This is an ongoing feature recapping episodes of the Greatest Show Ever, ITV’s “Doc Martin.” Please watch the episodes before reading if you don’t want spoilers.

It’s another glorious day in Portwenn. Doc Martin promptly gets called a tosser for looking at a woman’s jubblies, which have a suspicious mole on them. He’s worried about cancer. She’s understandably displeased about the eyes on her jubblies. This parallels the first episode nicely, where Louisa got miffed at Martin for staring at her closely before he diagnosed her with glaucoma.

Adrian Pitts shows up–you know, Adrian? The young doctor who was mentored by Martin, who we haven’t seen in a few episodes and won’t see again? He wants to be promoted at the hospital, so he’s hoping that Martin will give him a good recommendation. Both Parsons and Martin are in agreement though: He’s an arse. And he is! He doesn’t take it well when Martin tells him he’s an arse to his face.

The town is catching onto the fact that Martin has haemophobia, and they’re giving him trouble for it. More than one patient brings it up in their appointments. Then Bert Large goes and fakes an injury at the pub, claiming he slipped with the drill. They cover his arm in ketchup to get Martin fainting/vomiting/whatever. Bullies! And a douche move from Bert, who’s been one of the only sorta-friends Martin has in town.

Even Caroline on the radio is gossiping about the blood issue. When multiple people call in to discuss the haemophobia, Martin calls in to yell at everyone, which is an absolutely fabulous rant. And everyone deserves to hear it! Of course, this does not stop the giggling girls from mocking Martin and calling him a tosser. Maybe I should have been keeping a count on how many times Martin is called a Tosser?

Martin can’t figure out who spilled his secret until the end of the episode, when we meet Adrian again at hospital. Adrian smugly admits that he’s the one who told the village about Martin’s haemophobia. What an absolute arse!

The medical mystery: Peter Cronk is back! He hates school and lies about having a note to get out of PE. He doesn’t fit in. Louisa’s decided to make him her special project (“Is it because you’ve given up on Doc Martin, then?”), and she’s got an eye on Peter when he falls at the PE he didn’t want to do. Some jerk kid grabs his ankle so he beefs it off a ladder onto a crash pad. Louisa encourages him to laugh along with the bullies so he’ll be part of the in-crowd, but it doesn’t change the fact he took a bad spill. Martin gets summoned.

Martin goes to see Peter after the whole blood prank, and Peter tells him that nothing is wrong. Martin tells him to shut up because he isn’t a doctor, recommends Peter goes to hospital, and leaves abruptly. This is heartbreaking to wee Peter. “Mum said not to show people that you’re clever, because if they’re not clever, they won’t like it. But Doc is clever and I thought he’d like it.”

Louisa does take Peter to the hospital. It’s necessary: Peter’s mom has severe anxiety, and she doesn’t handle issues well. Louisa’s a good surrogate for the appointment. But they still don’t catch the problem. They rule out broken bones and send him onward, even though he still doesn’t feel good.

Joy Cronk shows why Peter has grown to be so protective (and only gets worse over the course of the show). Just learning he went to hospital because of a PE accident sends her into a long panic attack. She’s still crying hours later because Peter’s condition declines. She manages to summon Louisa, who summons Martin, and they discover that Peter is severely ill. He’s vomited everywhere, is terribly pale, and unresponsive to attempts to awaken him.

Peter has a ruptured spleen from his bully tripping him! They need an emergency transfer to hospital!

And it’s so dramatic that Martin has to operate on him in the ambulance! This is the first time Louisa assists on a procedure, and it’s one of the first really graphic procedures we’ve got on the show. It’s not enough to transfuse fluids into Peter, so Martin cuts into little Peter to stop the bleed. It’s a little gory if that bothers you. It certainly bothers Martin. He does the procedure while also being sick. He has to put his hand into the child to clamp the splenic artery and keep it there until they arrive at the hospital. Holy crap??

But he pulls through, and so does Peter.

