Moonshot

## Episode Chronology

**"Moonshot"** is the eighth episode of Season 3 of *The Good Doctor*. It is the forty-fourth episode overall, and aired on November 18, 2019.

## Synopsis

Carly's attempts at increasing her intimacy with Shaun are becoming more of a frustration than either of them expected. Meanwhile, Lim and Melendez struggle in their relationship as they work to separate their work from their personal life.

## Plot

Shaun and Carly's amusement park date culminates at her place. They eventually make their way up to her bedroom, where she begins to unbutton his shirt. Carly asks if he's ready to lie down with her because she's ready. She reveals to Shaun that she's done everything to make sure that he'll be comfortable. Such as going out out of her way to have six-hundred thread count sheets, a memory foam pillow and an incandescent light bulb, all to his liking. He turns on her lamp to test the brightness, and his face lights up. He says he's ready. That is until he sees Carly on her bed. It becomes too overwhelming for him, so he picks up his shirt and leaves.

The following morning, Shaun goes to drop off labs in pathology, where Carly confronts him about what happened. She tells him that he has nothing to be embarrassed about, but he’s not embarrassed. "I want to have sex with you," he tells her. "I think about it very often, even when I'm supposed to focus on more pressing matters." And she wants it to happen, too, so she's done her research. There's a process known as exposure therapy; psychologists use it to treat phobias, but it also works with people with autism. "If you're game, we can try it tonight," she says. "I'm game," Shaun replies. Later that night, they reconvene at her place, and she tells Shaun exactly how exposure therapy will work. They'll lie down on the bed, side by side, fully clothed and not touching for 15 seconds. When the timer goes off, he'll go into the other room for a three-minute break, then they'll go again for 20 seconds. Over time, they'll progress to longer intervals and inch closer to each other. She gets on the bed and tells Shaun to join her when he feels ready. She starts the timer and stares directly into his eyes, but it's still too much for him to handle. Carly follows him downstairs and asks him to explain what he's feeling, but he can't quite put it into words. All he knows is that this isn't going to work. In response, a teary-eyed Carly expresses her frustration. "I got the sheets… the pillow… the damn lightbulb!" she exclaims. "read 18 psych journals, and you give up after eight seconds? You're right. This isn't going to work." She hands him his jacket and tells him to go.

The next day at San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital, Park asks Shaun how things are going with Carly. Shaun tells his colleague that he lasted eight seconds before his girlfriend kicked him out. When Shaun clarifies that he and Carly tried exposure therapy and it failed, Park tells Shaun to consider something else. He instead suggests that Shaun should treat intimacy like a surgical problem and do his research. He goes onto tell Shaun that Carly may have came up with a solution that didn't work, but that doesn’t mean that the next one won't.

In addition, Andrews, Park and Shaun tend to Dr. Rosalind Elion, an esteemed researcher whose findings have expanded the medical world's understanding of how to best treat leukemia patients. She is admitted to St. Bonaventure with chest pain and ultimately goes into heart failure. When Park and Shaun go to talk to her about signing a DNR, she recalls going through a similar ordeal with her mother. At the time, she was just a scared and helpless 10-year-old girl. Park encourages Rosalind to reach out to her ex-husband Leo so she's not alone when she dies, but she says it's too late for those kind of sentimentalities now. She chose her work over her marriage, and to call him now, when she needs him most, would be hypocritical of her. Park disagrees, and explains how he recently reconnected with Mia.

Later, while on E.R. duty, Shaun tells Park that he respects the decision that Rosalind made to prioritize work over her marriage. Going as far as to say that, "Dr. Elion has had a very successful life without a relationship". Park argues that success and happiness are not the same thing, and that Shaun needs to decide what will make him happy in the end. He doesn’t have to choose between being a great surgeon and being close to Carly. Dr. Park goes as far as to say how he think that deep down, Dr. Elion is afraid. Always has been afraid; afraid that she might lose Leo just like she lost her mother.

Alex then bring up how Shaun lost the person Shaun loved the most when his brother died. He tells Shaun that his elevated heart rate and sweaty palms are not about his sensory issues. What he's feeling when he thinks about being intimate with Carly is what we everyone feels, which is fear. Shaun asks Alex, "Why would anyone want to feel afraid?" to which Alex replies that it's "Because the thought of ending up alone is scarier". Alex surmises that he doesn't think Dr. Elion refuses to call Leo because it's hypocritical. Instead, he thinks she's afraid he won’t come. And so, Park heads down to Leo's construction site and does his best to convince Rosalind's ex to visit her before she dies. Leo says that he isn't willing to put himself through that, but he eventually shows up in the nick of time. He sits with Rosalind in her hospital bed until her dying breath, while Shaun and Park look on. Shaun offers to pronounce her, but Park says he'll do it. He walks into the patient’s room and Leo stops him. "Thank you," he says, before leaving.

After his shift, Shaun returns to Carly's house. He says he did extensive further research on intimacy treatment for autism, and exposure therapy is the most effective option. He tells her he’d like to try again. They eventually end up in bed together, only this time they're not facing each other. The timer goes off and Carly tells Shaun that it's time to take a break. He says that he knows, but he doesn’t make any more effort to get up. He tells Carly that, "this is terrifying… and very nice". The two lovebirds touch wrists, just like they did at Glassman's wedding to Debbie Wexler.

