“ Carter is helping Matt, who's conscious. Which sucks, given that he's undergoing a whole lot of what doctors and other ER professionals refer to as 'medical hoo-ha.' ”
Ow, there's a bright light in my eyes. I would move toward it, but that would take me right to Elizabeth, and...no. She's examining Toby, whose mother and brother Matt are the two other drunk-driver victims. The father was spared because he was inside searching for a carrot to use as the nose. Imagine that -- a vegetable being used for good and not evil. Poor Toby isn't having a good day. "His brain is mush," Elizabeth deduces. "Tell me the drunk driver died on impact," Susan grunts. But Elizabeth is distracted by Matt's arrival door in Trauma Yellow; she's about to go to him, but the mother joins them in Trauma Green. "She jumped in front of her kids and the truck hit her straight on," the paramedic says. Elizabeth stares at her, moved, not understanding the concept of the selfless impulse. "Please, save my boys," the dying woman croaks. "Save...my boys." Luka decides to take control here. His boys are just fine, thank you. Elizabeth whirls into...
...Trauma Yellow, where Carter is helping Matt, who's conscious. Which sucks, given that he's undergoing a whole lot of what doctors and other ER professionals refer to as "medical hoo-ha." Carter reports the presence of massive chest contusions and a whole horde of shattered ribs. "He should be dead," Carter marvels. Um, Carter? The kid's awake. He can hear you. You're going to ruin Christmas if you keep this up. "He would be if his mother hadn't jumped in front of him," Elizabeth intones.
Abby and Maggie sit side by side, neither looking at the other. "Have you talked to him?" Abby asks. "Briefly, on the phone," Maggie says. Abby looks further away and draws a shaky breath before admitting that "it" is happening to Eric. "He showed up in Chicago with this girl he'd just met, and I knew he didn't have that much leave, but mostly I just...saw it," Abby exhales. Is this the same "it" that's been plaguing Joey Potter her whole life? "I just felt it right away," Abby continues. Maggie blinks hard as Abby goes on about how she should've called Maggie, but she panicked and ended up getting Eric arrested. Maggie tries to get Abby to relax, but she won't. "I needed to know, I had to know," Abby spits bitterly. "So I called here and I...got his medical records, and they had misdiagnosed depression. They thought it was stress." Maggie gulps. "We thought it was situational," Maggie says, getting up and pacing across the room, leaving a stunned Abby in her wake. "What?" Abby gapes. Maggie exposits that she made Eric see her doctor, and even he thought it was post-traumatic stress. Abby is wounded that Maggie knew all along, and she didn't. "Post-traumatic stress? Mom, you're bipolar," Abby hisses. "Do you even know anything about your disease?" Oh, says Abby the expert. She should be happier that Maggie seems so in control, but no, that's not about Abby and this situation can be, so poof, self-righteous rage wins. Maggie bristles but handles it well. "Yeah, Abby, I know a lot about it," she says levelly. She Who Rules the Roost demands to know why she wasn't told; Maggie tries to feed her a line about protecting her, but Abby's allergic to bullshit, so Maggie admits that Eric specifically did not want Abby to know. Looking punched in the gut, Abby sucks wind. Credit goes to Maura Tierney for the fact that you can see defiance give way to hurt in her eyes.
Outside, Dodger sweetly puts his hand on Toby's face. "I'm here, kiddo," he whispers lovingly. "It's not gonna hurt." Aw, that's so sad. Usually the tertiary medical drama does nothing for my heartstrings, but Dodger's bumming me out. Luka watches the mother flatline. Elizabeth rushes Matt's gurney toward the elevator. "You gotta make this work," Dodger pleads. "You promised me." Elizabeth looks worriedly at him as the elevator doors close, leaving Dodger alone with Nathan and Toby. Dodger wipes his prodigiously sweaty forehead and sighs. "It's okay, baby," he tells Toby. "You're gonna help your brother, okay?" Nathan watches this with sad eyes. Dodger suddenly snaps his head up. "Bring him in to my wife," he says. You know, it's so funny how "in to" versus "into" can change a sentence. The first time I wrote that, it read, "Bring him into my wife," and it all felt uncomfortably Star Trek. "She's got to say goodbye," sniffles Dodger. Nathan hangs his head, fairly sure that Dodger's day is about to become a long, painful, non-Austrian version of So Long, Farewell, but without singing nuns or moppets. We fade to black feeling pretty damn sorry for Dodger, yet pretty damn sure that he, Steven Tyler, and Patrick Ewing all descended from the same half-evolved Neanderthal family.
