‘The Good Doctor’ Season 3, Episode 4 ‘Take My Hand’ Review: Take The Leap

Dr. Claire (Antonia Thomas) has had a lot of heartfelt moments over the past seasons of The Good Doctor, but this episode truly takes the cake for her. With her surprisingly touching rendition of Amazing Grace, she has reduced me to an emotional lump on my couch. Couple that with Glassman’s (Richard Schiff) wedding and a patient’s unique and heartwarming recovery, I was completely sold and torn by the bittersweet moment.

In addition to that, tonight’s patients on The Good Doctor is quite an interesting bunch. One is a persistent conspiracy theorist who insists somebody’s poisoning him while the other is a woman who feels no pain. Shaun (Freddie Highmore) treats conspiracy guy while facing some relationship troubles. Morgan (Fiona Gubelmann) and Claire, on the other hand, treat painless lady while Claire reels in the aftermath of her mother’s death. Here’s how that all went down.

The Conspiracy Theorist’s Theory

Shaun’s new patient with Dr. Andrews (Hill Harper) and Dr. Park (Will Yun Lee) is the conspiracy theorist Mitchell Stuart (Joshua Malina). And he’s one of those theorists who are just annoyingly suspicious of everything. He’s up for an operation for his liver damage caused by a genetic condition called idiopathic portal hypertension. However, he insists that the real cause of his liver damage is someone’s poisoning him.

Jeff Weddell/ ABC

Even after the success of the operation, he still thinks that he’s still being poisoned. Out of genuine curiosity, Shaun interviews him. And while discussing Stuart’s profession (if you could call it that) the pair get into the topic of compromise. Being the entitled person he is, Stuart says that compromise is a scam. He thinks that there’s only the winning side and the losing side. His advice to Shaun is to make sure he’s on the winning side.

Unfortunately, Shaun takes this little piece of unfortunate advice to his relationship with Carly (Jasika Nicole). As it seems, Carly has been trying to hold hands with Shaun. They’ve been kissing already so it doesn’t seem to be a problem. However, Shaun is highly uncomfortable with it. Thankfully, when he tries to insist on his comfort prevailing over Carly’s like how Stuart taught him, Carly patiently explains to Shaun why holding hands mattered to her. To his credit, Shaun does try, but the contact doesn’t last long. Disappointed, Carly gives up.

Cold Feet

Meanwhile, Shaun’s not the only one having relationship issues. In the morning of Glassman’s wedding with Debbie (Sheila Kelly), Shaun comes over Glassman’s clinic asking for relationship advice. When he casually mentions that he and Carly are taking huge efforts to know each other unlike Glassman and Debbie who are just jumping in somewhat blindly, Glassman freaks out. He and Debbie did know too little about each other. Come to the wedding in the city hall, Glassman gets cold feet leaving Debbie shocked and humiliated.

Jeff Weddell/ ABC

When Debbie confronts Glassman about it, he admits that the fear got to him. He was afraid that by not knowing these little trivial things about each other, Debbie would soon find him intolerable. Then, they’d divorce. And as Glassman sweetly tells Debbie, “I don’t want to go two years and get divorced. Divorcing you would hurt.” Undeterred, Debbie explains that their different personalities are what makes them good for each other. Debbie is the leaper while Glassman is the toe dipper. And they make each other happy. But, ultimately, the final decision lies in Glassman.

Painless

On the other hand, after her mom’s death in last week’s episode, Claire is clearly out of sorts. And Morgan quickly picks up on it more so that their patient’s condition seems to be affecting Claire so much. Their patient named Lily (Jennifer Lafleur) came in with her husband Jonas with what seems to be a simple infection. According to her, she feels perfectly fine. Suddenly, she starts vomiting bile. Claire and Morgan quickly find out that her appendix has ruptured and they patch it up fast.

After examining Lily, they find that physical pain only registers in her brain as a light touch. Even emotional pain registers only ever so slightly. Now, in addition to that, they find that the infection from her ruptured appendix has spread to her hand. And they’d have to get the damaged tissue out. At the operation table, however, Melendez (Nicholas Gonzalez) finds too much damage and they ultimately decide to cut the handoff.

Lily takes the loss fairly well. But, Jonas has a hard time processing Lily’s lack of pain. At one point, he doubts their marriage fearing that the love doesn’t run as deep because Lily can’t feel the pain which is supposedly part of the equation. Heartbroken, Jonas leaves. This leads Lily to agree to take a medicine that would basically allow her to feel the pain that she initially rejected.

The medicine doesn’t do well for Lily, however. It strikes her hard and she’s thrown into despair especially with her marriage hanging by a thread. When Jonas returns to the hospital, Claire lashes out almost speaking from her own pain. She’s jealous and resentful of Lily because the pain doesn’t get to her. And maybe Jonas is too.

Somehow, Claire’s words worked though. Jonas returns to Lily and when she sees him, she burst in tears. Melendez comes in to check on her and Jonas insists that Lily doesn’t need the meds anymore. Even if she has to be highly careful with herself, he’ll be there to help her. As it turns out, Melendez took Lily off the meds when she quickly spiraled down. And her tears of joy are as honest as they always were.

The Truth to the Theory

Back to Shaun’s conspiracy theorist, his liver continues to deteriorate. At this point, he had narrowed down the people he’ll allow to touch him only to Shaun. As Shaun runs him down with the tests they’ll have to make, he notices that Stuart isn’t eating the hospital food out of suspicion. Instead, he’s eating his own mix of protein, kale, baby greens, and a daily dose of Chinese herbal viagra.

Jeff Weddell/ ABC

Nothing’s wrong with the diet. But when all test results come back negative, Shaun quickly figures out that the ingredients in the Chinese herbal viagra were lies. They weren’t really herbs. It was just sildenafil. It doesn’t normally kill people. But, with Stuart’s preexisting condition, it was lethal to him. As it turns out, he was right. Someone was poisoning him—himself.

‘Leap With Me’

After the Stuart situation, Shaun has a little talk with Glassman. And in discussing his dilemma, Glassman calls his ex-wife his first wife. Funnily enough, it seems that Glassman has already made up his mind despite his troubles. As Shaun points it out, Glassman always refers to his previous wife as his “ex-wife.” Calling her his first wife implies a second.

Later on, Debbie finds Glassman literally leaping on a small trampoline in his office. He falls and sprains his ankle. But, once again, he asks her to marry him. This time, in full suit and white dress with Shaun and Carly, Glassman and Debbie finally get married. And Shaun also finally takes Carly’s hand in his own.

Meanwhile, after Claire’s outburst, Morgan steps up her game. Persistently, she follows Claire to her car and annoyingly starts picking through her stuff. When she picks up a small paper canister, Claire finally reacts. Answering Morgan’s confused gaze, Claire tells her it’s her mother’s ashes. Helping Claire through her grief, Morgan guides Claire to figure out what to do with the ashes.

According to the will of Claire’s mom, she wants to rest somewhere near sea lions. She was always fascinated by them. And luckily, there’s just the place nearby. Despite the pride party going on, Morgan and Claire dress up and head to the sea lions. As Claire sufficiently puts it, it’s awkward as hell. But, Morgan pushes her to do it. Since her mother loved music, Claire emotionally sings Amazing Grace as a small ritual as she releases the ashes near the sea lion enclosure. Later on, however, Claire heads into a bar, gets a drink, and hooks up with a guy all being very unClaire like. As it seems, she’s spiraling.

The Good Doctor continues Monday, October 21st, with “First Case, Second Base” at 10/9c on ABC.