Best Medicine Season 2 Episode 3 Recap and Ending Explained: Why Did Three Men Test Positive for Pregnancy?

Best Medicine Season 2 Episode 3, “Crate Expectations,” takes one of Port Wenn’s strangest traditions and turns it into an unexpectedly important day for Martin Best. The town is preparing for its annual lobster crate race, a competition Martin would happily avoid considering his embarrassing childhood history with it. Instead, the event brings him two separate medical mysteries, puts him face-to-face with an old fear and eventually gives him a reason to participate himself.

The episode also gives Eden a difficult lesson in fitting into Port Wenn, sends Louisa and Mark on separate dates, advances Al’s strained relationship with Bert and reveals why Sarah has managed to hold the crate-racing record for decades. The biggest twist, however, begins when routine physicals produce three positive pregnancy tests from three men.

Why Does Lorenzo Keep Fainting Around Eden?

Episode 3 begins at karaoke night at the Salty Breeze, where Eden is irritated by the noise and initially wants to shut the whole thing down. Her attitude changes after she sees the crowd enjoying Louisa’s performance. Eden decides that she can do karaoke too and confidently takes the microphone. Unfortunately, Lorenzo suddenly collapses while she is singing.

Martin initially has a fairly simple explanation. Lorenzo has been training obsessively for the lobster crate race despite normally getting almost no exercise, and his blood work suggests dehydration. Martin tells him to rest, drink plenty of water and stop pushing himself. The problem is that Lorenzo faints again the next time Eden sings.

Eden begins taking the coincidence personally, especially because Port Wenn is already reluctant to warm to her. She eventually admits to Martin that, despite pretending otherwise, she does care whether people like her. Martin responds by defending her at the Salty Breeze and convincing the crowd to give her another chance.

Also Read: Best Medicine Season 2 Episode 2 Recap and Ending Explained: Who Robbed the Pharmacy?

Lorenzo’s second collapse, however, convinces Martin that something more serious is happening. An EKG does not give him a clear answer, so he urges Lorenzo to undergo additional testing. Lorenzo stubbornly refuses. The real explanation does not emerge until the crate race.

Why Do Three Men Test Positive for Pregnancy?

Martin requires everyone entering the lobster crate race to undergo a medical examination because he considers the competition unnecessarily dangerous. Elaine takes the instruction a little too literally and runs several tests on everyone. That produces an impossible-looking result: three male workers from the same processing plant all test positive on pregnancy tests.

Martin immediately knows this cannot simply be ignored. Pregnancy tests detect the hormone hCG, and elevated levels in a man can sometimes indicate a serious medical condition, including testicular cancer. What makes the situation especially strange is that three men working together have apparently produced the same result.

Martin asks all three for fresh urine samples, but they keep avoiding him. Their lack of concern only makes him more suspicious. Because Martin already has blood samples from their physicals, he eventually arranges serum hCG testing instead. Those tests come back normal. The three men do not have cancer. That means the original urine samples were never theirs.

Whose Urine Did the Three Men Use?

When Martin confronts the workers, the truth finally comes out. Their samples all came from their boss, Glendon Roth. Glendon had given them his urine because some of his employees were worried that their own samples might reveal recreational drug use. A failed workplace test could cost them their jobs and potentially create problems for the processing plant, so Glendon helped them cheat.

What Glendon does not realize is that his attempt to protect his employees has accidentally revealed something about his own health. The urine that produced three positive pregnancy tests was his. Martin now understands that there were never three possible cancer patients. There is one: Glendon.

He urges Glendon to go to Bar Harbor for proper testing, but Glendon refuses to take him seriously. He mocks Martin’s fears, including his blood phobia and his childhood fear of the crate race, and insists that someone healthy enough to compete has no reason to worry. Martin cannot medically force him to get tested, so he finds another way.

Why Is Martin Afraid of the Lobster Crate Race?

Port Wenn’s floating crate race is treated like a major sporting event by the town. Competitors try to run across as many floating lobster crates as possible before falling into the water. Sarah holds the legendary local record. She reached 31 crates when she was 15, and nobody has managed to break it since.

Martin’s history with the event is very different. As a child, he was terrified, barely made it onto the crates and was humiliated in front of everyone. The incident helps explain why he has so little patience for Port Wenn’s festivals and traditions as an adult.

Later, Sarah admits there is more to that memory than Martin usually acknowledges. During a difficult period in his childhood after Rosemary, Sarah believed involving him in Port Wenn’s community traditions might help him. She pushed him to participate even though he did not want to, and the experience had the opposite effect. Martin withdrew even further. Sarah apologizes for not recognizing what he needed at the time.

That conversation makes Martin’s decision at the end of the episode more meaningful. Running the crates is not simply about winning a bet. It means deliberately returning to something that has represented humiliation and fear since childhood.

Why Does Sarah Train Peter?

Sarah initially refuses when Peter asks her to coach him for the race. Peter is regularly teased by the other kids and desperately wants to find something he can be good at. After hearing how much winning would mean to him, Sarah changes her mind.

