S05.E23: Neon Moon

[jewel21]

Quote

Conrad contemplates his future as he reminisces about a special night that included a very important conversation with Nic. Meanwhile, Devon is presented with an amazing career opportunity out of state, and Ian is faced with a devastating diagnosis, which causes him to rely on the doctors at Chastain. Then, Kit and Bell celebrate their engagement and Padma receives the news she has been waiting for.

Airdate: 05/17/2022

Season finale!

[Snazzy Daisy]

💥Intense💥

 

 

 

[NeenerNeener]

Please stop giving lines to the kid that plays GiGi. The little kid in this episode who was losing his pregnant mother was a better actor.

And they end the season on a "which one will he choose" cliffhanger. This episode would have worked well as a series finale too, so they must have heard that renewal for next season wasn't a lock.

 

Edited May 18, 2022 by NeenerNeener

[Crashcourse]

Well, that went out with a thud.

Also, it looks like Leela, Padma and Dr. Eyebrows will still be around. 

I did crack up, though, when Padma announced she and AJ were having twins and he'd have to set up another 529 account.  I know he makes good money as a surgeon, but dayum.  Be careful what you wish for, AJ.

I still miss Mina and Nic.

 

[Frisky Wig]

Twins! Hope this is the push Padma needs to move out of her van and into a stable brick-and-mortar dwelling since the prospect of one kid, alarmingly, worryingly, wasn’t enough. 

Edited May 18, 2022 by Frisky Wig

[izabella]

So that husband was not the least bit interested in saving his wife's life at any point, except as a vessel for a baby.  And he was all-in on using her body as an incubator for months even though it would likely leave her brain dead and dead dead.  I guess thanks for showing us in bright, clear technicolor how much women's lives matter, and to be very, very careful who gets your medical proxy.  And who you marry and procreate with.  Duly noted.

AJ and Devon should NEVER have suggested ECMO when there was virtually no chance of her coming out alive and well.  Their responsibility is to their PATIENT.  DO NO HARM.

 

Edited May 18, 2022 by izabella

[CarpeFelis]

I had to laugh when Kit said she was marrying the finest surgeon in the hospital. Gee, I thought she was marrying Bell, not AJ!

[statsgirl]

I wish Cade would go away. My mother, also a doctor, was diagnosed with cancer of the ampulla (head) of the pancreas and given 3 months to live. We never ever talked down to her as Cade did to her father or "measured her for a coffin".

It's ironic that for someone who comes on so tough, Cade is pretty high maintenance. Send her to a therapist Conrad if you're thinking of a relationship with her.

I think that Matias genuinely cared for his wife and believed that it would all come out well in the end.  (kinda the opposite reaction to Cade's) He  was religious and religion encourages people to believe in miracles. Ordinarily I don't like it when a patient mirrors a dilemma one of the doctors is having but I'm okay with Devon realizing that he was throwing away his relationship with Leela for a hypothetical that he may never have. It's good that she apologized too.

A Cade/Conrad shipper elsewhere pointed out that at the beginning Gigi says "Green means go" and Cade is wearing a green dress in the last scene but that's balanced by Conrad hugging Cade to comfort her on the stairs as he hugged Anna in the flashback. I appreciate the writing but while it's been four years in show time since Nic died, I think it's too soon for the audience to have Conrad in a new relationship.

AJ and Padma and twin infants ....Zzzzzz

[Crashcourse]

4 hours ago, izabella said:

AJ and Devon should NEVER have suggested ECMO when there was virtually no chance of her coming out alive and well.  Their responsibility is to their PATIENT.  DO NO HARM.

But, unless I misunderstood, didn't Devon and AJ say if they didn't try ECMO the wife would surely die?  I agree, the husband didn't seem to care that much about saving his wife's life.

[CarpeFelis]

The husband was so emotional (which was understandable) that he was also being extremely irrational and hearing only what he wanted to hear. He was told there was only a very small chance of wife and baby surviving ECMO but what he apparently heard was “we have a miracle cure”. I think Devon and AJ should have called Winston over as well as the hospital chaplain, if they have one, to talk with him, because they were clearly not speaking his language. If Chastain has a medical ethics committee, this case should have been raised with them as well. IMO an irrational husband should not have been permitted to choose an action that was virtually guaranteed to kill both wife and baby, even if the hospital had to take legal action to stop him.

