'The Good Doctor' Season 4 Episode 1 Preview: Which 'unpredictable illness' Shaun tackles in the premiere?
Offering some relief in this year that has been consumed by the pandemic is our diligent Dr Murphy, as the fall television slate brings him back to our screens. Shaun Murphy, the prodigy, brings back his sorcerer-level expertise in spotting the trouble with his patients in what looks like yet another tantalizing run of the four-year-long show. But with an episode titled 'Frontline Part 1', and the synopsis teasing an unpredictable illness, will we see Shaun battle some of America's earliest cases of Covid-19?
The official synopsis of the Season 4 premiere sees "Dr Murphy treat a patient who has an illness that is not only unpredictable in nature, but also unlike anything he or the team has seen before." ABC also adds: "Dr Claire Brown continues to work through her grief, still reeling from Dr. Neil Melendez's death", but our curiosity is piqued by the first half of the sentence. An illness unlike any other was first spotted in the final stages of 2019, and the next thing we know, we have spent eight months in self-quarantine. But things are not that black and white in Shaun's world, of course. Just because there's a pandemic no one was prepared for, doesn't mean other unpredictable diseases won't be taking center stage.
The answer, if one were to go purely on the basis of the first teaser dropped by ABC for the upcoming Season 4, is no. Shaun can be seen treating a sleeping patient, Martin, whose partner is tuned into his FaceTime on the little desk beside the hospital bed. When the woman replies her being tuned in helps Martin relax, Shaun, asks if it also helps him miss her less. Just daily Shaun-ey things. The woman answers in the affirmative and it's barely registered by Shaun as his stethoscope spots something far more poignant and worrisome in Martin's chest.
Shaun immediately wakes Martin in a frenzy; he has a heart murmur as Shaun words out his diagnosis, which in simpler terms is a bacterial abscess. The complications aren't consistent, he warns Martin, but it is very bad and needs immediate surgery. In Shaun's words, he promises to tell Martin more about this murmur on his heart valve and there we have the first crisis of Season 4.
'The Good Doctor' Season 4 premiers this Monday, November 2, at 10 pm, only on ABC.