Long Day's Journey Into Shite

S01E01

First off, the biggest of all possible big love to Heathen, to whom I handed off the ER baton at the end of Season Seven. Her recaps of Seasons Eight and Nine never failed to crack me up and I couldn't have asked for a better writer to carry on my legacy (such as it is). Heathen, you're the greatest.

Second, this is the recap of the pilot. The various episode guides I consulted differed as to whether the pilot --which aired as a two-hour "movie" -- should be considered one two-hour episode, or two related episodes that happened to be aired back to back. The majority (including the official ER site from Warner Bros.) treated it as one, so I'm going to go by that, too. Also, I'm recapping it from a commercially available VHS tape that Sars bought for me, which -- since it doesn't include commercials -- would make it hard for me to guess where the halfway mark is, and where hour one of the broadcast version ended and hour two began.

Uh. It's been a while since I wrote a recap, so I am probably a little rusty, but I promise the whole thing won't be as boring as that last paragraph was.

The now familiar greenish background and synth music appear as "er" in copper-coloured Courier glides into the centre of the screen. Then we cut to a black screen, over which we hear the sound of gentle snoring. A door opens, illuminating the room; we get our first shot of Mark "Sisyphus" Greene, and a flattering shot it is not: he's lying on a bed, his feet in our faces, and the camera is unfortunately positioned right at crotch level, so that Mark's garbage is dead-centre in the frame. We see Lydia's silhouette on the wall and hear her voice as she calls Mark's name -- quietly at first, and then more sharply when he doesn't respond. Finally, he starts with a snort, and she tells him there's a patient for him. Cut to an overhead shot of Mark's head as he whines at her to make an intern take it; Lydia tells him the patient asked for Mark, and exposits that it's 5 AM. She looks completely unimpressed by his sleeping ass. Mark puts on his glasses -- which are similar to the National Health-style round-lensed specs he wore toward the end of the series, though these have black rims and make his head look less penis-like; I approve -- and asks again, "Can't the intern take it?" Lydia flatly replies, "It's Dr. Ross." Mark nods in a resigned, unsurprised way, and says he'll be right there. Lydia full-body whatevers out of the doorway. Mark groans, like, you'd think he'd have learned by now that a short, fitful, interrupted nap makes you sleepier afterward than if you hadn't slept at all.

As Mark saunters down the hall, stretching his arms, the credits start appearing unobtrusively in white text at the bottom of the screen, so I guess we aren't getting the Grand Mal Special that is the opening credits sequence. Tinny, vaguely bluesy music plays on a radio as Mark negotiates the hallway. The layout of the reception area looks different here than it does on the show now; instead of being a kind of island, with desks on all sides, it looks to be about half that size. Actually, the layout of the whole ER area looks different than it does now, possibly because they didn't want to go to the expense of building a great big set just for the pilot, in case the show didn't get picked up. Anyway. Doug "Confessions of a Dangerous Pout" Ross is leaning over the reception desk (such as it is), drunkenly rambling at Jerry; there's a wheelchair right behind him. Mark taps him on the shoulder. Doug turns, resting a hand on the handle of the wheelchair to steady himself, though it quickly starts to roll away from him. Mark holds Doug up as Doug asks whether he got Mark out of bed. When Mark tightly confirms that he did, Doug -- staring into space at nothing in particular as though he's blind -- opines that Mark is "a real friend" for getting out of bed to tend to him. (At this point, we also learn that this episode will include "Special Guest Star" Julianna Margulies.) Jerry tells Mark that Room Three is free, and Doug babbles, "Room Three is free! Three is free. Three for three!" Mark throws Doug's arm across Mark's shoulders and they wander off, at which time Doug decides to favour the ER with a rendition of "Danny Boy" while palming Mark's bald-ass head.

Doug and Mark stagger into Room Three, where a bad spiral permed Wendy futzes with an IV. Doug loudly tells Mark again that he appreciates Mark's ministrations, adding, "I'm a little under the weather." Mark tries to help him into bed, but Doug makes a show of feeling the bed with his palms and then climbing onto it, again behaving as though he's blind, but trying to prove that he's not incapacitated. Doug lies down and starts calling out drug orders for himself; Mark quietly tells Wendy to get him some aspirin. She takes off. Doug, chuckling, says, "So anyway, she says to me, she says, 'I didn't know that pediatricians could be so sexy.' And I said, 'Honey, you ain't seen nothin' yet.'" Mark the disgusted prig starts Doug's IV a little more aggressively than he might were he not so obviously jealous of Doug and Doug's confidence with the ladies and Doug's hair and Doug's smile and Doug's future movie career. Doug sits up a bit at the IV stick, and then tells Mark he needs a fast drip. Mark bitterly tells him to lie back and let Mark take care of it. As soon as Mark glances away, Doug is sitting bolt upright, expositorially murmuring, "How's your beautiful wife? How's Jennifer?" Mark dismissively says she's fine. "You two settle your problems?" Doug asks. Mark lies, "Yeah. Yeah. Everything's okay." Doug -- whose breath is probably a real treat right now -- leans closer and grins, "Hate to lose you in the ER, you know." Mark noncommittally tells him again to lie back. "I am!" croaks the still-sitting Doug. Then he lies back, tells Mark again how much he appreciates Mark's taking care of him, and apparently passes out. If Clooney were acting this scene opposite any other man, or woman, or mammal, it would be redolent with Ho- or HetYay! As it is, the unstoppable force of George Clooney's charisma is utterly foiled by the immovable object that is Anthony Edwards's milquetoastitude. Wendy comes back in and chirps that she has Doug's aspirin; Mark tells her to give him 2000 ccs on a fast drip. Wendy asks, "Does he always do this?" "Only on his nights off," Mark sniffs. We learn that this episode was written by Michael Crichton and directed by some nobody. Lydia wanders in; Mark tells her he's going back, and that she should wake him at 6:30. Lydia -- only a nurse, so she doesn't get the luxury of sleep -- has no response.

Back to the room in which we opened. The camera apparently hasn't moved, and Mark gets back into bed. Fortunately, the door glides shut and blocks out the light before we get another eyeful of Mark's...uh, pantsful. He moans a little. The door opens. Lydia wakes him up to ask if she can give a Mrs. Williston some Demerol. He says yes. She leaves. The door opens again. It's 6:30. Mark puts on his glasses and checks his watch. Mark, do you really think Lydia doesn't have anything better to do than fuck with you? Just get up.

The ER -- which was mostly dead at 5 AM -- is now bustling with activity: ringing phones, doctors and orderlies with charts, announcements on the PA, yada. Susan "Forbidden Fruit" Lewis strides past the camera toward Reception, greeting some dreadlocked dude she calls Timmy but who I totally don't recognize. The actor playing him must be the nobody director's cousin or something, because they waste a precious five seconds of screen time making him call Susan back and hand her a chart. What? Whatever.

Peter "The Stranger" Benton comes in the ambulance-bay doors (I guess? Like I said, everything looks different) just as a bundled-up Jerry heads out. Jerry greets him, and Benton warmly replies, "Hey, Jerry." What? Benton? Warm? Who? And he's GRINNING as he walks in. Obviously they hadn't yet decided to make Benton kind of a prick. As he walks in, we hear typical "action news!"-type music from the TV, and then an anchorman's voice narrating some exposition about a construction accident in the Loop. Behind Benton, that dude Timmy is on the phone at the desk, finding out how many casualties there were and when County should expect them. The anchorman says there were twelve injured and at least two dead. Benton turns away from the TV and heads for the desk. Timmy hangs up just as Carol "Suicide Brunette" Hathaway rolls up, looking about twelve years old; she's unfortunately clad in those baby-pink scrubs the nurses wore in the first season, underneath which she's also wearing one of those t-shirts with the polo collar but no button placket that just look pointless and stupid. I mean, the point of a polo shirt is that you can wear the buttons done up or undone, right? So the collar on the t-shirt without the buttons is...god, this beeyotch is eighty-eight minutes long and I'm writing about Carol's stupid t-shirt. Anyway, Benton ALSO greets Timmy very warmly; Timmy returns the greeting before turning to Carol and telling her to notify Trauma about the accident. Of the twelve injured, apparently seven are critical. Carol gets on the phone as Benton picks up a chart and wanders off, commenting, "It's a good day for us surgeons." So, he's already really ambitious -- just not a bastard yet. FYI.

Elsewhere, Mark is giving orders about Mrs. Williston, among others, to some guy. The guy looks very nervous, and keen, and is writing down Mark's orders in an itty bitty little notebook. Mark also tells Dr. Whatever to roust Doug from Room Three. Mark is about to move on to instructions about the patient in Nine when Benton rounds the corner. We can faintly hear sirens outside as Mark asks Benton, "Do you know what this is all about?" Benton, on his way to the elevators, tells Mark about the collapsed building, adding, "They're sending over a dozen hot ones." Mark asks who's on. "Just us," Benton replies. Mark pauses a moment, and then turns to Dr. Whatever and -- just as the Impending Trauma music starts to thrum on the soundtrack -- smoothly starts again: "Okay! Forget all that. Call Susan Lewis. Call the seventh and eighth floor -- tell them we need anybody they can spare. Why don't you do that now?" Mark cockishly hands poor Dr. Whatever the phone, and continues on his way.

At the totally different ambulance bay doors, two paramedics (neither of whom we've seen before) wheel in the first casualty. Timmy directs them to take the patient to Trauma Two; Carol, chart in hand, walks along beside the bed, asking the patient's name. Another victim comes in right afterward, and Timmy directs them to Room Three.

In the aforesaid Room Three, Doug wakes up.

Out in the hall, we get a dose of GurneyCam, as we roll along just behind the third victim's head on the way to Surgical One. (What? "Surgical"? What happened to Trauma, Exam, Curtain, and Suture? Oh, whatever.) Wendy asks GurneyCam's name; he tells her it's Edward Wilson. She asks his address, and he starts to give it but apparently loses consciousness in the process. Way to go, Wendy.

Benton and various anonymous others are waiting in Surgical One -- which looks like a trauma room, in case you were wondering. Paramedics and some gowned nobody hoist Mr. Wilson onto the bed and go to work. Mr. Wilson's eyes are open now, so I guess he didn't lose consciousness after all. Benton distractedly asks the patient, "How you doing, sir?" like, what's he going to say? "My day was going pretty well until, you know, that BUILDING FELL ON ME"? Benton half-assedly assures Mr. Wilson that he'll be fine. The camera swirls around all the action in the soon-to-be-trademark manner. Benton makes a crack about having to cut up Mr. Wilson's suit. Basically, Benton acts like a cowboy, all, "Call Orthopedic; tell them to come down here now -- this is their lucky day." Um, Peter? The patient is still conscious, so maybe you shouldn't be saying that he's in such bad shape he's going to thrill ORTHOPEDIC SURGEONS, okay? Benton, I guess, remembers that the broken body still has a person in it, so he tells Mr. Wilson, "Your hand is still attached -- not by much, but it's going to be okay." Mr. Wilson sort of squints and rolls his head back and forth, emoting as much as one can when one is in a neck collar after having had a building fall on one. Benton orders some tests, and then asks Mr. Wilson whether he can feel anything in his almost-severed hand. Mr. Wilson says that he can't. Benton promises that they will save his hand. Boy, I hope that cowboy surgeon isn't writing cheques his butt can't cash.

Back out in the general reception area, trauma cases are still rolling in. A team of anonymous personnel is using the paddles to shock some shirtless fat guy. Pan over to Mark, who is asking his patient -- a Mr. Jackson, whose shirt is open, exposing a big smear of blood on the left lower quadrant of his torso -- where it hurts. With some difficulty, Mr. Jackson says his chest hurts. Mark eventually determines that it hurts when Mr. Jackson inhales, but that he hasn't been coughing up blood. Mark is about to listen to Mr. Jackson's lungs when suddenly Susan appears, and she and Mark share A Look. What?

