Pulse episode 3 recap: secrets and high ponytails

Secrets and betrayals come to light in the Pulse episode 3 recap.

The hurricane continues to ravage the city. Danny (Willa Fitzgerald) is outside when a car crashes into a lightpole, trapping the driver. Danny runs inside to get help and grab a box cutter. When the men try to lift the pole from the car, she uses the box cutter to slash the tires so that the car sinks as they deflate.

Inside, the power is out and there are no x-rays or scans available except on portable units. Danny tells the woman who came in with the injured man that power is out everywhere. Xander (Colin Woodell) and Tom (Jack Bannon) discuss their options since they can’t do surgery; they’ll have to stabilize the man’s broken leg until power comes back.

Xander is changing into dry scrubs when Danny walks in. She’s fine with him being there so he keeps undressing while she changes her clothes. He tells her she did a good job, which leads Danny to tell him not to be nice to her as a strategy since she filed charges against him. She admits she’s glad he’s there because of the hurricane and suggests a truce until the hurricane ends, vowing to keep their personal lives out of it.

In a flashback to 11 months prior, Danny sees Xander at the bar during a donor gala. She’s there to accept an award on Harper’s behalf. She admits she might need Xander as her fake date and they go through all of the rules for their fake date.

Camila (Daniela Nieves) checks on her patient who got sick while attending a hurricane party. She wants to get back to the party but she’s in agonizing pain.

Natalie is happy with Vero’s progress. She wants to keep lowering her sedation so she can be off the ventilator before it loses power. The nurse cautions that Ruben doesn’t want it lowered but Natalie insists.

The ER is full of people as the news reports that the hurricane stalled over Miami. Camila gives Sophie (Chelsea Muirhead) her patient’s chart and says it was appendicitis after all, but Sophie isn’t reassured by the news given that they can’t do surgery. When they go to see her she’s gone.

Lies and secrets

Cass (Jessica Rothe) gives Luis (Arturo del Puerto) some files. He asks her about getting close to Tom and she laughs off the question. Camila asks him about her missing patient and he says she walked out after being discharged. Sophie asks him if she was walking upright (she was) and realizes her appendix already burst and she probably felt better but she’s about to go into shock. They seek out Tom, who is furious that he’s responsible for a patient who has gone missing. Sophie vows to find her.

Xander checks on his trauma patient. The woman says they only went to the ER because she needed meds for her UTI, which he takes credit for because they’ve been stuck in their hotel for a week after their cruise was cancelled. Danny and Xander try to figure out their dynamic as questions hit them from the staff.

In a flashback, Xander warns Danny about galas and not being friendly with donors after she admits to a woman that she’s not having fun. She’ll never be chief resident that way, but she tells him she doesn’t want the job. She says he’s used to getting what he wants because of how he was raised, and when he says the donor she rebuffed is his mother she decides to go speak with her.

Harper tells Danny that she needs to get her side of the story out before Xander can share his side. She doesn’t want to say anything, nor does she want to reveal the reason he left his old job. When Elijah (Jessie T. Usher) walks in, Danny leaves and Harper asks if he has sisters. He’s shocked that it’s the first question she’s ever asked him.

Shannon (Kathryn Smith-McGlynn) asks Cass for an update on Nia. The surgery went well, and when Cass says Tom did it, Shannon rolls her eyes and says now Nia will have more reason to be obsessed with him. Cass is thinking about that comment when Xander asks her for something and she tells him to get it himself.

Sophie wants to go find their patient but Camila warns her that she could die if she goes out there. Sophie admits she’s more afraid of Tom than she is of the hurricane. Camila reluctantly agrees to go with her.

Ponytails

Tom sees Xander connecting a portable stove to make coffee. Xander asks if people are taking sides. Tom tells him that he should start defending himself. “Be smart,” Tom says.

Later, Xander asks Elijah for help with a dislocated hip. Elijah checks to make sure the man is unconscious even though Xander said he was. Elijah walks away as soon as they’re done, but Xander follows him and asks if Danny said anything about what happened between them. She hasn’t. Xander says Danny really wanted the chief resident job.

Luis is on the radio with emergency management, who tells him that their fuel truck was rerouted because they already have power. When he says they don’t have power, they find out there was a “miscommunication” and they’re not coming. Luis gives Natalie the update and she sighs as she sees how low Vero’s ventilator battery is. Danny sees Luis talking to Xander and Natalie, but when she asks, Xander doesn’t say anything to her. Later we see him on the phone with his father, asking for help.

The man with a broken leg lost circulation in his other leg. Danny says he needs surgery to relieve the pressure so she sets up a procedure in the trauma bay. Tom comes in and takes over even though Danny has gotten everything ready. He doesn’t want to babysit her and he also doesn’t want her to report him. She asks to see how he does it, and he walks her through the procedure. His pulse comes back right away. Tom critiques her work.

Vero starts to wake up and squeezes her mother’s hand. The ventilator battery is about to die so Natalie orders the sedation to be stopped but the nurse wants to get Ruben. Natalie tells her to get out and does it herself. “You’ve got this, baby,” she says.

Danny gives the UTI patient some medicine but Danny and Xander realize she’s not telling them about her real condition because she’s showing symptoms of something else. She breaks down and says she didn’t want to reveal her illness, myasthenia gravis, to her husband but Xander says people who love each other take care of each other.

Sophie and Camila search for their patient. Sophie wants to give up but Camila stays positive. Sophie says she’s making her look bad, because she looks like a “TV doctor,” but Camila admits she wants to be just like Sophie. She never considered being a surgeon until she saw Sophie in action and standing up against Tom. Sophie admits Tom has a “type” and it includes women with high ponytails, and that’s not who she is. They soon find their patient and manage to stop a truck to get her to the hospital.

Tom says they can’t do surgery without power, but Sophie says they just risked their lives to find her. Luis announces that the fuel trucks arrived and while Tom won’t allow Sophie to scrub in, he tells her she did a nice job and that’s a win for her.

The truth

The UTI patient passes out so they get to work. They can’t do much without power but Danny helps an intern through a procedure and they get her vitals back up.

When someone asks about where the fuel came from, Danny credits Xander and asks if he called his father, which he did. Embarrassed at being exposed, Xander reveals that the reason she filed the complaint is that they were living together and he told her he loved her, but since her mother walked out she couldn’t handle it and pushed him away. The whole staff hears it.

In the past, Xander offers Danny a drink and tells her that his parents sent him to Indonesia after he graduated med school. He was so overwhelmed that he had to let a four-year-old boy die because so many people needed help. His father had to lie to people that he got malaria but the truth is that he ran away. Danny says her mother ran off when she was nine and she has no idea why, which makes him feel terrible for her. He asks again about the chief resident position and she admits she wants it. He says it’s about getting experience and mentorship, so she asks if he’s offering. He is. Professionally, she says, she accepts his offer.

Sophie rounds a corner and sees Tom chatting with Camila. He’s smiling at her; Sophie realizes Camila’s hair is now tied up in a high ponytail, too. She walks away in disgust, feeling betrayed.

Danny sobs now that the truth is out while we see visions of the past where she’s dancing with Xander.

Natalie encourages her daughter to keep breathing. The power is about to go out but Vero starts to wake up and pull the tubes from her body in a panic. The lights come on, but Vero is already coding.

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