| “ | I have three hostages! You stay back or I start shooting! | „ |
| ~ Owen holding Morgan, Asher and a patient named Ezra hostage, threatening the security guards into backing down or he would kill them. |
Owen is a minor antagonist of the fifth season and the overarching antagonist of the sixth season (specifically the main antagonist of its premiere "Afterparty") in the ABC medical drama series The Good Doctor.
He’s nurse Dalisay Villanueva's abusive ex-boyfriend.
He’s portrayed by Terry Chen, who also played Ethan Chang in Bates Motel, Commander Shumway in The 100 and Pryce Cheng in Marvel's Jessica Jones.
Biography[]
Background, abusive father and problems at work[]
Owen grew up with an abusive father who beat up his mother a lot and hospitalized her a couple of times, something he didn't like. Owen vowed himself that he would be different than him.
At some point, after her mother passed away two years ago from liver cancer, Nurse Villanueva met Owen, describing as the "someone" who needed to fill the void, before he progressively started becoming violent and taking his anger out on her, which caused Villanueva to miss out on her shifts. After sharing her situation with chief of surgery Dr. Audrey Lim, she sympathized and offered her to stay at her house, which Villanueva accepted.
Stalking his ex and hospital shooting mass[]
After deciding to leave him, the vengeful Owen disguises himself as a flower delivery man to gain access into the St. Bonaventure hospital and find Villanueva to confront her. During Shaun Murphy and Lea Dillalo's wedding, while Lim went down to the darkened break room to get some glasses for the guests to drink from, she was horrified to find Villanueva lying on the ground and covered in blood. Just as Lim calls for help, the weakened Villanueva alerted her that Owen was here, but by the time she turns around it is already too late as the maniacal Owen shows up and stabs Lim in the stomach twice before escaping, thus leaving Lim and Villanueva's fates unknown, which the others, who are still on the rooftop celebrating, were completely oblivious to.
Shortly after getting the job done, Owen entered an elevator, in which Drs. Aaron Glassman and Marcus Andrews were. When they started questioning the blood on his clothing, Owen clumsily lied about tending to a patient. Just as he exits, Owen becomes violent and shoots and injures a security guard attempting to stop him before fleeing again. Later on, he comes across resident Dr. Asher Wolke at gunpoint, holding him, Dr. Morgan Reznick and a patient named Ezra in need of surgery hostage, threatening the other guards into backing down or he would kill all three of them. Nevertheless, Reznick and Wolke insisted that Ezra needed surgery, which Owen reluctantly accepts after Morgan had put herself in touch with the O.R. While the two were alone, Owen and Asher shared the experiences concering their fathers, with Asher begging Owen to see the error of his ways, redeem himself and start over. Having realized the monster he has become, Owen empties all of the bullets of his gun and leaves the room, attempting to commit suicide by cop. Ultimately, he manages to recover but is placed under arrest, while Lim and Villanueva are able to survive as well, but the stab leaves Lim paralyzed from the legs, implying that she'll have to use a wheelchair for the rest of her life.
Aftermath[]
Even after Owen's arrest for his crimes against the hospital, it becomes apparent that Lim's life isn't the same anymore since her accident, being unable to do anything while bound to a wheelchair. This comes to a heat when at one point she, to no avail, tries to get the chair out of her car and in a fit of rage yells that she hates Shaun and that it's all his fault, thinking that his handling of her surgery is what may have caused her paralysis, with her neighbor who offered to help in earshot. Later on, she starts giving Shaun the cold shoulder and eventually makes it clear that they’re no longer friends and their relationship will be strictly professional from now on. To make matters worse, Glassman, who was angered that he had defied his approach on the surgery, sides with Lim and also blames Shaun, hypocritically accusing him of isolating himself (which is untrue since Glassman is the one deliberately avoiding Shaun by cancelling a breakfast, also ignoring the fact that he gave the bypass machine to Owen instead of Lim) and telling him he's a grown man who should take some responsibility for his actions.
Shaun later comes up with a surgery that can cure Lim's paralysis, as a way to fix their friendship and make it up for her. He presents his plan to Lim, Andrews and a distrustful Glassman, who keeps talking for Lim by shooting down Shaun's suggestions claiming they’re too risky. Lea intervenes and pushes Glassman into making the first move as Shaun's father even though he’s a grown man. When Glassman witnesses a little girl and her dad bickering, he recalls the fights he used to have with his deceased daughter Maddie, making him realize he was treating Shaun the same way he treated her. Glassman changes his mind and tells Shaun he still loves him despite still being angry at him, so they team up to plan Lim's surgery. For a moment, Lim considers having the surgery after a date gone wrong at a restaurant and being friendzoned by her neighbor. However, after Powell suggests otherwise, Lim decides she won't do the surgery, devastating Shaun. Lea tries to make Shaun understand Lim's decision by pointing out that when people are in pain the least they can do is try to help them regardless of the outcome.