Presently, a paramedic calls Susan's attention away before she and Mark can start making out or something, and she (I guess) follows another patient somewhere. We pan over to...somewhere else, where Doug and Haleh are working on an old lady. Haleh is wearing an Anita Van Buren-looking wig instead of her usual short, neat Afro. Neither the old lady's head nor her neck hurts. Doug slides his hand under the patient's head and gently starts to sit her up, instructing her, "Now, what I want you to do --" Unfortunately, he can't complete the sentence because she pukes blood all over him. Doug isn't fazed in the slightest, and slowly lowers her back down, saying she should tell him if it hurts when she breathes. A very young-looking Haleh says she can't get the patient's blood pressure. Doug reels off a bunch of orders, concluding, "Get Dr. Benton in here. This is no place for a pediatrician."

Did someone say Benton? Oh, there he is, still in Surgical One, jargoning about Mr. Wilson to a bunch of people I assume are the orthopedic and vascular surgeons he'd called for before. The guy who seems to be in charge is a bald, bearded dude, and he sends Mr. Wilson upstairs for surgery. Benton asks whether Dr. Bald-Bearded can save the hand. Dr. Bald-Bearded says he thinks he can. Benton cocks, "Good. I told him you could, so he's counting on you." Dr. Bald-Bearded may be an excellent surgeon, but his talents do not lie in delivering clumsy dialogue; we learn this as he declaims, "Peter, you're a smart-ass. You'd love to do this case yourself, wouldn't you?" Benton declares, "Yeah. I'm ready, I'm strong -- yeah, I could do it." Without the slightest affect, Dr. Bald-Bearded replies, "You're a resident, Peter. You're years from a case like this." Benton's face falls. Dr. Bald-Bearded turns on his heel, leaving his thespianic career behind forever, I hope.

Susan, assisted by Wendy, examines Jeff Barr, a young dude in a green and black flannel and a quilted vest. In the course of the neurological exam, he tells Susan he's in "Cook County General," which the hospital rarely gets called in the course of the show. He also exposits that it's St. Patrick's Day. Susan checks his nose and neck and says he's fine; we can see he has a few small scratches on his face. Susan tells Wendy to get a facial x-ray for him. As Susan shines a light in Mr. Barr's eyes, he smooths, "You're beautiful, Doc." "Thank you," Susan replies flatly. "You married?" he asks. "No, I'm a doctor," she says. He starts to proposition her, but she grabs his chin and shines the light in his mouth before he can humiliate himself further. She kindly tells him, "Take it easy, Mr. Barr; you wouldn't want to fall on your face twice in one day."

Benton examines Old Lady Blood Puker. He appreciates some pain in her abdomen and tells someone to call the OR, though he doesn't say what might be wrong with her. She starts to crash. Oh, man, Malik looks like a fetus. They shock her.

Susan walks into an exam room, where two cops stand by the bed of a patient writhing in pain. Susan asks where the paramedics are. Getting no answer, she tells the cops to help her get the patient's clothes off. The cops exchange a "whatever" look. Susan's like, "Seriously, get his clothes off." The guy begs, "Give me something! I can't stand it!" Susan gently tells him she'll give him something for the pain and tells him to hold on. Carol hurries in, and Susan quietly tells her, "Notify the orthopods we have an open fracture." I love that word, "orthopod." It sounds like something astronauts would probe. Carol takes off again, Susan calling drug orders after her. Susan asks Open Fracture whether it hurts anywhere else. "My knee," he sobs. Doug appears in the doorway, offering to help; Susan tells Doug to check OF's knee.

Then there's a scene that exists for no reason except to show us that Benton is willing to keep working on Old Lady Blood Puker even though she seems like a hopeless case, and even though there are other patients stacked up waiting for his attention. Also, it sounds like Benton pronounces Haleh's name "HAIL-uh" at one point, but I could very well have heard that wrong. Anyway, Benton's a hero, I guess.

At the ambulance bay, Timmy's still directly traffic. He returns to the desk, where Carol hands him a chart and says, "Call Pathology: we've got a customer who isn't going to be charged services. The name's Canelli."

In chairs -- which looks so different that at first I think they're in a totally different building -- Mark calls out for relatives of Robert Canelli. A dude in the foreground of the shot puts up his hand and tells Mark he's Canelli's son. Anxiously, he starts to ask after his father, and Mark rather brusquely says, "Your father was in an accident today, Mr. Canelli -- you know that?" Canelli Jr. says he knows. Mark puts a hand on Canelli Jr.'s arm and tries to lead him somewhere more private, but Canelli Jr. doesn't want to wait: "No, just tell me. He's here, right? Just tell me!" Mark lowers his voice and, more gently, says, "Your father had a heart attack, and we were unable to revive him. I'm sorry." Mark goes to lay a comforting hand on Canelli Jr.'s shoulder, but Canelli Jr. angrily slaps it away, yelling, "Bastards! You bastards!" They scuffle a little until Canelli Jr. slams Mark into a vending machine. "You're sorry!" Canelli Jr. spits, and then starts sobbing. Mark puts a hand on the back of Canelli Jr.'s neck and steers him through the crowd.

Open Fracture is wheeled toward Surgery. Susan goes with the bed, leaving Doug and Carol loitering in the hall. "Any others?" Doug asks. Carol says, "No, that's it." Mark is around the corner, overhears, and repeats, "That's it?" "Yeah -- last two were DOA," Carol confirms, walking past him. "Well. That's it," Mark muses. He and Doug lean against opposite walls, waiting for a commercial break that never comes.

Lounge. Mark and Susan futz with files on either side of a desk while Benton reclines on the couch, reading a chart. Mark idly asks what happened to Doug; Benton smirks that he went to change, because someone threw up on him -- "that lady." Susan asks whether Benton is referring to the "lady" who "arrested" (though I would argue that anyone who would barf on Doug is no lady), and Benton confirms that it was she. Susan asks whether the puker pulled through; Benton, amid some jargon, says she did. Mark asks about the guy whose hand was almost cut off; Benton says that poor bastard's still in surgery. Benton abruptly gets up, strolls across the lounge, and asks if anyone wants a cup of coffee. Seriously: he offers coffee to people other than himself. I know you think that's a typo, but it isn't. Susan takes Benton up on his offer, and he asks how she takes her coffee. Susan dryly replies, "Same as yesterday, and the day before that." "And they call me a smart-ass," Benton shoots back. Uh. They do? NO THEY DON'T. Cheery Benton is still freaking me out, I have to say. Arriving at the coffee machine, Benton yelps, "Oh, dammit! The nurses have been in here raiding the coffee again. Why don't they just make their own?" He snaps that he's going to go talk to the nurses about their coffee-pilfering, and makes to leave, but Mark and Susan tell him, in unison, "Never mind." Benton regards them both a little suspiciously, but acquiesces, returning to the couch. Mark asks the room at large whether they aren't supposed to be getting some new students today, and Susan says she thinks so, and that she hopes they're good; the last two, apparently, sucked.

Carol marches into the lounge with a huge stack of charts, which she sets rather noisily on Mark and Susan's desk. Mark and Susan both start at her appearance, though it's not clear whether it's because of the way she slammed the charts on the desk, or because they're bracing themselves for Benton to tell her some shit about the coffee. Carol moves over to another table but, sensing the vibe in the room, innocently asks, "Something wrong?" Benton smarms, "Oh, you bet there is. We're out of coffee again because the nurses have been taking it: that's what's wrong." "Make some more," Carol shrugs. Oh, here we go, with the ExpoBenton: "'Make some more'? We work thirty-six hours on, eighteen off, which is ninety hours a week, fifty-two weeks a year. For that, we are paid $23,739 before taxes, and we also have to make the coffee?" Carol flippantly tells Benton, "My heart is breaking," and takes off. Benton: "Where are the filters?" Heh. Mark tells him they're in the fridge. I don't know. Just then, a voice comes on the intercom, informing Mark that his Vulcan wife is waiting for him in the cafeteria, which seems like kind of an abuse of hospital resources. Why can't Jen just come to the lounge and get him herself? Mark looks at his watch in surprise and then starts bumbling to collect himself, looking generally anxious. Susan looks mildly amused by his manner, and Mark tells her, before she can ask, "Everything's fine." Sure. Everything's always fine where Jen is concerned. Susan watches him go, looking...whatever.

Twenty minutes of shoe leather as Mark makes his way to the cafeteria.

Waiting in the cafeteria are Vulcan Jen and Original Rachel, who looks like a little tiny baby. Jen looks harried, Rachel looks neglected -- business as usual, in other words. Mark passive-aggressively disparages Jen's choice of breakfast for Rachel (grilled cheese sandwich -- and what's the problem with that? Shut up, Mark), and Jen passive-aggressively informs Mark that he's late. Mark starts making excuses about the trauma that came in, and ExpoRachel interrupts to tell Mark that Jen is reading about "tarts." Yeah right. If she were, that might make her a tiny bit interesting -- well, if they were "tarts" in the "and vicars" sense. "Torts," ExpoJen smilingly corrects her, before asking whether Mark is getting any sleep. Mark lies that he's okay. Jen tells him he looks tired; Rachel agrees. Mark takes the rest of her sandwich. Damn, that looks good. Jen exposits some more, to the effect that Dr. Harris's office called to confirm Mark's meeting. Around a mouthful of sandwich, Mark regretfully says, "Oh, geez. That's today." "You can still go, right?" Jen asks, looking like she's preparing to be pissed off. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess," Mark replies, unconvincingly. "You're not going to forget, or get too busy?" Jen needles. Yes, maybe he'll "forget" so much that he'll "accidentally" make an appointment with a lawyer to start the process of divorcing his annoying, naggy-ass wife instead. Mark curtly tells Jen he'll go. Jen grins. Mark asks what's so funny. Jen crabs, "You know you're gonna hate it." Then why are you making him go, and grinning about it? You both suck. Mark says maybe he won't hate it: "At least there, the patients don't throw up on you." Rachel is cutely aghast that anyone threw up. Jen sighs expositorially, "It's just that, between your hours and my studying, I feel like we never get to see each other anymore." Yeah, and your constant nagging and generally unpleasant personality has nothing to do with that, T'Jen. Mark, reassuringly: "I'll go meet Harris today, okay?" Jen, kittenishly: "I just hope you like it."

Back in the ER, Benton disgustedly gestures at something down the hall and groans, "Oh, would you look at this?" In the shot from the opening credits, Mark leans and rolls back away from the desk in the hall, following Benton's gaze. Whereupon we get our first-ever view of John "Baby Doc" Carter, looking about fourteen years old; he's standing by the desk, looking all dapper, idly wagging a clipboard up and down. Susan and Doug roll up and join the staring as Mark comments, "That's the first tailored white coat I've ever seen." "Isn't he lovely," Benton snarks. "Lovely," Susan agrees, slightly less sarcastically. As we watch Carter further spazzing near the Admit desk, Mark wonders, "Think he knows anything?" "He knows how to dress" is Doug's vote of confidence. "Well, he's my student," says Benton. "I'll find out." Aw, how true that is.

Benton ambles over to the desk and asks, "John Carter?" "Yes, sir," Carter squeaks, as they shake. The two co-exposit that Carter is a third-year surgical student. Benton briskly starts giving Carter a tour of the ER: desk, lab, back out in the hall. Benton winds down his bafflingly fast ER 101 lecture by asking whether Carter knows how to start an IV. He does not. This pulls Benton up short: "I thought you were third year." Carter says he is, but that all he's done so far are dermatology and psychiatry. Benton dismissively observes, "The well-dressed specialties, huh? Well, you'll find that surgeons actually try to help people, not just bill them." I think they actually do a bit of both, but whatever. Benton starts giving Carter a crash course in IV-starting. Carter hasn't had a chance to take this in yet when Benton spots Carol coming down the hall and introduces her to Carter. She says "hi" pleasantly enough and continues on her way, as Carter gazes after her adoringly. Benton murmurs, "She's terrific, isn't she. She goes with an orthopod that used to be a Big Ten tackle and looks like King Kong." I'm no Tag fan, but "King Kong"? Not really. Benton winds up the IV lesson. Carter pretends he totally took it all in. The tour resumes: "All along here, you have the medical examining rooms. This is where the pill-pushers kill their victims. But this...this is the surgical room." They enter what -- again -- looks like what we now call a trauma room. Both stand and gaze at the room; Carter looks like he may have had to catch his breath a little when confronted with it for the first time. But the moment doesn't last long; Benton shows Carter the phone they use to call the OR, tells him about the idiots who work in X-Ray, etc. They come back out into the hall and run into Dr. Morgenstern, of whom Benton warns, "He's the head of ER. Watch out: he eats students for lunch." Aw -- the idea that William H. Macy could be a hard-ass is sort of cute. Morgenstern greets Carter and asks Benton about the severed-hand guy. Morgenstern then turns to Carter and informs him, "Dr. Benton is one of the best residents we have. You learn everything you can from him -- except attitude." Oh, no need to worry about that; it's clear these days that Carter's learned his "attitude" from Mark. And, that whatever "attitude" Benton evinced here wasn't memorable enough for Eriq LaSalle to keep acting that way for the rest of the series. "He didn't mean that," Benton mutters to Carter. "Oh yes he did," Morgenstern calls from offscreen. Back to the tour of all the parts of the ER that no longer look the way they do now, including the suture room. Carter, of course, doesn't know how to suture, either. Benton asks a passing Haleh whether there's anyone waiting to be sewn up. "How the hell would I know?" Haleh snaps, failing even to slow her pace. Benton tosses off some sarcasm about the "great spirit of camaraderie" in the ER, because, as we all know, if there's one thing Benton is known for, it's being a team player.

