The Good Doctor Review: The Uncertainty Principle (Season 4 Episode 7)
CRISPR, shower sex, and venture capitalists, oh my!
The Good Doctor‘s Season 4 Episode 7, “The Uncertainty Principle” takes a lighter tone after the heavier episode that preceded it, “Lim.”
This episode finally digs a least a little bit deeper into Claire’s current psyche, while showing Shaun’s devolve at the same time, thanks to a kind-of-secret from Lea’s past. And even if not every case of this episode ended in the best emotional play for the week’s patients, this episode still manages to end on a note of hope or at least one inspired by hope.
“The Uncertainty Principle” also does a good job to further integrate the first years into the flow of the show. I still can’t tell you what any of their names are, but at least now it’s easy to get a clear image of who each of the new residents is. And even though the death of Melendez is still a hard sell for the audience, the events of last season leave our characters in a bit of a mix-up, one that seems like it will pay off.
“The Uncertainty Principle” is bookended with Lea expressing interest in shower sex, and with the couple compromising on how they would perform this act. However, when it comes to the Lea-Shaun drama of the week, the more important revelation comes as a blow to Shaun — Lea was married before.
This is how The Good Doctor delves into its thematic adventures of the week. “The Uncertainty Principle” asks how do terms and expectations affect our relationships?
Relationships are tested by the expectations of their future, the knowledge of Lea’s past brings up an idea that causes him to spiral — what if his relationship with Lea is also just something she’ll avoid telling her new boyfriend about in the future?
His way of processing his fear of being temporary and avoiding change is polling and discussing these ideas with his co-workers. Typical Shaun. He even asks his patient about it, who declares he will always love his partner. In a cruel twist of fate, she walks away from him at the end of the episode.
Even as their relationship ends, Shaun’s patient still has hope for the future. Shaun’s realizations come naturally after this sequence of events, as he concludes that not changing isn’t the answer, but changing in the same direction is. Lesson learned, shower sex commence!
Meanwhile, Claire and her residents treat a woman who seems to have a predisposition to cancerous tumors. Spending most of his time outside his wife’s room, her husband buries himself in his work. It’s in this situation that The Good Doctor is wise to insert Claire into, and it’s just the type of situation to cause her to intervene.
Although The Good Doctor isn’t quite as explicit as it could be when it comes to signaling Claire’s development, it’s nice for her to receive the spotlight when it comes to one of the two main arcs of the episode.
Claire, most likely driven by her witnessing her mother’s relationships, makes a plea to her husband, who ignores his wife in the present to avoid the idea of losing her in the future. Claire is intense and empathetic as ever, easily laying down why she thinks this is best for both spouses, and even the best way to let her down.
But the husband swerves and ditches his job, putting her present wife first. It’s nice how this moment leaves Claire with a little bit of hope, someone who’s become so cynical loss after loss after loss. This pushes Claire to make a change and open herself up more (to her resident, mind you), which drives her to visit Lim which leads to the cliffhanger of the episode, the reveal of Lim’s lie to her friend.
Claire hasn’t had the chance to be examined deeply so far this season, but finally, The Good Doctor indicates she’s finding more way of coping healthily than she had in the past and despite it all, she forging a way forward.
Through the midst of this, The Good Doctor continues to establish new relationships while taking old ones in a new direction.
The first level residents have begun to solidify themselves in this season’s narrative, and this episode, in particular, focuses on a relationship amidst themselves and one with one of their mentors. While the tertiary storyline of Jordan attempting to sell foot insoles builds on these relationships, it’s hard to really care considering I just had to look up that character’s name, and that’s not even including the clunkiness of these scenes.
Claire’s developing relationship, or friendship depending on who you ask, with Enrique (I looked that one up too) serves Claire’s storyline better as she decides whether to move on and meet her trainee for platonic coffee. Again, although Enrique’s thing (polyamory) is also explained in a clunky matter, at least this serves Claire well as the comedic aside gives the audience a check-in with her.
Claire’s new relationship with Lim is fun, but perhaps the best result of the end of last season’s shake-up is her new friendship with Morgan, who even commented on it herself. While Morgan doesn’t quite fit into the narrative yet on the scale that she deserves, her new position does allow for her to have a genuine relationship with Claire, one that can include understanding and the two can relate to each other. After all, they were once on the same career path.
“The Uncertainty Principle” continues the trend of improvement when it comes to episode quality (and subsequently our episode ratings) since the winter hiatus. Not only does this episode explore the boundaries our characters have when it comes to their personal lives, but The Good Doctor successfully explores the idea that relationships are contingent on time.
The Good Doctor also continues to make headway on exploring and introducing new doctors into its setting, they still don’t quite fit in yet. Of course, this can improve in time, but The Good Doctor has a lot farther to go to invest the audience into these characters. This isn’t an unusual problem, however, it’s difficult in any show, especially medical dramas, to introduce a second-generation of characters that the audience can quickly get on board with.
The Good Doctor appears to be on a mid-season stride, hitting its season-high as it comes closer to meeting the perfect balance of character (new and old) development, comedically timed moments (this week had plenty), thematic medical cases, and tolerable Lea-Shaun drama. Hopefully The Good Doctor continues with this trend next episode and maybe, just maybe, I’ll remember the names of the first-year residents.
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.