Clocking just 15 minutes per episode, Special is like a candy bar. It’s quick to consume but sweet as sugar. This new Netflix Original is set around a gay man with cerebral palsy, a disability that affects his body coordination but not his brain. As Ryan puts it in the first episode, it’s a disability that doesn’t make him normal but also is not severe enough for him to be part of the “cool disabled crew”. Ryan decides to turn his life around by pretending his disability is due to a car accident. People around him, especially at the exploitative millennial magazine “eggwoke” where he is an intern, start treating him differently. The car accident story provides a more accessible framework for them to understand his condition. It’s hard to believe a TV show can come out today and still manage to be so different from the rest, but Special does it. In other words, and I’m sorry to be this cheeky; Special is special.
"If you stick it out through the end, eight episodes in all-easily done, on account of their affable tone and agreeably modest fifteen-minute running time-you will encounter some savory self-knowledge to cut the sweet cheer."
— Troy Patterson
"With a full half-hour and a bigger budget, Special could go from being a great if slightly-too-scant story to something really magical."
— Kathryn VanArendonk
A gay man with mild cerebral palsy decides to rewrite his identity as an accident victim and finally go after the life he wants.
it is a fresh show. It gives a unique perspective on modern life in subtle but effective way.