50 minutes ago, Crashcourse said:

But, unless I misunderstood, didn't Devon and AJ say if they didn't try ECMO the wife would surely die?  I agree, the husband didn't seem to care that much about saving his wife's life.

He also didn’t seem to grasp that if his wife died, so would the baby he was so dead set on saving.

ETA: NOT CADE, CONRAD! Seems to me Nic would have approved of Billie since she was her best friend.

Edited May 18, 2022 by CarpeFelis

[CarpeFelis]

And oh, the irony: husband says they can’t terminate the pregnancy because “that’s murder”, and then proceeds to make a decision that effectively murders both wife and child. Good going there, genius.

[izabella]

50 minutes ago, Crashcourse said:

But, unless I misunderstood, didn't Devon and AJ say if they didn't try ECMO the wife would surely die?  I agree, the husband didn't seem to care that much about saving his wife's life.

The way I understood it was that the wife would die unless they terminated her pregnancy because of the strain on her heart.  The husband would not allow them to do the termination to save her life since it meant losing the baby.  AJ and Devon told him there was no other option. because his wife  was dying and they had to do the termination soon.  They also told him they could save her life, and she would be able to have another child in the future. But no, the husband wanted this baby kept alive, and would not give permission for the termination.  He prioritized the baby over his wife's life, even though, of course, the baby would also die when she died.   He had the legal ability to do so as her medical proxy. 

AJ and Devon had no choice but to accept his decision.  So, they came up with an option to do ECMO where all the blood in her body is pumped out and away from her heart, into a machine, and then pumped back into her body - essentially an external machine that pumps blood in place of her heart.  The purpose of doing ECMO was to buy time in the hopes it might give her heart a chance to recover a little, and  it was the only thing they could try to save her life while still keeping the baby alive.  They knew there was barely a chance, but if they didn't try that, the wife would have died sooner since the husband would not allow a termination to save her.

When, as expected, she had debilitating strokes with the promise of more, hubby still wanted her body kept alive.  When she and the baby both died, he suddenly remembered he had a wife and she wasn't just a womb, and that his living son just lost his mother because of his decisions.   At least I hope he remembered.

As you can tell, I was none too pleased watching this. 

[amarante]

Years ago a good friend told me that she would NEVER have her baby in a Catholic hospital because if it was a choice between her and the baby, she would opt to save her own life.

I was relieved that there wasn't a miracle save for the fetus incubator. I had a few seconds where I thought the sound of the kid's voice would somehow stimulate the mother and she would revive.

I actually thought this was might have unintentionally foretold a future in which Roe v Wade is no longer around since there is pressure to eliminate the "health of the mother" exemption and narrowly define it.

I also agree that in real life the father would have either have not been presented with the choice since it really wasn't a medically viable one or would have been counseled with a religious counselor who would have provided him with religious and moral justification for abortion in this instance.

Am I correct in that "abortion" was never used but only termination. I wonder if this is deliberate like when Lucy back in 1952 wasn't to be "pregnant" because the word wasn't deemed appropriate for network standards. 

 

[Crashcourse]

43 minutes ago, amarante said:

I had a few seconds where I thought the sound of the kid's voice would somehow stimulate the mother and she would revive.

I thought so, too.

[Snazzy Daisy]

It is hard but also satisfying to see Nic Nevin again. ConNic have great chemistry that I don’t see in ConCade or ConBill at all.

I saw some online comments from ConCade shippers weeks ago. They were saying that it’s (sort of) incestuous for Conrad to be with Billie because she is Nic’s best friend. Weird comments TBH.

Devon getting back together with Leela is just stupid and recklessly impulsive. It is not plausible that Leela is Devon’s major deciding factor. Sacrificing a great career move for a woman? I wish Devon thinks with his bigger head instead. 😣

Leela nearly killed a patient, hey it’s no big deal. Leela now gets to become Bell’s protégé and suddenly she wants to pursue General Surgery instead. So what’s the point of having the Neuro vs Cardio storyline? Just to initiate the pointless breakup?

