Even after cutting off most of the candidates, Bykov still has to choose only three people out of six. Fortunately, Bykov already has an idea how to do it. This time, Bykov would test their actual medical skills; since he can’t trust them with real patients, experiment would be purely hypothetical: they would receive the clinical histories of Bykov's former patients (whom he healed long time ago), and must figure out what to do with them. Of course, Bykov would "play" those patients himself. Since they have three patients and six candidates, Bykov decides to split them into three pairs, each working on different patients. Alexei gets paired with Zhanna, Sophia with Kirill, and Maxim gets paired with curly Georgian who introduces himself as Vakhtang.
Sophia thinks that she may ask Kupitman for help, not yet knowing that he's scheming against her. Kupitman lies to her that Bykov likes his interns dumb (so he may teach them from scratch, instead of re-teaching those who already knows something, but not what he likes); she must act like she's stupid, to "impress" him. But Kirill gets frustrated by Sophia endangering their chances, and he decides to sabotage the other groups. He tells Alexei (who can't get along with Zhanna, due to her seeing him as doomed to fail — and potentially drag her with himself) that Zhanna is so harsh due to having no sex for a long time, and suggests him to "help" her with that, to their mutual benefit — he just has to be persistent, cause she may try to disagree. Bykov, meanwhile, gets tired of Sophia acting dumbly out of nowhere, and presses her to reveal the truth (on the threat of kicking her out here and now). When Bykov goes to Kupitman, Kupitman tries to bribe him to not accept Sophia, but Bykov isn't interested in money — instead, he wants him to shave clean his signature curly hairs. Fortunately, it turns out to be a joke; unfortunately, Bykov now wouldn't kick Sophia out no matter what. As for Alexei, he tries Kirill's plan... and it somehow actually works, with Zhanna becoming much nicer.
Maxim decides to just cheat and steal the clinical history. But his plan goes wrong right from the start: while Bykov does agree to being transported to restroom on a wheelchair (it's in-character for Max's patient, unemployed slacker Victor with heart problems), he takes the clinical histories with him. Maxim tries to fool Bykov into giving him "just to hold" them, but Bykov changes his mind at the last moment, preventing Max from seeing anything major, other than patient's surname and that his diagnosis starts with "chronic". Vakhtang thinks that they're screwed, but Maxim is more confident — they have the patient's surname, and they know that he's not made up, so they can search in the hospital's database. But they discovers that the information they need can only be accessed from Bykov's PC, and while they fools Igor and Valera into printing it, they now must wait for Lyuba to finish printing her own (very long document)... only for her to run out of ink. Max somehow convinces Vakhtang to visit real Victor to get the info from him... only to learn that he's dead.
By the end of ay, both Sophia/Kirill and Alexei/Zhanna teams fails to provide results in time; Maxim and Vakhtang are yet to show up. Kirill tries to snitch on Alexei and Zhanna having sex, but Alexei at the last moment shows savviness and interprets Kirill's words as him being frustrated with Zhanna, which is nothing what Bykov doesn't know already. Failing with them, Kirill tries to snitch on Maxim and Vakhtang, revealing their plan — which results in Bykov getting fed up, and just kicking out him — and him alone — for backstabbing his future colleagues. Max and Vakhtang finally shows up — drunk after Victor's wake, but with correct diagnosis. Since they're the first and only to get the results, Bykov lets is slide, this one time. So, until tomorrow!
This episode provides examples of:
- Cheaters Never Prosper:
- Kirill, frustrated by Sophia's "plan", decides to sabotage the other groups to increase their own chances. He tells Alexei that Zhanna is in deep need of sex (which is the source of her hostility to Lyosha), and he must "help" her, no matter how she would protest. He expected that she would treat it as harassment and Alexei would be kicked out or worse, but surprisingly, this suggestion turns out to be right, and she accepts Alexei's offer, with positive results for their teamwork. In the end, he tries to snitch on them to Bykov, by telling him that they were busy "fucking"... but Alexei (with Zhanna playing along) manages to change the meaning of his words into him being fed up with this "fucking bitch". When it fails, he snitches on Max and Vakhtang. Bykov, disgusted by Kirill's blatant attempt to backstab the competitors (some of whom may potentially become his future colleagues), spares everyone — and instead kicks out Kirill himself.
- Subverted with Maxim; after failing so many times on his schemes how to get the info without actually playing by rules, Maxim does get it almost by accident when the most insane of his schemes actually works, even if not in a way he planned.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Kirill gives Alexei blatantly harmful advice — try to suggest Zhanna sex, and be persistent on that — hoping that it would cause conflict and ruin their chances, or even get Alexei outright kicked out; it only reinforces their teamwork (turns out, she actually needed sex), but Kirill tries to snitch on them to Bykov. When they seemingly manages to defend themselves, Kirill tries to snitch on Maxim and Vakhtang leaving (as part of their own scheme), after which Bykov gets fed up and just kicks out Kirill himself: people like him, who readily betrays their friends and colleagues, have no place in the team.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- Bykov refuses to accept a bribe to kick out Sophia, and outright calls Kupitman a "terrible uncle" for suggesting it in the first place. It seems that he also reacted badly to Kupitman's original plan (fool Sophia into acting like a moron to "win Bykov's sympathy"), because when he tells Kupitman that he knows the truth, his behaviour and tone of voice much more resembles Tranquil Fury than Bykov's usual "funny troll" state.
