Bykov wants to test his old interns' commanding skills in order to learn who would be a better replacement for him if he ever would need to appoint one, by assigning them to command his current interns. Unfortunately for poor interns (new ones, not old ones), in Bykov's mind, "commanding skills" equals despotism. He even provides them with jars, where they may (figuratively) collect interns' tears.
Gleb takes Alexei, Semyon — Maxim, and Phil — Sophia. Gleb and Semyon acts like petty tyrants to their "subordinates", while Phil utterly fails at his role, as he's just too nice to act like Bykov, which doesn't even surprise Sophia; he can only hope that she would screw up somewhere and give him an excuse to yell at her. He later tries to yell at her over minor problem (which she saw by herself and even warned him), but immediately apologises once he sees her breaking into tears. Meanwhile, Maxim decides to simply bribe Semyon, by filling his jar with beer in exchange for being freed from work; he would give even more if Semyon wouldn't yell and insult him. But he decides to milk the situation further, and, after coming along with Semyon's boss and colleagues, sends him to buy beer for them, while staying to play card games with his new friends. And Gleb goes overboard with abusing Lyosha, which leads to him snapping and warning Gleb that if he continues, Alexei would break his nose; Gleb decides to not find out whether it's an empty threat or not.
Friends realises that something goes wrong with their task, and that they all are on the brink of failure. And then Phil suggests to just switch interns. Semyon agrees and suggests that he would take Alexei, Phil would take Maxim and Gleb would take Sophia. Phil feels that it's much easier to yell at Max, whom he dislikes, but Maxim receives Kupitman on his side through another scheme (Kupitman's suffering from hangover, and wants to not be disturbed); Phil's attempt to deal with him only leads to Kupitman punishing him for noises which Max made. Gleb tries to abuse Sophia, but she interprets it as a petty revenge for her refusing his advances, and agrees to "do it" quickly if it means that he would leave her alone — only for him to immediately rush out once he realises what she's trying to do when he sees her naked. And Semyon tries to show Alexei who's the boss here, but realises that he doesn't know what to do with his patient himself, and has to read the medical literature to even be able to order him around properly — at which Lyosha busts him and suggests to just give the books to him, at which point he stops taking Lobanov seriously.
Gleb suggested to change interns again. Phil takes Alexei, and straight away warns him that he wants only one thing: that Alexei would do exactly what asked, quietly and without screwups... only for Alexei to immediately drop all the folders from a table, at which point Phil genuinely snaps at him — which Lyosha finds funny. Semyon wants simply dropping all work on intern, so he may finally rest, only to find Sophia in tears: she thinks that Gleb tricked her into offering herself to him, only to then reject her, in order to humiliate her, and likely now brags about his "victory" to everyone else. And Gleb tries to order Max around, only for Max to correctly guess that Gleb has no real authority and no way to enforce his orders without Bykov's help (which is exactly against the rules); he's right, because when Gleb tries to ask Bykov to give Maxim a night shift, Bykov immediately disqualifies him — and gives a night shift to him.
Phil and Semyon fares no better. Phil fails, because by the end of the day, Alexei still can't stop laughing. As for Lobanov, when Bykov sees Sophia crying, he tells that Semyon is a "winner", but when Phil and Gleb leaves, he gets angry at Lobanov: "the jar full of tears" was a metaphor! Semyon takes the blame for Gleb (who was the actual cause of Sophia's crying), as otherwise Bykov would learn what has happened between her and Gleb, but as result he gains a night shift when Bykov asks Gennadiy to punish him. As the three friends are on the night shift now, the only thing they can do is to drink together; for that, they have three jars which fits perfectly to smuggle beer in them.
This episode provides examples of:
- Authority in Name Only: All of old Bykov's interns fails their challenge due to inability to enforce their rule over new ones:
- Phil is too nice. As result, he fails to yell at Sophia (the one time he tries, he apologises immediately), while Maxim simply tricks him into no-win situation. And Alexei outright considers him being funny when angry!
- Semyon, to put it simply, is too dumb to enforce any kind of authority on either Maxim or Lyosha (due to being gullible, and due to being incompetent, respectively). He never tries with Sophia, because she was already driven to tears before he even took her to himself.
- Gleb goes overboard withBykov-like mannerism. Alexei reveals that, if pressed, he's fully capable of fighting back, while with Sophia, it gets misinterpreted as him continuing "harassing" her, and leads to disaster. As for Maxim, he states that Gleb has no way to force him into doing anything: he has no power to punish anyone without asking Bykov first.
- Beware the Nice Ones: When Gleb goes too far with his abuse (when he started rather hysterically shouting insults at Lyosha and hitting his head with a clinical history), Alexei (who normally acts very calm and gentle) just presses him to the wall and warns him that if he would do anything like this again, he would break his nose. He doesn't raise his voice even once, but Gleb immediately realises that this is not an empty threat (especially given height difference).
