Sophia thinks that the other interns dislikes her due to her being "too perfect", and wants to screw up on purpose and be punished with a night shift. But then she learns that it's easier said than done: her case is too easy, and if she "fails" it, Bykov would realise that it was done on purpose. On Lyuba's advice, she asks Gleb, who's the local "champion" when it comes to being punished. His solution is to exploit Bykov's weak points: insult his sense of humour, act like a moron, and be lazy. First two options are too risky, so Sophia decides to try slacking off. The plan seemingly works, but then Bykov learns that Sophia already completed her task before starting slacking, and lets it slide. He also gives her a new patient, so Sophia now can try to ignore him for the rest o the day and be punished for that. But fearing that something bad can happen in her absence, she rushes to her patient, and learns that everything is okay. She fills clinical history, and asks Lyuba to hide it from Bykov, to give him excuse to punish her at least for that. Then, tired of doing nothing, Sophia decides to read some medical literature. Lyuba, meanwhile, tries to follow Sophia's plan, but the patient reveals that it's slander, forcing Lyuba to tell about the plan — which is so moronic, Bykov doesn't believe that it's Sophia's, so she has to reveal Gleb's involvement, too. But when the three goes to on-call room and sees Sophia studying, it's Lyuba and Gleb who gets punished — for "lying and badmouthing good intern".
Maxim's patient rejects him, stating Max's lack of experience as a reason. Accepting defeat is not an option: Bykov would firstly punish Max with night shift, and only then provide new patient. Fortunately, Maxim already has a plan how to deal with it: he would send Alexei (in his plumber guise) to talk with the patient, learn as much as possible and then use this information to construct diagnosis. Alexei proceeds with the plan, and "delicately" interrogates the patient (masking it as small talk), but fails to obtain enough information in one go, necessitating to send him again. The patient, meanwhile, complains to Bykov, as he didn't receive any replacement for Maxim. When another attempt at examination gets mistaken for sexual harassment and results in Lyosha being hit in an eye, Bykov punishes both interns with several night shifts when he sees them together and realises that it was another scheme.
Kupitman, who still maintains his abstinence for Sophia's sake, starts suffering from hypersensitivity, smelling even smallest traces of alcohol (which his feverish brain exaggerates to the extreme) — and goes ballistic on Phil, who just drunk a little champagne. He even intents to complain to Kisegach! Kisegach promises to check on Phil, but then she learns that he overreacted due to his abstinence — and that she missed her colleague's celebration (his wife just gave birth to their daughter). She asks Phil to tolerate Kupitman's craziness, since he has a "difficult period" in his life, to which Phil reluctantly agrees. Meanwhile, Kupitman learns about the celebration from Igor and Valera, and that everyone is part of it — everyone is drunk at work! Kupitman rushes to Kisegach, interrupting important phone talk — only to realise that she's "drunk", too. Kisegach points that his abstinence drives him crazy, and allows him to find and drink something, on condition that he would maintain self-control — this wouldn't even break his facade of a teetotaller, since the celebration is a good enough of excuse. But by this point, there's no champagne left, and Kupitman snaps completely, starting acting like a complete lunatic in futile search for booze.
This episode provides examples of:
- Berserk Button:
- Due to abstinence from alcohol, Kupitman suffers great increase in smell sensitivity, being able to recognise even smallest traces of alcoholic smell — and immediately goes ballistic on whomever causes this, due to his brain, feverish from abstinence, increasing it to the point when it becomes unbearable, starting from Phil and ending with Kisegach. When Kisegach lets him drink some alcohol just to calm down, he goes completely nuts, especially since by this point, champagne run out.
- Sophia desperately needs to be punished with a night shift, but doesn't know how. Gleb suggests her to exploit one of Bykov's weak points: insulting his sense of humour, stupidity or laziness. First two things are out of question (Sophia's not bold enough for first, and too smart for second), but she actually tries third one... unsuccessfully.
- Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere: Kupitman still tries to maintain his "teetotaller" facade for Sophia, but it became just unbearable; Kupitman now can smell even slightest traces of alcohol, and if someone as much as drinks a glass of champagne, he notices it and goes absolutely ballistic, accusing them of being drunkards. Normal, drunkard Kupitman is significantly nicer. And then, just when he receives permission from Kisegach to drink just a little... turns out that they are out of champagne, after which he goes even more insane. In the end of the episode he, completely exhausted, breaks into tears when speaking with Bykov (who doesn't miss an opportunity to mock Kupitman recognising specific kind of alcohol just by smell).
