Episode Report Card Heathen: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Beyond Repair
By Heathen | Season 8 | Episode 11 | Aired on 01.09.2002
Now Abby is roaming the hallway, grabbing her head and trying to make the voices inside stop telling her how lonely she is. Oh dear God, please don't make Abby decide to get pregnant. Unless she asks for Luka's sperm, which would solve his longing for children and would result in a delightfully non-ugly kid. Chuny pops her head in to warn Abby that Weaver's on the warpath about calling Social Services for Douglas. Fatigued and frustrated, Abby goes to do so, and spies Scott chatting calmly with Sobriki's wife, who is holding the kid with which she was pregnant during her husband's rampage. She's played by Liza Weil, or Paris on Gilmore Girls. It's jarring to see her as a mother when I'm used to seeing the snooty Chilton uniform. Malik shows up and makes one final entreaty for the Blackhawks tickets, so Abby hands them over and says that Susan was asking for them, too, so he should offer her one. It's very casual -- I don't think she was conspiring to get rid of Susan, since Susan wouldn't be able to leave until her shift ended anyway. Malik kisses Abby with gratitude, which is more action than she's seen in a long time. She turns back to the phone and tells the operator to page the on-call social worker.
Carter appears out of nowhere and gives Abby the lowdown on the diarrhea patient she fobbed off on him. Panicked, Abby realizes that Paris and child are visible from there, and she then spies Sobriki being wheeled down the hallway, so she steers Carter toward a room so that his back is facing the hallway. Abby proceeds to ask him some weak questions about a tot with abdominal pain. As she blathers on to keep him distracted, though, Sobriki starts chatting quietly to his child. Carter hears this. His eyes glaze as he processes that voice, and his body visibly tenses. He stares hard at Abby, willing her to prove him wrong even though he already knows who's behind him. Fear, anger, hurt, disbelief, and a hint of betrayal wash over his face in a split second, and the guilty expression on Abby's face gives away the game. Slowly, he turns and peeks around the corner. His slowly reddening eyes lock on Sobriki's frame. "They put you in restraints," Paris notes. "It's just a precaution," Sobriki says soothingly. "They're a little paranoid." Paris spots Carter and is visibly concerned; Sobriki turns and the two men finally make eye contact. "Oh, it's you," Sobriki says. "I'm sorry." He seems lightly remorseful, as though he hasn't considered the full emotional impact on Carter of his homicidal schizophrenic episode, or as if he'd just pricked him with a toothpick. Sobriki acts more concerned about proving he's better, as if that will magically heal the inner scars on Carter's soul and erase the memory Carter's own struggles. Carter has barely blinked once. "What are you doing here?" Carter breathes. Paris shares that her hubby slipped and fell outside his office building; the latter two words gut Carter, who hadn't heard about the conditional release. "You're out," he spits, hatred and resentment in his eyes. "I'm sorry," Sobriki pleads, more earnest now. "That wasn't me who did that to you, to your friend. You know that, right? You're a doctor. You know it's a disease." Carter's neck vein throbs. "I'm being treated," persists Sobriki. "I'm okay now." Carter swallows hard, sickened, struggling against tears, or an outburst, or his primal urge to lash out at his former tormentor. "Great," he chokes. "Glad you're okay." He whirls around and leaves.