Bykov assigns Sophia and Polina to work together. Polina takes two patients (out of three), justifying it as her way to get distracted from Timur. But Sophia takes it as a sign of her still trying to please Bykov; she ignores Lyuba's arguments that this is not the case. Polina's plan works right until Timur proceeds with constantly bothering her during work, in (so far futile) attempts to win her sympathy. Sophia, meanwhile, suspects that Polina is conspiring against her: she took two patients because she wants to please Bykov by being "harder worker"! And then it turns out that two Polina's patients are easier than Sophia's one, which Sophia takes as a "proof" that Sophia is trying to "frame" her: if Sophia would fail, Polina would look good in comparison; she gets outright mocked for this by Lyuba when Polina, quickly dealing with her patients, offers to help Sophia. When Sophia finds ulterior motives even in that, Lyuba angrily tells her to just talk with Polina about it, to which Sophia agrees. Meanwhile, Polina gets asked about Timur by her patient, and, when she answers, the patient agrees that Timur deserves her hatred. They continues talking, and Polina, when showing what she would to to Timur if he wouldn't leave her alone, accidentally hits Sophia in the face as soon as she enters. Sophia takes it as a proof of Polina's hostility, and wants revenge. Polina tries to apologise, and even offers Sophia to hit her in return. But when Sophia does exactly that, Polina instinctively evades (reflex from her box-loving brother, who used to "train" on her), resulting in Sophia hitting the wall and injuring her hand. Sophia refuses to believe that it's not intentional, but at least seemingly believes that she's not interested in Gleb.
Gleb forgot to pay his rent, and if he wouldn't do it today, his landlady would throw him out. Timur agrees to cover for him while he would deal with it... only to immediately rat him out to Bykov. But then it turns out that he didn't snitch; he simply forgot to talk with Bykov, so he tries to cover for Gleb now, providing with a cover story about the cops and damaged car — not knowing that Gleb already told the real story to Bykov when confronted. Bykov pretends that he fell for it, and leaves. After learning from Polina that Timur just likes lying to people, all the time, Bykov starts watching over him, to catch him on the obvious lie, but fails — for now. Despite Gleb being highly sceptical that the plan would work after all, Timur insists on continuing: they still have a chance to "prove" their version. For that, Timur actually damages Gleb's car. While this does convince Bykov, Gleb isn't happy about it, at all.
Alexei's patients are two blond girls who just not long ago made a silly bet: they drove through a large portion of Moscow, naked. Since they did this during +5 Celsius, they're both now sick (with pneumonia suspected). Now they have a new bet: whether they may seduce Lyosha. Rita joins the bet, stating that they would both fail. She immediately tries to cheat by warning Alexei. When the blondes proceeds with their plan — blatantly trying to seduce Lyosha — Alexei tries to get distracte the only way he can think of... by asking Rita for sex. The patients starts suspecting that Rita's cheating, by not providing them with crucial information. When Rita rejects all their theories (him being married, gay or impotent), she lies that he's just too shy (not even she can seduce him)... which only convinces them to try harder. They're so aggressive in their attempts that Alexei needs Rita's help again and again. Ultimately, it seems that Rita'd won the bet after all — but then Bykov, publicly, yells at Alexei for empty clinical history; he didn't do any work today! And since he would stay on a night shift, the patients still have a chance to win; Rita may as well give up now. The next day, Rita learns that Alexei somehow won the bet for her, but it wasn't easy. He was only saved by reading the medical literature for distraction, which killed the mood... okay, he just sedated them, but does it matter if they've won?
This episode provides examples of:
- The Bet: Alexei's patients, two blond girls, have had a bet which involved them both riding around Moscow, naked, at +5 Celsius (it ended as well as you may expect; they are here because there's a good chance they have pneumonia). Now they have another bet, which involves seducing Alexei. Rita joins this bet, with her victory condition being them both failing. She, however, tries to cheat by warning Alexei, and later allowing him to deal with arousal by sleeping with her.
- Big Brother Bully: Apparently, Polina's big brother often "trained" boxing hits on her. As result, Polina developed evasive reflexes — of which she forgot to inform Sophia when she tried to hit Polina in the face.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Actual reason why Sophia acts the way she acts: she envies Gleb to Polina. Since Polina states that she is not interested in Gleb, while Gleb openly dislikes Polina, Sophia seemingly gets convinced to stop her "war" with Polina, at least for now.
- Complexity Addiction: Timur just can't stick with simple lie. Nope, it should be complex, multi-layered one, with tons of little details. He thinks that it would be more believable this way.
- Consummate Liar:
- According to Polina, Timur lies constantly, considering it to be the form of art, and there's no way to tell for sure until you verify yourself. This was one of the reason she divorced him.
- According to Timur himself, he was great at deceiving people back on his old job. He used his skills to create cover stories for the other people; one of them was so good, he managed to hide his friend during his honeymoon, and truth was only revealed by sheer accident.
- Dude, She's Like in a Coma: Subverted; Alexei tells Rita that, after sedating the patients, he did some "fun" with them, but when she reacts with understandable disgust, says that it was just a stupid joke.
- Insane Troll Logic: Sophia's justifications why Polina "clearly" conspires against her make no sense at all. Polina takes two patients out of three? She wants to make herself look better than Sophia, by doing more work. Sophia's one patient turns out to be harder than Sophia's two? She planned it from the start, to frame Sophia as the "dumb one". Polina offers her help to deal with third patient? She tries to frame Sophia, by saying that she did all the work while Sophia slacked! Lyuba refuses to even listen to the last one.
- The Paranoiac: Sophia continues suspecting foul play from Polina even now, seeing some hidden dark purpose in Polina's every action and word (whether it makes sense or not), and tries to "prove" it. Now, she thinks that Polina deliberately tries to cause her problems... because Polina took two more patients than her: she "obviously" tries to please Bykov, while simultaneously framing Sophia (since her two patients are easier than her one, so Sophia would receive night shift and Polina would be rewarded). Then Polina quickly deals with her patients and offers to help Sophia, after which Lyuba outright mocks Sophia's paranoia. This doesn't stop there, either.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Gleb isn't happy at all when Timur defends him before Bykov by damaging his car to make the cover story "plausible". Sure, it convinces Bykov, but between damaged car and night shift, Gleb would pick night shift.
- Seamless Spontaneous Lie: Timur improvises new details for his lies on the go, without obvious flaws in them. Even when Bykov tries to find the weak points in his cover story for Gleb.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: Alexei's patients have no shame whatsoever:
- The reason why they became his patients? They had have a bet about riding around Moscow naked at +5 Celsius, and now are suspected to have pneumonia because of that.
- They blatantly tries to seduce Alexei (all the way up to stripping naked near him) — all to win another bet.
- Shout-Out: Alexei resisting his patients' attempts to seduce him during night (with no Rita around) is portrayed as Viy-esque struggle against two witches, complete with white chalk-made circle and medical book instead of Bible. Unlike the story's protagonist, Alexei wins. And yes, this is exactly how Alexei describes this to Rita (though he then admits that he made this up; in reality, he just sedated them).Alexei: And with first crowing of the rooster, they disappeared.
Rita: You have sick imagination, you know? - Stalker with a Crush: Just as Polina suspected earlier, Timur starts constantly bothering her, trying to win her attention.
- Think Unsexy Thoughts: With no Rita nearby, Alexei uses medical literature to distract himself from his patients, very aggressive in their attempts to seduce him. It works. However, he then reveals that in reality, he just sedated them both right away; he just thought that the real story was not interesting enough.
