Hospital desperately needs a new cardiograph, and Kisegach plans to throw negotiations with important official about possibility of it being provided as a "gift" from ministry. To not look like obvious beggar, she needs some doctor who would interrupt negotiations to loudly complain about lack of cardiograph (in sad enough voice to provoke pity, yet coherent enough to not miss information about cardiograph), so official would offer it by himself. Bykov refuses to participate in it, so she tries Alexei instead (promising him small money bonus). He can't show enough anger, but hopefully would manage something when the time comes; just mention that the cardiograph is as old as him (no, older), and accent on it being unusable. But Alexei needs to leave to buy instruments, so he asks Polina to replace him, telling her the plan of action; when she refuses, he convinces her by telling her about monetary reward from Kisegach. When Alexei never shows up, Polina indeed proceed with the plan, which seemingly works, as official promises to try to see whether he can adjust the queue and bring them new gear earlier. But Alexei suddenly returns, and proceeds with original plan (not knowing that Polina already did everything), doing all just as badly as the first time and making it painfully obvious that he's acting (and doing bad job at that). It seemingly goes unnoticed, but then Bykov decides to help after all; this time, the official realises that Kisegach is trying to manipulate him, and angrily tells her that he wouldn't fall for her deception — and she wouldn't receive a cardiograph.
Kupitman still remains jealous of Lyuba, and interprets her nearly exiting the elevator on the Therapy's floor (old habits die hard) as her trying to go for Levin. She denies it, but Kupitman still worries. Later, due to mismatch in laboratory, the test results intended for the Therapy arrives to Venereology, and vice versa. Levin goes to correct this mistake, but forgets to actually give Lyuba the results for her department; Kupitman arrives just in time to see Lyuba rushing to stop Levin, but misses the reason behind it. Kupitman continues seeing and hearing things which implies that Lyuba and Levin have some plans for each other, but those always ends up being the false alarm (sometimes not even actually related to them), which makes him feel awkward. Kupitman tells about his suspicions to Bykov, who doesn't take them seriously: Levin is pathetic nobody, with whom Lyuba has very unpleasant history. When Kupitman insists that Levin has some good traits, too, Bykov suggests to just go and see how truly pathetic he is in cation — but Kupitman finds the good sides even in Levin's failures. When his "justifications" for Levin's failures goes too far, Bykov outright tells him that it's him who's to blame, as he dedicates too much attention to Levin, and not enough to Lyuba. Bykov goes to Lyuba, and jokingly tells her that Kupitman may dump her... for Levin. Then he explains that Kupitman is on the verge of depression (and where's depression, there's alcohol), out of fear that he may lose Lyuba to Levin; she should go and talk with him. Lyuba finds Kupitman lying in his office, and tries to comfort him, saying that she feels nothing for Levin, that she chose him, but it's too late: he already got drunk and fell asleep, hugging half-empty bottle. This makes Lyuba angry, and she leaves him lying on the floor once he falls from the coach. When Kupitman awakes and goes home, he sees that Lyuba's stuff is gone, as well as Lyuba herself — there's only a note saying "farewell, Kupitman; I dumped you for Levin". Then Lyuba enters and tells that she didn't... yet. But she would leave him for real if this happens again, as she doesn't need a paranoidal alcoholic of a husband.
Gennadiy is still angry at Semyon, and provides the Therapy with heavy stream of disgusting patients, most of them hobos (all of which Bykov dumps on Lobanov, as the cause of the conflict). But, since it was Semyon's fault that this "war" started, maybe, he is the one who may end it? Lobanov should go and apologise before Gennadiy, and the sooner, the better, since winter is coming, and with first ice, amount of patients would only increase. Lobanov's idea of "apologise" is to bring his old colleagues some vodka. They agrees to "think about" his "offer". But Lobanov buys the cheapest booze available, resulting in Gennadiy and his team being poisoned by counterfeit vodka, and becoming even angrier at him. Semyon thinks that it wasn't his fault, since he always buys the same booze and never suffers even hangover from it, so their poisoning likely was caused by something else; Rita suspects the snacks. Being unwilling to pay for analysing the food, Semyon decides to test their food on himself: if he would catch food poisoning, it means that food was tainted. Semyon feels weird before he even tastes anything, but it turns out to be false alarm, and nothing happens, suggesting that it was indeed vodka to blame. Now, he's convinced that he must receive alcohol poisoning to "save face"; he goes to ask Rita to give him some alcohol, but she refuses when she hears what he wants to do with it, so he has to try the food poisoning instead. Semyon picks various things, the least toxic of which is the pack of expired milk — which he drinks, with Bykov entering too late to tell him that he didn't poison Gennadiy and his team, and they just messed with him. Now, Semyon has to spend some time to recover; on the bright side, the "war" is over, and Gennadiy promises to bring him more of that vodka (which is actually good) and normal snacks once he gets better.
