The unstable patient (Fred-Éric Salvail) barricading himself in psychiatrist Philippe’s (Patrick Labbé) office with a TNT belt under his jacket, detonator in hand, those were explosives from the mid-season finale, that was.
Posted at 7:15am
However, this devastating episode of STAT was broadcast last Thursday after returning from vacation. Before Christmas, Radio-Canada’s medical soap had failed fans when it kidnapped teenage Siméon (Benjamin Gratton), the autistic son of surgeon Isabelle Granger (Geneviève Schmidt).
Which of these two punches hit the hardest? The bomb of course. Note to latecomers, the whistleblower alert here sounds like a white code on the hospital intercom.
So on Tuesday night the dynamite exploded at the entrance to Saint-Vincent, killing Dominic Lord, this bipolar man who stopped taking his medication. Philippe aka Big Phil was spared, but we suspect post-traumatic shock will plague the shrink in the coming episodes.
This electric shock sent STAT into a frenzy, but that didn’t stop him from visiting intimate and painful areas. The death of anorexic patient Camille (Laurence-Anaïs Belleville) prompted a heartbreaking scene in which her mother’s (Sonia Vigneault) cry of despair was freezing.
STAT writer Marie-Andrée Labbé has this gift for bringing back forgotten characters for an even more sensational second round. It happened to Mélodie Beaulieu (Émilie Lajoie), the patient who refused to have her brain tumor treated by oncologist Pascal St-Cyr (Normand D’Amour).
The young woman then fell under the thumb of pseudo-Dr. Labrie (François Grisé), a charlatan who almost killed her in a frightening sweating ritual with a cardboard box on her head and an adjacent heater, driving us into a totally sectarian intrigue… different.
Once again, the screenwriter brought a supporting character back to life, ex-police informant Félix Lemoine (Émile Schneider), who freed Mélodie from her hellish grave and stole the guru.
The story of the fake doctor doesn’t end here. The family of another of his victims, who attended the funeral seminar, will be at his bedside: why does the brother (Luc Gauthier) insist so much on quickly unplugging his comatose sister? It’s super dodgy.
Word has also got around about the affair surrounding Marylyn Boily (Rose-Anne Déry). The application of the Milwaukee Protocol apparently saved Marylyn from rabies and made emergency doctor Emmanuelle St-Cyr (Suzanne Clément) a star among the conspirators. This about-face, spearheaded by Antivax activist (Yan Rompré), was brilliant and surprising.
Wednesday’s episode will feature more survivors (or not?) Marylyn Boily and reopen the “surrogate” case that probably didn’t close properly.
Well, Simeon’s paternity. All clues point to Pascal St-Cyr, that’s obvious. He is overreacting to the saga of kidnapping and intimidating the Brodeur clan. But under what circumstances was Simeon conceived? Here it makes you curious. It smells like a paternity test.
Note to STAT fans: No, the creators haven’t forgotten about the trial of Jonathan Chouinard (Alexis Lemay-Plamondon), the dead rats in the crates, and the suicide or murder of François (Daniel Parent). Patience, the answers will come soon.
It also seems that a former lover of Emmanuelle, who was violent with her on the sofa, will reappear on the show, but in a more professional context, shall we say. It should be continued.
On the Indefensible side of TVA, the pace seems to have slowed down. Medical student Catheline’s (Tracy Marcelin) hit and run wasn’t the most gripping plot of the TVA courtroom drama. Her father, Stanley Magloire (Ralph Prosper), is frighteningly intense, willing to lie to the police and sacrifice his eldest son Joey (Jonathan St-Armand) to protect his beloved Catheline’s future medical career.
As for Joey, the flirting sequences between him and receptionist and detective Tatiana (Tatiana Zinga Botao) didn’t improve the story, shall we say.
Good news though: we’ll enjoy a break from Ti-Bill (Jean Maheux). This playboy character has left the home of his son Léo (Sébastien Delorme) to settle in a transitional home. Hoping his accomplice La Pourritte (Jean-René Moisan) also takes some time off, we won’t complain.
The murder trial of Pascal Giroux (Xavier Huard), who is accused of stabbing his father 30 times in the face, contained several interesting twists, including the murder of whistleblower Danny Ducharme (Maxime Isabelle), but ended on an extremely odd note. Pascal and his mother (Marie Michaud) were an incestuous couple, help.
It’s also a shame that Frédéric Legrand (Martin-David Peters) succumbed to his gunshot wounds. This lawyer with elastic ethics brought a sticky side to Indefensible that wasn’t awkward at all.
At the Lapointe-Macdonald law firm, populated by upstanding and courageous criminal affairs attorneys, Me Legrand clashed with his corruptible principles. He slept with a pegre’s wife. And he had even stolen the gun that Me Lapointe (Michel Laperrière) had hidden in his desk drawer.
If Me Legrand had been taken to Saint-Vincent Hospital he would have been revived STAT. Emmanuelle St-Cyr would never have lost it.