Benton enters the suture room, trailed by Carter, and introduces them both to the patient waiting there who cut her palm breaking a dish. Benton starts to assess the wound, asking Cut Hand whether she can feel his touch (yes, and ow) and move her fingers ("It's just a cut!" she snaps). Before he can get any further, Wendy opens the door to tell Benton a cop is coming in with a gunshot wound. Benton tells her where to put the cop, and that he'll be there shortly. Benton takes a tray of instruments and briefs Carter: "Now, here's all your stuff. Ask the patient if she's allergic to locals or any drugs. This is lidocaine, but call it 'novocaine' -- they've heard of that." Meanwhile, he's been delivering this entire speech at full volume, about five feet away from Cut Hand, who doesn't hear, because she has that convenient TV Contrivance Deafness. Benton returns to his seat in front of Cut Hand and asks her whether she's allergic to novocaine. Irritably, she informs him, "My teeth are okay." Hee. Benton tells Carter what to do with the wound, concluding, "You have to put on surgical gloves by yourself. You know how to do that, don't you?" Carter shakes his head as he writes on his clipboard, but it sort of looks like he's just saying no to every question Benton asks about his competence, because (a) they're gloves -- whatever, and (b) wouldn't he have had to wear gloves on his dermatology rotation? Benton masks his disgust by grinning at Cut Hand.

Out in the hall, George Clooney grins and looks gorgeous. A passing anonymous nurse hands him a cup of coffee, for which he beamingly thanks her. I think I would give him a cup of my kidney if it meant I'd be on the receiving end of that smile. Damn. Doug runs into his student -- an attractive brunette named Tracy Young -- and introduces himself, telling her, "For the few days, we're going to be working very closely together." She keeps glancing downward -- as if he had forgotten (or "forgotten") to put his pants on -- as she replies, "Well, not that closely, Dr. Ross, but I'll do my best to help you out. So! If you tell me what to do, I'd like to get started." His smile barely faltering, Doug tells Tracy he was just trying to be friendly. "I've got all the friends I need, thanks!" Tracy snips. "Shall we get started?" Doug, slightly deflated, steers her down the hall. So, since we've established that she's immune to Doug's charms, I guess Tracy's Very Special storyline will be that she's either blind, or gay.

Suture room. Benton works and teaches, and Carter looks a little nauseated. Wendy pops back in to say the cop has arrived, and Benton hands Carter the instruments and takes off, telling Carter to finish. Cut Hand and Carter look equally freaked out by this development. Carter swallows hard, leans toward Cut Hand's cut hand, unconvincingly assuring her, "This isn't going to hurt at all." Hee.

Elsewhere. As Doug looks on, Tracy asks a sullen-looking kid named Billy what happened. Billy's mother tells her that the school sent him home, saying that he vomited blood. Tracy takes this in, and asks Billy to tell her how it happened. Billy makes no move to answer, but no matter, since Mrs. Billy is on the case: "He's a very high-strung child, always has been. Very tense, very nervous." Tracy suggests that Mrs. Logan (formerly "Mrs. Billy") wait outside while Tracy examines Billy. "Why?" snaps Mrs. Logan. "It's just a procedure," Tracy says calmly but firmly. Mrs. Logan protests, "Well, I think I should be here. I'm worried about Billy -- he needs me!" "Please wait outside," Tracy insists, a little more testily. Mrs. Logan gets even more pissed off and starts getting all "I don't know who you think you are" on Tracy, whereupon Doug steps forward and wheedles, "You're absolutely right. You love your son. And you want to see him treated as soon as possible. So it's best if you have a seat outside here, and we'll be right with you." He ushers Mrs. Logan out. Billy clutches himself. Doug does the classic Ross Lean-In/Husky Talk™, asking Billy whether he did vomit blood. Indeed, he did. Doug asks whether Billy has any pain. Billy nods. Doug asks him to point to the pain, and Billy -- as his mother looks on through the glass -- points to his torso. Doug establishes that Billy has vomited blood before, many times. Doug sort of chucks Billy on the head and makes a little growly noise, and then both he and Tracy turn away from Billy -- so they're facing Mrs. Logan, who is still outside the room, staring through the window -- as Doug comments, "First eight-year-old ulcer patient I've seen." From Mrs. Logan's side of the glass, we see Tracy's judgmental stare.

Suture Room. Carter whistles as he continues working on Cut Hand. Benton pokes his head in: "You still here? What do you think you're doing, the Sistine Chapel? Finish her up, start an IV in Room Two. Bye, ma'am!" He leaves. Carter gets up and asks the nurse to bandage Cut Hand for him. Sounding pleasantly surprised, Cut Hand (whose cut hand is hidden under a white drape, so we can't see Carter's...uh, handiwork) thanks him, and asks when she needs to come back to get her stitches out. Carter pulls the figure of "three weeks" out of his ass. Cut Hand says that when her son had stitches in his foot, they told him to have them out ten days later. Carter bluffs, "Really? Well, ten days, three weeks -- any time in there."

Lab. Susan works. Then she leaves the room. I don't know.

Desk. Susan rolls up and calls a drug order to Carol. Wendy asks Carol a drug question. Haleh, ditto. Malik asks, on Doug's behalf, something about a PKU card. Carol jargons, "Tell him no; he's going to have to try and get a blue top from the baby." As she looks in a cupboard, Doug saunters up and asks, "Carol, are you sure that you don't have a PKU card tucked away in that special stash of yours?" Carol -- vulnerable, as are we all, to the Clooney charm (except Tracy, poor blind thing) -- smiles, opens a drawer, and pulls out a piece of the paperwork Doug was apparently clamoring for. "I can always count on you," Doug grins, "even if you do prefer football players." "You had your chance," Carol flirts. "I was young! I was a fool!" Doug defends himself. "You're still a fool," Carol replies. "Do you happen to know what is the worst-paying medical specialty?" Doug muses. "Pediatrics?" Carol guesses. "You were right the first time," Doug smirks. Carol and her enormous eyebrows are dismayed. As Carol and Doug stare at each other, wondering What Might Have Been, Haleh barks at her about lasix, and Doug wanders off. Carol glances around shiftily for about ten minutes. CUT.

Carter approaches a glass door and stares through it, screwing up his courage, before opening it and walking through, heartily introducing himself, and asking the begowned patient on the bed what seems to be the problem. The patient -- who is played by Troy "Frank" Evans -- has his right leg stuck out in front of him, and grouses, "What's it look like? I shot myself in the freakin' leg." Carter promises that he'll have Frank all fixed up in no time. Frank grumps, "Yeah, you guys keep saying that." Carter says that, first, they need to start an IV. Frank tells him to make it fast. Carter plays with the IV, squirting Frank in the face with whatever liquid the IV is supposed to be dispensing, and then gets down to business as Frank mutters, "I'll tell you, I wanted to belt her right in the mouth -- I really did." Carter's all, "Uh huh," not paying attention to the rollicking tale of Frank's propensity for domestic abuse. "Then I go and shoot myself in the leg!" Frank marvels. "Well, these things happen," Carter agrees, sort of. Frank guesses that Carter sees "a lot of stuff" working in the ER. Carter plays it off like he's seen it all, and then ties a tourniquet roughly around Frank's upper arm. Frank winces, and Carter apologizes absently. Frank suddenly exclaims, "Look, Doc -- you don't mind my asking, have you done this before?" Carter evasively replies, "Officer, I'd hate to tell you how often I've done this before." Frank is unconvinced. Carter tells him, "You're going to feel a little needle..." "ARGH!" Frank screams, right on cue. Carter feebly chuckles, "Come on, that wasn't that bad!" Frank begs to differ. Carter says he missed the vein and needs to try again. As Carter works, Frank continues offering TMI about his home life: "My wife is not that bad. We don't argue that much. Just once in a while. In this case, it's lucky I didn't kill her, right?" Carter sighs that he missed again and needs to try it one more time, adding, "You have very tough veins." Frank declares, "My wife is a very beautiful woman. I'm not proud of beating up any woman -- even when she's asking for it -- it's just, sometimes...I mean, this case, it's lucky I didn't throw her through the wall, right? Break her neck!" Frank punctuates his speech by clenching the fist of the arm Carter isn't working on, and Carter gasps that he's got it, and orders Frank not to move. Frank complies, looking like he's not even breathing. Carter steps back and congratulates himself, "There you go, Officer! You've got yourself an IV! And everything's going to be fine now!" Frank, still immobile, and icily patient: "Can I move now?" Carter tells him to go ahead, move around (and flaps his arms rather humorously to illustrate the range of motion Frank should feel free to exercise). Carter adds that there isn't any more he can do for Frank, but that personnel will be by soon to take him to X-Ray, and then to surgery. "Surgery?!" Frank demands. Carter tells him not to worry: "The worst is over."

Damn this tape and its no commercials! Mark, assisted by Carol, examines Al's eyes, asking him whether whatever he's experienced started when he got up; Al says that it started when he got out of bed. What, you don't remember Al? Well, he'll be back in a few years to teach Mark something about life, just in time for Mark to die. I wish that were his purpose today. Al is no longer seeing double, and correctly counts the three fingers Mark holds up to test him. Al has never had any problems with his eyes before. He had no other symptoms when he was seeing double --no headache, bad balance, funny taste in his mouth, flashing spots, nor weakness in his arms or legs. Mark -- in his crossed-arms "dispensing tough love" pose -- tells Al that he could call a neurologist to examine him, but that it would cost Al another $200 to do so. Al looks stricken at this figure. Mark adds that if Al is experiencing no symptoms now, he might as well just leave well enough alone, and return if he experiences any double vision in the future. Without waiting long enough to allow Al to respond, Mark and Carol start to take off to their patient. Once their backs are turned, Al says, not loudly but very clearly and firmly, "You're just saying that because I'm black." Mark and Carol turn back, and Mark replies that he's just trying to save Al money, knowing that Al doesn't have insurance. Al will not be moved: "You wouldn't talk like this if I wasn't black. You're Jewish, right?" Without responding, Mark tightly tells Carol, "Call a Neuro consult for Mr. Ervin -- cc transient diplopia -- and bill him." Carol fails to meet Al's eye. Al looks like he's a little sorry he had to play the race card, but not really.

It wouldn't be a show about an ER if there weren't a pregnant woman in a cab -- and here she is now! Her cabbie tears inside and trots up to the desk to alert everyone of the presence of his pregnant passenger. Timmy tells Cabbie to take her up to OB. Cabbie protests. Mark takes this opportunity to bury A Hero's Hands halfway up a woman's reproductive tract, and heads for the cab, collaring Carter to come with him.

Cut to Screaming Pregnant Woman, outside in the cab. "When did it start snowing?" Carter wonders. When the director realized it would be more dramatic and tense if she was having a baby in a cloud of potato flakes? I'm guessing. Mark helps Cab Mom onto a gurney.

