Netflix's Atypical Review: 4 Ups & 1 Down

2. It Successfully Covers Serious Issues With Humor...

While the show can be criticized for using autism as a source of humor, deconstructing something is one of the better ways of familiarizing it. Autism is not harmless, it causes suffering to the person subject to it and people who're unable to understand/help the patient, but there are also moments of brightness, even laughter. Sam himself laughs a few times, usually when thinking about animals. There's no denying that Sam's HFA allows for certain selectivity in regards to his symptoms, yet it's hard to criticize the show for using humor to make the spectrum more understandable to the viewer.

Also, the criticism is kind of unfair, because Sam's disorder is as much a source of humor as is his mother's overprotective nature or his father's aloofness. The show doesn't ridicule autism as much as it does the presumed normalcy of everyday life and everyday people. Even in the more troublesome moments, it redeems itself by exhibiting enormous warmth towards the characters and the viewer as well.