Neurodivergent (Headcanon) Alley: Rocky (Yesterday)

*Rocky-related spoilers.*

When the actor playing Frenchie looked familiar to me after season 1 of Our Flag Means Death, I looked him up and realized that I recognized Joel Fry from this movie, where he played the main character’s quirky buddy. Back in 2019, I’d been really excited for Yesterday, but unfortunately, the movie didn’t fully pan out for me. In my review at the time, I praised Himesh Patel’s strong performance but disliked the super clunky romantic storyline and lamented that the cool premise wasn’t executed very well.

Watching it again for Joel Fry-days, my overall impressions of the movie are much the same. Himesh Patel’s acting and singing are both terrific, I like Jack’s imperfect recall of the Beatles’ catalog—a la his ongoing struggle to remember the lyrics to “Eleanor Rigby”—and it cracks me up that Ed Sheeran’s ringtone is “Shape of You.” But the story is still a letdown, and I get aggravated that Richard Curtis’s singular plot device for the film is “character gets repeatedly interrupted by meaningless stuff when they’re trying to share something important.” Seriously, it happens even more often than I’d recalled!

Since I’ve already reviewed Yesterday, I wanted to write something different for today’s post, so it’s time for another Neurodivergent Alley! Before we get into it, here’s my Joel Fry-days addendum to my original review:

Accent Watch

Southern British English, maybe a bit London.

Recommend?

In General – A soft maybe. The parts I like, I like a lot, but there’s a lot of fat surrounding it.

Joel Fry – It’s another yes from me. Look, it’s still relatively early days for Joel Fry-days, so I might just be in the “I love everything!” phase. But I really, really like Fry’s performance as Rocky, which is goofy and fun with moments of unexpected sweetness.

To me, Rocky reads as maybe AuDHD. He’s viewed by others as a terminally unemployable screwup that you can’t depend on. Sadly, even Rocky’s friends see him this way. When Jack runs into him working at a musical festival, Jack remarks, “So everyone who said you were a lazy, useless, drug-taking drunk who’d never get a job were wrong.” Rocky affirms that they were wrong about him, except he’s fired later that day and winds up couch surfing with another friend of theirs. When Jack hears about this, he commiserates with the friend, calling it “a disaster” and warning that it “could last forever.”

To be fair, Rocky struggles with executive function stuff, and he makes easy mistakes when he’s distracted, dropping the ball on important things. He’s also blunt in ways that most people don’t appreciate, and he doesn’t care much about social hierarchies. When Jack gets the chance to open for Ed Sheeran—bringing Rocky as his roadie, as a last resort—Rocky has no problem telling the pop star to his face that it “sounds a bit crap” when he tries to rap. It’s not the only moment where, in Jack’s view, Rocky says something embarrassing or inappropriate in front of someone important.

A key part of Rocky’s bluntness, though, is that he’s not great with social cues. After accompanying Jack on his frantic race to the train station in Liverpool to meet Ellie, Rocky sits down beside them as they prepare to have a serious talk about their relationship. Jack has to tell him, “Rocky, this is completely not a conversation you’re part of.” And later on, when Ellie tells Jack she’s started seeing someone, Rocky can’t figure out why Jack never dated her. Which leads us to this exchange:

ROCKY: “If I had been you, twice a day, I would have loved her up like a lusty lion.” 

JACK: “Rocky, if I ask you to just shut up—really, really, really shut up—would that be okay?” 

ROCKY: “...Right. Can I just start again and say, isn’t it wonderful news? And I hope they’ll be very happy together and have gorgeous kids! Is that better?” 

JACK: “No, it’s worse.” 

ROCKY: “I have got a third option, but—”

And that’s the point where Jack cuts him off. Lots of comedies have the inappropriate friend who says horny things or inadvertently makes the hero feel like crap when they’re down. But I don’t often see this dynamic, where it’s clear that the friend realizes they said the wrong thing and tries to course-correct, only they’re not sure how. Rocky asking permission to start again, wondering “is that better?” once he does, and then offering to try a third time? All of that screams, Oh wait, social interaction fumbled—how do I fix this?

Similarly, when the distracted mistakes happen and Rocky screws things up, he’s not just the happy-go-lucky guy who brushes everything off. When he gets fired near the start of the film, he says, “Fair dues,” admitting his fault in it, then sheepishly shakes his head at Jack as he has to admit he’s just lost another job. He does try, and he wants to do well, and it bothers him when he doesn’t. That’s another thing that a lot of movies wouldn’t do with the funny wildcard friend who causes comedic mishaps and makes the hero’s life more difficult. Generally, you’re not “supposed to” empathize with this guy when his own best friend thinks he’s not good for anything, but I do.