Meanwhile, Dr. Andrews hands Morgan "the holy grail of resident surgeries": a carotid endarterectomy. She heads to the surgical skills room to practice for her first lead procedure, and her right hand starts to tremble. She takes off her gloves and removes an unknown prescription from her coat. She downs a few mysterious pills, but she eventually goes to Andrews and says that she needs a different first surgery. She cites that she is being set up to fail, but Dr. Andrews refuses to let her off the case, going as far as to say that, "it's rare that a resident has what you have: the aggressiveness, the work ethic and the talent to be a leader". He admits that he isn't setting her up to fail; instead, he is setting her up to shine.

On the day of the surgery, Morgan schedules an appointment with Dr. Glassman. She told his clinic that she needed a vaccination, but it's a lie. She confides in him that she recently saw a rheumatologist and found out that she has rheumatoid arthritis, the worst possible diagnosis for an up-and-coming surgeon. Her mother had it, too, and it destroyed her wrist and finger joints. Glassman does a scan and confirms that there's not yet any noticeable erosion. Be that as it may, Morgan will have to postpone her surgery and see how she responds to the medication her rheumatologist recently gave her. What’s more, she needs to confront Drs. Lim and Dr. Andrews.

Morgan is determined to keep her diagnosis a secret for now, much to Dr. Glassman’s chagrin. If she tells Lim and Andrews, "they'll expect less of me," she says. "They’ll be looking for me to fail. That's why I'm confiding in you instead of them. She brings up how Dr. Glassman advocated for Shaun when everybody else thought he couldn't be surgeon.
She pauses and assures the president that she's not comparing her arthritis to Shaun's autism; rather, she's comparing people's preconceived notions. Morgan says that in the end, all she's asking for a chance to prove herself. But that right now, it's a matter of pain, not function. And so, Glassman obliged her request for cortisone shots and allows her to proceed with the endarterectomy. He watches from the observation deck, and for a moment Morgan hesitates, mid-procedure. She manages to forge ahead.

At the end of the night, Glassman approaches Morgan on her way out. She says that her pain is 90 percent better and the shots helped. He shakes her hand to congratulate her, then checks her joints. She tells him that she feels fine, but she appears to be lying. When she returns home, she puts her hands in a huge bowl of ice and seem to be in some agony in the wake of the surgery.

Meanwhile, Melendez and Lim, get into a very public argument at the nurses station over a high-risk procedure to remove a tumor from an aspiring astronaut's lung. Dr. Glassman takes notice and calls them into his office. During the brief meeting, Melendez asks Glassman to look over the case, but he refuses. His chief of surgery is confident that the surgery will be a success, and that's all he needs to know. He does however, bring up that if his chief and top surgeon can't control their interpersonal quarrels, he'll be forced to fire one or both of them.

Afterwards, Lim and Melendez converse privately. Audrey says she wants their relationship to work, but she wants to be chief too. She goes onto say that if he can't find a way to work together with her as his boss, then something has to change. She even considers leaving St. Bonaventure and applying for a chief position at another hospital. Rather than let it get to that, Neil proves to his girlfriend that things can change by scrubbing in to assist her and Claire on surgery. Together, they manage to remove the patient's tumor and save her lung.

Later that night though, Audrey hops on her bike and heads over to Neil's home. She tells him that he was right all along, and that she's not objective when it comes to him. She blew off his concerns about the surgery, and they can't know for sure that it won't happen again. She confesses that she doesn't think that she can give Neil the unconditional support he deserves from a partner, and the objectivity he needs from a chief. As a result, she breaks up with him because she doesn't want to give up on her dream. Even if she loves him; in the end it's not enough.

## Cast

* Nicholas Gonzalez as Dr. Neil Melendez
* Antonia Thomas as Dr. Claire Browne
* Fiona Gubelmann as Dr. Morgan Reznick
* Will Yun Lee as Dr. Alex Park
* Christina Chang as Dr. Audrey Lim
* Paige Spara as Lea Dilallo
* Jasika Nicole as Dr. Carly Lever
* Hill Harper as Dr. Marcus Andrews
* Richard Schiff as Dr. Aaron Glassman
* Elfina Luk as Nurse Dalisay Villanueva
* Paul McGillion as Leo Adan
* Kathleen Duborg as Rosalind Elion
* Donna Benedicto as Wren Braxton

## Trivia

* Park reveals that he flies out to Phoenix every other weekend to be with Mia and Kellan.
* Dr. Morgan Reznick is revealed to have recently been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis which destroyed her mother's wrists and hands.
	+ Though Morgan claims to only be experiencing pain and not nerve damage, its hinted that she may be suffering nerve damage that she is unwilling to admit to or recognize.

## Multimedia

### Videos

The Good Doctor 3x08 Promo "Moonshot" (HD)
## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 http://www.thefutoncritic.com/showatch/good-doctor/listings/
2. ↑ https://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/daily-ratings/monday-final-ratings-november-18-2019/
3. ↑ http://www.thefutoncritic.com/listings/20191106abc01/