The Good Doctor – Mutations

By: Ujjyani Banerjee

Shaun (Freddie Highmore) is helping Lea (Paige Spara) pack her stuff as she has agreed to move out upon Carly’s (Jasika Nicole) request. As they go through their stuff, Lea realizes that she would miss her roomie.

Park (Will Yun Lee) and Claire (Antonia Thomas) treat Ryan (David Iacono) who has to have renal tumor removal surgery after having undergone chemotherapy. While his father wonders if Ryan’s kidney would get spared, the teenager hopes to be discharged in time to take his girlfriend Angie (Alyssa Jirrels) to prom. They met at their chemo treatments. When Angie comes to see him, Claire recognizes her as one of her patients. Angie thanks her as the chemo sessions gave her a chance to meet Ryan.

Lim (Christina Chang), Shaun and Morgan (Fiona Gubelmann) treat James (Thomas Cadrot) a marathon runner. He had seen Lim earlier for stress fracture but now has been admitted for Lymphedema. James has persistent depressive disorder and running is the only thing that helps him. The surgeons decide to block lymph production while trying to find out why the antibiotics aren’t working on him by running cultures.

Morgan comes to see Glassman (Richard Schiff) for her RA examination. Glassman asks if she’s having any discomfort. She mentions about some post-meal queasiness but quickly deviates to him being a celebrated neurosurgeon and yet remaining content with general practice. Glassman ignores her and suggests changing the medication to suit her stomach but Morgan doesn’t want it as her hands are doing fine.

Claire and Melendez (Nicholas Gonzalez) are at Ryan’s MRI. She wonders if they can maneuver the surgery to speed up his recovery period so as to let him attend prom. Melendez asks if he’s in love. Claire reveals that the couple is head over heels in love and she, herself, misses the sweet idiotic phase. Soon the surgeons find out that Ryan’s tumor is gone due to effective chemo. They let him know. Ryan jumps up in joy and starts to dance with Angie. Suddenly, she collapses and starts having a seizure. Her cancer has relapsed. Meanwhile, James’ lungs have filled up with fluid. Shaun attends to him while Morgan is paged. While her phone keeps ringing, Morgan vomits her guts out is in the restroom.

Angie and her mom, Elise (Brigid Brannagh), get worried upon learning that Angie has had a relapse. This time it’s a stage three brain tumor and the surgery would take eight months for full recovery. Angie is sad about missing prom, but Elise is more worried about her failing health. Angie asks Claire to make her mom understand, but Park thinks it’s outside medical purview. Melendez decides to seek Glassman’s advice on the surgery. As the surgeons walk out, Park remembers being passed out before even attending prom, Melendez reminisces being the prom king while Claire recalls bailing out her drunk mom that night. Soon Melendez and Claire meet Glassman. He gives them a surgical way forward. Melendez asks Glassman to scrub in as his presence would mean a lot. Glassman ,who hasn’t stepped in an OR in over a year, decides to consider it.

Lim, Morgan, Andrews (Hill Harper) and Shaun operate on James. They decide to run cytology on his lymphatic fluid. Later Shaun delivers the samples at pathology and meets Carly. He informs her about Lea moving out. Carly is relieved and happy. They decide to meet the following night. Morgan raves about Andrews’ surgical technique to Andrews himself. He offers her to co-write a paper and wants to discuss it over breakfast. Seeing her pick a smoothie, he puts a plate on her tray and asks her to eat properly.

Elise spots Ryan trying to meet Angie, but asks him to come by later as his own immune system is weak. Claire notices this and offers him a protective mask but soon realizes that she overstepped. Ryan’s dad takes him home and Elise asks for a “No visitor” status until Angie’s surgery is done.

Carly meets Lim at the corridor while staring at James and his wife Marjorie (Caitlin Stryker). She informs the chief that James’s lymphedema is caused by a genetic mutation and that they need to find an effective medication soon to prevent him from drowning, from the inside.

Shaun, Morgan and Lim gather for a presentation that Carly is supposed to give. They learn about a study which shows that the mutation can be silenced by forty-one possible antibiotics. Lim asks Carly to stay back and help the team choose the correct antibiotic. After they work and finalize on one, Carly reveals to Shaun that she’s having trouble interacting with patients as opposed to samples. Shaun agrees that patients are harder but tells her that she’ll do fine.

Park and Claire are at Angie’s MRI. Angie is sad that Ryan bailed on her. Claire is about to reveal that Elise didn’t allow but Park stops her. He instead says that he might’ve gotten busy with catching up on schoolwork.

Claire decides to approach Elise directly. She requests her to be okay with at least a video chat as depressing Angie would only hinder her surgical outcomes. But Elise doesn’t feel that Ryan is always had the best influence on Angie. It turns out that once the young couple had a silly fight and Angie ended up crying for days.

Late at night Morgan finds Carly staring at James. She’s curious to know if the medication worked. Morgan says that it did and suddenly hands her a saline bag to be given to James and rushes to the restroom to throw up. Carly hesitantly enters James’s room.