For me, a lot of that comes down to how Joel Fry plays Rocky. He brings out the earnestness amid the goofiness and the chaos, making Rocky feel more like a genuine person instead of a caricature. I feel it in those moments where Rocky realizes he’s miscalibrated a social cue, or where he shows that he’s not immune to the perception of him as a hopeless screwup.  Best of all, Fry does this while still filling the “goofy chaotic friend” role to a tee—he has some great line deliveries and reaction shots, and I love a moment where it’s revealed that Rocky slept on the couch in his own hotel room, with his jacket, shoes, and sunglasses still on. Hee! 

Neurodivergent (Headcanon) Alley: Nikolai Lantsov (Shadow and Bone)

*Nikolai-related spoilers.*

I hadn’t expected to do any more Neurodivergent Alley posts about Shadow and Bone, but this one just sort of cropped up in my thoughts over the last few months, and some Googling told me I wasn’t alone in the theory. I happened to be rewatching Shadow and Bone when I saw Wicked: Part 1 for the first time—I hadn’t even reached season 2 at that point, but as Fiyero started pinging my ADHD radar, my brain just went, “Wait, is Nikolai ADHD?”

I could see an argument that he’s also autistic, but this is what stood out to me. While the rest of his family is content to stay at the Grand Palace, Nikolai continually feels an itch to be doing something. The prince has a deep love for his divided country and is anxious to find a way to help it. And as a second son, he doesn’t have that much power in the palace, but his position offers him more liberty to explore his own pursuits.

And explore he does! After serving as a soldier in the First Army, Nikolai takes to the sea, posing as the privateer Sturmhond so he can freely travel, furthering Ravka’s interests under the table. This satisfies his desire to help, his need for adventure/excitement, and his love of innovation. Nikolai is a skilled and creative inventor, tinkering to create new weapons and tools that will be of use to his crew. While he isn’t capable of building all his designs himself, he works alongside Fabrikators who use their powers to put his ideas into practice. He even tests multiple prototypes of a flying machine capable of entering the Fold.

Like Fiyero, Nikolai is a skilled masker, code-switching with ease. At sea, he’s a roguish pirate captain who wins the respect and loyalty of his crew. Among soldiers, he’s a down-to-earth man of the people. At court, he’s a thoughtful prince who can practice both diplomacy and strategy. But to my eye, his masking is less detrimental than it often is for neurodivergent folks, because regardless of the setting, Nikolai never loses the core of who he is.  He has a curious mind and an adventurous spirit, and he tasks both of them with realizing the dreams of his compassionate heart. He’s charismatic and confident, playful and cheeky, shrewd and observant. He shows different sides of himself to different people, but all of them are still him.

What I really like about Nikolai is how little he resembles Jesper. I’ve talked before about The Second Autistic-Coded Character I Spot, the often AuDHD-coded character whose traits present very differently than a more archetypal autistic-coded character (Leslie Knope to Ron Swanson, Janine Teagues to Gregory Eddie, etc.) But this might be the first time I’ve really experienced the same thing with ADHD-coded characters. Jesper is an absolute poster boy for an ADHD archetype: restless, distractible, almost always moving, usually talking without thinking. But while Nikolai and Jesper have a similar flirtatious charm, Nikolai doesn’t display most of the overt outward traits that Jesper does. His restless energy is reflected more in his thoughts and actions than immediately apparent in his body.

I know that ADHD “type” labels are oversimplified and not everyone likes them, but if you were to apply that type of language to these two characters, Jesper would have the hyperactive type while Nikolai has the inattentive type. And I really haven’t found much of that in fiction so far. Maybe I just haven’t developed the right skills to look for it, but most of the ADHD-coded characters I see are more “obvious,” aligning much more with the usual archetype. Characters like Jesper, like Peter Parker, like Dewey Duck. So I really appreciate coming across an ADHD headcanon that’s less overt. I’ve come to recognize all sorts of autistic-coded characters in media, and it’s good to see the same thing with ADHD.