- Bykov gets disgusted by Kirill's dirty methods (instead of working fairly, he tried to sabotage the other candidates), and kicks him out, stating as a reason that they clearly wouldn't get along. He doesn't punish people on whom Kirill snitched, despite it being blatantly obvious that Alexei is improvising, while Maxim and Vakhtang did break the rules.
- Failure Is the Only Option: No matter what Maxim tries, something always goes wrong. Trying to distract Bykov from his ward, so Vakhtang may steal the clinical history? Bykov takes the clinical history with himself. Trying to fool Bykov into giving it to him while he goes to restroom? Bykov at the last moment decides to take it back. Trying to reach the database? Turns out that it's on Bykov's PC. Said PC is the same room with Igor and Valera, and while Maxim fools them into cooperation, turns out that the printer is on Lyuba's post... where they gets forced to wait for a long time until Lyuba finishes printing a long document for herself, only to realise that the printer is out of ink. When Maxim tries to create yet another scheme, Vakhtang tells him to stop wasting their time, but Maxim convinces him to try the last time, and visit their "patient's" prototype — only to find out that he's dead. It gets Subverted in the end, however: they finally learns correct diagnosis from the patient's relatives, and tells it to Bykov, who lets it slide due to them being the only one to actually learn the diagnosis, and due to being sad with a death of his old patient.
- Fate Worse than Death: Kupitman treats shaving off his signature curly hair clean as the worst thing that Bykov can force him to do; just to make effect stronger, during his Imagine Spot about it, the tragic music plays.
- Gilligan Cut: After all Maxim's schemes fails, Vakhtang tells him that whatever Max plans now, he wouldn't be a part of it. Cut to them both ringing in their "patient's" prototype's door.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Kupitman's plan involves him tricking Sophia into acting like a dumbass, so Bykov would kick her out. Bykov indeed gets enraged... but he notices sudden change of her intellect, and presses her into revealing the truth — learning both about the plan and her being Kupitman's niece. Which is exactly what Kupitman tried to hide from Bykov, for more reason than one.
- Internal Reveal: Bykov learns about Sophia's relation to Kupitman. Just as Kupitman expected, Bykov decides to take her into internship no matter what.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Kirill tries to sabotage Alexei's efforts to get into internship, by giving him the plan which he expected to fail so spectacularly that Alexei would be kicked out and likely accused of harassment, if not rape attempt; instead, it actually works as advertised and improves Alexei's relationship with Zhanna. Then he tries to outright snitch on them to Bykov, and when it fails, tries to switch Bykov's attention on the other group, Maxim and Vakhtang. After this, Bykov gets fed up with him and kicks him out — and only him.
- Missing Steps Plan: Maxim's plans fails to account for so many things that when something goes well, it happens due to sheer luck.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Sophia, following Kupitman's "advice", pretends to be much dumber, thinking that it would "impress" Bykov. Bykov realises in time that something is wrong, because she previously showed herself much better, and forces her to stop pretending.
- Sabotutor:
- Kupitman suggests Sophia to act much dumber than she really is, in order to "impress" Bykov. Everyone who knows him, would tell that Bykov is anything but impressed by this.
- Kirill never intended to help Alexei; he wanted to destroy the last glimpses of teamwork between him and Zhanna, so Kirill would have two competitors less. But, to everyone's surprise, plan he suggested to Alexei actually works.
- Skewed Priorities:
- Zhanna is more concentrated on her frustration with being paired with Alexei (instead of Kirill), and can't shut up about it. Alexei, instead, thinks about their actual task given by Bykov.
- Vakhtang and Maxim gets distracted by hockey match (Bykov watched TV while playing their patient), and Bykov gets forced to remind them about the actual reason why they're here.
- Springtime for Hitler: Plan which Kirill suggests to Alexei was supposed to fail horribly, causing Alexei of being accused of harassment if not rape and being kicked out with scandal. Zhanna actually accepts Alexei, and plan works exactly as Kirill advertised it. Unfortunately for Kirill, this means that he still failed to get rid of the competitor.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Zhanna can't stand Alexei and thinks that he should have been kicked out yesterday, yet he still showed up and now decreases her own chances. So, she can't shut up about her frustration with him, to their actual task's detriment. While Alexei tries to concentrate on work, he clearly isn't pleased with such "teammate", either. It later works in their favour, since when Kirill snitches on them fixing theic conflict by having sex, they manages to lie that they they're fed up with each other, which sounds believable enough to not investigate (everyone knows by that point about their hostility), even if Alexei makes it sound like bad improvisation.
- Tranquil Fury: When Bykov stops trolling Kupitman, and says that he knows about Sophia, the tone of his voice clearly shows that he's not fine with what Kupitman just tried to do, both because it's disgusting, and because it involves Bykov being Kupitman's tool.
- Troll: Bykov tricks Kupitman into believing that shaving clean his curly hair would persuade Bykov into kicking out Sophia. He admits that he suggested it just to screw with Kupitman before Kupitman tries to actually do it, and states that he wouldn't kick Sophia out just because her uncle hates her.
- You Need to Get Laid: Kirill tricks Alexei into believing that Zhanna's toxic behaviour towards him was caused by lack of sex, and only Alexei may "help" her. Kirill had not the best intentions in mind when he suggested it, however; he planned to heat up already uneasy relationship to the point of explosions, in order to get rid of rival group. Surprisingly, Kirill's suggestion turns out to be correct.
