Doug Gardner

**Samuel Douglas "Doug" Gardner III** is one of the two tritagonists (alongside Elsa) of the Netflix comedy drama series ***Atypical***. He’s the father of Sam and Casey Gardner and the husband of Elsa Gardner. Doug is portrayed by actor Michael Rapaport.

## Personality

Doug is fatherly, kind, gloomy, caring, honest, polite, considerate, gentle, decent, humble, generous, loving, compassionate, mild and gracious.

## Biography

### Season 1

In the 1980s, after graduating from high school, Doug had a relationship with a woman named Elsa Gardner, and he married her in 1995. Elsa gave birth to their kids (Sam Gardner in 1999 and Casey Gardner in 2002). Doug and Elsa are quite close with each other. They seem to have a completely normal family relationship with each other, and they both look like they are in love. When Sam asks about how they knew they were in love, Doug and Elsa both set the simple rules for deciding whether or not Sam was in love with his girlfriend, Paige Hardaway.

However, when Casey observes a family picture, which Doug is not in it during the time of Sam's autism day when he was 4 years old, this causes Casey to cry and Doug finds her alone. Casey asks why he left. He replies back by revealing to her that he left the family for 8 months, back in 2004, to live at his uncle's place, because he couldn't accept Sam's autism. When Casey found out about it, she gets upset and it affected their relationship for a while, but they do still remain close when Doug apologized to her and he attempts to redeem himself by forming a closer bond with their family, especially Sam.

Doug has formed a closer relationship with Sam by helping him when he needed help with girls. He supports Sam when the idea came up about college and he talks to him about attending an autism support group at the school, instead of going to one-on-one therapy, allowing Sam to make the decision for himself.

Sadly, at the end of Season 1, a while ago, when Elsa tells Doug that one of her friend's cousins had died, this ends up being a lie and Doug notices. When Casey writes "Stop banging the bartender" on their schedule board, Doug becomes aware that his wife is cheating on him for Nick.

### Season 2

Doug kicks Elsa out of the house for a while, because looking at her disgusted him. Doug even punches his house wall out of anger or stress, leaving a big hole for Elsa to repair. Unfortunately, after having a panic attack or a stroke when he asked her if she had an affair with him and she nervously confessed, he allows her to move back in to help out. She is currently living back home permanently, as he believes its better for the kids when they are both around, but they are only living as roommates until Sam and Casey have both graduated and they both live on their own.

After his panic attack, he is told by Casey to convince him to allow Elsa to move back in for a bit to help joking around how she would still torture her and he also taught her to drive when she turned 16. Also, he takes Sam's suggestion of reciting the four species of an Antarctic penguin to help him calm down, which Sam also does himself.

Still, Doug is shown to have difficulty getting to know Sam, due to his already strong connection with his mother, Elsa. He built an igloo once that Sam disliked.

During the Silent Night Dance, he builds another igloo that Sam is amazed at. Elsa and Doug both have a conversation with each other, discussing their feelings about him leaving for 8 months.

Suddenly, Doug's love with Elsa is reconciled, thanks to therapy sessions with several therapists. They both have sex in their shower, and she sleeps with him in their bedroom after sleeping separately from each other for a while, due to the cheating incident.

At the end of Season 2, Doug attempts to eliminate his hallucinations of Nick by confronting Nick outside of the bar. Nick is asking how Doug is doing. Doug replies back by saying that if Nick remembers him or not. Nick then replies back by saying what Doug wants from him, but Doug says that he doesn't know. To relieve of all stress, Doug punches him in the face, breaking his tooth. Although, Nick politely admits that he deserves it. However, he tells Doug to never come back to the bar ever again. Doug gladly leaves the scene in his car to return to his home.

### Season 3

In Season 3, back at home, Doug is confronted by Elsa about where he went off to. He replied that he went to the bar to finish his business there. Elsa is surprised about it, but she isn't shown being angry at him, forgetting about Nick's existence completely to retain her marriage with Doug.

Unfortunately, Doug is beginning to take interest in the autism support group's leader, Megan, by always seeing her sometimes at her house. Because of this predicament, Elsa starts to become kind of depressed by accidentally igniting her mattress on fire and smashing several dishes on the ground outside of her house. Although, Doug only treats Megan as just a good friend of his, instead of being his girlfriend to him.

