Double Feature: The Night Shift "Get Busy Livin'" & "Hot in the City"

"Get Busy Livin'"

In the first episode of a double-feature event, one doctor will learn from one of the patients that saving lives isn't the most important thing.

Shannon rides with the paramedics to a call of an overdose college student. Hearing his story gave her a sick reason not to feel bad for him. As they take the guy in the ambulance, someone else needs help, and she goes while the paramedics head off.

 Another student had jumped off the second floor, bleeding and with a broken bone sticking out of her leg. TC gets there and takes them back to Memorial. As soon as Scott sees her, they take her to the OR. The student's friend returns with her purse, hands it to TC, and finds a bottle of pills. After looking up the drug, a side effect causes suicidal thoughts. That pissed him off to talk to the pharmaceutical rep, Jessica Sanders, who is in the hospital to give Scott the heart veil that helps heart patients recover in half the time.

He should probably waited til talking with the patient before going after her because after a complication (puffing up like a balloon), he talked to her about the pills. She told him that she hadn't taken any, and she jumped off because she was just stressed out from college work. Later, after Sanders has been trying to sucker Topher and Jordan to switch drug reps to her company, TC apologizes to her on the spot. And there might be something with the way they looked at each other.

But the central part of this episode was about Jordan, who takes care of a cancer patient. The patient has spent most of her helping others and studying and has never been on a date. When Jordan tries to help her, she doesn't want any help but to die with dignity. Of course, Jordan can't take that and tries to get her to try a trial that Sanders' company had, but she tells her she'll do it unless Jordan talks to her about her.

Jordan opens up about her life, how after her dad died, she closed relationships and focused on work more and more. After opening up to her, Jordan talks to Sanders, and she's got the trial, but soon, her patient takes a turn for the worst. Jordan tries to save her, but when Topher comes in telling her that she's a DNR and the patient telling her to let her die, Jordan breaks down in tears and makes her comfortable with pain meds, and she dies.

Other things in this episode dealt with a lot of humor, from Sanders getting Topher the deal of a lifetime, a paid vacation away from his mother and kids. But also Drew and Kenny at Syd's kid karate tournament, which got weird looks from other parents as they cheered her on. And not to mention that Drew fell on her when showing her a move after a win and had broken her arm.

 Reflection will be below.

"Hot in the City"

The second episode of the double feature deals with the heat and relationships in a way.

The heat is on, and so are the relationships with some characters from Kenny and the nurse, TC and Sanders, Jordan and Sam, and Scott and TC's sister. 

TC and Topher take a female patient who seems to suffer from heat exhaustion. But when TC sees a rash on her chest and does some more tests, the diagnosis jumps to meningitis. But when her breathing became more and more of an issue, and at one point, she had a heart attack too. 

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As Topher and TC gathered their thoughts, TC rechecked her and found sink pealing on her hands and strawberry-looking tongue and came up with the diagnosis it was an infection in the heart and had to be operated on.

Jordan and Shannon had their hands full on their off day and out at a wrestling match. Jordan meets Victor and talks to her about his cousin, one of the masked wrestlers. But when a fight goes too far, things fly around, and it gets wild. Victor saves Jordan but gets hurt. And one of the ring ladies got injured, too.

As they get to the hospital, Jordan and Shannon take care of Victor as Drew takes the female who flew onto a chair and can't feel her legs.

Victor became the second biggest medical mystery of the episode as things kept getting worse for him. At one point, he was coughing blood and had to be rushed to the OR. There, they took out a tumor from his liver, but the patient kept getting worse after. Paul, Scott, and Jordan tried to figure it out before Victor died until Jordan figured out that it was parasites from the pork that he had eaten in Mexico.

On the other hand, with Drew, he had the most problematic case out of all. First, he promises the girl she'll walk again (big mistake!). After trying one thing that didn't turn out to work, they had to go into surgery. With no spinal cord specialist coming, Drew was the only one who had worked on the spinal cord back in Afghanistan.

Scott was a bit worried, but Topher trusted Drew to do it. After they went in, things became problematic from the back of the patient. Drew takes the risk to another level as he performs the surgery from her mouth. Yes, you heard me correctly, from the patient's mouth. HOLY CRAP!!

The kicker for this episode was that as soon as Jordan and Shannon get to the ER, the air conditioner shuts off on the hottest day of the year.  The episode ends with at least someone figuring out that one is dating someone. And Scott opens up to TC about dating his sister, which looks awkward!! Jordan seems to have broken up with Sam and is taking the dating world slow and social, too. TC and Jordan are on good terms, but I think they'll be back.

Reflection: 

For "Get Busy Livin'" I thought it was an excellent episode. I enjoyed Jordan's storyline in this one a lot more. She cares for her patients and tries to save them all, but for this one, she takes it very hard that she can't keep a patient. It's Flint's best performance. I also enjoyed the Kenny and Drew Odd Couple moment with Syd's daughter. That had me laughing and smiling. 

Overall, I give this episode a 9/10.

For "Hot in the City," I thought that it was good as this one brought the heat. When I say heat, I mean the medical problems for the characters to solve. It is challenging for the characters of Jordan and TC but also us. I felt like each character brought in an excellent performance. I can't name a single person. It had an outstanding balance of humor and drama. 

Overall, I give this episode a 9/10.

You can catch The Night Shift on Wednesday nights at 10/9c on NBC.