Heated Rivalry depicts autism with a familiar kind of love

THE MAJORITY OF AUTISTIC AND AUTISTIC-coded characters in film and television have long looked, moved, and sounded a certain way. Think Dustin Hoffman's Raymond in Rain Man, Jim Parsons' Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory, or Freddie Highmore's Sean in The Good Doctor.

- BY SARAH KURCHAK

Williams' portrayal of Shane drew from experience

They stand with the same awkward posture. They make the same gestures and twitches. They have an arrhythmic cadence that slips into a hyperverbal torrent during moments of stress or excitement. These portrayals aren't entirely wrong. But there's so much more to the autistic experience than one collection of external tells.

Shane Hollander, played by Hudson Williams in