Tonight on NBC their new medical drama “The Good Doctor” airs with an all-new Monday, September 23, 2019, episode and we have your The Good Doctor recap below. On tonight’s The Good Doctor season 3 episode 1 Premiere called, “Disaster” as per the ABC synopsis, “Following what he believes was a disastrous first date with Carly, Dr. Shaun Murphy proposes a radical surgery to save a newlywed woman’s life.
Meanwhile, after the new chief of surgery, Dr. Audrey Lim, announces that the residents can lead surgeries, Dr. Morgan Reznick and Dr. Alex Park compete for the chance to operate on an elderly patient who has been diagnosed with cancer.”
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The Good Doctor begins tonight with Dr. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore) sitting in the restaurant, on his date with Dr. Carly Lever (Jasika Nicole); who reassures him things are good. He quickly glances at his cue card about topics they can discuss and says he saw a great movie recently. They are interrupted when their food arrives but he gets upset when there are pickles on his food and he stands up knocking over the waiter and wine bottle into the air. He is explaining the disaster to Dr. Alex Park (Will Yun Lee), Dr. Morgan Reznick (Fiona Gubelmann), Dr. Claire Brown (Antonia Thomas) and Dr. Neil Melendez (Nicholas Gonzalez) as Dr. Audrey Lim (Christina Chang) walks in, asking if they have work to do; but is instead of congratulated for being their first female Chief of Surgery. She stops Melendez from going to work, kissing him and telling him they need to go to HR and break up.
A limo pulls up to the ambulance bay, as a groom brings his wife out of the car, asking someone to help his wife. Shaun and Claire escort her into the ED. Meanwhile, Alex and Morgan attend to a couple who have been married for 45 years, the husband who has a history of kidney stones but they will do imaging to rule it out, but Morgan tells Alex as they leave the room that he has dementia and best case scenario he has a kidney tumor and they assisted on 8 of them in the past week already. Alex drops the chart to her, saying the case is hers.
Lim and Melendez meet with Jenny Waring (Jill Morrison) from HR who questions the validity of them breaking up, whether they just went back to seeing each other in secret because of her promotion. She finally accepts their explanation, but doesn’t believe and doesn’t care to stop them but says love doesn’t conquer all and it will be more complicated than they think.
Shaun and Claire inform their patient, the new bride that she has a large uterine fibroid that has bled needs to be removed surgically, but it won’t affect her having babies. Dr Lim makes several changes with the nursing staff and surgical staff, things Allegra Aoki (Tamlyn Tomita) wouldn’t allow, like overtime. Her change in things, causes Morgan and Alex to dispute over who will take the lead on the Harvey’s kidney case. Harvey is in the CT machine when Morgan excitedly finds out that it is cancer and not a stone; perfect for a resident.
Melendez is with Claire and Shaun for the uterine surgery when Claire wants to know more about Shaun’s date but he tells them to stop what they are doing and look; also spotting extensive cancer that is in her kidney, liver and abdominal wall. Melendez reaches in, telling Claire and Shaun to close her up.
Dr Aaron Glassman (Richard Schiff) is enjoying a book when Allegra finds him in his backyard when he says he is going to enjoy reading books and lying around by his future wife. She feels he needs to make a difference and she has a vacancy at the hospital; and he will lead a meaningful life after cancer just as he did before. He says she is very inspiring to him.
Melendez sits with Shaun and Claire looking at the scans, feeling there isn’t a better solution for their patient and they need to refer them to an oncologist as chemo may help but they are not hopeful. He feels since they are third year, they need to learn things through sympathetic communication and tells Shaun to let the bride know she is probably dying.
Morgan and Alex approach Nurse Petringa (Karin Konoval) demanding to know who she handed the chart to first, but are interrupted when Harvey’s wife wants answers and they inform both of them that he has cancer but it is very operable. Harvey frets that he cannot die as his wife and children need him; Morgan tells him with surgery, and radiation the prognosis is excellent.
Shaun decides to do more research before informing the patient but Claire feels stalling is just going to make telling the patient worse. She thinks he is feeling bad about his date and in his self conscious he can’t handle it. It turns out that he managed to catch the bottle of wine in his hand, impressing Carly, but he tells Claire her phone is ringing, but she insists it can wait even though it is her mother, asking if stalling is bad, why is she ignoring her mother. She explains that her mother was bipolar but she was a terrible mother and doesn’t think it is good for her to be in Claire’s life. Claire admits that Shaun is definitely a role model in her life on some issues. She presses about the date and says the past matters as it did happen.
Shaun explains that he told a joke as Lea Dilallo (Paige Spara) told him he should; but there is a flash back where Lea is specifically tell him that is not what she said. She says that some people have strengths and weaknesses, and people need to know when to tell jokes. We return to the date where Carly is talking school and how life was at home with her father when Shaun attempts a joke; Carly smirks and giggles a little while she sips her wine. Shaun is unsure if she laughed, explaining to Claire that she made a sound. It was a chuckle and he feels it was a disaster; Claire is certain something bigger went wrong but Shaun refuses to bend, returning to his research.
Morgan and Alex review the video and it appears that Alex is the one who has the chart, but she insists she had it first, they want to see more angles. Nurse Petringa brings up the funding issues to Lim, who apologizes saying they don’t have the issues for more staff; instantly causing friction. Melendez notices the newlyweds are holding hands and being all sweet. He finds Shaun and orders him to come with him to the room, where the groom asks if everything is okay as they didn’t complete the surgery. Shaun blurts out to Suzanne that she has extensive surgery throughout her abdomen and it appears to be around every organ; but there is hope with surgery, a comment that frustrates Melendez.