- Didn't Think This Through: Sophia rejects idea of acting stupid, as it would be too blatant, given how easy the case is, and attract unwanted attention to her goal; she instead goes with idea of acting lazy. But, as she already did that easy task, Bykov doesn't consider her slacking, so plan fails. Gleb flat-out tells that it's her fault.
- Do Well, But Not Perfect: Sophia thinks that her status as the "good girl" is exactly why two other interns don't trust her and don't accept her as one of them, due to her being quiet, "holier-than-you" nerd who never does anything wrong. Her proposed solution? Screw up on purpose so Bykov would (for a first time) punish her with night shift, so Maxim and Alexei would see that she isn't "better" than them, and would trust her more. Lyuba calls this plan stupid, but agrees to help.
- False Reassurance: At first it seems that Maxim and Alexei got away with their scheme, since Bykov started talking about Max's patient being a paranoidal freak; what Bykov says next makes it completely clear that he knows everything, despite never directly confirming it, and that they just received three night shifts (or "three days of all-day observing" task, if follow Bykov's wording) as a punishment.
- Hypocritical Humour: Kisegach doesn't miss an irony of Kupitman, of all people, complaining about somebody being drunk on duty. In fact, at first she jokes that he tries to complain about himself, and gets surprised that he means this completely seriously.
- Imagine Spot: When Sophia tries to ignore her patient, she sees the visions of him dying due to neglect, panics and rushes to do all the work.
- The Millstone: Sophia receives perfectly working plans, but all three times they fails at the last moment because of her either not following instructions or deciding to do something which contradicts the "lazy chick" scheme, with the last plan hurting Gleb and Lyuba but not Sophia (and the whole point was to give people a reason to stop disliking Sophia!); in particular, Sophia actually checking the patient not only botches second plan, but also ruins Lyuba's attempt to perform the third plan, as that same patient shows up to discredit Lyuba's version of events. Then Sophia ruins the plant completely when Bykov sees her reading science literature, so it's Gleb and Lyuba who gets punished instead.
- Mistaken for Gay: Maxim's patient mistakes Alexei's attempts to "examine" him for sexual harassment. Considering that Alexei was in his "technician" guise, and did this out of nowhere, it's hard to blame him. This results in Alexei being hit in the eye.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Gleb and Lyuba tries to help Sophia with her plan (It Makes Sense in Context to get punished by Bykov]]); due to Sophia being not cooperative, it's them who gets punished, for "slandering".
- The Nose Knows: Kupitman, due to abstinence from alcohol, suffers from great increase in sensitivity, recognising even smallest and oldest smells of alcohol in everyone around him, going ballistic instantly. Phil is first, but not the last to suffer his wrath.
- Overly Long Scream: Kupitman's (on top of his lungs) scream after he tried (and failed) to find (non-existent) last bottle of champagne:Kupitman: Whe-e-e-e-ere?!
- Revealing Cover-Up: Sophia plans to screw up on purpose, so Bykov would punish her with a night shift; unfortunately, her patient has such simple diagnosis that she can't pretend that she "failed" it without Bykov recognising that a "failure" was fake, which would draw everyone's attention to something she prefers to keep secret.
- The Slacker: In order to being punished with a night shift, Sophia follows Gleb's advise and decides to pretend being very lazy, so Bykov would punish her. It doesn't work.
- Springtime for Hitler: Sophia's entire plot consists of her trying to intentionally being punished by Bykov with night shift; turns out it's harder than it sounds:
- She wastes entire day doing nothing, expecting that Bykov would punish her. Plan works perfectly, and Bykov "punishes" Sophia with a night shift on the spot... but then Bykov learns that Sophia already dealt with her task, which means that she actually can afford some rest before receiving new one, and cancels the shift. Gleb points out that it's her fault.
- After initial failure, Sophia decides to try to ignore her patient for a whole day. She snaps and rushes to him when she thinks that it may kill him, and does all the work anyway.
- On the final attempt, Sophia asks Lyuba to hide the clinical history, so it would look like she did nothing, and tries to just lie in on-call room, but gets bored and starts reading clinical history. Bykov, meanwhile, forces Lyuba to reveal the whole scheme, and when he sees Sophia studying, he compliments her — and punishes Lyuba with Gleb, for "slandering".Bykov: "Endocrinology", Molchanov P.B. Even Molchanov himself wouldn't read his book "just for fun"!