In New York, Doug meets up with Megan to have dinner with her. While they are both eating out at a restaurant, they both talk about each other's lives and how Megan confesses to him that shes loves him so much for a long time. Megan kisses Doug, even if she is already aware that he has a family of his own. However, Megan doesn't want to be together with him, due to Doug being currently married to Elsa, respecting Doug's marriage or relationship with Elsa. They both part ways from each other, departing to their own homes back in Connecticut.

### Season 4

As Doug returns to Connecticut to see Elsa, Elsa demands a divorce to separate the two of them from each other. Doug is shocked by this, but he says to her that he always loves her over Megan, and that they both should stick together as married couples. Besides, Doug didn't choose to kiss Megan or let her kiss him in the first place. Therefore, they both form a mutual understanding, and they both remain together.

Later on, Doug is happy that Sam finally has his own apartment to live independently with Zahid, whom Doug returns his jar of weed to, since Elsa stole it to protect Sam from it.

While Doug continues to live his life in peace with his family members, Doug is struck by tragic news on his phone in his house kitchen that his best friend, Chuck, had died from a heart attack. Doug becomes depressed as a result of the tragic news. As a depressed man, he even yells at Sam and Elsa for annoying him when he tries to be left alone, as well as being hostile to Izzie, who he believes that she is causing drama or distress to Casey when they both met each other at Clayton Prep. Eventually, he got over his sadness, and he apologized to his family, since he couldn't think straight.

At the end of Season 4, after Doug teaches Sam of how to build a tent, Doug asks his son if he can come along with him to travel to Antarctica via boat. Sam consents to Doug's wish, and they both give a big hug goodbye to Elsa and Casey as the series come to a conclusion.

## Appearances

### Season 1

* Antarctica (S1:E1)
* A Human Female (S1:E2)
* Julia Says (S1:E3)
* A Nice Neutral Smell (S1:E4)
* That's My Sweatshirt (S1:E5)
* The D-Train to Bone Town (S1:E6)
* I Lost My Poor Meatball (S1:E7)
* The Silencing Properties of Snow (S1:E8)

### Season 2

* Juiced! (S2:E1)
* Penguin Cam and Chill (S2:E2)
* Little Dude and the Lion (S2:E3)
* Pants on Fire (S2:E4)
* The Egg Is Pipping (S2:E5)
* In the Dragon's Lair (S2:E6)
* The Smudging (S2:E7)
* Living at an Angle (S2:E8)
* Ritual-licious (S2:E9)
* Ernest Shackleton's Rules for Survival (S2:E10)

### Season 3

* Best Laid Plans (S3:E1)
* Standing Sam (S3:E2)
* Cocaine Pills and Pony Meat (S3:E3)
* Y.G.A.G.G. (S3:E4)
* Only Tweed (S3:E5)
* The Essence of a Penguin (S3:E6)
* Shrinkage (S3:E7)
* Road Rage Paige (S3:E8)
* Sam Takes a Walk (S3:E9)
* Searching for Brown Sugar Man (S3:E10)

### Season 4

* Magical Bird No. 1 (S4:E1)
* Master of Penguins (S4:E2)
* You Say You Want a Revolution (S4:E3)
* Starters and Endings (S4:E4)
* Dead Dreams (S4:E5)
* Are You in Fair Health (S4:E6)
* Channel the Cat (S4:E7)
* Magical Bird No. 2 (S4:E8)
* Player's Ball (S4:E9)
* Dessert at Olive Garden (S4:E10)

## Trivia

* Doug is one of four characters to have appeared in every episode of the series, with the others being Sam, Casey and Elsa.
* Doug loves cheddar chips.
* He makes a mean chop suey.
* He’s a good and kind father who cares about his kids, even if he was kind of foolish to let Elsa back into his house, since she cheated on him for Nick.
* He’s currently back with his wife, Elsa, as of Season 3 and onward.
* He never told Chuck at EMT that Sam has autism until around Season 2.
* He struggled to accept Sam's autism to begin with and even left the family for 8 months back in 2004 because of it. It is because he gets scared or trying to do something right in his life.
* Until recently, he always had a closer relationship with Casey than Sam. They both even went jogging together and he was her go-to-person-to tell stuff to.
* He didn't really attempt to kiss Megan, but she actually kisses him for a brief moment at New York.
* He seems to dislike his daughter's girlfriend, Izzie Taylor, very much.