"Newbies"[2] is the third episode of Season 4 of The Good Doctor. It is the fifty-ninth episode overall, and aired on November 16, 2020.
Synopsis[]
With several candidates vying for residency at St. Bonaventure, Chief of Surgery Dr. Audrey Lim tasks Dr. Shaun Murphy, Dr. Claire Browne and Dr. Alex Park with mentoring the top first-year resident contenders. As their mentees shadow them for the day, Shaun and Park meet with Andrews to discuss a difficult surgery scheduled for a minor. Later, Shaun inadvertently insults Lea while discussing the pros and cons of the controversial surgery. And elsewhere, Dr. Morgan Reznick seeks out Claire and Lim’s help on a consult.[3]
Plot[]
Some time after the Covid-19 pandemic, things are back to normal at the hospital. The hospital currently has six finalists for four resident openings. They will be shadowing Shawn, Park and Claire for two days, so Dr. Lim asks her senior residents to give them the grand tour, show them the ropes and encourage the trio to turn up the heat a bit to see how the six resident applicants work under pressure. However, she does remind them how they will be responsible for supervising them, thus she is fully expecting the trio’s honest input before she makes any final decision.
Following an initial round of interviews, the six applicants shadow Shaun, Park and Claire. They are Will Hooper, John Lundberg, Asher Wolke, Olivia Jackson, Jordan Allen and Enrique. Elsewhere in the hospital, Morgan is annoyed at how boring she sees internal medicine as. Between smokers and obese diabetics, she feels like all she is really doing is protecting people from themselves. He warns Morgan though that if even just another nurse complains about her, there will be some serious consequences for her. She soon finds her patient, Josh, has a tumor which needs urgent surgery.
Dr. Andrews and his team are shadowing a breast enhancement surgery for 17-year-old patient Monica. Everything is going swimmingly until Jordan pipes up subtly disapproving of a minor going through such a kind of surgery. Shaun immediately leaps to the patient and Andrews' defense but it's settled by Monica herself who tells them that it's her choice and ultimately, this is what she wants. Monica goes on to say how she has thought about the breast enhancement surgery since she was 13.
As Will, Olivia and Asher tell Morgan and Claire of their backgrounds, Claire and Morgan receive a scan of Josh. Morgan tries to butt into the surgery, claiming to be allowed input as Josh is her patient, but Claire gets annoyed at how Morgan is no longer a surgeon and yet is basically stepping on Claire's turf. That’s when Will decides to mansplain which department the authority defaults to. After that, he is promptly told to shut up by both Morgan and Claire. And in the end, they go with Claire’s approach.
As expected, Dr. Andrews does not like the undermining of his authority going on in the room. But in spite of this, Jordan maintains her ground by explaining to the patient that there's nothing to fix with her breasts. She also not-so-subtly notes how cosmetic surgery is dominated by male surgeons who, whether they admit to it or not, have a sexist bias. Dr. Andrews doesn't directly respond to that statement but does tell her to do less of the lecturing and more of the listening. In addition, Dr. Andrews also proceeds to tell Shaun to be a better mentor to these newbies under his care.
After the surgery is explained to Josh, Shaun and Lea meet for lunch when they're seen by Ricky, John and Jordan. Lea tries to encourage Shaun to try and get to know the resident applicants. Instead of bonding with them though, Shaun ends up having too many moments where he shares too much of his personal information, including how much he likes Lea's breasts but has some issues with her voice. Meanwhile, Lim and Claire are operating when Claire attempts to address Will's egotistical attitude (to no success). Morgan also questions the recruits about them becoming surgeons. Will says the standard statement about wanting to help others, while Asher brings up how he was once part of an orthodox Jewish sect but since he separated himself from it and went to med school, he stopped believing there was a God. Since then, he believes that it is on them to help each other, saying, "No benevolent higher power is going to save us so [they] have to save each other." Before Olivia can say her piece though, something goes wrong with Josh's operation. Lim and Claire can't get the tumor out.
Since there is no way to access the tumor without injuring Josh's heart, Morgan suggests taking it out, cutting off the tumor and putting it back in. This method would work but only if the tumor hasn't been able to get into his major arteries but still work on a method based on it. While working on Monica, Andrews quizzes the newbies about the surgery they're doing which they do well on while asking the senior ones of what he thinks of them. Shaun likes John because he's smart, but Andrews sees that Jordan is better for knowing what to do with her knowledge (seeing her undermining him as courage but still seeing it fit to teach her restraint). Park, however, sees from what he knows as having been a police officer that he can get to know someone after having had drinks with them.
While checking the MRI, Claire asks for the newbies' opinions. Olivia starts but Will interrupts her almost immediately. Irked, Morgan promptly gives Will another lecture. Olivia states that the pulmonary artery is right behind the vessel, which is causing radiographic scatter in the area they are looking on the scan. She explains that the haze is just an artifact, and his arteries are clean. Back in Dr. Andrews' OR, Monica suffers from a complication. Though her breast enhancement was successful, she flatlines and recovers but doesn't regain consciousness. The team checks on everything but it all seems normal. Drawing on his wide travel experience, Enrique suggests doing a nuclear perfusion scan which might be the only thing that could catch what's wrong.
