Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Doctor Odyssey Episode 8.

Doctor Odyssey set sail on its final voyage of 2024 last night, with all of the twists and turns that a mid-season finale could deliver before leaving us high and dry until March 2025. Episode 8, hilariously entitled “Quackers,” sees the Odyssey bustling with guests who are obsessed with a quirky trend: rubber duckies. You know, like Jeep ducking, but for cruise lines. It’s a highly unexpected episode theme, considering there’s a much bigger plot unfolding — namely, Avery’s (Phillipa Soo) baby blues.

Two episodes ago, Doctor Odyssey went where fans didn’t expect the series to go (at least not for another season), with Avery, Max (Joshua Jackson), and Tristan (Sean Teale) indulging in a good old-fashioned ménage à trois. Last week, Avery tried her best to get her boys to agree to become a throuple, but her best-laid plans fell apart when Max and Tristan both admitted they just wanted her, not a throuple. Now, not only is she left high and dry in the relationship department, but she’s also pregnant!

The “Who’s Your Daddy?” trope is as old as fiction itself, but it’s particularly popular with pulpy soap operas, which Doctor Odyssey has wholeheartedly embraced, both with the outlandish plotlines and the tongue-in-cheek tone it’s taken throughout the first half of the season. What is surprising is the fact that Doctor Odyssey is deploying this plotline in the first half of a first season. This is the sort of love triangle drama that comes out three seasons in. Delivering a plot like this so early on really begs the question: what could possibly happen next?

Avery Takes a Big Test in ‘Doctor Odyssey’ Episode 8

The episode opens with Lenore (Gina Gershon) hard-selling Captain Massey (Don Johnson) on the whole Quackers movement within the cruise industry, before segueing over to Cory (Rick Cosnett) giving the crew the rundown on what is expected of them while their duck-obsessed guests are on board. The rules are simple: every crew member must paint a “quacker” that represents who they are, and then hide them around the Odyssey to be found.

After last week’s revelations, it seems as though Max and Avery are keeping close to each other (particularly close since they’re all but leaning on each other during Cory’s talk), while Tristan is chasing after a little rebound with Vivian (Laura Harrier). The two have a sweet moment while painting their duckies, where Vivian shares the inspiration behind her Starry Night-inspired duckie, and it does seem like the series wants to get these two closer to each other, despite the looming pregnancy plotline.

Unsurprisingly, Max is avidly against the idea of rubber duckies, because they are made of plastic which ends up in the ocean and ingested by innocent animals. For some reason, we get a flashback to Max saving a seagull while he was on an animal rescue mission several years ago. Clearly, Max is a bit of a D-O-M-I-N-G-O—a man of many talents and a potential baby daddy. As everyone starts to paint their ducks, Avery makes a comment to Max about how the smell of the paint is making her nauseous, which prompts her to take the pregnancy test once they’re back on the ship.

Related I Think if We’re Thirsting Over Hot Doctors Again, It’s Proof That TV Has Never Been More Back I need a glass of water. STAT!

Avery Considers Her Options in ‘Doctor Odyssey’ Episode 8
Image via ABC

In addition to the founders of Quackers United, Jill and Jerry Manafort, this week sees two of Avery’s oldest friends joining her aboard the Odyssey, and they couldn’t have arrived at a better time. Shortly after Avery discovers that she is indeed pregnant, she collects her pals (Adrienne Warren and Paloma Garcia-Lee), and brings them back to her quarters to tell them her big surprise: she got into medical school! Oh, and also, she’s pregnant. The double-whammy is the last thing that any of them could have expected, and Avery is left worrying that having a baby might derail her plans for the future.

Her friends are exactly what she needs at the moment, because one is a happy mother, and the other is happy because she had an abortion. Their lived experiences push Avery to think about what she really wants, because she wants to have a family and go to medical school, but maybe not at the same time. It’s “the female dilemma,” as Avery calls it. Of course, her friends do want to know who the father is, and the mystery of it all delights them.

As much fun as this plotline is, it is frustrating that Doctor Odyssey didn’t give Avery more time to develop as a character. She still seems unmoored with each new episode, floating back and forth between Max and Tristan and letting life happen to her, instead of making life happen for her. With a baby potentially on board for good (if the mid-season promo is any indication), the series needs to work fast on building her up into a character who can stand entirely on her own, without a baby being used to transform her.

