‘The Good Doctor’: Shaun Suffers Major Professional Setback

In The Good Doctor Season 3, the residents are moving up professionally, under the direction of Dr. Audrey Lim, in this week’s episode, “Debts.” In the end, we learned which resident at St. Bonaventure Hospital in San Jose will get to lead their first surgery. Unfortunately, it was not Dr. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore), but instead one of his colleagues.

Throughout “Debts,” Drs. Alex Park (Will Yun Lee) and Morgan Reznick (Fiona Gubelmann) held a friendly competition to see who would get tapped to lead the first surgery led by a resident this year. The two showed Lim (Christina Chang) with gifts, compliments and offers to even co-author a paper, even as Lim made it clear that she knew exactly what they were doing.

It was all for nought though. At the end of the episode, Lim picked Dr. Claire Browne (Antonia Thomas) over Alex, Morgan and Shaun. It was disappointing for Alex and Morgan, but Shaun seemed to take it in stride. Lim insisted everyone will get a shot at leading a surgery eventually.

Alex was excited to see Claire get the job, which made Morgan suspicious that he was not just campaigning to win. He just wanted to see her lose.

“Do you dislike me that much?” Morgan asked.

“I just wouldn’t want you supervising me as chief resident. You’d be a nightmare of a boss,” Alex said as he walked away.

Elsewhere in “Debts,” Shaun continued to grapple with the aftermath of his date with Dr. Carly Lever (Jasika Nicole). Shaun never wanted to go on a date again, even deciding that love just was not something for him. Shaun did go out with Carly on a walk after she showed up at his apartment to get answers on how he felt after their “disastrous” date.

Throughout his crisis, Claire did what she does best, helping Shaun understand that dates do not have to be big events to obsess over. In fact, some of the best dates she ever had was just sitting on the couch eating chips. That inspired Shaun to get the courage to go to Pathology and meet Carly with a bag of chips. There is no couch in the office, so they just sat against a cabinet and shared the chips.

Claire’s main story also involved her helping her troubled mother, who has battled with drug addiction and holding down a job. Claire eventually agreed to let her mother stay at her apartment for a few weeks until she finds a new place to live.

Next week, The Good Doctor returns with Claire juggling her home life with the pressures of taking on her first surgery. The rest of the staff also faces a big challenge when they have to save a fisherman’s life without ruining his price catch.

The Good Doctor airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.

Photo credit: ABC/Jack Rowand