Props to Sars. Dude, she knows why.
A really, really long time ago on ER: a bunch of stuff happened that is not really relevant to this episode -- with the possible exception of Jen's telling Mark she was going to leave him. Which was good, because she was kind of frosty, and Mark didn't totally suck ass back then and actually deserved better. Back then, mind. Oh, and Benton fell asleep at his mom's house when he was supposed to be up early to take care of her, and she fell down the stairs and hurt herself. And called him "Petey." Which is cute.
A super in the lower right corner tells us it's 7:00 AM. The El rolls past an ambulance bay that's completely different than the one we've been seeing for the past several seasons, in that it's an actual ambulance bay at an actual Chicago hospital. Mark "Murphy's Law" Greene and "Dig" Doug Ross are tossing a football back and forth and yelling a play-by-play as they go. "Montana to Rice!" yells Mark. "They're on different teams," Doug corrects him, as an ambulance rolls by and Mark's pass sails over it (and I have to wonder how many takes there were before they got that shot). "Since when?" Mark asks. "We watched their last game at Carol's," says Doug. "That was way back," Mark says. I guess we're supposed to think that Doug's been to Carol's without Mark's knowledge in the interim, because Doug kind of drops the issue and tells Mark to "go long." Mark protests that he's out of shape, and tells Doug to go long instead. Doug obliges, and as he jogs away while looking back at Mark, a car comes squealing around the corner, headed straight for Doug. Doug lacks the premonition to squeal, "My face! My valuable face!" all Luke Perry-style. Mark screams, "Doug!" Doug, somehow not hearing the very loud car, cracks, "Too far for the Ivy-League arm?" (Mark went to an Ivy League school?) The camera zooms in on Mark's face, under his little-boyish quilted cap, as he screams, "Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaar!" (It's a nice shot. That Mimi Leder -- I think she's going places. Oh, who am I kidding? She's going to Poo It Forward. Poor Mimi.) Doug turns around in the nick of time and dives out of the path of the car, which swoops around and, without stopping, discharges a guy from the back seat before careening off. Doug bellows the word "butthead" after the driver ("butthead"?), and Mark, leaning over the discharged passenger, moans, "Not another one." He asks Doug to get a gurney. "I'm not playing catch with you anymore," Doug pouts.
Inside, Doug and Mark are wheeling Discharged Passenger toward a trauma room when Lydia runs up to tell Doug that a kid with a temperature of 105° is seizing. Doug takes off to attend to him, and Lydia joins Discharged Passenger's gurney. As they hurry down the hall, they pass Deb "Once and Future Jing-Mei" Chen, who's holding a tray of something; she asks the passing group something about Benton, but no one answers, and Lydia brushes past her too close, shoving Chen out of the way and upsetting her tray. Slapstick?
In a trauma room, Haleh bustles in as "Brown-Eyed" Susan Lewis orders, "Give her three of morphine." "Make it five," Peter "Big Momma's Boy" Benton overrules, adding, "Call x-ray down here, stat!" Funny. They would say Radiology now, I think. I guess the writers figure we're smarter now. Mark comes through the adjoining door and calls Susan in to attend Discharged Passenger. The camera pans to show that, duh, Mrs. Benton is on the bed. John "Lil' Bow Wow" Carter is standing to her right as Mrs. Benton moans to "Petey" that "it hurts!" Benton impatiently bats Carter out of the way to examine his mom; she keeps slapping his hands away from her. Benton orders a bunch of x-rays. Carter adds, "What about a C-spine?" Benton barks at him to "get the hell outta" there (heh). Carter -- who, by the way, is wearing an argyle cardigan vest which has the unfortunate effect of making him look like a young fogey -- throws up his hands in an exasperated gesture, and Susan tells him to come with her into the room...
...where Mark and his posse are working on Discharged Passenger. Lydia drawls that "he's bleeding somewhere." Chen comes in and gloves up, asking what Benton's doing. Carter says that Mrs. Benton broke her hip. The rest of the room groans in commiseration, and Lydia informs us all, "That's bad at her age." Whereas if you break your hip at twenty-six, it can actually be good for you. Not. Mark drones some orders, and then prompts the med students: "Carter, Deb? Guy's out of it. Primary survey's done. Now what do you get?" "Get a CT?" Carter guesses. Mark makes a buzzer sound to indicate, as humiliatingly as possible, that Carter's wrong. Lydia answers for Carter: "Narcan, 0.8." Mark says, "And then you gotta get the --" "Glucose, eighty-five," Lydia replies. "Get smart nurses and nod sagely," Susan dryly tells Carter. Hee!
