Royal Pains/WMG

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Royal Pains is a prequel to Monster

Both feature doctors who had to make a Sadistic Choice: a wealthy donor or a child. The main character chooses the child and the donor dies, causing him to lose his prestigious job. While the doctor in Royal Pains has his wealthy brother to lean on and a much more pleasant time while "unemployed", there's still the matter of that kid he saved returning in ten years....

  • Doubtful, since it wasn't a sadistic choice, it was the right one. Another doctor even says as much. What happened was a hair more likely than him fully stabilizing the patient, and a meteor punches through the hospital killing him while he's treating the kid. Under normal medical situations, the guy should have been in perfectly capable hands by that point. His family was just very rich and very vindictive.
  • Evan is also anything but wealthy.

Boris will eventually become the series antagonist.

After seeing his behavior in episode 3, there seems to be a lot of suspicious things about Boris. It's been established that he likes his privacy, yet he seems very interested in the personal aspects about the individuals Hank treats and tries to pry information from him.

  • More evidence...It seems he's hired on a new concierge doctor behind Hank's back.
    • Aaaaand Jossed. It's just temporary, while Hank is whisked away to Cuba.

Hank will have a shot at getting his old job back, which he will turn down

He's helping the wealthy and powerful left and right. Boris alone could probably buy his old hospital. He's already established he doesn't like The System. The season will probably end with him being forced to choose between his new life and his old.

Hank has a life-threatening disease.

He probably doesn't know about it yet.

Boris has a life-threatening disease or knows someone who does.

There's a reason he had a shark delivered. Some kind of long shot vaccine can be produced from the shark.

  • As of the episode with the antique weapons dealer, this looks extrememly likely. Since Hank pretty much confirmed it based on his own suspicions, it could either be Viewers are Morons, or a Red Herring.
    • Now confirmed as of "Nobody's Perfect," Boris has admitted to having a hereditary genetic disease, which one is unknown for now.

Boris is a Super Villain

Boris is foreign but charming, mega-wealthy, secretive, hires private scientists, pays people in gold bars, and owns an underground shark tank which he says "suits his needs"

  • His 'rare genetic disease' works as villainous motivation as well.

Boris wants Katie.

The "change of schedule" for her shark study was the opposite of what viewers are to assume That is, an unreasonably long time, rather than moving the deadline sooner. She figured him out, and got spooked. She may or may not have asked him about it more directly, and correspondingly may or may not have lied to Hank and Jill.

Royal Pains, Burn Notice, White Collar and Covert Affairs are all in the same universe

All four shows have similar places on the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism have premises in common, are on the same network, and even have the same director.

  • The previews for Covert Affairs mentions that the main character freelances for the CIA. In the Burn Notice pilot Michael mentions that most operatives don't actually work directly for the CIA. Burn Notice and Royal Pains have already been noted as having similar premises, (guy gets blacklisted by the establishment and privately offers his services). White Collar, Burn Notice and Royal Pains are all we help the helpless shows as well. All the shows except Royal Pains treat the cops as well meaning but bungling. Pains treats them as relatively non-existent.
    • To be fair, Royal Pains is a medical drama with little, if any, focus on crime and espionage so police involve is naturally limited.

The entire show is the dream or delusion of one of the main cast.

  • "Why?" you ask: 1) A highly skilled surgeon is fired for saving the life a child over another patient. 2) The family of the rich man is so petty that it starts a vendetta against him that only results in him getting fired and having hard time getting a job and not one that results in him being killed.3)The surgeon is unwilling or unable to hire a lawyer,get a huge settlement from the hospital that wrongly terminated him and live happily ever after as a wealthy surgeon elsewhere in the US. 4) Wealthy people who have the money to select any physician they want select a doctor that has been recently fired under questionable circumstances. And that ISN'T a "Dr. Feelgood."

The lack of realistic premises and the fact that tort law is completely ignored can only mean that all of these events are unreal (e.g. a dream or a delusion)created by one of the main characters.

    • 2) Er... 'only results in him getting fired... and not [a vendetta] that gets him killed.'? In what universe is it normal and expected for people to murder other people over something that petty? 3) Sometimes it's not as simple as that. Against people or organizations with deep pockets, sure, you could sue them... but they're likely to drag it out in court for as long as they can which would be a Pyrrhic Victory at best even if you won unless you're equally equipped to handle that. 4) Just because you get fired, doesn't mean you're bad at your job. And given that the reasons for Hank's firing weren't exactly secret, it's likely Boris simply made a judgment call that Hank did what he did because he thought it was the right choice, among other reasons he might have picked Hank. Heck, depending on how much Boris likes to bend the rules, he may want a physician that doesn't like the system.


Dieter is conspiring against Boris

Hang is so against the Smart Shirts because he feels like they could have saved Jack.

He knows they almost definitely couldn't have, so he attributes his emotional response to the shirts as anger over Evan's actions (he would have made a bigger deal over potentially endangering patients [with tested technology] if he hadn't been lying to himself) and a sudden dislike for the shiny, portable tech and unorthodox treatment methods. This is just one more example of his survivor's guilt manifesting in what would normally be out-of-character actions rather than him being angry at Evan and the technology in particular.