Fixation

## Episode Chronology

"*I used men to make me feel better. Most of them didn’t mind. But… I… Don’t trust myself not to hurt someone I care about.*"
—Claire to Neil on being scared to really love someone

**"Fixation"** is the seventeenth episode of Season 3 of *The Good Doctor*. It is the fifty-third episode overall, and aired on March 2, 2020.

## Synopsis

A patient with a mysterious and undiagnosed illness that has baffled other doctors for years forces Dr. Shaun Murphy and the team to take some big risks. Meanwhile, Dr. Claire Browne and Dr. Neil Melendez continue to cautiously navigate their feelings for each other as colleagues and friends.

## Plot

Shaun is consumed by his rejection from Lea, but doesn’t appear to be ready to admit to himself or anyone else that he has been spurned. In typical fashion, he asks Dr. Melendez how he “made” Dr. Lim love him. The surgeon spells out that love cannot be forced and tries to steer the conversation back to the matter of their patient, Alice instead. The aforementioned female patient is so consumed in pain and weakness that she cannot stand, walk, or hold her young daughter. Her husband seems to think that it’s as a result of her psychosomatic symptoms, with her latest diagnosis all but confirming it.

Meanwhile, Shaun declares that talking about his relationships helps him to focus on medicine. As the team is talking, Dr. Park’s son comes in, looking for his dad. Dr. Murphy rudely tells them that they are talking about something “important”. So Dr. Melendez cautions Shaun on his rudeness and tells Kellen that his father is in surgery, and it will be a few hours until he is free. Dr. Murphy gets an idea to help Alice, but his first intuitions are not correct. After a risky test involving pressure on the brain and spinal involvement, Alice’s husband pleads with his wife not to stay in San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital.

“There's good in the life we have,” he implores and insists that their daughter needs a mother at home, even one holding her in bed, instead of one in a hospital. Alice agrees to be discharged, but on their way out of the hospital, Shaun proposes a way to drain an adrenal gland without removing it completely. Dr. Murphy discovered that the gland itself was behaving like a tumor, and the first-ever operation will allow her to function normally if successful.

She and her family agree, and she is able to stand and walk, and hold little Ruby all on her own.

Later, Shaun gets counsel from his colleagues that a partner should be accepted, faults and all.

They tell him that love is about accepting the things he likes and those he doesn't like in his partner. He immediately texts Lea.

Lea is none too thrilled to rush to Shaun’s apartment on her lunch hour for a “time-sensitive” issue, only to find that Shaun just wanted to show off that “the pinto beans are next to the tomatoes and that the rest of his canned goods are not in alphabetical order.” He also wants to prove his concession in turning the toilet paper roll so that it is closest to the wall. Just like she prefers, and seems to feel as though he is more than meeting her halfway, from his vantage point.

Unfortunately for Lea, these measures fail to impress. She lets him know that this is “not enough” to prove they can be a couple and subsequently leaves, quite perturbed.

Dr. Park and several of the staff at the hospital are involved in the rescue of Wes Keller from a heavily forested area. Keller happens to be a youth leader who tries to turn a group of young men away from life on the streets. He understands them better than anybody else because he lived the same life. He was leading an outdoor adventure when he was seriously injured and had to be airlifted to the hospital. No matter the consult or the time of day, Wes Keller’s band of devoted “hoodlums” are parked outside his door or in his room. He has to shoo them away several times to get private information on his health.

Keller's devotion, like that of his youth, knows no bounds, but his body is failing. During a heart procedure, a fistula weakens the muscle. Signs of renal (kidney) failure soon follow, and the team tells him that he must have a kidney transplant. Family donors are not much of a possibility, because Wes was in jail on and off for many years, along with doing drugs. His commitment to his changed life and his courage in sharing it doesn't reap the thing he needs most—time.

Each member of Keller’s youth group gets tested as a potential match. Only one, Max is declared a match. He implores to Dr. Lim and the medical team to approve him as a donor. He presents powerful evidence of all the times that Wes cleaned up his blood after fights, attended the funeral of the young man's sister alongside him, and simply was “there” as the only person who cared.

Even though Max is emancipated, Dr. Lim delivers the decision that he cannot be the donor. She also informs Wes of this, who says “it's the right call.” In the evening, Lim listens in on Keller giving a lesson about the North Star to the group. Max demands everyone's full attention. Keller directs that “this will get you home, no matter where you are.” Max breaks down with Dr. Lim in the chapel.

It turns out that Kellan Park was also caught with one of Wes’ boys—vaping THC on hospital property. After containing his initial dad's response of “you're not that stupid,” Park witnesses his son having a panic attack, and realizes the root of the problem.

Long-distance parenting is virtually impossible, even with the best of intentions. He makes a pledge to be a more present parent to Kellan, and this time, it will stick.

Elsewhere, Claire is torn about accepting a date from the widower of a deceased patient, but with prompting from Dr. Melendez, who notes that “you lit up” in his presence, she accepts.

She tries to prepare a recipe from the woman they both cherished, and the result was none too tasty, but the night still ended in laughter.

Dr. Murphy also had a date in mind, but the result for him was far less fruitful.

“I think we should go on a date--a real date,” Shaun says to Lea at the end of their respective shifts.

“I can fix this,” Shaun further insists, “you need to let me try.”

“You’re autistic. You can’t fix that,” she returns. “I am who I am, and you are who you are, and the two of us will never work.” Lea further states. Which leads Shaun to turn and walks away, after even his best effort is also refused. The woman who taught Dr. Murphy date etiquette, karaoke, and “tequila STAT” seems to have lost all tolerance.

Back at his apartment, Shaun turns the toilet paper away from the wall again and puts it the way he likes it again.

## 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
* Harold Perrineau as Wes Keller
* Ever Carradine as Alice Gottfried
* John Patrick Amedori as Dash Snyder
* David Cubitt as Owen Gottfried
* Luke Slattery as Max Reed

Co-Starring* Aman Mann as Victor
* Alix West Lefler as Ruby
* Tina Grant as EMT #1
* Nick Hunnings as EMT #2

## Trivia

* Its revealed that Kay, Claire's old friend and college roommate from "Hubert," has since died of her cancer. However, the treatment she was given succeeded in extending her life by six more months.
* Freddie Highmore (Shaun Murphy) was reunited with his *Bates Motel* co-star David Cubitt. David portrayed the role of Sam Bates, Norman Bates' father.

## Multimedia

### Videos

The Good Doctor 3x17 Promo "Fixation" (HD)Claire and Neil Discuss Claire's Love Life - The Good DoctorThe Team Hears a Young Man's Plea to Help His Friend - The Good DoctorLea Tells Shaun that Dating Him Would Never Work - The Good Doctor
## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 http://www.thefutoncritic.com/showatch/good-doctor/listings/
2. ↑ http://www.thefutoncritic.com/listings/20200221abc02/