A shape can consist of multiple sub-shapes. This makes it possible to put holes into shapes, which is quite often used for text - for example "A" has a triangular hole in the middle. After converting the text to the shape, it stays as one object, which means you can still change its fill style in one place.
That said, it would be useful to have functions for splitting and joining shapes, which are currently not there. The best you can do now is duplicate the entire Shape, increase the size of the command line (as it is likely that the text shape is quite complex) and start deleting the sub-shapes using the command line until you end up with a single character. Each sub-shape consists of a series of "C" points and one final "E" point.