Carter gets a nice, clear view straight up Cab Mom as they wheel her in. Mark tells Carter to hold the baby's head in, since they don't want Cab Mom to deliver in the hallway. Carter's like, "Dude, you have got to be shitting me." Mark insists, "Put your hand between her legs and hold the head in." Carter complies, trying not to lose his shit. Mark calls out a bunch of orders. Carter continues holding the head in. Haleh wanders in and, noting the flakes in Carter's hair, idly asks, "Is it snowing out there?" As he scrubs, Mark tells Carter to continue holding the head in, and then Mark will take over and Carter can scrub. Haleh offers to gown Mark, but he declines: "I don't think I'm going to have time. I'm going to have to catch this one any way I can." Doug strolls in at this point, agreeing, "No kidding!" He rather condescendingly calls Cab Mom "dear" -- though I am fairly sure she is older than he -- and tells her to blow through the pain. Doug also comments on the snow, and Carter's like, "YES, snowing, and maybe you didn't notice I just snagged my watch on this woman's spleen, hello!" Cab Mom moans. Haleh comforts her. Mark shoves Carter aside and takes over. She pushes. You know how it is. Suddenly, Susan is there too. How many doctors does it take to deliver a baby, geez? On her second push, Cab Mom expels a boy. Everyone smiles, because it's nice when babies are born, even when they're all gooey and gross. Cab Mom sinks back down, beaming. Doug and a nurse clean off Cab Baby as Carter looks on, rapt. Benton appears to kill the joy, as is his wont: "Carter. You have three suture cases waiting for you. You are not on the medical services. These people don't need your help; they can botch things up on their own." Carter nods, and reluctantly leaves with Benton.

A dude -- whose name I should probably know, since he's in later episodes, but I don't -- dryly narrates, into a dictaphone, his assessment of an x-ray of Jonathan Martin's leg for an impatient-looking Benton. I think they're talking about Frank since, when Dr. X-Ray gets to the part about a "radiolucent density" lodged in the patient's leg, Benton loses it and explodes, "A bullet! A bullet is what it's called." Dr. X-Ray remains unflappable and continues his narration, winding up, "Impression: foreign body in the right lower extremity, consistent with possible bullet." He turns off the dictaphone and Benton grabs the x-rays and runs away.

A heart monitor makes the flatline noise as Susan pulls a sheet over some old dead guy. Mark glances over his shoulder to her and they share one of their annoying "meaningful" looks before Mark turns back to his own patient -- a young, very red-faced man -- and asks whether he's feeling any pain in his back; he isn't. Mark tells him he's got a fractured ankle, but is otherwise fine. Fractured Ankle doesn't seem to care and demands, "What's the story, Doc? Do I get worker's comp?" Mark judges him silently for a second and then snits, "The story? The story is you're still alive." Fractured Ankle starts to whatever about his bills before happening to look over at Susan's dead patient, the sight of whom seems to shut him up. Well, it's a good thing that old man we didn't see at all meant something to someone.

Doug (assisted by Haleh) peers in the ear of a crying baby, and diagnoses "otitis media" -- standard ear infection. He calls an order for antibiotics over the baby's screams -- grinning winningly all the while -- and takes off. Earache's mother observes to Haleh, "He's very handsome." So, Mrs. Earache doesn't need a trip to the optometrist, then. "He knows it," drawls Haleh. Heh.

Mark barks at a lab tech on the phone, about his patient Rebecca Morton. As he abuses the unfortunate lab tech who picked up the phone, Wendy appears behind him, wheeling a bed containing a patient with chest pains and "question AMI." The scene ends with more phone abuse that's not inventive enough to warrant my transcribing it and exists, I assume, to show us how dedicated Mark is to his patients' care. Or, that he's an asshole. Or maybe both.

Carter pokes his head into a room where Benton is examining the belly of an extra who clearly works out, like, a lot. Carter gives Benton an update on some case or other and asks what he should do . Benton laconically tells him to go to lunch. Carter says he's fine and will continue working at whatever Benton assigns to him, and Benton (turning, over the course of this very episode, into the huffy dickhead we will come to know and...recognize) huffs out into the hall and tells Carter, "Don't be a hero. If I tell you to go to lunch, you go. It's a long time before dinner, and you may be too busy then to stop and eat, okay? You never know how long it's going to be until your meal, so whenever you can, you eat. Now. Get the hell out of here. And don't take more than half an hour." Carter silently complies and takes off. Mmm, lunch.

In the totally weird-looking Chairs area, Mark rolls up with a chart, barely paying attention, and asks an older woman, "What seems to be the problem, Mrs. O'Rourke?" The woman tells him she isn't Mrs. O'Rourke, so Mark starts bellowing at the entire room, asking whether there's a Mrs. O'Rourke there. No one responds. Um. Seriously, I don't know.

Elsewhere, Tracy comes through a set of doors just in time to hear a kid yelling in Spanish. She runs toward the sound and finds a whole passel of personnel working on a thrashing patient in Trauma Yellow. Susan, in a bloody yellow gown, breaks away from the pack and heads to the hall past Tracy, calling for someone named Tyrone. Tracy asks what the deal is, and Susan says the patient is a crack dealer who took five shots from an Uzi. Tracy gasps that the patient is just a kid, and Susan curtly confirms that he's thirteen. Tyrone enters to help hold Five Shots down while the doctors work on him. Haleh yells at Tracy to call Security. Tracy asks why and Haleh explains, "I think the other gang members may come and try to finish him off." See, she needs to have that explained to her both because it's her first day, and because this is our first episode and we, the viewers at home, haven't already seen a gang member get shot in his or her hospital bed eight billion times. Tracy hits the phone as Benton marches into the fray.

At the desk, Timmy hands Carol a chart and tells her to tell the surgeons that the victim of a motorcycle accident is coming in; the victim wasn't wearing a helmet. Carol saves time later by making her disgusted noises now. As she walks on, she passes Mark, who is standing in front of the desk in a sport jacket, tie, and chinos. Mark faux-casually over-explains that he's "going across the street" for a minute because he promised Jen he'd go to some appointment. Timmy's like, "Whatever, dude." Mark asks him to ask Susan to cover for him. Timmy seriously doesn't care. Mark leaves. As he walks out, Mark crosses through Chairs and glances around thoughtfully at all the evidence of human misery bustling around.

Cut to...exactly the kind of hoity-toity medical office you could have easily pictured after Jen opined that Mark would hate it. Mark steps off the elevator and walks past a woman in a fur coat, like, we got that it was fancy from the marble floor; give us a break already. The office is very orderly and well-appointed and staffed with attractive, polished people. It's a contrast with the County ER, GET IT?! Mark rolls up to the reception desk and says he has an appointment with Dr. Harris.

Some time later, Dr. Harris is pontificating at an uncomfortable-looking Mark -- something to the effect that people want to provide for their families, implying that if Mark wants to keep his family in the style to which they haven't become accustomed yet but probably should, Mark should ditch County and take up with Harris's practice. Harris leads Mark in to the glass-doored, weirdly '80s-looking but fancy office that's empty, waiting for the associate who will occupy it. See, Mark doesn't even have an office at County, RIGHT?! Harris starts outlining the associate's tasks as though Mark had already accepted the job: as the most junior doctor in the practice, Mark would have to be on call nights and weekends; his compensation would start at $120,000 per year plus bonuses. The medical group has condos in Jamaica and Aspen; however, Mark -- being a big, gangly doofus -- doesn't ski. Harris tells Mark that Morgenstern has told him that Mark is "the sharpest guy the ER has ever had." Geez, poor ER. Harris adds, "The ER is a young man's game. You think you're doing good, but there's a lot to life, especially this one. And we find the practice intellectually challenging, so we send our physicians to all the major conferences. Last year: Maui, Paris, Rome. We're proud to practice the best possible medicine we can here." "Sounds great," Mark sniffs, all superior because his job isn't cushy and shit. Harris comments on the schmancy décor. Mark smiles tightly. Harris checks his watch and asks whether Mark has time for lunch: "We can go to the Crown Club; they have a great porcini pasta -- no oil!" Mark says he has to get back to his squalid garret of a hospital. Harris calls for a receptionist to bring Mark his coat, and concludes by telling Mark that they'd "really love to have" him. Mark thanks him. Shut up, Mark. As Harris ushers a well-dressed female patient down the hall, yammering about some museum benefit, Mark shrugs on his coat and shambles off, because he's meant to practise medicine for the people, not these rich jerks with all their pretty awesome-sounding perks. Mark, you are an idiot.

Back at County, Carol leaves Trauma Yellow and smiles at Benton, "Cheer up, Doctor -- it's only three o'clock." Banter. It's not funny. Moving on.

Doug looks out the ambulance-bay doors and asks, of no one in particular, "When did it start raining?" No one answers. NB: The weather in Chicago is changeable.

Mark is sitting at a table in the lounge, staring stupidly into space, when Doug enters, flapping his arms, and announcing, "It's raining!" Mark, snapping out of his trance, tells him it's been raining for an hour, and asks how Doug's new student is. Doug smirks that she's "very capable" and "tough." Mark sniffs knowingly. Doug says he heard that Mark went to Harris's, and asks whether Harris offered Mark a job. Mark says he did, and guesses, "I think I'd have to go to a lot of charity balls." "There are worse things," Doug observes, astutely. Mark agrees, "I guess. Must be." Doug changes the subject: "By the way, what's this I hear about you and that tech up on Surgical Four?" "I'm a married man," Mark non-answers. He does not add that he looks like the offspring of a penis and a baby chick, and thus is repellent to people of both sexes. Whether he says it or not, that is, in fact, the case. "So?" chuckles Doug. "So, whatever you heard is not true," Mark prisses. Doug: "I heard that she was seriously cute, but you are faithful to your wife -- is that what you're telling me?" Mark confirms the statement. Doug asks, "Now, why would you do something like that?" Mark says he's too tired to do anything else. Doug chuckles some more, in agreement, and Mark whips off his glasses and rubs his eyes exhaustedly. Doug regards him thoughtfully.

Susan is in with a new patient, Miguel Ferrer (who is, incidentally, George Clooney's first cousin. Impress your friends with that tidbit at your cocktail party!). Susan tells Miguel that they'll "know more" after she gets his x-rays, and asks how much he smokes. Miguel says he smokes "two -- three packs a day sometimes." Susan asks how long he's been smoking that much, and Miguel says it's been since he was about fourteen. Susan absent-mindedly tells him he should quit; her pager goes off, and she excuses herself, adding on the way out of the room that he can get dressed. He grabs a handful of his clothes and then holds them for a second, looking pensive.

In the hall, Susan picks up the phone, saying she can't talk at work "unless it's...it is?" In response to whatever the caller said she chuckles, and then regretfully says she's on all night. Malik appears and hands her an x-ray, which she examines as she continues talking to someone she finally calls Paul, adding, "I thought we broke up!" She wearily holds up her end of the conversation for a moment before focusing on the x-ray and sighing, "Damn. ...No, not you. It's just, I have to tell a patient something." She wraps up the call.

Back in his room, Miguel is flipping through his chart, frowning. Susan bustles in and tells him she got his x-rays back; she throws a film up on the light box and shows him there's "a density in the right middle lobe." Miguel asks (on our behalves) what that means, and Susan tells him "there's something abnormal within the structure of [his] lung." Miguel asks, "There's something in my lung?" Susan says there is. He asks what it is. Susan -- affecting a tone of unconcern -- says it could be any number of things: "It could be an infiltrate -- a dense area of tissue from an old infection; it could be an inhaled foreign body; it could be a granuloma of some sort. It could be a lot of things." She walks quickly away from him and back to his chart, so that she can be busy as he asks what she thinks it is. She says there's no way for her to guess, and that he'll have to have a bronchoscopy and maybe exploratory surgery before they can say exactly what it is. Miguel says he understands that, but that, until then, he wants to know what she thinks. Susan guardedly tells him, "I think you should consider it a potentially serious finding." Miguel calmly asks, "So you're saying I've got cancer." Susan says she isn't: "I'm saying we don't know anything for sure."

