Today is exactly one year since Lyuba broke up with her boyfriend, which makes her quite depressed; she's also overburdened with patients. She asks for someone who may help her, and Bykov assigns Levin to work under her for today. Lyuba introduces Levin to one of the patients, but once Levin sees blood, he instantly faints. To make him capable of working, she gives him some alcohol. Unfortunately, he needs to drink again before each patient, so he quickly gets drunk and starts to act as a total moron. Lyuba hides him in on-call room before Bykov can notice.
Kupitman is suffering from hangover, and wants someone who may do the work for him, while he would sleep it over; Bykov gives him Lobanov. Semyon does everything just fine, but once one of the patients gifts him some cognac, Kupitman insist that whatever reward patients awards to his subordinates belongs to him. To make Lobanov feel slightly better, he offers him cheap booze as a replacement. Lobanov disagrees, and tries to replace expensive cognac with this cheap booze, but fails to cover his tracks. Kupitman quickly learns about this, and now demands cognac back. Semyon hides it in on-call room... just where drunk Levin is sleeping. Levin, awakened by Semyon, notices a bottle of cognac, and instantly drinks it all, to Lobanov's anger. After that, Lyuba finds Levin even more drunk and violent than before, and, in attempt to calm him down, offers him sex. This works.
Gleb and Varya must work together; their latest patient is a pregnant woman. It doesn't go smooth at first, as Gleb is wasting time again. Suddenly, the patient starts birthing, and now they must rush to maternity ward. Meanwhile, Anastasia Kisegach, the Chief Doctor of the hospital, tries to force two lazy technicians to fix a broken elevator. When she finally convinces them to do their job, they manages to open the elevator's door just in time for Gleb, Varya and patient to enter inside... and then closes it before they realises that the elevator is not supposed to work yet. This results in the patient giving birth right in the elevator.
This episode provide examples of:
- Afraid of Blood: Levin is afraid of blood, to the point that he faints when he sees a small blood spot on his patient's bandage. Levin tries to explain that it was due to him being sleepy, but Lyuba doesn't believe him.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Levin needs booze to counter his fear of blood. But since he needs to drink again before accepting every new patient, he quickly gets too drunk to work, and starts acting rather aggressively once Lyuba mentions Bykov (who insulted him earlier this morning). Lyuba tries to hide him from Bykov in on-call room. Later, when he finds Lobanov's cognac, he becomes even more aggressive. In attempt to calm him down, Lyuba (who remembers that today is exactly one year since the last time she had a man) offers him sex, to which Levin agrees.
- All for Nothing: Lobanov steals his cognac back from Kupitman, and hides it in on-call room. But he wakes up drunk Levin, who immediately drinks it all once Lobanov leaves. When Semyon gets busted by Kupitman, who demands "his" booze back, Lobanov tries to return it, but it's too late. He's so angry, he can't even say anything coherent at first, and then angrily calls Levin "deer".
- The Alleged Boss: Bykov still shows zero respect to Kisegach, with her lacking the guts to force him to follow proper subordination, or at least address her formally.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- The episode starts with sad Lyuba and a cake with one small candle. But it's not her birthday. It's an anniversary of her breakup with her significant other.
- When the patient starts giving birth, Gleb looks at this, and screams that it's time to run. The patient tries to call him out and remind that he's a doctor, but he specifies that he meant to run to the maternity ward.
- Blatant Lies: Levin tries to insist that he's not Afraid of Blood, he just didn't sleep well. He fools no one, as Levin fainted as soon as he saw a blood spot on patient's bandage.
- Born in an Elevator: Because technicians takes so long to fix an elevator, Gleb and Varya's pregnant patient eventually gives birth right inside that elevator.
- Brain Bleach: Gleb makes it pretty clear that he doesn't want to be anywhere near the woman who's about to give birth, especially when she starts actually giving birth, made worse by them all being stuck in an elevator together. At one point he outright screams that he doesn't want to be a doctor.
- Buffy Speak: Lobanov tries (not very eloquently) explain why he doesn't like to work under Kupitman (a venereologist). Kupitman is not amused.Lobanov: I don't like all this... venereological... Phew!
Kupitman: "Venereological" means "Gifted by Venus". Venus is a goddess of love, and our patients are victims of this love. This means that we are almost like priests, priests of Venus and Asclepius. Now, what you don't like?
Lobanov: I don't like to work at yours. All this... venereological... Phew! - Call-Back: When Levin gets drunk and violent, he remembers how Bykov insulted his (worthless) experience at the beginning of episode; in his mind, Bykov actually shouts those insults, making them sound more malicious than they really are.
- Chekhov's Gun: That broken elevator Bykov comes by at the start of the episode, and Kisegach later forces her lazy technicians to fix? It is the same elevator where Gleb and Varya would stuck later with pregnant patient.
