The Good Doctor (5×12) Dry Spell Review

For our review of the last episode of The Good Doctor, click here.

Synopsis: Drs. Lim, Park and Wolke treat a woman with Valley fever and discover a secret she has been hiding from her fiancé; Drs. Murphy, Allen and Andrews treat a 45-year-old virgin and help her make a big decision about her life. (TV Guide)

The Good Doctor was unfortunately overdue for a dud episode and this week’s episode was it. It was just weird all the way around as it seemed like the writers were horny for some reason as they pushed a lot of sexual storylines for whatever reason. While that’s okay for what is a 10pm network drama, it perhaps went a little too far in a lot of areas as far as many characters were concerned. That being said, underneath the sexual themes, there was one subplot to advance an overarching season subplot as the hospital continued to move on post-Salen.

Murphy and Lea are busy people which meant their sex life took a hit. Getting it back on track became a huge focus for him this episode where he went about it in a weird way, even for him. Catching Lea going about it herself was a little jarring for him and us as viewers.

The cases this week included a woman who collapsed coming off of an airplane who photographed immigrants while also being an undocumented one unbeknownst to her boyfriend who took the deception hard. Originally diagnosed with lung cancer, her issues were actually a fungus in her lungs that the doctors inadvertently spread to her blood stream. Alone and suffering, she and her boyfriend reconciled. Also, a middle-aged woman suffering from severe hemorrhoids was hesitant to get surgery because her recovery would interfere with losing her virginity to her crush, thus prompting chat amongst the doctors about their experiences. Fortunately, the doctors arranged for that to take place at the hospital for which they could perform the surgery afterwards. And that relationship became something more by the end. 

In the midst of all of that, Wolke had an epiphany about his love life which affected his judgment in this episode for whatever reason. Guiding him along, however, was a male nurse that the writers were trying to pair up in the unsubtlest of ways. Meanwhile after taking over control of the hospital, Andrews essentially shut himself off from the others, leaving staff to voice their concerns to Glassman. The former was unconcerned but Glassman devised a plan to rebuild morale by instituting a hospital baseball team for which he agreed to help fund. 

In the end, Murphy and Lea navigated their way through their dry spell (hence the episode title) which took precedence over the baseball game that ended the episode but at least the team appeared to bridge some gaps between Andrews and some of the hospital staff.

The characters are humans after all and maybe this angle helps round them out more but it was just an odd experience. Hopefully the writers have gotten it out of their system so the rest of the season can go back to what it was before.

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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.