Lily enters Mrs. Benton's room, where Benton is still calling out orders. Haleh goes to unbutton Mrs. Benton's housedress, but she pushes at Haleh's hands and feebly protests, "No, no, no! Don't take it off!" Benton screams at the room at large to get the Chief of Orthopedics "off his ass" and to the hospital immediately. Haleh gently tells Mrs. Benton, "We need to undress you." "Please!" she quavers. "Not in front of Petey!" Benton, working furiously, is oblivious to this exchange. Haleh quietly says Benton's name a couple of times before he glances up and snaps, "What?" Haleh explains, "She doesn't want to be naked in front of her son." This possibility had apparently not crossed his mind, and he backs away, stammering that he'll be outside. Mrs. Benton nods and cries.
Pan from Benton, rubbing his head in the hall, to an orderly carrying several bags of blood into Discharged Passenger's trauma room. It doesn't sound good for Discharged Passenger. Carter asks to intubate, but Mark firmly replies, "Not this time. Could be a neck fracture. Always look everywhere. We'll roll him." They roll him, whereupon Mark discovers a "single gunshot wound." They roll Discharged Passenger back. Long story short, he lives. I would get into it more, but the point of the scene is to show Mark teaching Carter and Deb, and saving the dude so that he can go up for surgery.
In the hall, everyone ditches their yellow gowns. Susan says that she has to get home: "I'm on tonight." Mark says he'll have the place emptied out for her. "Deal!" she chirps. Lydia and Susan make off for the El together; Lydia will be back that night as well. A cranky bald guy mutters about getting stat paged, and enters Mrs. Benton's trauma room at the same time as a younger woman in surgical scrubs. Benton tells Dr. Cranky that the patient is Benton's mom, and that she broke her hip. Dr. Cranky, giving a cursory glance at an x-ray, dismissively agrees that she did. He hands the films to Scrubs Girl, calling her "Blair," and tells her to put Mrs. Benton on her schedule. Dr. Cranky turns to go, and Benton follows, explaining that he wants Dr. Cranky to perform the surgery. Dr. Cranky wearily says that ER admits go to the teaching service. Benton says that he doesn't want a resident operating on his mom, and Dr. Cranky says he'll scrub in. Benton asks whether that means Dr. Cranky will be the one holding the knife and, before Dr. Cranky can answer, adds that he wants to scrub in, too. Dr. Cranky says that he will be there, and Benton snaps, "That's not good enough, sir!" They've arrived at the elevator by now, and Benton is all up in Dr. Cranky's face. Dr. Cranky, in a warning tone, tells Benton, "I know this is your mother, but you are way over the line, son!" Haleh and Blair roll up behind them with Mrs. Benton's bed; Dr. Cranky gets in the elevator with them. Benton tries again, but Dr. Cranky cuts him off: "I'll page you when we're done. Now back off!" The elevator doors slide shut.
Credits. I seriously already have to go lie down.
1:00 PM. Fade up on a shirtless guy whose entire torso appears to be covered in elaborately detailed tattoos; there's a big, raw, red patch on his right arm. Carter, off-screen, asks, "So, you tried to sand it off?" "Isn't that what you do?" asks Tattoo Arnie. "Yeah, but we don't use a power sander." Mark leans in to inspect the wound, and Carter explains that Tattoo Arnie is "a diabetic, as well as an amateur dermatologist." "Vera didn't want me just crossing it out," explains Tattoo Arnie. Mark orders some meds, a tetanus shot, and a consult from Plastics: "They may have to do a graft...[checking Tattoo Arnie's left arm] Ah! Maybe they can move that serpent head." "Onto the body of a goddess?" Tattoo Arnie asks incredulously. Mark and Carter simultaneously fix him with a silent stare of disbelieving befuddlement, and then wander off, giggling. Mark asks whether Carter ate lunch; Carter says that the cafeteria was already closed. At 1:00 PM? All righty. Mark produces a chocolate bar from the depths of his sweaty scrubs, which Carter accepts, inexplicably thanking Mark for it. Carter then says that the word is out that Mark will be an ER attending, and congratulates him. Mark self-deprecatingly says that it's not a sure thing, and Carter basically tells him it will be. Anyway, Carter and Mark debate over whether the ER is a good place to work; Mark cites all the stuff you learn, the variety of cases, and the immediate effect you have on your patients' lives, concluding, "Mainly, it's like joining the circus." Right on cue, the elevator doors open and a bed emerges, containing a bearded bald guy wearing a spangled costume with pink ruffles at the sleeves, and a tiara. Heh.
