Episode 1x02: The Great Doctor Brown

Season 1 Episode 2 (1x02): The Great Doctor Brown

When we last left the Brown family, they were beginning to settle into their new life in Everwood. Most of the major characters were introduced or subtly referenced and, had the pilot episode not been picked up, it would have all been simply a wonderful, 44 minute NC-17 short film.  Instead, this episode we go deeper at that which was dare not spoken in the pilot. We see both the Browns start to slowly adjust to life in the town and the town slowly adjust to them. 

Main plot: Dr Andy Brown falling back into bad habits, prioritizing work and hallucinations over his family.

Secondary Plots: Amy finally asking Ephram to ask dad to perform surgery on Colin and Dr Harold Abbot working through his feelings about his father, his mother and Dr Andy Brown. 

Delia's Plot: She hates her reactionary teacher and got a nightmare from watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factor.

"What year are we?" - List of things that date this episode:

1. Ephram has an ancient flip phone
2. Calling a taxi instead of a Lyft
3. Teens are in a library, looking at books instead of being on social media

My beef with the episode is how quickly Andy fell back into old habits by doing house calls with patients instead of having meals with his family. I suppose creatively you could appreciate the writers drawing out his metamorphosis from doctor-who-doesn't-value-family to doctor-who-also-values family since they could have just let the pilot and the death of his wife be the thing that changes him. But creatively, it feels a bit lazy for him - after having JUST moved his family to the town to "start over" - to instantly act like he's the same surgeon back in New York. 

Not to say Ephram comes out looking good in this plot. He does get major points and the award for best dramatic moment in his speech to dad about how he didn't sign up to be a parent and it's not fair to Delia for Andy to be absent as the sole remaining parent. However, the example he used is idiotic: that Andy should have let a child die just so Delia would have her father around when she had a nightmare. I would have suggested a few alternatives, such as burning all copies of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory in the town or giving Delia some sort of experimental drug that would prevent all R.E.M. sleep. That's why I'm not a father and why I hope Ephram won't become one either.

Andy does make up for it in a big way by telling off Delia's horrible elementary school teacher. The teacher is played by fantastic character actor Beth Grant who Wikipedia describes as being "known for often playing conservatives, religious zealots, or sticklers for rules" - just like me. She's horrible because she won't let Delia sit in the front (where boys sit) and she commits an act of violence by making a joke questioning Delia's gender. Worst of all, she makes fun of her for wearing a ball cap, even though this is how Delia and I are both dealing with trauma right now. This is the kind of woman who would have definitely boarded the Trump train if it existed in the Everwood universe, which we know it did not, since in this universe America goes full fascist much earlier than 2017.

My other beef with the episode is how quickly we resolve the "Andy's talking to his dead wife" issue. Notice a theme here? I have a problem in all art when resolutions don't feel earned and conflicts don't have time to boil. In this case, it's basically just that he humiliates himself (non-sexually) at the fall thaw while store brand Van Morrison song plays by talking to Julia while everyone watches. The scene is shot horribly, in that you can see him having the conversation with her while no one's around and then abruptly you realize the entire fucking town has paused to watch a man speak to thin air. After that a few dialog exchanges, he simply stops talking to her and it's never brought up again in the series, including when she comes back as a physically real manifestation and knocks things off the table, like Patrick Swayze does in Ghost. It's mostly used as a way to explain why the town residents would flock back to Dr Abbot, which is important because otherwise Harold certainly would go out of business. 

Though I'm spending much of my word limit going over the main plot, I really watch the show (especially in the first season) for the Ephram/Amy teen stuff, like all the other idiot WB teens who were watching the show 15 years ago. In this episode (like most), they knock it out of the park, growing closer in several ways:

1. Bright suddenly changes from "I want to fucking kill you" older brother to "you knuckleheads!" older brother when he hangs out with them at Fall Thaw Fest
2. Harold/Amy give Ephram/Delia a ride home and they awkwardly flirt in his front yard
3. Amy fights her dad for the right to hang out with Ephram at Fall Thaw Fest
4. Amy tells Ephram the story of how she got her "Grover" nickname while they're at the top of a ferris wheel (as a preface for explaining why she wants her coma boyfriend Colin back)

Though the end of the episode - when Ephram LIES (like all men) and says his dad won't do the surgery - implies that Amy was only using him for access to his dad's beautiful and firm surgical hands, we know this isn't the end for them. And it actually makes sense for Ephram to do this. Bright got into his head saying Amy was scamming him and he's simply testing it. If she still wants to hang with him, he can always just ask his dad for real later. Ephram hallucinating how he thinks Amy might ask him including the line "...so I can sleep with [Colin]" made me laugh out loud, which makes it my second favorite comedic moment of the episode.

Favorite comedic moment is after the Fall Thaw Fest when Andy, after an awkward moment, asks what everyone thought of the festival. Everyone laughs and then Delia gives a note from school saying she's in big trouble and they laugh again. Even though the laughter doesn't completely work and tonally is off - characters rarely laugh in this or any show - it cuts the tension effectively and allows Ephram to confess that he still sees Julia. This cuts more tension and allows Andy to ask Ephram if he will still help raise Delia even though raising another man's kid is an ultimate bluepill cuck. 

Won't say much about Dr Harold Abbot's plot here other than it's solid and as a character he'll always be a dark horse favorite. I love it when he yells at his children/mom - not letting Amy hang with Ephram in this episode - and I love it when he shows love for them. His competitive disdain for Andy gets annoying at times but his disdain for the town when they do stupid shit like have a Fall Thaw Festival is my jam. We also get to meet his wife Rose for the first time, who is awesome. 

Episode Rating: 4.0 (out of 5)

- Glenn