- Book Dumb: When Semyon tries to order Alexei around, turns out that Semyon knows nothing about Lyosha's patient himself, meaning that he has no way to check whether Alexei does everything correct or not, forcing him to read everything himself. Then he realises that Alexei doesn't know correct treatment, either, forcing Semyon to read about it, too. The situation repeats several times, until Alexei just busts him with a book, and asks whether he may just take the book and cut them all some time.
- Brick Joke: Near beginning of the episode, Maxim "bribes" Semyon with a jar full of beer. Episode ends with Semyon, Gleb and Phil each bringing one beer jar to their night shift.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Entire premise of the episode; Bykov wants to test his old interns' abilities to "rule" in Bykov-like manner (that of fear, screaming and harsh discipline), so he can see whether they may be entrusted to replace him if a need raise. How? By appointing them to command Bykov's current interns for a day; a "winner" would be decided by comparing whose intern would be more miserable by the end of the day. Results are... not the ones they've expected:
- Phil fails to show Sophia who's the boss due to being too nice, and to Maxim due to Max being too sneaky and cunning, allowing him to cause Phil problems with Kupitman. And Alexei doesn't take him seriously at all.
- Semyon gets fooled by Max, and then shows himself as incompetent before Lyosha. By the time he receives Sophia, she's already in tears, but turns out that it's not what Bykov wanted, so he still fails.
- Gleb presses Alexei too far, making him fight back, while Sophia mistakes his actions for harassment, and submits just so he would leave her alone, which goes against his agreement with Kupitman (and his moral standards). And Maxim is well aware that Gleb can't force him to work, as he can't actually punish interns without Bykov's permission.
- Everyone Has Standards: Bykov calls Semyon "a winner" for driving Sophia to tears (in fact, Semyon took the credit for what was accidentally caused by Gleb) when talking with Gleb and Phil; but when they leaves, he immediately calls Semyon a moron for interpreting his metaphor about "jar of teas" literally, and doesn't even try to hide his disgust. He actually compares him to nazi for sheer cruelty, and asks Gennadiy to punish Semyon with a night shift. While not directly stated, it's fairly obvious that Bykov does not consider Semyon really "winning" his challenge, as its purpose was to test who may fit as Bykov's replacement in the future.
- It Only Works Once: Kupitman sleeps after previous (alcohol-filled) night, and can't tolerate any loud noises. Max exploits it by breaking a glass jar and then volunteering to "guard" Kupitman's rest — which also means that he can slack on whatever Phil wants from him. Phil tries to use the same trick against him, but Maxim manages to run away at the last moment, while Phil doesn't; we later learn that he was punished with a night shift.
- Karma Houdini: Maxim manages to outsmart Semyon, Phil and Gleb, and avoid doing any work under them — while causing them lots of troubles (with two of them being punished directly due to his antics).
- Nice Guy: Phil, to his detriment:
- Phil is too nice to copy Bykov's signature commanding style, so when he tries to threaten Sophia with a "horrible punishment" he would inflict on her in case she would fail him, he immediately loses whatever impact he could have by adding (in much calmer voice) that he would only do this "if she deserves it". She's not even surprised, immediately realising what (and why) he tries to achieve.
- When Phil tries to act genuinely harsh to Alexei, Lyosha actually considers him being more funny than scary, stating that his wrath is not "genuine" — to the point that he actually starts laughing over it.
- Rage Breaking Point: Phil spent a whole day unsuccessfully trying to show interns under him his wrath, and ultimately gave up. By the point when he receives Alexei, he wants only to quietly finishing his working day... only for Alexei to drop the folders from a table, which makes Phil genuinely snap. Lyosha actually considers it to be rather funny, since even while angry, Phil is not evil enough to act like a bad boss.
- Rule of Three: There are three interns, three ex-interns, and three attempts to force at least one intern to obey their temporal "bosses" (futile).
- Sophisticated as Hell: Bykov tasks his ex-interns to act in Bykov-like manner to Bykov's current interns. The closest they could think of is copying Bykov's unique torrent of complicated insults (which, as always, contains the combos of medical terms and low-language insults). Gleb somewhat succeeds, Semyon... not so much.
- Taking the Heat: Semyon claims the credit for Sophia's condition, both to claim the victory and to not reveal to Bykov what happened between Sophia and Gleb; she actually thanks him for that.
- Tempting Fate: When Sophia thanks Semyon for taking the blame for Gleb's actions, so Bykov wouldn't learn something he shouldn't know, Semyon assures her that nothing would happen, since Bykov is no longer his boss. Cue Gennadiy, Semyon's current boss and Bykov's friend, coming in and announcing that Semyon would stay on a night shift. Why? He doesn't know, but Bykov asked for it, and for him, that's enough.
