Since Phil went to USA, all his patients went to Kupitman — and there're many of them! Kupitman isn't happy with prospect of actually working, so he goes to Bykov, to ask for some of his subordinates to do this work for him. Their discussion gets overheard by Kisegach, who isn't happy with him just dumping all the work on someone yet still receiving salary for whatever reason, so she insists that this time, he should do everything by himself. Kupitman can't force himself to actually go through all these patients, so he pretends that he can't find the correct key, and goes to cafeteria, likely waiting for Bykov. Unfortunately, Kisegach comes first, and actually escorts him to his office, where he finally "finds" his key and gets forced to do what's ordered. Kupitman still can't force himself to start working, while the patients are starting losing patience. But Kupitman has an idea; he gathers everyone in the same auditory, writes all symptoms on a chalkboard, and forces the patients to write down the matching ones in their blanks, to cut up time on interrogating each one individually; then he sends them to do tests. Meanwhile, Kisegach visits Kupitman's office, only to find it locked. Realising that he likely tried to run away again, she angrily starts searching for him. She finds him just when he gets done with his patients. She's not happy with him subverting standard procedure, but he lies that it was a prophylactic lecture. She falls for it and compliments on good initiative. Then the patients actually goes to complain to Kisegach, resulting in him receiving nineteen complaints at once. Now, unless he somehow makes them forgive him, Kisegach would start fining him over each of those complaints; with one complaint costing 5K from his salary, it's not hard to see where it goes. Kupitman succeeds, but now Kisegach would force him to do regular, unpaid lectures each Thursday, as that idea is just too good to throw out; and she wouldn't take "no" as an answer.
Polina, Lyuba and Rita each works on different patients (who shares the same ward) — three extremely friendly and cheerful old men. Happiness is the best medicine, right? Now they can't agree on only one thing — who would be discharged first; each one thinks that her patient is closer to that. Polina suggests to bet on it; everyone agrees. But just when Lyuba brags that the patient "would be gone in a blink of an eye" (with others saying similar things), one of the patients accidentally overhears them, and interprets it as them betting who would die first, and warns the others. Together, they goes to Bykov to tell him about the "murder attempt". He promises to "increase security", while they may relax and continue their treatment. But patients actually bothers to check what Bykov would do, and busts him lying on sofa, reading a magazine. They decides to do everything by themselves, and intentionally sabotages any treatment attempts, thinking that their doctors are trying to kill them. Then they decides to run away, as Bykov is apparently involved in the scheme himself. But they gets busted when trying to escape; when asked just what they're doing, they panics... and suffers a heart attack, all three. They survives, but now Bykov is very angry, and Polina, Lyuba and Rita each would receive five night shifts as a punishment.
Gleb tries another of his pranks on Alexei, but Sophia, who isn't a part of the plan, ruins everything by disproving everything Gleb tries to tell to Lyosha. Gleb calls her out on this, and, when she tries to defend herself by mentioning that she was not warned, Gleb points that good pranks always involves some improvisation, you can't plan everything ahead, so she should watch and recognise the moment when she needs to play along. Sophia tries to play her own "funny prank" on Alexei, but when Gleb learns that her idea was to lie to Alexei that his uncle is dying, he reacts with utter disgust, and tries to warn Alexei... only to realise that Lyosha forgot his phone. Now, Gleb must rush to stop him, while Sophia would stay to cover for him. And that's when it turns out that Alexei never leaved — it was Sophia's prank on Gleb. So who's a "bad prankster" now? Gleb, meanwhile, gets called by Bykov, who's searching for him; when Gleb learns that Alexei actually never leaved, Gleb realises that he was pranked, and feels betrayed. Gleb admits his defeat to Sophia, and says that she's indeed a good prankster, whom he underestimated at his peril. Now, when they're even, they should unite to play a prank on Timur — the last person whom Gleb never managed to trick. He even has a plan already — the same joke which earlier failed on Alexei due to Sophia not cooperating. It involves Sophia tricking Timur tp gp into morgue, so Gleb would rush out and scare him when he would get distracted, searching for Bykov (who allegedly called him). Plan fails, because Sophia invites Timur too early (or maybe because the prank was just that lame and childish)... and then the real prank occurs when one of the bodies near Timur suddenly awakes, screaming, revealing to be Pasha. This one actually works — on Sophia (and a bit on Timur), just as Gleb wanted. Neither of them are happy with it. Now, Sophia is paranoidal and expects Gleb's pranks on every step, despite him insisting that he's tired for today. After seeing a nightmare about Gleb playing a prank on her right on their wedding, Sophia awakes Gleb and asks him to never, ever prank her again.