As Claire, Morgan and their newbies try to plan the surgery on Josh, they soon join the others in the resident's lounge to celebrate their successes that day. Shaun tries his best to strike up a conversation with his team of newbies. Although it's still rocky at best, he has improved tremendously and is asking the questions that matter. As Lim and Andrews disagree on whether Shaun is ready to take on the newbies, he seems particularly interested in Asher, by asking him if he had a boyfriend and about his religious beliefs. Although Asher is more than accommodating to the questions, John isn't. He feels that personal things shouldn't be brought into work. In the midst of that conversation, Jordan also makes it clear that Shaun might've upset Lea by their earlier lunch conversation.
Tensions between Morgan and Claire comes to a head when Morgan books an anaesthetician without Claire's consent. It ends with Morgan telling Claire to deal with it and walking out the door. Shaun also checks in on Lea to find out that Jordan was right. However, Enrique disagrees as he sees that Lea knows how Shaun thinks. While scanning Monica, Shaun asks the newbies he is in charge for advice on what he should do with Lea. Enrique states that Shaun that he might've made Lea feel insecure over what he said, but that it's not his fault. Everyone has stuff to be insecure about, and that's why he sees it as risky falling in love. But goes on to say how everyone hopes that they be with someone who doesn't see their flaws. Thus his advice to Shaun ends up being for him to figure out what would make Lea feel secure in the relationship again.
Shaun turns to the other two but Jordan says she is single and John just refuses to answer the question. Instead, John figures out why Monica's not waking up. There's a clot in her brain. It's difficult to remove but Shaun figures they could do it with a stent retriever. In the end, that does the trick. On the other hand, Lim and Claire's operation on Josh isn't going as well. They've removed too much tissue to get a good margin but now there's not enough to reconstruct his heart's inflow chambers. It's not helping that Morgan’s trying to tell them what to do from the gallery too. Finally fed up, Lim kicks Morgan out.
Thinking through their options, Lim realizes they could try to make up for the missing tissue with pig bladder tissue and sends a nurse to get it. Up in the gallery, Asher slips away. He soon returns to the operating room doors with the pig bladder tissue. And because of that, Lim allows him to scrub in and watch right beside the scene of the action. After patching it back up and reconnecting it to Josh's body, they get his heart beating again.
Shaun is unsure of what to do as he was trying to tell the newbies about how much he loves Lea which didn't do any good, while Enrique points out that he scared her. Glassman states about how sensitive women are about being told their flaws, which Shaun questions as men also can get insecure about their flaws. Glassman replies that men are worse and has an idea. Shaun soon apologizes to Lea if he insulted her. He states what Enrique and Glassman told him about being careful, but chooses to be honest with her; his love of her body is because it's hers and he loves hearing her talk, especially after a rough day, finding it soothing and asks if they can hug. Lea agrees and Shaun states that he loves her, which Lea appreciates.
Shaun, Park and Claire attempt to narrow down who to pick out of the newbies. They don't want to, but they reluctantly agree to work with Will since Lim likes him so much. They also decide on Jordan, Asher and John, only for Lim to state that John already resigned before the selection process even began. He thought everyone there was unprofessional with all the drinking and sharing of personal information. That leaves room for only Enrique or Olivia. Claire votes for both. Unable to take it any longer, she lists down every reason Will shouldn't get in. Shaun and Park could only nod in agreement. In the end, Lim agrees and states that she was just testing to see how honest they would be. Will was the worst of them all with his obnoxious attitude. Now that the team has been decided though, new responsibilities await Claire, Shaun and Park. Now, it's on them to prevent their underlings from killing anybody.
Cast[]
Starring[] |
Guest Starring[]
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Trivia[]
- Doctors Asher Wolke, Olivia Jackson, Jordan Allen and Enrique "Ricky" Guerin are chosen as the new surgical residents.
- Park reveals that he once sparred with Mike Tyson.
- On November 9, 2020, David Shore explained that beginning with this episode, the show has decided to be set in a post-COVID world for practical reasons.[4]
- Since the real world is not back to normal, one worry David had was being seen as endorsing not wearing masks, or endorsing not social distancing. The compromise they've reached is they are going to have a statement [by Freddie Highmore] before upcoming episodes saying that this episode takes place in a post-COVID world — that this episode represents their hope for the future.[4]
- On November 16, 2020, Richard Schiff announced that he had been hospitalized after previously announcing he had tested positive for COVID-19. He was being treated with Remdesivir, oxygen and steroids, but two days later he posted an encouraging update on his COVID battle Wednesday afternoon. He went onto reveal that he was just taken off Oxygen.
- His markers are also down. He remains cautiously optimistic for a release from the hospital soon. He also revealed that his wife Sheila Kelley is also doing better as of Wednesday afternoon.[5]
- As of November 20, 2020, It was reported that Richard Schiff had been released from the hospital after undergoing Covid-19 treatment.[6]
Multimedia[]
Gallery[]
Promotional Images[]
BTS Images[]
Videos[]
References[]
- ↑ The Good Doctor S4, E3: Newbies live ratings - Showbuzzdailys
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Thomas L. Moran on Twitter
- ↑ "The Good Doctor - Episode 4.03 - Newbies - Press Release"
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 The Good Doctor EP on the Decision to Kill Off Nurse Deena Petringa, Bring Back Melendez and Move Past the Pandemic - TVLine
- ↑ ‘The Good Doctor’ Star Richard Schiff Improving, Remains Hospitalized With COVID-19 Update - Deadline
- ↑ ‘The Good Doctor’ actor Schiff released from hospital after COVID-19 treatment - The Star
External Links[]
"Newbies" at the Internet Movie Database
