The season finale of The Good Doctor starts with the morning after Shaun yelled at Dr. Jackson Han and was ultimately fired from San Jose St. Bonaventure. It’s 10 AM and Shaun sits at a bar, where he tries to make small talk with another barfly, but is immediately shut down. Shaun continues to try to talk to the drunk, who gets up and tells Shaun he’s going to make him shut up, and begins to push him around. Immediately, Shaun becomes uncomfortable and on the verge of a meltdown, as he tells the man, “I do not like to be touched.” The guy, whose name is Zack, winds up to kick Shaun, who is already on the ground, but falls backwards banging his head on the tile floor and bleeding out. Shaun brings him to the hospital, where Claire and Melendez bring treat the injured drunk.
HR begins to investigate into Melendez and Dr. Lim’s relationship, and once the two are approved, they share a romantic kiss in the clinic in front of all the other residents! Claire and Shaun have a moment of their own, when she tells him that he is a doctor, but asks what other things in life he wants. “I think I’d be a good father, but I don’t know how to fall in love,” he replies. He practices asking someone out with Claire by giving her a stapler, presented as flowers, and a box of gloves, which he pretends to be chocolates. He reveals his ultimate fear is rejection.
Glassman, celebrating his first day cancer-free, proposes to hospital barista Debbi, who he went on a few dates with before his diagnosis. She calls him crazy and leaves him hanging after his grand gesture. In the meantime, Zack’s toxicology report comes back clean, and Shaun is sure that there is something wrong with him, admitting to Claire that he witnessed the patient being erratic. Shaun then disappears to the bathroom, pulls up his shirt to show a huge bruise down his side and begins to cough up blood. He brings a vile of his blood to Carly in pathology to be tested.
Carly finds that the “patient” aka Shaun’s blood shows possible signs of pneumonia, or elevated levels due to trauma. She writes a script for treatment and tells Shaun that it’s very important for his “patient” to get help. However, Shaun goes to visit the drunk that tried to beat him up, instead of checking himself in.
“I’m sad and angry and confused and I don’t know… I wasn’t suppose to be at the bar, I was suppose to be at a job interview,” Shaun admits to the Zack. “Why can’t I just be sad and angry?” Shaun’s brain begins to go into overdrive as he sweats profusely and stutters out some incomprehensible words before passing out.
Concerned about Shaun, Dr. Andrews approaches Dr. Han about reinstating him as a surgical resident. Andrews gets Han to admit that he had someone close to him with Autism who ended up dying, but urges him not to let his personal life get in the way of his job, or Andrews will have to reconsider his position. Han then tries to intimidate Andrews, telling him it would be embarrassing for the Board to see him fire Han after pulling strings for him.
Zack calls Claire into his room after finding out that Shaun is currently unconscious, and tells her that before he went down, he diagnosed Zack’s condition. He tells Claire that it sounded like Shaun said “trampoline,” but as she and Lim try to decode the problem, he starts to code. While Lim and Melendez think it could be lyme disease, Claire doesn’t agree. She tries to reenact Shaun’s exact position in Zack’s room to figure out what he could have been referring to and figures it out, calling for an OR, stat!
Shaun wakes up and tries to go to Zack’s room, but Claire comes in to tell him that they treated Zack’s aortic valve aneurysm and syphilis, which caused his angry outbursts. Dr. Andrews goes to visit Shaun and asks how he’s doing, and tells him he missed his job interview at San Jose General Hospital. “I like being a surgeon here,” Shaun tells Andrews, but Andrews says he can’t change that. However, Glassman speaks to the board the next day to persuade them to rehire Shaun as a surgical resident. He says that Shaun made Dr. Brown a better doctor, because she solved a problem through Shaun’s eyes, instead of her own. Dr. Han said that he didn’t fire Shaun because he has autism, but because he lashed out, and if Han can’t “control his staff,” he doesn’t want to work here. “Dr. Glassman is right,” Andrews added in, and said that he also needs to control his staff, and fires Dr. Han to reinstate Shaun.
This also means they need a new Chief of Surgery, and Melendez, like the king he is, nominates his girlfriend Dr. Lim for the position she’s worked for her whole life. Aw!
Lea comes home to see Shaun in a suit with a bouquet of flowers and chocolates, and thinks he’s going to ask her out. However, he just asked her if he looked okay, before heading out to ask Carly to dinner and she accepts. He walks away with the flowers and chocolate still in hand, celebrating down the street.
Glassman goes to Debbi’s to profess his love to her, and tell her he wants to spend the rest of his days with her. She tearfully accepts his proposal and they kiss on her porch! Yay!