If you would like to read my review of the last episode of The Good Doctor, click here.
Synopsis: Dr. Murphy and Dr. Park treat two patients who collapse at the airport and whose symptoms point to an airborne infection causing the hospital to go under quarantine. (IMDB)
Writers: Liz Friedman and Lloyd Gilyard Jr.
Director: Mike Listo
Rating: TV-14
Running Time: 41mins
Airs: Mondays at 10pm on CTV (Canada)/ABC (United States)
The above synopsis is kind of wrong but that was pretty much the only thing wrong about this episode.
Continuing what the last episode started, this episode started with Melendez and Lim very together. Murphy showed up for another day at work, now dealing with the emergency room. It was getting close to Christmas so the hospital was a little understaffed. They of course got hit with Murphy and Lim having much different luck with their patients. A man and a woman came off of a long flight from Malaysia with the man dying almost immediately and the woman seemingly afflicted with the same virus. Just in case, the emergency room was put under quarantine. The woman died soon after.
Park’s son Kellan (Ricky He) showed up for the holidays and eventually wandered into the quarantine. Murphy was bothered by a buzzing light while Reznick had to fight off advances by a paramedic struck by the virus named Tyler (Dan Byrd). Informing the other patients of the quarantine created a slight panic. Meanwhile, Melendez, Browne, and Park had a patient with leukemia named Chris (Alex Weed) who suddenly developed heart problems. Chris needed a bone marrow transplant from their estranged father who was missing.
The quarantine was taking a toll on the hospital staff, including Murphy who didn’t understand that they had to stay in the quarantine and also Park and Kellan. Also, they had to devise non-surgical options in order to treat their patients. They weren’t always pleasant. Reznick empathized with Tyler who was getting worse. Meanwhile with Murphy predisposed, Lea picked up Glassman for his imaging appointment. However, he was more interested in going to the hospital to help but she talked sense into him.
Some more subplots involving the quarantined patients but they didn’t matter all that much. The two main storylines came together when Chris’ missing father was actually a man who had to be subdued after resisting the quarantine. Since there’s was no chance of getting his marrow, they had to find another donor which they did though they weren’t as good of a match as Chris’ father. Chris was hesitant about inferior marrow but he was dying. He was at ease with where he was with his life and was willing to wait for whatever reason.
Things got worse when Lim revealed that she was infected. Tyler would also succumb to the virus. Murphy also found trouble trying to maintain the peace as the quarantined patients would need to be treated somehow so he and Reznick would have to improvise. The perfect storm arose when other patients, including Kellan, were getting sick with Murphy left alone to figure things out all while the buzzing light was driving him crazy. Meanwhile, Melendez and Browne came up with a plan to treat Chris by expanding the quarantine so they can perform the marrow transplant. Chris signed a DNR but Melendez violated it by trying to revive him after he flatlined. Though Andrews did not yet approve their plan, Melendez was not willing to let him die.
At the imagining clinic, Glassman went against protocol by taking his own test results and looking at them himself. His tumor was back. Meanwhile, Reznick was struggling with the makeshift surgery setup but Lim passed out so she was unable to help. All the pressure forced Murphy to cower on the floor while everything was falling apart around him.
Overall, this was an excellent episode with another part to come. In one of the best episodes of the series, everything was literally falling apart. It was a better choice to focus on the quarantine subplot which eventually took over the episode since the other subplot wasn’t nearly as compelling. Murphy is always more compelling when he’s faced with adversity and that was definitely the case here. Reznick opened herself to someone only to have them die on her watch. The same may end up being the case for Melendez and Lim. It would be quite the call to kill off Lim but it will be interesting to see what happens with Reznick and Melendez. Pretty much everyone got put through the ringer here, including Glassman whose tumor may have returned. The performances from Highmore, Gubelmann, and Chang were all great here and kept you on the edge of your seat. The next episode can’t come soon enough.
Score: 9.5/10
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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.
