Well, Abed has shown that he's capable of empathy since season. My interpretation of that line in the last monologue is that he's struggled with empathy because of his tendency to get lost in the metaverse and see the people around him as characters in a movie/tv show, which, as much as audiences can feel for in the moment, we don't feel for them as we do to real people (say, in a revenge story, we may really like a character, but we know they have to die for the plot to move forward). And as we know, his movietization of life is a defense mechanism he developed from being bullied, being abandoned by his mom, feeling disconnected to his dad, etc. So I think it's more of a nurture than nature (being on the spectrum) issue. That's what I took from it.
BetheSOUL
2022-09-24 12:34:15 +0000 UTC
I gotta admit, when the dean came back talking about going to the bank that really cracked me up lol