Spoiler Alert: This summary and review contains spoilers.
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More people die, and there are moments in which the winter premiere of The Good Doctor will have you shed tears.
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| Network | |
| ABC | |
| Director(s) | Mike Listo |
| Writer(s) | Simran Baidwan, Mark Rozeman |
| Air Date | 1/14/2019 |
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A Mentor Does Not Equal A Friend: Dr. Glassman, Lea
So, Dr. Glassman doesn’t have cancer, but he does have meningitis and some brain leakage. However, he isn’t keen on telling Shaun this, and this upsets Lea a bit. For even if Dr. Glassman is trying to put up this boundary that he is a mentor and not a friend, he has to face the fact he is much more than that to Shaun.
But, when Lea brings that up, Dr. Glassman has something for her. He brings up their road trip, the kiss, and her leaving to attempt to shut her up and get her off his case. Something which works but recognizing he may not know the whole story, he apologizes. Well, that and before, when she was getting on his case, that was before he learned he didn’t have cancer but instead meningitis. So, needless to say, he was on edge as he was waiting for his test results.
Commentary
I may never understand Dr. Glassman. From what we’ve seen, the man doesn’t have any family after his daughter died and he got divorced. Shaun is the closest thing he has to a child but, I guess, when Shaun pushed for autonomy, Dr. Glassman got so deep in his feelings he decided to put some walls up. Heck, even with Debbie, someone that had patience and was willing to work with what he was going through, he put up walls and steered her away.
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It really makes you question if this man just wants to die alone in peace. If not, maybe he is afraid to feel too deeply since, one way or another, the people closest to him leave. I mean, look at Jessica. One of the last figures which connected him to his daughter is gone, and we haven’t heard a blip nearly the entire season.
Luckily, while Shaun may not have the words or gumption, maybe Lea can get through this man’s skull and push him to open up.
Saving What & Who You Can: Shaun, Kellan, Dr. Lim, Dr. Melendez, Claire, Dr. Park, Morgan
The root to Dr. Park and his son, Kellan, having issues is because Kellan felt abandoned. He felt that his father didn’t put enough effort into seeing him, being present when around, and that caused a rift. One that Dr. Park feels bad about, but he was raised to not cry, get emotional, and do what needs to be done. Hence him making sure, financially, things are good, but not always taking that 2 something hour flight to Phoenix. But, throughout the episode, it seems their relationship recovers.
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As for Shaun? Well, to a bit of surprise, Morgan figures out the best way to get him out of the fetal position is by talking medicine and surgical terms to him. Thus leading him to be able to help with both the procedure they were working on and delivering a baby. Mind you, delivering with complications, since he had to do a C-Section and had to call Kellan in to give CPR to the baby, but both patients lived.
Oh, and Dr. Lim also is alive and well after all is said and done. However, when it comes to Claire and Dr. Melendez’s patient? Well, while they save the son, the father dies. Not because of them, mind you, but because Dr. Park made a mistake.
Commentary
Did anyone else doubt they were going to kill off a main character? With characters dying left and right in the last one, it made the possibility of them doing that again seem so unlikely. Plus, while Dr. Lim hasn’t really gotten a huge amount of chances to shine and assert herself (in the series overall), with this thing she has with Dr. Melendez, after Tyler dying, it didn’t seem like they’d kill off two lovebirds.
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But, let’s also factor in that pushing the idea main characters may die was kind of a cheap mid-season finale. Especially, after the episode, you realize pretty much everyone’s fine. Yes, Dr. Glassman has to have another surgery, but only a few additional emotional scars from losing patients happened.
Oh, but I will admit, seeing the softer side of Dr. Park was lovely. For while he has been more open as of late, Kellan really cracked him open and allowed us to know him far better than we did before. Plus, be it a cultural thing, or maybe just the way Park’s dad raised him, it was interesting to hear about his upbringing. If only because the whole, “Be like stone, don’t cry” thing explains so much of Dr. Park’s personality and decision making. Really showing you how one line, likely repeated multiple times, can really mess up a person for life.
The Peace Before The Second Wave: Shaun, Dr. Glassman, Dr. Lim, Dr. Melendez, Morgan, Dr. Park, Kellan
With things calmed down, Dr. Lim and Dr. Melendez talk, and he, coyly, conveys how he was worried about losing his drinking partner. To which she replies she doesn’t think she may be able to do that for a while, but he says he’ll wait. Dr. Park and Kellan find Kellan’s mom at the hospital, likely freaked out by what happened, and while things have seemed rather bad between them, there is a moment of peace. The kind that seems to low-key shock Kellan.
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However, while things are good with the above, and Dr. Glassman decides to reveal his diagnosis to Shaun, then there is Morgan. As shown, Morgan isn’t that close to anyone. So a romantic prospect, a genuinely good guy, him dying and her being powerless, even as a doctor, to stop it hits hard. Making it so you can only hope that Dr. Lim, like Dr. Glassman did for Claire, pushes Morgan to get some counseling. For it is one thing to lose a patient, who is a stranger, but losing someone who you cared about? Completely different thing.
