Episode Report Card Heathen: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Beyond Repair
By Heathen | Season 8 | Episode 11 | Aired on 01.09.2002
"It was...pretty bad," Abby chokes, referring to B's headache. Abby explains that a blood vessel in B's brain ruptured, then realizes that a kid who didn't even know his mom's first name might not understand the word "rupture." So she clarifies, "It broke." Dougie doesn't like the idea of a broken brain. "The doctors tried really hard," she says, "but they couldn't fix it." Douglas gulps, then brightens and asks if his mother can come home. "Only if you bring in a taxidermist," Abby thinks. Out loud, she tries again to make it clear that his mother is dead, but Douglas freaks out and runs screaming to the exam room and the trauma room where he last saw his mother. "Mom? Where is she? MOM?" he screams, terrified. He throws open the door and, when he sees strangers inside, bugs out his eyes. Confusion and panic wash over his face as he looks around wildly, sees nothing familiar, then bolts back out into the lobby. "Mom, where are you?" he sobs. Abby chases him, grabs his arm, and finally corrals him. "She's dead," Abby says. "I just want my Mom," he cries, throwing himself into her arms. Abby gently soothes him, patting his back. Putting a little boy in distress feels as hackneyed as putting pregnant women in complex and perilous situations from which only a nonconformist doctor can save her. Yet, despite this blatant attempt to make the audience Feel Something Profound, Maura Tierney does a great job with the boy, who is the second most adorable child ever to guest on ER (Reese, we miss you!).
Cut to a shot of the cherub sleeping on a gurney. The poor wee tyke wiped himself out, what with the screaming, crying, grieving, and donut-scarfing. Frank is sweetly sad for the exhausted Douglas. Quietly, he shares that he reached Mr. Leeman and learned he's in Australia on business and can't leave until he catches a red-eye tomorrow night. This means Social Services must take Douglas; Abby grimly promises to make the call.
Gallant grabs Abby and asks her if County General permits Psych transfers to other hospitals. It seems a patient behind Curtain Three suffered a scalp laceration from a slip-and-fall, but is begging to be moved from that room, and wants them to call his case worker from a private hospital. "Is he altered?" Abby asks. "No, but agitated," Gallant replies. Abby asks if he's called for a Psych consult, but by her expression, it's clear she can tell he hasn't. As she dispatches Gallant to do so, Abby yanks back the curtain and comes face to face with someone she never thought she'd see again -- Paul Sobriki. Sobriki, who obviously knew this moment would come, blurts out an explanation and looks very much like he'd pay the bed to swallow him whole. "The paramedics brought me to this hospital," he says hurriedly. "I didn't want to come here." He begs Abby to call his case worker and get him out of Curtain Three, which is the scene of his earlier crime. Abby just stares at him, waiting for her breath to return.