Complications - Pilot / Infection - Review

PROVIDER - USA (Thursdays at 9pm)

VITALS

“John Ellison, a disillusioned suburban ER doctor, who finds his existence transformed when he intervenes in a drive-by shooting, saving a young boy's life and killing one of his attackers. When he learns the boy is still marked for death he finds himself compelled to save him at any cost and discovers that his life and his outlook on medicine may never be the same.”

INTAKE

The show opens with a break-in at Dr. John Ellison’s (Jason O’Mara) home. Before we have time to really see what’s going on and just as he confronts whoever broke in we flash back to 10 hours before. We find him now at a therapist’s office and we quickly figure out that this is something that has been forced upon him and, although tolerant of the process, it’s clear he doesn't really want to be there. Throughout this introduction to the therapist, there are flashbacks to the mysterious event that led him here. So far all we get are glimpses but what we see is very violent, with him running down a hallway knocking carts over and using an IV stand to smash a window - basically he goes “batshit crazy” as he himself offers as a possible explanation. One thing this show seems to really love is flashbacks and jumping around through time. Sometimes it’s a bit much but it does serve as a pretty good plot device and keeps an otherwise straightforward story, as "complicated" as necessary.

The therapy session serves as a great way to introduce us to some background information on our leading man - we learn he has a wife, Samantha, and children, although tragically he lost his daughter Becky only a year ago, leaving only his son Oliver. Now that they’ve got all that out of the way, in a rather non-expositiony way (I’ll give them credit for that), we can focus on the events of last Sunday, where this story starts.

John has been working in emergency medicine for 10 years and we’re introduced to a few of his co-workers, of which, Dr. Harper is the only one really worth remembering or watching. He immediately livens things up, not only at the hospital but for the show as well. I already want more of him and his friendship with John. Someone who I definitely am not a fan of watching is Nurse Gretchen (Jessica Szohr), she immediately presents herself as a very unlikable character. She’s unapologetically smoking in the hospital and is just a generally abrasive person. This does not improve as the episode goes on so I either need for her character to open up and soften a bit or for her role to be reduced because she’s very difficult to watch and connect with. This is also where we see John’s first patient interaction with a “regular” who has diabetes. I think that this scene is supposed to show us what a good bedside manner he has and how much he cares about his patients, but honestly it just seemed like he was kind of a pushover. He should be convincing the patient that his foot needs to be removed instead of enabling him by giving in to his wishes. That whole exchange just made me not take the medical aspect of this show very seriously.

Other than the death of his daughter, John seems to have a pretty good family life. Which is refreshing to see, as usually these types of shows do have dramatic family secrets, like a hidden affair or something of that nature. I’m happy it doesn't seem like that's the case, for now. We get another glimpse into who John is when he tries to rush an injured squirrel to the animal hospital. Unfortunately, the squirrel does not make it and dies on the way. His wife took the squirrel injury badly after it triggered a memory of Becky, so John is understandably a bit upset but his reaction seemed a bit out of place. Something tells me there is something else going on there, but what? After all, he’s been so cool and collected so far. At the park where he’s stopped, gunshots sound and he runs towards them and finds a young boy on the ground bleeding. I don’t know about you but if I heard gunshots, I’d drive away as fast as I could! But I guess he’s a doctor and like the good samaritan he is, he runs to help. As he starts working on the boy, the shooters start driving back. John picks up a discarded gun and fires at the car, killing the driver.

When John and his wife return home from the police station they start discussing what happened. His wife is obviously concerned, and even more so when she hears his reaction. He says he feels different, like he can breathe again, and for the first time, he actually wants to go back to work. I think this is a rather weird reaction. I understand that it probably felt good to help someone, but he seems to help people everyday at the hospital. For me this just adds to the mysteriousness of his character, he’s definitely hiding parts of his personality. In addition to the strange reaction, we also see him go to the gun range and shoot the same gun he used at the shooting. He seems comfortable with a gun but he’s not a very good shot, which seems to go against what we saw earlier. Later, during a visit from his Dad, he’s given a gun, and it’s the same gun we saw in the beginning at the break-in! Pieces of the puzzle are starting to come into place!

