A Gifted Man

A Gifted Man

Episode 15: In Case of Letting Go

By: Carlos Uribe

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

Spoilers Ahoy!

In this episode, we meet Lily. She's Dr. Holt's high school sweetheart who comes to Holt Neuro to invite him to come to their high school reunion. She was also recently in a car accident that hurt her knee. Dr. Holt doesn't want to go to the high school reunion but he does decide to check out Lily's head after he sees it's bruised. It turns out that her brain was really hurt in the car accident. He does some brain surgery on her head to stop her brain from having some internal bleeding but there is something else wrong with her. The part of her brain that stores her memory has gotten hurt, so she regresses into believing that she is still seventeen years old and dating Dr. Holt. She doesn't remember her current boyfriend. Dr. Holt also reveals that she isn't going to get her memories back and her condition will likely only get worse. Her boyfriend's the kind of person that at first sticks around for his girl, but once he realizes it's hopeless he leaves her. I understand that it's hard to deal with someone who you love not even remembering who you are, but he could have been a better person.

Her condition eventually does worse. Dr. Holt tries to do his best to prolong her life because they used to be sweethearts. He doesn't want to lose her and he wants to do his best to try and save her. There is no way to save her, not even for the amazing Dr. Holt. He may prolong her life but she'll be brain dead. This means she won't be able to talk, play the piano, or sit down. She won't even be dreaming, she'll simply lay there. Since that's not really living by anyone's standards, Dr. Holt realizes that he has to let Lily go. She has no family that Holt Neuro can contact and her boyfriend left her. This essentially means that when Dr. Holt decides to pull the plug, he is apparently in his every right to do so. He pulls the plug and it's supposed to be a sad moment for him. He apparently gets over her once he gets into the elevator since he starts to make out with Dr. Kate. There could be a claim made that the emotional impact of losing someone he cares about left him emotionally vulnerable, which means that his turning to Dr. Kate is an attempt to try and find solace with the loss of his sweetheart. Considering that the show has been pushing for Dr. Holt and Dr. Kate, I'd say he just gets over her quickly.

The show also has the return of E-Mo. He somehow got physically injured so he goes to Holt Neuro to ensure that he's perfectly fine. I'm not entirely sure why he went to a neurologist when the problem was with his spine, but okay. Dr. Holt just orders him to do some physical therapy and he'll be fine. The only reason this plot is important is because Dr. Holt tells E-Mo that he's been seeing his dead ex-wife. E-Mo decides that Dr. Holt is completely sane, even though he's seeing a ghost, and merely suggests that Dr. Holt listen to her. This advice will help Dr. Holt let go of Lily. It's nice to see Dr. Holt finally confide in someone that he is still seeing a ghost.

There's also another sick person in this episode. His name is Scotty. Scotty is the best friend of Dr. Zeke and just happens to be in an independent band with him. He gets injured during practice which leads Dr. Zeke to immediately worry about him. It turns out that he was completely right in worrying about his friend because it turns out that Scotty's cancer from his college days, a cancer he kept secret, has resurfaced. Dr. Zeke tries to be a doctor his friend, but Scotty only wants Dr. Zeke to be there for him as a friend. It takes a while but Dr. Zeke is eventually willing to just be Zeke. The plot was decent enough and the guy who played Scotty was fine, but it really wasn't that interesting to see. Oh, and Dr. Holt isn't just a genius doctor but also an “amazing” drummer so Dr. Holt takes over Scotty's place in the band.

This episode isn't as good as last week's episode, but it's still a bit better than the other episodes this show has been offering so far. This is the episode right before the season, and very likely series, finale but it didn't really built into the season finale. There's the Dr. Holt and Dr. Kate kiss this series has been building up ever since it introduced Dr. Kate, but that could have fit anywhere. Here's hoping the series finale will be good.