#this scene can absolutely be viewed through the ''Alex is autistic'' headcanon lens

[knickynoo]

Okay, so, I've made a handful of Family Ties posts in the past examining some of my favorite Alex and Elyse scenes, but there's one between Alex and Steven that I've always wanted to write about. It's such a good scene—so well acted and so in line with the relationship that Steven and Alex have with each other.

I haven't done a post breaking down a scene (from either FT or BTTF) in a while, and the itch to take a look at this particular scene struck me today. Will put under a read more on account of I'm sure it'll end up being kind of lengthy.

The Steven and Alex dynamic. Great, right? My favorite father and son duo in all of TV.

They're so different from each other! Opposites in many aspects. Yet, at the same time, they share a ton of similarities. When you really look at who Steven is, the things that make him tic, his quirks, etc., you realize that someone like Alex didn't come out of nowhere. See the post all about that, here.

They have a lot more in common than it appears, but one area where there's a very clear difference is the way they process and express emotions. If you know the show well, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't (because I do have several people who read my FT posts but have never seen an episode, hehehe) it basically boils down to this: Steven is super open about his emotions and expresses them in "big" ways. When he feels something, he can't hold it back, and he feels it all very intensely.

Alex, on the other hand, has a near-constant wall up that prevents his emotions from escaping. He feels deeply as well; it's just that he has no clue what to do with them most of the time and is afraid to really let himself feel them. The Keatons know this. They have an unspoken understanding that every so often, things are going to temporarily grind to a halt because Alex is spiraling and someone needs to help him sort his life out. Normal day.

One of the BEST examples of this is a flashback scene between Alex and Steven from the "Heartstrings" three-parter. A huge chunk of Alex's plot deals with him struggling to process a very serious situation surrounding the family. He's terrified but can't properly express it, so it comes out in a way that makes him seem uncaring and self-centered. The flashback is inserted there to remind us of a few things: 1. Alex does feel things 2. He needs help to get there 3. He loves his father, and Steven knows exactly what to do to help Alex in these moments

To set the scene: the flashback begins with Alex and Steven on the couch, watching TV together. They're having a great time. Steven gets a phone call and leaves the room, and when he returns, his demeanor has totally shifted. Alex asks what's wrong, and Steven tells him what happened. Steven's just found out his father has died. Right away, Alex goes straight to shoving the emotions away and trying to rationalize it all in his head. Talking and looking at it logically is his immediate coping method.

And you can see. You can see that Alex is teetering. His breathing is heavy, and his voice is shaky, but he keeps going—unable to do anything other than try to talk himself out of the emotions that are trying to take root.

"I mean, he worked hard. Did the work of two men—three men. And yet, he was with you, you know? Every step of the way, guiding you until you were ready to go out into the world and start your own family, which you did. But time, as we know, marches on—"

He is babbling. Spewing a hurried, frantic stream of words until Steven interrupts him with a soft, "Alex. Stop." But Alex KEEPS GOING. And Steven is just sitting there, watching his son jump through all these hoops to keep from actually emotionally processing the situation. Keep in mind that Steven himself is reeling from this information, but he immediately sets it aside to focus his attention on Alex instead.

"Not to mention the house," Alex continues, "which, if my sense of the Buffalo real estate market is accurate—and, you know, I have no reason to believe that it's not—"

Yes, Alex pivots right to what he knows: numbers, market information, and facts. Alex himself mentions in a past episode that these things comfort him. It's concrete information that he can rely on without the mess of emotions or complicated relationships with others.

And it's one thing for people to have different ways of coping with tragedy. People deal with things in unique ways, which is fine. The difference here is that Steven knows that unless he intervenes, it's unlikely that Alex will ever reach the point of being able to process this loss on his own. He's going to bury it and pretend it didn't happen (or that it doesn't impact him), and that's not healthy. Steven tries again to reach him.

And it's at this point that Steven takes an interesting approach to handling this. If Alex isn't going to give himself permission to feel his feelings, Steven is going to push him until he has no choice to. Might seem to be an odd method—maybe even a little mean to force your kid to break—but it's important to remember that Steven knows Alex inside and out. He knows Alex will put this neatly into a box in his mind, hide it away, and pretend he isn't hurting. And it'll either turn into a painful memory that he simply never deals with, or it'll eat away at him until he runs the risk of reaching the point of meltdown, a la "A, My Name is Alex."

Alex needs to cry, and Steven needs to get him to the point where he can do it. But Steven's going to bring him there in his usual gentle, loving way.

"Alex, my father died," he says. "Your grandfather."

Alex knows this, of course. But Steven is drilling it in. Trying to shove aside the talk of insurance settlements and the housing market and focus on the reality of it all. We flip back to Alex, who is quite literally trembling with the effort of trying to keep those walls up.

Steven goes on, his own voice breaking with emotion, "You can cry. We love him very much. You can grieve."

This moment! Alex's response says so much, and it's another one of those "THIS SHOW! MJF'S ACTING!" moments. He's still fighting it, but not quite as strongly. He leans back into his father's embrace, moving from where he was previously perched on the edge of the couch, trying to "distance himself" as much as possible from facing Steven. He takes a breath finally.

"Your grandpa died; you can cry," Steven tells him, to which Alex reacts in another poignant way.

There's the briefest flash of eye contact, something Alex has not done since before he was told about his grandfather's passing. Soon after the information was delivered, he moved to the edge of the couch, gaze straight ahead, rocking himself ever so slightly as he went through his rambling. He has not turned to look at his father once during this whole thing until this point, and this little exchange has meaning. Alex is checking in—making sure it's okay. He sees the emotion on Steven's own face and really absorbs that he's safe, and he can cry. And he does.

The flashback ends with their embrace, and we return to present-day Alex as he continues to deal with the new, serious situation that's befallen him and the family. (I won't get into that, but the Heartstrings episodes are phenomenal)

It's a very well-done scene and a relatively short one! But it does so much to encapsulate the relationship that Steven and Alex have. There's really such a good balance to this show, because these two can get so silly at times. Lots of fun, light-hearted and ridiculous scenes between them. However, they're interspersed with more serious moments like this. You get a really nice look at the type of man Steven is—someone with a quiet sort of strength, who consistently puts his family before himself and loves his son fiercely. (Steven even tells Alex in the very first episode that there are no other fathers who love their sons as much as he loves Alex. I mean, COME ON. This guy is a gem.)

When it comes down to it, I just really like that this show gave us a character like Alex, who we see struggle so much in the area of emotional connection, and then gave him someone as kind and attentive as Steven to help guide him and love him through everything.