Previously on Steven Bochco's Great Big 'Ol Headache: Dr. Geoffrey "Just Give Me The Grammy Already Because As Omar Has Pointed Out Like Fifteen Times Already I Look Just Like One of the Beastie Boys" Weiss learned that his main squeeze Nurse Patterson's black dad is racist against white boys like him. He also learns that Patterson's mother was a white hippie girl who only dated Papa Patterson to infuriate her parents. Dr. Arthur Jackson is treated in his own hospital after getting robbed and shot on his way home. This was a while back because lately, he's been up and around just fine. In an extended flashback, Weiss confronts Patterson's dad about his prostate trouble at his own home. He also implies that the man may already be impotent. This is not what you tell your girlfriend's dad if you want him to eventually spring for the wedding.
We start straight up in the ER where Dr. Lilian Price comes in to help out her honey, Dr. Ben Turner. They've just cleared a bus full of patients, and Turner is just cruising along, charm and good looks intact. Price says the health inspectors are coming after an anonymous call tipped them off to overcrowding in the hospital. Price gets way unprofessional by saying that any time Turner needs help on early calls, he can just roll over and nudge her. How come Williams, Weiss and especially Ron Harris don't get this special roll-over assistance?
Just then, Marvell Preston, age eighteen, is wheeled in along with his girlfriend after a car accident. Turner takes Marvell while Price goes to look after the girl, Cheron Green. Cheron says it hurts, it hurts and that it feels like she has to go to the bathroom. Dr. Williams asks, "Can you describe it?" because she just did. Williams thinks it's something very complicated, but Price, who happens to be female, corrects him: The girl is pregnant. Good call, Price. Price says, "Cheron, you're about to have a baby." The curtains are drawn, and all of a sudden, Price is gowned and transformed into Vivica A. Price: Ob/Gyn Woman. It seems like all the women are assisting while Turner, Williams, Marvell and several random male nurses stand around and stare at the birth canal. This girl didn't know she was supposed to be having a baby, and when it finally comes out, it doesn't look a day premature. Price is that good. "Congratulations, it's a boy," Price says while the camera shoots from way overhead in some weird, reverse Lion King shot. We cut to opening credits and commercials.
Honda is saving the world by introducing an eco-efficient, hybrid-electric car that will sell millions of units because in the commercial it looks like a lime Pez dispenser. You're welcome, Earth.
Big change: The intro music has gone from the wailin' gospel vocals to an Elton John piano riff. Time to start your letter-writing campaigns. Bring the gospel back! In the hospital, an angry Marvell Preston ["a.k.a. Lesra from The Hurricane" -- Wing Chun] is talking to the cops and denying that he knows about a gun in the car. Heck, it's not even his car. Dr. Williams asks him to cough, which he does, right on the name of one of the episodes' co-stars. He leaves Marvell to squirm for the police.
Williams walks down the hall, passing by a nurse who looks just like Tempestt Bledsoe from The Cosby Show. He comes across a boy holding a cute mutt-y dog in his arms. "You gotta help me!" the boy cries, "My dog got shot!" The boy says some gang members were shooting and the dog bit it, so to speak. Williams agrees that the dog, Mike, looks pretty bad. The boy, Billy, is also bleeding. Williams offers to take the boy in the hospital and call a vet for the dog. The boy says there's no time. Williams says it's illegal to bring a dog into the hospital. Billy, a shrewd negotiator, says he won't come in without the dog. Williams tries to hide the canine under his scrubs in the most unconvincing dog-sneak in prime-time history. Williams sneaks the dog into a tiny exam room, asking Thelonius, the rainbow-shirt-adorned comic relief, for help. Thelonius says he loves all God's creatures, but this could get him fired. Williams assures him it won't. The dog just moans, wishing he could have gotten that Frasier gig so many years ago. Tempestt Bledsoe comes in and Williams talks her into helping even though she has the rest of the day off. The dog, who has a convincing-looking blood splotch on his hind quarters, whimpers. Tempestt doesn't want to get fired either and thinks the dog looks nothing like the one in Sounder whom she presumably would have helped. She leaves while Williams tries to attend to Mike, the dog that is now growling at him.
