The Engagement Party
Adam is sorting out his guest-list for his engagement party. While he rings around, he continues to work at the hospital.
Shruti is still there, struggling to balance her studies and her work on the labour ward. Her upcoming exam is stressing her out, especially when she snaps at Tracy. ..
Adam is still worried about the upcoming complaint. Despite Erika claiming she withdrew it, this one seems to be anonymous. It seems like the situation is not over just yet.
Nina tells Adam that a colleague of hers, Jane, made the complaint and she would like to speak with him about it. Adam agrees to meet with Jane and finds out that she is the complainant.
Adam continues to try and work between these phone calls, desperate to bring up the numbers for his party, but mostly falling on a rabble of “no thank you”s. Although, ironically, Julian of all people agrees to show up that night. Well that was unexpected! ..
Elsewhere, Adam ends up with a particularly vulnerable patient, a 19-year-old that’s tried to perform cosmetic surgery on her vulva. And predictably, it’s gone horribly wrong. The psych evaluator on call is completely overwhelmed too, with numerous cases to work through. She agrees to see her for a minute but when is still unknown. And that when turns into “never”, when the patient discharges herself. ..
Elsewhere, Shruti teams up with Vicky to try and work through the overwhelming number of patients. Shruti unfortunately mishandles a case involving a couple who have lost their baby, speaking nonchalantly and robotically about their situation. In fact, she tells the couple that their baby is “just a bunch of cells”. Vicky thankfully covers for her but it’s clear Shruti is going through just as much.
Adam arrives at his engagement party feeling stressed out from work. His parents are there too, along with the two Tracys and Shruti and Ben too. Not only that, Julian also shows up too and he meets Harry, immediately taken aback when he realizes Adam is gay.
Shruti mentions the GMC complaint, which Adam deduces she’s called in. This sets off a chain of events that culminates in the couple breaking up. ..
As he calls her out for being a terrible doctor, Tracy suddenly speaks up and admits she’s the one who actually called in the complaint. When Adam rushes out, a bewildered Harry is taken aback when a drunk Shruti reveals everything about the complaint and how he’s likely going to get struck off.
With everything falling apart, Tracy confronts Adam and calls him out for the tattoo, disconnecting the alarm and bullying Erika into dropping her complaint. It’s a valid criticism and something that he finally realizes. With everything falling apart, Harry and Adam’s relationship hangs in the balance.
The Episode Review
Adam stands in the middle of a corridor at work, facing two different engagements. On one side is the party he was invited to, and on the other is his work life. This visual metaphor captures Adam’s conflicted feelings about his work/life balance. ..
The reveal that Tracy was the one who put the complaint in, complete with a big wake-up call for Adam’s attitude, is a pretty telling moment and it’s something that puts a lot of his actions into perspective.
This episode shifts the focus across to Shruti too, with her one slip-up causing a complaint that could have caused massive ramifications if someone had escalated it. For now though, it’s still unknown whether she’s going to press ahead with being a doctor or not.
This was a really good episode and it leaves the door wide open for the remaining 2 chapters.