This episode provides examples of:
- Accentuate the Negative: In his paranoia and obsession with Levin planning to "steal" Lyuba, Kupitman sees only positive sides in Levin's failures, always interpreting them as something which Lyuba may like. It's not Levin being too cowardly to stand up against Bykov's blatant abuse, it's him avoiding unnecessary conflict. It's not him being a cheapskate, arguing over several roubles, he just tries to preserve money; and when Bykov takes away all the money Levin just preserved, Kupitman insists that it's self-preservation, as Levin is smart enough to not go into conflict with Bykov over few coins. Levin is a bore? No, he's just pedantic. When Levin doesn't laugh over a joke while everyone else does, he takes it as a sign of him "lacking herd mentality". Him spending free time at home instead of doing fun? Well, unlike Kupitman, there's no risk of him drinking himself to death (unlike Kupitman himself). When Kupitman finds a good side in Levin still living with his mother in his thirties, as "him being easy to manipulate by women", which Lyuba may like, Bykov snaps and tells him that it's less Levin being good, and more Kupitman becoming too obsessed with Levin to pay attention to Lyuba.
- Bad "Bad Acting": Unlike Polina (who actually does her job well and achieves desired outcome), Alexei can't play frustrated doctor to save his life. Not only he is completely emotionless, despite claiming to be "angry", he can't even remember the whole text, and makes slips which clearly indicates that he's trying to remember text he learned, instead of saying what he actually thinks.
- Bait-and-Switch: Kupitman returns home, and finds no trace of Lyuba or her stuff. Then he finds a note about Lyuba dumping him for Levin. Then Lyuba enters and announces that it's not true — yet. But he may make her want to if he wouldn't stop acting like idiot.
- Drowning My Sorrows: When Kupitman starts thinking that he loses Lyuba to Levin, he deals with it the only way he knows — by getting totally wasted. This actually angers her enough to give him final warning.
- The Food Poisoning Incident: Semyon's attempt to please Gennadiy by buying him vodka results in Semyon poisoning him and his team, because vodka was presumably counterfeit. However, since Semyon was buying the same vodka without any side effects for quite some time, he presumes that it must be their snacks, and eats all of their food at once... still without any effects, except for annoying them further. Admitting his defeat, Semyon has a "brilliant" idea to poison himself, so they wouldn't think he did this intentionally, and they would be "even". Without any alcohol nearby, he uses the expired (like, really expired) food, avoiding any serious health damage by pure accident. And all of this turns out to be for nothing, because Gennadiy and his team just pretended to be sick, to mess up with Semyon (actual reason why they were in the ward was just cleaning up their blood).
- Heel Realisation: When Semyon nearly kills himself with expired food to "apologise" before them, Gennadiy and his team apologises before Lobanov, and even promises to bring him gifts when he gets better. This also signals that "war" is over.
- Honor Before Reason: Bykov, feeling that begging ministry for free stuff is too humiliating (no matter how much they need it), refuses to help Kisegach with deceiving official... at first. While him putting helping beloved one as higher priority than his pride for once is a good sign, this ruins the entire plan when it almost works.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Had Bykov complied to Kisegach's plan right from the start, he would've likely succeeded. Instead, he comes third (after Polina's good performance, and Lyosha's terrible), making it painfully obvious that everyone plays the role in scenario prepared by Kisegach, ruining everything. On the bright side, his words suggests that he genuinely wanted to help someone he loves, even if he screwed up at that.
- Not What It Looks Like: Kupitman just keeps walking on Lyuba at worst moments and mistaking her talking with Levin (about work-related questions) for her showing attraction to him. Then he starts mistaking things completely unrelated to one or even both of them, for signs of Lyuba's infidelity, only to find out that he was wrong.
- Only in It for the Money: Polina only agrees to replace Alexei in Kisegach's plan (put a show so official would believe that they really need that cardiograph) after he mentions money bonus. It's implied that Alexei himself agreed for the money, too, but since beginning of conversation wasn't shown (though money gets mentioned at the end, when Kisegach corrects him on the size of payment).
- Pet the Dog: While Bykov only botches everything, his motivation shows him in the good light, as he wanted to help Kisegach for once, willing to put aside his pride.
- Poor Communication Kills: When only Polina asks about cardiograph, the plan works flawlessly. When Alexei joins with pretty much the same text (but abysmal acting), it starts causing problems. When Bykov suddenly changes his mind and decides to help Kisegach after all, and tries to do the same, too, he completely ruins everything, because the official realises that it was an act. This situation happens because Alexei recruits Polina, but doesn't tell about this to Kisegach; Polina doesn't tell Alexei when she does her part; and Bykov changes his mind after already refusing, without warning anyone.
- The Rival: Kupitman becomes so obsessed with Levin being potential threat to his relationship with Lyuba (to the point that he dedicates more attention to Levin than Lyuba), that Bykov jokingly tells Lyuba that Kupitman may dump her... for Levin.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Invoked by Lyuba, who warns Kupitman that if he continues acting like paranoiac and deal with it by going pig-drunk, she may actually consider dumping him.
- Too Dumb to Live: Thinking that he accidentally poisoned Gennadiy with counterfeit vodka (he didn't, they just messed with him), Semyon decides that he must poison himself, so they would at least be "even". With vodka being out of question, and Rita flat out refusing to participate in this "plan', Semyon sticks with food poisoning, and takes all the worst trash he can find in their fridge, including yogurt which expired two months ago, mold-covered sausages, some mysterious container which was here all the way back when Levin leaved to the USA several years ago, and expired milk; Levin runs away from the smell alone. He really thinks that it would be a great idea to eat all this just to "prove" something. Fortunately, Semyon starts with milk and realises that he feels sick before he can cause any more self-harm.
- Troll: Gennadiy and his team tells Semyon that he accidentally poisoned them solely because they were bored. The actual reason why they are in the ward is completely unrelated to him.
