Episode Report Card Heathen: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Out Of Africa
By Heathen | Season 10 | Episode 5 | Aired on 10.29.2003
Previously on Energetic Romps, Elizabeth rode Dr. Diego's love stallion until it foamed at the mouth. Also, Abby got her ex to co-sign for a loan, and Luka admitted to missing being in the Congo.
The faint strains of African music bring us up inside an El train. We pan across bored passengers, and a man frantically yapping about the stock market into his mobile phone, until we finally rest on an amused Dr. Luka "The African Queen" Kovac. He stares a personal injury lawyer's ad and a poster for The Lion King, smiling a bit condescendingly all the while. Apparently, once you've had malaria, puppets and Elton John songs no longer interest you. ["Sometimes that happens to you even when you haven't had malaria." -- Wing Chun]
Luka enters the new-look County General and accepts Chuny's boring greeting with a smile. "Someone redecorated?" he asks. "Same patients, different furniture," she says. Frank doesn't even give him the kind of warm, racist salutations we've come to expect from the resident mouthpiece of Mephistopheles. He just says, "Call Weaver." Which anagrams to "reveal claw," which I believe further fingers him as a minion, and holy God, I promise that's the last time Frank and the verb "fingers" will appear together in any of my prose.
Malarkey overhears Luka's name and eagerly introduces himself. His first name is Archie, which is so perfect considering he's full of bunk. Chuny tries to get Malarkey's help on something, but he scurries away, muttering something about needing to go on a lab run. "The ducklings could use some guidance -- we're short on Attendings," Frank mutters. Just as Luka's trying to locate the new lounge, a lunatic screaming about coyotes as messengers of evil gets forcibly escorted through the lobby to a room. He's screaming and protesting and fighting them. "All Hallows Eve, and the loonies are on the loose," Frank sighs. Luka resists pointing out that Frank himself is on the loose all the time.
A woman frantically gets Luka's attention. She's cradling a baby who fell out of a cart. "I guess I didn't strap him in right," she blubbers. Except she's holding a baby that doesn't look big enough to fall out of a shopping cart, so unless "didn't strap him in" means "dropped him on the ground," then I'm not totally sure I can picture this. "Did he hit his head?" Luka asks. "I'm not sure," she admits. The serene little boy at her side affirms that the baby did seem to smack his head, but didn't start crying afterward. Luka whisks the baby off to a trauma room; the family follows.