Tristan Is Down for the Count in ‘Doctor Odyssey’ Episode 8
Image via ABC

Surprisingly, the Quackers seem to be the tamest bunch of passengers the Odyssey has played host to all season — so much so that Tristan gets to spend the majority of the episode lounging around in the pool with Vivian, instead of treating patients. Vivian tells Tristan to stop flirting with her like it’s a spot, and it’s impossible to believe that she doesn’t know that Tristan is obsessed with Avery, so it’s smart of her to try to reestablish whatever is going on between her and Tristan. Tristan admits, rather lamely, that he just wants to get to know Vivian slowly, and she takes the bait. The two share another sweet moment, before Max shows up to lecture them about the infamous Friendly Floatees spill and warn them about the bacterial dangers of rubber duckies. The pair do not heed his warnings and wind up with bacterial conjunctivitis, which is highly contagious and prevents them from doing their jobs for the rest of the week.

Because of Tristan’s absence from the medical team, it’s up to Max and Avery to solve this week’s medical mystery, and it’s an interesting one. During the first night aboard the cruise, Doctor Odyssey reveals that Jerry has an odd habit of eating things he shouldn’t be eating, and that lands him in the infirmary pretty quickly. At first, they’re perplexed about his condition, but after they run a CT scan on him, they discover that he has Pica—a disorder that makes people compulsively consume non-food items. Unfortunately for Jerry, it’s left him in a serious condition, and even after their quick-thinking endoscopy sees them remove nearly twenty objects from his stomach, he still isn’t improving.

After Jerry’s surgery, Max and Avery take turns monitoring him throughout the night, and at one point, Max wakes Avery up because he feels like something is off with their patient. Avery assures him that Jerry’s mild fever is a reaction to the anesthetics, but it’s not: things are about to get even worse for him. They put him under again for surgery, fearing that something he ate may have torn his intestines, and discover that a pretty large expanse of his bowels are necrotic, forcing them to perform a pretty hefty surgery to remove the obstruction and save his life. While all of this is going on, Avery takes a moment to question Max about whether what they do is enough for him, and he lightly teases her about having an existential crisis, entirely unaware of the fact that she really is having one. From the start, it’s been clear that Max and Avery have the stronger connection in this love triangle, and Doctor Odyssey even has them holding hands to comfort each other after the dicey procedure!

Is This Avery’s Grand Adventure on ‘Doctor Odyssey’?
Image via ABC

As the cruise comes to an end, Jerry is transferred to a hospital on shore, but his wife doesn’t want to leave the Odyssey. The entire ordeal has left her unsettled, because despite going on cruises with her husband for years, and spending days at a time at sea, she never realized that he had something like Pica. As Max, Avery, and Tristan talk with her and try to set her nerves at ease, she makes a comment about how it’s possible to embark on a grand adventure with someone you love, but still not be able to ask them if they’re OK, and that sticks with Avery. Avery hangs back to help Jill pack her things, but tells Max and Tristan to meet her in the infirmary in ten minutes because she needs to talk with them.

In the infirmary, Avery sits a pair of pink and blue baby ducks on Max’s desk and nervously tries to explain why she’s presenting them with the ducks. Before she can even get to the point, Max and Tristan both realize what they’re being told. Max immediately launches into the reassuring doctor shtick, promising Avery that she can still complete medical school while pregnant and with a baby, but that’s not what she needs to hear right now. Tristan is quick to put Max in his place, pointing out that he’s just rambling for his own benefit, rather than listening to what Avery needs. Max, ever the perceptive one, recognizes that this isn’t the first time that Tristan has had a conversation like this, and he reveals that this happened twice on the last cruise ship he was assigned to. Tristan underscores that this has to be Avery’s decision, because it’s her body, and they have to just sit by and let her reach her decision. As far as mid-season finales go, Doctor Odyssey certainly stuck the landing with this one, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Doctor Odyssey will return on March 6, 2025. In the meantime, you can catch the first half of Season 1 streaming now on Hulu.

Avery delivers big news to Max and Tristan in Doctor Odyssey’s mid-season finale.ProsAvery’s surprise pregnancy makes for a compelling mid-season finale.Doctor Odyssey managed to tie up the first half of the season, while promising a really intriguing back half.The contrast between Max and Tristan’s reaction to Avery’s news sets the stage for compelling angst when the show returns. ConsDoctor Odyssey still needs to commit to turning Avery into a true character, and not just a vessel for broken men.

Release Date September 26, 2024 Main Genre Drama Seasons 1 Network ABC Streaming Service(s) Hulu Expand

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