Let's talk about the elephant in the room.

The Good Doctor Season 4 Episode 11 spent an inordinate amount of time on a disappointingly silly Lea story... only for her to announce her craziness was due to her being pregnant.

This storyline will likely shape the rest of the season. But is it worthwhile?

Unplanned pregnancies are a ~~soap opera~~ primetime drama trope, and if done right, they can be compelling.

I'd rather Lea not be pregnant, though.

I don't like her and Shaun together, and this latest ridiculous stunt didn't endear me to them one bit.

Jordan: If your partner is doing something that makes you feel uncomfortable, you need to shut it down. Do not enable crazy.
Shaun: Lea isn't crazy.
Jordan: We're all a little crazy sometimes.

Permalink: We're all a little crazy sometimes.

If we had to have Lea dealing with a surprise pregnancy, I'd rather have had a realistic story about her struggling to come to terms with it. Maybe she could have confided in another woman at the hospital and not been ready to tell Shaun.

That would have stirred up a ton of drama, especially if Shaun had a feeling that Lea wasn't telling him something and no one would talk about it.

But instead, we had a ridiculous storyline that I suspect was meant to be more comic relief than anything else.

Shaun was right that Lea's obsession with the tow truck driver bordered on insanity. At the very least, she had an unhealthy obsession with this.

I wish The Good Doctor would have acknowledged International Women's Day instead of going for the stereotype of pregnancy making someone do over-the-top things, too. But I'll give them a pass as the story may have been meant to air earlier than it did.

In any case, Lea threatening the tow truck driver with bad reviews while he demanded a bunch of made-up fees seemed more like a commercial for Capital One than a legitimate storyline.

This silliness ate up a ton of screen time that could have been used for something better, too.

Not that we didn't need some comic relief after the heavy resurrected-woman-dies-again storyline.

The whole Dani/Elias situation was heartbreaking to begin with. Even if Dani had woken up permanently, she still lost ten years of her life, and it might have taken a lot of time, patience, and therapy for her and Elias to reconnect the way he wanted her to.

What were you doing ten years ago? That's how long it's been since her aneurysm ruptured and Elias has been waiting for her to open her eyes and say 'hi honey I slept in.'
Morgan

Permalink: What were you doing ten years ago? That's how long it's been since her aneurysm ruptured and...

But for it to turn out that she was going to relapse into a coma again after less than a day in the world of the living was just cruel.

I didn't blame Elias for not believing that this was really the end. His prayers seemed to have been answered after 10 long years of waiting and watching, only for the rug to be pulled out from under him again.

If a miracle had happened once, why not a second time?

For once, Morgan did the right thing, too. The old Morgan would have imposed her opinion on Elias and done nothing but alienated him. Instead, she spoke with Dani and made it clear what her concerns were.

Elias was upset that Morgan had given Dani the DNR form, but it was really in everyone's best interest.

And if Dani had wanted to stay on life support indefinitely, she wouldn't have signed the form.

Meanwhile, Glassman finally set foot in an OR again.

Andrews' assessment of Glassman's psychology was interesting, though I had to agree with Glassman that it came out of nowhere.

Andrews: You know, I've been trying to figure out why you're doing this.
Glassman: I don't know. Change a kid's life, something like that.
Andrews: I think you must be afraid.
Glassman: Excuse me?
Andrews: Ever since your cancer diagnosis, you've been impulsive. You quit surgery to open a clinic, married my favorite barista after a few dates, and I bet none of it made you happy.
Glassman: We barely speak outside of board meetings, and now you think you can see into my soul?

Permalink: We barely speak outside of board meetings, and now you think you can see into my soul?

It didn't seem to be Andrews' place to question Glassman's motives for doing the surgery. The kid wanted the surgery, and Glassman was willing to do it. That was all Andrews needed to know.

It seems like now that Andrews' niece is gone, he's turning his spotlight onto Glassman instead. It was annoying, though at least Andrews did admit he was impressed in the end.

Glassman made a big deal about choosing the perfect team of residents, but there was no payoff, really.

He chose some residents, they accompanied him to the OR, and then he figured out what to do when the original plan for surgery didn't work out.

I'd have preferred more interactions between Glassman and his surgical team, and some mixed emotions about being chosen wouldn't have been remiss, either.

Asher struggled to reject the kosher laws, but how about having some insecurities about working with Glassman or some doubts about whether the surgery was the right thing to do?

The only interactions in the OR were over Shaun's concerns about Lea. I'd think that getting to work with a legendary surgeon like Glassman, who also happens to be the head of the hospital, would be HUGE for first-year residents, and they'd have all sorts of feelings about it.

Also, there was virtually no carryover from The Good Doctor Season $ Episode 10.

Lea had issues with Glassman's sexism but was too busy trying to get revenge on a tow-truck driver to be concerned about anything he was doing. You'd think Shaun would have told her, and she would have had some reaction!

And she went from a strong woman who wanted to be taken seriously to a flighty one who was determined to get the better of a low-life driver who kept charging her exorbitant amounts of money for no reason.

Talk about disappointing!