Polina returns to continue her internship... which is a problem, considering that she and Bykov are in a very uneasy relationship since her departure. Gleb and Phil tries to persuade her to leave before anything bad could happen, only for Bykov to appear first. Bykov fails to even say anything, and just quietly leaves, then calls Gleb to ask him to kill or at least kick Polina (and when refused, tries to ask Phil). He then goes to Kupitman; Kupitman, when he realises why Bykov consumes glass after glass of his cognac, calls Kisegach, who orders him to keep (now not only angry, but also drunk) Bykov inside, while she would deal with Polina. Meanwhile, Lyuba meets Polina for the first time and leads her away before Bykov can do anything to her; once they starts talking, Polina reveals some backstory behind her conflict with Bykov. She fell in love and started planning her wedding, but it came at odds with her work: having no time to organise everything while off-duty, she started doing it in the hospital. Bykov eventually grew too angry at her, and ruined the scheme which Polina had prepared for the wedding (she spent two days making it!), making Polina snap at him and tell him to go screw himself; the rest is history. At the same time, Bykov reveals to Kupitman his take on this story; it's nearly identical, but Polina's screwups were much worse than she remembers, despite Bykov actually perceiving her as one of his most perspective pupils, and her leaving like this was akin to betrayal. Now nearly-wasted and burning with wrath Bykov tries to leave, but Kupitman suggests to find Polina together.
Sophia's patient is Romani, and his relative asks Sophia whether he (and other relatives) can visit him in his ward. Sophia considers him being fine enough, while Alexei suggests to stay on guard: Romani don't exactly have a good reputation... Sophia, however, dismisses it as his prejudice. When the relatives finally arrives, they acts very friendly towards Sophia (perhaps a bit too friendly), but Alexei still suspects that they would try something. Then Alexei's own patient, who lies in the same ward, suspect that Sophia's patient is hiding something. When Sophia leaves with the patient, Alexei decides to look by himself, and sees two expensive smartphones and two wristwatches. He immediately jumps into conclusion that those were stolen, and takes them away. But when he shows them to Sophia, she calls him a moron. The patient shows up and not only confirms that those belongs to him, but also explains why he needs two phones and two watches. Alexei then tries to ask about the jewellery, ignoring Sophia asking him to shut up, to which the patient reveals that one was a gift from his mother, while two others he just bought by himself: he likes gold. Why hiding under mattress? He was asked by Sophia, as he was gonna attend X-Ray, and it was attempt to prevent stealing, as he distrusted other people — and Alexei just proved that he was justified.
Lyuba (and Rita, who arrived to hear out this story, too, since she was Polina's friend back then) actually sides with Polina, considering Bykov being too harsh in kicking her out shortly before her wedding. Kisegach comes too, and at first orders Polina to get out and never return, but when she learns more details, takes her side, since she was only familiar with Bykov's version. But when they confronts Bykov (and literally everyone, including Kupitman, sides with Polina), Bykov reveals a third part of this story, which previously was unknown to anyone but Bykov and Polina themselves: that just before leaving, she insulted literally everyone. After this, Polina loses any and all support she had. Only then Polina realises that she was in the wrong, and apologises before Bykov — and also reveals that the marriage was short-living anyway, meaning that it was all for nothing. Bykov reluctantly gives her a second chance. As he reveals to Kisegach, Polina's case reminds him about himself, back when his marriage to Alisa's mother fell apart, and Kisegach accepted him back even after he acted like a total jerk out of frustration.
This episode provides examples of:
- All for Nothing: Polina chose marriage over internship. Then marriage fell apart because they turn out to be
- Bridezilla: Polina was too busy with preparations to her wedding to pay attention to "little things" like her patients. Bykov actually tolerated her for as long as he could before snapping.
- The Bus Came Back: Polina returns after her sudden and unexplained disappearance between seasons 9 and 10, to finish her internship. However, she wouldn't actually resume it just yet, as it was established in previous season that Bykov has budget for only three interns.