After Shaun finds out Powell told Lim not to do the surgery, he doesn't take it well, resulting in both of them butting heads when they are paired up for a case. This becomes the last straw for Shaun to remove Powell from the case. In the meantime, Lim and Powell bond and she invites Lim to play on a basketball match for disabled people on wheelchairs, and even sets her up on a date with Clay, one of the players. Powell is back on the case, per the patient's demands, but she and Shaun again clash until Powell calls him out on his attitude and inability to understand how it feels to be treated as an outsider (Shaun having autism and Powell being an amputee), which points out is their common ground. Nonetheless, they manage to work together and Powell's solution saves the patient and part on good terms due to their knowledge of ancient surgical history.
Lim still refuses to talk to Shaun, even when he requests help for a difficult case. Glassman tells Shaun to make things right with Lim as she’s in pain. Shortly after the surgery, Shaun enters Lim's office, stating that he isn’t sorry for his handling of the surgery, but that he is sorry for the pain he's caused her as a result, adding how terrified he was of losing Lim and that seeing her hurt reminded him of his deceased brother Steve. Shaun also says he has missed his friendship with Lim, who’s moved to tears and agrees to try and let her anger go, but that she missed him too. Lim thanks Glassman for pushing Shaun to apologize, but as she leaves Glassman sees movement in one of her muscles, making it possible for her to walk again and relays the information to Sahun. Again, Lim is asked to reconsider the surgery by Shaun, Glassman and Andrews, but she’s initially reluctant to follow through until she accepts after consulting with Clay, whom she's now dating.
Three months later, Lim is able to walk again, having undergone the surgery, although she uses a cane. But her and Shaun's friendship is restored, putting their former conflict in the past. At the same time, Powell had been fired by Lim due to her pattern of disobeying authority, with an unauthorized surgery on her paroled friend Vince being the drop that made the bucket overflow, though Powell stands her ground on her decisions and leaves with dignity.
Two weeks after the birth of Shaun and Lea's son Steve, Lim is shown to no longer need the cane to walk.
Relationships[]
Family[]
- Unnamed father
- Unnamed mother
Enemies[]
- St. Bonaventure Hospital - Attempted Victims
- Nurse Dalisay Villanueva - Ex-girlfriend, domestic abusee and former attempted victim
- Dr. Audrey Lim - Former Attempted victim
- Dr. Morgan Reznick - Former Hostage
- Dr. Asher Wolke - Former Hostage
- Ezra - Former Hostage
- Dr. Marcus Andrews
- Dr. Aaron Glassman
- Dr. Shaun Murphy (on Shaun's side)
Trivia[]
- The scene of Owen stabbing Villanueva and Lim at the hospital mirrors that of another medical series, ER, when a patient stabbed two other doctors but one of them was unable to survive the attack.
- Fortunately though, this formula was able to be averted, as both Lim and Villanueva are still alive. However, while Lim did surive, the severity of her injuries ended up rendering her legs paralyzed.
- Despite his two only appearances on the show, Owen is an important character to the plot involving Lim's paralysis and her conflict with Shaun over it, and his role serves as a full source of tension between them because even though Owen was the one responsible for attacking Lim, she felt she needed someone else to blame and Shaun was at the top of her list. This is enough to make him the overarching antagonist in the first nine episodes of Season 6. Owen was largely absent in those other episodes due to his arrest but his presence was felt in every moment.
- In addition, according to popular fan theories, the plot of Lim's paralysis was suspected to be the backbone for the pilot of The Good Lawyer (the show's now-cancelled spinoff), in which Lim would've sued Shaun for medical malpractice concerning his surgery on her. Other theories also implied that Powell, who encouraged Lim to reject Shaun's surgery to cure her, was also going to be her accomplice and testify against Shaun, both of which would've strengthened Owen's role as the overarching antagonist of the sixth season. However, once the episode "Sorry, Not Sorry" was aired, these theories were quickly discarded, as Shaun had apologized to Lim for everything that happened to her, which she accepted, as well as finally agreeing on the surgery in "Broken or Not", having regained her ability to walk as of "Quiet and Loud", although temporarily using the cane, and Powell being fired in "The Good Boy". Because of this, the plot was properly closed up and in said pilot Shaun was actually sued by a former patient of his, as hinted at the end of "Old Friends".
- Even though Owen is the reason why Shaun and Lim's friendship was strained due to Owen's actions, he and Shaun never interacted with each other. But Shaun was aware of his presence, especially when he openly protested against Glassman and Andrews' questionable decision to give him bypass over Lim after he almost committed suicide-by-cop, which further contributed to her paralysis along with Shaun ignoring Glassman's own approach to save her life without asking him first, which led to Glassman hypocritically playing the victim by taking Lim's side that her paralysis was Shaun's fault.
- Terry Chen played another villain (Ethan Chang) in Bates Motel where Freddie Highmore (Norman Bates) was the protagonist. Like The Good Doctor, their characters didn't interact with each other either. Ironically, Highmore's character was also a villain.