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Series / Emily Owens, M.D.

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Butterflies in her stomach. X-Rays don't lie.

Emily Owens, M.D. was a Live-Action TV series that aired on The CW in 2012 and 2013. Often described as Medical Drama meets Mean Girls, this is a story of a young intern, the titular Emily (Mamie Gummer), who comes to work in a big hospital and gradually realizes that being an adult is much less different from being in high school than one might expect.

Despite being quite short-lived (only 13 episodes were aired), this series managed to gain some fans. It was praised for good acting and overall realistic, down-to-earth atmosphere.


Emily Owens, M.D. provides examples of the following tropes:

  • Alpha Bitch: Cassandra was gorgeous and popular in high school and a horrible bitch to Emily, and she remains exactly the same as an adult. She's after Emily and makes her life much harder.
  • Anguished Declaration of Love: A mild example. Emily declares her love to Will. It doesn't work.
  • Apologises a Lot: Emily does this all the time, but she's trying to stop.
  • An Arm and a Leg: One girl who wanted to be a surgeon loses her arm. She takes it very hard.
  • Birthday Buddies: Emily's and Cassandra's birthdays happen to be on the very same day. They're young doctors who used to be classmates in high school, Cassandra being the gorgeous popular mean girl who enjoyed tormenting Emily. Now they're interns in the very same hospital and Cassandra still enjoys toying with nervous Emily. Emily doesn't really celebrate her day and doesn't want anyone to know, but Cassandra reveals it to everyone, enjoying everyone's attention and Emily's embarrassment. Emily's friend Will forces her to throw an impromptu birthday party in her flat. Emily is also talked into playing the cello for her guests and everyone ends up being impressed with her musical skills. Cassandra on the other hand looks like a sourpuss and is unhappy the party doesn't revolve around her.
  • Birthday Episode: One episode takes place on Emily's and her nemesis Cassandra's birthday, which just happens to be the very same day. Emily doesn't celebrate them, but Will forces her to throw an impromptu party in her flat.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Many of the episodes, this being a medical show and all, but one episode where the woman with OCD, with the tumor in the perfect location to operate, dies and the old man with the very low chance of surviving an incredibly risky surgery lives
  • Birthday Hater: Cassandra blabs (on purpose) that she and Emily both celebrate their birthday. Cassandra loves all the attention, but Emily honestly keeps repeating she's not a birthday type.
  • Bratty Teenage Daughter: Sophie, the girl with an STD from the outbreak episode: Emily: 16 year old with gonorrhea, and an attitude.
  • Break the Cutie: Cassandra loves trying to break Emily. She reminds her of many embarrassing things and constantly puts her down.
  • Character Name and the Noun Phrase: Titles for the series follow this format.
  • Crazy Cat Lady: One patient is a hoarder who has about ten cats. She has serious infection which she caught from her wounded arm. When her daughter tells Emily about her life and how she unsuccessfully tried to help her, Emily realizes that the woman might have toxoplasmosis that changed her personality.
  • Don't You Dare Pity Me!:
    • Cassandra to Emily after Emily learns the story of Cassandra's dead brother.
    • Cassandra after Emily lies to Will about Cassandra's work on the gallbladder case.
  • Double Aesop: The advice Emily gives other people often applies to her own situation.
  • Dressed to Heal: All doctors wear blue scrubs and white Lab Coats of Science and Medicine. Often accompanied by a desk and doctor's equipment.
  • Embarrassing Nickname: Emily has one, it's "Pits".
  • Everyone Went to School Together:
    • Emily and Cassandra went to high school together.
    • Emily and Will went to medical school together.
  • Good Is Not Nice: Dr. Bandari is definitely not nice, but she does care for her patients and, it seems, even her interns.
  • Hidden Depths:
    • Emily has her cello and her fondness of vampires ("For the record, I loved vampires before everyone else caught on").
    • Cassandra's story about her brother (who was very ill all his life) shows us some of hers.
  • Last-Second Word Swap: When Emily tries to Bowdlerise herself this way in front of a child patient, she invents the word "balvery" ("balls" turned into "bravery").
  • Leave the Two Lovebirds Alone: Cassandra uses this trope to tease Emily, when Micah and Emily are talking in the break room. "I'll just...leave you alone, um, to get to know each other better."
  • Lethal Diagnosis: Micah's mother has one. He seems to have more trouble dealing with it than she does. Word of God has it that she was supposed to die at the end of the season.
  • Longing Look: Pretty common throughout the series, but one example is when Emily is watching Cassandra and Will holding hands and talking through the window.
  • Lovable Nerd: Emily is a mild example: she's nerdy, but she's not entirely socially inept.
  • Love Hurts: In the end of episode 3, Emily is feeling bad about being rejected by Will when she happens across a patient's ex-wife, who is watching her ex-husband kiss his new wife. The lady is a bit tearful, and claims she's allergic to something. Emily sympathetically replies that she thinks she has the same allergy. She then runs into another crying, heartbroken patient in the parking lot.
  • Love Triangle: Will - Emily - Micah.
  • Mistaken for Gay: Or bisexual, rather. This happens to Emily, when she tried to help Tyra and accidentally hit on a female nurse.
  • Moment Killer: Cassandra loves doing this. A good example would be when Emily saved a patient, and amidst all the clapping and cheering Cassandra just had to stare at her and say: "Now I remember why we called you Pits". Cue Emily's embarrassment instead of the pride she actually deserved.
  • Nice Girl: Emily is very sweet to her patients, sometimes to a fault.
  • Plot Parallel: Pretty common for a medical show, but a lot of Emily's patients' stories are related to what she's going through herself.
  • Puppy-Dog Eyes: A blind patient tries to convince Emily to treat his dog. She tries to resist, telling herself that all dog have sad eyes, but she looks and is in. She then gets Will to help, who does. She talks about those sad eyes, and Will agrees — Emily's look did it for him.
  • Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up: Cassandra bullied Emily in high school and she continues to do it as her colleague.
  • Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Emily. The problem is, both men that she has something for are good.
  • Sitting on the Roof: Quite often, the doctors try to find a calm place. They're seen there having lunch or trying to have a private conversation.
  • Shout-Out:
    • One Patient of the Week is a gymnast named Payson.
    • A message from a guy named Will that the main character keeps on her phone for ridiculously long time because she’s kind of in love with the guy? The Good Wife.
    • Emily's teenage patient quotes from Twilight and she expects Emily to know it.
    • One patient loves chick flicks and romantic comedies and many, many a film gets a mention.
    • Emily and Will can't reveal their names to a prisoner. He decides to call them Catherine and Heathcliff.
  • Teens Are Monsters:
    • Many of the high schoolers in the episode about the STD outbreak are pretty awful, especially the boy who is spreading gonorrhea.
    • In the pilot, and in several other episodes, Emily gets picked on by teenagers.
  • The Topic of Cancer: Sometimes. Micah's mom has cancer and obviously, she's a patient that sticks around and viewers are exposed to her and her son's suffering.
  • Trouble Entendre: Emily does this when she blackmails Tim Dupre into authorising an MRI.
  • Twofer Token Minority: Tyra, a black lesbian.
  • You Need to Get Laid: Several people think that Emily needs sex to relieve stress.
  • Walk and Talk: Dr. Bandari actually tells her interns to do this.
  • "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: Tyra. She eventually gets a So Proud of You from her father.
  • Will They or Won't They?: Emily has this dynamic with both Will and Micah. The final episode has her going for Will, although Word of God revealed she was supposed to end up with Micah by the actual end of the season, had the show not been cancelled.

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