Shaun suggests removing Suzanne’s organs, and putting them back after cleaning up the cancer. He knows there hasn’t been much success but the alternative is death anyways. Lim comes to see Dr. Marcus Andrews (Hill Harper) at his home, asking him how to say “no” to someone as she thinks she is doing it wrong. He tells her to watch closely and slams the door in her face. She begins to walks down the stairs but he reopens the door, telling her if she is going to give up that easily she may as well quit right now.
Morgan returns to Harvey’s room, biopsy confirms the cancer, which agitates Harvey and his dementia; who says they need to tell the children. He is told the cancer is serious, but he wants to know if he is dying. Alex asks to speak to Harvey’s wife, Ruby outside.
Lim is told the problem is how she is saying no to people. He is amused that she wants to do the job her way and still be the person she is. Yesterday she was an attending and today she is the chief; causing her to think. Alex explains the options to Ruby, explaining that her husband is not healthy, at least mentally. She tells him that she is not going to let her husband die simply because she needs to repeat a conversation and tells Alex to go to hell.
Melendez explains to Suzanne the complexity of her surgery as Shaun explains what could be all the complications, including death. If she doesn’t do the surgery, survival is only 25% and possibly live only a year. She asks for time to think about it, which they obviously grant.
Shaun goes to see Aaron at Stevens Creek Health Center, who tells Shaun they are going to be lat4e for lunch because he needs meaning in his life. He is busy with a patient, someone Shaun says is a boring patient with boring symptoms. Aaron intrdouces Shaun to Marco Higgins (Soppo Gomez) who is a mechanic, saying it is good to get to know people as it makes you a better person. Aaron tells Marco that Shaun went on a date last night and both want to know about it.
Shaun tells them both it was a disaster. He nearly pulled out the chair from under Carly, then opened the door, knocking a lady onto the floor, causing Carly to help her. Shaun asks if Marco is diabetic from the discoloration of his skin in his neck but they know he is from his chart; then he mentioned neuropathy so Marco takes off his boots and Shaun says he was wrong, this case is not boring as his foot is cut right open and there are maggots all over his feet.
Morgan and Alex are in the hospital kitchen, offering to help make things up to her by helping with the jar of pickles. He feels he should have told her privately that she was wrong and that this surgery was a bad idea; but she disagrees as his life still has value. He feels they should let Harvey stay happy for whatever time he has left. Lim tracks down Nurse Petringa, reminding her that if she gets the additional staff they will lose hours and the overtime, the problem isn’t the staff, its the crap work. She purchases things that will make the brunt work easier, and the nurses are happier.
Morgan sits with Ruby, who explains her sister went through chemo and radiation, which beat the crap out of her. Morgan wants her to know what Harvey would feel like, not knowing what is happening to him. Learning every day that he has cancer and his body is breaking down, his life is going to end and there is nothing they can do in the end. She admits they have been together for 45 years and she has never lied to him. He is the same man she has always loved, he hasn’t changed and what she owes him hasn’t changed.
Suzanne hasn’t changed, but Shaun wants to know what they are waiting for as they need to make a choice wanting to know what they want to know. Suzanne feels her new husband should be debating about finding someone else to fall in love with. He feels this is so much easier on him than her. She feels whatever is going to happen to her will happen but he has a choice. He reminds her it is “in sickness and in health” the commitment he made that very morning. He kisses her hand and Suzanne heads into surgery; a whole team working on clearing the cancer from all her organs.
Shaun is able to relocate the woman’s shoulder in the restaurant as him and Carly leave the restaurant. Claire wants to know how the date was a disaster, if he caught the wine, fixed the woman’s shoulder and Carly chuckled at his joke? Shaun notices something about Suzanne’s small intestines and Melendez tells Claire to check it.
Lim, in the meanwhile, returns to Andrews’ home saying she wants to do him a favor and return to Saint Bona Venture as an attending to replace her. She feels it is something he needs, but he tells her not to con a conman. She rings the doorbell, but she tells him his greatest strength and weakness was his stubbornness and he better not let it be his weakness today.
Harvey complains his left side hurts and Morgan explains that he had a biopsy done there, everyone remains quiet so he questions Ruby; saying he cannot die. Ruby tells him they didn’t find stones and everything is okay as he has to take care of her. She tells him they are going home tonight; Alex and Morgan exchange looks as the couple hug each other.
Shaun walks Carly home, telling him she had a nice time. She leans in and kisses him on the lips before walking up her stairs. Melendez, Morgan, Alex and everyone want to know where the disaster was. Shaun says it was exhausting and everything was always out of control; there was too much to remember to do and not do and none of it made sense. It was hard, uncomfortable and spent the whole evening doing unnatural things to make her happy and he has no idea if she was happy. All Shaun knows is he wasn’t happy. “It was all a disaster!”
Lim walks in the room and tells them to meet their new attending as Marcus Andrews walks in behind her. Allegra comes to the clinic where Aaron is working, confronting him on hating working there. She wants him to come back to the hospital clinic and be the President, his only question is whether he has to wear a tie.
Claire comes to see Suzanne, confirming the surgery went very well and confident they got all of the cancer. There were complications, and she has a bag that will forever outside her body which she will have to use to go to the bathroom; her husband says they can teach both of them. Ruby is walking with Harvey as he is being wheeled out of the hospital. Claire tells Shaun that this is why they date; every date is a disaster. Every relationship is out of control, but if you stick with it, you wind up with someone who will help you when you need any help and love you when you don’t feel lovable and be with you no matter what. Shaun says it is not worth it. Claire answers when her mom calls and Alex leaves to pick up his son at the airport. Morgan goes to see her grandpa as Shaun stands outside the lab and watches Carly, but leaves before she can see him.
THE END!