The Good Doctor Season 6 Episode 22 Review: Love’s Labor

Welcome, baby Shaun Aaron Murphy!

There has been so much tragedy and sadness that some fans worried there’d be a last-minute pregnancy complication, but thankfully that didn’t happen.

The Good Doctor Season 6 Episode 22 didn’t focus much on Lea’s labor. Instead, Shaun left to help Asher with emergency surgery and returned just in time for the long-awaited birth.

By the hour’s end, the Peanut had a name, Shaun and Lea were happy new parents, and Glassman sent a gift that doubled as an olive branch. Plus, no major characters died after a serious car accident. Thank goodness!

I was pleasantly surprised that Perez left St. Bonaventure to recover rather than in a body bag. Since the news broke before the episode aired that Brandon Larracuente had lined up a new series and was leaving The Good Doctor, it seemed logical that Perez would die.

Instead, Jordan dealt with an ethical dilemma for a few scenes but ultimately saved Perez’s life.

I liked the conflict over whether to give Perez opioids if it was the only way to save his life. But were the only two choices fentanyl or death?

Opioid addiction is so common that you’d think doctors would have an alternate protocol in cases where patients need opioids not only for pain management but to bring down blood pressure and heart rate.

Otherwise, patients at risk of addiction are left with no choice but to risk it if they want to survive, and that seems like a recipe for disaster. t the very least, aftercare in such cases should include managing potential relapses of substance use disorder.

Jordan: Where’s Perez?
Jerome: Kalu is bringing him in.
Jordan: So he’s the least critical?
Jerome: He’s… they’ll be here soon.

Jordan made the right call since it saved Perez’s life, but still. There has to be a better way to handle this issue than that.

Since 95% of Perez’s storyline revolved around whether he’d risk going out with Jordan even though extra stress can interfere with sobriety, I can’t say I’m sorry he’s going. His story ended as well as it possibly could.

Dr. Andrews’ decision to resign was more surprising.

Hill Harper has been considering a Senate run, leading to speculation that he’d leave The Good Doctor. But there has not been any confirmation since the story broke in March, so his departure wasn’t even on my radar.

While Andrews’ decision to end the conflict by resigning makes sense, was the board’s threat to remove him legal?

The hospital board has been trying to stop the nurses from unionizing.

According to National Nurses United, it’s illegal for hospitals to stop nurses from talking to those in other units about unionizing. Nor is it legal to hire permanent replacements to interfere with strikes; it follows that the hospital board’s threat to remove Andrews if he isn’t sufficiently anti-union also violates the law.

Could we be gearing up for a major showdown when The Good Doctor Season 7 begins? If The Good Lawyer becomes a thing, the nurses might hire lawyers from that firm, leading to a crossover episode.

While Andrews decided to resign, Park convinced Morgan not to do the same despite her fear she couldn’t focus entirely on both her career and her new baby.

Morgan’s never been my favorite character, but motherhood has softened her considerably.

I can’t do my job as well as I want and take care of Eden the way I need. I’ve made the mistake of putting my career ahead of the people I love before. I’m not doing it again.

Morgan

She was still Morgan. She looked down on the nannies who declined to watch Eden, micromanaged the nurse holding her, and didn’t think about co-parenting with Park or anyone else instead of trying to do everything herself.

But she wasn’t condescending to anyone’s face and seriously considered resigning to take care of Eden’s needs adequately. And best of all, she and Park had several mature, adult conversations that didn’t involve the obnoxious sniping that usually passes for banter with these two.

Park learned from his elderly patient to stop wasting time and tell Morgan how he felt, and she graciously accepted. Well, as graciously as you can expect from Morgan. But at least it was funny when she told Park to change Eden’s diaper!

Morgan’s no longer the only mother at St. Bonaventure, either. I can’t wait to find out how Shaun and Lea will handle the day-to-day of parenting their son.

It seemed strange that Lea encouraged Shaun to go to work during the early stages of her labor, but storywise it made sense.

Shaun would have hovered endlessly and driven Lea nuts. He constantly told her to stay in bed and didn’t understand her need for lucky socks. Lea didn’t need that stress!

Lea: Oh my God. Either my water just broke or I just peed all over your office.
Glassman: Either way, it’s a first.

Besides, that allowed her to try to talk some sense into Glassman.

The Glassman story continued to be the one weak point in the hour. It makes little sense that Glassman is entirely capable of consulting on complex cases and quoting obscure studies to Lim but unable to operate because of severe memory issues.

Maybe next season, everyone will wake up and realize the problem was never his memory — it was Shaun’s insistence that Glassman couldn’t do surgery anymore.

Glassman spent most of the hour insisting he couldn’t be there for the birth because Shaun humiliated him. He and Lim switched places —  now she was being reasonable, and he was being stubborn over an imagined slight.

Hopefully, the blanket he opted to leave with a nurse is the beginning of the end of this rift, and he will accept his Grandpa hat soon.

The baby is named partially after him, so he’d better come around!

Many fans expected the Peanut’s actual name to be Steven Aaron, after Steve and Glassman, and they were right.

What did you think, Good Doctor fanatics?

Hit the big, blue SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know!

The series will return for Season 7 sometime in September 2023; in the meantime, you can watch The Good Doctor online all summer.

The Good Doctor airs on ABC on Mondays at 10 PM EST / PST.

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Jack Ori is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. His debut young adult novel, Reinventing Hannah, is available on Amazon. Follow him on Twitter.

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