Spoiler alert! This story discusses Doctor Odyssey’s March 6 episode, “Shark Attack!” It’s available to stream with a Hulu subscription if you’re not caught up.
Doctor Odyssey has set sail on the 2025 TV schedule, and things were uncertain as ever between Max, Avery and Tristan when we reunited with the cruise ship’s medical staff on “Shark Attack!” Surprisingly, though, they weren’t the only ones performing surgeries after a trio of the titular events, with Adrianne Palicki guest-starring as trauma surgeon Brooke Lane. Sparks flew immediately between Brooke and Max — much to Avery’s displeasure — and Joshua Jackson discussed what it all means as Avery continues to process her pregnancy.
Joshua Jackson has been channeling his inner Pacey, with Max getting involved in a throuple of sorts with Avery (Phillipa Soo) and Tristan (Sean Teale). Well, “throuple” might be too formal of a word, but they’re definitely something after their threesome led to Avery becoming pregnant with no way to know which one is the father. Further complicating the matter was Brooke, who followed a double-amputation surgery by straight-up asking Max to have sex with her. Avery interrupted them (of course), and Jackson talked to Collider about the tricky situation, saying:
We’re not big on boundaries, personal or professional. We don’t do that here. [Adrianne Palicki’s] character, Brooke, provides a second voice inside the medical arena on the professional side. Max has been the voice of authority and, even though there’s a lot of interplay between the whole medical staff, he is ultimately the doctor. And then, somebody who is not just a doctor, but also has a subject matter expertise, suddenly steps into this place, and he finds himself in a place where he is being checked.
So Max is threatened by a doctor more qualified than him in this shark-related arena, and Avery — who called him out for “surgery flirting with hot shark doctor” — doesn’t like that Brooke obviously wants to take a bite out of the possible father to her child.
By the way, “surgery flirting with hot shark doctor” was my favorite phrase of the episode, and I hope we can all find more occasions to use it.
As for Brooke, Joshua Jackson continued:
And then, on the personal side, more so as a foil for Avery, just having the presence of this seemingly more co-equal person to Max on the boat, all of a sudden, is confronting to her, as she’s trying to parse through everything that’s going on in the relationship dynamics and the pregnancy and her own personal hopes, wishes and dreams. You drop this character who, unbeknownst to herself, is a little atomic bomb, into the dynamic of the cast.
I’m not sure how long Brooke the Little Atomic Bomb will be a complication in the Max-Avery-Tristan triangle, with one more week of shark business before Angela Bassett boards the ship for the big 9-1-1 crossover. Any way you slice it, though, everything changed for the Odyssey’s medical staff when they learned about Avery’s pregnancy, Joshua Jackson said:
No matter what happens from here, you can’t really unring the bell. So, no matter where the story takes us, the basic fact is that the dynamic of this three-pointed relationship has changed forevermore.
The whole situation was already so wild, I sure wasn’t expecting another woman — Adrianne Palicki at that! — showing up as a romantic threat to Avery so soon. More savagery is on the docket for next week’s episode, but will the sharks be the only thing biting? Tune in at 9 p.m. ET Thursday, March 13, on ABC to find out.
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