Shaun choosing Carly was always too good to last, but this latest wrinkle is ridiculous.
It was bad enough that Morgan spent all of The Good Doctor Season 3 Episode 15 planting seeds in both Shaun and Carly’s heads about how Carly needs to be jealous of Lea.
All it took was Shaun and Lea having one happy moment for Carly to decide that Morgan was right and… break up with Shaun over something that only exists in her head. Please.
This nonsense should have been settled a long time ago.
After Shaun went to Wyoming with Lea, he was temporarily confused by his non-sexual yet comfortable feelings with Lea, only to conclude that he was attracted to Carly.
There was zero reason to revisit that decision now, and the way it was done was offensive.
: Oh, Shawn. I’m fine with your friendship with Lea. But you can make eggs for me any time.
Carly
Carly was fine with Shaun’s friendship with Lea until Morgan told her that she shouldn’t be. Then she decided that she knows better than Shaun what Shaun feels.
It didn’t matter that Shaun was heartbroken about the break-up and had been excited about making a special dinner for Carly. It didn’t matter that he told her what his feelings were at least five times.
It didn’t even matter that Lea had been at the club with a different guy.
Carly felt jealous and insecure and therefore in her mind, Shaun felt what she feared he felt and that was that.
She even told Shaun to tell Lea how he feels — which is impossible since Shaun doesn’t feel what Carly claims he does.
Worse yet, this nonsense was entirely caused by Morgan, who spent most of the hour making trouble for people for no apparent reason.
Morgan took every chance she could to tell Shaun that Carly was secretly jealous of Lea and tell Carly that Shaun and Lea were a thing.
She even did it in the middle of surgery, distracting Shaun.
It seemed like she just wanted to be spiteful for its own sake, or else maybe she was jealous of Shaun and Carly and wanted to sabotage their relationship.
Shaun: It must be hard to communicate.
Morgan: My friend’s daughter took a signing course at camp. She picked it up quickly.
Shaun: Non-verbal communication is confusing. That’s why Carly and I say everything explicitly.
Morgan: It doesn’t matter how explicit the words are coming out of her mouth, what she doesn’t say is always going to be more than what she does say.
If not, what was she putting her nose in their business like that for?
Morgan also was apparently the person who complained about Melendez to Lim, and it’s not clear what she did that for, either.
Lim suggested that Morgan thinks that’ll stop her from getting fired, but that seemed off base.
Could all of this have something to do with the pain she’s in from her RA?
Maybe that’s making her meaner than usual, or maybe she does fear not being able to continue as a doctor.
Either way, her behavior has got to go. She’s wreaking havoc with everyone’s lives.
Speaking of which, has Lim figured out that Morgan has RA yet?
Lim: Move.
Morgan: I can do it.
Lim: This is surgery, not hockey. We don’t play through our injuries.
She was aware that Morgan was unable to do the surgery, but she borderline bought Morgan’s excuse for that.
Either way, the time is coming where Morgan is going to have to confess all, because her RA is getting worse and has affected her surgical abilities more than once.
Meanwhile, Melendez’s behavior toward Claire bordered on the ridiculous.
Melendez claimed to not want to show any bias, but he was being biased in the other direction.
He made a point of always siding with Park and always letting Park do things in surgery that Claire was capable of doing.
That wasn’t unbiased at all. Now he was showing Park favoritism and cutting Claire out altogether.
And what was with Park taking credit for the complaint against Melendez, anyway?
Park: It was me.
Claire: You? But you’re the least competitive of all of us.
Park: I didn’t do it for me. I did it for you. If people see you getting special treatment, even if it’s not your fault, they’re going to resent you. I wanted to protect you.
Claire: I’m not getting special treatment, and I don’t need protection.
That accomplished nothing except irritating Claire further and making Park look like an ass.
In any case, I’m glad that Claire set Melendez straight about how stupid he was being. He was acting like he and Claire had been secret lovers or something.
It was all innocent — just like Shaun and Lea. This whole idea that men and women can’t be friends has to go.
As for the cases, they both involved experimental surgery to try to heal a defect, which was interesting.
Shaun’s case irked me, though.
Little Cory seemed perfectly happy until Shaun suggested loudly that not being able to speak made Cory defective.
Mother: He can communicate without speaking.
Lim: Murphy!
Shaun: He will always be limited. It will be difficult for him to make friends, interact with strangers.
I didn’t buy that the kid was secretly unhappy while signing that he was thrilled and smiling widely.
It seemed more like he was overly influenced by Shaun’s words.
The parents were too quick to seize upon the surgery as an answer instead of talking more with Cory to find out where his sudden unhappiness was coming from.
Morgan was right that Shaun was projecting his own experience onto the kid.
Having to use sign language doesn’t have to be a limitation, and there are many people in the Deaf community who find the idea offensive that being able to speak and hear is superior to being Deaf and signing.
Cory wasn’t deaf, but still. The implication that he was broken because he uses sign language was annoying, and Lim was right to shut Shaun down about it.
There was this theme of people’s opinions about how someone feels overriding what that person may actually feel.
Usually, The Good Doctor does better at respecting people, neurotypical or not. It was disappointing they went there this time.
What did you think, Good Doctor Fanatics? Are you happy, aggravated, or somewhere in between about this latest attempt to push Shaun and Lea together?
Was Morgan on anyone else’s last nerve?
And what did you think of the cases?
Hit SHOW COMMENTS and share your thoughts.
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Jack Ori is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.