Round Two: Off the Map

Off the Map: Season 1, Episode 2 “Smile. Don’t Kill Anyone” (F)

Well, it seems it is possible to have even more sensational plotlines than I would have thought given the already outrageous, go-for-broke story arcs in the first installment of this show. When it turns out that a giant snake is the only thing stopping someone from bleeding it, I can buy that. But when the doctors decide they should postpone surgery so that the guy who continues to be about to bleed out can postpone to his girlfriend, that I can’t stomach. Additionally, it’s a suggestion that comes from Lily of all people, who just happens to be the newest doctor on the block, yet all of the more senior doctors drop everything and listen to her. It’s a case of this show lending its more prominently-featured characters an air of entirely undiegetic importance, presuming that just because they’re spotlighted more in the show they have some wisdom that the onscreen characters can appreciate and honor as much as the audience. Tommy, due to the chagrin of Zach Gilford fans everywhere, I’m sure, continues to be heinously one-dimensional, and I’m also annoyed by the fact that he undergoes overnight maturity that we get to appreciate and still has time to revert to his immature, promiscuous self by morning, like the intellectual opposite of a werewolf (not a good metaphor, I realize). Fellow newbie Ryan is imbued with an undue air of importance and life knowledge that Mina clearly doesn’t have even though she’s only been there a bit longer, and that doesn’t track at all.