The Auntie: Martin’s not getting any relief from Joan. She tears into him for missing lunch, and eats without him while he’s addressing other things. Plus, she tells him that he’s responsible for the way the town treats him. I don’t know if that’s actually true. It doesn’t feel quite right. It’s a pretty old-fashioned way to think about things.

The Assistant: This is Elaine’s last episode, and I’m glad. As much as I love her actress, Elaine is a terrible assistant — Martin couldn’t fire her, so this is the only way to get her out of the surgery. Begone, white girl dreads! She’s barely in this one. We can just look forward to Pauline now.

The Larges: Although Bert is the main actor in the blood prank against Martin, Al is clearly not keen on the bullying. They don’t go anywhere with it. But throughout the show, we do get a lot of clear delineation between Al (sometimes competent) and Bert (the opposite of the Midas Touch), and one more delineation is Al’s humanity.

Louisa & Martin: This is such a great episode for Louisa & Martin, though it initially doesn’t seem to be the case. Louisa confronts Martin about his “minor blood issue,” since she was on the panel that hired him and didn’t hear a word about the haemophobia. But before it can turn into a fight, she asks him why they have to fight all the time. They’ve got no answer for that. (“Because it’s good for ratings over ten seasons?”)

In my favorite moment, Martin has an excellent dream where he imagines Louisa sitting on him, kissing on him…licking him…aaaand it’s actually the dog. Well, he wakes up, anyway, which he needs in order to join Louisa in taking care of the Cronks.

Martin tells the story of his haemophobia to Louisa in this episode. And Louisa gets to lose her shit on Martin’s behalf, which is when she most obviously loves Martin. As angry as she gets at him, she won’t put up with anyone else treating him badly. That’s her job! Because she does it with love!

This also has their first kiss. Which Martin ruins promptly by saying that her breath smells like she has some kind of gastroesophageal reflux. I’ll take “What’s the least sexy thing for a guy to say to a woman after their first kiss?” for twenty, Alex.

Favorite Quote: As to the so-called homeopathic remedies, if there’s one for chronic infantilism then I suggest that your caller and the entire village embark on a course immediately!

~

Louisa’s Hair Rating: 10/10. This episode has Louisa’s staple ponytail-with-bangs. It looks great on her! But her hair is a fuller lifted ponytail that’s sort of…fanned out and teased? by the end of the episode, which is even better. Weird how nice she looks when getting awakened in the middle of the night, but then again, Louisa always looks good. We also get her hair down at the end of the episode. All the hairs! All of them excellent!

Infuriating Level: 8/10. Peter’s a little turd, but kids don’t deserve bullying, and Martin doesn’t deserve it either. I’ve never cottoned onto the whole “put up with bullying” thing. The show doesn’t endorse it either (Louisa changes her mind by the end of the episode). Still, going through multiple people advocating for bullying behavior for an hour is infuriating! This town sucks and their hellspawn children suck!

Episode Greatness Level: 10/10. The splenectomy in the ambulance is memorable and Martin’s cock-up after the kiss is legendary. I love it soooo much. But of course, I always love this damn show!

This is an ongoing feature recapping episodes of the Greatest Show Ever, ITV’s “Doc Martin.” Please watch the episodes before reading if you don’t want spoilers.

It’s another glorious day in Portwenn. Louisa is joining a surfing club to prove to the kids that she isn’t so old. Martin sees an older fellow in a minor boat crash (he faints out on the water!), and to his surprise, the man identifies Martin as “Little Marty.” This guy has a history with Portwenn! John Slater used to live there, and he took Marty and Joan out on his boat. He’s also not disappointed to hear that Phil, a former partner of Joan, has died.

Martin also gets a patient named Melanie, whose arm was dislocated by her pillock of a brother. When Martin fixes her arm, she goes from hostile to a little too friendly. She hunts him down with a gift of cake. His awkwardness is hilarious, as you would expect. Martin truly does not know what to make of one of the giggling girls who roam the village like feral dogs being flirtatious. He doesn’t even seem to recognize it at first, since she’s so young compared to him. Not that it’s a problem for Melanie.

