All Babies Are The Same, According To One Doctor

Oh, the irony! To be a surgeon in 1900, the apex of medical knowledge and achievement, and yet find yourself utterly helpless when your precious baby gets meningitis and dies. And your wife kind of seems like she might be going actually crazy from the grief. Then, on top of all that, while you're off work mourning, some black guy totally usurps your role at the hospital, I mean CAN YOU EVEN?! Such is the lot of Dr. Everett Gallinger. But as befits a man of his station and era, he's not just going to let fate destroy his life: he's going to take action! Like a MAN!

Step 1: fix wife. If the problem is that Eleanor is so grief-stricken by the loss of her daughter that she's losing her grip on reality, then probably all she needs to get back on track is a new daughter! Lucky for Eleanor, her husband happens to work someplace where they have a ton of perfectly good ones just there for the taking! He'll just bring home this one called Grace, and Snowball II Eleanor back to sanity! Eleanor, however, is not 100% on board with this ambush adoption scheme Gallinger's trying to mansplain her into.

Gallinger, no quitter, forces Eleanor to take the baby despite her extremely evident horror at the sight of her, and at first, Eleanor knuckles under, rocking Grace as she cries in the night. But soon enough, the adrenaline wears off, and Gallinger comes home a few days hence to find Grace squalling in the dining room, alone behind closed doors, while Eleanor ignores her, calmly knitting a cap she says is for Lillian, who I'm pretty sure is not coming to get it anytime soon. When Gallinger barks at Eleanor that Grace hasn't been changed all day, Eleanor doesn't even look up, sing-songing, "Whooooooooo hasn't?" without caring to hear the answer.

Gallinger may find Eleanor's feelings of confusion -- feelings in general, probably -- both annoying and discomfiting, in addition to which what we've seen of him so far doesn't suggest that he's great at course-correcting even when evidence might lead anyone else to reconsider his position. But Grace didn't ask to be brought into a house to replace some other kid she never knew and then sit in her own filth for hours on end.

(No spoilers but we all assume Eleanor's going to kill this baby, right?)