Peter turns out to have real talent. His progress also forces Sarah to confront her own secret. Her 31-crate record has survived for decades partly because she secretly made the 30th crate unstable, making it much harder for anyone to reach her mark.

With Peter now capable of making a genuine run, Sarah finally decides the record matters less than giving him a fair chance. She goes out at night and fixes the crate she had been sabotaging.

Peter does not ultimately win. Glendon finishes the main competition in first place with 28 crates, with Peter taking second place. Still, Sarah’s decision is an important change for her. She is finally willing to let someone else challenge something she has spent most of her life protecting.

What Happens on Louisa and Mark’s Dates?

While the town prepares for the crate race, Louisa and Mark discover that they are both going to Millbridge on dates with other people. Their solution is wonderfully awkward: the former engaged couple decides to carpool.

Louisa’s date with Alec goes well until the conversation turns to children. Louisa is open about the fact that she is undergoing IVF on her own. She has already had her eggs retrieved, although she explains that they have not yet been fertilized.

Alec is uncomfortable with the idea of dating someone who is actively pursuing pregnancy, and the conversation quickly deteriorates. Louisa, in turn, points out the irony of Alec judging her choices when he has already been married twice. Mark’s evening goes considerably better, although he admits afterward that he and his date have little in common.

The car ride home shows just how much Mark and Louisa’s relationship has changed. They can now discuss their dating lives without the old engagement hanging over every conversation. Mark is still important to Louisa, but Episode 3 continues establishing them as close friends rather than a couple heading toward reconciliation.

Do Al and Bert Reconcile?

Al’s conflict with Bert also takes an important step forward. While filling out medical paperwork for Columbia, Al again complains that he does not know what to put down for his family history because Bert is not his biological father. Elaine finally loses patience with him.

Her reaction comes from a personal place. Race day falls on the anniversary of her own father’s death, a day she normally marks with her mother by drinking root beer floats and sharing memories. Hearing Al dismiss Bert hurts because, biological connection or not, Bert is the man who raised him and continues trying to repair their relationship.

Elaine eventually encourages Al to spend race day with Bert rather than staying with her. Al listens. When Bert participates in the race, Al arrives to support him and calls him “Dad” again. It is a small moment, but it suggests that Al is beginning to accept that learning the truth about his biological parentage does not erase the father he already had.

What Is Wrong With Lorenzo?

The crate race finally gives Martin the clue he needs to solve Lorenzo’s repeated fainting. Lorenzo cannot compete because Martin has already told him not to exert himself, so he is asked to ring the victory bell. As he makes the repetitive arm motion needed to ring it, he collapses again.

Martin checks him and realizes there is a pulse on only one side. He concludes that Lorenzo has a completely blocked carotid artery on one side, leaving him dependent on the functioning artery on the other. Certain repetitive movements are compromising that remaining blood flow, which explains why the fainting episodes seemed to occur during Eden’s performance as well.

Eden’s singing was never actually responsible. Martin sends Lorenzo to Bar Harbor for urgent treatment and says he may require an endarterectomy. More importantly, the problem is finally identified before a more serious event occurs. For Eden, the diagnosis also brings a strangely satisfying victory: she can finally prove that her voice was not making Lorenzo pass out.

Does Martin Win the Lobster Crate Race?

After Glendon refuses medical testing, Martin proposes a deal. If Martin can beat him in the crate race, Glendon has to go to Bar Harbor and get checked. If Glendon wins, Martin will stop pushing him. Glendon agrees because Martin’s childhood history makes the outcome seem obvious. Martin races anyway.

The challenge becomes one of the episode’s best character moments because Martin is not competing for pride or trying to prove he has suddenly fallen in love with Port Wenn traditions. He is doing it because it is the only way he can persuade a stubborn patient to seek care.

Martin overcomes the same fear that embarrassed him as a boy and beats Glendon. By doing so, he effectively turns one of his worst Port Wenn memories into the reason somebody else gets medical help.

Ending Explained: Does Glendon Have Cancer?

Yes. The final scene confirms that Martin’s suspicion was correct. Glendon gets tested after losing the wager, and the results reveal Stage 1 cancer. He tells Martin that his doctor considers it fortunate that the condition was caught early.

The positive pregnancy tests therefore become the bizarre accident that may have saved Glendon’s life. If his workers had submitted their own urine during their physicals, Martin would never have seen the elevated hCG result. Glendon’s attempt to help them avoid trouble unintentionally exposed his own medical problem.

Glendon is not exactly grateful in the traditional sense. Even after receiving the diagnosis, he insists that Martin only beat him because the water and wind conditions were different on race day.

That final exchange is completely in character for both men. Martin gets what he wanted, which was Glendon taking the warning seriously, while Glendon gets to preserve at least a little of his pride.

The larger meaning of the ending belongs to Martin. Episode 3 begins with Port Wenn treating him as the doctor who hates everything about the town and ends with him voluntarily taking part in one of its biggest traditions. He does not do it because he suddenly becomes sentimental. He does it because a member of the community needs him. For someone who still talks about Port Wenn as though it is temporary, Martin continues behaving more and more like someone who belongs there.