Doctor Odyssey has brought the first half of its season to a close and did so by dropping a bombshell regarding the love triangle (or possible throuple) involving the show’s main trio.
**If you couldn’t tell from the headline and the above paragraph, this article contains spoilers for Doctor Odyssey Season 1, Episode 8**
Two weeks after turning The Odyssey into The Love Boat by having a threesome, Avery (Phillipa Soo), Max (Joshua Jackson), and Tristan (Sean Teale) find themselves in a precarious situation when Avery takes a pregnancy test and discovers she is expecting. And before your mind goes to the “it’s probably a false positive” trope, we can confirm that is not the case here.
After taking the tests and convening with her longtime best friends — played by Broadway actresses Adrienne Warren and Paloma Garcia-Lee — Soo’s character confirms her diagnosis with a blood test. Armed with the information, albeit very little that she has, Avery finally comes clean to Max and Tristan. The kicker here, of course, is that she has absolutely no idea which of them is the father.
That said, the episode ends on a cliffhanger with Avery receiving the support of her coworkers (and baby daddies) to decide how she wants to proceed. As the recap before the episode reminded fans, however, she is on track to begin medical school, which could be difficult with a child in her life. It sounds like we won’t know until the show returns in March what Avery decides to do, whether that means terminating or continuing with the pregnancy.
The episode features more than just the drama involving the trio, as this is a medical show set on a cruise ship. In “Quackers,” Fred Melamed and Loretta Devine guest star as an older couple who travel the world on vacations planned specifically for people obsessed with the “Quackers” movement. It’s apparently the hottest new trend on cruises and involves people who are obsessed with hiding rubber duckies on the ship. Just like every other thing I’ve written about this season that feels fictitious, I feel the urge to tell you all that this is indeed a real thing and a popular one at that. You do you, people!
Trouble brews for the guests when Jerry (Melamed) ingests too many random items and is rushed in for emergency abdominal surgery due to his obstructed bowel. As the show explains, Jerry has Pica, a medical condition and diagnosable eating disorder that causes the compulsive need to swallow non-food items. During the first surgery (let the word “first” here clue you in on something), Avery and Max discover a house key, screw, binder clip, and many, many more curiosities. After a brief stint of stabilization, Jerry must go back under the knife for a second procedure where they find a full-blown rubber ducky that somehow was missed in the first surgery and on the scans.
Jill (Devine) struggles to come to terms with her husband’s issue, even as The Odyssey’s medical trio explains that while rare, the condition is treatable in time and can stem from many different things. Avery, Max, and Tristan tell Jill that many patients feel that by shoving items in their mouth, they are exercising some semblance of control over their lives and bodies, even when everything else is out of their hands completely. It’s a subtle nod to Avery’s current predicament and possibly a tease that she will take advantage of her reproductive rights when the show returns in 2025.
Outside of that — and a brief appearance from Gina Gershon who plays the owner of the cruise line — it was a quiet mid-season finale after seven crazy weeks of voyages. Since we already have fully boarded onto what we are calling the most absurd show of 2024, we cannot wait for the second half of Season 1 to set sail in March.
The first eight episodes of Doctor Odyssey Season 1 are currently streaming on Hulu.
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