I hope Padma will die during childbirth and AJ will raise the twins on his own, maybe with some helps from Mina eventually. 
 

Edited May 18, 2022 by SnazzyDaisy

[CarpeFelis]

1 minute ago, SnazzyDaisy said:

Leela nearly killed a patient, hey it’s no big deal. Leela now gets to become Bell’s protégé and suddenly she wants to pursue General Surgery instead. So what’s the point of having the Neuro vs Cardio storyline? Just to initiate the pointless breakup?

Between this and her sudden change of heart re having children someday, what it says to me is Leela still doesn’t have a freaking clue what she really wants and that she’s way too immature for a relationship or to be a doctor.

[Snazzy Daisy]

21 minutes ago, CarpeFelis said:

Between this and her sudden change of heart re having children someday, what it says to me is Leela still doesn’t have a freaking clue what she really wants and that she’s way too immature for a relationship or to be a doctor.

Leela is selfish. To her, it’s all about her not losing Devon. 

[izabella]

Leela seems to have this need to be and do everything, as if to prove something to somebody.   Did she grow up feeling second best to her sister or something? 

Devon and Leela having sudden changes of heart in order to be together...they're trying too hard, and it won't work in the end.

 

[Crashcourse]

Even though I would have missed Devon, I hoped he would take the job in Baltimore.  I still don't see them working out unless Leela "accidentally" gets pregnant and then realizes she wants to be a mom.  

 

[statsgirl]

1 hour ago, izabella said:

Leela seems to have this need to be and do everything, as if to prove something to somebody.   Did she grow up feeling second best to her sister or something?

That's an interesting thought. Padma had leukemia so I bet that she had a lot of parental attention and concern. Even after she was in remission, her parents would have been doing everything they could to make sure that she got better and it didn't happen again.

Also, Leela is dyslexic so it took her a much greater effect to be where all the other kids were in school much less ahead of them. I remember that on her first day at Chastain she came in at 4 a.m. to learn all about the patients before she had to be on rounds.

 So it's plausible that she was so focussed on being the best (Adler's idea of inferiority/superiority*) that she doesn't know what she really wants.

2 hours ago, SnazzyDaisy said:

I saw some online comments from ConCade shippers weeks ago. They were saying that it’s (sort of) incestuous for Conrad to be with Billie because she is Nic’s best friend. Weird comments TBH.

Weird. There are (polygamous) cultures where if a husband dies, his brother marries his widow and takes on his children. And even that is normalized.

*Adler developed his theory of inferiority/superiority while he was working as a physician near and circus and a lot of circus folk came to see him. He noted that someone who had been clumsy at walking as a child became a tight roper walker, someone who was weak as an adolescent became the strong man. He hypothesized that they wanted to overcome their feelings of inferiority by becoming superior at what the problem was.

[Snazzy Daisy]

What should’ve been…😢 

[yourmomiseasy]

Was it just me, or did Nic being jealous of Conrad hugging that woman seem really out of character for her?

[perkie1968]

10 hours ago, yourmomiseasy said:

Was it just me, or did Nic being jealous of Conrad hugging that woman seem really out of character for her?

I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, in that she was post partum and maybe not acting completely in character.  

I thought the giant list of emergency contacts was hilarious.  

[yourmomiseasy]

6 minutes ago, perkie1968 said:

I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, in that she was post partum and maybe not acting completely in character.  

I thought the giant list of emergency contacts was hilarious.  

I wasn't looking at it as a Nic problem, more of a writing her OOC to fit the needs of the storyline problem.  But I did think it could be blamed on hormones since she'd just had Gigi, I just don't like that answer because it seems too "oh you know how those ladies are" to me.  But I could also be remembering Nic better than she actually was since she's not on anymore.

Also, I never thought about it, but the family pic posted above makes it seem like they did a great job casting the kid looks-wise.  

Edited May 19, 2022 by yourmomiseasy

[tvfanatic13]

On 5/17/2022 at 8:50 PM, NeenerNeener said:

Please stop giving lines to the kid that plays GiGi. The little kid in this episode who was losing his pregnant mother was a better actor.