Unhatched Observations: Spider-Man

It’s that time again—looking over some of my old posts about a story with Big Neurodivergent Energy and realizing how it resonated with me as an “unhatched” autistic ADHDer. Today, we’re looking at Spider-Man, mostly MCU with a dash of The Amazing Spider-Man. ADHD-coded (and maybe autistic-coded?) Peter Parker, how I love you! Plus, bonus autistic-coded MJ! For what it’s worth, Miles Morales reads as ADHD to me too—what is it with these teenage superheroes?—but my old posts on the Spider-Verse don’t really highlight those traits.

 

Favorite Characters: Peter Parker (The Amazing Spider-Man)

[Peter is] prone to impulsive decisions, he can be stubborn and immature, and his emotions can get the better of him.  […]  He gets distracted by his love life, and when he’s disheartened, his mind can go into “I don’t know what to do!” overdrive, heightened by the trademark Great Responsibility that comes with his Great Power.

***

He’s a genuine smart cookie, designing his web shooters among other techie gizmos (some apropos of nothing—I love the mechanical lock rigged up for his bedroom door,) taking a frequently analytical approach to solving his superhero problems, and just generally being enthusiastic about knowledge, calculations, and experimentation.  He uses his webs to get around and to immobilize baddies, of course, but he also uses them creatively and intelligently to accomplish a variety of goals; I really like how he sets up a network of webs to search for the Lizard in the first movie, along with the relation between webs and electric conductivity with Electro in the second.

 

Spider-Man: Homecoming

[Tom Holland’s] youth makes the “teenage” part of this teenage superhero really hit home.  We get so used to seeing 25-year-olds play high schoolers that whenever an actor who’s even 18 or 19 comes along to play a teen, it’s astounding how young they are.  And that’s Holland’s Spidey all over.  Whether it’s his awkwardness around girls, his short attention span, or his helpless fear when he really gets in over his head, this Spidey feels genuine in a way that his predecessors, despite their own merits, can’t manage.

 

Favorite Characters: Peter Parker a.k.a. Spider-Man (MCU)

His awkward teenage problems, like running into his crush in the hallway or getting himself stuck in detention, feel genuine, as does his dorky enthusiasm at all the cool superhero stuff he can do – I love the moments where he’s geeking out with Ned over himself.  This Spidey is every inch a teenager, and that’s reflected in how he agonizes over whether he should investigate bad guys or hang out with a cute girl.  How he makes lame excuses to his aunt and talks himself into doing really ill-advised things.  How he debates the merits of using the suit to impress girls.  How he races into things without thinking and then suddenly realizes he’s going to need a plan when he gets there.

This is a Spider-Man who’s still rough around the edges.  He gets himself in over his head, he sometimes blunders into situations where he doesn’t belong, and he has no idea what to do when he’s in the suburbs and doesn’t have any tall buildings to attach webs to. 

 

Favorite Characters: MJ

I like that she randomly hangs out in detention (despite not having detention herself) because she “[likes] drawing people in crisis,” and I love that she’s the only kid who doesn’t tour the Washington Monument when the Academic Decathlon team goes to D.C. because she doesn’t want to celebrate something that was built by slaves. Throughout the movie, lots of little moments add up to give her a glimpse of who she is: someone frank, someone deadpan, someone observant, and someone a little bit dark.

***

Not to mention, she doesn’t miss a trick. As Peter works up the courage to tell her that he likes her, she assumes he’s going to tell her his other secret, the one she’s already (mostly) figured out: the fact that he’s Spider-Man. Maybe MJ initially started watching Peter because she had a crush on him, but the things she saw while doing that led her to a correct supposition, and while she wasn’t convinced, she was sure enough to say it out loud to him. That takes a gift for observation, some good deduction skills, and the ballsiness to actually run with what probably seemed at first like a ludicrous theory.

 

A Few Thoughts on Peter Parker (Spider-Man: No Way Home)

Tom [Holland’s Peter] is the youngest, prone to impulsive/excitable dumb decisions but still a kid with a decent head on his shoulders, one who desperately wants to do what’s right and feels the heavy weight of that responsibility when things go wrong.

 

Relationship Spotlight: MJ & Peter

We also see that she’s tuned into Peter in a way that a lot of the other kids aren’t: since becoming Spider-Man, he’s given up most of his extracurriculars, a fact that only she picks up on. She puts it down to her observant nature, rather than any personal investment she has in him, but the lady doth protest too much.

***

It’s cute that he very specifically likes her weirdness, planning to get her a dahlia necklace, which is her favorite flower “because of the murders.”