This episode provides examples of:
- Bait-and-Switch:
- Bykov can't just "give" his subordinates to Kupitman — they aren't things... they are his slaves, and have their price!
- Sophia tricks Alexei with a lie about his uncle dying, so he would rush to Torzhok, and now Gleb must fix her mistake... Seems like another plot about Gleb (or someone else) fixing Sophia's terrible mistake? Nope; the actual prank was to make Gleb believing that she pranked Lyosha, and trying to "fix" it.
- Gleb's "great plan" for his prank on Timur seemingly turns out to be the same one he tried earlier on Alexei, and involves sudden Jump Scare in the morgue. It fails because it was neither sudden not scary, Timur even jokes that it was his fault for not playing along... and then the real Jump Scare happens, with one of the bodies which were presumably just the props suddenly awaking and screaming loudly. This scares Timur... and Sophia, who was the actual target.
- The Bet: Polina suggested a bet to Rita and Lyuba: who of their patients would finish treatment first? While the bet by itself isn't important to the plot (and neither one of them actually wins it), it kickstarts the actual plot when one of the patients overhears it out of context.
- Brick Joke: Gleb's plot starts with some failed prank which involved tricking Alexei into going to the morgue for Bykov. Much later Gleb actually organises a prank here, but for completely different person.
- Catapult Nightmare: Sophia sees a nightmare about Gleb saying "no" to her before altar, only for it ending up being a prank. Then she awakes, flings, and realises that it was a dream.
- Dude, Not Funny!:
- Sophia's idea of a "prank"? Lie to Lyosha that his uncle back in Torzhok is dying. Even Gleb calls her out on this: no one jokes like that!
- Bykov is completely unimpressed with Polina's idea of a "bet" (which Lyuba and Rita happily accepted): you never, ever should bet on anything involving wellbeing of your patients, not even as a joke (which it wasn't)! It's a bad omen!
- Everyone Has Standards: Gleb has a history of cruel pranks, but even he thinks that lying to Lyosha that his uncle is dying was too much.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: While the lie about "lectures" saves Kupitman's ass when Kisegach nearly finds out that he tried to cheat in order to avoid doing manual work, Kisegach likes the idea so much, she forces Kupitman to do more of such lectures in the future, for real; no, he wouldn't get paid for them.
- Jump Scare: Just after one fake (neither sudden nor scary), when Gleb "tried" to scare Timur, the real jump scare occurs when one of the bodies near Timur suddenly awakes and screams; turns out, Pasha was also in the plan. It works much better on the intended target... Sophia. And right after that the third one happens, but it's neither loud nor sudden, and Timur actually calls Gleb out on repeating himself here.
- Lazy Bum: Kisegach actually gets fed up with Kupitman dropping all the work on Phil (or someone else, if Phil isn't available), so he may sit, drink cognac and sometimes accept bribes, yet still receive salary for that. Nope, this time, he would work out all the money she's paying him!
- Never My Fault: Sophia refuses to acknowledge that lying to Lyosha that his uncle is dying was completely cruel and unfunny "joke", even after Gleb angrily tells her so. When Gleb, realising that Lyosha misplaced his phone and is already on the way to nearby train station (and this if they're lucky), rushes to warn him in person, Sophia calls him out on "ruining a good prank". Subverted in that entire reason she acted like this was to ensure that Gleb would believe in this; there never was a prank on Lyosha — this prank is on Gleb.
- Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: Due to the mix of weird choice of words and bad timing, one of the patients interprets discussion Lyuba has with Rita and Polina as being about who of their patients would die first. This results in the patients becoming extremely paranoidal... right until they finally receives a heart attack, simultaneously.
- Poor Communication Kills: Had Bykov ever bothered to transfer what patient said to him to Polina, Rita and Lyuba, he likely would have learned about the bet much earlier, and forced them to explain everything to the patients (also avoiding that severe punishment and patients' heart attacks). Alternatively, had the patients bothered to ask Kisegach after Bykov showed no interest, she (being much more serious and bureaucratic) would have confronted either Bykov or directly Polina, Rita and Lyuba, with the same results. Instead, they tries to secretly run away, resulting in a heart attack when they gets caught.
- Seamless Spontaneous Lie: It was not attempt to circumvent standard procedure of examining people one by one; it was prophylactic lecture! Since it happens in an actual auditory, with chalkboard (with symptoms written on them), Kisegach considers it to be believable.
