Oh Baby, ‘Doctor Odyssey’ Delivers Another Triangle Twist

[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for Doctor Odyssey Episode 14, “Hot Tub Week.”]

There are two major revelations in this week’s new episode of Doctor Odyssey: Tristan (Sean Teale) was once a cheerleader — which totally tracks, by the way — and, oh, Avery’s (Phillipa Soo) not pregnant after all. So that solves that!

The episode, titled “Hot Tub Week,” features the cruise being overrun by teen cheerleaders who practice their perfectly executed acrobatics on the deck as their former spirit team-er admires their work.

With so many stunts abounding on the ship, injuries are inevitable. However, it gets much worse than what even the medics could predict. The squad leader gets her hair sucked into the hot tub drain and is only saved by some quick action on Tristan’s part to create a breathing apparatus from a bar tube. As if that isn’t horrifying enough, she also passes out underwater while stuck and has a piece of plastic stuck in her neck by her carotid artery. A field drain-ectomy by Max saves the girl, thankfully, and the whole incident inspires Avery to submit to a paternity test at last…. dun dun dunnnnn….

Disney / Tina Thorpe

After the guys start gathering their DNA cultures, Avery reveals that she’s had false positives on the tests because of a cyst that mimics the hormonal effect of pregnancy. This time, Max doesn’t stumble so hard in response to the news — he’s the one to immediately check in on her emotional state after the revelation. Avery says she’s both disappointed and relieved, and both of the guys feel wistful. Avery brings herself to tears over the fact that there’s been so much drama about a child that never existed, and the situation is only diffused when a cheerleader interrupts with a panic attack emergency.

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Later, Max offers a grief processing party in the hot tub, with a floating board full of everything Avery wasn’t allowed to eat before, plus a few junk food dessert options for Tristan, who’s been substituting sweets for booze on his sobriety journey. It’s a rare and much-deserved moment of levity for the trio.

Suddenly, the scene shifts, and they’re just the kid versions of themselves, talking about the futures they used to envision. For Avery, it’s serving with Doctors Without Borders; for Tristan, it’s escaping his family and enjoying travelling; and for Max, it’s helping people. The discussion also shows that while both of the beaus pictured themselves as parents when they were young, Avery did not. However, her false positive pregnancy test has changed her mind. She even chose the name Charlotte, a.k.a. Charlie, for the baby if it were to be a daughter.

The hot tub time machine situation happens for Captain Massey (Don Johnson), too. After being diagnosed wth stress-induced shingles — a consequence of him expecting a new baby with Heather (Shania Twain) — he journeys back to his own youth when he relives his first meeting with his wife, long before she died of cancer. This encounter gives him the closure he needs to move forward with Heather.

Other observations: 

• This is a pretty chesty episode, no? Between Tristan showing off his muscles in the hot tub and pool on multiple occasions and Max’s lathery imagination of his shower routine, there are a lot of pecs in play this week.
• The captain gives good speech, and his sensitivity to Avery’s grief reminds us why he’s leadership material.

Doctor Odyssey, Thursdays, 9/8c, ABC