I didn't want to say "I told you so,"

but it's been 9 episodes and basically no one has confronted or acknowledged the fact that he experiences chronic pain.

For some reason he never mentions that he was supposed to get a cortisone shot & so he threw his regular pills out 1/19 https://twitter.com/AutSciPerson/status/1330660793394868226

And how they wouldn't give him any more medicine b/c it's a controlled substance even though he needed it,

& he finally comes clean about taking too much pain medicine to everyone and people apparently either never thought about researching how to give pain meds to addicts- 2/19

or didn't actually think about what the hell they would do if they were in enormous pain everyday and constantly asked to put a smile on their face.

And now he's in rehab and people who aren't disabled (that we know of) are shitting on him for "thinking about himself." 3/19

And there's basically been no other disabled representation similar to Eddie's disability in the whole season.

Like maybe that'll happen next episode but honestly it's already kind of too late.

Nothing has been said about ableism or having to "look okay" all the time. 4/19

It's just been Eddie saying "I'm in pain okay?!"

You'd think Catherine of all people being a lawyer & savvy, would've helped him research about controlling pain in addicts.

But no it's just completely Eddie's fault, how dare he pretend he's okay when everyone expected it 5/19

They're all like "Look we made stuff accessible, here's a ramp!" and then completely ignore the amount of pain he's in.

It's ridiculous that this kind of ableism is left this long in a show without being addressed & that's why I don't like when characters acquire disability 6/19

Like even though this show isn't -terrible- about it and doesn't do egregious stuff compared to other television,

I think disabled people deserve to see characters work through their shit without waiting for a season finale or something & people constantly blaming them. 7/19

Like why the hell wouldn't they have asked Eddie to find a support group for disabled people with chronic pain who are also addicts?

Do you know how many facebook groups exist?

It's frustrating & honestly a bit dangerous to insinuate that these groups -don't- exist in TV. 8/19

Like please stop playing out disabled people acquiring disability as some "trauma" story to go through. I called it immediately when I said his disability was going to be used to have him relapse as an addict.

& nothing about accessibility was shown outside of his house. 9/19

Like fair enough there's a pandemic, but is he not visiting his friend's houses because he can't drive and because their houses aren't accessible?

We haven't really seen him interact with anyone besides Garry and Catherine for most of the season.

10/19

And then they do the whole "Well it's just so hard for the caregiver" and it's like yea of course but again, no one seems to ask Eddie how he's doing, check in with him about addiction, or ask about his pain meds whatsoever which seems SO unrealistic if his friends cared. 11/19

He's been unnecessarily unsupported to create "realism" and it's like..

Maybe we could just have a show where a character acquires a disability and people actually fucking care? Like maybe that would be a good thing disabled people can watch? Instead of drama for ableds? 12/19

We don't need another "It's really hard to be disabled" show but at the end of the day that's pretty much all I see from that show, with the very occasional "accessibility is important!" message. 13/19

I just don't think the characters the show wrote would be -that- much of an asshole to Eddie.

If it was about anything else - some other hardship, race, sexism, anything - they'd be there to support him. But he gets "Oh are you okay? Good you're okay!"

It's ridiculous. 14/19

And the fact that the ridiculousness of it -hasn't been addressed in the show yet- is what bothers me.

Sure people are assholes because of ableism, sure they might not check on him as much!

But no one has even talked about it amongst each other on the show!! No one!! 15/19

And some abled person is going to watch that episode from this week and be like "Oh yea I think Gary's right, she shouldn't have to deal with all of that" instead of like "Damn families who have a disabled person in them should get way more support & our healthcare is shit" 16/18

It always has to be about the individual person who's disabled for these character dynamics and character arcs and that's the exact problem.

Society generally understands sexism, & racism, at least that they exist -
No one knows ableism exists. 17/19

So when you do these individual character arcs, viewers are just going to feel bad for him or do the opposite & say "screw you you shouldn't have taken pills!" instead of understanding the systemic ableism in society that forces people into that situation in the 1st place. 18/19

That last episode that explains ableism and his situation and what it's like to be a disabled person (that will probably come up at some point)

doesn't make up for the framing of all of the other episodes. Not at all. 19/19

#AMillionLittleThings Thread on Eddie and the individual disabled character arc.

And if the creator and writers' answer to this thread is "Yea we WANT viewers to feel angry!"

then clearly you're not actually wanting to write for a disabled audience because I am -tired- of seeing ableism in TV shows I'd like to ENJOY thanks.

& if the next response to that is "Well we deal with a lot of tough topics in the show, not just ableism" yes you do & you address that stuff nearly IMMEDIATELY but why would you do that for Eddie since he's in a wheelchair & all & can draw it out over a whole season instead?

cw abortion

Imagine if Maggie's decision about whether to have an abortion was drawn out for an entire season & you're like "Will she be okay?" the entire time.

That's what it feels like. It feel like having viewers watch Eddie and be like "Will he be okay after his accident?"

Like if you're going to have some sort of sudden disability story, then show a happy/non-dramatic disability story in the same show. Cause I have a feeling this depiction will do harm, even if it is accurate to some people's experiences. It's like watching trauma porn.

Imagine only having seen these episodes as an abled person, and then becoming a wheelchair user because of an accident.

One of their first thoughts of media might be "Is my life going to fall apart like Eddie's did? Am I going to lose my spouse and my kid?" Not okay!

And I think the reason they can't really address it is because, unlike the racism they talked about with Theo, where they had multiple Asian characters to draw from and write for,

the only physically disabled person with chronic pain is Eddie. So he has no one to talk to.

They REALLY needed to have a physically disabled character (& physically disabled actor) be a friend to Eddie at the beginning of this season and it simply wasn't there.

Imagine the actual important conversations that could've been had! That's why representation matters here.

And adding that one character by the 10th or later episode of the season is -not enough- and not okay.

This is what viewers think right now, not really giving a shit about disability or the nuances of being an addict with chronic pain, or the fact that he couldn't get a cortisone shot. https://twitter.com/NirvanaSaidSo2/status/1379981719764414465?s=20

@heydjnash in case you want to know my thoughts on the show so far...

And @nikitathamilton @boynamedluccy who wrote Ep. 9