Moments Easily Missed highlights those subtle moments that happen between or beyond the dialogue — those moments you can easily miss if you don’t look closely enough.

Ain’t no mountain high enough

Warning: Contains spoilers for season 5!

You all might remember the karaoke scene from episode 5×03 Measure of Intelligence. After a successful surgery, Asher and Jordan made plans to go out for a drink, and Shaun invited himself, and apparently Lea. The four of them ended up going to a karaoke bar (of course!), and the song we saw being performed was Asher and Jordan’s beautiful and super fun rendition of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” (a version based on one sung by Celeste Betton and Mark Hood on The Voice).

Keen or regular viewers might have realised that songs on the show are always carefully chosen, and the lyrics are usually meaningful to the stories being told, sometimes even prophetic for storylines to come. And that’s what we’re looking at here, too.

This was a clear indication that we shouldn’t let ourselves be fooled by the momentary happiness of Shaun and Lea having a carefree night out, and Shaun celebrating his big win with Salen. Cause there’s still mountains to climb for Shea, and they’re gonna be high. So, so high.

However, this isn’t necessarily where the mountain symbolism stops, because there were two noteworthy details in episode 5×07 Expired that I daresay only those fans will haved noticed who tend to pay close attention to detail. Which is sometimes me, but credit for this one actually goes to Syl, because she pointed out something very interesting.

We were able to piece together (from still photography and screencaps) that the church Shaun and Lea visited and chose as their most likely wedding venue is called Mountain Glen Church (as per the contract that Shaun eventually crumples). Another mention of a mountain in close connection to the wedding. Curious, right?

It gets better. When Shaun and Lea enter the church, you can see a painting in the background. And what’s on it?

Okay, granted, the painting could be a coincidence. But if we assume for a moment that it’s not, we can actually see two mountains in this painting. If we wanted to be fortune tellery and crystal bally, one could postulate that these are Shaun’s two big mountains to climb:

  1. Working out his (very valid) feelings of betrayal at what Lea did and getting to a place where he feels he can trust her enough again to marry her.
  2. Finding his groove with Glassman and smoothing out the wrinkles related to his fear of abandonment.

Yes, okay, you may say this is maybe a little too far-fetched and overanalytical. And you may be right. But it’s still fun to ponder, and it also gives us hope that, together, Lea and Shaun can tackle this mountain and eventually brave it and set up their flag at the peak. Just as long as Shaun doesn’t dislocate any more ankles along the way!

Post publishing note

Season 5 seems to be riddled with more mountain themed references if you pay close attention. There’s also Dr. Lim’s speech during the engagement party in 5×01 New Beginnings, where she says, “These two have a love that could move mountains… literally.”

And if we wanted to be really anal about it, we could even reference that Glassman chose to go to Montana, whose name is derived from the Spanish montaña (“mountain” or “mountainous region”)´.