The Other ASD Doctor – Stop Hating On Charlie Lukaitis

I have to get this one out and this is the safest place I can do it.

A while ago, I wrote an article outlining my criticism of a TV show called The Good Doctor which is about a doctor on the autism spectrum along with savant syndrome. From there, I gave my own perspective on the character as an autistic myself and what the show gets right and wrong.

I remember I used to relate to Shaun a little but the more the show progressed, the less I was able to.

I didn’t want to speak of this again but now that the show is nearing its end, certain factors have made me desire to advocate once again in the wake of everyone else reacting negatively toward it.

Before I begin, I want to mention a backstory leading up to this point. Since season 2, the show has introduced new recurring characters that often challenge Shaun’s ability to thrive.

First there was Dr. Han who was just plain ableist and didn’t believe Shaun could be a surgeon at all, pretty straightforward.

Then along came Salen Morrison in the fifth season. Salen was an entrepreneur who has ADHD and she purchased the hospital. Her company is focused more on saving money than lives and Shaun was severely challenged by the changes made.

As a fellow autistic, I struggle with change in my personal and professional life too but I have strategies to adapt. Shaun on the other hand refused to accept even the smallest changes like swapping paper towels for jet dryers and demanded Salen bring the former back (on the brink of a breakdown no less) and she does, even if it meant putting up a billboard of him without his consent.

Everyone hated Salen for her penny-pinching ways. I didn’t like her either but I certainly didn’t hate her. I have ADHD too which is not uncommon to have alongside autism. Despite her focus on getting good reviews rather than saving lives which I can understand people would disagree with, I couldn’t hate her because she was also very smart and demonstrated that women can run a successful business. She made her exit during the second half of the season.

Now, onto the main event. In the final season, Shaun faces a new challenge with a med student: Charlie Lukaitis. She is on the autism spectrum as well and is played by Kayla Cromer who is also autistic. Finally, a character with autism that is neither male nor savant for a change and has more relatable challenges to me!

I liked her right away for her optimistic attitude to learn. Plus I was happy to see more representation of autism on the show again besides Shaun. I thought that with an autistic actor playing an autistic character, it would be a lot more natural to her. Shaun unfortunately, doesn’t see it that way.

Yes, Charlie is a student, so at the beginning, she isn’t going to be perfect. One cool feature about her is that she makes connections to have a better understanding of something like using Taylor Swift songs and their lyrics. I sometimes do that too with music and my other interests. She does talk a lot which I find I can do that too when I’m in the right company.

Shaun quickly becomes irritated at her for talking too much, interrupting, and making mistakes. To clarify on the interrupting piece, there’s a lot of stigma that autistic people like me are rude because we don’t always recognize tone or we interrupt, but the latter isn’t something that we mean to do. We often struggle with the flow of conversation, especially if it isn’t one-on-one and may not recognize when there’s a gap for us to say our piece. If I interrupt, I’ve learned to stop and apologize and tell the other person to finish. Many times they are understanding but let me continue anyway.

I don’t have issues with Charlie talking a lot and asking questions, I mean how else do we learn as Brea from The Dark Crystal once said? I get it, Shaun just doesn’t like to have his hyperfocus disrupted. I mean, neither do I, but still, come on.

As far as mistakes go, Shaun needs to just relax. She’s. A. Student. Mistakes happen and as long as it doesn’t harm the patient, then there’s no need to be so critical. I do agree that she shouldn’t have suggested to the nurse to prep an order that turned out to be wrong, or tried explain her arrangement of the tools in the OR during a time where the patient’s life was on the line and they needed something immediately that she had put away because it was rarely used to her knowledge. Yes those were wrong, but I think Shaun is being way too critical of Charlie, not just because she is a student, but it’s like he expects everyone under his supervision to be perfect and she’s not going to be perfect right away.

I don’t have to be a teacher to understand how this works but at some point in anyone’s career, you will have to teach in a way, and constantly making your students feel bad for any errors they make is not going to help them learn. Instead, it will make them feel insecure.

From Shaun’s point of view, I can somewhat understand because he’s certainly never worked with another person on the spectrum before and everyone on the spectrum is different. But, when he tells Charlie that she is nothing like him and that she should not be a surgeon, which hurts her feelings, he makes it sound like everyone who is autistic should be like him which I strongly disagree with. In fact, he was starting to sound a lot like Dr. Han from season 2 who like I said, was totally ableist.

