Episode Report Card Sars: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Greene With Envy
By Sars | Season 6 | Episode 3 | Aired on 10.13.1999
Mark condescendingly asks Hawkeye to sign up his patient on the board next time. Hawkeye snorts and hands Chuny the chart, joking with the parents of his patient, "Paperwork -- you can run but you can't hide." The mother says, "She's really hurting this time," as Hawkeye checks the girl's abdomen and asks her about her symptoms; apparently, Crystal doesn't have a fever and hasn't thrown up, she's just in pain. Hawkeye asks the parents, "She's had a sickle crisis before?" They say yes, but not since the month before. Hawkeye tells Crystal they'll give her something for the pain and run some tests, and he gives the orders for said medication and tests to Chuny, who writes them down and goes out into the hall; Mark stops her, looks at the chart, and adds a couple of tests.
Luka comes into Loren's room. Paulie wants to leave "before another gang-banger starts shooting up the place," but Luka says he needs to talk to Paulie first about "some forms to fill out." He escorts Paulie into the neighboring exam room; Paulie asks, "Something wrong?" and Luka says gravely, "I have to inform you, Mr. Johnson, that I believe you are mentally ill." Paulie snaps, "What?" Luka goes on, "And that because of your illness, you can reasonably be --" but Paulie interrupts, "You're the one who's ill, pal," and he makes to leave. Alas, the security guards visible over Luka's shoulder in the last shot step forward to apprehend Paulie, who turns back around and yells, "What the hell do you think -- okay, okay, I get it, I'm in a nuthouse, huh?" Luka glares at Paulie balefully as the guards make him lie down on a gurney; then he takes up where he left off: "And that because of your illness, you can reasonably be expected to inflict serious physical harm on yourself, or on others." The guards strap Paulie down. Luka finishes, "Therefore, you are subject to involuntary admission and are in need of immediate hospitalization." Paulie, who seems strangely resigned to this turn of affairs, stares at the ceiling and says softly, "Wait till my lawyer gets ahold of you." More baleful glaring from Luka.
Luka walks out. Lucy scampers out of the adjoining room and snaps at his heels: "Dr. Kovac, you have no criteria to hold him." Luka says that Loren's X-rays are his criteria. Lucy predicts that Paulie will get up to Psych, Psych will send him right back down, and he'll just go home, and Luka says he doesn't care about Paulie, he cares about Loren -- "this way she has a chance." Lucy looks frustrated. Um, Lucy? You work in an allegedly sterile environment, so once again I must ask you to put. Your hair. UP. Thank you. Anyway, Luka stomps off in one direction and Lucy stomps off in the other, probably to bitch out the writers for reheating an old Doug Ross plot and forcing us to eat it. Oh, well -- at least they don't expect us to buy Luka as the show's moral center simply by virtue of his Croatian background. Except that they do.