‘The Good Doctor’ Season 3 Premiere ‘Disaster’ Review: Reset

In season 3’s premiere episode titled “Disaster,” The Good Doctor welcomes us back with some of that good old fashioned bittersweet drama. Compared to last season though, the stakes here are different. This time, we’re dealing with something more personal. From the get-go, we’re thrown into the midst of Shaun’s (Freddie Highmore) little date with his pathologist co-worker Dr. Carly Lever (Jasika Nicole). And as Shaun soon discovers, matters of the heart on the surgery table is a far simpler task than matters of the heart on dating.

In addition to Shaun, other characters are also opening the first few pages of a new chapter to their lives. Dr. Audrey Lim (Christina Chang) is learning the ropes of being the new chief of surgery. Dr. Glassman (Richard Schiff) is rediscovering life post-cancer with an offer from Aoki (Tamlyn Tomita) for the presidential post at St. Bonaventure hovering over him. And Dr. Andrews (Hill Harper) is back at the hospital at Dr. Lim’s bidding. Somehow, everybody has found their way back to St. Bonaventure which makes it a lot more interesting as to how the whole season will play out.

Shaun’s First Date

Shaun’s date with Carly is a major intrigue to everybody in the team, especially so that Shaun brands it as a disaster. However, as he recounts what happened, it doesn’t seem that bad for a first date. At dinner, Shaun plows through the initial awkward conversation like a champ. At one point, he nearly causes a scene and bumps into a waiter causing him to throw up a wine bottle. Miraculously, Shaun catches the battle all chill and cool. Then, later on, he tries to make a joke. As cringy as it was, he got a chuckle out of Carly. On their way out of the restaurant, Shaun knocks an older lady over in his effort to be overly chivalrous. The lady slightly twists her shoulder but, Shaun easily fixes it up. All in all, the date was passable.

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The real problem lies with Shaun. As his emotions get the best of him, he exclaims how uncomfortable it was for him to act so unnaturally. Everything around him was out of his control and he had no idea whether he was making Carly happy. Thus, he takes it as a disaster.

In Sickness and In Health

After Shaun’s date, he’s thrown back into the world of medical woes. And his first case for the day is of the newlywed bride, Suzanne, who’s bleeding from her stomach. Upon examination, Shaun and Claire (Antonia Thomas) inform Suzanne that she as to go under routine operation to remove the uterine fibroids they found to be causing her pain. On the operation table, however, they find that it’s not just the fibroids making her sick. She has cancer and it has already metastasized all over her abdominal region. Melendez (Nicholas Gomez) leaves it up to Shaun to deliver the grim news.

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Shaun stalls and conducts more research about Suzanne’s seemingly impossible condition and in the end, Melendez picks him up to tell her their findings. Credits to Shaun at this point because as he tells Suzanne that she’s dying, you can truly see how he has matured over the past two seasons. In addition to confronting his own emotions, he successfully managed to communicate and offer a little more empathy to his patient, something which he’s had consistent trouble with in the past.

After delivering the news, Shaun proposes a solution to Melendez. The procedure entails removing Suzanne’s organs, cleaning up the cancer, and putting them all back. It’s risky but, it’s a better alternative than death. It takes time for the couple to come to a decision. But, at Shaun’s urging, they face their fears, hesitations, and the future of their married life together and agree to the operation. Melendez and his team complete the operation, however, it is not without consequences. Despite this, Suzanne’s husband vows to stay by her side to live their lives together.

Beginning a New Chapter

Elsewhere in the episode, Lim and Melendez have decided to continue their relationship in secret. With Lim’s promotion, it seemed like the proper thing to do. But, as the HR manager tells them, it’s going to be a lot more complicated than they think.

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Lim gets a taste of a different sort of complication on her very first day as chief of surgery. Just when she thinks she has pleased everybody, she comes clashing with one of her nurses, Nurse Petringa (Karin Konoval). Not knowing how to resolve the conflict, she asks Andrews for advice. And the baseline to his advice is to divert and manipulate people to think that Lim’s giving them just exactly what they need and they owe her for it. Lim doesn’t feel like it reflects her beliefs and character. But, Andrews chastizes her basically saying that she wouldn’t get a job like that done without changing a part of her.

Returning to the hospital, Lim tracks down nurse Petringa. Instead of taking Andrews’ advice, she offers an alternative solution that she can provide and that solves nurse Petringa and her staff’s problems. Triumphantly, she returns to Andrews and reports her success. In addition to that, she also offers him a new job under her team. Despite Andrews’ stubbornness, Lim manages to get through to him and gets him back on board.

On the other hand, Aoki has also offered for Glassman to come back to St. Bonaventure as its president. Initially, Glassman declined. But, Aoki is persistent. And after discovering that Glassman now works in a small clinic mostly catering to immigrants, Aoki asks Glassman again to take up the position. She tries to bribe him saying that she’ll reopen the clinic at the hospital and allow him to take office and practice there. Though Glassman doesn’t give a concrete answer, he seems to consider it.

‘Til Death Do Us Part

Meanwhile, Morgan (Fiona Gubelmann) and Park (Will Yun Lee) has been handed the case of an elderly man, Harvey, who came in complaining of pain in his kidneys. Upon closer inspection though, Park and Morgan find that Harvey has cancer. In addition to that, Harvey suffers from dementia which leaves it to his wife Ruby to remind of him of everything every waking moment.

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Fortunately, even though Harvey’s cancer is serious, it can be removed through operation and chemotherapy. As Morgan and Park continue their consultation with the elderly couple, however, Park realizes that the entire ordeal is harder on Harvey than anyone can imagine. He pulls Ruby aside and to Morgan’s shock straight-up tells her not to do the operation. He explains that with Harvey’s dementia, he’ll be reliving the devastation of his cancer every waking moment of his life. Disgusted, Ruby simply tells him to fuck off.

Later on, Park apologizes to Morgan but, not for the things he said. It seems to strike a chord in Morgan. But, despite her adamant protests, Park stands by his words. Later on, Morgan seems to relent. And though it seems to be hard on her as well, she takes it upon herself to convince Ruby to simply let Harvey live through his remaining years. Ruby is understandably emotional about it. But, in the end, she decides to go home with her husband that night without an operation.

As Shaun and the others watch them go, Claire explains that that is what the hardships of love are all about—to find somebody who’ll stay by your side to accept you as you are. Ultimately, Shaun decides that it’s not worth it.

‘The Good Doctor’ Season 3 Premiere Overall Verdict

One thing that’s really noticeable in this episode is the character development that showcased how far our favorite characters have come. Looking back on The Good Doctor’s season 1, boy, that is a long way indeed. Each character’s narrative has them opening up deeper and more intriguing chapters to themselves. In addition to that, The Good Doctor’s season 3 premiere seems to be a reset that basically reshuffled positions and narratives in the show. It’s both amusing and interesting to see how this new dynamic between the characters would play out in the season. Unfortunately, this season premiere isn’t the best episode of the show by a long shot. And it remains unclear whether this season will redeem itself from the lows of last season.

The Good Doctor continues next Monday, September 30th, with the “Debts” at 10/9c on ABC.