She leaves him a love card too. And she tells him he’s not Bodmin, but “lovely,” and Martin starts to realize he needs to draw some lines between them. Even he knows that her card (“lots of lurve”) is a bad sign. His “Oh God” made me scream-laugh. He tries to tell her clearly that he’s not interested in her, but she doesn’t want to hear it. And she’s not even sixteen yet!!!

Martin is so concerned about this “besotted” girl that he even seeks out help from PC Mylow, the least helpful person in a town filled with unhelpful people. It’s pretty funny seeing Mylow taking the piss out of Martin, though. Mylow isn’t worried about Melanie, but he thinks Martin should be, because Melanie’s dad is into tae-kwon do.

Anyway, Martin is trying to keep Melanie away in the kindest, most direct way. She takes it very rationally and…shows up naked in his bed!!! She broke in to his bedroom with a ladder!!! She thought it would be like Romeo and Juliet!!!!

The next day, Melanie’s dad shows up!!!! The tae-kwon do guy!

Luckily, Melanie’s (extremely tall) father isn’t coming to beat him up. He totally understanding his daughter is doing a bit of transference and having a phase. It’s not what we expect at all, and it’s nice to see someone who isn’t raking Martin over the coals for the slightest mistake. It’s nice that this is such a fun (horrifying!!!) plot, because everything else going on is sad.

The medical mystery: John Slater is reluctant to be examined by Martin. He also claims he doesn’t have a GP. He lives in Hong Kong! But his flushed face and shortness of breath draw Martin to look into him more closely. John admits that he’s had all sorts of heart problems, like atrial fibrillation and orthostatic hypertension, yet he refused to be sent to the hospital in Truro. He also insists Martin doesn’t tell Joan that he’s sick… Always a bad sign.

Without the patient being compliant, it takes a while to know what’s going on. The lab results he eventually gets are grim. John has rheumatic heart disease. He also has infective endocarditis. It’s terminal, and John knows it. He’s only got six months to a year left. No wonder he’s boating around the world and visiting old loves.

The Auntie: This is a Joan-heavy episode! We love Aunt Joan. She’s extremely flustered to hear that John is back in town and tries to avoid him to no avail. She goes totally heart-eyes at the sight of him. Joan, you dog! He invites her to hang out and visit the old haunts, by which he totally means he wants to bang it out. Who doesn’t want to bang such a gorgeous silver cougar??

Martin is worried about Joan since John showed up. Even though Martin can’t talk about the medical issues, he’s still keen to make sure Joan’s heart is safe. It’s super cute seeing him float around her and trying to get her to talk about it. He’s totally unprepared to hear Joan admit she was cheating on her husband Phil with John back in the day. Joan!!!! You dog!!!!!!

If I’m not mistaken, this is how we learned the method of Phil’s death. She says “motor neurone.” I’m not entirely sure what that is. Maybe he just couldn’t keep up with this foxy babe. Anyway, John is determined to keep up. No matter how she tries to turn him aside, he remains persistent, and even talks her into a picnic date. I’m struck by how cute these sexagenarians are. They’re genuinely gorgeous people. No wonder they fall in love again.

Through Martin’s efforts to support Joan, we learn that Martin’s shitty dad kept Martin and Joan apart at some point because Dad thought Joan was a woman of “gross moral turpitude.” Is this the first indication Martin’s parents suck so bad? Martin is crushed to realize that Joan lost time she could have shared with John on his account — though really it’s his dad’s fault. These moments between Martin and Joan are so sweet. It’s really wonderful to see how intensely Martin loves his auntie.

John totally breaks Joan’s heart. He tells her that he’s still married, and she can’t come sailing around the world with him. But it’s a lie. He’s never loved anyone but Joan, as he confesses to Martin; he just doesn’t want her to take care of him in his last months as he dies. Martin tells her the truth as John is sailing away. Her tears are heartbreaking!

