As a traumatic brain injury survivor that has lived with (real) aphasia for over twenty years, I'm finding Samar's so called "travails" with it even more painful (and boring) to watch than Liz's betrayal of Reddington, and this season's relentless dependency on last minute rescues. It looks like the writers are resting on past laurels all way around.
Aphasia isn't just an occasional occurrence as being exhibited by Samar's behaviour here. Her verbal and mental interruptions as being presented here are nothing more than the occasional brain farts most people experience from time to time! Aram talks about other symptoms she's supposedly experiencing, but they aren't showing up in her day to day behaviour. Now of course every situation is going to be different, but most people living with it are searching for specific words non stop when they are trying to communicate. Their native language when heard is usually now foreign to them also. You are constantly juggling, trying to interpret what you've just heard while trying to guess (and retain) what you want to say back. When writing, the words you've struggled to remember, disappear as you try to write them down -- as they do when you try to say them out loud. Word substitution (to use the word "word" loosely here) is pretty much constant. It is continual, and it is exhausting! It can take me hours to remember one specific word -- if my brain is running at top speed -- and I'm lucky. And that is after seven years of speech therapy and constant work since. Repetition and rote are (unfortunately) not only your best friend, but pretty much your only one now. Trying to read is also a fun thing. You are staring at a page, looking at these now foreign symbols, once again trying to interpret something that once was as easy as breathing. I, in particular, freaked out when I first tried to read, because I didn't remember learning how to do it -- it was just something I had been doing (and loved doing) since I was four years old. The idea of having to learn how to do it again from scratch, eighteen years later, now that caused me quite the panic attack.
Now, Samar's character might be indeed be suffering from aphasia, but as exhibited here, it is a very mild version, and definitely not something that would be likely to cause her to stop working as an agent. Yes, her version of it would be unsettling to first experience, until you figured out what it was, and learned some strategies with which to compensate for it with, but... I'd trade my version of it for hers in a heartbeat. No paycheck required.
The writers could have found this all out in a very short time, and given the actor who portrays Samar's character something worthy of her skill to leave the show by. But apparently they are all out surfing on past accomplishments.
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