project hail mary is Autism Nightmare Fuel let me explain why.
imagine you find other people... difficult. in a kind of frustrating, constantly-moving-target kind of way where it feels like everybody got a manual except for you. you're kind of always the weird guy, the guy who's nice and cool but juuuuust two steps to the left of normal conversation at all times. imagine how isolated you feel.
fast forward to adulthood, and you kind of have it figured out. you have a career that makes you super fulfilled, and you've figured out how to talk with people in such a way that you can get the Conversation Points. You can make people feel seen, you can make them feel appreciated, you can earn softness from people who didn't like you before, you can make them laugh. (See: Carl interactions in the movie.) All while offering almost nothing about *yourself*, because why would anyone want that? Clearly being too transparent about your struggles Puts People Off. So you manage to find the Navigational Beacons of normal human interaction and swim through them, and you think to yourself: ah yeah. It's still hard but I've mostly figured it out.
then, in a conversation of coworkers who you've worked with for several years and trust and like and talk with a lot, it becomes clear: they are sending you to die in space. because you didn't do the Conversation Points good enough.
what? you think. but I had it figured out! I know about your mother's sister's fifth house in amsterdam because you told me about the garden party she holds every summer! I got you to laugh at my thermodynamics joke! I thought I was...?
and they say sorry but No. You still do the Conversations wrong. You don't get the RIGHT kinds of Conversation Points. You have not won any Meaningful Relationships. We all know you, but we don't know you like we know each other. You don't even have Family. (I thought we were...?) You don't even have a dog.
I think, if Grace had not been dealing with the much more immediate grief of being asked to die in space, there would have been a lot more room for the grief that is so recurrent when you are Autistic, which is constantly being reminded that you are the uncanny valley of social interaction, and no one will ever ever ever ever ever stop punishing you for it.