Bykov yells on his interns for them being late, and suddenly loses his voice mid-scream. Phil and Varya thinks that they must give Bykov an opportunity to relax without them, and just work by themselves; while Gleb and Semyon thinks that this is a good opportunity to slack: Bykov can't talk, and so, can't shout at them or give them any task.
Phil's and Varya's patient insists that he must talk with the Head of the Therapy; and no, he would not tell them why. Since he doesn't know who's the Head of the Therapy, they asks Kupitman to temporarily replace Bykov. Kupitman agrees: he can't let Bykov down. But when it turns out that the patient simply wanted to receive VIP conditions, Kupitman instantly accepts a bribe from him. Phil and Varya quickly learns about this, but instead of just telling everything to Kisegach, Phil suggests a more interesting way to teach Kupitman a lesson; he lies to him that the patient is an agent of FSB, who's here as part of anti-corruption raid, and Kupitman may become the next target. Kupitman panics and starts destroying "evidences" — his cognac and money. He then goes to this "agent" in hope that if he admits everything, the "agent" would let it slide... only to learn that he was pranked.
Bykov hunts for Gleb and Semyon (they are not that bold to slack right in front of him), forcing them to constantly relocate around the hospital. After successfully evading for long enough, they thinks that they are finally free... only to run into Bykov. They tries to run... but some big guy stands on their way. This guy now acts as Bykov's temporal voice and speaks on his behalf. Bykov gives them a new task in written form (they attempts to pretend to not being able to read his writings, but when he almost kicks their butts, they stops). When they attempts to avoid doing work by telling him that they simply can't work effectively without him, and suggests to let them go home, he instead goes with them and watches them at work; each time they do something wrong, he would hit them with a stick. They makes a lot of mistakes. And this is only diagnosis, they must also provide a treatment...
Kisegach, who is unaware of Bykov's condition, thinks that he avoids speaking with her because of resenting her for something. Unfortunately, he has no means to explain this to her (and why bother anyway, if this provides so much fun?). Only when she mentions his old enemy, Anton (whom she'd met yesterday; it was purely work-related meeting, she swears!), Bykov reacts and reveals his voice issues, wheezing something barely comprehensible to complain about her meeting Yaroslavsky.
This episode provides examples of:
- Curse Cut Short: When Bykov yells at his interns for them being late, he threatens to put that wall-watch into their... And suddenly Bykov loses his voice.
- Dude, Not Funny!: When Lobanov tells that he initially thought that Bykov suddenly decided to just die right here (Bykov shouted at them at top of his lungs, and then suddenly stopped and just looked at them weirdly for some time with open mouth, so this accusation is not un-based), Varya tells him to never even joke about this. Then Gleb replies to Semyon's comment with "at least then we could be late as much as we want to", Phil reacts in the same way at first and calls him cynic... but then admits that it's still funny, in a way.
- Greedy Jew: Kupitman would not be Kupitman if he would not accept bribes from patients. So, when it turns out that the patient who bothered Phil and Varya simply wanted VIP conditions, Kupitman quickly earns some easy money from him by playing along with his demands, and turning on Phil and Varya who've asked him for help with the patient in the first place. But the patient ruins everything when he thinks that Phil and Varya have their share of money, and tries to use this to force them to "work" (read: try to please him) harder, and they recognises that Kupitman simply used them. Varya suggests to just warn Kisegach, but Phil has a better idea how to teach him a lesson. How? By telling him that this guy works for FSB, and Kupitman may be in trouble for his corruption. He destroys the money he "earned" and goes to "agent" and admits everything in attempt to earn forgiveness (even then, he creates a fake story about being a single father with big family, just in case it would give him better chances).
- Locked Out of the Loop: No one warns Kisegach about Bykov's condition, so when she calls him and he just silently listens to her, she considers him to resent her after their morning conversation (when he insisted that they must be hurry, they are already too late at work, and she only wasted more time on something totally unrelated, like makeup, despite him telling that she may do this at work, too). Bykov never bothers to find another way to explain this when they meets in person, either, because she starts suggesting more and more in hope he "forgives" her. Only when she mentions meeting Anton yesterday (just for work, she swears!), Bykov finally (albeit still very quietly) speaks with her.
- Lost Voice Plot: Bykov loses his voice after screaming for too long and too loudly; he spends the whole episode like this. The problem is, he still has to control Gleb and Semyon, while Kisegach wants to talk to him, right now. He partially regains his voice by the end of the episode, likely due to anger over her mentioning Anton, but he still can only wheezing.
- Refuge in Audacity: Gleb and Semyon can't work even remotely effective without Bykov... so, maybe he would just let them go home early? This predictably doesn't work.
- Single-Episode Handicap: Bykov loses his voice until the end of the episode due to yelling too loudly.
- The Slacker: Gleb and Semyon considers Bykov being unable to talk to be a great opportunity to avoid doing anything: he can't shout at them, and he can't give them tasks; they only needs to avoid running directly into him. This fails almost instantly, since Bykov found an alternate ways to communicate... and to punish them for screwups. Lobanov even points out that had they stopped much earlier, it might have ended before Bykov decided to use a stick (where he even found it, by the way?)
- Take a Third Option: Bykov can't talk, and he can't let interns slack, either. So, he constantly finds different ways how to control Gleb and Semyon. At first, he hires some guy to yell at them on his behalf. This is only a temporarily solution, to explain to them that they have a task, and provide them with a paper with instruction. They claims to not recognise his writings. Then he writes the patients' surnames on intern's heads. And when they annoys him again, he just goes with them, to hit them with a stick for any mistake they do. They receives many hits this way. And this is only diagnosis; they now must prescribe a treatment...
