36 Hours

"36 Hours"

Episode Information

Season 2

Episode 3

Overall 21

Airdate:

October 8, 2018

Viewers:

7.48^[1] million

Writer:

Thomas L. Moran

Director:

Larry Teng

Episode Chronology

Preceded by:	Followed by:
"Middle Ground"	"Tough Titmouse"

"36 Hours" is the third episode of Season 2 of The Good Doctor. It is the twenty-first episode overall, and aired on October 8, 2018.

Synopsis[]

Dr. Melendez, Dr. Brown and Dr. Park have given a young married couple two choices about their future: save the wife's life or their future ability to start a family. Meanwhile, when Dr. Lim has to take care of some personal business, she leaves oversight of the emergency room to Dr. Murphy and Dr. Reznick. Dr. Glassman's post-op recovery leaves him struggling to get the rest he needs for recovery and also confronting his relationship with his daughter.^[2]

Plot[]

Dr. Glassman is recovering from his successful surgery when he is visited by Shaun. He stayed overnight at the hospital, still upset about Lea's return as he still thinks she'll leave him again and goes to start his shift. While Shaun is still pleased, Neil informs them that he needs two volunteers for a 36 hour shift as they're short-staffed and Shaun and Morgan are chosen for it.

Neil, Park and Claire are working with Gina Porter, the wife of a married couple to help her pain and infertility issues, while Shaun and Morgan's patient is Nate Schmidt, a young man on marijuana, alcohol and ecstasy. Shaun and Morgan work fast to remove the deoxygenated blood to restore circulation so his penis won't die. Their next patient is a young boy whose got a lightbulb stuck in his mouth, for which Morgan states that they need to call Lim. Unfortunately, she's in court for a moving vehicle violation but is allowed a brief recess to phone and order that they do it themselves.

Claire talks to Andrews about how they're the only hospital that can't do the new 24-hour shift, as well as how exhaustion can harm patients and waste money. Unfortunately, he replies with how much better hospitals are with it as they've got better patient outcomes and resident satisfaction scores and believes this is how she's using her newfound assertiveness. Lim's case is also put on hold when she exceeds her break.

Neil, Claire and Park are working with their patient while Neil tries to get Claire to not let Andrews get the best of her. However, she's annoyed as all women are criticized whether or not they're assertive and then annoyed when Park tells her to be assertive but careful with Andrews. Meanwhile, Gina is found to have lesions on her ovary and also her bowel, bladder and uterus. Neil orders for them to be dealt with, while telling Claire to inform Gina's husband Daniel about it. Unfortunately, he is criticized for making comments because of Claire's attitude which he sees as "one of those days".

Although Daniel is scared and tries to ask that he be allowed to see Gina outside, Claire assures him that she'll be alright. Meanwhile, Lea keeps trying to call Shaun to talk but he won't listen. Claire tells Shaun that he can't just ignore Lea completely and he needs to talk to her as walling himself off so he doesn't get hurt isn't helpful. This gives Shaun an idea about how to help Nate and they are successful. Claire also returns to the OR for Gina and apologizes for her attitude with Neil, only for one of the nurses (Nurse Flores) to see that Neil is still being insulting and he berates her.

Glassman is still recovering when he hears someone saying "Hi Daddy" as Shaun is working on his next patient, while Lim is annoyed when the judge appears to be neglecting her and have her come in the next day. The judge then proceeds to fine Lim $1,000 and suspend her license on her motorbike for a year, only to get put in prison for protesting. Shaun and Morgan get back to Nate and go over his lab results, though Shaun states that he has nothing that they need to treat. When he states that he may not even need the medication Morgan tries to order, he tries to suggest calling Lim but Morgan demands that they don't.

Shaun attempts to ask Glassman, who is accused of ignoring Dr. Ko's medical advice by another nurse (Nurse Villanueva) to get some sleep. Glassman states that he's been trying, to which Villanueva sarcastically gives him advice while Glassman tells Shaun to do a winter's procedure which will buy him time to find a solution. The surgery on Gina continues, but she suffers internal bleeding they are able to treat and in danger of her uterine wall being damaged.