Miguel exhales, "Doctor, let me just explain something to you, okay? I'm forty years old. I have a wife. I have three children. I have a house that is not paid for. I have a mother who has a house that isn't paid for. I have a lot of responsibilities. So I need to know -- I need to know what you think." Susan refuses to commit herself: "I think you should regard your condition as very serious, but should await a final determination." Miguel, getting impatient: "I don't understand the problem. Is it so hard -- are you afraid to tell me the truth?" Susan relents: "Your history of coughing blood, weight loss, and this x-ray is [sic] suggestive of cancer. But the diagnosis has not been confirmed, and it may very well be something else, and none of us should jump to any conclusions until we know. That's what I think." Miguel blinks, and finally sighs, "How long do I have?" Susan looks back at the x-ray for a moment, and quietly tells him, "Six months to a year." Miguel nods, looking stricken, and asks, "Do I have six months for sure?" Susan tells him, "No, not for sure." Miguel seems to gather himself, and then says, in an offhand way, "Okay. Yeah, I was just wondering, because I always wanted to take my wife to Nassau. We talked about it a lot -- it's all we talked about -- but we never did it, so I just figured, spring's coming, it's getting too late to go to Nassau, and she always wanted to suntan in the winter, show off to the neighbours and stuff." Susan smiles gently and says she understands. Miguel wistfully says, "Yeah. Yeah. So I guess I'd better go. Summer's going to be here before you know it, so I guess I'd better go pretty soon." Miguel takes Susan's hands and adds, "Doctor, I want to thank you. I want to thank you for your help, and thank you for being straight with me. I really appreciate it." He sighs deeply, and then jokes, "I guess I don't have to quit smoking." He turns to get his coat off the bed and then breaks down, with his back turned to Susan. She softly says, "If there's one thing you learn in my job, it's that nothing is certain -- nothing that seems very bad, and nothing that seems very good. Nothing is certain. Nothing." Miguel takes this in, his back still turned, and then picks up his coat, turns to her, and falls into her, pulling her into a rough hug. He holds her for a moment, pressing his mouth into her shoulder, and then apologizes, lets her go, and walks out. Susan presses her hands to her hairline, sighs loudly, and then snaps Miguel's film off the light box and hurries out of the room. Miguel Ferrer is such a good actor. He's like the white Don Cheadle.

An old lady -- all done up in a pillbox hat and fur coat -- swans up to the desk and dramatically wishes Timmy a "good evening." "How's it going tonight, Mrs. Raskin?" Timmy greets her, amusedly. Mrs. Raskin scenery-chews, "Timmy, I have a problem that requires medical attention." Timmy tells her to go see Mark, pointing him out, and Mrs. Raskin strides over to him, effusively purring, "Dr. Greene! How nice!"

Down the hall, Mark is listening as some doctor guy we don't know tells him a story. Mrs. Raskin steps directly between them to greet Mark, ignoring the other guy completely. Mark kind of starts at her appearance, but Dr. Random continues his story. Mrs. Raskin ignores his ignorance of her and loudly tells Mark, "I require medical attention, Dr. Greene." Mark peers around her to Dr. Random, and tells Dr. Random to give him a minute. Dr. Random nods knowingly and takes off as Mark asks Mrs. Raskin what the problem is. Mrs. Raskin says, "I have this troublesome..." She pulls off her glove and concludes, "Hangnail," proffering it to Mark. He starts to make irritated noises, and she defensively says she thinks it may be infected. Mark tells her that if they treat her hangnail, it'll cost her $180. Mrs. Raskin apparently doesn't care, as she oozes, "Oh, I wish you'd do it for me. You're such a nice young doctor. And I do appreciate your taking the time." This seems like exactly the sort of patient Mark would be treating if he took the job with Harris, so...it's weird that they're making this point in the ER, which I thought was supposed to be all gritty, and where Mark was supposed to be keeping it real. But anyway. Mark decides to play along; he gets up, offers her his arm, and says they'll "do it in the lab." Not like that. Probably. "The lab? Oh, gracious!" Mrs. Raskin exclaims delightedly.

In the lab, Mrs. Raskin squeals, "I had no idea how complicated it was." Mark confidentially tells Malik, "I'll be excising Mrs. Raskin's hangnail." "I'll stand back," Malik whatevers. Mark pulls out her chair, and Mrs. Raskin observes, "Dr. Greene, you look tired. How've you been?" Mark curtly tells her he's fine. Mrs. Raskin asks after Jen, and whether she's still studying for her bar exams. Mark tells her Jen's exam is month, and that they don't see each other much. Susan enters and asks if Mark has time for coffee; he says he might in half an hour. Susan smiles and leaves. Mrs. Raskin comments, "She's very cute. She work here at the hospital?" No, Mrs. R. -- the lab coat and stethoscope are for her job at the candy factory. Mrs. Raskin asks Mark whether she'd told him that her sister got remarried. Mark looks like his patience with Mrs. Raskin is running ever thinner, and says she hadn't. Mrs. Raskin giggles, "Well, how long has it been since I've seen you?" Mark deadpans, "Mmmm...just a week or so." Mrs. Raskin just smiles. Mark warns her, "Here we go." Mrs. Raskin chuckles, "Don't make such a fuss." Mark sighs, and snips off the hangnail. Mrs. Raskin moans her thanks, and tells him to "be a good boy, and go home to [his] wife." Mark smiles tightly.

A clock at Reception lets us know it's 7 PM. Timmy and Wendy are off; Conni is on. Carol wanders down the hall; Benton starts to ask her something, but she tells him she's off. Haleh, with a handful of charts, briefs Lydia on the cases she'll have to deal with. They pass Carol, who's getting drugs out of a cabinet; Malik comes up behind her and asks for something, but she tells him he'll have to get it from the shift. Carol grabs her coat, and tells Connie Malik's drug order on her way out. Carol also passes Jerry as Timmy leaves the desk. Yay, Jerry!

Carter works on the foot of a young woman who is crying feebly and clearly trying to draw Carter into a conversation about her crappy life. Carter tries to buck up his little camper by telling her it's a very minor cut -- only three stitches. Cut Foot whines, "It's not the cut, it's the car! I smashed the car!" "Oh," says Carter unhelpfully. Cut Foot continues, "I wasn't supposed to drive it, and I took the keys, and I smashed it up, and it was brand-new! My father loves that car!" Carter tells her it might not be as bad as she thinks. Cut Foot starts enumerating the car's many attractive features, concluding, "Oh, God -- he'll kill me! It was the first new car he ever had!" Carter looks up at her face and loses concentration on her foot. "Ow!" she squeaks accusatorily. Just then, the door opens and a guy comes in calling Cut Foot's name. "Daddy!" she gasps. Mr. Cut Foot sees Carter working on said cut foot and freaks out a little, gathering Cut Foot into a tight hug. Cut Foot clutches him back, and moves her foot away from Carter, who struggles not to hurt her and tells her to hold still. Mr. Cut Foot asks whether she's going to be all right; Carter says she is, and Mr. Cut Foot hugs her harder and sobs with relief. Still in the clinch, Cut Foot says, "I trashed the car!" Mr. Cut Foot says the important thing is that she's okay. Cut Foot sighs, "Oh, Daddy!" And then... "What car?" asks Mr. Cut Foot. Cut Foot's eyes widen in fear. Mr. Cut Foot pulls away and asks, "You mean the Caddy?" Cut Foot stammers. Mr. Cut Foot yelps, "You totalled my new Seville?" Carter makes a very cute "yeesh" face. Mr. Cut Foot stomps into the room, groaning "God!" every few seconds and punching things. Carter and Cut Foot both wait tensely for his return. After a moment, Mr. Cut Foot reappears, trying to hold it together. Carter quickly returns to his work, trying to act like he wasn't just treating the Cut Foot family saga like his own telenovela. Mr. Cut Foot grits, "It doesn't matter." Cut Foot looks incredulous, so Mr. Cut Foot insists, "It doesn't matter!" Benton comes in to bitch at Carter for having "six in backup," adding -- as Carter gestures helplessly at Cut Foot's injury -- "Look, this is St. Patrick's Day. The worst is yet to come. Let's move!" "Okay!" Carter squeaks. Benton smiles intolerantly at the Cut Foots and leaves. "Who was that idiot?" Mr. Cut Foot asks Carter. Hee.

Oh, here we go with the obligatory child-abuse case. Oh, whoops, did I ruin it for you? Doug examines a little boy and asks his polished, professional-looking mother, "Why did he do it?" She doesn't know: "He just got his hands on it and he swallowed it." Doug jovially asks Jimmy why he did it, and Jimmy defiantly replies, "Because." "You see?" whines Mrs. Jimmy. "He's impossible." Tracy appears with an x-ray and throws it up on the light box; there's a large key lodged in Jimmy's torso. "There it is, all right," Doug says calmly. "You mean it's in his stomach?" Mrs. Jimmy demands, indicating that she got whatever professional job she holds that requires her to look so professional by sleeping her way up the ladder and not demonstrating much intellectual prowess, since -- as Doug points out -- she did just finish saying that Jimmy had swallowed the key. It's called cause and effect, Mrs. Jimmy. Wake up and sniff it. Mrs. Jimmy adopts various kabuki poses for "annoyance," and moans, "What do I do now?" Doug tells her to check Jimmy's stools: "He'll pass it." Oh, wow. Ow. That's a big key. Like, one of those ones with the big head that they give you to get into your high-rise apartment building. Well, getting that out his butt will teach Jimmy not to swallow non-food items in the future. In fact, it might convince him that a fully liquid diet is the way to go for the rest of his life. Mrs. Jimmy whines, "I mean, how do I get into my house? I'm locked out!" Doug chuckles, "You don't have another key?" She doesn't, and she bitterly tells Doug it's not funny. If that was her only key, why was it just lying around loose for a kid to swallow? Because you know he didn't get it off a key ring by himself. I can barely get keys off my key ring half the time, and I've been rocking my opposable thumbs at least five times as long as little Jimmy here has. Doug apologizes for laughing. Jimmy joins in. Okay, now I see Mrs. Jimmy's point; if that little brat laughed because his stupid little stunt got us locked out of the house and required me to inspect his shit, I'd smack him around a little, too.

Carter informs a young woman that it's possible to get pregnant even without actual penetration, and just by fooling around. His patient, very certain, tells him, "I'm not pregnant." Carter adds, "It's very important that you tell me any reason you think you might be pregnant." "No reason," the patient replies. Carter soldiers on: "Because if you are pregnant, you might have what we call an ectopic pregnancy, in which case you'd have to be operated on right away. It's very serious. It could be a matter of life and death, and I'm not exaggerating." "I'm not pregnant," the patient says again. Carter nods, and excuses himself. I think she's pregnant. I know, I know, but hear me out!

In the hall, Benton asks, "How old?" "She's thirteen," Carter replies. "She's got a pain in her lower left quadrant and she's not pregnant?" Benton confirms. Carter says that's the case. Benton snaps the chart shut and heads in to check her out himself.

Back in the room, Benton introduces himself to the patient -- who he, thank God, calls by her name, Miss Murphy -- and asks how long it's been since her last period. She doesn't know. Benton asks her to think back, and tell him roughly how long it's been. Miss Murphy thinks for a moment, and then says it was after Christmas. Benton surmises that it's been a few months. Miss Murphy supposes so: "I haven't really paid attention." Benton volleys, "And you've had sexual intercourse." Carter stares her down. Miss Murphy looks down, and then rolls her eyes and reluctantly admits, "Yes." Carter's eyes widen in betrayal. I know, Carter: it's tough when people you don't know even a tiny bit lie to your face. Especially a teenager, when they're normally the soul of honesty and rectitude. Benton glares at Carter that she has an ectopic pregnancy, and that Miss Murphy needs to be scheduled for ultrasound and surgery right away. Benton smacks the chart at him and leaves, while Carter stares at Miss Murphy, waiting for an apology. She does not give him one.

