This Is Going To Hurt is a Dramedy made by Adam Kay, which was released by The BBC in 2022. Based on his memoir about his time as a junior doctor, the series focuses on Adam (Ben Whishaw), who tries his best to focus through the hospital ranks. Adam tries to be a good junior doctor, but it can be very hard to do so when you have so many responsibilities. As such, he clings to his personal life as he faces stresses such as life and death decisions and ridiculously long workdays.
This show contains the following tropes:
- 20 Minutes into the Past: First aired in 2022, the show is set in 2006.
- Aside Comment: Much like the earlier Fleabag, Adam has a tendency of giving side comments to the viewers at home. This is also how Shruti imparts her last words, turning to the viewer and apologising before walking away. It’s the first time a character other than Adam has acknowledged the audience.
- Black Comedy:
- A bit of a given considering the fact that the show takes place at a hospital, with a lot of humor for the series coming from Adam's wit as he copes with dramatic events and life or death events in the hospital. A lot of the characters engage in dark and sometimes rather vulgar humour.
- Truth in Television as while some viewers unfamiliar with the medical world found some of the humour a bit too dark and vulgar, many viewers with experience found it a relatable and realistic coping mechanism.
- Deadpan Snarker: Consultant Ms Houghton has several moments. Other characters repeatedly take her at her word before she laughs and says she’s joking.
- Driven to Suicide: Shruti does this at the end of the sixth episode, taking her own life thanks to a combination of overwork and not wanting to work in a broken hospital system.
- Good Morning, Crono: The show begins with Adam waking up in his car as he prepares for another day of work.
- "Hell, Yes!" Moment: After screwing up with Erika and her pre-eclampsia, Adam becomes overly cautious about patients who are in any kind of pain and insists on keeping too many of them in for observation. He becomes obsessed with the idea that one patient might have an ovarian torsion, and opens her up to have a look, but can't find anything. He has an Oh, Crap! moment, because he's just carried out an expensive procedure for nothing. Things get worse when Lockhart strides in to tell him off, and Lockhart demands that the equipment be turned off and the mother closed up—and then he puts on his glasses and looks at the screen and says "Hang on a minute." It turns out that the patient does have a torsion and Lockhart congratulates Adam for spotting it. Adam proceeds to have this trope.
- Imagine Spot: Played for
Nightmare Fuel. Adam appears to have anxiety or even PTSD associated with his missteps and is constantly haunted by upsetting, graphic imagery. - In-Series Nickname: There are two midwives named Tracey on the ward: Tracey and 'Non-reassuring Trace'.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Adam is a Snark Knight who can be hard to root for. However, he does make strides towards being nicer to Shruti and deep down, he is driven by Chronic Hero Syndrome. His behaviour is a byproduct of the lack of support (and sleep) junior doctors get, stuck in a toxic cycle and on the verge of a breakdown.
- Late Coming Out: Adam doesn't come out to his parents until he's engaged and is only just starting feel comfortable casually mentioning his male partner to his colleagues and acquaintances.
- Love Cannot Overcome: Adam's commitment to his job already puts a strain on his otherwise loving relationship. Harry is pretty patient and supportive, but Adam keeps the worst of it, such as his trouble with the GMC, from him. Harry is finally pushed to his breaking point when it all humiliatingly spills out at their engagement party, prompting them to break up in the cab on the way home.
- Mentor in Sour Armor: Adam is initially harsh to trainees such as Shruti. However, he does come around and becomes nicer to her, supporting her in her studies and wanting to hang out.
- Mistaken for Racist: Subverted. An expectant white mother asks if Adam, rather than the even more qualified black midwife Tracey, can deliver her baby. Adam gets very annoyed about this and tells the mother off for being racist, and Tracey (who is more amused than anything else) tells him that she doesn't need a "white knight" looking out for her. The general feeling is that Adam has wildly over-reacted, and he's told to apologise, which he does. Later, during the mother's c-section, Adam encourages Shruti to carry it out, and the baby is delivered. The mother is delighted until she realises that it was Shruti who actually delivered it, whereupon she explodes "Tell that Paki to get her hands off my baby!". After that particular incident, Adam snarks that "Adolf" is a good name for the baby of a racist.
- The Nicknamer: Tracey, who after Adam almost opens up a patient because he's worried he left a swab inside her abdomen (it turns out that her baby grabbed it), calls him "Swabert De Niro" and "Swab Marley". He asks if he can be called "Swabert Downey Jr" but it turns out she's nicknamed someone else that.
- Pet the Dog: Combined with Kick the Dog, whcaen Adam has almost lost a patient who he sent home without realising that she was suffering from pre-eclampsia. He goes off shift and goes to attend a stag party, exhausted, and then Lockhart asks him if he can come back into work again. He says yes, because everyone does, but in his exhausted state, he starts a difficult procedure which he can't finish, and Lockhart has to finish it for him. Later, Lockhart tells him to amend the patient record so that it shows that Lockhart advised him to send the patient home earlier (thereby shifting some of the responsibility onto Lockhart.) Adam thanks him.Lockhart: Well, you didn't have to come in tonight.Adam: Yeah, I did.Lockhart: Yeah, you did.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Tracy gives Adam an absolutely brutal (albeit arguably well-deserved) one after she reveals that she was the one who reported him to the GMC.
- The Show of the Books: The show is based on the book This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor, which was also written by Adam Kay.