And they end the season on a "which one will he choose" cliffhanger. This episode would have worked well as a series finale too, so they must have heard that renewal for next season wasn't a lock.

 

Awww... I really like little Gigi. 

[MsTree]

15 hours ago, tvfanatic13 said:

Awww... I really like little Gigi. 

I like her too!  I don't know what others expect from a child actor/actress. She's certainly not going to start reciting Shakespeare!

[Crashcourse]

I don't mind Gigi but I think she's being shown in the episodes too much.

[bros402]

1. I don't know how Devon & Leela expect their relationship to work out unless she gets pregnant by them getting too drunk at this engagement party and end up with both sisters pregnant at the same time.

2. So, uhhh, every medical show I watch going to end with a wedding or wedding adjacent event this season? (Good Doctor, Resident, New Amsterdam)

3. So they were saying with the baby, they would have to wait "months" for the fetus to reach age of viability - 5 months is 21.7 weeks. 24 is age of viability (according to google, 50ish% chance of survival) and according to google, 25 weeks is up to around 80% nowadays (I was born at 25 weeks almost 32 years ago and I had less than 5% chance to survive!). So it would've been a month or so if she had survived

[circumvent]

On 5/21/2022 at 4:39 AM, MsTree said:

She's certainly not going to start reciting Shakespeare!

Thank goodness! She would be insufferable!

I like the character in very small, tiny doses. They are writing her like a little genius that has incredible insights and the power to cure people, apparently. it is annoying and unrealistic. Kids that age throw temper tantrums al the time. Gig doesn't even mope. She is too perfect

On the other hand, every time she is on the first thing that comes to my mind is that little girl form a reality show some year ago, I guess it was Honey Boo Boo? I never watched it, I only saw the photo of the girl somewhere. I have no idea why, that's what comes to my mind. So weird.

[MsTree]

16 hours ago, circumvent said:

I like the character in very small, tiny doses. They are writing her like a little genius that has incredible insights and the power to cure people, apparently. it is annoying and unrealistic. Kids that age throw temper tantrums al the time. Gig doesn't even mope. She is too perfect

The same thing could be said about her parents! Conrad almost always finds the right cure and/or gets the correct diagnoses. The same was true with Nic. They both had incredible knowledge/insights towards all their patients. So, it would stand to reason that Gigi would inherit BOTH of her parents wisdom, as it relates to people. If you want to call her a mini-genius, I'll concur 😉

16 hours ago, circumvent said:

On the other hand, every time she is on the first thing that comes to my mind is that little girl form a reality show some year ago, I guess it was Honey Boo Boo? I never watched it, I only saw the photo of the girl somewhere. I have no idea why, that's what comes to my mind. So weird.

OMG! Bite your tongue! Comparing Gigi to HBB?!? 😲  Talk about night and day.

[circumvent]

2 hours ago, MsTree said:

The same thing could be said about her parents!

And half the staff at that hospital. I wish they would all go with Devon to wherever he was going. Conrad, AJ, Leela - with Padma, the new doctor who was hurt. Get rid of them, bring first season Mina back.

2 hours ago, MsTree said:

OMG! Bite your tongue! Comparing Gigi to HBB?!? 😲  Talk about night and day.

Like I said, I never watched the reality show and only remember seeing a photo of the girl, no idea what the story was. It is strange but I don't have control over what my brain decides to connect.

[MsTree]

22 hours ago, circumvent said:

Like I said, I never watched the reality show and only remember seeing a photo of the girl, no idea what the story was. It is strange but I don't have control over what my brain decides to connect.

When you have nothing better to do, you might want to Google HBB. She is now a teenager (16?) and looks nothing like she did on the pageant TV show. Let's just say your brain will should do an automatic disconnect 😲 😉

[PupCal]

I thought it was weird they were so insistent that a fetus at five moths isn't viable. I was born at 5 months back in 1990 and I'd hope preemie stuff has only gotten better.

[bros402]

22 hours ago, PupCal said:

I thought it was weird they were so insistent that a fetus at five moths isn't viable. I was born at 5 months back in 1990 and I'd hope preemie stuff has only gotten better.

5 months in 1990 high five! I came out at 25 weeks!