Commentary
One thing I’m starting to notice with TV shows is things usually come in pairs. Morgan and Dr. Lim finding someone who could be a romantic partner, pair. Kellan and Shaun being put in a debilitating situation, pair. So with this Morgan thing, I wonder if she is going to put walls up and maybe revert back to how she once was and mirror the way Dr. Glassman sometimes acts?
As for the rest? I see Dr. Lim and Dr. Melendez’s relationship to not be something cute or a long time coming as much as solving the issue of what to do with these two characters. For with them only really having each other, no friends, no meaningful relationships this show wants to dive into, who else but one another can give them a life outside of work?
But, I will admit Dr. Glassman telling Shaun his diagnosis was growth and him hugging Shaun? Oh! That put me to tears. Especially since you know Shaun isn’t much for being touched so put into a hold like that, it means Lea may have really gotten to Dr. Glassman, and maybe he got over himself.
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Because, in the long run, I think Dr. Glassman really was using Shaun to make up for losing his daughter. Making it so, when Shaun was pulling away, it likely triggered when Maddie was doing the same before her death. So, rather than see Shaun as different, a person whose life didn’t mirror Maddie’s and would lead to different decisions, he instead set boundaries only porous enough to hear and speak through. Not enough to allow any sort of touching or emotions to get through.
Highlights
- This two-part episode has given some life to Dr. Park, Dr. Lim, and Dr. Melendez.
- While it is terrible that Morgan lost a potential love interest, Tyler’s death will challenge Morgan and allow us to see if she has really changed permanently or changed simply because things were going good.
- Glassman embracing Shaun was a tear-inducing moment.
On The Fence
- Building up to the idea main characters could die and only guest stars dying seemed like cheap drama.
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Plus I passed an article of the actor who plays Dr. Glassman talking about a reboot of a show he was in, so I was left to wonder why he would talk about another full-time job when he is in nearly every episode of this show. When would he have the time?
And I seriously think they dropped the ball with Claire. Between the #TimesUp and #MeToo movement, her storyline began at the right time and then with Dr. Andrews policing her and how Morgan acted, it seemed perfect. But I feel that, sometimes, when a character gets a storyline which could eclipse Shaun’s, they get clipped at the knees. Especially if he has absolutely no involvement in the story. Hence Jared and Jessica leaving rather abruptly and not being mentioned as if the actors did something and had to be treated as taboo subjects.
You could be right about Morgan. But I still feel this was such a traumatic experience for her, it will change her. I look forward to seeing what she is like in tomorrow’s episode.
What a very interesting point you make about Dr. Glassman!! Yet at the end of the episode, the tests showed he has meningitis, which will be treated with one operation; not cancer, which was going to kill him. So what do they do with Dr. Glassman now? You’re right in that killing him off wouldn’t cripple the show and that there are a lot of characters, plus Dr. Glassman takes up a lot of time on the show. So maybe they will kill him off.
And boy, has Claire definitely lost momentum! The doctor that made unwanted sexual advances (I can’t remember his name) is no longer a story line since that actor has a big part on “The Rookie”. Her mother is nowhere to be seen. She and Dr. Melendez have made up. She took a back seat in these last 2 episodes, but now its time to put her front and center again because next to Shaun, she’s my favorite resident!
Hi! I hope you had a nice holiday! I would have wished you had a nice Christmas, but I thought that Christmas carol at the end of the episode was quite jarring!
Anyway, it’s great to read your in-depth recaps again! What nearly brought me to tears was the scene with poor Morgan near the end when she is walking out of the hospital and she sees the body of Tyler being carried toward the CDC van. I’ve never seen her look so sad!! You posted the exact picture (screen shot?) of what I’m referring to, and I don’t see how this can’t help but change her permanently.
Dr. Glassman. Sigh. You put it perfectly when you wrote “I may never understand Dr. Glassman.” Me neither. So I have stopped trying. I want my tv-watching experience to be easy. When the doctors start talking medical mumbo-jumbo, I tune out because I don’t care. Unless it’s in layman’s terms that I can understand, I don’t bother with it. And unless a character’s motivations are easily understood, like Dr. Park’s was (now that was a very good story line!), then I stop caring. And even though he is an important character, I have stopped caring about Dr. Glassman. I care about how Shaun and Lea are affected by him, but as for Dr. Glassman himself, I feel that the writers have made him too undefined (or maybe I haven’t tried hard enough), but either way, I don’t care about him, so I am going to move on.
I hope after this episode there will be more with Dr. Lim and Dr. Melendez, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon. With Dr. M saying “I’ll wait” to Dr. Lim, I felt like he was telling us we had to wait, too. But I hope I’m wrong because I like the two of them together.
I don’t know, with Morgan I feel she was still on the cusp of changing yet still being very comfortable in the ways which got her to the hospital.
As for Dr. Glassman, I feel that with each half a season, they find ways to slowly wean us off from him. They took away Jessica, resolved his issues with his daughter, isolated him so that no characters but Shaun and Lea interact with him, and make it so killing him off would be devastating, but wouldn’t cripple the show.
But, considering the show still has so many characters, like Dr. Lim and Melendez, who feel like they keep getting put on ice, maybe the show needs to kill off a character or two? I’m still surprised by how Claire has lost her momentum.