Blame it on all the sports in my family history…

Dad went to college on an (American) football scholarship.

One brother is a national-level swim coach. Another played professional baseball for 10 years. (Mostly minor-league, but it’s how he earned his living.)

One sister works within the world of track and field.

So maybe this is why, after the airing of “Afterparty,” my brain was filled with the term MVPs (Most Valuable Players) …all the great ways the St. Bonaventure characters were utilized as the crisis unfolded. It’s supposed to be a singular term, as you probably know— otherwise, that term “valuable” gets diluted like a glass of OJ with half an inch of “juice” and about 5 ice cubes. But that’s what I mean— EVERYONE, save for a certain Asian-American doctor whose name rhymes with “shark,” made this terrifying event somewhat less so. (Because nobody died, which surprised the hell out of me.)

Given the way this violence played out simultaneously with our long-awaited #Shea wedding, I was grateful for the way it was structured: we had the calm-before-the-storm wedding moments… THEN back down to Lim trying to get help… THEN the events that prompted the “Code Silver”... THEN when we saw these three again, they were off the rooftop and getting ready to barricade (until Shaun got the text from Glassman about Lim). I was somewhat relieved not to see the wedding “spell” broken like that.

LEA

For someone with zero medical experience, she brought an incredible amount of MVPness to the episode:

• She was the unofficial circulation nurse in the break room

• She was the “Official” circulation nurse in the OR

• She was responsible for getting Shaun back/grounded/able to save Lim

JORDAN

She was the first of several to provide MVP support in less obvious ways…

• She pointed Shaun and Lea to the break room, having been the one to tell Lim they needed more glasses (for the afterparty) in the S5 finale

• She initially stabilized Villanueva, even employing Shaun’s belt as a tourniquet

• And of course, she was part of Lim’s life-saving surgical team

Though it was unexplained why Andrews and Glassman left the party scene and headed for the elevators– we saw them appear to leave, but no dialogue was involved– their dual role in propelling the chain of events that fueled “Afterparty” was a great use of their leadership. (And I don’t think a reason-for-leaving was important, honestly.)

ANDREWS

He’s in charge, and there was no more important time to show that.

• He was the one to note the scratch on Owen’s neck

• He immediately called the Code Silver when Owen wasn’t easily apprehended, simultaneously managing the SWAT teams and communications (though they kept those very minimal on-screen) while dealing with the biggest, and most personal, of medical emergencies

• He made the “impossible” decisions that arguably saved EVERYONE’s respective lives

GLASSMAN

The oldest and wisest (??) MVP and a leader unto his own, as evidenced in multiple ways:

• He noticed the blood on Owen’s shoes and discreetly communicated that to Andrews

• He remembered Lim’s downstairs destination to get them to the scene

• He assisted with the stabilization started by Shaun and Jordan

• He made critical decisions in two simultaneous OR situations (or tried to, if not for Shaun)

• He voiced what we all were thinking (“Are we really going to pretend…”) but still deferred to Andrews in the end as necessary

• He played his part in getting Shaun “back,” post-meltdown, as per Lea

JEROME

For a character that’s only “recurring,” Jerome Martel was surprisingly MVPish…

• He tipped off Andrews and Glassman who Owen was in the first place

• He provided surgical support for Andrews as they saved Villanueva

• He did NOT fall apart at the news that Asher was in a hostage situation

• He informed the doctors of the low supplies that prompted decisions about the ways to do the respective surgeries

• He physically carried a severely agitated Shaun out of the OR when it became necessary (no small feat)

TAG TEAM 3 (sort of): Asher/Morgan/Park

ASHER

Used his own (same day!) experience with his father to connect with Owen in an attempt to get him to surrender. He got halfway there (if Owen had fully surrendered, we wouldn’t have had the complication late in the episode that prompted Shaun’s meltdown)

MORGAN

The woman can sure tell a whopper when she needs to… pretending to have been in contact with the ER about the fate of the ones he injured is what got her and Ezra out of there and into the right place for his surgery. (Loose end… as shorthanded & short-supplied as they seemed to be for the other surgeries of the hour, how was Ezra taken care of without incident? And was Morgan leading that with her RA-impaired, out-of-practice hands? Hmmm)

• To be frank, I was somewhat stunned at Park’s minimal role in the whole thing. Obviously it was self-inflicted; had he not gotten his briefs in a bunch about Morgan daring to “want” the New York job that was offered to her in the S5 finale, he wouldn’t have literally been on the outside looking in on this St. Bons lockdown. 

• But aside from the brief Ezra consult he offered by phone when Morgan called him, he brought zippo. Couldn’t help in the OR… didn’t pull the “I used to be a cop” card in an effort to work with the SWAT team. And regarding that consult on Ezra–considering Park and Morgan have spent the same number of years at St. Bons (and Morgan was a little ahead of the curve, surgically speaking, before her RA-induced change of plans), I feel like the writers only brought Park into Ezra’s story because they needed to bring him in somewhere. Had it been relative newbies Asher and Jordan trying to determine what to do? Different story. 

• Instead, we had Park confirming the need for Ezra’s OR visit and that was it. No heroics, no pacing out in the street muttering Dammit, why did I have to walk out of there when I did?, not even an agitated check-in on Morgan’s well-being while he had her on the phone. If TGD wants us to believe the dude checked out of his relationship with Morgan the moment she spoke of the job offer, then mission accomplished… I guess. But to me, it felt weird, incomplete. I’m glad the active shooter didn’t kill you… and that the experience prompted you to decline the NY offer… but hey, before all that you said you wanted that other job across the country and that still tells me all I need to know about you? Just not ringing true for me. 

