Season One
- Alternative Character Interpretation: The show has several.
- What motivated Christopher Duntsch? Even before the show aired, there were many theories trying to explain the real man: narcissism, laziness, psychopathy, sadism, severe drug use, brain damage from college football, early-onset vascular dementia from all the cocaine, and even a brain tumor have all been hypothesized. The show doesn't pretend to have the answers.
- How culpable is Kim for Duntsch's crimes? Even before she witnessed him operating, she found cocaine in his bathroom, which she didn't report, and she works with him in the OR multiple times before quitting. It's debated in the show, with Henderson feeling that she's suffered enough, and Kirby retorting that she deserves to suffer more.
- Diagnosed by the Audience: Something is very wrong in Duntsch's psyche, be it malignant narcissism, psychopathy, substance abuse, psychosis, delusional disorder, mania, vascular dementia from his rampant cocaine use, or some combination of these. The writers don't choose one answer, instead letting the viewers judge Duntsch's pathology for themselves.
- He also seems to have poor spatial reasoning. On the football field and a couple of times in the OR, he confuses left and right.
- After he's arrested, he expresses irritation at the constant noise in the prison, hinting at some sort of sensory overload.
- Genius Bonus: Several for people who are familiar with medicine.
- Duntsch blames one patient's death on a severe allergic reaction to fentanyl. Savvy viewers will know just how ludicrous this excuse is: as of 2012, when the show takes place, there had been three documented cases of fentanyl-induced anaphylaxis
, and it's hard to get anaphylaxis and hemorrhagic shock mixed up. Even had this happened, intraoperative anaphylaxis has relatively high survival rates if it's promptly recognized and treated. - Another patient develops a tracheoesophageal fistula, meaning that Duntsch somehow grafted her airway to her esophagus and created an opening between the two structures. TEFs are usually birth defects, or a consequence of having an endotracheal tube in for a very long time. They're unheard of as complications of spinal surgery.
- Duntsch's favorite scapegoats are his anesthesiologists. The blame-passing that sometimes happens between surgeons and anesthesiologists when an operation goes wrong is considered the medical equivalent of "the dog ate my homework".
- Duntsch blames one patient's death on a severe allergic reaction to fentanyl. Savvy viewers will know just how ludicrous this excuse is: as of 2012, when the show takes place, there had been three documented cases of fentanyl-induced anaphylaxis
- Ho Yay: Even though he obviously very much appreciates female strippers, Jerry's devotion to Duntsch is oddly intense, with Jerry, now a quadriplegic, even saying he loves Duntsch while on the stand in court. On the flipside, Duntsch always seems to want a close male friend around him at all times, starting first with his college football buddy who he asks to transfer to Memphis with him. Of course, given how poisonous Duntsch is to everyone around him, this is probably all more like No Yay.
- Nightmare Fuel: The entire series could be said to qualify as it follows a monstrous figure who does devastating, permanent or even fatal damage to people under his care with no remorse and is able to get away with it for years and would have for many more had it not been for Henderson and Kirby and even they had to overcome huge obstacles to stop him and only really succeeded due to pure luck and Duntsch's instability. Worst of all is that it really happened.
- One-Scene Wonder: The chief of surgery who berates Duntsch for demanding to do a craniotomy—a surgery the hospital isn't even equipped to perform—on a previous patient instead of focusing on the surgery he's currently performing. The chief has utterly no patience with Duntsch, makes his complete disdain for his abilities perfectly clear, and thoroughly puts him in his place, which is satisfying to see when so many other people are walking on eggshells around him. The fact he's from The Bronx only makes him even more enjoyable.
- Tearjerker: Anything to do with the suffering caused by Duntsch's surgeries, particularly to those with grieving families. Dorothy Burke's husband notes that he's been with his wife for 46 years, and the grief he experiences at her becoming brain dead over a surgery he'd had misgivings about from the start is particularly hard to witness. Another victim, while still alive, refuses to see her family so they can't see the horrible state that Duntsch left her in; after Kirby leaves, she breaks down in tears.
- Unintentional Uncanny Valley: Joshua Jackson's Digital De-Aging for the college scenes looks pretty jarring when he's standing next to actors who are actually in their early twenties. The prosthetics used to depict Duntsch's weight gain also look unreal as Jackson's cheeks and jaws lack movement when he speaks.
- The Woobie: All of Duntsch's patients. The series goes out of its way to show that they were innocent people who just wanted help with medical problems and trusted a doctor who completely betrayed their faith and left them far worse than before without ever showing sympathy or even visiting them and are now struggling just to live something resembling a normal life and they were let down by a medical system that utterly failed in it's duty to protect them. Of particular note is Earl Burke who absolutely adored his wife Dorothy to whom he was married for forty-six years and was looking forward to spending their retirement together and is now a broken shell of a man, all because of Duntsch, and his best friend Jerry who was left quadriplegic after Chris' mangling of him.
Season Two
