The Good Doctor season 2 episode 11 review: Who survived quarantine?
For Dr. Shaun Murphy, his first test was just trying to find a way to recover from his panic attack at the end of the winter finale. Thanks in part to Morgan quieting the crowd and the noise, he was able to bounce back — which was critical, given the fact that the hospital desperately needed him. They needed to ensure that the patients who were sick during the quarantine were able to survive, and there were some other issues that surfaced as well. Take, for example Shaun realizing that he has to deliver a baby.
While Dr. Murphy has seen his fair share of problems in hospital rooms and ORs, he had never taken the lead on a birth before. He had to figure out how to navigate in that moment and then also find a way to make use of the limited resources that he had. This included, at one point, having to call on help from some recent quarantine patients — including Dr. Park’s son, who knew CPR — to make sure that both the mother and the baby ended up okay. It was touch-and-go, but through some hard work and treatment, they were able to figure this out.
In general, we do think that this two-parter was meant to make us actually feel hopeful. Not every patient survived, but all of the notable characters did. That included Dr. Lim, whose sickness was found early enough that Morgan and others were able to help treat it. She and Dr. Melendez shared a moment at the end of the episode, which is a sign that there may be some hope for their relationship still.
Meanwhile, Dr. Park did manage to patch things up with his son and show exactly why he hadn’t been the best father over the years. He was selfish. While he did make decisions for the sake of his career and to be a better doctor, those came at the expense of his family and being a better person to someone who really needed him then. We do think that reconnecting with his son the past two episodes, and telling him that he loved him and explaining why he was often emotionless, was a good start. Yet, this is all it is for now — a start. There’s so much more that needs to be done.
Good news for Dr. Glassman?
Perhaps the cruelest thing that The Good Doctor did over the past month was make us whole-heartedly believe that Shaun’s friend and mentor’s cancer was back and in full force. That’s not actually the case, and instead it turns out that he has meningitis instead and he needs surgery in order to fix what’s going on with his brain. If this is successful, he may have a chance to recover and eventually get back to doing what he loves. Yet, there are still no guarantees.
The more important story here was Lea encouraging Aaron to actually tell Shaun the truth about his condition and the surgery he needed — he remember how badly Shaun took the news of the initial cancer diagnosis and didn’t want that to happen again. Shaun took this well, noting that his odds of survival were much better than cancer, and the three characters ended the episode heading off for pancakes. We do wonder if Lea puts any stock in what Dr. Glassman told her — that she was toying with Shaun’s emotions by becoming close with him again, knowing that he has feelings for her and that she left last season.
CarterMatt Verdict
Given that the first part of “Quarantine” was set at Christmastime, tonight’s had to be, as well — which certainly was interesting given that you were hearing Christmas music in mid-January. We actually didn’t even mind all that much in this instance, given that it added to the emotion of the hour — basically, these characters had one of their worst holiday seasons possible in the hospital. Yet, they’ve made it through to the other side hopefully more prepared for whatever the new year will throw at them.
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