If you would like to read my review of the last episode of The Good Doctor, click here.
Synopsis: Morgan and Shaun are indecisive on how to treat a young violinist who has an infected finger; Lim, Claire and Park can’t figure out if their young patient is actually ill or just looking for attention. (TV Guide)
Writer: Simran Baidwan
Director: Tara Nicole Weyr
Rating: TV-14
Running Time: 41mins
Airs: Mondays at 10pm on CTV (Canada)/ABC (United States)
In this episode, Browne and Reznick connected to both of their patients to much different results.
The episode started with Murphy and Lea getting used to living together. Murphy, Reznick, and Melendez dealt with a young female piano student with a finger problem while Browne, Park, and Lim had a young girl with a very bad nosebleed named Riley (Caitlin Carmichael).
Unfortunately, the student had something much worse than a finger problem. Because they were dealing with a finger, they had to be extra careful and it appeared that Murphy didn’t fully understand that due to his need to always be sure. Also, he still had time to scold Lea for her bad habits (the toilet paper being a big one), arguably taking things too far. Murphy was adamant that his patient had some type of flesh-eating disease, however, was being held back by Reznick. Once she decided to finally test for it, Murphy was right. Now it was now moving up her arm which they had to amputate. In order to save her, she would have to go in a hyperbaric chamber with someone for which Reznick volunteered. When she woke up, she was upset about losing her arm and blamed Reznick. She wanted Reznick out though they had no choice but to stay together.
Riley’s divorced parents believed that she may be faking her latest ailment as a way to bring them back together as she had tried to do in the past. Once the nosebleed was resolved, her parents fighting led to her not being able to breathe and coughing out blood. Their latest scan they ran on her was clean. After discharging her, Riley came back. They may have missed what may or may not be a tumour which could have caused her breathing problems. Riley’s parents were skeptical but they rallied around each other and their daughter. They encountered some complications during the surgery while finding something else in her body, a piece of lego which caused her sickness. Riley’s parents agreed to do better by her.
Glassman was being stubborn with his physical therapist. Worried about Murphy after their latest fight, Lea showed up to Glassman’s house. Glassman sat her down and told her that if she wanted to leave, she would have to do so immediately since the longer she takes it, the more it will hurt him. While with Debbie, his stubbornness later caught up to him and he couldn’t take it and wanted Debbie to go.
Park, the resident cynic, was skeptical about Riley and her parents but Browne was adamant that they’d be better. Melendez gave a distraught Reznick a pep talk. She took it especially hard since she connected to her patient. Her caring was wrong. He then told a story about when he and Lim were residents. Browne awkwardly ran into Melendez and Lim in an elevator. Murphy returned home to Lea who apologized for earlier. Murphy also agreed to try and compromise.
Overall, this was a great episode with a pair of powerful cases that brought on some much needed character development in the way of Murphy, Reznick, and Park. Murphy learned about compromise when dealing with Lea. Reznick actually connected with a patient, revealing that she dabbled with archery, and it was those feelings that clouded her judgement. Murphy didn’t care about their patient’s aspirations and dreams and figured out what was wrong. Park has a kid and was for the most part not keen on sharing personal information. He was skeptical of Riley and her parents but it was his perspective as a parent that helped him along with the case. At the end of the day, he still reverted back to his old ways. Meanwhile, Browne and Melendez are still at an impasse, however, it can’t last forever. It will be interesting to see where it all goes from here.
Score: 9/10
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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.