Price approaches Marvell, who looks angry and bitter despite having a nice, tasty IV drip in his arm. She tells him he is the father of a healthy seven-pound baby boy. He immediately squelches the happy news by denying that he's the father. Price retorts. He answers, "Ho's always tryin' to trap a nigga." Price gets all indignant: "What did you say?" Ron Harris approaches and tells Price she's late for a meeting with the health inspector. He is wearing, by the way, a dapper gold handkerchief in his breast pocket. Price says she's taking care of this case and wants to stay on top of it. The Harris we all know would have jumped all over that innuendo, but instead he's still peeved. Just as he's about to chew her out, he hears a dog's whimper. He thinks, "That's either a dog or Williams whining."
In the veterinary wing, Williams and Thelonius are taking care of Mike as Harris walks in and asks what the hell is going on. Except he doesn't say it that nicely. They tell him the dog needs emergency surgery. Price notes that if the health inspector comes in, the ER will be shut down. Harris tells her to keep the inspector occupied while he chews out these subordinates. Harris tells them to call the pound. They say that the dog will die. He says, "That makes it easy. Call the morgue." Harris must have been bitten by a dog as a child. Harris leaves. Williams and Thelonius exchange a sneaky look while the ER overcrowds with patients who need doctors.
Cut to the morgue where the dog savers are trying to talk the morgue attendant, Wendell, into helping them. Wendell, who almost got fired for storing a dead pig in the morgue a few weeks back, says he's not going to risk his job for an animal he can't eat. Wendell's assistant, the fiery Latina, says "Dios mio!" and coos when the dog licks her fingers. Wendell points out that she's been eating Cheetos. The three gang up on Wendell, who finally relents. Williams tells Thelonius to bring in all kinds of equipment. If the dog didn't have insurance, it would be costing him tens of thousands of dollars.
In a hospital room, Grace Patterson's dad is yelling at Dr. Weiss and a doctor who looks remarkably like Lawyer McShyster from a few weeks ago. Patterson is angry and hasn't signed the consent form because nobody will give him a guarantee against impotence. Doctor McShyster (I've surmised that they're related) says Patterson has nothing to worry about, even though it's two hours before surgery. Patterson is lobbying for radiation treatment instead of surgery because it's safer for his Johnson. Weiss says that radiation isn't as effective and the tumor may return down the road. Patterson is immovable. He wants a guarantee and Doctor McShyster can't give it to him. McShyster leaves, but says he can be paged if Patterson opts for the surgery. Weiss is left alone with Patterson wondering how he ever got in a situation of discussing his girlfriend's dad's erectile functioning. It's okay because Patterson throws him out. Fade to black and white as Patterson rolls over in bed, thinking about Viagra.
Whatever happened to that Listerine commercial guy who scared us with bleak visions of an alien landscape residing in our mouths? Maybe he died of a heart attack by creeping himself out.
Back at the hospital, Doctor McShyster tells Weiss that he's trying to be patient. Not a patient. Just patient. Weiss finds Grace in the waiting room. She can't believe her dad is being so difficult. Nurse Patterson's stepmom asks what's going on. Grace tells her. Stepmom says, "I think Geoffrey is working toward sainthood." Interesting irony: Papa Patterson's impotency may make it difficult for Weiss to get laid. Just sayin'.
In the morgue surgery room, Wendell says that Mike is a "lucky dog" because he stopped bleeding. Williams asks for some appropriate music and we get a dog tune. Cute. A doctor who looks like a young Orville Redenbacher comes in asking about some livers he's supposed to pick up. Everybody hides. The doctor sneezes, which he attributes to a dog-hair allergy. Hey, what are the chances? He leaves, sneezing some more, while Wendell wonders how he got mixed up in such an oddball hospital. Wendell brings his co-conspirators out of hiding and immediately gets a call to pick up a body. "Looks like we just got a room," Williams says, so they can store the recuperating doggie.
