'The Good Doctor' Season 1, Episode 5 'Point Three Percent' Recap: False Hopes and the Subtle Art of Lying [SPOILERS]

For something as emotional as ABC’s “The Good Doctor,” this latest episode is something that holds the more weight—at least for Dr. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore). After a patient that looks exactly like his little brother is admitted into St. Bonaventure Hospital, Shaun is determined to prevent him from dying. Meanwhile, another touching Father-Son story caps the episode off and leaves the viewers with a huge bucket of tears.
“Point Three Percent” starts with a son coming home from Thailand to meet his dad. His wife just died, and the son wasn’t there for the funeral, leaving the dad resenting his son for it. He leans in to hug his dad but instead gets turned away. But just as he was about to leave, his dad falls and suffers some kind of a heart attack.
At the hospital, we see Dr. Neil Melendez (Nicholas Gonzalez) back with his crew for another shift at the Bonaventure. Shaun is surprisingly early this time and as Dr. Melendez tries to ask him a sarcastic question, Shaun also responds sarcastically—another surprising feat for Shaun as well. They come in to check on their latest patient, and it turns out to be the dad who collapsed. It turns out that he suffered an allergic reaction and is now manifesting its symptoms through an excruciating abdominal pain.
Meanwhile, a boy catches Shaun’s attention. He’s getting his arms in a cast, and he looks exactly just like Steve Murphy, Shaun’s younger brother who died in an accident. He looks on and remembers his brother in an emotional montage.

A reconciliation story

Dr. Jared Kalu (Chuku Modu) and Dr. Claire Brown (Antonia Thomas) examine the father’s results and come up with theories about pancreatitis. Dr. Melendez, however, shuts them down and orders them to dig deeper. Clearly, something’s not right with the patient’s condition.
Meanwhile, in the patient’s room, his son tells him about why he went to Thailand instead of being there for his parents. His dad doesn’t buy any of it and still resents his son. Dr. Kalu and Dr. Brown then inform him that he has a lesion in his pancreas, and a biopsy is needed to be performed in order for them to know if it’s benign or malignant. Later that day, his son approaches Jared and talks to him about their argument a while ago. For him, he can only freely talk to his mom and couldn’t open up to his dad about anything.
During the biopsy, Jared tells Claire about the patient’s son and his dad. There’s a rift between them both and Dr. Kalu doesn’t know what he should do. Claire advises him to tell the son to be honest to his dad, because “a lie is a stone in your heart.” Suddenly, the patient goes into another allergic reaction, prompting them to halt the biopsy.
Upon close examination, Jared and Claire find out that he has four more lesions, including one in his brain. Jared goes to Dr. Aaron Glassman (Richard Schiff) and asks for help since he is a neurosurgeon. They head over to the patient’s room and inform him that they will need to perform a brain surgery to remove the lesion before they can go for the others in his body.
The next day, Jared meets the patient again and has an emotional sit down with him. He tells Jared about him and his son, and how they used to have a close relationship. When his wife died, his son drifted away too, making him think that he wants to be as far away from him as possible. Jared tells him about his choice to be a doctor in the US rather than a realtor (which was what his dad wanted). He goes on to say that maybe his son just needed to find his own ground and that a grudge is like a stone in the heart (obviously echoing Claire’s wise words).
Later, Jared happens upon the patient’s son and tries to soften him up so he could reconcile with his dad. On their way to the operating room, the son finally comes clean and tells his father the truth. He moved to Thailand because he didn’t think he could actually fill his father’s shoes. He didn’t think that he was worthy of owning the family business after his parents were gone. His dad takes it all in and they head over to surgery.
During the surgery, Dr. Glassman successfully and expertly removes the brain tumor, and Jared is left amazed. After the operation, the patient is left with his son as he recovers. In the end, they both cry and are now reconciled with each other.

Shaun and his brother’s lookalike

In another part of the episode, Shaun finds out that the boy who looks like his brother is actually named Evan (Dylan Kingwell). He was being treated because of an accident, leading him to injure his arm. Evan exhibits similarities in terms attitude with Shaun’s brother. And as he examines Evan, he immediately figures out that something is wrong with his motor skills. Surely he’s not just clumsy, right? He orders a head CT scan for Evan. Dr. Glassman notices Shaun and tries to check up on him, but is shocked to see Evan. Dr. Glassman finds it very creepy that Evan looks exactly like Shaun’s brother, to which Shaun denies. He acknowledges the similarities but doesn’t seem bothered by it—or so we think.