The Assistant: Elaine is even grumpier and more useless than usual. Hey, remember how she and Al were making out? Elaine broke up with the Greg we never see, liberating her white girl dreadlocks to date elsewhere. Al immediately moves in on her. Al definitely has a thing for receptionists, but also, it’s not like there’s an overwhelming number of girls his age there. He’s a little old for the giggling girl brigade.

They connect over music, but really, they should be connecting over her excellent cable knit sweater. Anyway, they end up snogging in an alley, which the Giggling Girls immediately spot. THEY SEE ALL. THEY KNOW ALL. Elaine says Al has a “lush bum” and I never noticed that, personally, but now I’m going to be looking. He reminds me a lot of my spouse in 2004, tbh. He’s wearing a shirt my spouse wore all the time back in the day. Al is such a catch here, too.

He loads up an iPod with music for Elaine…only to hear her on the phone with her ex Greg. Sad trombones. I guess that relationship isn’t developing. Elaine is the worst of the assistants, by far.

Louisa & Martin: Louisa tells Martin it would be great to see him out of his suit :3 Of course she is inviting him to go surfing (hence needing a wet suit), but that’s really her only scene in the episode. Still, we do hear from Melanie that Martin & Louisa’s romance is known throughout the town, which is very validating this early in their will-they-won’t-they.

The Larges: Most of Al’s plot is wrapped up in Elaine here, but we do get an appearance from Bert, failing to understanding technology. He’s convinced Al is going to irradiate himself with the cell phone. And he needs to be assured that Al isn’t calling into some internet “sex-change room.” Remember when the internet was only for porn?

Favorite Quote: “I was probably too busy wetting myself to notice. Forgive me.”

~

Louisa’s Hair Rating: 10/10. We get a really functional Louisa ponytail in this episode! It’s beautiful to see her less-styled. I hope the actress had a nice week off filming.

Infuriating Level: 0/10. Martin is treated very well this episode, and his plot with the community is hysterical.

Episode Greatness Level: 10/10. It’s soooo sad and soooo funny in turns. Legendary.

This is an ongoing feature recapping episodes of the Greatest Show Ever, ITV’s “Doc Martin.” Please watch the episodes before reading if you don’t want spoilers.

It’s another glorious day in Portwenn. There’s a community dance coming up, the town is a bit misty (lovely!), and we meet a boy named Peter who has a bad attitude. He’s extremely clever and extremely sour about having to learn about birds. As his teacher, Louisa has to put her foot down on his recalcitrance. She leaves him just outside the house with the birds. Naturally, this doesn’t work, and the boy gets up to trouble promptly. Peter Cronk destroys the “bird tables,” which appear to be a mix of bird houses and bird feeders (if we’re gonna be all American about it).

Peter has to rebuild the bird tables with PC Mark Mylow as a punishment, but Peter says he’d rather just get arrested. What a little punk! No wonder his mum is so anxious. Mrs Cronk has absolutely zero chill. Mylow is very kind about the whole thing, which makes Louisa see him in a new light.

In the meantime, it’s off to the moors for Doc Martin. He doesn’t have much success with visits to the moors. I get a strong sense of class concerns in regards to the moors, and the show is usually pretty sympathetic about it. But it doesn’t change the fact that his appointment goes poorly, and he doesn’t make a community dance in time. He’s trapped with the patient while Mylow and Louisa attend the dance together.

While everyone is distracted by the dance (or an appointment), Peter Cronk decides to make a run for it. He doesn’t really have a plan for being out on his own and spends the night eating snacks out of his backpack. When Mrs Cronk realizes he’s not in his bedroom the next morning, she completely loses her cool.

Mylow and Martin spot Peter Cronk trying to hitch a ride on their way back from the moors and bring him safely home. Martin and Peter connect with each other over being weird autistic rude people, too. (This is important later on the show.)

