St. Denis Medical is back after a short winter break, and they’ve decided to kick off 2025 by teaching us all a lesson in kindness. Kindness is hard to come by these days. It seems like it should be an easy concept, but it isn’t always, and that’s especially in the medical community. Sometimes, being in the medical field can be a thankless job. The hours are long, the work is exhausting, and sometimes your colleagues are not so nice. I love that St. Denis Medical Season 1 episode 7 “50cc’s of Kindness,” shined a light on this.
Serena’s kindness is tested when she tries to help Bruce overcome his fear of needles so that he can donate blood. Meanwhile, Alex and Matt try to convince Ron that they can get two prison inmates who have been brought in after an altercation to get along and become friends. What’s nice about St. Denis Medical is how they shake up the pairings in every episode. That creates a lot of diversity in the personalities and the way that they have to work with each other. It also adds a different level of comedy to see how the actors play off one another.
Missed the last episode of St. Denis Medical? Check out our review for Season 1, episode 6, ‘Ho-Ho-Hollo’.
Serena didn’t have to help Bruce, especially considering what an arrogant jerk he was to her. Personally, I’ve dealt with my fair share of rude doctors who think they know it all, but at the end of the day, you’re still colleagues who are human. Serena chose to see beyond Bruce’s rudeness because while it was important that he donate blood, it was more important to her to help him overcome his fear. Unfortunately, he let his arrogance and fear cloud his judgment and he ultimately made one of the most ridiculous decisions and he created a huge mess.
“This job makes you cynical”
As for Alex and Matts’s experiment in kindness, their job is a little more challenging. When the two inmates come in, they’re already fighting, but Matt and Alex know they can get them to get along. Ron, on the other hand, knows it’s impossible. Personally, I was on team Ron because there are certain people you just can’t get along with or force someone to get along with, and prison inmates are the perfect example. First and foremost, the idea is to de-escalate the situation, so putting two inmates who got into a fight that involved a stabbing is not a wise move. Because Alex and Matt are so sure they can do it, Ron decides to make a friendly wager for one dollar that they can’t succeed in bridging the gap between the inmates.
While I understood where Alex and Matt were coming from, I knew their plan would go up in smoke. We all want peace in our lives, and that includes our jobs. Alex and Matt thought that getting the inmates to become friends could potentially reduce the number of fights they were getting into, leading to them coming in for fewer visits to the Emergency room. Still, the plan was dead from the start. The inmates hated each other and couldn’t see eye to eye. It wasn’t until Ron intervened and bribed them that they tried to appear friendly until they were not.
Like Ron, I thought it was entertaining to watch Alex and Matt try to teach lessons in kindness to two guys who did not want to hear it. Alex and Matt are more alike than they want to admit, so they can’t let it go. They want everything to be perfect and harmonious, but life is not that way. Ultimately, they lost the bet, but despite this, Alex and Matt still felt like they got a win because they thought that what they worked to do affected Ron by fixing his “broken soul.”
I don’t think Ron’s soul was necessarily broken. He’s been doing his job for so long that he’s seen it all. And his choice to bribe the inmates was made for two reasons: one, to end the torture he was witnessing, and two because I guess he did care a teeny bit about helping out. Ron does care a little more than he wants to let on sometimes, but that’s what makes him lovable and one of my favorite characters on the show. St. Denis Medical Season 1, Episode 1, ’50 cc’s of Kindness’ was a reminder that even if you don’t always get the desired results, kindness can go a long way.
St. Denis Medical airs Tuesday Nights at 8/7c on NBC.
