As with every episode of “The Good Doctor,” this week’s October 29 Episode 5 of Season 2, “Carrots,” carries big lessons beyond the fast-paced medical matters of life and death. Dr. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore) is consumed with worry over Dr. Glassman's (Richard Schiff) failure to meet two standards for discharge following his surgery for glioblastoma — a bowel movement and being able to walk a prescribed distance of the hospital.

The clear devotion and unrelenting insistence of the good doctor get on Glassman’s last good nerve, even though he realizes the wholly good intent.

Shaun ultimately realizes that he is not the man for this job. In fact, no man is. On the home front, Shaun takes out a lease on the apartment that Lea (Paige Spara) loves, one that “has a fireplace,” but she nixes the idea, feeling that living together will ruin their friendship.

Claire (Antonia Thomas) learns a lesson about the cost of vindication when her concept for a controversial and risky surgery involving electronic brain stimulation is cleared by the surgical review board. Her patient comes through, but her career takes a hit. In another case, one of the husbands in a couple pleads with residents on his case not to divulge a gastric bypass to the other husband, fearing rejection.

Even the purest motives can be misconstrued, and sometimes, learning the right way to nudge someone makes all the difference.

From one bathroom issue to another

Shaun resorts to the kindest bribery he knows, bringing a chocolate chip muffin, per Debbie’s (Sheila Kelley) suggestion, to Dr. Glassman, but he won't budge from his bed, and doesn't want to talk about his bowel habits, relating that Shaun’s persistence “saves me from tweeting about it.” It so happens that Dr.

Murphy notices a simple cup of “fizzy urine,” and he and Dr. Park (Will Yun Lee) opt to probe deeper into the subject. The patient formerly weighed 377 pounds before gastric bypass surgery, and now is training for distance races. When testing reveals that he has Crohn's disease, he doesn't mind sharing those details, but tells Dr.

Lim (Christina Chang) and the rest of the team not to tell his husband about his gastric bypass surgery, fearing that he will never be thought of in the same loving light, and instead, being judged for “taking the easy way.”

Dr. Melendez (Nicholas Gonzalez), Dr. Brown, and Dr. Reznick (Fiona Gubelmann) face a different dilemma with an anorexic mother who was too weak to survive valve repair desperately needed on her heart. Her love for her son sustained her through eating the necessary food to allow his birth, but now, her body has paid the toll for years of starvation. Dr. Melendez fears he will have to subject her to the heart surgery before her body is able to endure it. Dr. Brown discovers a technique involving deep brain stimulation, one that allows anorexic patients to accept nutrition.

She proposes postponing the heart procedure, and doing the brain stimulation, with only a 50-50 rate of success, to allow the mother to take in adequate nutrition to survive the process.

The patient’s husband informs Dr. Melendez that his wife wants the DBS surgery, and is aware of all the risks, including personality change, particularly in mothers. Claire takes her proposal to the internal review board, who approve it by a 2 to 1 vote. The mother pleads her own case. She describes how her son, Graham, has watched her starve herself to death for years, and she is determined not “to let him see me succeed.” She elaborates that every other procedure has failed for her.

Dancing around the apartment

Adding to the cute and compelling aspects of this episode is the back-and-forth, then back again, the argument between Lea and Shaun over the apartment. She reminds that Shaun may not be able to handle her sleeping with out-of-work drummers or seeing her naked. Son boils it down to “no kissing, no dating, no sex,” quite simply, and sees the benefits of living together as being worth it all. The keys make several trips in transit, and the tenderness and tension in the discussion is pure delight. Shaun describes that feelings can change, relating how he used to not like hugs, but “now sometimes, I do.”

Shaun tries to make Dr. Blaize (Lisa Edelstein) do her job, and see that Dr.

Glassman pass the requirements for discharge. She, on the other hand, suggests that Shaun try the carrot rather than the stick to persuade his friend. He suddenly realizes that Debbie at the snack bar has the perfect tack to help Dr. Glassman. By the end of the episode, he has a bowel movement, and she is walking with him through the halls, talking about beloved classic cars.

Before going to surgery, one of the most beautiful lines written for television this season is shared between the anorexic mother and her son. She calls him the “highlight of my life,” and reminds him that “I love you more than any person on the planet has ever loved any other person on the planet.” Her husband gives her a beautiful, lingering kiss.

She makes it through surgery but also confesses that the hug from her son after the procedure feels different.

When the ill husband, Wade, suddenly suffers a strangulated bowel and has to be rushed into surgery, the truth about his situation is fully revealed. Sadly, just as he feared, his husband, Spencer, is bothered by the truth, even saying he wished he had not seen the pictures of his former love, or known that his physical body could return to what it once was. There is no cure for the soulless, surface-only person. Reflecting on this situation, Dr. Park is inspired to call his ex-wife, initiating contact for the first time since his the divorce.

Dr. Melendez credits Claire for her surgical victory but tells her that she will no longer be a part of his team since she chose to go deliberately over his decision, and that cannot be tolerated.

He tells her that he was the deciding vote for the experimental surgery. Every choice in life has a price, and being right can be the most hollow victory. Being right and doing the right thing is often innately different.

When Shaun comes home from work, Lea tells him that they will be living together in the apartment, after all. There are sure to be boulders in the road, and lessons like neither of them have experienced before, but for now, they both celebrate with jubilant jumping up and down, just at credits roll. This was a very tasty carrot.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED