REVIEW: ‘St. Denis Medical’ Season 2 Episode 5 Highlights The Strength Of Its Ensemble
- Emma Fisher
- 2 minutes ago
- 6 min read
This article contains spoilers for S2E5 of St. Denis Medical.
Continuing a run of confident episodes, St. Denis Medical delivers another sharply turned episode with “A Strong Cup of Coffee.” It continues what Season 2 has been doing well, deepening character dynamics and developing its ensemble without losing the show’s focus on the sincerity and workplace chaos that occurs within a hospital setting when documentary cameras follow every move of its staff.
This week’s cold open is another example of the season’s strengths. A news report announces the arrest of the “Highway Hunter,” a serial killer who has been terrorising Oregon for half a decade. The tone is sombre until Joyce (Wendi McLendon-Covey) walks into the room, sees the killer’s photo, and announces that she knows him. She treated him as an oncologist, pulling him back from stage-four osteosarcoma when every other doctor had written him off. Joyce assumes that he’s on the news for saving a kid from a well (or something). The room falls silent as she learns instead that he tortured and murdered two sisters, a mother of three, and a beloved Catholic priest. Trying to escape the awkwardness, she leaves the room, claiming she had forgotten why she came in. McLendon-Covey continues to be exceptional, utilising her delivery, even when quiet, and physical comedy to pull the most laughs from you.
From there, the episode smartly uses its ensemble across three plots. The first involves Ron (David Alan Grier) and Matt’s patient, Kyle (Jonah Beckett), who collapsed at a frisbee golf match without explanation. His tests are unremarkable, but almost immediately after he’s promised a discharge, he collapses again. Ron suspects cataplexy, a form of narcolepsy triggered by strong emotion. With the wait to see a specialist being at least six weeks, Kyle is understandably worried about his health and the impact this condition will have on his day-to-day life.
This storyline cleverly reignites the Matt and Serena dynamic, which has been notably absent from recent episodes. Matt (Mekki Leeper) wants to help Kyle identify his emotional triggers, while Serena (Kahyun Kim) insists that their job ends at stabilising. Naturally, she’s drawn in anyway when he starts testing emotions with a chart, even bringing in Kyle’s STD results to test fear. Their eventual discovery that Kyle faints every time he sees his attractive roommate, Jeff (Jeremiah Brown), is just as sweet as it is silly. Serena’s advice to Kyle, for him to tell his roommate how he feels, as holding things in only makes everything weird, reflects her own unresolved tension with Matt. Later, when she tells Matt that sometimes opposites attract, the silence that follows says more than either of them will allow. It’s safe to say that their will-they-won’t-they slow burn has become one of the best dynamics of the show, one that must be acted on sooner rather than later.
Elsewhere, Alex (Allison Tolman) is desperate to impress her former charge nurse, Pam (Lauren Weedman), who has been asked back to St. Denis as maternity leave cover. Pam wastes no time asserting herself. She dismisses Alex’s leadership, laments that she is struggling as a charge nurse, and takes it upon herself to throw Bruce’s phone in the bin for ignoring Alex’s requests in favour of asking ChatGPT for “yo mama” jokes (her only good deed). Bruce then becomes the butt of Pam’s “Bruce the Moose” nickname, which spreads through the hospital, much to his dislike. His attempts to laugh it off, even noting that he’s in good company with the likes of Bear Grylls, Wolf Blitzer, Seal, Cat Stevens, and Larry Bird, weaken further when an off-screen correction reminds him that those are their actual names. When a second nickname, “Chatty Cathy,” is bestowed upon him after Pam notes that he loves the sound of his own voice, Bruce, feeling emasculated, immediately wants the moose nickname to return. It has never been clearer that Bruce is a character who could have easily become tiresome, but Lawson's understanding of his character allows him to portray an endearing side, adding a character to both laugh at and with into the fray.
A highlight of Season 2 of St. Denis Medical is how the writers are exploring who works well together within the ensemble. This week, a new pairing emerges in the form of Alex and Bruce. Both are victims of Pam’s cruelty and come together to discuss how awful she is. Alex recognises that she has spiralled back into old habits, folding towels on command and exhausting herself to win approval that clearly is not coming. Bruce, however, is still worried about his newfound nicknames and is desperate to reclaim even a shred of dignity. His attempt at revenge, christening Pam “Miss Fart,” is the season’s first miss. While it makes sense that this is all the man who requires ChatGPT to write jokes for him can come up with, there’s something deeply unfunny about toilet humour that should have been left behind in the sitcoms of the 2010s. Watching them realise that Pam is standing right by them and has heard everything they have said is a delight, though.
Towards the end of the episode, Pam snaps at Matt, comparing him to Forrest Gump when he tries to tidy up, expecting Alex to remain in her deferential role. Instead, Alex steps in and tells Pam that she cannot speak to Matt or anyone else as she just did. It’s the moment the episode has been building towards, with Alex finally choosing authority over approval. She asserts that she’s a good nurse despite Pam, not because of her, and that Pam taught her everything she shouldn’t do as a leader. It’s a satisfying scene, one that gives Tolman a much-deserved spotlight and reframes Alex as someone who has grown into a protective leader.
Meanwhile, Joyce and Ron’s ongoing back-and-forth over celebrity deaths is the episode’s funniest plot, largely thanks to McLendon-Covey and Grier’s chemistry. What begins with Joyce briefly misinterpreting a news alert about Stevie Wonder turns into a debate about grief, parasocial bonds, and Ron’s supposed lack of sentimentality. Joyce insists that celebrities are better than normal people and therefore belong on pedestals; Ron believes that mourning a celebrity death is a way for people to mask their own fear of mortality as they watch the things they love fade away. He doesn’t hide his fear of death in social performance, but Joyce does on Facebook. He shares that she has made posts about David Lynch, Alex Trebek, and the Notre Dame Cathedral (she lost a part of her soul when it caught on fire), refusing to indulge in how she loves to make things about herself. Their dynamic works so well because neither of them is entirely right, despite both being certain they are.
Joyce’s determination to prove Ron has a heart culminates in a wonderfully unserious way when she hands him a list of celebrities and asks who he would care about losing. He either doesn’t know them, doesn’t care about them, or thought they were already dead, until he notes that the last name would be a bummer. Joyce mistakes this as proof that he cares about the people in his life, noting that at the bottom of the paper, it says "From the office of Joyce Henderson." Ron, however, meant Paul Reiser, the last name on the list, whom he met on a cruise in 1999, where they bonded over Western omelettes. Beneath the bickering, though, lies a surprising tenderness that both actors excel in.
“A Strong Cup of Coffee” is another exemplary episode, highlighting that St. Denis Medical has settled into its rhythm in Season 2. Even with some of Bruce’s humour missing the mark this week, the episode delivers some much-needed character work and allows its ensemble to continue going from strength to strength.
About St. Denis Medical
Premiere Date: 24 November 2025
Episode Count: 18
Showrunner: Eric Ledgin
Executive Producers: Eric Ledgin, Justin Spitzer, Simon Heuer, Ruben Fleischer, Bridget Kyle, and Vicky Luu.
Production: Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, More Bees, Inc. and Spitzer Holding Company.
Cast: Wendi McLendon-Covey, David Alan Grier, Allison Tolman, Josh Lawson, Kahyun Kim, Mekki Leeper, and Kaliko Kauahi.
Synopsis: St. Denis Medical is a mockumentary about an underfunded, understaffed Oregon hospital where the dedicated doctors and nurses try their best to treat patients while maintaining their own sanity. In season two, after receiving a large private donation, hospital administrator Joyce bites off more than she can chew while her employees navigate staff shortages, office conflicts and their own personal lives.