We go to the locker room where Weiss and Turner start chatting it up about Papa Patterson. Through this scene, Blair Underwood as Turner is engaging in what the professionals call "stage business." In this case, he's putting on a contact lens and talking at the same time. He is muy talentoso, as we Latinos like to say. Weiss explains the Patterson situation in exasperated, breathless sentences. Turner says, "Whatever it is, it's not about the medicine." Yeah, we already got that: It's about Patterson's penis. Turner offers to talk to the man. Weiss thanks Turner for that. Wait, I thought Patterson doesn't like black doctors. How is this going to help at all? Where is the logic in this show? My world is crumbling! Somebody stop it!
I mention to my guest Heather/Heathen (who writes the Making the Band recaps) that week they're showing back-to-back Tuesday and Wednesday episodes of City of Angels. She wails, "What is wrong with the world!?"
Back in the unplanned pregnancy ward, Cheron's mom is angry that she didn't even know her daughter was pregnant. "It's hard to tell with the baggy clothes they wear," Price offers as an explanation. The mother, who is in tears, says she already has three mouths to feed and doesn't want another. Cheron says she can raise the baby herself. Price says she can help them get into a "program," which sounds like a euphemism for something involving loads of paperwork. Cheron's mom says, "Thirty-one years old and a grandma." I do some mental calculating and then I say, loudly, "Whoa!" The women in this family are nothing if not fertile at young ages. The new grandma gets up to leave, but Price stops her, saying it doesn't make sense to put the child into foster care if there's a family. The mother gets righteous: She says she has two jobs and makes about $962 a month. $750 goes to rent and the rest is for feeding and clothing her kids. "How much do you make, $100,000, $150,000 a year?" Price looks away guiltily. I whip out my mental calculator again and say, "Damn!" Cheron says she again she can do it. The grandma tells her she can't take care of a parakeet, let alone a baby. How about a wounded dog? Grandma leaves in a huff, saying for all she cares the baby can go to a foster home or be put up for adoption. Price looks conflicted or constipated -- definitely one of the two.
Turner comes in to Papa Patterson's room. He introduces himself and they seem to get along. Why no fight? Patterson says, "They're bringing in the big guns." Ha ha, impotency joke, I get it. Patterson, who's getting dressed to leave, calls the urologist (Doctor McShyster from before) an idiot. Patterson goes on about wanting to know he'll come out of the surgery and still be able to look his wife in the eye. Is that how he performs, sexually? Strange...Turner starts getting psychological, saying, "We as black men sometimes --" but he's cut off by Patterson saying, "Who's 'we'?" Patterson gives Turner a dressing-down similar to the one Price just received. Patterson angrily demands a guarantee again and says, "Courage comes easy to a man with a loaded gun." Turner disagrees: "Courage has got nothing to do with what's between your legs," Turner yells. He starts to leave. Patterson stops him. Tender fear-of-impotence moment between the two men. Patterson decides to go ahead and have the surgery despite his lack of courage. Turner will be in the OR with him. I'm still trying to figure out how Patterson all of a sudden likes black doctors. Fade to black and white on Turner, who's probably wondering the same thing.
The Swiffer boys are back in the Army barracks. My god, they love their barracks.
[Note on the following scene: Marvell talks in a mumbling, indistinct dialect that at one point gets so thick that Heather and I literally had to go back and turn on closed captioning just to understand what was going on. Just a warning. We're here to translate and enlighten.] In the hospital, Price brings with her a very elegant-looking man in a black leather jacket, Artiss Embry, who is here to educate Marvell on the ways of fatherhood. Marvell moodily says he doesn't want to be a father and they should let Cheron take care of it. Artiss says he can put Marvell in a program, help him get his G.E.D. and get him on a job in six months. Sound brilliant, right? But Marvell doesn't bite. True Marvell quotes: "You out yo damn mind" and "Three hots and a cot, huh? Hey, we all gotta do our time." Don't ask me, I'm just transcribing. Artiss knows that Marvell's dad ran out on him and that Marvell's been gangbanging. Artiss makes a convincing argument, but will Marvell take the bait? We'll just have to wait and see.
