Summary
Best Medicine puts its best foot forward in “All the World’s Ablaze”, delivering solid comedy and the best character drama yet.
It’s fair to say that Best Medicine was starting to show some worrying signs in its previous episode. Nothing major, granted, but a bit of repetition was starting to creep in, which isn’t ideal so early in the show’s run. Luckily, Episode 4, “All the World’s Ablaze”, is better. It gets the core characters out of the immediate environs, causes some fresh problems for Martin, moves the romantic undercurrent forward a touch, and just generally feels a bit more lively.
Sure, Martin’s still annoying people as a matter of course, but we’ve already clarified that’s a fundamental part of the show. Initially, it seems like we’re heading in the same direction once again, with Martin reporting the Salty Breeze as a potential source of town-wide food poisoning. He isn’t doing it to be spiteful, but that’s how it’s taken, especially by Greg and George. This feels like the bean incident, and like the baseball thing from last week.
But it plays out a little differently. For one thing, it doesn’t have quite the same vibe. Greg and George’s annoyance is played a bit more comedically. And more importantly, it has a more personal contour, since even Martin’s Aunt Sarah is annoyed with him for how callously he’s willing to affect people’s livelihoods, even if it’s for the right reasons. This is a key distinction. The first two problems just felt like an out-of-towner refusing to respect the locals, but here, even though there’s a medical necessity to what Martin’s doing, he begins to understand the consequences and take them into consideration.
This is a nice arc. If you’re going to have these moments of hostility, they need to prompt some growth, and that finally feels like it’s happening in “All the World’s Ablaze”. Martin is still a bit curmudgeonly, still happy to annoy people if he knows he’s right, but he’s also beginning to see himself as a resident of Port Wenn. Small things like figuring out how Greg and George can keep their pig, Brisket, is something he wouldn’t have bothered to do even a couple of episodes ago.
But the best example of this in Best Medicine Episode 4 can be seen in Martin’s evolving relationship with Elaine, which is honestly really nice. This week, she’s struggling with her mother’s upcoming wedding. Martin’s openness and sincerity with her is really sweet, and it’s surprising just how compelling this relationship is, considering that Elaine was such an irritant – to Martin and the audience – when she was first introduced. It’s also a nice reminder that Martin is nursing a lot of trauma himself, and the loss of his sister still weighs heavily on him.
But I’m making things sound too dour. “All the World’s Ablaze” has its fair share of silly physical comedy, perhaps more so than usual, thanks to the presence of the titular Blaze, a local survivalist played by Parker Young who, once a year, wanders out of the woods to give the locals a crash course in basic survivalism. Of course, all the women are already well aware of the basics, but they attend anyway to swoon over the chiselled Blaze, who, it turns out, may have a heart issue that Martin diagnoses. Everything involving this guy is funny and a bit different from usual, and his general heartthrob nature prompts a bit more romantic chemistry among the core cast.
Obviously, the big one is Martin and Louisa, which is clearly the direction we’re heading in. There’s a touch of jealousy when Blaze starts flirting with her, Martin’s very concerned about her food poisoning, and when she falls during the search for Blaze, his nurturing demeanour goes a little beyond what you would ordinarily expect from a doctor caring for his patient. This is clearly going to be a season-long plot, so we’re in no rush, but it’s nice to see the signs are starting to show.