In the cafeteria, a doctor sleeps with his head on a table, and Susan and Mark have coffee. She asks, "How'd it go?" Mark exposits, "Well, you've been to Harris's office -- you know what it's like. It's like a nightclub or something!" If that's what he thinks nightclubs are like, he needs to get out more. Susan asks whether Harris offered Mark a job; Mark says he did, adding, "But I don't know....It doesn't seem like real medicine to me." Oh, why -- because it's fancy, you get paid well, and the perks fucking rule? I think it's possible to be a doctor without being a big ugly martyr about it, dicksmack. Though if it's martyring ye be after, I'd be happy to stone you myself. Susan asks what the problem is, then, and Mark says she knows. "Jennifer?" Susan guesses. Mark says that Jennifer is the problem. Duh, I'll say. Susan tells Mark that he can't live his life the way other people want him to. Well, actually, sometimes in a marriage you do have to compromise and do things you don't really want to for the greater good. Besides which, what Jen wants him to do is take a job with a kick-ass salary that will allow him more free time with the family, for whose sake he's supposed to be working at all. Yeah, Jen's the devil. I mean, it doesn't change the fact that she's generally kind of a bitch that she happens to be right in this case. Also, shut up, Susan. Mark, take the job and get off this show. Anyway, Mark agrees that Susan is right, even though she's not. Susan adds, "Especially a lawyer." Mark defensively says that Jen isn't a lawyer yet. Susan says he knows what she means: "It's gotta be your life." Mark whines, "It is, it's just...she just keeps talking about how she never sees me anymore." Susan chuckles, "Well, she probably never does. I never see Paul." Mark says he thought Susan and Paul broke up. Susan evasively says, "Well, we did, but...you know." Mark shakes his head and drawls, "Yeaaah." She's saying their friends who fuck, Mark, geez. Go to a "nightclub" sometime. Mark's pager goes off; he checks it and gets up, groaning. He ambles over to the phone and picks it up. Whatever it is is bad news, and he says, "Yeah, yeah, right away." He tells Susan they've got to go. She's all, "What?" but he doesn't say what the deal is.

Back in the ER, we see over Doug's shoulder that people are standing around in clusters, looking worried. Lydia passes by him and shoots him a brief, reproachful look. The camera wheels around to show us Doug's lovely face; he clenches his jaw, looking freaked out. Susan and Mark appear, and flank him. "Did you hear?" Doug asks huskily. Mark says they did: "She's on her way. It's incredible." Doug, all shattered: "I don't know how...this happened. To her, of all people." "I don't know," Mark offers, unhelpfully. Mark taps Doug briefly on the shoulder and moves toward the desk. As sirens outside get louder, Mark exhorts everyone to "break it up" and get back to work. Everyone kind of snaps out of it. An ambulance opens its doors and two paramedics pull a bed out of it. Mark shoves through a crowd of looky-loos, barking, "Come on, what do you expect to see?" He meets the incoming bed, yelling at everyone again to get back to work. Mark directs the paramedics into a room, and the camera finally pans down to show us that the patient is Carol. Doctors and nurses hurry in, and an unseen woman gasps, "Oh my God, it is Hathaway!"

After the non-commercial un-break, we fade up on the same shot of Carol's unconscious face as everyone buzzes around her. They lift her onto the bed; Mark calls for them to undress her. Mark, this is really neither the time nor the place. An anonymous nurse cuts Carol's jeans off her with a pair of scissors, while another gets a gown ready. I hope those weren't jeans Carol really liked. Maybe they were -- maybe she figured she'd die in her very favourite jeans, and then she's going to wake up and be all, "Not only am I a failure as a suicide, but my favourite jeans are ruined. Thanks a lot, Mark." From the doorway, Doug watches, looking heartbroken, but doesn't participate. Some people work, grimly and mostly silently; apparently every single other person who works in the ER -- including Jerry -- stands around watching. Mark asks the young blonde woman who accompanied Carol to the hospital whether she knows what Carol took; the woman sobs that Carol "just went into the medicine cabinet," adding, "We've got a lot of stuff around." Mark pointlessly repeats that Blondie -- Carol's roommate -- has no idea what Carol took, just to make Blondie feel especially helpless and useless. Nice job, Mark. Mark demands a drug screen on Carol right away, adding a drug order. Nurse Anonymous asks whether Mark wants to "pump her," and...again, not the time or place. Oh, she means, does Mark want to pump Carol's stomach? He does. Cut to Doug in the doorway, still looking breathless and sad. Mark tells Malik to call Neuro, and the nursing supervisor. He tersely asks Blondie whether she's called Carol's family; Blondie cries that she didn't know Carol's family: "We were only roommates three weeks." Lydia asks Blondie why Carol did it. Mark lectures, "It doesn't matter why she did it. We don't ask that about any other OD that comes through these doors; we don't ask it about this one." A call for someone to withhold judgment? A call that comes...from Mark? Now I've seen everything.

More bustling around. Susan leaves the room, which requires her to brush past the hangdog Doug in the doorway. As the pumping of Carol's stomach draws ever closer, Doug decides it's not appropriate for him to stay, and steps out into the hallway to collect himself, and continue watching the proceedings through the window. Pumping. Watching. Crying. Test-ordering. Mark gets a reading on...something or other. Not liking what he hears, I guess, he asks Blondie whether Carol'd had anything to drink. Blondie says Carol had a scotch. "More than one?" demands Mark. Blondie breaks down and says she might have. Mark notices all the busybodies loitering about and yells at them to get back to work. They seem to ignore him, per usual. Nurse Anonymous does that test (you know the one) on Carol's foot; Carol reacts, which is good. Jargon. Bustling. Standing around. Susan reappears at Mark's side to say that Morgenstern's on his way, and to tell him another of Carol's test results. Mark doesn't like what he hears: "Is that a mistake?" "Repeated twice," Susan tells him. Everyone continues to gawk. Mark finally gets the bright idea of closing the curtain (or rather, delegates that job to Malik), reproachfully yelling at everyone who isn't working on Carol that "this isn't a show." Well, not a good one, anyway. The curtain is pulled, leaving Blondie outside. Doug stares.

Some time later, I guess, Jerry answers the phone at the desk, and then tells a nearby nurse to call Benton: "We got a shotgun wound to the chest coming in." Yeesh.

More hijinx with Dr. X-Ray. He's droning on again as Carter and Benton wait crabbily (Benton, slightly more crabbily than Carter). Long story short: "This is a surgical candidate." Benton takes the films, and he and Dr. X-Ray briefly snark at each other. Whatever.

Susan shines a light in Carol's eye. I can't believe they passed up the opportunity to show us Carol barfing up charcoal and whatever the hell drugs she took; they would never spare us stuff like that now. After a moment, Susan lets Carol's eye fall shut again and asks Lydia, "We got a new barbiturate level yet?" Lydia says it just came back, and hasn't changed since the last test. Susan rubs her eye.

Out in the hall, Mark recites Carol's stats to a tuxedoed Morgenstern. He winds up by telling Morgenstern how they're treating her, but Morgenstern reluctantly asks, "But if she's decerebrating...you know the question mark. Should we be trying any of this? At all?" Mark agrees, "It doesn't look hopeful." (And, indeed, Carol was originally not to have survived this episode.) Mark adds, "But I think, for the morale of the unit, we've gotta do everything. I mean, she was...is very popular." On this, Mark turns away from Morgenstern to gaze at Carol's bed. Morgenstern leans back to meet Mark's eye, and comments, "The unit's looking to you, Mark. You set the tone." "Yeah," Mark acknowledges. Too bad for the unit, if they're getting their tone set by Mark, the guy they ignored for twenty minutes while he yelped at them to get back to work. Morgenstern speaks for the group: "She was one of us. We loved her. We worked with her. And now something's happened to her. It makes us feel guilty, it makes us feel angry. It scares the hell out of us. But we take care of her, and then we go on with our jobs." "Yeah," Mark says huskily. "You set the tone, Mark," Morgenstern repeats. "You get the unit through this." "I'm fine," Mark claims. Morgenstern seems to accept this, and walks down the hall toward his rather trampy-looking date, telling Mark to call him if anything happens, "anything at all." As Morgenstern turns to leave, Doug looks up at Mark. They exchange an anxious look, which Mark breaks first; Doug seems to start as soon as he loses eye contact with Mark.

Mark walks over to Doug, who comments, "Boy, she really did it, didn't she." "Yeah, she did," Mark says, judgily. "She seemed okay today," Doug says, punching "okay" in a way that makes it seem as though they've been monitoring Carol's moods for a while. Mark agrees that she seemed fine. Doug babbles, "She was making jokes. Everything was great. She was funny. She was joking like always, and...she was great." Mark condescendingly tells Doug to go get some coffee, and then walks in to check on Carol.

A machine does its thing. Mark shines a light in Carol's eye. Doug watches, looking sick. After a moment, he steps back into the doorway, burying his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. Mark, checking Carol's heartbeat, looks up at Doug and does an irritated "get out of here" flick of his head. Doug nods faintly, swallows, blinks, and walks out. Mark continues his exam.

And now, back to patients we only care about a little. The shotgun-to-the-chest guy staggers in; Benton and some other anonymous nurse help him onto a bed. They pull open his coat to reveal the blood splashed all over his -- conveniently, for the producers -- white t-shirt. Benton examines him for a second, and then exclaims that it's a knife wound, not a shotgun wound. Carter, peering gingerly over Benton's shoulder, evidently gets an eyeful of the wound (which -- again, strangely, considering how gory the show is now -- we at home do not) and excuses himself, quietly saying, "I feel ill." He takes off. Benton calls after him, "That's okay, I didn't need you anyway." He tells the nurse to notify the ER, and they move the bed, so we can see Mark framed in a doorway behind them, sitting at the desk. He gets up, looking thoughtful, and hands Jerry the chart he'd been holding. He puts on a green scrub gown and wanders off.

Time for another opening-credits shot! It's Carter, in profile, sitting in the ambulance bay, holding his stethoscope, either trying not to barf, or having just finished barfing. Cut to a needlessly "artsy" shot of a puddle, with the "Emergency" sign reflected in it, backwards and upside down, which we pan up from to see Mark striding very slowly toward Carter. Like Angel, only wussy. Wussier. "Feeling better?" Mark asks, once he's reached him. Carter says he is: "I'll be okay in a minute. It just got to me, all of a sudden." Mark nods, and tells him to keep his head down: "There's no rush. Just relax." Mark boringly observes that it's stopped raining. Carter gulps air and says, "I thought I was going to be sick. I'm sorry." Mark pontificates, as Carter studies him raptly: "Don't ever say you're sorry. See, there's [sic] two kinds of doctors: there's the kind that gets [sic] rid of their feelings, and the kind that keeps [sic] them. If you're going to keep your feelings, you're going to get sick from time to time. That's just how it works." Carter is still staring up at him in adoration, so Mark tells him again to keep his head down. (Which, if it were possible for Mark to create a homoerotic vibe with any of his male co-stars -- or any man, anywhere -- would be the inspiration for a riff on Carter doing something else with his head...down...but we've already established that Mark doesn't have that capacity, so let's move on.) Carter loosens his tie and looks down again. Mark sinks down into a squat, yammering on, "People come in here, and they're sick, and dying, and bleeding, and they need our help. And helping them is more important than how we feel." Carter nods. Mark adds, "But it's still a pain in the ass, sometimes." Carter chuckles faintly. Mark confides, "Sometimes, I just want to quit and do something else." Oh my God, DO IT. Mark: "Yeah." What? Carter stares at him moistly. Mark tells him to take a few more minutes. Carter nods. Hauling himself up, Mark adds, "By the way, I was in medical school with Benton." He was? Does that ever come up again? "He used to get sick all the time. So, don't let him give you any crap. You're going to be fine." Gee, coming from Marque, Queen of the Wussies, that means a lot, not. Carter grins gratefully, and fidgets with his stethoscope.

A basketball game is playing on the TV in the lounge when Benton strolls in, whistling. He settles down at a table in front of it with his chart and a cup of coffee. Carter meekly enters and glances at the TV. He then looks at Benton, expectantly. Benton looks back at him, but says nothing. Carter raises his eyebrows slightly and rocks on his heels, as if to say, "So that's how it's going to be." Yes, Carter, Benton is a bitch, like everyone else who works at this hospital is now, and like you'll be in juuuuust a few years. Carter glances back at the TV and then jerks a thumb at it, asking Benton what the score is. "DePaul is down," Benton tells him curtly, before conciliating, "You okay?" Carter firmly says that he is. Benton mutters, "Good. Don't worry about what happened out there. Just don't make a habit of it." Carter smiles, "Okay." He wanders out, looking either amused or relieved. Once he's gone, Benton smiles and sort of snorts to himself.

Carol's still unconscious, and connected to a bunch of machines. Doug holds a vigil several feet away from her bedside -- close enough to see if anything happens, but not so close as to be inappropriate. After a moment, he turns away from her. Oh, Doug. Would that I could make you feel better. Like, say, by Frenching you. Unfortunately, I'm married, and you're fictional.

