In a nice-looking Chicago neighborhood, a woman walks her young daughter out to the sidewalk, where a blonde woman named Denise is waiting to a champagne-colored Volvo. None of these people is a series regular, which can only mean one thing: The makeup artists are about to get called to the set with extra catastrophe kits. Both mothers shepherd the kids -- a girl named Katie, a boy called Matthew, and Denise's daughter Hannah -- into The Back Seat of Certain Doom. "Sorry you got stuck with that Art Institute field trip," Other Mother says. "Luck of the draw," smiles Denise, pulling away from the curb.
Dr. Greg Pratt dashes toward the El station. That's about all.
Meanwhile, the kids laugh in the back seat of the Volvo Death Trap while Denise calls her office and laments that her datebook is full of appointments that can't be pushed. I guess she didn't plan ahead for this car pool thing. Smart, Denise. Maybe a little head bump will reshuffle your priorities. I wonder how we can effect such a thing. "Crap," Denise curses. The kids in the back giggle cutely and faux-gasp at her language. "Not you, the traffic," Denise says into the phone. "I'll call you back, Beth." No, Beth, she won't. You might want to take this opportunity to cancel all her appointments. Oh, and see if you can snag her office -- she has a lake view and keeps a flask of Grey Goose in the third desk drawer.
Pratt muscles his way to the head of the line and hops on an El at the last second. "Just made it, you know," he pants to no one, shrugging off his coat and sitting down to an attractive woman. "If I'm late again, my boss is going to kill me," he mutters. "You're a doctor?" smiles the woman. "Yeah," Pratt sighs. Then he looks at her and realizes that she has breasts. "Yes, I am," he continues smoothly, turning his body toward her and grinning widely so that she knows he's open for business. By which I mean, animal sex. She smiles back at him.
Hannah starts whining in the back seat of the Volvo Crumple Zone. Denise's phone rings, but as she answers it, she faints. "Mom?" screams Hannah. Then she realizes that they're totally and completely fucked, except hopefully she doesn't know that word, unless Denise is delinquent in addition to being potentially narcoleptic. ["Just a side note, here: what we're seeing was my #1 anxiety when I was a kid. My dad was perfectly fit and in excellent health, but I was always afraid, before I learned to drive, that I'd be in the car with him, he'd have some kind of episode, and I'd have to take the wheel. I used to have nightmares about it every week. So this scene was to me as all the toe business is to Heathen. Thanks, ER!" -- Wing Chun] The Volvo Toast Wagon slams into an open car door on the street and then hits an oncoming vehicle, riding up it and then flipping over as Denise tilts to one side, regaining consciousness. The car hits the street upside-down and skids. Just as Denise regains focus, she gazes dazedly out the windshield and sees that a careening Ford Injury is about to slam into her Volvo Insult. Bang. We roll into the credits as twisted metal and sparks imprison our four victims, and we wonder if the good product-placement folks at Volvo are going to mind terribly that their car was depicted as a flipper with no airbags. Which also sounds like a great euphemism for a flat-chested skanky hooker, an image I'm sure Volvo would also dislike.
“ Carter looks like the Metaphysics Club president trying to attend a high- school kegger, scanning the room with puzzlement as if he can't figure out why 'Bad To The Bone' didn't just play during his entrance. ”
Pratt sprints to work and spies the wreckage, shoving through the crowd so that he can get inside. He runs into Carter. "How was Africa?" he asks cheerfully. "Hot," Carter replies. There's some crapulence about Pratt not answering his pager. Hmm, a man after Weaver's own heart. Pratt jogs off to catch the tail end of the paramedic's bullet on the little boy, Matthew, who's being wheeled into the ER. He's got a scalp laceration from hitting the car's dome light, and a fractured wrist. "You're late," Weaver crabs. She tries to scold him, but Pratt ignores her.
