Rom-com fans like me will recognize the wordplay in the title of this episode of FOX’s Best Medicine. Four Weddings and a Funeral is a critically and commercially successful example of that genre from the ‘90s, and it is an appropriate reference for this episode. Best Medicine Season 1, Episode 10 doesn’t have much of a rom-com tone, but it does feature a huge moment for its central ship and a strong medical case of the week.
MORE: We’re still not over Doc Martin himself guest-starring on the American remake! Relive it with our review of Best Medicine Season 1, Episode 9!
“The sun will go down on all of us.”
Best Medicine usually provides quite a few laughs. However, the humor in this episode is more of the dark kind, especially related to the funeral of the title. Martin (Josh Charles) treats the local eccentric rich lady for stomach pains. He notices she is also mentally confused, but before he can investigate further, the confusion causes her to fall off a cliff.
Yes, literally. The gallows humor continues with Sarah’s (Annie Potts) reaction to the lady’s will. She requested that Sarah lead her week-long celebration of life, and while Sarah’s feelings about the whole thing are understandable, making comedy out of this kind of situation rarely achieves the highest quality.
None of this feels out of place in Port Wenn. The writers have carefully cultivated the quirky atmosphere of this small town, so an entire week of memorial events is not surprising. I prefer when the offbeat details are more straightforwardly funny, though. Since we barely knew the deceased woman, the plot is more dependent upon the medical mystery that led to her death rather than the emotional aftermath. A recent storm had damaged the old wallpaper in her house. This released arsenic that poisoned her. The episode of Doc Martin featuring this plot was more sharply written.
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“I’m never going to need a hug.”
That’s not the only health emergency Dr. Best must handle. Peter (Ben Lewis Doherty), the little boy Martin empathized with in an earlier episode, suffers a ruptured spleen. Sheriff Mark’s (Josh Segarra) accident in the previous episode was very intense. This sequence is even more so. The incompetence of the EMT in the ambulance justifies Martin’s dislike of people, but then things get even worse.
Martin has to cut open the boy to stop internal bleeding until they arrive at the hospital. Obviously, this escalates Martin’s hemophobia to the breaking point. The writers keep increasing the stakes when it comes to Martin’s fear of blood, which causes us in the audience to invest more in whether or not he will eventually overcome it.
Another thing these scenes accomplish is demonstrating Martin’s abilities as a surgeon. He moved to Port Wenn when his hemophobia began in order to continue being a doctor, so we don’t know much about the surgical career he left behind. Moments like this show us hints of that. We see how adept Martin was at it and how much he must miss it. His frustration with his fear and how it inhibits his work is clear, and Charles portrays all of this very well. He leaves no doubt that this conflict is a complicated one that will not be easy or quick.
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“Everything passes, just like the birds overhead.”
The same could be said about the Martin and Louisa (Abigail Spencer) ship. The main couple in Four Weddings and a Funeral took a long time to get together, and most television shows do the same. This episode gives me mixed feelings when it comes to this ship because big things happen, but it is also clear that fans have to settle in for a slow burn.
First, Martin and Louisa make plans to meet up to watch the bird migrations through Port Wenn. They are awkward but sweet about it. Then, extra people show up to interrupt their “date.”
Bigger than that, though, is what happens later. Louisa assists when Martin saves Peter. After Martin scolds himself for not listening to Peter earlier, she praises him for what he did, prompting Martin to kiss her. That’s right, we already got a first kiss! And she kisses him back! Charles and Spencer have incredible chemistry. Unfortunately, we can’t get too excited.
Martin basically lets his emotional issues get the best of him, and he backs off. It’s a case of one step forward and two steps back. We know they are mutually interested in each other, so this part of their journey is frustrating. But Best Medicine Season 1, Episode 10 ensures that I will keep watching and waiting for more of those steps forward.
Best Medicine airs at 8 PM on Tuesdays on FOX and streams the next day on Hulu.
I was disappointed the way Martin dismissed the importance of the kiss with Louisa by saying they’d laugh it off someday. Martin doesn’t laugh! I felt it was out of character for him to state this. It’s okay he backed off (that’s Martin) but the dialog didn’t feel authentic.