Hospital drama, Breathless, heads into its second episode, after all eight dropped together on Netflix on August 30. Set in the Joaquin Sorolla hospital, the staff and patients struggle with treatment and their personal lives in a public health system under extreme pressure.
In episode one, tensions were rising and, with episode two, the troubles only continue to escalate with heated confrontations, upsetting test results, and a victim of sexual assault all at the fore.
With the stage set for the eventual strike shown in episode one, the story continues in Breathless episode 2. So let's proceed with our recap. There’s spoilers ahead for anyone who hasn’t seen the episode yet, or proceed anyway if you’re eager to find out what happened.
Emotions running high
Picking up here Breathless episode 1 left us, Rodri is sobbing in the hospital after losing the young girl during surgery. His sister, Dr Jesica Donoso, comes to take him to a meeting with the hospital manager, Lluis. Jesica asks Lluis if she can go in with Rodri, but he says no. They hold hands and she asks him to keep an eye on him. Biel sees this and realizes that Lluis is Jesica’s boyfriend.
In the meeting, Rodri is asked about the truth behind the mother’s signature. He asks why the head of psychiatry, Neus, is in the room. Rodri offers to quit and Lluis tells him it’s not the biggest problem right now. If the signature was falsified then they aren’t covered by insurance. So, if the family presses charges, they’ll be criminals and he could end up in jail.
Elsewhere, President Segura is at a tourism fair despite a member of the press commenting that they thought she’d step down, given her health situation.
At the hospital, a woman called Joana is brought in by the police and taken in with a doctor, Leo, and her resident, the female pregnant doctor who we finally learn is called May. They examine her after an alleged sexual assault. While Leo is kind to the patient, May seems off with her. Leo tells May that they should never judge someone who is the victim of assault.
Meanwhile, Quique and Biel are getting ready for their shift. Quique tells Biel he tested positive for HIV, but Biel comforts him and says that false positives are very common and to get a test done at the hospital.
Joana’s examination continues and Leo asks her what happened. She starts to panic and says she doesn’t know if she was forced or gave permission because she was high. Leo seems adamant that if Joana thought it was a sexual assault, then “there’s no question it has occurred.” May begins to argue with her.
Jesica finds her brother, Rodri, on the stairwell and he says he has quit his job. She says he should tell the truth, that it was the brother who forged the signature, not him and that he should go and speak to Neus to make him feel better.
The President returns
Biel runs into Jesica and asks about her and the director being a couple. She says it’s none of his business, but he says it is relevant since they’ve been sleeping together and he could get fired. She says it won’t happen again.
Quique goes to visit Oscar, but pretends he doesn’t know him. Oscar recognizes Quique from the party and discusses how they were intimate. Oscar then reveals his HIV test came back positive, but that his mother, Dr Amaro, says it could be a false positive. Quique panics and leaves the room.
President Segura arrives at the hospital after finding out that the Santa Ana wanted 200,000 euros for her surgery. So, now she wants Dr Moa. Fortunately, Dr Moa is happy to help her and they plan the treatment.
Dr Amaro asks why Quique has been talking to her son. Instead of being angry, she says she’s glad he has someone who can talk to him. She again threatens though that she’ll find who did this to him and make them regret it for the rest of their lives.
Dr Moa and Biel help the President start her chemotherapy. Biel comforts her and says she should fight this illness the same way she fights for her career.
Leo finds Joana sitting in the waiting room and asks if she’s okay. Joana says because they didn’t find any bruising that they’ll believe the man over her. Leo says that she’ll say that she did find something in her report to help her win her case.
Elsewhere, Quique goes to talk to the doctor that saw him come in with Oscar in the ER to ask her to not tell Dr Amaro. She says she won’t lie for him. In anger, he talks to May about it.
Questionable choices
Dr Moa finds President Segura has invited a photographer to take official pictures of her during her chemotherapy and he’s furious that she’s choosing to invade the other patients’ privacy. She says Biel told her to do it.
After her conversation with Quique, May is writing up the notes for the earlier investigation with Leo and asks her why it says there were vaginal abrasions when there weren’t. Leo tells her there must have been.
Lluis, the hospital manager, comes to see Jesica and says that since she’s asking her parents to come and see Rodri that she could also tell them that they’re dating. She avoids the conversation and leaves.
President Segura finishes her chemo and immediately starts to vomit. At the same time, the ER is suddenly overwhelmed with people being sick, but they’re all in costume. It turns out they’re from the tourism fair and that there’s been a case of bad food poisoning. That’s why the President is so unwell.
Dr Moa tries to find her, but she’s missing. He’s told she went to the fair to deal with the crisis and he sees her on TV and tells Biel she needs to get back to the hospital.
Quique finds Rodri at home crying in the shower and talks him into coming to help with the situation in the ER. He agrees. At the same time, Biel continues to try and reach the President. He rings her emergency contact, Emilio Alto, but he hasn’t heard from her either.
After coming to the hospital, Rodri has to deal with a drunk man in the ER who is throwing up blood and he has to perform an endoscopy immediately as there are no senior doctors available. Fortunately, he manages to save the man.
At the same time, Biel and Dr Moa turn up at the President’s house and find her passed out on the floor. Dr Moa manages to bring her round and takes her into the hospital. At the hospital, Oscar runs into Quique and they realize they’re both waiting for HIV test results.
May walks into a quiet room with the doctor from the ER that Quique was trying to convince to help him. They kiss. It’s unclear whether they’re a couple, but May asks the doctor to help Quique. May then suggests that Leo falsified the sexual assault report.
At the police station, Joana reports the boy that sexually assaulted her and shows the policeman his social media profile - hugo_23. It cuts to Hugo, talking to his mother who is out of shot. He answers the front door to the police who are there to arrest him. As he’s taken away from the house, his mother follows him out of the door. It’s Leo, the doctor who falsified the report at the hospital.
Breaking point
Back at the hospital, Quique gets his HIV results back and they’re negative. He runs to see Oscar and finds him crying with his mother, Dr Amaro, comforting him and saying he’s not going to die.
While everyone’s congratulating Rodri for his work in the ER, he runs into the little girl’s mother and brother. She is angry and accuses him of ambushing her son at school. She says a doctor came and threatened him to sign a statement admitting to falsifying her signature or that his family’s lawyers would go after him and his whole family and leave them with nothing. He apologizes and says he had nothing to do with it, but she continues to say “Haven’t you hurt us enough? Wasn’t killing my daughter enough?”
Rodri runs to speak to Neus, but she’s too busy to see him. He walks off and starts live streaming on social media. He appears to be on the rooftop of the hospital. He says he doesn’t want to be a doctor anymore and that they’re so overwhelmed. He continues that there are barely any attending and that they’re supposed to be guiding them, not leaving them alone. In a final statement, he says he doesn’t want to blame the system for all of this and that he is the problem and he shouldn’t be here. He says he’ll miss his viewers and that he’s so glad to have met them and he loves them.
After the emotional speech, Rodri walks away from the camera, takes off his doctor’s coat and as he appears to be heading towards the edge of the roof, the livestream cuts out.
All episodes of Breathless are available to stream on Netflix now.