This is quite possibly the funniest shot I've ever seen in an episode of ER. Carter strides inside wearing a faded denim jacket with puffy sleeves, a red backpack, loose khakis, and aviator shades. He looks like the Metaphysics Club president trying to attend a high-school kegger, scanning the room with puzzlement as if he can't figure out why "Bad To The Bone" didn't just play during his entrance. I had to pause the TiVo here so I could squeal with prolonged laughter once I rescued my jaw from the floor. Weaver passes. Her welcome: "You bring Kovac back with you?" Carter drifts past her without eye contact. "No," he replies. She stares at him just long enough that a giant pane of glass behind her can tip over, crashing to the ground and making her jump. The writers apparently think that she is Colonel Mustard, and this is Clue. Really, it's hilarious. First the ass, then the glass...if a live jackass walks in (other than Carter, I mean), then we have some really original and special rhyming riotousness in store.
Carter enters the temporary doctors' lounge and scans for his locker. Swinging from the handle is a plastic grocery store bag; with a knowing head-shake, he dumps his backpack and sits down to root through the plastic bag. He comes across two production stills...er, very meaningful photographs taken from afar by an interested well-wisher -- from the night he and Abby went to dinner with pre-disease Eric and his child fiance. Smiling bitterly, his mouth slightly agape, Carter sets his jaw in disbelief and blows out his cheeks. We fade to black thinking what a bad choice that was, given that it only enhanced how puffy and bloated Carter has gotten in the last "two weeks." Right. Yes.
Matthew -- the lone boy in the Volvo Expensive Special Effect -- welcomes us back from the break with a scream. Gallant is with him, checking his vitals, and introducing himself with his new title, "Doctor Gallant." And because, yet again, the Exposition Fairy went on a drug-and-alcohol bender before passing out in a pool of drool on top of this script, we're reminded that Gallant has graduated since we last saw him. This time, it's Pratt being all amazed and jocular. And you just know Gallant would've been waving his graduation day in front of Pratt's face -- pleasantly, but proudly -- so I feel justified in thinking this continued clumsy writing is insulting to our intelligence. In two words, TPTB, suck it. Oh, and also, Matthew has a broken arm and a bruised belly.
While tending to Matthew, however, Pratt's crotch radar pings and he abruptly catches sight of Neela in Trauma Yellow. He's all, Oooh, fresh meat, and I'm a carnivore. Gallant exposits that Neela's a new med student, and Pratt hastily excuses himself from Matthew's care...
...so that he can subtly peek into Trauma Yellow and insinuate himself into Neela's orbit. "Need some help?" he asks, innocently. Susan welcomes him and resumes explaining to Neela what tests comprise a trauma panel. In sum: a lot. Pratt stares at Neela with a hungry smile. "I'm Dr. Greg Pratt," he oozes. She introduces herself politely. Denise -- because she's so selfish -- decides that because she's the one who's on the slab bleeding and moaning, this medical-care scene must somehow be all about her. "I was driving...and then we were upside-down," she moans. Pratt could not give a shit. "Neela. That's Indian, right?" he pants. Susan notices this, because she is not blind, or deaf, or ignorant, and also she read her stage directions. Like all ER patients, Denise mumbles that she wants them to care for her daughter Hannah first, and like all ER patients, she is shot down by the doctor who is trying to save her life and really wishes she would pipe down for a second.
Neela reads that Denise's hemocue is a low 8.1 so that Pratt can smarm, "We need to find the source of the blood loss." Malik decides it's his turn to notice the flirting, and he duly looks up with a confused expression. Pratt, smooth as silk, makes his move. He sidles up behind Neela and breathes sweet nothings into her ear: "It could be hemothorax -- bleeding in the chest." As Neela nods politely, Susan nixes this diagnosis. Pratt whips out some jargon designed to remove even the most stubborn of pants: "Or it could be an intra-abdominal hemorrhage." How Neela has not thrown him down and taken him roughly on the trauma room floor is baffling to me. Finally, Pratt tries to close the deal. "Or, it could be something else," he says with an eyebrow twiddle. "Like an unstable pelvic fracture, Professor Pratt?" snarks an irritated Susan, jabbing at Denise's pelvis and receiving a gasp of agony in return. Pratt smirks.
