"Cooper vs. Quinn: Part 1" is the seventeenth episode of season 3 of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
Michaela & Sully make plans to adopt the children so Sully can be their Pa, but Dr. Mike loses custody of Brian and Colleen when their father, Ethan Cooper, arrives with his new rich bride Lillian. Ethan and Lillian take Colleen and Brian out and promise to be back before dark but arrived just as Dr. Mike is going to leave to search for them. The next day, Ethan and Lillian arrive and Ethan signs Brian and Colleen over to be adopted by Dr. Mike and Sully. Lillian finds out that the reason she hasn't been able to become pregnant is that she was born without a uterus. Ethan changes his mind and says he will take them to San Francisco next Friday. Sully tells Dr. Mike Ethan needs the kids to claim Lillian's inheritance. Dr. Mike offers confronts Ethan and asks him what he wants, and says she'll sell the clinic, and wire her mother for money, but Ethan refuses, saying that it's not about money and Lillian's father owns half the territory. Dr. Mike takes Ethan to court. Ethan twists everything around, using a lot of information that he didn't otherwise know. Dr. Mike decides not to use the facts that Ethan stole church money, and that he needs to custody of the kids to claim his father in law's inheritance. Ethan and Lillian reclaim them in a messy courtroom battle.
This episode provides examples of:
- Golddigger: Ethan's wife won't receive her inheritance if she doesn't have any children and as such, this is the reason he's determined to get custody of Colleen and Brian.
- Multi-Part Episode: "Cooper vs. Quinn: Part 1" is followed by "Cooper vs. Quinn: Part 2".
- Slut-Shaming: Ethan's lawyer does this to Mike, revealing that within one year, she was engaged to three different men—,the Reverend, Sully, and David—making her sound like a loose woman, even though only one of those engagements—to Sully-+was legitimate—the "first" was from a misunderstanding once word got out that the Reverend had proposed, but she never accepted, the "second" because her engagement to David was technically never broken off, given his presumed death. He also says several things that imply that she and Sully are having premarital sex, a major taboo in those days, even though they aren't.
- Visit by Divorced Dad: Though he's not divorced from Michaela, Ethan Cooper shows up again. He abandoned Charlotte years ago and took her half of their nest egg, something Matthew is old enough to remember and hold against him. This episode begins a messy custody battle between Ethan Cooper and Michaela.
