The Good Doctor Review: Not the Same (Season 4 Episode 4)
In The Good Doctor Season 4 Episode 4, “Not the Same,” many personal developments occur: Lea moves in with Shaun, Park moves in with Morgan, and one of the new residents, Olivia, is revealed to be related to Andrews. She’s his niece to be exact.
Although this constitutes several changes for the doctors of St. Bonaventure, the episode doesn’t present these changes as monumental.
In fact, this episode feels boring overall.
When Shaun tries to explain his point of view to Lea, these are the same circumstances in a way. Someone is connected to the upper management of the hospital. Shaun and Lea are living together. Morgan reaches out to someone despite the hard exterior she attempts to exude. Sound familiar?
“Not the Same” isn’t a bad episode by any means, but it doesn’t grab your attention either.
BRIAN MARC, NOAH GALVIN, ANTONIA THOMAS
In Shaun and Lea’s conflict of the week, Shaun wants Lea to move in, but Lea views the situation in a more complicated way than Shaun does. She cares about context, and Shaun doesn’t. Her aversion to moving in with him is unnecessary, and most likely driven by The Good Doctor‘s tendency to constantly put Shaun at odds in romantic relationships.
It’s necessary to show Shaun adapting to these new types of relationships and experiences as he navigates them, but The Good Doctor forgets to show the highs between the middles and lows.
As the protagonist of The Good Doctor, Shaun’s current arc is the least interesting, which is disappointing. The Good Doctor would probably be more enjoyable without the Shaun/Lea aspect of it.
That being said, Shaun’s growth in his mentorship is one of the most intriguing parts of “Not the Same,” and probably the most noteworthy and thought-provoking part of the episode. Even though his methods are, of course, unorthodox, he attempts to understand the needs of his students, and once he understands this, he’s able to assist them.
This stands out among the other mentor dynamics in this episode as it feels like Shaun is taking leaps forward, whereas Morgan can hardly learn anything when she’s having so much trouble adjusting, Claire is still finding herself following extensive grief and loss, and Park is going through changes himself.
Would anybody else like a list of the things they did right?
Meanwhile, Claire treats a man with an otherworldly positive disposition, even when he faces the likelihood of death.
This is important and personal for Claire, who is probably still grappling with the loss of Melendez and her mother, even if The Good Doctor tried to compress this into their two-parter COVID-19 episode, which doesn’t really have any bearings on the rest of the show (at this point).
And the moments where Claire begins to heal and become reminded of herself are sweet and heartwarming to watch. However, it still seems that The Good Doctor doesn’t really know what to do with her anymore.
It’s as if the decision to kill off Melendez was definitely not planned at the beginning of her season three arc, leaving Clarie in a state of limbo at the beginning of this season.
She’s unable to move completely forward, after all, that would be massively disrespectful to Melendez and his legacy on The Good Doctor. But moving Claire backward would be too cruel as she’s arguably lost the most among the cast of The Good Doctor.
Hopefully, The Good Doctor can save Claire’s arc, and pull her out of the cycle of hurt she’s been trapped in since the death of her mom. Her relationship with Lim can hopefully aid in this, as their shared grief has brought them together as friends. Their scene together was one of the high points of this episode.
But what happened last time Claire befriended a boss?
ANTONIA THOMAS, WILL YUN LEE
Meanwhile, Park also goes through some pretty big changes in “Not the Same.” Park is a silent sufferer, and even as he goes through some pretty important life events, they don’t get much screentime comparative to Morgan, Claire, and Shaun. He feels more like a tertiary character after the revelation that the reasons he loves Mia are because of Kellan.
His divorce leaves him shacking up with Morgan, who once again, reveals a little bit of the kindness she only allows in select situations.
The shake-up that brings these two together hopefully will turn out to be refreshing — maybe giving Morgan material other than watching surgeries and overstepping her bounds as an internist, and bringing Park a little bit more to the forefront as the introvert will have more reason to interact with his colleagues on a more personal level.
But Morgan will most likely remain in a rut until she finds a new specialty she can be passionate about, which currently doesn’t seem to be internal medicine.
What did you think of this episode of The Good Doctor? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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The Good Doctor airs Mondays at 9/8c on ABC.
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Amanda Reimer
In addition to working as a freelance writer, Amanda also works with animals and stage manages various live performances. She has an invested interest in the perspective and experience of fandoms as well as anything in the science-fiction genre. She also loves spoiling her cats, Drummer and Kiki.
One thought on “The Good Doctor Review: Not the Same (Season 4 Episode 4)”
I don’t agree about Lea and Shaun. I feel like that could be interesting if written well. For me that is the problem with this show, the writing. Killing Melendez was a terrible decision. Maybe it would be more interesting to explore how a autist can have a healthy relationship with a Neuro typical instead of always trying to do this tired old tv trope things they tend to fall back on. I stopped watching after season 3 so maybe they have done better this season, but it doesn’t sound like it.
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