The most excitement so far comes from a creepy nightmare John has later that night. He’s back at the scene of the shooting and he sees himself shooting the driver of the car from the passenger seat. It’s a glimpse into his mind, unfiltered by his responses to those around him. The next day at work he sees some questionable people hanging around the hospital and I guess it worries him but I’m not really sure why. They don’t seem that noticeably out of place but I guess he’s paranoid. At this point we’re about 30 minutes in and I’m still not sure what this show is supposed to be about, it hasn't really established itself yet and seems kind of aimless.

At work, John has a new patient and unfortunately this means Gretchen is back. This case is obviously domestic abuse but they can’t get any information out of the patient. Once the boyfriend leaves, she still sticks to her story, which causes Gretchen to go off. She’s really rude to the patient and is the definition of “tough love” - minus the love. As if it wasn’t already obvious, Gretchen is not everyones favorite person. The rest of the staff refers to “Gretchen incidents” and I get the impression that these happen pretty often. Regardless, her reaction makes this seem personal for her, and for the first time I’m slightly interested in hearing more of her story.

Meanwhile, there’s another new patient who may or may not have been involved in the shooting from the other day. Things get violent when he won’t cooperate and he pulls a knife, stabbing John in the arm. Once they get him sedated, they search him and find he has a gun, which John puts in the man’s face after suspecting he was there to kill the little boy, Antwon. He tells the police about this incident but they don’t seem too concerned. The police in this town are apparently too busy to investigate a gang war, a gun brought into the hospital and a stabbing. Meanwhile, a situation is brewing in the waiting room. Some questionable looking people, who may be involved with the gangs, are trying to get into the hospital so they decide to go into lockdown.

Even with all this craziness going on, John still has to make time for his regular patients as well. The diabetes patient from earlier is back and much worse. Another doctor on-call determines that the foot has to go, now. When John goes to check on him he finds him unconscious and not breathing. Although they try their best to save him, he ends up dying. John is playing it cool and tough but when he records his voice notes, he tears up and you can tell how much it truly effects him. Before he has time to fully react to the loss of his patient, he receives a mysterious phone call from Antwon Tyler’s father, who’s calling from prison. He puts the responsibility of his son’s life in John’s hands and threatens that they’ll have a problem if anything happens to Antwon. Why this responsibility falls on John, I couldn’t say, but more on that later. John needs a plan so he conspires with Gretchen, who is obviously the go-to person because of her already questionable morals. He promises her that he’ll change the lab results of the woman from the domestic abuse case so that she can be admitted to the hospital and have the chance to get the help she needs in safety, as long as Gretchen helps save Antwon. I guess helping to save a child’s life just isn't enough incentive? Either that or John has very little faith in her capacity for compassion. Lying seems to go against his honorable persona but I guess he has to do what he has to do.

The diabetes patient who died earlier was scheduled to be transferred for surgery. His death hasn’t been recorded yet so they hatch the plan to simply swap out his body for Antwon’s as a quick fix to buy them some time and make sure he stays safe for the night. In order for the plan to work however, they need a distraction…and here is where the mystery of John’s crazy breakdown and visit to the therapist is revealed! Once John goes on his crazy, fighting spree all the security gets called to the ER waiting room to control the situation, which gives Gretchen time to switch Antwon’s hospital bracelet and get him outside to be transferred. We’re now back in the therapist’s office where John has just shared the whole story with her. She thinks that he is not fit to see patients, and I kind of agree? What kind of a person is willing to risk so much for a patient? I understand if he's just putting himself at risk but he has a family! It seems pretty reckless. He explains to the therapist that if he loses his job then he can’t protect Antwon and a child will die. An unacceptable option. But I’m confused because Antwon’s not even at that hospital anymore so why is keeping his job so important?