One man who's not worried about having three hots in a cot right now is Patterson, who's being prepped for surgery. Doctor McShyster and Turner come in. Turner has on his lucky impotency-fighting brown Kufi hat. They put the gas mask on him and ask him to count backwards from one hundred. "One hundred hots in a cot," he begins, "Ninety-nine hots in a cot..." as he gets sleepier and sleepier. Turner and Patterson hold hands in a supreme act of male bonding.
In the hallway, Thelonius is wheeling along a stretcher when he runs into super-suave administrator man Ron Harris. Harris gets suspicious when the dead body switches. He pulls back the sheet to reveal, bow wow, a dog. Hey Harris, I'll tell you where the real dog is -- here's a hint: it's bound and you had to memorize lines from it. Harris gets mad. Not ass-kicking mad, but pretty peeved. He says if the hospital's not dog-free in twenty minutes, Thelonius's career will be in the kennel. Nice one. Thelonius cell-phones some sort of reporter as he sneakily wheels away the dog.
Back in manhood training, Marvell is wheeled into the baby ward. Isn't anybody worried he's gonna shoot up the place? Artiss says he went through the same thing Marvell went through because he too grew up without a daddy. Price shushes them as their voices escalate. Artiss, who looks a little like Tupac, gets Marvell to say that he would kick his father's irresponsible ass if he were to walk through the hospital door. Ah, trick psychology. Marvell would only be kicking his own ass, so to speak. Artiss says that all Marvell got from his father was his anger, the "booby prize." Now, Artiss, I agree that Marvell got the booby prize, but I'm thinking it was a different booby, if you know what I mean. Can you back me up on that, Cheron? Price hands Marvell the baby. He grudgingly accepts it and calls it "Player." Cool, I think. Marvell is wheeled away soon after and starts asking questions about what he would do with a job. He doesn't want to wear a paper hat. I worked at Whataburger. I don't blame him. Artiss makes big, big promises and Marvell starts to accept it all. They run into Dr. Jackson in the hallway who slowly realizes that Marvell is the punk that shot him. He chases Marvell out of his wheelchair, attacks him and is forcibly taken away. Jackson is pretty mad.
Back in Price's office, Price, Jackson and Artiss talk about Marvell. Artiss explains the situation while Jackson says, "That son of a bitch shot me. I almost died." Very, very good points. Jackson wants Marvell to go to jail, but Artiss says that would be the easiest thing. Hey, Artiss, have you watched Oz lately? Artiss tries to talk Jackson into giving him Marvell. Jackson doesn't look convinced. He asks to be excused. Fade to black and white on Artiss and Price watching him leave.
Public service announcement: Never, ever, ever watch Walker, Texas Ranger. I can't imagine how it could be a good thing for anyone.
Cut to Marvell who's signing the first in a lifetime of paperwork. Jackson comes in, looking like he wants to attack the boy. Marvell thanks him, but Jackson plays it cool saying that Price and Artiss are the reason he's free. "Don't think for a second you got one over on me," Jackson says. He is too intense.
Weiss is greeted by Grace who is out for what looks like a booty call. She thanks him and says first that she wants to buy him dinner. But what she'd really like to do, she says, is get take-out, bring it over, and that she'll forget about the food as soon as they're alone. Told you it was a booty call. She walks off and Weiss excitedly enters the ER. "Who needs healin'?" he yells.
Turner and Price meet up in Turner's swanky pad. They talk about their day, which Turner says was "enlightening." He says he's been thinking about his father, who was a lot like Papa Patterson. He was stubborn, prejudiced and a know-it-all. Turner's dad apparently died of an illness he never acknowledged and it makes Turner angry. Oh, and Price was there at the time, too. Turner starts to get emotional, saying he's been chased by those devils. Price says maybe those demons were slayed in Patterson's room. "Bury that devil, Ben," Price says. "Kick some dirt on that sucker and let him go," which is exactly what CBS is thinking about doing to this show if the ratings don't pick up. Fade to black and white on Price and Turner holding hands at the dining room table. End of the episode.
week, cry a little tear for me as I recap back-to-back episodes guest-starring Ossie Davis as a man who thinks he's the King of England. I kid you not. Pray for me.