The Good Doctor – Sex and Death

By starrymag | February 3, 2020

By: Ujjyani Banerjee

 

 

After his successful night with Carly (Jasika Nicole), Shaun (Freddie Highmore) is with Morgan (Fiona Gubelmann) to see a patient but he can’t stop grinning or speaking about sex. Morgan asks him to tone it down, fearing HR. They soon meet Oliver (John Ales) who is being offered a permanent port for chemo but he needs the nausea and exhaustion to go away. Sadly, those can’t be avoided. He reveals to his wife, Bella (Bonita Friedericy), that he doesn’t want chemo and wishes to live his remaining months uninhibited.

 

Morgan’s mom Caroline (Annette O’Toole) suffers from Cerebral Cavernous Malformations. She’s come for a third opinion from Dr. Glassman (Richard Schiff) as she’s being suggested a lobectomy that would impair her creative side. Glassman offers nothing new but asks her not to define herself merely by her profession. He gives his own example of how cancer allowed him to look beyond neurosurgery and today he’s happier. Caroline refuses to compromise.

 

While discussing on how excited Shaun is since the morning, Morgan and Claire (Antonia Thomas) bump into Caroline. Surprised, Morgan does the introductions. Caroline admires Claire’s eyes and suddenly collapses from a seizure.

 

Shaun goes to meet Carly. He wants an early lunch and explains that he implies sex at her place, thanks to HR. Carly wonders how they’d make time as she needs to work, too. Shaun calculates out twenty-two good minutes but Carly feels it’d be too short a span for her. She nonetheless appreciates his first attempt. Shaun realizes that he needs to get better at sex.

 

The surgeons operate on Caroline to excise the clot that caused her seizure. Park (Will Yun Lee) and Claire wonder why Morgan lied about her parents being doctors. Morgan, who is at the observation panel, shouts at them to discuss it later. Lim (Christina Chang) asks her to keep the volume down. Later Park realizes that Morgan belongs to the celebrated family of Reznick’s where the mom is a painter, Ariel (Allen Leech) the brother is a sculptor and her sister is a composer. No one knew about a third child.

 

Shaun is distressed that he’s failing Carly. Understanding that she didn’t get a parade last night, Claire and Park suggest he try variations and do non-verbal communication.

 

The residents go to meet Caroline. Morgan asks them to explain to her mom that she’d soon die without the lobectomy. Claire does but Caroline still refuses to compromise. She’s grateful for the help and gifts a plant to Claire as it goes well with her eyes. Morgan asks Claire to take care of her mom as she can empathize well. Claire wonders why she made up having a doctor mom and whether it was her wishful fantasy just like her own where she daydreamed of Breeze being a lawyer. Morgan calls it weird.

 

Melendez (Nicholas Gonzalez) and Shaun see Oliver who’s twisted his ankle and stiffened up his neck this time from skydiving. Melendez asks him to ice the ankle and rest for a couple days but Oliver reveals his plans to move to Costa Rica as he’s fascinated by the howler monkeys there and even asks for vaccination shots. Bella is worried that none of it would render joy.

 

Meanwhile, Morgan goes to check on Caroline and finds out that she’s checked herself out. Shaun gets donut and coffee for Carly to celebrate last night’s victory and fondly recalls one of her loud moments. However, he learns that it was just because he had his elbow in her hair and not because of any parade. Morgan goes home to meet her mom and discuss about her failing health, but Caroline busily raves about Ariel’s million-dollar deal, how he’s getting salmon for brunch and how she simply wants to enjoy her good Arthritis day. Soon, Ariel (Allen Leech) comes in, hugs Morgan and passes the salmon to Caroline. He reveals about how they tried getting mom into treatment but it was all in vain. Morgan wishes that she was at least contacted, but is immediately reminded that she was the one who abandoned them. Ariel recalls how she claimed to be a single child hailing from a Peace Corps family. To this, Morgan reveals that she was tired of the constant praises dedicated to all but her and the make-believe world seemed easier to deal with. Suddenly, blood splatters across their faces as their seizure-struck mother dismembers her finger on the cutter.

 

At the ER Claire asks Shaun to find out what movies and actors Carly loves. Shaun recalls alien movies and “Outlander.” They are soon interrupted by Morgan who rushes in with Caroline. In the OR Shaun wonders what if the bleeding caused the seizures and not the other way around. If that were the case, and it were just gliosis, her treatment would be straightforward – although the chances are slim. Morgan insists on presenting this wrong diagnosis of Shaun to Caroline, testing her for it and making her believe that lobectomy is the only resort left. Claire confronts Morgan to prevent her from manipulating Caroline just to get her to agree for the surgery and thus mend the mother-daughter relationship whilst completely disregarding her love for art. Morgan does not back off.

 

Shaun shows up at Carly’s home wearing a shirt and a kilt. Carly simply gapes at hm! Apologizing for the all-nighter, Park fixes all the wired equipment on Caroline and stresses that sleeplessness would increases the chances of a seizure and help them confirm if its gliosis. Morgan stays back to provide company and starts narrating malformation facts but Caroline would prefer Harry Potter. Morgan finds a better alternative and starts chronologically recalling incidents when Caroline failed to be a supportive mother.