She gives in and ends up recommending that he can return to work with no limitations, but not before she warns him about the dangers of playing God. And here is where we get that line, “You take that [playing God] outside the hospital and there will be complications.” By the end of the pilot we are back full circle. The break-in from the beginning is underway but now we get to see who’s there. It’s a guy from the shooting at the park but not to worry he’s on the “good” gang side, or more realistically - Antwon’s side. He brings a message to keep Antwon safe and to tell him he won’t have to worry about the gang members from the hospital. They show him a picture of one of the men John was fighting earlier and he's dead. They give him a phone and tell him if he needs something to just call. So I guess now he’s kind of in the middle of a gang war, for reasons that have yet to be explained.

This brings us to Part Two of this premiere event. Hopefully some of my questions will be answered. We're back to the flashbacks with a look at their lives before Becky died. They're on their way to the hospital where Becky is going to get some form of treatment. It's clear that she's sick and I'm beginning to understand why saving Antwon is so important to John. It probably has something to do with residual guilt over not being able to save his daughter. That's all we get as we pick up where we left off with the police responding to the break-in at John's house. John calls Gretchen to tell her what happened and that he's going to talk to the police. She's adamantly against that - obviously. It's like all the characters think that the police aren't aware of the gang war happening but she makes a good point that his family could be in danger if he says anything, so when it comes down to it, John lies to the police and pretends he didn't see anything.

Meanwhile back at the hospital, my favorite character, Dr. Harper, is involved in a confrontation with the very upset boyfriend of the domestic abuse patient, Hilary. He is demanding to see her and speak to her doctor but Dr. Harper is not having it! I'm even more confident he's my favorite character now, and I really want him to have more of a presence. I'd take him helping John over Gretchen any day. Gretchen continues to be her blunt and unlikable self. I'm convinced that she provokes people and does these crazy things just for the shock value. I'd like to see them flesh out her character a bit and make her more complex. For some reason, John agrees to let Gretchen talk to Hilary about what she needs to say, which is a terrible idea. She ends up aggravating Hilary and making the situation worse. Now Hilary knows that they lied about her condition and can use that against them, which she does when she ends up blackmailing them for $10,000. Eventually she comes to her senses and realizes that they're trying to help her and covers for them. Gretchen even does something surprisingly nice by offering to go to her place and pick up her things. We also find out where and how (taking and distributing unneeded patient drugs) Gretchen gets her connections at the hospital.

Meanwhile, John is visiting Ansley Surgical Center to check on Antwon and plant his new, fake patient file. However, when he arrives he finds that Antwon is not in his bed and he suspects foul play. John also has some form of panic attack at this time and we get flashbacks of his daughter and receiving her prognosis post-treatment. He's forced to call the gang for help and at least to let them know that Antwon is missing. They're not happy about this and send the interim leader, Darius, to find out what's going on. At first they suspect the Mexican nurse who works there but with his help they're actually able to find Antwon in a loading dock. Turns out he woke up and ran away in a panic. He's not in great shape, there's a lot of blood, but he's breathing and has a pulse. Soon they get him stable and the plan is to keep him at Ansley under the fake name, Malcolm, until things blow over I guess. John tells Darius now that Antwon is stable, he's done and he wants out. Darius responds by telling him about another shooting that happened that day all because Antwon went missing and says, "You want out? We all do." Complications saved the best for last though, with the final moments bringing an exciting cliffhanger that actually has me wanting to watch the next episode, even after the very long premiere that just aired. We see Gretchen at Hilary's apartment and she's on the phone with John. There's some sort of crisis happening, it's bad and it's bloody. Gretchen's connection at the hospital is there with her, I assume she brought him as back up and it seems like he might have been the one directly involved in whatever happened. One thing's for sure - I can't wait to see what went down!

