The internet is a strange place. You probably already knew that. One of the most surprising trends that has hit whatever the internet’s equivalent of airwaves are recently has been The Good Doctor. The show details the struggles of an autistic doctor, although if the clips being shared onTwitterare anything to go by, it’s a highly cartoonish interpretation of autism. Though it enjoys several millions of viewers, most of these are terminally offline soccer moms and televisions playing to nobody in retirement homes, so few people had heard of it, and even those who had thought nothing of it. Suddenly, this show is meme fodder on a level of RaimiSpider-Man, theStar Warsprequels, Breaking Bad, and The Boys combined. A hero has emerged from all of this: Doctor Han. But true gamers know Doctor Han for who he really is: Johnny Gat.
I know very little about The Good Doctor. My dad has the viewing habits of a middle-America soccer mom, so I was vaguely aware of it, but had never seen an episode. I have no idea if he’s a nice guy in the show. The internet now hates the titular good doctor, and he’s the hero of the show, so presumably the memes and the general audience don’t really line up. Maybe Doctor Han is a serial killer who targets nuns. I don’t care. For me, Doctor Han only exists in a single frame, and if you spend too much time on the internet, you know the one I mean.
Related:I Don’t Want To Live In A World Where Saints Row Is A Risk
The Good Doctor became a meme when clips of him misgendering a transgender patient because his autism forced him to (look, the show is silly) went viral, and from there, the clips just kept on coming. I’ve seen the good doctor cause a scene during a convenience store robbery (because of his autism), have a panic attack in the operating theatre (autism), and discuss his sex life at length (funny, because autism) in the last few days. I haven’t even learned his name in that time, hence why he’s just ‘the good doctor’ to me. Most famously though, I’ve learned he is a surgeon.
The best known clip of the show depicts a tearful good doctor repeating over and over ‘I am a surgeon’ while doing some of the goofiest crying known to man. Doctor Han looks up at him from his desk, disinterested, while the good doctor rants. In this moment, Doctor Han is all of us. We’re all looking at the good doctor and wondering when he will go away. I haven’t felt this affinity for a TV character from a show I don’t actually watch since Elmo lost his shit at Rocko.
Doctor Han is played by Daniel Dae Kim, who you might know from Lost, Always Be My Maybe, Hawaii 5-0, his recurring role as a guy who’s just kinda there in 24, or Hellboy. You may know him best from The Good Doctor, in which case you have my sympathy. However, the gods amongst mortals of us know him fromSaints Row, where he plays the central character Johnny Gat.
Gat is not the player character, save for the spin-off Gat out of Hell, but he is undoubtedly the main character. The series revolves around Gat, the gang he has created, and the rivalries he forges. It’s some achievement for a game as buckwild as Saints Row to let your character spray the city with faeces, run around with superpowers, and become President of the USA, and still feel like a sidekick to the main star - it’s even more impressive when you consider Gat isn’t even alive in all of the games.
I’ve never known a person play Saints Row and dislike Johnny Gat, but he doesn’t seem to be talked about in the same vein as gaming’s great protagonists. Is it because we don’t play as him ourselves? Is it because Saints Row is a comedy game and therefore taken less seriously? Is it because I am a surgeon? Whenever the topic of Saints Row comes up - or whenever I can manage to wedge it into conversation - I wonder why it’s so casually forgotten when everyone seems to have enjoyed it.
Gat isn’t even my favourite character, for the record. Predictably, that would be Kinzie Kensington. But I recognise that Gat is a crucial part of the Saints' world, lore, and a character like him is what helps the game stand on its own. It’s not attempting to be profound, it doesn’t use cutting edge tech, it didn’t push the envelope. I’m not telling you it’s one of the greatest games of all time. I’m only saying we should talk about it, and especially Johnny Gat, a lot more than we do. Don’t give me that Doctor Han stare.
Saints Row has had a bad time recently. Its soft reboot tried to keep the tone and the world, but lacked the bite or legacy of a Johnny Gat, and was a janky mess besides that. While a few mocked the game for moving away from what made it great, too many dismissed Saints Row as an entity, as if making a game with a slice of comedy and fun while being built on characters with grounded stories is a ridiculous ask. The internet is a strange place. Maybe The Good Doctor’s time in the spotlight could lead to Saints Row getting the re-evaluation it deserves.
