'The Good Doctor': Lea Keeps a New Secret From Shaun
The Good Doctor's latest episode lived up to the title "Crazytown," with plenty of twists for the team at St. Bonaventure Hospital. The team treated an elderly victim of a hate crime, played by guest star Francois Chau. Meanwhile, Lea Diallo (Paige Spara) tried to help Dr. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore) earn better patient satisfaction scores. The episode ended with Lea making a surprising decision to help Shaun's career, but she didn't have the heart to tell him about it.
The story featured in "Crazytown" was personal for Will Yun Lee, who plays Dr. Alex Park. In the episode, Chau's Leonard Song and Song's daughter (Jee Young Han) clash over how to Leonard should be treated after he is the target of an anti-Asian hate crime. Park tried to bring father and daughter together with his own experiences. Eventually, Park helped Leonard's daughter understand where her father was coming from and she decided that they would go with Leonard's decision not to have surgery after the doctors discovered he had a brain tumor.
However, after Leonard had a seizure, Park told his daughter Leonard might spend the last year of his life in a medically-induced coma. Although she knew her father didn't want to have the surgery, she still asked Park to save his life. In the end, she was worried her father would be mad, but Leonard instead praised her daughter for making the tough decision. Lee, who is Korean-American like the characters in the show, told TVInsider that the conversations about the older generation in the episode struck a chord for him. "Sometimes, because their English is limited, they become faceless," he told TVInsider. "I love that this episode goes into what's in their heart and shows them as human beings."'
For most of the episode, Shaun was also obsessed with bringing his patient satisfaction scores up and Lea offered to help. In one scene later on, Shaun told Lea he needed a new strategy because he couldn't get patients to like him. Lea suggested that the scores only brought back bad memories from his childhood. She told him he shouldn't obsess over whether or not people like him, and she offered to tell their boss that the algorithm should better reflect how good a doctor Shaun is. Shaun asked Lea if she thought he couldn't raise his scores, but she said she did.
Unfortunately, it appears that Lea does think Shaun would have trouble raising his scores. In another scene, she read a negative review, then called Glassman. He didn't pick up, but she left a message telling him Shaun needed to talk to him. Then, she chose to exclude Shaun's negative reviews to help artificially boost his scores. When Lea got home, Shaun had flowers ready to give her so they could celebrate his elevated scores. She didn't have the guts to tell him she changed them. Now, there's a new secret between the two.
The hit ABC series has gone through several changes through Season 5, and more are coming soon. Late last month, it was reported that Osvaldo Benavides, who stars as Dr. Mateo Redon Osma, will leave before the season is over. Mateo was introduced at the end of Season 4 and became a love interest for Christina Chang's Dr. Audrey Lim. In Monday's episode, Lim learned more about Mateo's life in Guatemala. At the very end, she called him, telling him to only come back if it was for work. If he was coming back for her, she told him not to come at all.
A future Good Doctor episode will revolve around a young patient with a rare brain disease whose life is in danger after a stroke. Lee told TVInsider the script reminded him "what the show's about-hope, and doctors chasing things outside the box." The Good Doctor airs on Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on ABC. Past episodes can be streamed on Hulu.