The Good Doctor Season 1 Episode 13: Seven Reasons Review

If you would like to read my review of the last episode, click here.

Synopsis: Dr. Shaun Murphy suspects his patient is lying about the reason for her injury and makes a controversial assumption about her motives. Meanwhile, Dr. Neil Melendez’s personal life could be affecting his work and, ultimately, his patients lives.(IMDB)

Writers: David Shore and David Hoselton

Director: Mike Listo

Rating: TV-14

Running Time: 41mins

Over the first 12 episodes of the series, Melendez had been the least interesting and developed character. While it’s not necessarily Nicholas Gonzalez’s fault, the writers haven’t done enough with his character other than his relationship with Beau Garrett’s Preston which had been the only thing going with him so far. It seemed like it was going nowhere until now with last week’s breakup having an impact on the episode, albeit a minimal one at least for now as he had to against Preston.

Those who have seen any of the previews of this episode have seen both Murphy suspect his patient of being a terrorist and Melendez making a mistake. This was pretty much 2/3 of the episode with one serving as a lesson for Murphy and the other being an awkward attempt to humanize the arrogant Melendez. The episode title, Seven Reasons, derives from Murphy’s seven reasons why people lie. There were a few present in this episode when dealing with the cases of the week and some of the relationships between the doctors.

Today was the first day of Murphy’s new life now that Lea is gone and that he Glassman let him make his own decisions. Despite the changes, he continued his usual routine but the absences were apparent. The case that the previews hinted at involved a woman suffering from burns on her arms and lung inflammation from what she claimed to be a grease fire. Murphy was skeptical of her story, however, he had no proof otherwise.

While performing a bronchoscopy on the patient, Murphy pressed Melendez about his earlier breakup and questioned whether he should’ve been there. Perhaps after going a little too far, he ruptured her airway. Murphy was conflicted about whether to report Melendez so he asked Glassman for advice which was that he should make a decision on his own. He decided to report Melendez. When confronted with the results of her bronchoscopy which did not indicate signs of smoke damage, she got worse.

Meanwhile, Browne and Lim were working the case of a man suffering from multiple aneurysms. In order to help their patient, they needed to perform a surgery that they had little experience with. Unfortunately for them, the only one available was Coyle who had been recently promoted to a position away from patients and hospital staff. After conferring with the patient’s wife, she decided to not give consent for the operation as it would be against her husband’s wishes.

When Browne talked about her case to Murphy, he believed that the husband’s wife was lying about loving her husband. When she pressed the wife about her decision, she revealed that she actually hated her husband because he hurt her.

When Murphy discovered that a certain chemical used in chemical weapons could be responsible for the woman’s condition, he believed she was a terrorist. After threatening to take the wife to court, she gave consent to her husband’s surgery. When Murphy confronted his patient with his claims, she taught him a valuable lesson about prejudice. After a failed surgery, Lim and Browne believed there was more going on.

Murphy and Kalu came up with two different solutions using antibiotics or steroids, one would vindicate Melendez and the other would validate his mistake. Lim and Browne figured out that the husband wasn’t taking his medications because his wife was substituting them and filled them with something else. Murphy and Kalu first tried antibiotics which didn’t work until Kalu made an executive decision and gave her steroids which proved to be the right choice.

The woman finally revealed that the chemical she came in contact with was to make perfume. She lied about it originally because she didn’t want her brother getting in trouble for giving some to her.

Browne tried to find more dirt on Coyle to get him fired. Glassman didn’t have breakfast with him because he thought he should take a step back because he couldn’t help but to be a fatherly figure to Murphy. Murphy believed that he and Glassman should be friends instead to which he walked away because Glassman had to think about it.

Murphy got a pine scented air freshener to remind him of his time with Lea.

Overall, this was a good episode with a few compelling cases both involving figuring out the truth. So far so good for Murphy but he will surely be tested as he continues to make his own decisions. Seeing him grow and develop, like he’s done here, has been the best part of the series so far and hopefully this will continue. Hopefully, they will also give Melendez more to do as well.

Score: 8.5/10

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Keith Noakes

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.