[GiandujaPie]

Just got caught up and I have a lot of thoughts. First off, I have to say I am not a fan of the twins. Both are annoying, but in different ways and for different reasons. The one thing they have in common is they are both annoyingly immature. IRL, I don't think someone like Devon would give up a super prestigious job for a woman. He essentially got his dream job and there is no reason why Leela wouldn't be able to join him in a few years when she finished her residency in whatever she ultimately decides. They already agreed they weren't in a rush to decide if they were going to have kids, so why do they need to be in the same city? Devon also had every right to eventually want to have kids and Leela had every right to not want to have them. Many couples have broken up over this and neither are wrong. It's a personal choice but it is one that should be discussed when the relationship starts to get serious. It seems like Leela led Devon on in not telling him until the last minute that she didn't want to have kids. But whatever, if they decide this works for them, so be it. I just think this will lead to some future resentment. The way their breakup was shown was really stupid too. When you date someone who works at the same place you do, there is always going to be that risk of seeing them if you break up. 

The big triangle - I do not like Cade with Conrad, I think it makes more sense to have Conrad with Billie but if Billie can't be with Conrad, I wonder why the show never thought to pair Billie with AJ. They seem like they might make a good pair. 

Bell and Voss's engagement party - people on tv shows never have friends outside of work, do they? LOL

Cade and her father - some have commented that Cade's personality seems to change when she's around her father. I agree but I think it's fairly common. People can act differently around their family than the way they do around work colleagues or even friends. I remember during the early days of the pandemic that people were making comments that they were surprised at their spouse's work personality when they overheard them on Zoom meetings. LOL

The COTW - I know we are not supposed to discuss politics here but this storyline seemed very designed to show what happens if/when Roe v Wade gets overturned, and the mother's life is no longer the primary factor in deciding on medical care, especially in certain states. Right now, it seems as if the doctors still have a choice in being able to discuss all of the options with the family, including terminating the pregnancy. But someday, what if that no longer becomes an option, especially in a red-leaning state like Georgia? If that actually happens, I wonder if the show would actually have a storyline that shows the doctors not having that option with a patient. 

Anyway, the season turned out better than I expected. I stopped watching it for a while after the time jump but I kept the episodes on my DVR and eventually caught up. Looking forward to next season!

[bros402]

13 hours ago, GiandujaPie said:

Bell and Voss's engagement party - people on tv shows never have friends outside of work, do they? LOL

I mean tbh Bell did make the hospital his life, he had marriages fall apart because of it

[Puffaroo]

On 5/19/2022 at 6:01 AM, yourmomiseasy said:

Was it just me, or did Nic being jealous of Conrad hugging that woman seem really out of character for her?

It seemed out of character for the wife of a doctor (and a nurse!) to suddenly decide he was being frisky. I'm not sure what that was meant to accomplish in the plot.

Please gawd, anyone but Billie. She's so wooden.

[SnarkySheep]

On 5/19/2022 at 6:01 AM, yourmomiseasy said:

Was it just me, or did Nic being jealous of Conrad hugging that woman seem really out of character for her?

YES!! I loved Nic's character, but IMO this episode made her look like a jealous shrew. Babysitter compliments Conrad's jacket? She must be in love with him. Random woman, with tears in her eyes, hugs Conrad in full view of a roomful of people? She can't possibly be a grateful former patient - it must be an affair! Arghhh.

[bros402]

13 hours ago, SnarkySheep said:

YES!! I loved Nic's character, but IMO this episode made her look like a jealous shrew. Babysitter compliments Conrad's jacket? She must be in love with him. Random woman, with tears in her eyes, hugs Conrad in full view of a roomful of people? She can't possibly be a grateful former patient - it must be an affair! Arghhh.

From what I remember, it was a flashback to very shortly after Gigi was born - maybe it was just hormones making Nic feel that way?

Edited August 9, 2022 by bros402

[WinJet0819]

The best part of this episode was Nic. Everything else just made me want to vomit.

Cade's dad having the luckiest form of pancreatic cancer that could be surgically removed and not spreading. And now he's possibly taking the previously unknown Ped's job.

