A 16-year-old girl named Sophie is in to be treated for a case of gonorrhea, the eighth girl from her high school to come in with the same ailment recently. After she gets done treating her, including a shot and talk about the necessity of condoms, Emily talks to a nurse about informing someone of the outbreak. The nurse tells someone from the local health department, who then talks to Dr. Bandari about sending someone to give a safe sex lecture at the high school the next day. Being that Emily was the one that brought the issue to everyone’s attention, Dr. Bandari volunteers her to do it and all but tells her that if she doesn’t take part, her life at Denver Memorial will become even more hellish than it had been.
Once at the school, the one across the street from the hospital, Emily runs into the girl from the pilot in the hallway, who informs her not to cry and to stare straight ahead. The lecture, of course, begins awkwardly with the girls peppering Emily with inappropriate questions (e.g. the kinkiest thing she’s done in bed), but Emily eventually takes control and maintains a poise and intellect that doesn’t get to pop up that much thus far. In her speech, she touches on woman becoming infected more rapidly than men and that if they would share information about the boys that they’re with (and that are infecting them/sleeping around), they could protect each other. This type of disease can potentially lead to more serious diseases and even infertility and it’s not something to be taken lightly. A condom gets tossed on stage once she finishes and Emily then does a demonstration with a banana that Will gave her before she left, which doesn’t go that well.
Later, a boy was admitted with facial lacerations and bruised ribs from being attacked by a group of girls at the school. The boy, named Damon, is the one that has been spreading gonorrhea around school and doesn’t feel an ounce of remorse for his actions, bragging about it to Dr. Owens and being kind of a dick. It turns out that Sophie is his girlfriend and didn’t know that he had been messing around, her finding out resulting in her nearly hitting him while he was getting examined. Rather than giving it another shot herself, Emily passes the baton to Dr. Will, who tries to get Damon to take a test to prove that he has the disease. He won’t and once his mother comes to the hospital, he immediately plays the victim; however, he gave a urine sample when he was admitted and gave permission for them to test that, which they do and confirm that he has gonorrhea. Emily then gets him to apologize to Sophie; later than night, the young girl is in front of the hospital and confused as to why she didn’t hate Damon for what he did. Emily informs her that it’ll take time for the emotional pain of her boyfriend cheating on her to heal, but that she’d get through it.
First Cut
After Dr. Bandari springs a pop quiz on the first-years, Cassandra and Emily stand, with the former getting inside the latter’s head enough to take first place. The winner gets to assist in the gallbladder surgery of Larry, a middle-aged man who has both his ex-wife Donna and much younger current wife Candace helping him through his medical problem. In surgery, normally confident Cassandra chokes and can’t steady her shaky hand in order to make the first incision on Larry, disappointing Dr. Bandari who ends up having to do the work. Emily just so happened to see the scene and tries to be nice to her former bully by not outing what happened around Will, but Cassandra does anyway before storming off. Will eventually finds her and tells her about how he used to be a pitcher but lost his fastball before finding medicine, concluding that she needn’t be so hard on herself or expecting perfection day in and day out. In turn, she grabs his forearm and they share a bit of a moment, which Emily again sees.
Originally, Donna provided Emily with an example of the value of moving on and adapting, but at the end of the episode, she sees the woman outside Larry’s room and crying while looking at him and Candace.
Gymnast Barbie
Payson is a 16-year-old gymnastics phenom brought in by her father after falling on her head. Though it’s initially determined that she has a concussion and has to be out of action for a week, that all changes once she has a seizure on the floor of her room. Micah tests for photophobia and informs the young girl that the first thing they’ll be testing for is epilepsy, which are administered by Tyra and Emily. They prove to be negative for the disorder, though once they’re finished, Payson raises up and vomits, her temperature spiking. This leads to a meningitis test, a series of needles inserted into her back, and Emily trying to get her mind off it by asking her about gymnastics, where she’s known for her balance beam routine. Payson again tests negative, leading to Emily and Tyra getting her alone and asking her where she’s really been for the most recent two weeks. All that was mentioned in her post-meningitis interview (in front of her father) was a trip to a meet in Ohio, but once she’s alone, Payson confesses to going to a barn party to hang out with a boy she liked, which is the big break that they needed to figure out what was ailing her.
It turns out that there are spores in the dirt that were roused by all the kids moving around the barn and she breathed them in, resulting in a fungal infection and an inflamed lymph node. Given the advance stage, they have to put her on heavy anti-fungal medication, which will impact her inner ear and therefore, her balance. Emily and Tyra then take Payson to test for another disorder, but they find nothing and that means that the girl’s balance won’t actually be impacted by the medication. However, Payson desperately wants to quit and feels like she’ll disappoint her father, who moved to town with her in order to coach her and is working three jobs in order to support them.
10 Things I Hate About You
After another awkward episode with Will last week, Emily has decided to make a list of flaws with him in order to help her move on more quickly. First, there’s how sporty he is (discovered when she walks in on him changing his shirt and sees his physique); then, there’s his glibness (from him making a joke to her in passing), followed by insensitivity, immaturity (giving her the banana), the fact that he can talk like a frat boy, and his temper (that came out upon interacting with Damon). But finally, Emily deduces that his biggest flaw is that he rejected her, which she concludes after finding him comforting Cassandra after her bad time in surgery.
Additional thoughts and observations:
-The photo comes from the scene when Will and Emily head to the roof following their time with Damon and he tries to teach her how to bat to blow off some steam.
-Micah is already dating someone else – a pretty female doctor that can make a Patch Adams joke. My kind of lady.
-Tyra and Emily are becoming friendlier, as they talked about sexuality (Tyra had no a-ha moment that she was gay, Emily knew she liked boys at 9 thanks to Alan Zolman) during a lot of their free moments.
-Emily lost her virginity at 20 years old.
-I kind of loved that they had the girl from the pilot appear again, as I thought her role would be a one-time gag. Am I wrong to hope that she keeps popping up?
-I liked finding out a little more information on Dr. Will, although we still don’t quite know why Emily is as obsessed with him as she is.
-Although the show can be funny, I think I prefer it when Emily’s confident/in-charge/competent at her job rather than the erratic mess that she can be.
–Emily Owens M.D. will be preempted next week for election coverage, but when it returns on November 13th, Emily and Micah’s patient needs a kidney transplant but won’t accept one from her husband, Emily assists Dr. Hamada and Dr. Bandari in surgery, and Emily battles Cassandra for a position as Dr. Bandari’s research assistant.