- Crossing the Burnt Bridge: We finally learn details about Polina's disappearance from the hospital, and why no one ever talked about her. Turns out, she decided to quit by herself... which enraged Bykov to no end, causing a heated conflict between two and resulting in Polina telling him to go and screw himself. Now, Polina is enthusiastic about resuming internship; the other characters, not so much. However, despite everything, she manages to win Bykov's forgiveness... right after losing everyone else's sympathy.
- Heel Realisation: When Bykov reminds Polina how they really departed (costing her all her friends), she realises that she really was at fault here, and that she'd lost her job and her friends only because of her own stupidity. And this was All for Nothing anyway since she is now divorced; "love of her life" turned out to be... worthless. Bykov (who's calmed down by that point) actually accepts her apologies and allows her back.
- History Repeats: Why Bykov is so quick to accept Polina back when she apologises, despite everything what happened before? Because her case reminds Bykov about what happened to himself, back when his marriage with Alisa's mother fell apart; he reacted in the same way, due to everything going terribly, but was still accepted back by his boss — Kisegach. Now, Polina is on Bykov's place, the only thing that changed is the order of things (she conflicted with Bykov first, and lost her marriage second).
- Jerkass Ball: Alexei is normally one of the nicer interns, but in this episode, it's him who shows prejudice against Romani, and Sophia who's more reasonable. Every time he tries to invoke Roguish Romani, Sophia calls him a bigot and moron, and even (jokingly) asks about his grandpa: with Lyosha having views like these, who knows, maybe he fought for nazis? It's important for her since she is Jewish, you know. Alexei also instantly jumps into the version that his wristwatch was stolen by the gypsy patient — while Sophia reveals that he just misplaced it. In the end, all of Alexei's suspicions ends up being wrong.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While Bykov was unnecessarily harsh with Polina when he destroyed that scheme (he could have stated his point without doing this), his argument isn't exactly wrong: Polina is irresponsible, since she put her own interests before her duties — which were to help people who can't help themselves. And this is if we only take into account Polina's take on these events! Bykov's version only adds even more of Polina's Skewed Priorities into the mix, with the most egregious example being when she ignored dying patient in favour to "wedding dance's repetition", with only Bykov preventing patient's death. Still wonder why Bykov wants nothing to do with her ever again? What made this particularly personal for him is that Bykov actually perceived her as one of his most perspective pupils, meaning that this harsh parting was akin to betrayal for him. And then we learn that she managed to insult everyone else besides Bykov (which he actually omitted from them back then, considering that they don't need to hear all this).
- Mathematician's Answer: When Sophia asks the relative of her Romani patient how many people plans to visit him, he replies only that it would be "more than ten, less than twenty".
- Never My Fault: Even Polina's own version of the events makes it blatantly clear why Bykov got so angry at her. Yet the only thing she noticed is that Bykov finally snapped and ruined the scheme on which she worked instead of her patients. Somehow, the other people sees her in the right, at least until Bykov reveals how Polina actually departed.
- Oh, Crap!: Pretty much everyone's reaction to Polina returning, considering how her departure from internship went, and how Bykov reacted to it, is to panic:
- Gleb tries to quietly lead her away from the hospital before Bykov notices her and explodes again.
- Phil is so shocked by her sheer audacity, he is completely speechless.
- Kupitman at first reacts badly to Bykov entering without warning and starting drinking his cognac, but when he realises why he acts this way, he tells him to continue doing this (if it means staying here), and calls Kisegach, who panics and orders Kupitman by any means necessary keep Bykov in the office, while she would deal with Polina.
- Open Mouth, Insert Foot:
- At the first opportunity, Polina adds Lyuba to her "collection" of people she pissed off on the first meeting, by asking (in a rather familiar way) "where is Ritka", to which Lyuba reacts negatively (it sounds too familiar, especially from someone twice younger).
- Polina, too angry at Bykov at the moment, wasn't thinking what she was saying when she announced her quitting internship; she didn't stop at insulting just Bykov (by blaming him for his first marriage collapsing), and insulted everyone else, not even considering that those did nothing wrong to her. Bykov omitted it back then, but reveals now, which finally bites Polina in the ass, as everyone gets angry at her.
- Out of Focus: Maxim is absent from this episode.