Elsewhere, Susan is briefing a besuited lady (the nursing supervisor, I would guess) about Carol's condition: "She's been on dialysis for three hours. She's still comatose and unresponsive. She must have taken short-acting agents. She knew exactly what she was doing." Suit Lady asks whether Carol's family has been notified; Susan's not sure, but she thinks so. Suit Lady asks whether Carol is fully covered on "hospital policy"; she is, as far as Susan knows. Suit Lady asks whether anyone's spoken to the press office. Susan shoots Suit Lady a look like she just took a dump in Susan's handbag, and Suit Lady scoffs, "Let's face it, this is bad publicity. Some damn TV network will get a hold of it and try to make a sentimental movie about her." Huh, I'm kind of surprised that "sentimental" -- used in a context that negative -- actually made it past the censors on a Steven Spielberg production. Susan has no comment, so Suit Lady asks whether anyone knows why Carol "did it." Susan says, "No one has any idea. Her fiancé didn't know anything either. Supposed to get married in June." Oh, yes. Yes -- they are "supposed to." Jeepers, I sure hope nothing goes wrong there, either. Suit Lady leaves. Susan stands by, looking dopey.

Carter rolls up to some patients' holding pen and asks who's . A young blonde in a low-cut black French maid's costume says she is; she's holding a gauze pad over a cut on her right forearm. She steps forward and clomps past Carter; he gets an eyeful of her booty (or, as the French say, "son butin") as she passes. Carter's young and horny. Check.

Mark treats a sort of doughy-looking middle-aged guy who has what appears to be abdominal pain. As he sifts through what look to be a pile of phone messages Lydia's just handed him, Mark tells Mr. Lawkowski, his patient, "I'm going to admit you to the hospital and start you on a medical regimen. There's some question in my mind as to whether that's necessary, but I think it's better to be safe than sorry." By this point, Mark has walked into the foreground of the shot, so he's between the camera and Mr. Lawkowski when the latter starts crying. Mark turns quizzically at the sound, and Mr. Lawkowski sobs, "I know the truth. You don't have to hide it from me." Mark's all, "Guh?" and Mr. Lawkowski presses, "I know you're being nice to me, but you can tell me. It's okay, I want to know the truth." Mark blandly -- and a little contemptuously -- informs Mr. Lawkowski, "You have a duodenal ulcer with complicating pancreatitis -- rather mild pancreatitis, judging from the lab figures. That's all you have." Mr. Lawkowski breathes, "Come on, you can tell me, please." Mark gets all pissy as he insists, "You don't have cancer, Mr. Lawkowski." Mr. Lawkowski loses it and whimpers, "Geez! I knew it, I knew it! It's cancer! And you were hiding it!" He sobs some more. Mark tries to muster up some human compassion as he lectures, "Mr. Lawkowski, every person that comes into this hospital -- whether they [sic] have a heart attack or a skin rash -- everybody's worried about cancer. You do not have cancer, I swear to you. You. Do not. Have. Cancer." Mr. Lawkowski snorts up a big gob of snot and hopefully asks, "It's not cancer?" "No," Mark assures him. "You have an ulcer, which flared up today because you went to a party and drank and smoked, both of which you're going to have to quit." Mr. Lawkowski takes a deep breath and repeats, "Quit smoking and drinking?" Mark says that's right. Mr. Lawkowski, mad now, barks, "Quit smoking and drinking? What are you, kidding me?" Wah-wah. You know, I really feel the point has been made that many patients in the ER are annoying weirdos. Did this episode really have to be two hours long? REALLY?

A rather small baby is thrashing about on a bed, getting examined by Doug (assisted by Conni). He has a big old scrape on his knee, like he skinned it; several bruises on his torso and legs, and what looks like a cut over his left eye. He's crying lustily, and sounds like he has a cough. Oh, that's right. This is the obligatory child-abuse case, not the one with the key-swallower. My bad. Let's pretend that the actor who played Mrs. Jimmy prepared for the part by coming up with some big backstory about how she secretly abused him and he got back at her by swallowing her apartment key, okay? Could be true. Anyway. This baby looks like ten miles of bad road. A young woman is standing by while Doug performs the examination, looking worried. I don't want to jump to any conclusions (since I was wrong last time), but since the baby is white and the woman is black, I'm going to guess she's his babysitter or nanny. Anyway. Doug looks grim. In a rather flippant tone that suggests he thinks Nanny did all this to him, Doug tells Conni that they'll have to get some x-rays on Beat-Up Baby. He asks Nanny how this happened. Nanny very quietly says that Beat-Up Baby fell out of his crib. Doug skeptically repeats, "He fell out of his crib?" Nanny elaborates, "He was crying all night, so I brought him here." Doug bitchily says, "I'll bet he's been crying. When did he fall?" Nanny says, "I don't know. I don't want to get into trouble!" Doug clips, "Ma'am, your son has multiple contusions --" "He's not my son," Nanny interrupts. Yeah, Doug, duh, I figured that out ten lines ago. Doug snaps, "Whatever! Whatever your relationship --" "I'm his babysitter!" Nanny squeaks. Doug considers this and then quietly says, "This child has been beaten." Nanny nods. "I'm going to call Children and Family Services," Doug tells her, walking out. "Please!" "It's the law," Doug grits. "But I'll get into trouble!" Nanny protests. Doug tells Conni to stay there. Oh, Doug. I hate to say you're wrong when you look so right.

A girl walks in with her skirt hiked up. Way up. Like, high enough that we can see that her inner thighs are rubbed all raw and red. She looks around purposefully and then strides forward. Jerry spots her and, evidently recognizing her, turns to Mark and asks if Mark wants to "make a guess on the diagnosis of this one?" Cut back to the girl. (She's played by Liz Vassey, so I was just going to call her "Liz," but then I went to the IMDb to make sure I had the spelling of her name right and I see that her character is actually called Liz, so...uh, now I'm especially going to call her that.) Anyway, she walks toward Mark and Jerry, using the hem of her skirt to sort of fan at her thighs. She looks frankly at Jerry and Mark and then informs them simply, "I burned my legs." Jerry glances down at her extended crotch area and calmly replies, "I see." Hee hee. Mark snatches the x-ray Jerry's been holding and throws it up on a light box as Liz snits at Jerry, "It's not funny." She's right; it's lame. Jerry gallantly says he'll get her set up.

Later, Mark is asking Liz, "You're a college student?" Liz is: "Sacred Heart." Mark spreads some kind of lotion on Liz's thighs as Lydia watches, to make sure (as the law mandates) that Mark doesn't behave inappropriately -- but of course he won't, because if he did, he might be the slightest bit unpredictable or interesting, and we know he isn't either of those things. Mark asks how Liz injured herself, and she says she was pouring hot water into the sink and it splashed onto her legs. Mark assures her that the burn isn't bad, and that she won't scar from it. He stares just a tiny bit too long at her naked, vulnerable thighs. "It's very sensitive skin," Liz come-ons. Mark noncommittally agrees. "Your touch is nice," Liz adds. Ew, Liz, listen to what you are saying. Mark blusters that the medication will make her feel a lot better. "Your fingers are very long," Liz observes, not subtly. Mark mm-hmms. "Long, and strong," Liz drawls. Mark makes a herculean effort not to react to her. Cut back to the over-Lydia's-shoulder shot to make sure we remember that Lydia is there as Liz volleys, "I wanted to change first, and put on some new underpants. I knew you'd be seeing my underpants. And touching them." Lydia makes one of her awesome disgusted faces -- as well she should, because if Liz were really bringing her A game to this attempted seduction, she wouldn't say "underpants." That's what your mom buys you, in a six-pack from Costco. The sexy word is "panties." (Or "gitch." Or, if you're a dude, "gotch.") Mark tells her to keep the bandages dry, and then tries to inflame her by adding, "Don't take any showers or baths -- just, uh...sponge bath." Liz ignores the opportunity she's just been presented to start talking about what she likes to do in the shower or bath -- or which part of her she intends to sponge-bathe first -- and instead asks why Lydia is in the room. Mark says it's hospital policy. Liz smirks that Lydia isn't doing anything, so she doesn't have to be there. Mark has no response to that, so Liz teases, "Are you afraid of me?" Mark finally breaks his stare at Liz's lap to say that she'll be just fine in a few days. He rolls away.

Later, Liz (with bandages, for some reason, wrapped around her legs just above the knees, though we already saw her burn was closer to her crotch) strides down the hall, away from the camera. Mark and Lydia appear in the foreground to watch her leave, and Mark thanks Lydia. Lydia rolls her eyes. Lydia, I so hear you.

Elsewhere, Doug walks over to some waiting area and takes a slip of paper from an older black woman, sitting with Nanny. It's not clear whether she's Nanny's mom or a social worker or what. Anyway, Doug looks at the slip, and then looks at the woman and at Nanny before saying, "Okay." He walks away from them and toward the reception desk, where he sits down and picks up the phone.

Benton, assisted by Lydia, examines some middle-aged guy who seems to be having stomach pains. After dinner, he felt an ache. Benton exposits that Achey has an aneurysm; Achey confirms that he's having surgery on his aneurysm month. Benton tells Mr. Harvey (formerly "Achey") that he should sit tight until they get his old x-rays, and takes off. He walks into the room -- which contains Susan -- and closes the door behind him. He tells her -- rather loudly, considering that he's only separated from Mr. Harvey by a thin pane of non-soundproof glass -- that Mr. Harvey is "leaking blood" into his stomach, and asks which surgeons are on the premises. Susan replies with a couple of names that mean nothing to me. We also establish that "the vascular team" is at a conference in Minneapolis. Long story short, no one's available to operate on Mr. Harvey right now. Benton sighs, stares in at Mr. Harvey for a second, and then declares, "Call Morgenstern, tell him to get over here right away. I'm starting a ruptured aneurysm." Susan soap-operas, "Peter, you can't! You're just a resident!" Benton Dr. Drake Ramorays, "This guy could die while we're out here discussing this!" Susan tries to resume her protest, but Benton talks over her: "I'm just trying to keep him alive until Morgenstern shows up -- that's all." Susan is out of steam, so Benton tells her to call the OR, get him a team, and set up for a laparotomy. He leaves. She calls up and informs someone at the other end that "Dr. Benton's starting."

Upstairs, an OR nurse hangs up the phone and heads over to a big whiteboard to schedule the surgery. A woman I totally don't recognize at all rolls up, asking "what's on." She and OR Nurse convey to us once again how crazy it is that Benton's doing this. Crazy!

In a locker room, Benton is changing as Dr. Snackwells comes in and says he'll be doing anaesthesia on Benton's surgery. Benton jargons a bunch of orders at him. Dr. Snackwells kindly asks whether Benton's sure he's "okay about this," allowing Benton to exposit, "I'm scared as hell. The guy's already ruptured; he's puffed up like a balloon and he's bleeding to death internally. I gotta do him. I'm his only chance." Oy, with the Bold and the Beautiful dialogue, already. Dr. Snackwells nods and leaves. Benton stands up, and holds still for a second, so that all we see is his hesitant midsection. After a moment, he sits back down, looking freaked out, and sighs. Aw, our uncharacteristically chipper li'l doctor is growing up into a big-boy surgeon!

Benton -- apparently having sacked up -- strides down the hall. He sticks his head into a room where an operation is in progress and cocks, "Evening, gentlemen. Just wanted to let you know I'm going to be starting a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm in Room Two, and I'd appreciate a hand when you have a minute." He leaves, and we watch through the window in the door as the surgeons in the room totally don't react in the slightest. Cut inside, as Surgeon #1 asks, "What did he say?" Surgeon #2 replies, "He said he's doing an aneurysm." Surgeon #1 blandly says, "Now, that's a joke, isn't it?" as though they never really understand that crazy Dr. Benton and his "colourful" humour. Surgeon #2 asks a nurse, "Cheryl, go make sure he's joking." Cheryl leaves. Moments later, she reappears and tells them Benton's really doing it. Dr. Ashley (formerly Surgeon #1) tells Jimmy (formerly Surgeon #2), "Break and help him. I'll finish here and get there as soon as I can."