 

Park finds Shaun back in the ER and learns that the kilt did not help. It turns out that the couple watched six episodes of “Outlander” but Carly dozed off soon after. The residents get Oliver back in for a forehead gash. Apparently, he was riding around in a rented Ferrari, got home, felt dizzy, fainted and hit his head. He thinks he got Fugu poisoning but Park rules it out. Bella is getting sick of her husband’s expensive and outrageous antics and in no way would she quit her job to move into the Costa Rican wilderness. She abandons him as she doesn’t recognize the man he’s become.

 

As the night progresses Morgan recalls how she was abandoned in preschool because Ariel needed help or how her winning a science contest was simply seen as something to fall back upon and how she was treated lowly because of having different pursuits. Caroline calls it luck that they all turned into artistes while she grew into a hard worker. Morgan is appalled that medicine is seen as zero creativity, but Caroline refuses to consider it artistic. Morgan reads an excerpt from a critic who blasted out on one of Caroline’s artworks. This does it for Caroline as she gets struck by a violent seizure. Morgan jumps to embrace her while Park rushes to their aid. The doctors soon let Caroline know that gliosis has been ruled out. Caroline can no longer wait to be discharged and get back on the canvas. Morgan asks her to bear them for one more day and then they can bid goodbye. She soon joins Shaun and Claire for some downtime and goes through journals. While reading about G-spots, Shaun suddenly bring up the “six months to live” topic and shares that if it were his situation, he’d never stop being a surgeon. However, Morgan would do spa-hopping, throw a party at the Four Seasons and then silently self-euthanize in the bathroom after leaving a huge tip. Claire is amazed at how similar Morgan is to her mom as she’d not let go of control even at her death hour. Shaun notices how, in an oddly similar way, both mother and daughter pick up stuff with both their hands. Morgan reads about Stereotactic Laser Ablation and rushes to Dr. Glassman coaxing him to do it on Caroline. He refuses as it’s never been done for Cav Mals and would need extreme precision. Morgan asks him to do it but he’s not willing. Out of sheer desperation she calls him a coward to even hold a scalpel and gets herself thrown out of his office.

 

After work Claire and Melendez are stretching while continuing the “six months left” discussion. Claire would want to live alone with two chickens and a dog and nobody to judge her or call her a “soft touch.” Melendez calls it cruel to leave a dog behind. Claire changes it to having shelter for rescue dogs and Melendez mocks at her for maintaining that eternal soft touch.

 

Glassman reconsiders Morgan’s idea and meets with Caroline to discuss the same. The next day Caroline and Ariel reveal it all to Morgan along with the risks but both wonder why Glassman didn’t mention it earlier. Morgan is forced to reveal that it was her idea. Caroline takes back her consent as she’s afraid she might die leaving her work incomplete. Morgan begs Ariel to listen to her and do as she says, but he genuinely respects Caroline’s wishes unlike his sister. Park calms down a distraught Morgan and asks her to think if Ariel ever feels intimidated by her competitiveness. Morgan calls it rubbish as he is way better off than her, monetarily.

 

Oliver has developed rashes. Park and Shaun attend to him. They wonder if Bella needs to be contacted but Oliver says no. He wants to be let into the wild and asks Shaun what he admires the most. After evading parade thoughts, Shaun recalls a crisp apple, the perfect square which is formed when sunlight hits his bed at dawn and how a circle’s circumference is always pi times its diameter no matter what value the diameter holds. Oliver explains to Shaun that he too admires the simple things in life. Park suddenly notices how normally Oliver’s neck is moving and wonders if the stiffness has healed itself. They run tests.

 

As her last try Morgan demonstrates an aesthetically-pleasing simulation of the ablation technique to Ariel. He loves what he sees and is sure that mom would agree to this. Morgan insists he take it to her. Soon, Dr. Glassman scrubs in to ablate the Cav Mals and does it with laser-like precision. Park and Shaun reveal to Oliver that his tumor is no longer life-threatening as it has not affected his immune system and has shrunk to an excisable size. Though he should be happy, Oliver seems saddened.

 

After her surgery Park asks Caroline whether she thinks her artistic side has been lost. She and Ariel show him a door she signed after surgery. While Ariel was fearing it’d amount to vandalism, Park gushes that it’d qualify for auctioning. Caroline thanks Morgan for everything and they hug each other.

 

At snacktime Shaun shares with Morgan, Claire and Dr. Lim that he needs to practice a lot to give Carly the best possible parade. Lim advises him to put that OR focus of his in the bedroom and not stop until the parades get ringing and ensure that he goes 3% longer. Shaun joins Carly for their bus ride home and shares how he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else if his days were numbered. Their bus arrives. Shaun looks back at Oliver who’s also at the bus stop and wonders if he wants to take it, too. Oliver says no. The bus leaves and he sits there, alone and lost. Shaun and Carly have sex. This time he was successful as Carly stares at the ceiling smiling ear to ear after receiving some of the best of parades from her outlandish boyfriend!