Ready for his shift, Carter wanders the ER amid the hammering and crackling-electricity sounds of a construction site. Frank tells him crankily that his grandmother's estate lawyer has telephoned every day trying to reach him. Carter ignores this -- and indeed, everyone else around him -- as he heads into Trauma Yellow. "What have we here?" he asks pleasantly. Susan gives him the bullet, and then adds curiously, "How was Africa?" Carter swallows hard. "It was...great," he coughs. Susan sends him door to help with Hannah, which of course elicits a wail of panic from Denise.
Abby and Chen are holding court with Hannah in Trauma Green. "Welcome home, stranger," Chen says. PEOPLE. IT'S BEEN TWO WEEKS. SHUT UP. Abby tries to ignore Carter, but that becomes impossible when Chen is called away to attend to the third kid from the accident, leaving the ex-lovebirds alone.
“ Chen is pure evil. I know she's jealous, but seriously, Chen, take it out on the nutlint you're dating and not on the new girl. ”
Chen needs help, so Pratt obliges. "Sure you can tear yourself away from that med student for a moment?" Chen sneers. "She's doing fine," Pratt says casually as Chen glares at Neela through the window into Trauma Yellow. Neela notices this and shifts uncomfortably. "Are they together?" Neela asks of a passing Chuny. "Oh, yeah," Chuny grins, her smile dripping with delight at office gossip. Neela digests this impassively. "My hands are starting to cramp," she notices, a pleading note in her voice. Chuny leaves to get some clamps as Neela subtly starts to shake a little. Denise senses that this is her invitation to talk about herself, rehashing that she blacked out before the accident. "How are Matthew and Katie?" Denise asks. "I don't know," Neela says uncomfortably. "Has someone called their parents?" Denise asks, edging into panic. She talks and talks as Neela struggles to retain control of the sheets holding Denise's pelvis in place. It would be kinky if it wasn't a trauma room. Denise catches sight of Carter and Abby frantically starting to work in Trauma Green, and correctly deduces that Hannah's in trouble. Neela has no answers for her, and continues watching Chen and Pratt.
Hannah has started to crash. "Think her T-waves look peaked?" Abby says. "No," Carter replies. Translation: "Are we ever going to converse like humans out of the workplace so that we can avoid compromising patient care here?" "No." Suddenly, Hannah goes into v-tach and they charge the paddles. Denise flips out in the room and starts to fidget. "Ma'am, don't move," Neela says desperately, tugging at the sheets. Denise herself then crashes -- sort of a sympathy v-tach, really, which is so sweet. "Denise? Mrs. Johnson!" Neela shouts, valiantly trying to shake her while not losing hold of the sheets. "I need some help in here!" Neela shouts futilely. No one hears her.
Dr. Elizabeth Corday appears out of nowhere, riding in on her magic carpet of pointlessness. I wish they'd give her something to do. She curtly demands to know who Neela is and what's going on, and gets polite answers to both. "Are you from the East End?" Elizabeth asks. "No, West London," Neela says, confused, and rightly, because Elizabeth appears to be asking if Neela is from the poorer area of the city, which is something she would discern from Neela's accent, which sounds cockney-free to me. Shut up, Elizabeth.
Pratt and Chen notice the brouhaha, and long story short, they go inside and decide that it sucks that Denise's labs aren't back yet. "You," Chen brats, nodding at Neela. "Go pick up her labs." Still holding the sheet, Neela replies in puzzlement, "Right now?" Chen bitches, "No, Thursday," and pairs it with the mightiest of eye-rolls. She is pure evil. I know she's jealous, but seriously, Chen, take it out on the nutlint you're dating and not on the new girl. I think I'd have hated Chen in high school. Kindly, for once, Pratt says quietly, "Take the elevator in the lobby." Guess that's helpful. Neela dashes out.
As Carter and Abby labor to save Hannah, they continue acting hostile to one another, because they are both the least professional people on the planet and the poster children for the perils of workplace romances. Or in this case, workplace deluced-sex-of-convenience. "Her T-waves are peaked," Abby observes smugly. "You should've listened to..." "Can we do this later?" Carter snaps. Oh, what, now he wants to change the subject? Okay. These people are both terrible now. I don't give a whit about either of them. If that doesn't change soon, I'm going to stop watching. I'm going to sit here and recap an hour of my halogen lamp every Thursday. Will it flicker? What setting will it be on? We can only dream of knowing.