- Pet the Dog:
- When she quit her job, Polina, too angry to think, insulted literally everyone. Bykov omitted that part from the others. Given how they reacts when she finally returns and Bykov does reveal it due to Polina still not owning her mistakes, it was for the best.
- When Polina tells him that her sacrificing her job for marriage was in vain, as it fell apart soon afterwards, Bykov forgives her and gives her a second chance. As he tells to Kisegach later, once ago, he was on Polina's place, and did all the same mistakes, but was forgiven and accepted into the team — by Kisegach herself.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Just when it seems that Polina may finally win everyone's support and stay here despite Bykov's hatred to her, Bykov reveals that she insulted everyone when departed, which quickly kills everyone's interest in supporting her. In order, she insulted Bykov himself (by stating that it was his fault that his first marriage failed), Kisegach (by calling Bykov's current marriage "shitty"), Gleb (by calling him a loser who can't develop a stable relationship, and thus keeps changing girls, Rita (who's in her opinion has low chance to start successful relationship; this one also hurts Lyuba by proxy, who has similar problems, not to mention that Rita is one of her close friends), Phil (by bringing up the topic of his orientation out of the blue, despite him not being gay was established before she even joined the internship) and Kupitman (by bringing up him being old-looking and his inability to develop a stable relationship). Only then Polina realises that it was ''her'' who was in the wrong.
- Roguish Romani: The main focus of Sophia and Alexei's plot is that Alexei stubbornly believes that all Romani are thieves, while Sophia thinks that he is a bigot. In the end, Sophia turns out to be right:
- When Romani guy asks Sophia whether he and his relatives may visit Sophia's patient, Alexei warns her to be careful around this guy, or he may try to rob her, because, you know, they all are thugs! She dismisses it as his prejudice.
- When Sophia's patient's relatives finally appears, Alexei has an Imagine Spot about gypsy tabor stealing everything they could find, ranging from money from pockets to fish from an aquarium, hospital's drug supply and even a patient from a gurney. He asks Sophia to check her pockets to see whether they robbed her, and it turns out that they silently put some money in; when Alexei tries to claim that money must be fake, Sophia accuses him of being paranoid.
- Alexei's patient (who is just as prejudiced) starts suspecting that the Romani hides something under mattress. When the guy leaves with Sophia, Alexei decides to check himself — and notices several golden neck-chains, two expensive smartphones, and two wristwatches. He immediately jumps into the conclusion that it must be stolen, and takes it away. Sophia calls him a moron. Then their actual owner appears and not only confirms that they belong to him but also justifies why he needs them: he works for prestigious corporation, with good enough salary to buy expensive jewellery (he likes gold; plus, one of the chains is a gift), he has two phones as one is personal and one is corporate, and he has two wristwatches as he works with clients from Vladivostok (which is in different timezone). Alexei's attempts to find weak points in the patient's story, despite Sophia outright telling him to just shut up already, only makes Alexei look even more like a fool. Why hiding the stuff then? Because he can't take it with himself when doing X-Ray, and leaving it in the open may lead to it being stolen... by people like Lyosha.
- Skewed Priorities: Polina reveals to Lyuba that the whole mess started when she found a new love and decided to marry him — and became so obsessed with preparations, it started interfering with her actual work (in one case, she ignored Bykov with a wheelchair-bonded patient in favour to phone-talk). Ultimately, Bykov snapped at her, and ruined the scheme of guests placing for planned wedding which she just finished, replying to the objections with "you would never be neither a good doctor nor a good wife — because you are irresponsible!". This was the last straw, and Polina quit — but not before all but ensuring that Bykov would never accept her back. The kicker? This is how things look when told by Polina herself; Bykov only adds more such cases, without removing or altering anything else.
- Stunned Silence: Phil is so shocked by Polina having the audacity to return, it takes him some time to even say anything.
- Take This Job and Shove It: When Bykov didn't react well to Polina quitting internship and started yelling at her, Polina exploded herself and told him to go screw himself. Bykov ordered to not even mention Polina within his earshot ever again.
- Un-person: After Polina quit internship, partying with Bykov on very uneasy terms, even mentioning her name became taboo under Bykov. And now Polina is here again...
