The Good Doctor – Debts

By: Ujjyani Banerjee

Shaun (Freddie Highmore) is peeling an apple. Lea (Paige Spara) comes in interrupting him and tries coaxing him to not give up on Carly (Jasika Nicole) just after one date. Shaun isn’t influenced. He cuts short the conversation and walks out the door. Claire’s mom, Breeze (Sharon Leal), shows up at her daughter’s place at 1am and is now explaining how rent control was responsible for her sudden homelessness. Claire; however, feels her wild party-animal life got her kicked out. Claire gives her a week’s ultimatum to find a place.

In the ER Shaun and Claire receive a patient with a crushed mandible and torn off cheek. According to the EMTs (Doron Bell, Juliana Wimbles) it seems Josh (Mik Byskov), the patient, was trying to stop a woman from being groped on the subway when the offender thwarted him with a skateboard. Josh is sent to surgery immediately.

Park (Will Yun Lee) has brought a gift for Dr. Lim (Christina Chang). Morgan (Fiona Gubelmann) witnesses that. He reveals that it’s a Ducati throw pillow. Morgan thinks he’s bribing her in order to nab the first lead surgery, but as per Park he’s just maintaining good relations with his boss. Soon both of them join Melendez (Nicholas Gonzalez) to do a post-op consultation on The Cantrell’s newborn son whose condition hasn’t gotten any better. The father (Ben Cotton) doubts the lead surgeon himself. Melendez ensures that their child is in good hands. Later, Morgan praises Dr. Melendez on how he handled the situation. Park feels that she’s sucking up to the wrong guy, but Morgan says she’s sucking up to the decision-maker’s partner.

Josh is now awake. Claire and Shaun walk him through the complexities of his injury and the surgery they’ll perform. In the OR Dr. Andrews (Hill Harper) thinks Josh’s committed a foolish act. Claire wonders if he would’ve just stood there and done nothing. According to Andrews he helps patients to the best of his ability, but he would only risk his life and limbs for his family. He soon realizes that grafting would be impossible due to inadequate stabilization and that Josh has to be wired shut, meaning he won’t be able to speak or eat solid food again. Claire and Shaun break it to Josh who eventually takes it positively. As the Cantrells want a new surgeon, Lim inquires Melendez about possible errors during surgery. He ensures that he didn’t do anything wrong and wants to know if she’s finding this awkward. Lim is.

Melendez says he’s trying to not let it be. Shaun goes to pathology to collect dermal regeneration templates. Carly meets him. Realizing that he’s feeling uncomfortable, she asks him to not worry about the date and that she’d love a second one. Shaun blurts out that he had a horrible time and doesn’t want to do that ever again. Morgan and Park are doing ultrasound on the newborn and see extensive swelling. Lim walks in to check the results and thanks Morgan for the muffins but is amused with the bribery. Morgan defends that they’re not trying to do so with their muffins or pillows. Lim never got any pillow.  Anyways, she lets them know that they’ll be leading many surgeries in their careers; who does it first is immaterial but how its done would matter. Later, Park reveals that he’d just given his friend’s sample marketing pamphlets to Lim. To Morgan, it’s all moot now, based on what Lim said. Lim approaches the Cantrells and reveals about the surgery that’s needed, but they want some other surgeon this time. Lim offers her service and they’re glad the chief will be leading this time. Melendez feels insulted and hurt.

Debbie (Sheila Kelley) visits Aaron (Richard Schiff) for lunch at his office. They get intimate and Shaun walks in with even more lunch. Glassman explains to Shaun how dating is hard by nature and he should go at his own pace. Shaun leaves soon as he’s called in for surgery.  Debbie makes Aaron realize that he’s got to push Shaun into dating, otherwise the kid would never go on a second date. In the OR Claire, Andrews and Shaun continue discussing Josh’s good deed that got his face smashed. Claire thinks that good deeds predominantly go unpunished. Shaun feels that they’re mostly rewarded agreeing with Dr. Andrews that we humans are selfish by nature, but is amused how people keep being unselfish and points out how Dr. Andrews himself got demoted while trying to save his job. Dr. Andrews suddenly asks the group to halt the procedure and decides to invent a new technique as Josh deserves better. They all brainstorm in the conference room. As Morgan and Park are leaving for the day, Morgan remembers that she left her keys in the locker and rushes back letting Park carry on. She actually made an excuse to join the brainstorming session. Andrews asks about Park and she reveals that he took off for some personal work. Just then Park comes in bearing coffee for everyone. Lim and Melendez are on their way to a date, but all he can think about is how he got replaced. Lim justifies her action, but the way he sees it she was either unsupportive of him or too supportive. Back in the conference room Park discusses about disastrous first dates while Morgan feels that Shaun is lucky to not be bogged down by the biological nonsensical need to find love. Seeing them discuss everything but medicine, he asks all to go home as it has been a long day. Shaun wants to explore more options, but Andrews reminds him that miracles aren’t possible.

