S01.E07: The Man From Grozny

[chitowngirl]

Dr. Wolf and the team perform their most experimental treatment yet: a brain-computer interface implantation in their John Doe patient's brain.

[giovannif7]

This episode aired in Canada last week - it's surprising, exquisitely sad, moving and beautiful - and actor Alex Ozerov-Meyer (who plays John Doe/Roman) is amazing. Don't miss it.

 

Edited November 10 by giovannif7

[AnimeMania]

Camille Eanga-Selenge as Neurosurgical Fellow

Oren Nathan Gottfried as Neurosurgical Fellow #2 

[Diana Berry]

On 11/9/2024 at 10:54 PM, giovannif7 said:

This episode aired in Canada last week - it's surprising, exquisitely sad, moving and beautiful - and actor Alex Ozerov-Meyer (who plays John Doe/Roman) is amazing. Don't miss it.

 

He was amazing.  Very well acted episode.

 

how long was he in the non responsive state since the stroke?

[HelloooKitty]

This was an incredibly sad episode. 

[TVForever]

This episode was beautiful. Holy cow…

[babyrambo]

I was pleasantly surprised by the reveal of John Doe’s story, despite its sad ending. The patient was a solid actor and along with the actor playing his boyfriend, they really sold the hope and grief of their love. The scene where they reunite, with Wolf and Nichols watching in the background, was really well done. It was clear that Wolf could relate to Roman and badly wanted him to be able to live the life he’d dreamed of, but the story never became about Wolf and his angst, like it so easily could’ve been. He did his due diligence but respected his patient’s wishes and that surprised me, because medical dramas hardly let patients die on their terms. There’s always a miracle cure or family member who insists they live for them. 

I also liked the that Wolf took a chance and went for it with Nichols. I thought they’d go the slow burn route with them (and they still might depending on Nichols’ reaction next week) but they’ve got great chemistry and already balance each other out pretty well. 

I’m not as into the budding intern romances. I like the friendly group dynamic but if I had to pick I’d go with Van over the jock because the latter is  arrogant and seems more into himself than anyone else. 

[Diana Berry]

How long was he in a non responsive state?  I didn’t get the timeline was it years?

[possibilities]

I'm sick and tired of seeing stories about disabled people where it's all about how beautiful it is for us to die.

[KaveDweller]

4 hours ago, Diana Berry said:

How long was he in a non responsive state?  I didn’t get the timeline was it years?

I don't think they every specifically said, they just kept referring to it being a long time.

 

[peeayebee]

I think this was the best ep yet. It was sad and beautiful. I loved when the one doctor (psychiatrist?) said something like, "We gave him his voice, so we should let him use it."

My one complaint is that the team didn't tell the guy in charge of this experimental treatment that Roman decided to die. I don't think they needed his permission, but a heads-up would have been nice.

[PurpleTentacle]

I wish my brain wasn't like this, but it won't shut up about the following: While it makes sense that the program could translate russian to english (even though it would do it much worse), it makes absolutely no sense that the english gets translated into russian for Roman. He should still hear only gibberish. They could have solved that if they had given him a monitor that displayed translated text or an earpiece for a voice translation, but I saw and they mentioned nothing of the sort.

I wish I could unnotice these things, because otherwise this episode was really sweet and a nice end to that mini-arc we had with Roman.

The tech guy was a bit of a dick and of course the doctors can't keep a patient alive because it might look bad on paper, but they really should have told him beforehand. I'm sure Roman would have agreed to meet with the investors before his death. He seemed very thankfull to have his voice back. Also prior notice could have given some kind of opportunity to file something to not count his death within the study. All sorts of things. Not notifying was what we call a dick move.

I did not think they would go for a kiss between Wolf and big hands in episode 7 already. Usually these things get dragged out for at least a season. This show is moving fast.

On 11/13/2024 at 12:17 AM, possibilities said:

I'm sick and tired of seeing stories about disabled people where it's all about how beautiful it is for us to die.

I don't think this was a story like that. It seemed very sad and everybody there thought it would be better for him to live. But he had made up his mind. I think this was a story about how giving people autonomy is important, even if we don't agree. That everybody has a right to that autonomy and that doesn't change just because somebody is disabled. YMMV.

[possibilities]

When there are so few strories about us that celebate our actual lives, i think there is no room for stories about us "choosing" death.

It's like the kill the lesbians trope. Nobody would object to once in a while one of us being killed off in a story. But when it's wildly disproportionate to all other representation, and made to seem more beautiful than tragic, and more thought is put into it than into most of the few other stories about us, it grossly reinforces the idea that dying is the most interesting thing we do and the most compelling story to be told, it doesn't do a damn thing for the bulk of us who've been treated like garbage when now everybody is all maudlin about someone saying: yeah, I don't actually want to live.

 

[peeayebee]

13 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

I wish my brain wasn't like this, but it won't shut up about the following: While it makes sense that the program could translate russian to english (even though it would do it much worse), it makes absolutely no sense that the english gets translated into russian for Roman. He should still hear only gibberish. They could have solved that if they had given him a monitor that displayed translated text or an earpiece for a voice translation, but I saw and they mentioned nothing of the sort.

