We went from a family storm to a snowstorm on Good Sam in “A Light in the Storm.” I loved watching Dr. Sam Griffith navigate it all.
We started right where we left off in the last episode with Sam (Sophia Bush) and Dr. Caleb Tucker (Michael Stahl-David) having sex. But it turns out they’ve just continued having sex since the supply closet. Are they a couple? Is it just sex? We know Caleb loves Sam, so it’s kind of crappy for her to use him for sex. But all of this is a conversation for another time because it doesn’t take long for things to escalate in the ER with the storm getting worse.
A boy came in after being hit by a bus, and then it turned out there was a bus crash with multiple victims. The boy had his heart on the wrong side of his chest, the woman driving the bus had passed out before the crash and another woman had missed three dialysis treatments before the accident. These were the three primary patients the show focused on, but there was a hospital full of patients too.
The hospital was running out of blood and supplies, and they couldn’t get more because the roads were so bad. At first, Sam was like, “what are we going to do?” Then, Dr. Griff Grffith (Jason Isaacs) was about to chime in, but Sam started laying out the plan and you could see how proud he was of her. This was her first major crisis and she was handling it well.
She had to do all of this while still mad at her father for lying to her for 20 years. It’s incredible how they can work together so well even when they are fighting. And this is even heightened because it’s not fighting over the same job anymore. It’s her father being drunk when they were in the accident and not being able to be there for her. It’s so devastating. We’re not sitting in that because the hospital is in crisis mode, and she has to react to all the issues around them.
I like what the writers have done with Griff even in just one week. Finally, he’s going to therapy and doing the work. You can just hear it in his conversations with Sam. He’s needed this, and it was his PTSD that forced him to do it. Griff was a horrible person when we met him, so this will do a world of good for his character’s growth.
We did get comic relief through the chaos when Caleb and Malcolm Kingsley (Edwin Hodge) had to work together. It was so lovely seeing Malcolm pitching in and helping. He helped calm patients, called for blood even ran the blood drive with help from Caleb. Malcolm took notice of Caleb when he spoke Spanish to a patient and then found out he volunteered in Columbia after med school. Malcolm wanted to hate Caleb, but the more he got to know him, the harder it was to hate him. There was an awkward undertone, but mostly it was the two men getting to know each other. It was funny, mainly because they’ve both had a relationship with Sam. That could have gone unspoken, but Dr. Joey Costa (Davi Santos) had to point to the elephant in the room. But he wasn’t in the right headspace. His fiance, Tim Davis (Stephen Tracey), was missing. Luckily he came back to the hospital in the end.
It wasn’t just short of blood and supplies they were dealing with. The pipes were frozen, and Joey had to get water from the wellness center and disinfect it for one of his patients. Then, the power went out when Sam and Grif were operating on the young boy. They couldn’t stop because the kid would die. They had to proceed. I loved that Griff found light to shine for Sam so she could continue. He was the “Light in the Dark.” And he really is trying to be better.
And during this surgery, they only had two bags of blood left, but three patients needed it. Sam had to make a call on who got it. Griff offered to make the call, but Sam rightfully said it had to be her. The boy got the blood, which made sense because his chest was open up. Griff came up with the idea to give Dr. Lex Trulie’s (Skye P. Marshall) patient hormones to slow the bleeding. Then Sam said to put Joey’s patient on 100 percent oxygen to extend her life until the blood was ready. Unfortunately, Joey’s patient didn’t make it, but Lex’s did. Sadly, they can’t save everyone.
Caleb mentioned they saved 44 people in the end. It made me wonder how many they lost. Not that 44 is not a bad number. They were working with not enough staff, blood or supplies, so they did pretty well.
But the damage from the storm is not over, even if the power is back on. The wi-fi came back on and showed the devastation. More patients would be coming in. But then Sam saw her mother’s car flipped over on the news. She spent the entire episode not wanting to speak to her but right before that. She said she couldn’t understand how she could be so worried about someone she didn’t want to talk to.
Next week, Sam is going out to save her mother. The past family trauma may not be gone by the end of this, but Sam will undoubtedly be willing to work on it after everything the storm has caused. Good Sam is getting intense, not just with the family dynamics, but medical too.
What did you think of how Sam handled the storm? Tweet me @PrimetimeDrama or @MandyTTCarr or comment below.