- A Day in the Limelight: In this episode, Lyuba (who previously was mostly background character) is integral to Levin's plot. We also learn that she wants to find new love.
- Delivery Guy: Downplayed. While Gleb and Varya do have a medical education, they have zero real experience and are actually more scared than the mother herself. Fortunately, with Bykov's help (who tries, despite elevator's constant movement, to instruct them), all turns out okay.
- Didn't Think This Through: Lobanov fails to take into account that the equipment he used to swap cognac would smell like alcohol afterwards, which makes Kupitman aware of his scheme. This becomes a moot point, however, as Levin drinks the booze by himself.
- Elevator Snare: When Gleb, Varya and a pregnant woman who's about to give birth gets stuck in an elevator, Bykov has to instruct them how to assist the woman as they clearly have to do it right there. Then technicians starts the elevator again, and it starts moving between floors, fast, forcing Bykov to pursue it. When he barely catches up, and tries to give instructions... it starts moving again. This repeats multiple times, with situation keeping advancing. By the end, Bykov is almost as exhausted as the woman who just gave birth right in the elevator.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Lyuba struggles to figure out how to calm down drunk and violent Levin before Bykov finds out and punishes them both, hard. Then she remembers that it's one-year anniversary of her breakup, and decides to just seduce Levin. It works.
- I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: Levin once again thinks that he's better than the rest of interns, and tries to insist that he's a doctor, not a nurse, in attempt to avoid doing menial work — after all, he spent six years studying at medical university. This time, Bykov doesn't even try to hide that he doesn't care and that this purely-theoretical experience worth nothing here.Bykov: Levin, you're brainless ciliate with overblown ego, armless embryo with red diploma. Speed up, and rush to learn from Lyubov Mikhailovna's experience.
- I'm Standing Right Here: Gleb and Varya argues who would interrogate, and who would examine their pregnant patient. In the same room with her.
- Jerkass: Kupitman asks to borrow an intern, so he may sleep over his hangover. Once Lobanov does all the work (over his disgust), Kupitman confiscates the reward Semyon received, insisting that as it's his department, everything here belongs to him, regardless of who's working here. He offers Semyon some cheap booze as compensation. Later, when Semyon fails to cover his traces when stealing cognac back, Kupitman outright insults him.Kupitman: Lobanov, you have one moronic habit: you judge people as if they're like you. You still can't grasp that you're in a place where everyone is much smarter than you.
- Liquid Courage: Under effects of alcohol, Levin can ignore his fear of blood. Unfortunately, he needs new dose for each new patient, which quickly leads to him becoming drunk.
- Moment Killer: Varya blames Gleb for causing the crisis situation with pregnant woman by wasting their time, but Gleb makes a joke that they now have a "shared baby", which actually cheers her up and she asks whether it's a boy or a girl. Gleb ruins it all by saying that he doesn't know, as he was trying to avoid looking that way.
- Nerds Are Virgins: It gets confirmed that Levin was virgin before Lyuba seduced him. Given him acting like stereotypical nerd with zero social skills up to this point, it's not surprising.
- Refuge in Audacity:
- Gleb wants to avoid examining pregnant woman, insisting that it's too squicky for him, so he would rather interrogate. His justification for sending Varya to do that? "If you don't learn how to submit to men, you'd never end up on her place". Varya reluctantly agrees, but insists on changing roles when Gleb starts flirting with patient instead of actually working.
- Technicians responds to Kisegach's demands to fix the broken elevator (and it is implied that they already wasted too much time on it)? "Now we check everything, test, make sure that it's working, and would activate it". While continuing drinking vodka.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Kupitman thinks that Lyuba is "celebrating" a lonely birthday, and offers her to do it properly, by drinking with him in his office. When he hears that it's one-year anniversary of her breakup and that she's rather lonely, and she gets interested in his offer, he backs out, saying that it's "too dangerous". She calls him a coward, to which he replies with "coward, but alive".
- Sex Starts, Story Stops: Lyuba uses sex to calm drunk Levin down in the end of the episode. Except for the brief scene at the beginning of the episode (and flashback to this scene right before she does this), there's no foreshadowing to this.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Exactly one year ago Lyuba broke up with her boyfriend, and now desperately wants to find a new one. She finds him... in Levin, of all people.
- The Slacker:
- Romanenko insist that he would interrogate the patient, while Varya would examine her... and then wastes time on flirting with her instead of doing his work, which angers Varya enough to insist on switching roles.
- Technicians, instead of doing their job, just sits there, drinking vodka. It takes Kisegach to personally visit them to convince them to stop drinking and start working. Even with her watching over them, it takes until the end of the episode, and when she leaves, they immediately continues drinking.