Having to listen to all of Cade's issues with her daddy, and spill them out to who else, but Conrad.

Devon having what should have been his last day, and getting the awfully convenient case of an idiot husband who decided to risk his wife's life for the smallest chance to save both her life and their unborn baby girl's. I hope the son grows up to resent his father for rest of his life. His decision directly lead to her death. She could have been saved, and healed up, and then they could have tried again. It's not like that baby was their last chance. But now, he has no baby girl and no wife. And he's a single parent who, deservedly-so IMO, is destroyed.

And after they both die, now he conveniently realizes he loves Leela even if they don't have a family. And Leela seeing that Padma will have twins, all of a sudden thinks she might maybe one day want kids. Unbelievable. 

And everybody telling Devon "Work it out with Leela so you don't have to leave." Or Padma telling Leela to "Tell Devon you love him and you don't want him to go." Pathetic. Wanting or not wanting kids is not something that can be worked out just to keep one person from leaving. If anything, it's selfish of everyone to try to tell them to work it out. This is a career-changing opportunity. And considering he's accepted the job offer, and has accepted a salary and probably already has housing lined up, imagine how bad and unprofessional it looks to just up and turn them down at the last minute. The lab was expecting him to be the director for them, and now they have to start their search all over again for a job that they had closed.  This reinforces the fact of why relationships at a workplace like this do not work. Devon gave up a career opportunity because a woman doesn't want him to go despite still not wanting a family, which is what he wants. There's no compromising to that. No "maybe I'll want kids later" or "I'll love you anyway if it's just us."

This show used to finish off its seasons strong. That was not the case this year. It went out with a whimper. It felt like I was watching a Grey's Anatomy spin-off. That is plain sad. For the first time, it seemed all storylines were being dictated by the relationship drama.

Edited October 8, 2022 by WinJet0819

[WinJet0819]

On 5/21/2022 at 11:59 PM, bros402 said:

1. I don't know how Devon & Leela expect their relationship to work out unless she gets pregnant by them getting too drunk at this engagement party and end up with both sisters pregnant at the same time.

Exactly. They're hoping to find some common ground or compromise. There is no compromise. You either want a family or you don't. And if two people in a relationship want the opposite, it's not going to work. What will happen is that resentment will grow. Devon if he longs to have kids to raise. Or Leela if she, by accident, does get pregnant and has a child she doesn't want. Devon gave up a career-changing opportunity for this? 🤮🤢

[auntiemel]

On 5/18/2022 at 4:21 PM, izabella said:

The way I understood it was that the wife would die unless they terminated her pregnancy because of the strain on her heart.  The husband would not allow them to do the termination to save her life since it meant losing the baby.  AJ and Devon told him there was no other option. because his wife  was dying and they had to do the termination soon.  They also told him they could save her life, and she would be able to have another child in the future. But no, the husband wanted this baby kept alive, and would not give permission for the termination.  He prioritized the baby over his wife's life, even though, of course, the baby would also die when she died.   He had the legal ability to do so as her medical proxy. 

AJ and Devon had no choice but to accept his decision.  So, they came up with an option to do ECMO where all the blood in her body is pumped out and away from her heart, into a machine, and then pumped back into her body - essentially an external machine that pumps blood in place of her heart.  The purpose of doing ECMO was to buy time in the hopes it might give her heart a chance to recover a little, and  it was the only thing they could try to save her life while still keeping the baby alive.  They knew there was barely a chance, but if they didn't try that, the wife would have died sooner since the husband would not allow a termination to save her.

When, as expected, she had debilitating strokes with the promise of more, hubby still wanted her body kept alive.  When she and the baby both died, he suddenly remembered he had a wife and she wasn't just a womb, and that his living son just lost his mother because of his decisions.   At least I hope he remembered.

As you can tell, I was none too pleased watching this. 

This storyline infuriated me. Which it was supposed to, so...good job, show!

I honestly wish there was a way to prosecute that husband for killing his wife. That's what he did. I only hope that one day his son gets curious enough to investigate what really happened, and decides to never speak to his father again. But not before reading him for filth for murdering his mother. 😡

And then, ideally, decides to become an activist and go on every TV show that will have him, telling the world exactly what his father did.