<i>Atypical</i> Is So Close to Great
When was last October, the Netflix show’s mission was defined as a question: What does it mean to be normal? Sam (Keir Gilchrist), ’s primary character, is a high-school senior who also has autism, and most of the storylines in the first eight episodes (released on Friday)revolve around “normal” teenage experiences—his efforts to get a girlfriend, his interactions with the jerky popular kids, and his desire underneath it all to fit in, and to feel less alone. And yet the show’s most consistent source of humor comes from how Sam is. How he inadvertently screams obscenities at bewildered strangers, and blurts out pickup lines he’s downloaded from the internet, and accidentally punches a girl mid-hookup because he can’t stand the way she’s touching him.