Dr. Harvey gets prepped. Benton stands outside his OR for a second, psyching himself up, and then cocks in: "Okay, boys and girls, let's go. This isn't a picnic, this is the late late show. Prep, please." Everyone is immobile, staring at him -- though whether because they can't believe it's him getting ready to operate, or because they don't know why he put on all that stupidly exaggerated bluster, is not clear. Benton snaps, "Prep, please. Come on, quit staring at me. Look, I'm just trying to keep the poor guy alive, okay?" I really hope Mr. Harvey was knocked out during this show of non-confidence. Personnel eventually step forward to help Benton prep. A nurse tells him that Jimmy is coming in to help. Benton snarks, "Oh, great. The only guy in the hospital that knows less about vascular surgery than I do." Benton gets started: "Mark the start of the operation at 2:13 AM. Let's see how long it's gonna take the chief to get off of his girlfriend and into his work clothes." Jimmy enters, and Benton breezily tells him they've already started. Benton unleashes a hail of jargon. There's a lot of blood in Mr. Harvey. Benton asks the room at large to wish him luck (and no one does, which seems rude). He makes an incision, and all hell breaks loose; blood gushes, a machine starts beeping, and things are, plainly, not good. A nurse gives a reading on something or other. Benton buries his hands in Mr. Harvey's guts and starts messing around in there. Another machine beeps briefly. Seriously, I could give you a blow-by-blow, but it probably wouldn't mean much to you, and anyway, since Benton's being such a cocky bastard about all of this, obviously he's going to save the day. The point is that Benton is shaky at first and then gets his bearings and seems to be doing okay. Cheryl sticks her head in to say that Morgenstern is in the building and on his way. Benton cracks, "Well, suck that fill clean. We've got the chief coming! We don't want him to think we don't know what we're doing here, huh?" A nurse chuckles. Jargon. Blood pressure. Benton casually asks, "Jimmy. What's the matter? Your hands are trembling." "I can't imagine why," Jimmy snorts snootily. Benton says he can't either: "Everything's cool here. All we have to do is sit and wait." Cheryl appears again to say that Dr. Ashley will be there momentarily. Benton jokes, "All of a sudden I got all the help I want, huh?" The operation continues. Boring.

Back downstairs, Mark treats a woman who seems to be hyperventilating. He orders a bunch of drugs and tests and asks the patient, "Do you take digitalis, dear?" Okay, seriously, what's with the docs calling women much older than themselves "dear"? I don't even like old people to call me dear, so if I were old -- and it's hard to tell how old this patient may be, since she has an oxygen mask covering most of her face, but if she's old enough to have heart problems that require her to take digitalis, she's probably at least in her forties -- and some punk-ass clown like Mark called me "dear," I'd poke him in the eye. Anyway. She seems to shake her head no to the digitalis question, but I guess she must have said she does, because he then asks her whether she took any today, and when. It seems as though she took it this morning, so Mark calls out for someone to "add a dig. level." There are more drug orders, and then, in the brief moment of stillness, Mark glances around and smiles to himself, "I can't give this up." Digitalis looks alarmed, and Mark notices her and quickly assures her that she's fine. Lydia shows up to say that Jen is on the line for him. Mark gets back to work on Digitalis, telling Lydia he'll have to call Jen back.

OR. Things gurgle. Everyone waits for Morgenstern. It's 2:29 AM. Benton starts to make some stupid, sarcastic speech, but is fortunately interrupted when Morgenstern enters, telling Benton to give him the background. Benton gives him Mr. Harvey's medical backstory, concluding with the ruptured aneurysm. Morgenstern takes a gander: "So you decided to open him up. That's one of the ugliest incisions I've seen in a long time. A good veterinarian would do a better skin cut than that." Morgenstern takes over; Benton steps back, and then makes for the door, sighing. He also whips off his little scrub cap and mask while he's still in the OR, so if Mr. Harvey gets sepsis because the field's been contaminated, we know whom to blame. When Benton reaches the door, Morgenstern tells him, "You did a good job. You were lucky as hell, but you were right to open him up. Good work." And, as soon as it started, the "attaboy" moment is over, and Morgenstern is back to work. Benton smiles, and walks into the hall, where we get the opening-credits shot of him making the "booyah!" motion. That's nice and all, but shut up, Benton. I like him so much better all taciturn and morose than I do when he's chipper and making stupid jokes.

Downstairs, we're back to Beaten-Up Baby, whose mother has, by now, arrived. Okay, in my own defense, I think it's understandable that I confused this child-abuse mom with the one whose kid swallowed her key; they're both professionally attired, with weirdly long, luxurious hair (weird, given that they're otherwise all businessy) and gigantic lips. Anyway, Beaten-Up Baby is squalling as several nurses attend him, and Mrs. Beaten-Up briefly tries to coo at him to calm him before bitching at Doug, when he enters, for not giving Beaten-Up Baby something to stop him from crying. Doug examines Beaten-Up Baby, saying nothing. Mrs. Beaten-Up Baby bitches, "Look! He's still crying! Why aren't you giving him something?" Doug, judgmentally failing to meet her eye, curtly explains, "I can't give him anything until I know the extent of his injuries. He's been to X-Ray, so we know that he has a skull fracture." "A skull fracture!" exclaims Mrs. Beaten-Up Baby. To her totally whipped-looking male companion, she spits, "The babysitter! I never trusted her." Nice try, lady, but Doug sees straight through your snooty façade and right into your black, black heart: "Ma'am, your child has multiple contusions that are at least twelve hours old. He has a skull fracture. He also has several old, healed fractures. He is a battered child." Mmmm. Battered child. So yummy with french fries, the English way. Mrs. Beaten-Up Baby snorts, "Oh. I'm not even going to respond to that. You think I'd harm my child?" "Happens all the time," Doug clips. Mrs. Beaten-Up Baby -- getting flustered now, because she can tell the jig is up -- snaps that if Doug isn't going to treat Beaten-Up Baby, she's going to take him home. Doug declares, "No you're not." To Mr. Beaten-Up Baby, Doug barks, "Do you have anything to say?" Mr. Beaten-Up Baby is seriously such a caricature of a cowed man that he might as well be dressed up in Amos Hart's hobo costume. "He's my date!" Mrs. Beaten-Up Baby yells. Mr. Beaten-Up Baby shrugs, all, "Hey, I'm just waiting for her to turn my back so I can run away." One of the nurses picks up Beaten-Up Baby and joggles him a little, and he instantly stops crying -- for a few seconds, anyway.

Mrs. Beaten-Up Baby changes tactics, more gently saying, "Look, I can assure you, whoever you are --" "Ross. Dr. Ross," Doug tells her, like that's supposed to mean something to her. Mrs. Beaten-Up Baby continues, "Well, Dr. Ross, let me tell you, your concerns are unfounded, okay?" Doug barrels forward: "How'd he burn his legs?" Mrs. Beaten-Up Baby's all, "What?" Doug shows her: "These marks, right here on his legs -- those. Those are healed burn scars. How did that happen?" Mrs. Beaten-Up Baby stammers, "He...I...I don't know anything about burns on the legs. I'm beginning to think you're making this up, is what I'm thinking." Um. Nice one? Geez, most child abusers are better at covering their tracks. Doug tells Mrs. Beaten-Up Baby that she may want to call an attorney. "I am an attorney!" she yelps. Oh, BOOOOOO! Boo, we hate lawyers, right? First that mean Jen trying to make Mark take a job he doesn't want, and now this one, setting her kid on fire! They only care about making money and throwing their babies down flights of stairs! Boo! They're evil! Doug is not impressed: "Then I'm sure you'll know how the Department of Child Services will handle this." He starts to storm out, but she stomps around the bed yelling, "How dare you speak to me this way?!" Aggressive Pointing Finger of Judgment in full effect, Doug yells back, "How dare you treat your child like this? He's a little kid! I try to be understanding in my job, but lady, this just stinks." He sort of catches himself, as if he was about to spit in her face and then decided not to, and walks out, past poor Mr. Beaten-Up Baby, who really didn't bargain for all this when he asked that lady at his firm with the big hair and enormous, scary lips out for a steak.

Doug stomps through the hall. Spotting Tracy, he asks whether she found some patient's chart. Looking harried, she tells him she didn't. "Well, find it!" Doug tells her, more firmly. Tracy stupidly repeats, "Well, I don't know where it is." Doug barks, "Do you think that I am deaf? I heard you! Now find me the chart!" Throwing up her hands, Tracy squeals, "I don't know where it is!" and scurries off. Doug wanders away. Nanny spots him and runs up, asking, "Is it okay?" "It"? Doug quietly tells her that she can go home now, and that she did the right thing. Nanny explains, "I mean, is the baby okay?" If that's what you meant, why'd you say "it," fool? Doug musters his last ounce of strength to smile, and tell Nanny that Beaten-Up Baby will be okay. He walks off. Nanny looks after him adoringly (of course).

In the lounge, Susan exhaustedly pulls her head out of the fridge. She then goes to the coffee maker and picks up the pot, which she somehow didn't notice was empty until she had pulled it into the shot. "Oh, man," she moans. Oh, coffee hijinx. Benton strolls in and asks how Carol is. Susan says, "It doesn't look good." Benton asks whether "they" contacted Carol's family, and Susan says "they" found them. As she makes coffee, Susan asks how Benton's aortic aneurysm went. Benton says that Morgenstern showed up. A voice on the PA calls Benton to Trauma One.

Mark is in the hall when a cop comes in, carrying some other guy on his shoulder in a fireman's carry. Mark gets a bed ready for the cop to set the guy down, and asks what the deal is. The cop says that the patient was standing, blocking traffic. Mark looks at the patient -- an elderly man -- for a second. The cop adds, "But he's got that smell, so I thought I'd check." Mark says the cop did the right thing: the patient has suffered diabetic ketoacidosis, and the cop probably saved his life. They wheel him off, leaving the cop standing with Jerry. The cop looks chuffed at his great save, and Jerry snorts, "What do you want, a medal?" Heh. Jerry takes off, as the cop's face falls.

Mark treats Diabetes, and then leaves the room. In the doorway, Conni reproachfully asks whether he got the message that Jen called. Mark says that he didn't. But...he did! Whatever. Mark checks his watch, and says he'll call her in the morning.

Benton comes into a recovery room and greets Mrs. Harvey, who's sitting by her husband's bedside. He checks on Mr. Harvey, and then tells her that he seems to be doing fine. Mrs. Harvey effuses, "Oh, I'm so grateful. Dr. Morgenstern came so quickly! He saved his life!" Benton modestly agrees that Morgenstern is a great surgeon. Mrs. Harvey adds, "He said you did a lot too." Benton even more modestly lies that he just helped out a little bit. He makes to go, and runs right into Morgenstern in the doorway. They share an inscrutable look (inscrutable mostly because they're in near-total darkness), and go their separate ways.

Tracy is standing picturesquely in the doorway. Doug strolls out and joins her. He apologizes for yelling at her. She blinks, and offers him some coffee. He agrees. Problem solved? I guess?

Carter yawns as he stitches around a drunk patient's bad toupee.

Susan works by a lamp at the desk in the lounge. As she slowly leans her head down on her arms on the desktop, we hear the radio broadcast she's listening to, on which some (we're to think) crank woman is bitching about how doctors "get off" charging what they do. Yes, yes, we get it. Doctors are underpaid saints, and lawyers are soulless vampires. The cranky radio lady thinks doctors should be ashamed of themselves. Whatever.

Benton wanders up to the desk and asks Jerry, "That's it? Anybody else?" Jerry starts bitching about a sore throat, and Benton smirks, "You need to see a doctor." As he walks off, he asks, "Which room?" presumably going to catch a nap. Jerry tells him that 5 and 6 are open. "Five," Benton calls back. Carter appears, and sinks gratefully into a chair. After a moment, he stretches out across all three of the molded-plastic chairs on the unit. Ow. That's probably less comfortable than sleeping upright. Mark comes in behind Jerry, who bitches about his throat again. Mark says he'll be in Room 8. He picks up a novelty shamrock decoration off the desk, asks Lydia for a pen (which she supplies), and asks her to wake him at 6:30. Lydia exposits that he's lucky: "That gives you almost an hour and a half."

Down the hall. Mark sticks the shamrock on the door, with a piece of tape that has "WAKE AT 6:30" written on it. In the room, he settles onto the bed, sighing gratefully. Fade to black. One second later, Lydia appears: "6:30, Dr. Greene." Mark sits up, puts his glasses back on, and checks his watch. "Wow," he groans. Yeah. NO KIDDING. ER: The "E" is for ENDLESS.