Bykov thinks that Kupitman and Lyuba are still on bad terms, due to them still avoiding each other. He and Kisegach plans to find out more, and proceeds with asking Kupitman and Lyuba, respectively, but they keeps denying everything. There's only one solution: make them both drunk and provoke into discussing their problems. When they proceeds with the plan and leaves the two by alone under first excuse they could find, Kupitman, knowing why it was organised, says that they can't avoid each other forever, and must do something and try to start anew — start from one big wild party, for only two of them... which again results in the two having drunk sex, and awaking in Kupitman's bed. Now, they have to wait till Gleb and Sophia would fall asleep, so Lyuba can stealthy leave.
Polina finally (re)starts her internship, only to come late right on the first day. Bykov is angry and gives her one last chance: any new screwup, and he would kick her out. For now, she is assigned to work with Alexei. To Alexei's surprise, Polina is actually interesting in learning more about Torzhok, and asks him to tell her everything when he frees up. For now, they parts ways to deal with patients. Polina continues talking with Rita, Phil and others, discussing her divorce and other events, while keeping forgetting about the tasks she was supposed to do, forcing Alexei to do them for her. When called on this, she promises to do the rest by herself, allowing him some rest. But she gets distracted again, and forgets to do anything. To protect her from being kicked out, Alexei takes the blame on himself, which results in the two receiving a night shift. Since there's nothing else to do at a night shift, Alexei proceeds to actually talk about Torzhok to Polina, who shows genuine interest — only for Lyosha to fall asleep mid-point and get annoyed by her pressing him to continue.
After Polina instantly recognises that Sophia is Gleb's girlfriend, since "being only girl in internship, she must be his girlfriend", Sophia interprets it as Polina being Gleb's ex — and immediately angrily confronts Gleb about it. Gleb instead states that he actually hates Polina since day one. Gleb then goes to Polina and asks her to not tell Sophia anything. Especially, about that one time when they got drunk on Medic's day. While they didn't actually have sex (drunk Gleb accidentally grabbed Polina's ass, only to release the moment he recognised that it's hers), Sophia wouldn't see much difference. Sophia, meanwhile, not trusting Gleb completely, proceeded to asking people, starting with Rita. When Rita tells her that the only thing she knows is that Gleb and Polina can't stand each other, Sophia decides to ask Phil, knowing that he can't hide anything from anyone. Phil indeed tries to "defend" Gleb, not knowing about that story and thinking that he's covering for Gleb's lies, but is too persistent in repeating that Gleb "didn't sleep with Polina", which seemingly achieves the opposite effect. Sophia decides to talk with Gleb next. Gleb almost panics, tries to come up with an excuse... and then Sophia says that she did believe Phil, and came to apologise.
This episode provides examples of:
- Bad Liar: Phil, in attempt to "help" Gleb (without consulting with him beforehand), starts assuring Sophia that Gleb never slept with Polina. While technically true (Gleb and Polina indeed never went beyond drunk grabbing), since he thought that he's lying (and Phil is a terrible liar), he achieves exactly opposite effect. Strangely, but it still works, despite Phil continuing reminding Sophia about it "just to be sure", but Gleb learns this only much later.Gleb: Now, Sophia thinks that I spent a year as Polina's lover.
Phil: What can I do?
Gleb: Please, don't do anything. You already did everything. - Binge Montage: Rather long montage of Lyuba and Kupitman deciding to "go wild" and start partying. The drunker they becomes, the wilder their party becomes. They gets much quieter later by the time they arrives into karaoke bar, though (but again, bar has rather quiet atmosphere). This culminates in them awakening in the same bed again, this time, in Kupitman's house, which nearly leads to them being busted by Gleb and Sophia.
- The Bus Came Back: While she returned a full season ago, Polina actually rejoins the team only now.
- Call-Back: During her introduction to Lyosha and Sophia, Polina remembers about the Soviet movie Gardes-Marines, Ahead!
(which had similarly named couple), and asks whether they are in relationship. This association was used in one earlier episode as a Running Gag. - Chekhov's Gag: Alexei stating Bykov's order to never mention Torzhok again is not just another joke; Alexei actually uses this exact order to protect Polina later on, by telling Bykov that Polina's failed on her task not by herself, but because he distracted her by talking about Torzhok.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Defied by Gleb. He knows that Sophia suspects that he had prior affair with Polina, and would interpret anything suspicious as confirmation — like that one time when he (drunkly) grabbed (equally drunk) Polina's ass by accident — and so orders Polina to never, ever mention it anywhere Sophia may hear it.
- Good Angel, Bad Angel: In Gleb's mind, when he tries to come up with explanation for Sophia, his thought process is represented by Gleb himself and two of his clones (dressed differently to make distinguishing them easier) debating over best course of action. One of the clones dresses in light blue costume and suggests to just tell Sophia as is, apologise and promise that this wouldn't happen again, while another is dressed in black and white (with bloody-red tie) and suggests to immediately "show Sophia her place". It's not hard to guess who is the "good guy" and who is the "bad guy" here.
- I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship: In attempt to preserve their friendship, Kupitman suggests to never mention that "incident" again and just restart everything anew via one big, wild party for just two of them. Then they suddenly wakes up in the same bed, again.
- Irony: The first and only time someone genuinely wants to learn more about Torzhok — specifically, Polina — Alexei gets tired of talking and loses interest first, while Polina tries to ask him to continue.Alexei: You're the first one who managed to annoy me with Torzhok!
- The Load: Polina isn't of much help to Alexei, because she keeps being distracted, forcing him to do her part of their task. Then she promises to do the rest by herself... and gets distracted, completely forgetting to do anything. Alexei gets forced to take the blame, so she wouldn't be kicked out, but he's definitely not happy with it.
- Running Gagged: Bykov prohibited to even mention Torzhok anywhere he can hear about it, under a threat of fine. This, of course, is specifically to force Alexei to shut up about it. Alexei would be later fined when he would pull "talking about Torzhok" card to cover for Polina's screwup.
- Taking the Heat: Alexei takes all the blame for Polina's screwups, knowing that the worst he can get is a night shift, while she would be fired.
- Un-person: Polina edited every photo where she was presented together with her ex-husband, by replacing his face with black squares.