Charlie clearly has communication issues, but I saw nothing wrong with her attempt to quote Taylor Swift, or make her own connections to empathize or understand. Do I think she needs to learn when it’s appropriate to speak or not? Absolutely but I wish Shaun, and the fandom wouldn’t be so critical of her. Have you met someone like her in real life? Probably not. I don’t think she means to be rude, she just has challenges in communication that she needs to learn and will learn but that learning shouldn’t be by getting her to shut up.

She continued to stand up for herself and even requested for learning accommodations to meet her needs but Shaun continued to bark at her to leave or shut up which fueled my rage as a fellow autistic who also can be yappy at times and I never purposely intend to interrupt at all. So when the last episode ended with her filing a complaint against him, I was singing to myself:

Cause Karma’s gonna get you now
And I’m not gonna stick around
Karma’s gonna get you now ow ow baby

That’s right Shaun, karma’s an ugly beast. Charlie, I’ll hold him and you can punch! She finally had enough of his crap. I’ve tolerated Shaun since the beginning of the show but it still frustrated me that there is still a lot of stereotypes of his ASD present, his lack of passions outside of work, lack of facial expression, monotone, etc.

The other thing that bothers me is that a lot of people in the fandom watching this show already seem to hate Charlie. I bet you dollars to donuts that the majority of the audience watching this show are neurotypicals, and we’re back to the same cycle again. The show introduces a new character and everyone hates them.

Here’s where the problem lies, we are still learning about autism and people who watch this show, especially NTs might look at Shaun and think that is what autism looks like. When in reality, autism comes in many different forms and Charlie’s autism is another form of it. Autism manifests differently in women and girls and this is why a lot of them are diagnosed late because testing for it is still heavily focused on the symptoms that appear in boys more.

I mean, everyone is entitled to dislike a character, but my concern is if you met someone like Charlie in real life, would you automatically be annoyed by them? I might be a bit too attached to her character because I can relate to her more but it makes me worry about how people might see me as someone on the spectrum. It’s almost as if the show purposely means to have audiences view her as annoying and they fall for it.

There are YouTube videos, TikToks, and Reddit feeds talking about how much they hate her and I’m just like, man you guys are so close-minded. I strongly encourage you to get to know ladies on the spectrum, I have met several other autistic women who have similar traits in personality and communication challenges like me and we all have different interests. Some of them are very shy and rarely speak and others will talk your ear off but they’re not trying to be rude and I am like that too but I never mean any ill will toward anyone, I just have always had a challenge with the flow of conversation.

But I guess it just shows how since she wasn’t introduced until the final season, everyone just automatically sides with Shaun since he’s the main character. But like I said, I feel like people just fail to realize that everyone with ASD is different, and Charlie is just another individual with different challenges. Some of the things people said are vile, including that they wouldn’t want her as their doctor if she were real.

Anyway, I’m the one giving her a chance as a fellow autistic who relates to her more than Shaun and I’m hoping going forward she realizes that she doesn’t need to impress him. When she worked with Alex’s team he was a lot more supportive of her and when she was abrupt, he and the other residents working under him were not difficult with her and it gave her a chance to thrive.

There’s an old saying that you should never meet your heroes, but I would also add to it: choose them wisely.

So yes, I like Charlie’s character, fight me haters. Once she works on her own communication skills, I think she could be an excellent doctor, and girl, I think you did the right thing filing that complaint. Shaun was not meant to be your idol. Save that worship for Taylor Swift instead, and I’ve got your back.

I’m going to be really pissed if she’s written off due to everyone hating her except me. Time to crawl under my rock away from the fandom.

👽Emily

EDIT: After the time of this article’s publishing, the latest episode showed Shaun and Charlie finding a way to work together where he saw her in a different light, and she withdrew her complaint. Perhaps going forward, she may not rely on impressing him anymore, nor using her ASD as a crutch and yet, STILL the hateful comments persist.

One person even said they wish she died instead of Asher. What. The. Fuck. I’m sorry that just crosses the line, I get she annoys you, but she’s not Joffrey Baratheon for God’s sake! That’s it. No more following the social media pages. I’m just gonna finish this show and keep to myself. To hell with this community.