I'm sorry, but I don't follow. Why should he only hear gibberish? He could hear when people were talking directly to him. The Russian translator made him understand what they were saying, and he responded with his eye movements. So he would have understood what the machine was relaying.

[PurpleTentacle]

2 minutes ago, peeayebee said:

Why should he only hear gibberish?

Because english is gibberish to him, since he doesn't speak the language. He would have still heard only english.

There is no way for a brain chip to relay messages. It can somewhat read your thoughts, that is technology that exists, but there is no way to send thoughts. So if they were going for that, that was some major BS.

As I said, that could have been fixed if they had given him a screen with a translation program, that tranlated what the doctors were saying to russian, or an ear piece that had AI voice and translation capabilities. Automatic translation to russian is still a bit rough, but it should be good enough and given the conceit, that they were imagining talking to him directly, I think that would have been fine.

6 hours ago, possibilities said:

It's like the kill the lesbians trope. Nobody would object to once in a while one of us being killed off in a story. But when it's wildly disproportionate to all other representation, and made to seem more beautiful than tragic, and more thought is put into it than into most of the few other stories about us, it grossly reinforces the idea that dying is the most interesting thing we do and the most compelling story to be told, it doesn't do a damn thing for the bulk of us who've been treated like garbage when now everybody is all maudlin about someone saying: yeah, I don't actually want to live.

Well they were trying to tell a story where the persons autonomy was respected and to show that that respect was important, even or especially when it's a big decision like life or death.

The only other way they could have accomplished that is if they had all of the doctors out to kill him but he would have insisted that he wants to live. I get why the writers didn't want to do that. It would have made all the doctors monsters that I wouldn't want to watch on a week by week basis anymore. Instead all the doctors were adamant that his life was worth living and that is in character from how we've seen them in all the other episodes. Trying to do what's best for their patients (which is btw. a nice change from most other medical shows where it's just about fixing the problem of the week).

I get what you are saying in principle. The "bury your gays" trope used to be a big problem. Though I don't think it has been for a while. But was that really ever a problem with disabled people? I don't think a disproportionate amount of disabled people are/were killed in fiction?

[KaveDweller]

On 11/23/2024 at 6:59 PM, PurpleTentacle said:

The tech guy was a bit of a dick and of course the doctors can't keep a patient alive because it might look bad on paper, but they really should have told him beforehand. I'm sure Roman would have agreed to meet with the investors before his death. He seemed very thankfull to have his voice back. Also prior notice could have given some kind of opportunity to file something to not count his death within the study. All sorts of things. Not notifying was what we call a dick move.

I thought the same thing. They definitely shouldn't have kept him alive just for a study, but giving the guy running the study a heads up wouldn't have taken away anything from Roman. I agree Roman would have been willing to meet with the investors before dying, it isn't like he insisted it happen immediately.

[bros402]

On 11/24/2024 at 2:44 AM, possibilities said:

When there are so few strories about us that celebate our actual lives, i think there is no room for stories about us "choosing" death.

It's like the kill the lesbians trope. Nobody would object to once in a while one of us being killed off in a story. But when it's wildly disproportionate to all other representation, and made to seem more beautiful than tragic, and more thought is put into it than into most of the few other stories about us, it grossly reinforces the idea that dying is the most interesting thing we do and the most compelling story to be told, it doesn't do a damn thing for the bulk of us who've been treated like garbage when now everybody is all maudlin about someone saying: yeah, I don't actually want to live.

 

Honestly, I usually agree with you on things like this in all of these shows - but this is one of the few times they actually made a good case for why he wanted to die and they didn't just go "ok bye we pulled the plug."

They framed this as a story of respecting his autonomy - whereas other shows in the past have pretty much gone "he's disabled look at how horrible his life is, it's so sad he wants to die, but he can die now."

I honestly didn't expect this show to have an actual good episode - although I think the ratings are trending towards it being cancelled?

On 11/25/2024 at 10:10 PM, KaveDweller said:

I thought the same thing. They definitely shouldn't have kept him alive just for a study, but giving the guy running the study a heads up wouldn't have taken away anything from Roman. I agree Roman would have been willing to meet with the investors before dying, it isn't like he insisted it happen immediately.

I was thinking this, too.

It would've been really easy for the guy running the trial to spin it, too - "our device gave him his voice and he decided what he wanted out of his life, see how good our device is? rip roman"

Edited November 28 by bros402

[possibilities]

If there were a lot of other stories about people in his situation where it didn't revolve around him wanting to die, I'd be okay with it. But I can only think of ONE story about someone with locked in syndrome (Diving Bell and Butterfly).

ANYONE other than a disabled person is not allowed to just decide to die. It's actually NEVER considered okay. But for us, it's affirmed and romanticized. It truly sickens me. 

And if 50% of the stories told about any other group were about their right to die, I can't think of anyone who would defend it. 

The suicide rate of any other group is considered a crisis. LGBTQ teens, for instance, have a SHOCKINGLY high rate of attempted suicide. Nobody says: well, we get it, this or that kid's life is terrible, their parents rejected them, they were bullied in school, some of them have trouble getting medical care, we should help them kill themselves if that's what they want, it would be sad but also so beautiful.