Waiting area in Surgery. Benton nervously paces. A little kid watches Benton's non-progress back and forth across the carpet like he's at a tennis match. Benton finally sits down and tries to flip through a magazine. He notices that the kid's watching, and avoids eye contact.
A hugely pregnant, pretty redhead walks into the frame giggling, as a guy close behind her insists, "I'm telling you, the opening goes in the back!" He's Bradley Whitford, now the beloved Josh on The West Wing; she's Colleen Flynn, who's apparently been on Judging Amy quite a bit, though since we stopped recapping it. She chuckles, "Oh my god, I'm as big as a house," which is not what one would call an inaccurate assessment. Still standing behind her, Bradley Whitford grabs her forearms and starts kissing her neck; when Mark enters, they spring apart (at least, as much as a hugely pregnant woman can "spring"). Bradley Whitford and Colleen Flynn look at Mark with the wide-eyed gaze of guilty teenagers as he introduces himself to them; Bradley Whitford gives his name as Sean O'Brian, and his wife's name is Jodi. Mark instructs Jodi to "hop up on that bed," and Jodi cracks that she doesn't think she "can 'hop up' anywhere." Sean and Mark help her onto the bed. Mark asks what the problem is. She tells him that their baby is due in two weeks: "I have to pee every thirty seconds. It burns, and my stomach hurts." As she describes her symptoms, Sean stands by, muttering along with her, "Stomach hurts." Aw. Mark says it sounds like a bladder infection. He gingerly presses on Jodi's belly and asks whether it hurts. She says it doesn't, but that he shouldn't push too hard, since she has to go again. Sean holds her hand and strokes her arm. Mark measures her belly and tells the parents that the baby is about five or six pounds. The O'Brians seem pleased at this news. Mark asks whether she's had any other medical problems; she hasn't. Mark hikes up the right side of her gown and goops up her belly for the ultrasound. Jodi gasps, and there's some fond back-and-forth between her and Sean as to how cold the goop is. Mark makes with the ultrasound, and as the "wow-wow-wow" starts, Jodi turns to Sean and beams, "I love that sound." Sean quietly agrees, "That's great," and strokes her hair. They're so young and cute and happy. They're just the kind of people who should be having kids. I'm so happy for them! Mark asks Jodi whether she's had any cramping or vaginal bleeding; she hasn't. He asks whether she can feel the baby moving, and in a polite "duh" tone, she chuckles, "Uh huh!" Mark proffers a cup and asks whether she can give him a urine sample. Jodi snickers, "Are you kidding? Yes, I think I can do that." Everyone smiles. Because she's so nice. And the baby's doing so well except for this apparently minor setback. ["And that actress has a really great laugh." -- Sars] You know. It's nice when ladies are pregnant and cheerful and their nice husbands are there.
We see a head-and-shoulders shot of an old, bald dude. We hear and then see Carter guiding the dude through a quick neurological test. At the end, Carter asks the man to show Carter his teeth, but instead of baring them, the dude removes his upper plate and holds it out to Carter. [Cough.]
On a couch in the waiting room, little Jesse is resting with his head in Jackie's lap. Jackie, her jaw set, stares into space. An older boy (whose name I forget) is sitting to Jackie, and asks a pacing Benton whether Mrs. Benton will ever be able to walk again. Benton distractedly assures the boy (I'll just call him Frank) that she will. He then glances down at Jackie and huffs, "I know what you're thinking, Jackie, so why don't you just go ahead and say it." "Shut up, Peter," Jackie drawls. "No, no -- go ahead and say it," Benton insists. "I mean, it's my fault that this happened, right? I'm so pig-headed and self-centred...." Jackie wearily repeats her order that he shut up and sit down. Presently, the doors behind them open, but not with any tidings for them. Benton reluctantly settles down to wait some more.
ER. Doug is shining a light in the eyes of a young patient, who is conscious but wan. As Haleh gives Doug the bullet, the kid's father rants, "I found him in the greenhouse, passed out in the back. Comes to visit me at my place of work and this is the shape he's in?" Doug and the nurses buzz around the patient (I'll call him Drew, since apparently he's a teenaged alcoholic). Drew drones something inarticulate, and Mr. Drew shoots back, "You're going to go where I tell you to go! I am not losing another son to alcohol and drugs -- I am not!" So it's a cheery episode all around, you see. Drunks, broken hips, and...oh, wait. I forgot about the baby that's totally fine and healthy, and his great parents. So there's that.
