism spectrum, decides it's time to find a girlfriend, a journey that sets Sam's mom on her own life-changing path as her son seeks more independence.

Atypical is a new Netflix Original show, with a total of eight episodes. I managed to watch this over two days and it left me with mixed feelings. From what I've been told, Autism Speaks, an autism charity that possibly isn't the best charity to involve, had in someway helped with the creation of the show which is something you can definitely tell.

Although the show is about Sam, you also get story lines from the other family members that are both related and separate to Sam and out of them all, the mum is the worst. Whenever the mum speaks about Sam and his autism, it is treated as if it's a burden to her life and a struggle that she deals with which I feel isn't something you want to put across in a show about that topic and something that relates to the charity that helped. 

In one scene, when Sam wants to go to the mall to shop for himself, his mum mentions the last time they went and how the environment wasn't good for him. During the trip, although Sam is handling it really well, the mum feels the need to mention the things that upset Sam in the previous visit and start an argument with a sales assistant for not accommodating him even though he was fine. Maybe this scene tied in with the fact that the mum wanted to go alone to do something else and Sam coming along threw that off, it still didn't feel right that she was almost trying to push Sam to have a meltdown rather than acknowledging how he was handling the trip. Maybe this scene was also to show how the mum was struggling with how independent he was becoming. Either way, it's one of the scenes that didn't sit right with me.

The other characters, their story lines and interaction with Sam aren't as bad and seem almost normal and acceptable. His sister treats him like you'd treat your brother. His friend treats him like any other friend. His dad, despite a slightly strained relationship, builds it back up by helping him as if you would any other child and that's how it should be. It's only the mum in that situation that doesn't seem to grasp how to do it, but maybe that's the point and the plot.

It's worth a watch and I'm looking forward to the next season, if there is one but make sure you enter it with the knowledge that this isn't the most accurate representation. 

I rate it 3.5 grapes out of 5.