[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers about Doctor Odyssey‘s midseason finale episode, “Quackers.”]
Well, we’re certainly in uncharted waters now. Thursday’s new episode of Doctor Odyssey continued the show’s breakneck pace of bringing us juicy new drama, and this time, there’s a new twist that could change everything for our favorite threesome.
On “Quackers,” as the crewmates play host to a bunch of rubber ducky hide-and-seekers — yes, apparently this is a thing — the atmosphere is quite fanciful and even a bit bizarre on the ship. That doesn’t stop there from being some very serious matters at hand, though.
First, one of the hosts of the event has a nasty case of Pica and has swallowed so many foreign objects that his innards are corroded. With Tristan (Sean Teale) in quarantine for pink eye, Max (Joshua Jackson) and Avery (Phillipa Soo) work together to perform an emergency resection, which is tough, but not too tough for these two. The procedure proves, once again, that Avery will be a star student in medical school. There’s just one problem, though. She just found out she’s pregnant. Yes, though both boys used protection during their bucket list-fulfilling night of passion, one of the condoms broke, and now she’s got a major decision to make.
First, she confides in her best buddies who are visiting her on the ship, delivering a thoughtful monologue about the gravity of the moment and the decision she’ll have to make, and for Phillipa Soo, delivering the speech was a real rush.
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“I was really proud to explore this conversation that I think many women have with themselves about the choice that they want to make, about their bodies and the futures that they want to have. And it was so great having the two guest stars that week, which were Adrienne Warren and Paloma Garcia-Lee, my two fellow Broadway ladies,” Soo told TV Insider of the scene. “I’ve always admired their work and have never gotten to work with them both, and being together felt so refreshing and so real — this camaraderie between three women being there for each other and comforting each other and supporting each other. It felt actually very true in that moment because I think the three of us have functioned that way with other women and now had had the opportunity to do with each other in this scene. So it wasn’t a far stretch to feel connected and close to those two wonderful women.”
Disney/Tina Thorpe
The next conversation Avery has about it, though, has a very different vibe. She uses a pair of baby duck toys — pink and blue — to share the news with the guys, who have different, but equally supportive (at least, in their intentions) reactions. Max jumps right into talking about the logistics of figuring out whose child it is and assuring her that having a baby wouldn’t interfere with her success in medical school, which isn’t what Avery wants to hear at that moment. Tristan, though, speaks to the fact that it’s her body, her choice, promising to be there no matter what.
“It’s a perfect example of how these kinds of conversations can be messy and people don’t necessarily always say the right thing right off the bat,” Soo said of the beaus’ responses. “But I think, especially having this conversation with the two of them, as the trio that they are, this has really opened up new territory in terms of how we talk about things and how this conversation goes. I think that it’s very clear that she has this choice that she wants to make, and she’s just not sure what to do. And I think that sense of unknowing and feeling kind of frozen in a moment like that is something that a lot of women really do relate with.”
Pregnancy isn’t the only way the polyamory plotline changes the game on Doctor Odyssey, of course, and Soo is a big fan of that dynamic — even if it caught her off-guard at first.
“I was quite surprised, actually,” she said of reading that script development. “But of course, coming from our fearless leader, Ryan Murphy, I was very trusting in how this would all unfold. And I was actually really delighted by it because I think it’s the kind of relationship that we haven’t seen yet on procedural television.”
Disney/Tina Thorpe
Bringing that to life came with its own set of challenges and rewards. “I’m always excited by something that’s new and challenging, and it was really such a collaboration in terms of understanding the nuance of this relationship between the three of these people, this medical team, and all of the ups and downs that come with having a relationship — or relationships — with people you work with so closely,” she explained. “These guys are in very close quarters and so it was, yeah, a really interesting thing to sort of figure out.”
The fact that it’s her character who’s the biggest champion of it is icing on the cake, so to speak. “I love that it was Avery [who was rooting to keep it going]. I think she’d be really content to keep exploring and trying to understand it,” Soo said. “What I love about her is she’s a woman who has discovered her own sense of agency and freedom in the world and has carved that out for herself based off of having some really hard trying times with her own personal relationships. And to be able to play someone who is free in her body and also is curious about the different possibilities of how to engage with the world and with the people around her, and I just love that she’s open and willing to explore something that might not only be extremely pleasurable but also really important and a really wonderful solid relationship for her.”
Soo isn’t spilling what we’ll find out about the pregnancy and Avery’s decision when Doctor Odyssey returns for its midseason premiere in March, but she promises the tide changes will continue to roll in. “I can tease nothing. But we’re in the middle of filming right now, and it continues to do its thing. It’s exciting and lots of unexpected things.“
Doctor Odyssey, midseason return, March 6, ABC
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