St. Denis Medical season 2, episode 3 review: Just another day at the office
SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for St. Denis Medical Season 2, Episode 3.
The characters of St. Denis Medical are fun, primarily because of the actors who play them. The NBC show has assembled a cast of strong comedic performers, each with different strengths. That’s the issue with Season 2, Episode 3. “Get Me to the Pod, Brother” leans on what each character is best known for, and pushes that button for most of the episode.
The script even signals to this when Ron comments on how there’s “always some new gimmick Joyce is cooking up.” That tends to be what Joyce does in a lot of episodes: come up with some new idea that isn’t at all what she wanted it to be, and then she has to deal with the reality of the situation. In this case, she procures an expensive full-body scanner and offers free scans to the staff—but doesn’t realize that the machine makes a tremendous amount of noise and emits radiation in the room next to her office. Wendi McLendon-Covey plays annoyed Joyce so well, particularly when Joyce defers apparently firing one of the nurses because she’s distracted by the noise. But in general, this is the same Joyce viewers are used to.
It’s no surprise that Bruce is the first person to use the machine, and that he takes it far too seriously. After he learns that he has “nominal scoliosis,” Bruce spends the rest of the episode trying to prop up his own ego by making Matt feel worse about his scan results. Again, Josh Lawson can hit these kind of self-obsessed notes in his sleep. But Bruce taking a minor medical thing and making it the end of the world is also something that was explored in Season 1 after he got his DNA test results. This is “You Gotta Have a Plan,” just with a different type of exam.
The main plot involves Ron and Alex, as Ron torments Alex over her complete transparency with husband Tim. David Alan Grier leans hard into Ron as a curmudgeon who only seems to be happy when those around him are miserable. The entire storyline is Ron needling Alex, to the point where Ron becomes insufferable not only to her, but to the audience. St. Denis Medical does give him his comeuppance when he’s called out for using photos of Serena, but that comes after the plot has already outlived its usefulness.
The performances of the cast are what make “Get Me in the Pod, Brother” worth watching. Every actor knows what note they need to hit and delivers easily, from Lawson spinning Bruce up to McLendon-Covey playing Joyce with a camera-ready smile that masks her annoyance. The icing on the cake is Kyle Bornheimer returning, as Tim shows up at the hospital to try and untangle Alex and Ron’s nonsense. But there’s not as much creativity in this episode. By St. Denis Medical standards, this is just another day at the office.
St. Denis Medical airs Mondays at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on NBC. Photo Credit: Courtesy of NBC.
Article content is (c)2020-2025 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.