CHIEF COMPLAINT

Pilot: Unbelievability. It’s still unclear why any of this is even happening to him. He just happened to be there and now he’s been sucked into a gang war. Can’t the other gang members or the police protect Antwon?

Infection (1x02): There's a lot happening. Sometimes it feels like too much yet somehow I'm also wondering how much more they could possibly do. It feels like this show would be better suited as a movie. I'm so disappointed that it seems like John's wife Samantha had an affair. You'll remember way back at the start I complimented them on avoiding that overdone storyline but I realize now that I gave them way too much credit, of course there's going to be a dramatic affair.

DIAGNOSIS

Pilot: This premiere is suffering from a fairly common calamity - a lot of exposition and lot of plot holes. It also seems to be having a bit of an identity crisis. The first half of the pilot seemed like a gritty crime drama with a sprinkling of medical procedural. However, by the second half it was much more of an even split. The second episode continued in this fashion, which just served to confuse me even more about the direction this show is going in. Overall, it’s a good premise, there are just so many loose ends, questions, and things that don’t make sense. Despite some of these flaws, for the most part, it was entertaining and a decent way to spend a couple of hours.

Infection (1x02): Definitely not as exciting as the Pilot. It moved at a much slower pace. I was going to have to revise my "Pain" rating but the last moments really saved it for me. That cliffhanger has been the highlight so far.

PROGNOSIS

Pilot: Overall, I’m still not entirely sure what this show is going to be. I can’t imagine that it will be entirely focused on him protecting Antwon, so will it heavily be a medical procedural as well? I’m just not sure how much they’ll be able to pull out of this story. Couldn’t all of this be solved by him calling the police and getting the kid in witness protection or a higher security detail. I understand the short term fix, with the police too swamped on that particular night to help, but what’s stopping them from getting involved now? Barring any sort of corruption which could become a major storyline in the future I guess? As of right now, Complications presents as a show struggling to find its tone. There’s enough there to keep me coming back for now. I’ll give it the time it needs to find its feet and hopefully it will improve week-to-week.

Infection (1x02): I'm still confused about the tone. I feel like they're trying to be too much of both crime and medical drama. They need to find a happy medium or focus heavily on one or the other because both could become overwhelming. This episode did give me a better idea of what the rest of the season is going to look like and it seems promising.

PRESCRIPTION

One thing I’d love to see would be Antwon interacting with John. Maybe in order to protect him, he’ll have to move into John’s house and we’ll see some bonding and John becoming a sort of father figure to him. I would love if that’s one of the directions this show goes and it’s also one of the only things that could happen that would make sense because how much longer can he really recover in the hospital and also be under John's care? It would also be interesting to explore some possible police corruption, like I mentioned earlier. Regardless, what they need to do immediately is answer some of these questions and provide a reasonable explanation for everything. If not, I’m worried all these “complications” will stop people from coming back.

Well that premiere was certainly a lot to take in! Probably one of the longest I've seen in a while, so hopefully future reviews will be much shorter! What did you think of Complications? Are you going to continue watching? I'd love to hear your thoughts, let me know in the comments and thanks for reading!

About the Author - Kate Sidwell

Kate is a 24 year old, USA based, Psychology/Public Health Researcher - but that’s just her day job! In her spare time she is an avid TV watcher (some may even say addict!!). Some of her favorite shows are Jane the Virgin, Bates Motel, The Flash, Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, Rookie Blue, Silicon Valley, Beauty and the Beast, Sleepy Hollow, The 100, The Mindy Project, Pretty Little Liars, Once Upon a Time, The Royals, Orphan Black…so pretty much too many to count and a huge variety! She’ll give pretty much any show a chance! She also devotes a lot of time to her tumblr (eat-sleep-breathe-tv.tumblr.com) where you can find her reviewing and commenting on most of these shows and just generally fangirling! She’s excited to be writing for SpoilerTV on Complications, Baby Daddy, Proof, Switched at Birth, Secrets and Lies, and Minority Report!

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