During the CT scan, Shaun gets to know more about Evan. The more they talk, the more Evan exhibits similar traits to Shaun’s brother. He is obviously becoming attached to Evan, more so that he just found out that he has a brain tumor behind the inner ear. Dr. Melendez sees this and tells Shaun to inform Evan’s parents. As Shaun preps the up and tells them about the findings on Evan’s condition, it turns out that they have known about it all along, and that Evan has bone cancer and only a year left to live. They didn’t want Evan to know about it and so they just treat every complication as an “accident” so Evan wouldn’t notice. The parents ask Shaun to keep it from Evan, making him agree reluctantly.  It’s another dilemma for him because he’s so bad at lying.
At lunch, Shaun tells Dr. Glassman about his lying dilemma. Since Shaun has grown kind of attached to Evan, he feels like he needs to know the truth. Dr. Glassman thinks the same thing, but ultimately explains that it’s something that the parents wanted, and maybe it’s also something they know Evan couldn’t handle himself. Shaun remembers that one time his brother got angry because his birthday present was spoiled by him. Thinking that it was okay for his brother, Shaun immediately concludes that it would be okay for Evan too. But then again, his parents don’t want him to know, and so he asks Claire to lie for him. She then informs Evan needs to get some pins in his arm.
However, Evan doesn’t buy it. As Shaun applies the pins to Evan, he is immediately driven to tell the truth (after their conversation about the art of lying and how it’s also a social skill). But Evan also tells him that he knew about it all along and that it’s okay for him to die. Shaun is deeply bothered by Evan’s solace and is determined to look for loopholes just to give him hope. He doesn’t want the same thing that happened to his brother befall Evan too. He wants him to live.

That night, Shaun studies Evan’s files and comes to the conclusion that maybe Evan doesn’t have cancer, maybe it was a misdiagnosis. The next day, he informs Dr. Melendez about his findings. Instead of stage 4 osteosarcoma, Shaun thinks that it might just be a bone infection that can be treated easily. The only problem is, Shaun’s theory only makes it point three percent accurate, which means that Evan’s condition could still be bone cancer after all. This makes Dr. Melendez a little bit disappointed because there’s no way that Shaun could be right. However, Shaun insists on doing a bone marrow aspiration so he could check, to which Melendez refuses for him to do.
Determined by his theory of false hope, Shaun asks Dr. Glassman what to do, and he tells him to go ahead with the test. But Shaun has to make sure that no one will know about it and if anyone asks, Shaun has to lie (which was his problem from the get-go). He proceeds to take a sample of Evan’s bone marrow and tells him that he’s only checking for a test that needs to be done, to which Evan calls bull but still lets him do it. But Evan’s parents suddenly come in and tells Shaun to stop. For them, he’s only giving Evan more false hope. While things begin to escalate, Evan suddenly coughs up blood. His fracture has turned into a massive embolus, making him close to having a hemodynamic collapse. They bring him into the operating room, and Melendez rejects Shaun’s offer for help.
The operation turns out to be a success but Claire discovers more lesions on Evan’s ribs—more proof of osteosarcoma. The lesions have metastasized to his chest cavity. Melendez tells his parents the news as Shaun listens. He’s wrong after all. As Evan stays in recovery, he tells his parents that he’s known about his condition for a long time. He also tells them not to worry because when he dies, he will be with his other family members who previously passed away.

When Evan’s parents left, Shaun comes in and asks Evan if he could read him an excerpt of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.” While reading, he remembers how his brother loved the book and the other similarities that Evan has with him. As soon as Shaun ends the story, he walks away with tears in his eyes.

‘The Good Doctor: Point Three Percent’ Overall Verdict

As what I’ve mentioned in the beginning, this is the heaviest episode of “The Good Doctor” to date. After a few episodes of medical success (thanks to Shaun’s brilliant mind), this is the first time we see Shaun be wrong with a diagnosis. To make matters worse, he’s wrong because he’s become attached to one of his patients, which is a really bad idea. It also shows us an even heavier narrative for Shaun, because we now find out that he has the ability to show his feelings after all. On the lighter side of things though, it’s good to see a reconciliation story within the latest episode. It’s not a cheesy move, but something that balances out the heavy themes of Shaun and his brother. All in all, this one left me bawling my eyes out. And I had to pause and think about what just happened. This is a good week for the show, and I can’t wait to see how the next episode will wreck me again.
“The Good Doctor” continues next Monday, October 30th, with “Not Fake” at 10 PM on ABC.