As for the (Incredibly) SIGNIFICANT OTHERS…

LIM

So you think a woman gets stabbed in the break room and her work for the day is done? Surely you jest! Remember that she’s now saved Nurse Villanueva twice (at least): once by letting her come stay with her when she couldn’t bring herself to go to a women’s shelter, and again by discovering her gravely wounded in the S5 finale. 

OWEN

Villanueva’s ex is obviously no one’s hero. There was an attempt to create some compassion for him as he revealed being raised in a culture of domestic violence, but the character was not designed with well-roundedness in mind. So when he unloads the gun and hands its contents to Asher… but points said gun at an officer seconds later in an apparent suicide mission… his cowardice hardly surprises us. Still, Owen is a human being, and doctors take the Hippocratic Oath for a reason. The need to amend Lim’s surgical plan is incredibly upsetting, just as it would be if Glassman, Andrews and all the other members of Lim’s “family” were being told about this in the St. Bons waiting room. But as dramatic twists go, it felt completely legit. (I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt with the “new supplies don’t come in until 5AM” complication mentioned by Jerome… but I have a feeling real-life medical folks raised an eyebrow on that one.)

RANDOMNESS: Admittedly, most of the jargon I hear on TGD or other medical dramas goes in one ear and out the other… but somewhere along the way this week I connected the term “GSW” with gun shot wound. My question: is calling it a GSW a real thing, or were they doing that on a TV show to minimize the use of trigger words (pardon the pun)? I ask because, to me, one uses abbreviations because it’s quicker to say than the words themselves… and “GSW” hardly rolls off the tongue.

GHOST STEVE

• It’s easy to think of him as the (relatively young) Man of the Hour in “Afterparty,” since Shaun was able to pull it together and save one of the most important people in his life once they had their time together. But, of course, we call him GhostSteve for a reason. 

• Steve was the one person Shaun could count on in his youth, and losing him so early has informed the rest of his life– most notably, his decision to become a doctor (see Shaun’s speech from the pilot for a refresher about this). The dark side of all that is of course the abject helplessness of watching your little brother fall to his death, and spending the rest of your life feeling responsible (because you couldn’t grab him/because you were playing on the trains right along with him/because you were the reason the two of you ran away in the first place). 

• Since TGD started in 2017 (with a fair amount of flashback-storytelling in S1), we’ve seen actor Dylan Kingwell only twice in the role of Steve… and both of those occurred back in S3. In fact, our last glance at GhostSteve came when Shaun “encountered” him when he was trying to rescue Lea after the earthquake in “Hurt” (3 x 19)-- and we didn’t particularly care for what Steve was telling him. Remember? “She thinks you’re limited… and you are.”

• But Steve is self-talk. When Shaun had mixed feelings ahead of his first surgery, “Steve” was what calmed him down. When Shaun was despairing over Lea’s reasons for rejection, “Steve” made him feel even worse. This time around, seeing Lim near death– and not in total control of her fate– pushed all his vulnerability to the surface. He was desperate for a reminder that he had it within him to adapt and thrive in this particular situation. Lea played a substantial role in this (I’ve still got a few things to say about #Shea specifically, so stand by), but “Steve” had to come in for the final lap. 

• From a storytelling standpoint, I must say that I’m thrilled they haven’t overused GhostSteve. In fact, maybe you assumed (as I did) that the GhostSteve days were in the past, if only because Dylan Kingwell’s growing up like any other young actor (he’s 18 now; must have been 12 or 13 when they shot his flashback scenes in S1). But what are the rules with something like that? Does Steve have to stay a child in Shaun’s imagination? Who’s to say he can’t “imagine” what Steve would look like as a young man? We don’t know whether or not there will be another occasion for his return in the future, but the artistic license should keep the limitations to Can Dylan Kingwell come back when we need him to? (Because at this point, he IS Steve. No substitutions please.)

SHEA

Those who have read State of the #Shea for a while may be familiar with what I call the story “catapults” that have been employed from time to time on TGD to thrust a storyline forward very quickly (e.g. the death of Shaun’s father in “Friends and Family,” the “Superbass” karaoke sequence in “Unsaid,” and the earthquake in “Hurt”/”I Love You”). 

In watching Shaun and Lea interact throughout “Afterparty,” it occurs to me that TGD dragged that catapult out yet again. In the earliest scenes, we see Shaun and Lea still enjoying their wedding festivities as Lea tries to explain to Shaun what she means by “feeling married.” 

Shortly after that, as we all know by now, the wedding slammed directly into perhaps the most stressful situation St. Bons has encountered since that aforementioned earthquake. Blood was shed, tears were brushed back, and everything became urgent.

Shaun seemed to be on top of things (until he obviously wasn’t), but Lea was one step ahead. It helped that she had a front-row seat as the various events within the OR unfolded, and that she wasn’t hyper-focused on saving lives as Glassman obviously had to be. But she crash-coursed “being there” in Shaun’s toughest moments years ago, in a quiet motel in Casper, Wyoming. She’s got this because she gets him as no one else does. 

So we didn’t get wedding karaoke, and we didn’t get beautifully confessional vows at the altar, and we certainly didn’t get a traditional “first night as husband and wife” (let’s face it- we were NEVER going to get that). What we did get, though, was the two of them working together throughout the episode– saving lives, yes, but also encouraging and strengthening each other as needed. So when they had their “NOW do you feel married?” moments near the end of the episode– and nice touch, by the way, having Lea dressed in the outfit she was wearing just before the rooftop wedding surprise– it was such a nice extension of the feelings they didn’t get to verbalize in the actual wedding that I can almost forgive TGD for cutting the celebration short. 

Almost.