I think it was meant for everyone because the card was like basic information he could give to anyone in a pinch. “My name is Theo. I’m deaf. I can write and speak ASL. I understand about 1/3 of what you’re saying by lip reading.”
Of course, even in season 4, when the two of them are in front of the murder board trying to figure out who killed Ben, she still turns her back to him and walks away as she’s talking through why Dickie couldn’t be the killer.
When he first showed up, I remember commenting that if she’s facing away from him, that means the actor (who’s also deaf) is going to have a harder time reacting to her. He, I assume, would have to be rely on a director or someone/something off camera so he can react to her. If that’s how it’s working, I’d think at some point the director would have re-blocked the scene so they’re facing each other, at least when he needs to know what she’s saying.
BTW, there was one episode shown essentially silently, from the point of view of Theo (the deaf character). I thought that was good. (Googling, apparently Nathan Lane learned ASL for the role; he didn’t previously know it.)
That episode showcased what a treasure Nathan Lane is.
I’m a few years late to the party, having just finished watched the first two seasons today, but thought I’d post my impressions here anyway:
On the whole, I’m impressed with the series. I don’t find it laugh-out-loud funny, but it is cleverer than most comedies, and the humour is never grating. The who, how, and why of the murder plots are nowhere nearly as well-crafted as, say, a Poirot or Sherlock Holmes mystery, but they’re a very serviceable frame for all the other things going on in the series.
I like that a lot of the jokes are very “meta”: the characters have a heightened awareness that they are, in-universe, creating a work of entertainment, but almost every aspect of this that they comment on or fuss over is just as applicable to the production of the real-world TV show that the audience is watching.
The show’s biggest strength is its characters, and not just the three leads. But let’s start with them. Steve Martin and Martin Short are both playing fairly typical characters for themselves, which is fine because we’ve already seen this formula work for them, both alone and in combination. I’d never heard of Selena Gomez before watching this show, but I really like how she plays her character. Her detached, self-reflective delivery perfectly suits Mabel’s background. Mabel can be insightful, snarky, and brooding, but never to such a degree that it turns her into something hackneyed and stereotypical. This makes Mabel mesh with the two older leads in a way that would not have worked at all if she had been written, or portrayed, as cheery, bouncy, sexy, or materialistic.
The show’s other characters are all very fleshed-out with personalities and background stories. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the show kept bringing them back, not just in further episodes but into the second season. And more importantly, these appearances are all in service of the plot; I never got the impression that the writers are shoehorning them into scenes just so that they can ham it up. Nathan Lane is a real stand-out here.
Still on the subject of characters, I love that the show very much treats the Arconia as a character unto itself. It’s got a history, it’s got secrets, and the characters (particularly Oliver, Mabel, and Bunny) have very real and believable emotional attachments to it.
The title sequence animation and music are perfect.
Now, what doesn’t work? Well, I think the subplot about Charles Savage’s return to Brazzos had its problems. In particular, the way in which his character gets sidelined is too obvious and too exaggerated to be funny. The Alice Banks subplot was also a bit shaky, and there seemed to be no romantic chemistry whatsoever between Gomez and Delevigne. I mean, I wasn’t expecting major sparks to fly, given Mabel’s cautious and somewhat jaded personality, but there should have been at least a hint of emotional attachment in order to give the breakup more of a punch.
Just a note to say that this phrase slapped me in the face with just how olde I really am. LOL! 
I’m not sure I understand. It makes you feel old to find someone discovering a show that debuted only three years ago?
Or TruCelt watched one episode per week as they came out, just like they’ve always done… and the concept of bingeing, or even someone watching a show AFTER IT’S “OVER” is totally foreign to them. (Hi, Grammama!)
I dunno about that; home media releases of TV shows have been around since at least as far back as the 1970s. I used to go to my public library or video store to borrow VHS tapes of shows like Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Fawlty Towers. I never saw these shows in their initial broadcasts, and no local station was showing them in reruns.
I thought it was a comment on how the kids talk these days.
Ah, in that case, they’re reacting to a typo. 
I definitely meant to write “having just finished watching”.
Perhaps @TruCelt could clarify and avoid all of the speculation?
I thought this season was cute, but the weakest of the three.
The “Go Home” line to Matthew Broderick was gold.
A little overstated, but this. Not that I have never binged a show, because of course I have. He just so casually stated that he had just watched the first two seasons today.
It just suddenly struck me how a person could, at any time, just go watch the whole first two seasons of a show in a single day. And that is just normal now. Requires no explanation. Nobody will ask how he did it. . .
And it made me feel Olde.
Yeah, I’ve had (college) students ask for series recommendations:
“I need something that’s two to four seasons long, and all finished. So I can binge it all this week and not have to wait for any other episodes.”
Well, you can feel young again. When I said that I just finished watching the first two seasons today, “today” referred only to “finished”. That is, today was the day on which I finished a long process of watching the first two seasons. I didn’t watch all two seasons in one day.
Bumping this thread to note that the first episode of the fourth season will be available on Hulu starting tomorrow, Tuesday, August 27, 2024.
Sweet!
Thanks for the notification.
Yay! Thanks for the heads up.