Our favorite medical procedural on the high seas, Doctor Odyssey, is back. Season 1, Episode 9, “Shark Attack!” was one hour of high-intensity, edge-of-your-seat drama. We kept our eyes glued to the TV screen. Ryan Murphy manages to deliver every week with his shows and we are still sitting here stunned after that ending.
Two men and a baby
After Avery learned she was pregnant in Doctor Odyssey Season 1, Episode 8 “Quackers,” things got much more complicated for her. The pregnancy is the result of a threesome that took place. Max didn’t handle the news so well and went into full panic. Tristan remained calm and acknowledged that every decision would be totally up to Avery. In Doctor Odyssey Season 1, Episode 9 “Shark Attack,” Max needed to talk with Avery about the news. Avery had nothing to say to him because of how he initially handled things. For Avery, if she and Max sleeping together was just for fun, then it wasn’t necessary to talk the pregnancy.
In some ways I felt that this episode was the “what if Max turns out to be the father?” episode. Throughout the episode, Avery and Max are contentious. It only gets worse once an emergency leads to a new doctor, Brooke Lane (Adrianne Palicki), getting onboard.
As Avery observed Max and Brooke interact and give sexually charged and highly inappropriate eye contact during a surgical procedure, she started to re-evaluate her feelings. Seeing the good Doc in Max’s room with only a towel further cemented those feelings. In a way, Avery brought this on herself. Because she told Max to give her some space and went into shutdown mode. Max being Max attempted to explain, but because of the significant emergencies, any meaningful conversation was halted.
Sea-mergencies
Avery’s pregnancy drama is riveting television. But in all honesty, the shark attack that occurred in part one of Episode 9, “Shark Attack!” grabbed my attention. As the crew of the Odyssey often does, they headed to the beach for their much-needed R&R.
Tristan thought it would be fun if he and Munroe got in some surfing. Munroe quickly shot that idea down and opted to float and relax in the water. That all sounded simple enough until he was attacked by a shark and suffered an injury to his leg.
The team onboard the Odyssey is that no matter what drama, they will put it aside and do their jobs. This is especially true when it requires saving one of their own. While the team was attempting to save Munroe, Captain Massey was doing everything possible to get to port. Munroe needed to be taken to a hospital.
Munroe is the Captains second in command he won’t let loosing him happen. Unfortunately, that fear becomes a possibility as they are faced with a tough and unexpected situation.
As Captain Massey tried to get to port, he received a distress call. It comes from Dr. Brooke Lane, who was stranded with four other people in shark-infested ocean waters. He has to decide whether to stop and pick them up. This would delay getting Munroe the treatment he needed. Does he go full steam ahead and leave them all behind?
They are tasked with choosing between saving someone that’s like family, versus some people you don’t know. That can be hard.
THEY CAN HANDLE EVERYTHING
Max, Avery, and Tristan can handle just about anything. They come up with the idea to place a shunt on Munroe, temporarily to help the blood flow in his foot. Because this is Doctor Odyssey and a Ryan Murphy show, the shunt works until it doesn’t. On the other side of the emergency rooms, there are two more victims of a shark attack, Brody and Josie (guest star Rumer Willis). Josie got the idea to go surfing in that particular spot and as a result they both got attacked by a shark, sustaining some significant injuries, but she was most worried about Brody who needed to receive a double amputation.
Did you know sharks are considered the “petri dishes of the ocean”? If you didn’t now you know. This plus multiple people with shark bites equals massive infections and lost limbs. Due to how severe Brody’s injuries were, another decision had to be made. And like Bonnie Bennett sacrificing herself in an episode of The Vampire Diaries, Munroe literally is willing to die, or almost die, so that the team can devote the time they need to do Brody’s procedure. Munroe let Max and Tristan do a bunch of stuff to shut his body down. It was sent into an unconscious state because his infection was becoming septic.
As I have said many times, the medical team onboard the Odyssey is amazing and does amazing things. But they are not God, and they are not perfect. Nor is every procedure going to be perfect. And again, they are out on the high seas in open water, nowhere near land. That’s a recipe for disaster in the highest form.
We’re Dead in the Water
It was the last half hour of the show everything that could go wrong did. Max, Brooke, and Avery were able to complete Brody’s amputations with a band saw. The team realized they could use the arteries from Brody’s amputated leg to do a graft on Munroe, saving his leg. That was working out until a great white shark literally slammed into the Odyssey causing the ship to stop entirely.
The crew sprung into action. Rosie, put out an engine fire. She then getting the generator working to restore power. It’s so easy to get happy when something good happens, but it’s always short-lived on Doctor Odyssey. Once Rosie got the generator up and running, it seemed like it would be smooth sailing. That was until the ship lost all power and now there is no generator to get things going.
Captain Massey is unsure what to do, finally saying ‘we’re dead in the water.’ The visuals of all the power shutting off and just seeing this big ship surrounded by nothing but the night sky was terrifying.
Tristan found Josie unresponsive. We don’t know if she’s dead or if she can be saved. Why wasn’t she being monitored closely? She had a shark bite!
The ship is now stuck and surrounded by said great white shark that decided to play a game of let’s dunk this vessel. Orca whales who are ready to get into a knock down drag out ocean fight. And yeah… Munroe is still in surgery so…. All bad.
We don’t know how the team is getting out of this one, but Doctor Odyssey’s next episode should be something. We expect a decent payoff and hope they can save everyone.
Doctor Odyssey airs on Thursdays at 9/8c on ABC.