Shaun and Morgan attempt to carry out the winter's procedure on Nate, only for Lea to keep texting Shaun. Morgan claims that Lea and Claire aren't Shaun's friends and that they treat him as their pet, even believing that Lea doesn't see him as a man. While Shaun realizes something about Nate and Lim is let out as the judge saw that Lim has been locked up enough, Neil, Claire and Flores end up in an argument as Flores still thinks that Neil is being unfair about Claire who gets upset after finding out what Neil said about her. However, Andrews organizes them since the surgery on Gina is taking longer than expected.

Lim soon sees her attorney, Robert Plager, who makes jokes while she's getting tacos, to which Lim just sees that the judge was biased. She is also trying to become chief of surgery and Andrews would not have been happy if he knew the truth. She soon starts having sex with Robert, only for Shaun and Morgan to reveal that Nate has an abscess which is what Shaun realized and Lim comes straight over while getting a lift. Surgery is soon being done on the young man when Morgan agrees with what Claire said about the flex-time schedule, only for Lim to reveal that another shift of workers wouldn't have known what Shaun and Morgan did if it wasn't for the flex-time. Shaun appears to agree with Morgan, claiming that the next shift workers wouldn't have been so tired and realized what they did sooner.

Surgery on Gina resumes again when a mass is discovered at the uterine wall and Neil decides that they have to do a hysterectomy. Claire informs Daniel about it to get consent, though he refuses as he doesn't want to be responsible for that. Shaun tells Lim what Morgan said about Lea and Claire, to which Lim also states that he needs to talk to Lea. Claire also reports Daniel's position and decides on the hysterectomy.

Nate soon recovers and is fine, though Gina is devastated at the thought of never becoming pregnant. Andrews also confronts Neil, Claire and Flores on their attitudes in the OR, to which Neil states that the long surgery got to them but he is pleased with Claire. Flores also states her respect for Neil and the three are sent home to get some rest. Meanwhile, Shaun is leaving the hospital when he sees Lea who is angry with him. Shaun apologizes for how he acted and offers to listen if she wants to talk to him, only for Lea to call out Shaun for how he was and storm off. Glassman is still trying to get to sleep, only to hear the girl's voice again; it's a vision of Maddie, his daughter.

Cast[]

Starring[]

Freddie Highmore as Dr. Shaun Murphy
Nicholas Gonzalez as Dr. Neil Melendez
Antonia Thomas as Dr. Claire Browne
Tamlyn Tomita as Allegra Aoki (credit only)
Fiona Gubelmann as Dr. Morgan Reznick
Will Yun Lee as Dr. Alex Park
Christina Chang as Dr. Audrey Lim
Paige Spara as Lea Dilallo
Hill Harper as Dr. Marcus Andrews
Richard Schiff as Dr. Aaron Glassman

Guest Starring[]

Liza Lapira as Nurse Ann Flores
Holly Taylor as Maddie Glassman
Arjay Smith as Daniel Porter
David DeSantos as Robert Plager
Elfina Luk as Nurse Dalisay Villanueva
Amitai Marmorstein as Nate Schmidt
Christine Willes as Judge Vicki Spain

Co-Starring[]

Alvina August as Nurse Alana Paikin
Teryl Rothery as J.L.
Sari Mercer as Gina Porter
Malik McCall as Bailiff
Steve Baran as Deputy Harris
Laura O'Reilly as Female Inmate
Caio De Figueiroa as Angel
Isa Sanchez as Elena
Takaya White as Inez
Gregory Taven as Angry Drunk Guy
Leslie Dos Remedios as Female Tree Trimmer
Damoon Gomari as Taco Truck Guy

Trivia[]

Lim called the boy with the lightbulb in his mouth "Uncle Fester", a character in the 1960's TV series, The Addams Family.
The scenes with Dr. Glassman seeing hallucinations of his deceased daughter is similar to the House episode where Dr. House starts to hallucinate Amber Volakis, James Wilson's dead girlfriend.
- Both shows even have a similar solution to their problems by taking medicine to help make the hallucinations disappear.
Lim is hoping for the position of Chief of Surgery, following Andrews’ statement that he was considering her for it in Middle Ground.
Since the Turkish adaptation has no counterpart of Lea, the argument in it's version of this episode was between Beliz (Jessica's counterpart) and Ferman (Neil's counterpart) because Beliz mistakenly assumes that there is something going on between him and Nazli (Claire's counterpart).