Shirley helps herd the gurneys into OR-2. But before they get there, Matt crashes into v-fib again and the paddles are dead, so Elizabeth bolts into the OR, grabs two paddles, stretches them into the hallway, and shocks him back into a safe heart rhythm. Then the camera follows her as she sprints into the scrub room and washes up while someone puts a hairnet on her. This scene is very well blocked; all her marks must be very precise, and she hits them all. "Where's my transplant team?" she screams. Carter, in the OR with Matt, wants to know what to do. Elizabeth gowns up and tells Shirley to prep Toby door; she's going to get things going until the transplant team shows up. Where's My Scalpel in A Minor plays as Elizabeth grabs the knife and whips up a batch of Fillet of Matt. Through a series of quick cuts, we see the prep procedure's different stages; finally, the transplant doctors rush inside to take the helm. "And I thought I had a snow day," the doctor grins. Elizabeth and Carter leave the OR, but turn to watch. "Wow," Carter breathes. "Yeah," Elizabeth nods. "WOW," Carter repeats, this time with more awed emphasis. "Yeah," grins Elizabeth, glowing. It's really kind of cute. It's been a while since Elizabeth got excited about her work.
Maggie and Abby pace through the hospital. "He can't hide from you," Maggie is explaining. "You saw him manic, and he hasn't accepted it yet." Abby confirms that Eric's taking the medicine. "Not by choice," Maggie clarifies. "That could take time. He's emotionally exhausted, and he's scared. Try not to be confrontational." Abby shoots her a withering look. "I've got this down, thanks," She Who Shall Not Be Instructed snits. I want to slap her. Yeah, Maggie's not always this clear, but when she is, hello, I'd say she's the current expert on how a depressed person wants to be treated.
First Snowfall
“ Elizabeth reaches out and clutching Dodger to her chest. He sobs into her shoulder, and we fade to black feeling sorry for Mark that this man's getting more affection from Elizabeth than he ever did. ”
Dodger sits on the floor of Trauma Green, slumped against a cabinet. His wife's open body lies lifeless on the gurney. It looks like there are wasted gloves lying on the floor near him, which is sort of repellent and spoils the sadness of the moment. Elizabeth peers inside and gently tells him that the transplant team is buzzing away on Matt's re-lungification. "When will you know?" he asks. "It's a delicate procedure, especially on children," she hedges, offering to take him to the upstairs waiting room. But Dodger can't leave. He then gives a stirring rendition of the If Things Hadn't Gone Awry monologue, moving Elizabeth to the point that she enters the room fully and lets the door swing shut behind her. "You made the right decision," she whispers. "The only one you could." Dodger, broken, shakes his head in disbelief at the tragedy of it all. "It may not seem like it, but, um, I know what you're feeling," Elizabeth begins gingerly. Bitterly, Dodger refutes this. "Actually," Elizabeth says, her eyes filling with tears, "my husband...his name was Mark...he died." Dodger's face contorts in shared grief. "My God, I was about to say last year. It was only six months ago," Elizabeth chokes. She has already emoted more than she ever did during his actual death. That's the tragedy of Mark's life -- everyone seems to like him in retrospect and not in the moment. Except me. I don't like him either way. ["Me neither. It's like we're soulmates!" -- Wing Chun]
"I tried to pretend once Mark was gone that I could pull myself up, continue like normal," Elizabeth continues. "But it doesn't work like that. You can't run away from it. It's like...this big relentless wave that you have to ride." She bites her lip as Dodger watches her, rapt. "But I'm riding it," she adds. "Somehow, you hold on to what you've lost and you find a way to go on without shutting off. It's not easy, but you do it." Aw, this is kind of sad. She reminds Dodger with shining eyes that, one day, he'll look at Matt and see all the wonderful things that live on in him, rather than the pain of what's missing. She delivers this with a bizarre beaming smile that isn't at all suited to Elizabeth, but I guess this is her emotional turning point. It's just that she's making it with such gusto, she'll get whiplash. "He needs to be okay," Dodger whimpers. "I need him to be okay." He's doing a great job, too. He's not in hysterics, but he's visibly squiffy, and even though I'm terrified of his semi-evolved ape jaw, I kind of want to hug him. A tear trickles down his face. "He will be," Elizabeth avers, reaching out and clutching Dodger to her chest. He sobs into her shoulder, and we fade to black feeling sorry for Mark that this man's getting more affection from Elizabeth than he ever did.
Nebraska. Eric's lawyer explains to Abby that there wasn't enough evidence to prove that Eric was mentally incompetent. "[Eric] demanded due process," he explains. Abby worries that he won't stay medicated; the lawyer lets her in to see him in his tiny little cell.