Melendez, Park and Claire realize that Angie’s operation and the difficult tumor location could compromise her memories. Claire’s frustrated that Elise is against such a simple solution as opposed to months and months of post-operative therapy. Seeing Claire flustered, Melendez allows her to do what makes Angie happy without antagonizing the mother.

Shaun and Carly hit it bed and makeout. Shaun is uninhibited but Carly stops soon after. She realizes that it doesn’t feel natural from her side. This leaves Shaun confused. They soon get paged back by Morgan as James’s condition is deteriorating. He is hemorrhaging. While the team struggles to arrest his heart, Carly suggests trying all the medications on zebrafish as not only are they fast proliferating but genetically identical to humans too. Lim asks Shaun to help Carly as he’s got path experience. Both start preparing cultures. Shaun asks Carly what went wrong between them and how can he rectify it. Carly doesn’t know as she’s confused, too.

Glassman meets Morgan to let her know that he knows about her puking episode, thanks an old janitor friend of his. Morgan reveals that she’s stopped taking solid food. Glassman looks on in despair.

Claire comes bearing party decoration items and meets Shaun is amidst forty fish tanks. She asks him how he’s doing ever since his dad died. Shaun says that he doesn’t think of him much. Claire reveals about Breeze’s demise and how she can’t stop remembering their depressing moments. Shaun feels that it’s okay not to love one’s parents as they didn’t make them who they are. He starts to inoculate the fish tanks. Claire approaches Angie asking her to pick her prom dress from two options. Angie wells up in joy. Meanwhile, Shaun and Carly wait for the results. Carly speaks about how the fish can’t control their reactions to the medicines; similarly, she couldn’t dictate her body to feel a certain way the previous night. It turns out that Shaun’s Wyoming trip with Lea became a mutant but Carly is still hopeful that they’ll find their antidote. Back at the prom Angie looks breathtaking in a pink gown. Ryan looks handsome in a tuxedo and a mask. The couple walk hand in hand to the makeshift prom. They snap pictures and dance away in love. Melendez is happy to see Claire smiling widely and offers her a dance, too. Soon Claire spots Elise. She’s brought Angie’s favorite stuffed animal. Seeing Angie enjoy the prom, she tears up, asks Claire to hand her the toy and leaves.

James’ condition is worsening as there’s fluid buildup near his heart and he can’t breathe. Shaun and Carly strike out fish tanks one after the other as tumors show up. Lim approaches them for a final solution as time’s running out but the doctors are split between two options. Carly selects one and looks on worriedly as Lim and Shaun administer the medicine to James.

Angie is going in for surgery. Elise is scared but Angie asks her to cheer up. Later, she asks Claire what would happen if she forgot all about Ryan after the surgery. Claire feels that it’d mean she’d have another chance of falling in love with him. Soon Angie’s surgery is underway. Glassman has scrubbed in too but he’s not operating on her. The surgeons realize that the tumor is immobile and trying to remove it would kill Angie. They decide to keep the tumor and sew her up. Elise is informed about the unsuccessful surgery. She wants to try more options but the surgeons are aware that chances are nil. Suddenly, Angie has another seizure.

Shaun comes to check the fish tanks and finds Carly crying. It turns out that she found James on Facebook and learned about his and Marjorie’s plans of vacationing in Costa Rica and their three-legged rescue dog called “Tripod.” Carly feels overwhelmed upon realizing that he’s not a slide but a person who might die. This is why she prefers the lab. Shaun finds it dumb because if she’d have not stepped in James would’ve already been dead already. He calls the zebrafish plan a beautiful, perfect idea from a beautiful almost perfect person; almost perfect because her ears are lopsided. Carly breaks into a smile.

Melendez and Claire let Elise know that her daughter passed away. She trembles in shock unable to form sentences. Ryan and his father come in. Ryan holds onto the anguished mother as she breaks down in his arms.

Carly is worried about how James reacted to the medication. Morgan appreciates her work as James’s condition has improved and is recuperating. Carly is relieved. Proud of his girl, Shaun holds her hand as the couple leaves for the day. Andrews meets Morgan and suggests working on their paper every day at lunch. Morgan is thrilled as well as scared. She approaches Glassman to get the medications changed as needs solid food again.

Sensing that Claire’s upset Melendez catches up to her as she leaves for the day. He realizes that she’s angry about being unable to save Angie and causing intense grief to Elise. However, most importantly, she has still not been able to deal with Breeze’s demise despite attending therapy. Claire reveals that she can’t stop being angry at her mom and she really wants it to end as it’s killing her from the inside. Melendez advises her to run to feel better as its always been his own last resort. Later into the night both run their hearts out on a track field and Claire does seem to feel better.

Shaun and Carly have sex. They did find their antidote. Shaun’s frown turns upside down as he grins after his first successful sexual intercourse with his beautiful almost perfect girlfriend!