Warning: spoilers ahead for Episode 4 of The Good Doctor Season 4, called "Not the Same."
The Good Doctor continued its streak of post-coronavirus stories with "Not the Same," which featured Shaun talking Lea into the inevitability of her moving back in with him, the new residents settling into St. Bonaventure, and Morgan making messes for her former fellow surgeons. The episode delivered some medical miracles and deepened some relationships, but I'm left with the pervading sense that The Good Doctor needs to figure out something to do with Morgan after what she got up to this week.
Morgan's life changed drastically from the end of Season 3 to the early episodes of Season 4, as her decision to jump back into treating patients in the Season 3 finale too soon after surgery on her hands left her unable to return to her position as a surgical resident. Her hands weren't so damaged that she had to leave medicine altogether, however, and she switched to become an internist.
This allowed Morgan to stay at St. Bonaventure (and kept actress Fiona Gubelmann as part of the cast) and build a career that doesn't involve surgery. A lot now depends on her ongoing Season 4 arc, and I'm already hoping that it doesn't keep her on the same path as "Not the Same."
Although Morgan has always been super competitive and generally abrasive, she went overboard in "Not the Same" in my book, and not in a fun way. A petty revenge or two on Claire for Claire pulling rank last week were all well and good, since it would actually be somewhat out of character if Morgan just learned from her experience without clapping back.
My issue here is that Morgan was genuinely wasting valuable time for more than one person in "Not the Same," and her explicit desire to humiliate her coworkers made her seem childish, which especially didn't work considering the seriousness of the cases this week. Morgan's character has developed past lashing out for the sake of lashing out once she made her point, and I'm less interested in her Season 4 journey if she's going to come across as mean-spirited on weekly basis.
Morgan arguably had one of the most interesting stories as of the end of Season 3 and beginning of Season 4, starting with her decision to sacrifice her dexterity to save lives and then dealing with her own exposure to COVID-19, which proved to be deadly for another person at St. Bonaventure. I just want her to take her job and her coworkers' jobs seriously, especially when there is so much potential in the stories of the new residents just waiting to be explored if given the kind of screen time that Morgan is currently getting.
Admittedly, part of my problem with Morgan is that she's kicking others when they're down, and Morgan doesn't exactly have the benefit of watching The Good Doctor to see what's happening in the private lives of Park, Claire, and the rest, and she did at least ask Park what was wrong in "Not the Same." Of course, she was only asking because humiliating him wouldn't be fun for her if there was something seriously wrong, so she still has a bit of an uphill climb.
That said, she did open up her home to Park, who is apparently moving in with her and taking advantage of her rent-controlled apartment with two master suites. Maybe The Good Doctor will spend some time showing more of who Morgan is when she's not in her scrubs and lab coat, and that will fill in some blanks and soften her pettiness in life-and-death situations.
Or, if I'm lucky, this was a one-off and Morgan will be back to her abrasive but not counterproductive self moving forward. She was fully invested in the case of the pregnant mother who needed to deliver just one of her twins; it was just in the in-between scenes that Morgan wasn't the easiest to root for in "Not the Same."
Catch new episodes of The Good Doctor on Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on ABC to close out the 2020 fall TV season. For what you can watch in the new year, be sure to check out our 2021 winter and spring premiere schedule.