Claire gets home and her mom gets up to serve her dinner. She asks about how her apartment hunting was going on. It turns out that Breeze saw one place but that was nasty. She senses that Claire is unhappy and tries explaining how she’s really trying her best to turn things around. Claire just says that she’s got six days now.

It’s late at night and Shaun is at home churning out possible ideas for Josh’s face. Lea asks him to get some sleep, but Shaun’s drowned in research. She is amused by this tenaciousness of his which fall short during dating. Shaun repeatedly asks her not to distract him. When he’s left alone Carly shows up at the door and wants to know why he acted out earlier in the day. They take a walk in the garden and she reveals about having an autistic sister, Andie. She wonders if she dated him to prove something. Shaun says they’re not all the same. Carly points that she’s got questions too and everything can’t be answered over one dinner. Shaun walks out saying he’s got to go. He goes to Dr. Andrews’ and skips happily saying that he’s found a solution. The next day Dr. Andrews presents it to Lim who is torn between saying yes to it or saying no, considering the procedure’s septic complications. She wonders whether Andrews is batting so hard for Shaun because he wants to get his heroic deed of reinstating Shaun against his demotion rewarded in some way. Andrews promises to not sugarcoat the procedure while presenting it to Josh.

Glassman meets Shaun and as Debbie suggested he asks him to give Carly another shot. He explains how he shut down after Maggie’s demise and dated after so long only to find his world in Debbie. Shaun recollects how Morgan said dating is nonsensical. Glassman adds that it doesn’t need to have sense but one needs to have love and he must try again. Morgan has a word with Dr. Lim during their surgical hand preparation and offers to write a paper with her. Lim reveals that Park already approached her on the same and warns her, just like she did to Park, that if either one of them tries to ask for a favor or bribe her again, she’ll pull him/ her to the bottom of the list. Morgan still explains that if she’s ready to work this hard just to bribe, she should know how much it means for her to have the first surgery and how hard she’d work if given the opportunity.

Andrews, Shaun and Claire present their experimental procedure to Josh stating every possible complication. He says yes. Lim, Park and Morgan operate on the newborn and Lim finds out that the baby was suffering from two unrelated conditions – an intussusception and a telescopic bowel which presented the same symptoms. The latter got eclipsed due to the first condition and it was wrong of her to have questioned Melendez’s expertise. She asks him to lead the surgery. Dr. Andrews, Claire and Shaun are performing the experimental surgery on Josh. Claire asks how the date went with Carly this time. Shaun says that it was just a walk. Claire reveals that most of her good dates were a far cry from flowers and restaurant reservations and rather involved a couch and a humble bag of chips. The surgeons face a bit of complications but are able to pull through. Both the surgeries result in success. Josh’s first words to Dr. Andrews turns out to be “thank you.” He’s  also got a visitor- the woman he saved on the subway, Olivia (Tina Georgieva). The surgeons give the duo some privacy to get acquainted.

Lim calls a surgical staff meeting. Having recently been reminded about how much the first surgery means to the third-year residents, she picks Claire to be the first in line. Park is elated and Morgan realizes that he’s just happy that she didn’t win wondering if he dislikes her that much. Park reveals that he doesn’t want her to be his chief resident as she’s be one horrible boss.

Andrews meets Shaun at the lockers and reveals that he dealt differently with Josh and went that extra mile because he wanted his heroic deed to matter and was annoyed that his sacrifice wasn’t rewarded. However, after all that went down, he’s proud that he made that sacrifice. He thanks Shaun. Lim and Melendez share a kiss having not fallen apart after from what went down with the Contrells. Claire gets home and Breeze shares that she saw three more apartments. Claire smilingly says that she can stay with her for a while but she’s got to stick to her prescription, avoid drinking and keep seeing her therapist. Breeze is overjoyed! Shaun walks up to pathology carrying a big packet of chips in his hand and finds Carly. He asks her if she’s got a couch there. Carly says no. He settles down on the floor, opens the packet and offers her to join. Carly smiles at his sweet gesture. She goes and sits beside him embracing this simple second date!