A Gifted Man

A Gifted Man

Episode 13: In Case of Complications

By: Carlos Uribe

A Gifted Man is a show about a surgeon who sees the ghost of his ex-wife.

Spoilers Ahoy!

This week there's only one weekly patient of the episode! He's a widowed father who has gall bladder infection. This is one of the rare times when super doctor Holt doesn't get to save the patient. It's up to Dr. Kate and Dr. Zeek. It's good to see that their medical degrees aren't just for show and they can save patients. There is a sense in the feeling of the show, and even within the characters, that his life would have been better saved if Dr. Holt was the one treating him. Sadly for the patient, he had to settle for two run-of-the-mill doctors. His life still got saved. So why didn't the great Dr. Holt not save his life? There's a crazy chick who takes everyone hostage. She takes the place of what would in most weeks be the primary patient of the week.

Dr. Holt testified in a case that lets a killer go free. To be fair to the killer, he did have a tumor which caused him to set the fire that killed a little girl. Once the tumor was removed, he was cured. Since the whole purpose of our criminal system is to apparently cure, as opposed to punish people, the deranged this means that the killer is let free. The mother of the little girl who died is furious at this outcome. How dare the criminal justice system let go of a man who wasn't in control of his own actions! She was also really mad at Dr. Holt for using science and facts to convince the judge that the killer shouldn't be held accountable for his actions. She decides to take the clinic hostage and generally acts illogically and just plain stupid. There's a point where emotions stop us from acting logically and another point where the character is just a moron. She was a moron. The series never even bothered to present her in any other way.

She doesn't just stop Dr. Holt from saving the widowed father's life, but she almost doesn't let Dr. Zeek and Dr. Kate save his life. That's just how big of a moron she is. She's trying to make Dr. Holt out to be a monster for doing his job while almost stopping a couple of doctors from saving a life. If she had a problem with her brain, then I could understand. It takes a while but eventually the Doctors manage to outsmart her once they realize that using logic on her was futile. Once that happened the day was easily saved. Oh, and Anton got shot because he was at the clinic and he tried to be a hero. He almost died but Dr. Holt managed to easily save him.

A major problem with hostage episodes is that in order for them to work, then it has to feel like our heroes can actually die. There was no doubt that Dr. Holt was going to live. There was no question that Dr. Zeek and Dr. Kate were going to be just fine. There was no real threat that Anton wasn't going to get saved once he got shot. Even the patient of the week, who was being operated on while the two just average doctors were being held at gunpoint, was in no danger of actually dying. Why then should any viewer think that anyone is actually in danger from this stupid woman? There is no reason and this meant that there was no tension.

A Gifted Man completely failed tonight. It tried to present the woman as someone whom the viewer is supposed to sympathize with. She had lost her daughter. While her motives were clear and predictable, the show tried to keep it hidden for a long time for no discernible reason. She was simply too stupid for me to even care about. It had no tension, it was dull, and it keeps doing a sin. That sin is taking it's original premise and not really doing anything with it. How great would it have been if Anna had been able to warn Dr. Holt? Or if the ghost of the little dead girl had come to her mother? The series needs to embrace it's ghost world or it needs to get rid of it. Having Anna pop up in random scenes simply is doing Jennifer Ehle a major disservice.