The medical mystery: Martin only has one appointment this afternoon. He has to go see the park ranger, Stewart James, who has been asking for a visit out on Bodmin Moor for weeks. Martin doesn’t want to go. This is a service Dr. Sim used to provide. The whole town expects Martin to act like Dr. Sim, demanding prescriptions that Sim would have given. Since Elaine books the appointment, Martin ultimately has to go see Stewart James.

Stewart James has a creepy little house in the middle of the vast green beauty of the moors. Tall metal fences keep the world locked out…and Doc Martin locked in. Initially, it seems like Stewart and Martin will get on. Stewart’s grumpiness about the village actually makes Martin smile! But then it turns out Stewart wants nitrazepam, a benzodiazepine he claims that Dr. Sim used to give him, and Martin doesn’t want to give it.

So Stewart confesses that the benzo isn’t for him. It’s for “a friend.” Anthony. An invisible red squirrel. He’s out to get the gray squirrels, who are the “squirrel equivalent of the Nazis.” Hey, turns out Stewart James is schizotypal! And Martin is trapped with him inside a locked fence! We get a really fun performance from the actor for Stewart James, Ben Miller, interacting with his friend the invisible 6-foot-tall red squirrel.

Martin does manage to leave, and promptly tries to get Stewart James sectioned (put into a mental institution, presumably). It doesn’t work out. Stewart James is so offended and unmedicated that he comes into town…and wrecks the bird tables! Those poor bird tables don’t deserve better. But it turns out that Stewart’s relationship with Anthony is well-understood in town, and everyone ends up blaming this on Martin for failing to medicate Stewart properly.

This also means Peter Cronk hasn’t been destroying the bird tables. It’s Stewart. No wonder the kid ran away, facing threat of arrest for something he didn’t do.

Looking through Dr. Sim’s notes, Martin realizes that Stewart James has been getting pills: vitamins. The old doctor only told him that they were benzos. So Martin is able to give Stewart James what he actually needs. This is another case where you just can’t handle Portwenn the way a big city would.

Louisa & Martin: Louisa extends an invitation to the dance to Martin, and he immediately gets weird about it, even though she’s so beautiful. Her hair is so shiny! Her dress is off-the-shoulders! I love the doc, but she’s obviously out of his league by about ten thousand kilometers. Anyway, Louisa invites PC Mark Mylow instead, and Mark takes it like an invitation to a date. He has no idea she’s out of everyone’s league.

Mylow comes to Doc Martin to ask for big-penis-pills in anticipation of the dance. He’s worried he’s not normal-sized. Mylow reveals has been buying penis pills off the internet! Which is an even bigger deal now that he has a date with the “woman of his dreams,” Louisa! Martin is so jealous the instant he realizes what Mylow is on about. He pushes him straight out of the office. And Mylow decides to take the penis pills into his own hands.

Louisa doesn’t realize how romantically inclined Mylow has become until they’re pretty much already dancing. What a disappointment for Martin to see Mylow dancing with the woman of his their dreams. He walks away before realizing Louisa is trying to let Mylow down easily, which is a disappointment for both Louisa and Martin. They’re so smitten. <333

The Larges: Bert is the one putting together the dance, which makes me immediately suspicious. Some people really shouldn’t ever have anything to do with business, no matter how innocuous. But this is one of those times where Bert’s event actually goes well. Is this the only time one of his events goes well? Remember, he was just selling bottled water contaminated by calving sheep the other day. He gets a band and decorations and everything. Nothing burns down. It’s incredible.

Favorite Quote: “You’ll get over it, big boy.”

~

Louisa’s Hair Rating: 10/10. How is it soooo shiny? I love the long tapered bangs on her. It hides her eyes a bit, but also balances out her big lovely lips. <33

Infuriating Level: 3/10. This one isn’t very infuriating. It’s tense! The first time I watched it I was actually quite scared for Martin. I really thought he was going to get shot by Stewart James.

Episode Greatness Level: 9/10. The scariness of the encounters on the moors and the whole squirrel thing means this is one of the more iconic episodes. I think back on it all the time!