Alex (Allison Tolman) decides almost at once that Dr. Highland is performing, that the doctor now covering for Ron (David Alan Grier) belongs on a television medical drama and not in an underfunded hospital in Oregon. The Season 3 premiere of “St. Denis Medical” spends its hour proving how little that suspicion does for her. Damon Wayans plays Highland in “He Ain’t Noah Wyle”, the episode NBC aired on Monday, November 2nd, with a Peacock stream arriving the day after, and the title is Alex’s verdict squeezed into four words. Wayans is there to fill in for Ron, his old “In Living Color” castmate, who is still recovering from the triple bypass he had in the Season 2 finale.
Ron’s absence is the engine of the hour, because a man recovering from a triple bypass does not simply bounce back to work. Showrunner Eric Ledgin told TV Insider that he tries “as much as possible to play to the reality of the world”, and here that means a hospital adjusting to a stranger covering Ron’s duties. Its other problems keep arriving all the same, among them Matt (Mekki Leeper) and Serena (Kahyun Kim) working out what being together actually means and Joyce (Wendi McLendon-Covey) campaigning for a hospital administrator award that most of the staff barely care about. Warning beyond this point there are spoilers for the storylines in “He Ain’t Noah Wyle” and for how the hour ends.
Ron’s absence is the engine of the hour, because a man recovering from a triple bypass does not simply bounce back to work.”
The setup is that Ron faces up to twenty weeks away from work, according to Nexus Point News, with Bruce (Josh Lawson) doing little to reassure him by reporting that Highland has become a big presence at the hospital. Highland has won over nearly everyone with his insights and his big speeches. At one point, he delivers a speech lifted from “The Pitt”, the medical drama in which Noah Wyle plays Dr. Robby. Alex, who has declared that she loves Wyle and would leave her husband for him, according to CinemaBlend, hears every word as theater. She says so, and that is how the episode gets its title.
Val (Kaliko Kauahi) and Serena suggest that Alex may be the problem, and instead of letting the matter drop, Alex sets out to win Highland over. The campaign turns into extra work, since an innocent question about chips or onion rings ends, per Nexus Point News, with him volunteering her to collect lunch orders for the whole staff. Then she makes the bigger mistake of assuming that a shared irritation with Joyce means the two of them have bonded. She complains about her boss, and Highland carries the complaint straight to Joyce. In Fangirlish’s words, Alex learns that “not everyone is your friend”, and the lesson comes from the man she most wanted to impress.
The fallout lands on Joyce, who has spent the episode pushing everyone to vote for her as Best Hospital Administrator in Oregon. Nexus Point News has her demanding that people download an app and sign up for a free trial to do it. Once Alex lets slip that the staff regularly complain about Joyce behind her back, Joyce calls a meeting. Brandon in particular unloads on everything from her beige wardrobe to her lipstick, and Fangirlish logs his line “You look like a walnut”, while Joyce’s own invitation to the room, in the same account, is “Open up the fire hydrant and blast me”, an offer Brandon takes up at length. The twist is that they voted for her anyway, though she still loses the award.
Matt and Serena get the episode’s other test, and Ledgin told TV Insider that “What does that relationship look like and what’s the first complication in it?” was the question he wanted the season to open with. Serena tells Brandon that Matt is not her boyfriend, and Matt overhears. The label stays unspoken until she learns that he has been going to church with Holly and then to brunch with Holly’s family, Nana included. Jealousy does what conversation could not, so Serena declares Matt her boyfriend and ends the Sunday outings. Nexus Point News calls that resolution rushed, “especially after the episode spends so much time establishing Serena’s discomfort”, but Holly’s response, scratching Serena’s car after seeing the couple together, leaves the door open to a triangle.
Ron’s visit to the hospital is the part he would rather skip. He has little interest in seeing his colleagues, per Nexus Point News, until the idea of someone taking his place draws him in. The trip goes badly, with Highland mistaking him for a patient and talking down to him, and Nexus Point News adds that his desk has been turned into storage for urine samples. Ron tells Bruce he may not come back at all, word reaches Alex, and she finds him in the parking lot, hurt more than angry. She tells him that his stubbornness and his habit of saying whatever is on his mind are exactly what she needs from him, which reads as the most touching scene of the hour, and Ron decides to stay.
Running through all of it is the sedated question from the Season 2 finale. Ron asked “Where’s my Joyce?” when he woke from surgery, with Alex and Bruce at his bedside, and the documentary crew shows him the footage, which he does not remember and wants buried. Ledgin has told TV Insider that the thread is “not a major part of this season, but it is something that we continue to play with”, so the premiere might be planting a seed and not promising a romance. Highland, for his part, appears to be out of the picture by the end of the hour, and Comic Basics describes a closing scene in which he and Ron honor their shared history on “In Living Color”. Fangirlish also logs that Bruce and Dr. Emerson (Ariana Madix) have made things official, though Ledgin has said her return in person starts with the second episode.
Whether the premiere lands depends on how much it asks of Wayans, and the answer is very little, which is both a strength and a limit. Nexus Point News praises the episode for “making good use of its ensemble while briefly welcoming Wayans into the mix”, and Fangirlish wishes for more, writing “I think if we had more time with Wayans on the show than just one episode, they could have built it up a bit more.” That leaves the wink at “The Pitt” to do a longer cameo’s work, and Ledgin explained the choice to CinemaBlend by saying “I feel like there probably aren’t many hospitals where people are working there and not talking about The Pitt from time to time.”
The season has company on the way, with NBC listing Tony Hawk as Kyle, Martha Kelly as the hospital’s in-house legal counsel Gail, Jon Barinholtz as Alan, and Jimmy Smits as Javier, a man who shows a possible romantic interest in Joyce. If the premiere is a fair guide, the show intends to keep the staff’s baggage ahead of its guests, since Matt and Serena now have a label, Ron has a reason to stay and a secret to guard, and Joyce has a loss to explain away. The TV Cave credits the premiere’s success to the fact that it “understands that the relationships at St. Denis are just as important as the jokes”, and the way the hour ends bears that out.
What Do You Think? Was Alex right about Highland from the start, or did she earn the lesson he handed her? Will Ron tell Joyce what he said under sedation, and can Alex and Bruce keep quiet that long? And is Serena’s rule about Holly and church the start of a real test for Matt, or just the first of many labels?
See you on the next binge!
