If you would like to read my review of the last episode, click here.
Synopsis: As part of St. Bonaventure hospital’s international humanitarian program, the team takes on the case of a young boy from the Congo who has severe congenital heart anomalies. Dr. Neil Melendez has doubts about the safety of the procedure, while Dr. Shaun Murphy works out the best course of action. Meanwhile, Murphy’s latest encounter with his neighbor Lea has him confused. (IMDB)
Writer: Karen Struck
Director: Bronwen Hughes
Rating: TV-14
Running Time: 41mins
With every episode, Murphy keeps finding a way to stand on his own and prove others wrong. Other than this development, not much happened in this episode but this did not make it any less compelling by any means. The show can’t keep moving forward as it has so far so it perhaps slowed down a little which was still fine as it has to fill in its regular network season order.
Glassman suggested that Murphy get some help so that was what he tried to do at the beginning of the episode by interviewing someone for the position. He ultimately turned them away because their clothes didn’t match. The many previews for the episode showed that the hospital has brought in a patient from a third-world country, ultimately for PR purposes. Unfortunately the patient wasn’t who Melendez approved because it was one whom he did not believe he can save. This patient, a little boy from Congo with heart problems, was chosen for being cute which would look better.
Based on his earlier conversation with Lea, Murphy thought she didn’t like him, however, Browne told him that she was just flirting and gave him a lesson. The boy’s mother was confident that Melendez would save her son because she had a vision of it. Murphy shared his flirting breakthrough with Glassman. He thought it was relevant to his condition. He put it into practice as he caught Browne flirting with Melendez which she didn’t immediately acknowledge thought kept thinking about for the remainder of the episode.
Murphy had an idea that one of the valves on the boy’s heart was in the wrong place but Melendez thought it was a bad idea. Also the boy wasn’t taking the medication that was given because his mother withheld it so they would stay in America longer. Murphy and Melendez simulated his idea using some fancy VR technology and found a way where surgery could work, however, they would have a slim margin of error. Though they had to change their plan in the middle of surgery, they were still successful.
Meanwhile, another patient, a famous podcaster, had a nodule on her vocal chords and was worried that she’d lose her voice. This episode also gave us some more insight into Andrews by introducing us to his wife who also worked at the hospital. She basically reminded him to think about the patients. It also gave us another subplot for the episode once the podcaster’s tissue specimen goes missing. Not only did Browne have to find the specimen to determine if the podcaster had cancer because they would have no way to determine so otherwise, she also had to deal with hospital bureaucracy. After time had seemingly run out for them to find the sample, they decided to perform surgery that she may not have needed until Browne had a breakthrough a found the sample which they analyzed and determined that she didn’t have cancer.
Murphy was proud about his discovery about Browne with Glassman so he thought he didn’t need help. He prefered to live alone and didn’t want a stranger helping him. Browne thought she was out of the woods after finding the specimen but the podcaster still sued the hospital for the pain they put her through. Murphy tried to flirt with Lea and they went into her apartment.
Overall, one development aside, this was pretty much a filler episode which was fine. It hit the right notes with all the characters while giving us some insight into Andrews. It was also compelling to watch because of interesting characters and the blooming chemistry between all the actors. As long as we get compelling enough stories, it doesn’t always need to have character development.
Score: 8/10
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The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.