We're back! The Good Doctor 5x05 "Crazytown" shows us the complexity of maintaining a romantic relationship at work and how that situation can push us to the limit…for someone who isn't worth it. Also, Shaun tries to improve his attitude and the episode helps educate us about racism and discrimination. Time for a review!
Here we go!
This episode of The Good Doctor has as its undisputed protagonist: Lim and her situation with Mateo. It's a difficult situation because everyone here is partially right, except Mateo. Mateo’s an asshole and I want to yell at him for hurting Lim. But to the others…well, each one has their part of the reason.
To my surprise, Salen is right in this in the sense that, although Lim is the chief of surgery, Salen runs the hospital and she must know if a doctor is going to another country for a while, especially if he’s a resident and what's going on at her hospital and that's reasonable.
As for Andrews, he’s right that Lim is getting carried away more by her feelings for Mateo than she wants to admit but he didn’t think for a second about the patient, he only thought about what Salen would have wanted him to do.
What's happening with Andrews? He always put the patients first and now…now he only thinks about sucking Salen's ass and being okay with her, without taking the patients into real consideration and making decisions that are not his, if not Lim's, without don't even talk to her.
They’re friends, why the hell doesn't he tell her what he thinks and make decisions that don't correspond to him? I never thought I would say this but I don't like Andrews at all. I hope this changes throughout the season.
As for Lim, she always puts patients first, always, that's why we love her. But there’re indeed some decisions that she makes that are greatly influenced by how she feels about Mateo. I mean, would she have allowed any other resident to leave like this? It’s inevitable that how she feels for Mateo influences when they’re working together, especially when she knows that Mateo is not a resident, but a trained doctor.
But what Mateo did to her… Lim doesn't deserve this.
That's why I agree with Asher that Lim can't risk everything she's fought for someone who doesn't deserve it, someone who doesn't put her first and never will. Mateo’s a citizen of the world, who doesn’t take root anywhere and his house is everywhere and nowhere. That life’s incompatible with a stable couple, except that she follows you because that is also her life or that you love her enough to stay.
Mateo doesn't love Lim enough to stay, that's for sure, but at least he could have had the courage to tell her in person and not just suddenly disappear and not even reply to messages but talk to his ex. Mateo disappointed me very much.
We know that Osvaldo Benavides was going to leave the show this season (although we don’t yet know the reasons for his departure) but The Good Doctor could have done better. Mateo could have come back, said someone needed him somewhere else, and ended up with Lim himself but not simply disappear, as if he had never existed. I don't think it's the correct way to end the character. Maybe this isn’t the true ending of this character but…I don’t like what they have done here at all.
I have found the father-daughter story we saw in The Good Doctor heartbreaking. Two Asian Americans of different generations, one of them learned that it was better to shut up the aggressions, endure so as not to be in danger and his daughter learned to fight the aggressions because only then can they help them to disappear or, at least, to be punished as they should be. She learned to raise her voice.
And I can only listen to them and learn from their stories. I’m a Spanish woman who lives in her own country, so I am not the right person to talk about this story and give my opinion on it, but I am the right person to listen, educate myself, and learn. And I love to learn.
Racism and aggression to the differences are not new in any society but in North American society it is an even more serious problem and I always like to learn from this story because educating yourself is the only way to prevent history from repeating itself, it is the only way to change.So I just listen, attentive, to this story while my heart breaks.
#Shea had their issues to deal with in this episode of The Good Doctor. Shaun's low opinions are a problem in this new hospital that Salen created so he struggles to raise them while she tries to help him. Does Lea believe in Shaun and trust him to increase those opinions? Yes, of course. Shaun is a wonderful doctor and he only wants the best for his patient, he always fights for them.
But Lea knows that patients won't see it that way, not most, at least. Shaun is brutally sincere and that is why he is different. It's one of the things that made her fall in love with him. But people distrust what is different, reject it, criticize it, and even, in the cruelest cases, ridicule it. Couple that with Shaun's lack of tact in saying what he wants to say and you already have low opinions.
Lea knows that Shaun will learn to be more tactful and to use his own experiences to help his patients emotionally. She has seen him learn every day since she met him, she knows that he will… but she also knows that as he does, those opinions are going to remain low.
And she wants to protect him from that, to protect him from that disappointment, so by default she lies to him by making him believe there are no bad ratings. It's a white lie.
Lea loves Shaun and he wants him to feel good and not be disappointed, so sometimes that means lying. It is not a big lie, it is not a malicious lie, it is a white lie, intended to protect Shaun from pain.
That is the solution? Not at all.
But it's understandable for Lea to do this (who didn't tell a family member or friend a white lie to avoid harming them?), and it doesn't mean she doesn't trust Shaun, it means she wants to protect him from something hurting him. Probably when Shaun finds out he won't understand why Lea did this and it will be one more learning…for both of them.
Glassy continues on his journey of self-discovery. He's not for anyone right now except himself and that's perfectly fine, sometimes we need to distance ourselves, focus on ourselves, put ourselves first.
Although I'm not sure that's what Glassy needs.
I think that it’s necessary for him to feel that he is not alone because right now he feels very lonely and needs…he needs to know that he has around people who love him not only who need him to solve problems for them if not that they love him and want to be there for him in the way that he needs it.
I think Glassy feels like he's like everyone's problem solver. Everyone comes to him with his problems in The Good Doctor and they expect him to help them fix them but no one stays around long enough to ask him if he's okay and try to help him. And now he needs that, to feel someone stay by his side, holding his hand and helping him.
Agree? Disagree? Don’t hesitate to share it with us in the comments below!
The Good Doctor airs Mondays 10/9c on ABC.
