Jordan’s heart was in the right place, but she still almost crossed a line.
Whether or not thirteen-year-olds should be having sex with each other, she allowed her beliefs to cloud her judgment.
Jordan might have made a terrible mistake on The Good Doctor Season 6 Episode 12. Shaun’s refusal to discuss the issue came in handy for once.
Kelly’s situation wasn’t as morally gray as the promo made it seem. Her mother had educated her about safe sex and was aware that Kelly and her boyfriend, Ryan, were having it.
Jordan’s desire to call CPS about this was problematic for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was that Child Protective Services should never be used to force someone’s religious beliefs on families who don’t share them.
In real life, Texas laws around transgender care for children do that, encouraging people to call CPS to investigate any parent who allows their child to socially or medically transition. That’s wrong, and this is the same thing.
It’s perfectly valid for Jordan to decide she doesn’t want to have premarital sex and that the men she slept with interfered with her relationship with God. Lea shouldn’t have laughed at her or pushed her to change her mind.
I go along with the joke because I don’t want to be the joke.
Jordan
But that doesn’t mean other people have to make the same decision. Kelly’s mother decided that the best thing she could do for her daughter was to educate her about safe sex rather than trying to stop her from having it, even at her young age.
That is her prerogative, and it’s as valid as Jordan’s decision not to have premarital sex at any age.
Was Jordan right that thirteen-year-olds are not psychologically mature enough to have sex? Yes, but that doesn’t mean that Kelly’s mother was neglecting her daughter’s well-being by accepting that some kids experiment sexually at thirteen.
Jordan was so focused on imposing her beliefs on Kelly and her mother that Shaun had to redirect her when Kelly was coding. Her priority should have been taking care of Kelly’s immediate health emergency, not mumbling about how this is a consequence of inappropriate sex.
Mother: She’s been dating Ryan for over a year.
Jordan: You’re okay with this? A thirteen-year-old child should not be having sex.
Girl: I’m not a child! And if I want to have sex, it’s nobody else’s business.
Mother: Teenagers are going to do it anyway. So rather than her sneaking around, I sat her down and talked to her about safe sex.
Jordan can be a great friend and empathetic doctor, but she’s too rigid, and when she starts imposing her beliefs on other people, she becomes a nuisance.
Fortunately, by the end of the hour, she’d relaxed. She used Shaun’s statement that Kelly couldn’t have sex for six months following the procedure to suggest she hold off for longer, but she wasn’t pushy about it.
Surprisingly, Morgan didn’t do anything nearly as annoying as Jordan throughout the hour. She’s the one I usually end up ranting about!
Morgan’s dilemma was far more sympathetic than most of her stories. She’s impatient to be a mother but unsure whether she can handle both motherhood and the opportunity that fell into her lap.
She wanted that job. Otherwise, she would have turned it down as soon as Park suggested she’d miss a lot of important moments with her child if she took it.
Lim: My suggestion is decide what you really want and go after it. We can’t have it all.
Morgan: But plenty of men –
Lim: No, they don’t. They’re just less conflicted about the choices they make.
Morgan was also right that it’s unfair for mothers to have to choose between being there for their kids and their career success, while fathers don’t appear to have this dilemma.
But Lim’s decision not to have kids so she could pursue a demanding career wasn’t going to work for Morgan, who hungers to be a mother. Andrews’ story of how his mother was there when it counted, even though she worked long hours, resonated with Morgan.
Was Andrews’ mother also a single parent? It wasn’t clear from the anecdote he told.
That’s important only because Morgan will have to consider how she will handle being a single mother now that she’s taken the job.
She doesn’t have a partner to help with some parenting duties. Without backup, she’ll have to arrange for child care, deal with childhood illnesses and injuries, and do everything else that responsible parenting requires.
That’s not impossible. There are single mothers with demanding jobs, and Morgan is a single mother by choice who probably has greater financial resources than average.
But she will have to figure out how she will do it and who she can lean on for support, babysitting, and other help when needed.
Perez’s attitude aggravated me throughout the hour.
Perez: Our probations are different. Yours is a slap on the wrist for coloring outside the lines with a patient, while mine is a holding pattern. Everyone’s watching me to see if I’m a surgeon or a junkie.
Asher: Part of being a surgeon is standing up for your patients.
While he was right that he and Asher couldn’t act like they knew more than Lim, his status as an ex-junkie didn’t mean he needed to make himself invisible.
That was probably his disease talking. Questioning Lim about a risky surgery wouldn’t make him magically non-sober. If he were worried that Lim was looking for an excuse to fire him because of his drug problem, that would make more sense, but that isn’t what he said.
Thankfully, he didn’t use after his stressful week, but I wish he’d called his sponsor instead of his dealer to meet him by the coffee shop.
Finally, Glassman’s visit with Shaun and Lea wasn’t as silly as I was afraid it would be.
But what’s going to happen now? The house he couldn’t let go of has burned to the ground, so he’s probably going to mourn Maddie’s death all over again.
He might also have to stay with Shaun and Lea longer term. That’s not entirely bad news, though, since Lea loved his cooking.
Still, the fire felt like an unnecessarily tragic ending to this story, and from the clip in the promo, it doesn’t appear Glassman will handle it well at all.
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The Good Doctor airs on ABC on Mondays at 10 PM EST / PST.
Jack Ori is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. His debut young adult novel, Reinventing Hannah, is available on Amazon. Follow him on Twitter.