It Sucks That the Best Parts of This Show Happen Off-Screen

Editor’s Note: The recap below contains spoilers for Watson Season 2, Episode 3.Four episodes into Watson’s sophomore season, and the series is still hitting the same bumps in the road that Season 1 was fraught with. After last week’s episode — which proved vastly better and more cohesive than most of the series thus far — Episode 4 is a mess of half-formed thoughts and shoddy character “development.”

Despite the series’ uneven nature, its one selling point has been the fact that Morris Chestnut’s Dr. Watson is incredibly charming and, by design, quite likable. But “Happy When It Rains” starts to chip away at those attributes, in favor of fixing one of Watson’s clunkiest plotlines. When a series is already strung together with loose concepts and broad outlines of characters, it’s disappointing to see them sully the one storyline that they had going for them.

The episode is split into two core plotlines. The first is a very surface-level exploration of Shinwell Johnson’s (Ritchie Coster) new life as a nursing student as he grapples with an outbreak among patients in the aftermath of a tornado. The second is Watson and Mary Morstan (Rochelle Aytes) independently basking in preamble to the storm, while reminiscing about the early days of their relationship, when they made out in a rainstorm on the roof. This plotline is exactly what the series has been in desperate need of — especially when Watson and Mary’s chemistry is the only truly good part of the series — but it goes about it the wrong way.

The Best Part of ‘Watson’ Gets Squandered Too Quickly

Image via CBS

Early in the episode, Watson has a conversation with Adam (Peter Mark Kendall), where he very defensively dismisses Adam’s questions about his relationship with Laila (Tika Sumpter), essentially acting like he doesn’t have any reason to think about her, since she’s off on a business trip. Meanwhile, he’s pointedly ignoring a phone call that is most definitely from her, and she has reason to be calling! A tornado just hit where Watson is! And yet, he just callously dismisses the whole thing. While this plotline isn’t necessarily a bad plotline, Watson has just poorly handled it.

Last week, Watson still seemed keen to salvage his relationship with Laila, explaining why he was being a bad boyfriend, and having an adult conversation about their awkward discussion about her son. But here, something has progressed off-screen, which makes it impossible to connect with or sympathize with Watson. Instead, the series has now framed him as not only a distant boyfriend, but one who will ghost his partner because he’s too busy daydreaming about his ex-wife.

‘Watson’ Has No Idea Who Its Characters Are

On top of this episode painting Watson in a bad light, Adam is also saddled with a confounding plotline. Adam’s relationship with Lauren (Amanda Crew) — his twin brother’s ex-girlfriend, and one of Derian’s (Eve Harlow) almost-victims — was mostly an afterthought in Season 1. She was a plot device purely designed to create tension between the twins, and to establish a means for almost killing the brothers off in the season finale. Nothing has really been said about her in the first trio of Season 2 episodes, and yet Episode 4 does this thing, where it assumes that the audience innately knows that Adam and Lauren have been planning their wedding, and he’s getting cold feet. None of this has been established on-screen, and it’s just another example of how the most interesting stuff never happens on the page. There’s an entire Watson series happening that we never get to see.

Adam’s marital hesitations are quickly compounded by Lauren showing up at the clinic with a cake announcing that she’s pregnant! Adam feigns excitement, but later admits to Stephens that he isn’t happy about it, and in fact doesn’t really want kids — despite previously telling Lauren he did want kids. This isn’t inherently a bad thing. People do change their minds about children, but Watson hasn’t taken any time to sow these seeds of doubt in Adam’s mind (on-screen) or in the minds of the audience. So it comes out of left field and makes Adam seem like a terrible person. It’s the same dilemma the series has now manifested with Watson’s wishy-washy approach to his relationship with Laila. The series keeps treating its female characters as pawns in the man-pain Olympics, and without proper development or emotional weight, both plotlines just feel hollow and bad.

There’s no real resolution for this plotline in Episode 4, beyond Adam sucking it up and pretending to be happy about Lauren’s pregnancy. Considering how heavy-handed Watson has been with its foreshadowing, this plotline will likely culminate in one of two ways: Lauren having a miscarriage right when Adam realizes he wants the baby, or they’ll break up and he’ll become a deadbeat dad. Considering the subplot of the episode is about a couple wanting a baby so badly that they decide to introduce a third into their relationship so she could conceive a viable pregnancy, the miscarriage route seems most likely.

‘Watson’ Gives Its Most Underrated Character a Moment to Shine

Image via CBS

While Shinwell was a major part of Season 1 — considering his connections to Moriarty (Randall Park) and his role as Watson’s confidant — this season has surprisingly given him substantially more to do that isn’t directly tied to scenes with Watson. The time jump between the seasons saw him step away from solely being the clinic’s administrative aide, in favor of pursuing a career as a nurse, though Season 2 hasn’t really focused on that aspect with any real depth. Episode 4 begins to develop that part of his story, and it showcases that he’s well-liked by his patients, and quite dedicated to being a good nurse. It even seems like Watson is starting to establish a life for Shinwell outside of the clinic’s walls, as he proves himself to his peers, like Nurse DeCosta (Margot Bingham).

In Episode 4, Shinwell is the first to discover a strange connection between a trio of patients that he’s been caring for in the aftermath of the tornado — they have all developed a flesh-eating bacteria which is slowly wreaking havoc on them. The worst hit by the bacteria is Ben, a high schooler with a promising basketball career, who faces amputation. Shinwell forms a bond with the patient, which gives him a vested interest in the situation. He’s also the first to raise the alarm about the similarities between the patients, looking at their cases with fresh eyes, despite being just as overworked as everyone else after the storm.

What’s frustrating about this very excellent plotline is the fact that Watson will inevitably unravel the goodwill being built with it. Even within the episode, DeCosta makes a broad comment about not caring about whatever Shinwell’s past is because he is a good nurse. Given how previous dialogue has been used, this means that something will happen in the next few episodes to undermine that development. And if that does happen, it will be a shame because Shinwell is the series’ most underrated character, and it was nice to see something go in his favor for once.

Overall, Episode 4 was a disappointment — especially in contrast with last week’s episode, which was a step-up for the series, despite its odd choices. Watson’s tendency to jump on random storylines with the expectation that audiences will care without warning, while committing to character assassination, continues to make this series the strangest show on television right now. Watson could have been an excellent series, but the best version of this show is happening off-screen.

New episodes of Watson premiere Mondays on CBS and the next day on the Paramount+ app. Season 1 is streaming now.

Watson

An episode filled with potential meanders its way into disappointment.

Release Date

January 26, 2025

Showrunner

Craig Sweeny

Pros & Cons

• The best part of Episode 4 is Ritchie Coster’s Shinwell Johnson getting a moment to shine.

• Watson overestimates the emotional investment of its audience, and what little goodwill it’s built gets squandered on hasty plotlines.
• While Watson and Mary’s slow burn is fun, the way the series has framed his revelation paints him in a bad light.
• Watson continues to show that it’s best storylines happen off-screen.