In the hall, Mark is telling Carter and Chen about Jodi: "She's thirty-eight weeks, but I think her dates are off; the baby's small on exam." He blahs about blood pressure and whatnot. It sounds like everything's normal, though. They arrive at Jodi's room. Mark tells her that he has her test results, and then proceeds to read them to the students. Chen diagnoses, "Simple cystitis. Fluids, rest, and a course of Bactrim." To Jodi, Carter explains, "It's a bladder infection." Sean asks who Carter and Chen are, and Mark says they're med students. "They're so young!" Jodi marvels. Mark jokes, "I know -- it's disgusting, isn't it?" Chen and Carter smile and blush. Mark tells Carter and Chen that he's prescribing Macrodantin. He tears off the prescription and hands it to Sean, telling him to make sure Jodi gets plenty of fluids and rest, and to follow up with their doctor in the morning.
Mark leaves with Carter and Chen, blah-ing some more about sulfas and albumen and jaundice. Doug rolls up behind them as Mark's lecturing, and cracks, "He saves lives, he teaches, he slices and dices...." Doug hands Chen a chart and she takes off. A tiny little old lady comes up to Mark, Carter, and Doug, asking them to sign a get-well card. They all agree, affably enough. Carter asks who the card is for, and the old lady replies, "Me!" As Doug, the last to sign, gets the card, Jerry smirks at the three of them and holds out a chart. Mark asks what it's for, and Jerry happily informs him, "Hemorrhoids." Doug and Mark both distractedly refer it to Carter. Heh.
As Carter's wandering off to check out the ass in question, Haleh calls to Doug that Drew is crashing. Doug runs over, accompanied by Mark. The kid's pupils are "pinpoint," and he's frothing at the mouth. Haleh says his alcohol level's at zero. "Is it drugs?" Mr. Drew asks anxiously. Doug announces that Drew is incontinent. Mark says the drug screen is negative, and asks Mr. Drew where he works. Mr. Drew replies, "Wrigleyville Nursery." Mark asks, "Nursery as in school?" Mr. Drew, not getting it, says, "No, like in plants." Mark asks whether he works in the office or outside, and Mr. Drew says, "Both." Mark orders Atropine, to which Doug apparently concurs. Mark adds that they need to strip off Drew's clothes, and wear gloves. Mr. Drew asks Doug what's going on; Doug says that Drew has suffered insecticide poisoning, and asks what kind of chemicals Mr. Drew's company carries. Mr. Drew says they use "everything," and that they'd been spraying in the greenhouse that day. He asks whether Drew will be all right. Doug doesn't answer. Mark offers to phone the nursery, and takes off.
Near the desk, Mark passes Chen and Carter, who are commiserating about the dull and/or gross cases they've had to attend thus far. Chen whines, "Everyone is so old and sick around here!" ["I have always loved that line. Ming-Na's delivery is really funny." --Sars] Carter duhs, "Yeah...? This is a hospital!" "Yeah, I guess," Chen pouts. Heh. She asks where Benton is; Carter says he's in Surgery, with his mother. They run into Carol "Wet Nurse" Hathaway, just starting her shift. Chen observes, "Seven PM, no Benton. Maybe I'll get home by 8, for once." Right on cue, Sean (unfortunately sporting a Newsies cap turned backwards) bursts back in and breathlessly cries, "Somebody help me! My wife's unconscious in the car! DR. GREENE! Please, somebody help me!" Chen, Carter, and Carol immediately flank a gurney and shove it out the doors. Sean is still yelling, "She's pregnant! Hurry! She's passed out!" Whatever's wrong, I'm sure Mark knows how to make it right.
Upstairs, Benton doffs his shirt and shows us all his sexy, sexy pecs. Unfortunately, he's just swapping his green ER scrubs for a shirt in surgery blue, so that he can march right into Mrs. Benton's OR. Dr. Cranky spots him and warns, "Freeze right there." Benton protests that she's his mother, and he wants to scrub in. Dr. Cranky calmly says, "You take one more step, and I will have your ass hanging on my wall, right to your residency." Ass is an unusual motif for office décor, but I like it. Benton insists, "I want to help." Dr. Cranky growls, "Don't test me." Benton stares. "Out!" Dr. Cranky orders. After a moment, Benton steps into the hall, impotently snatching off his surgical mask.
7:15 PM. Mark, Carol, Carter, and Chen wheel Jodi's gurney into a trauma room. Sean, still sporting the unfortunate cap, accompanies them. Haleh enters presently. Mark calls out orders. Sean asks what's going on, and Mark asks Carter to help Sean out of the way. Bradley Whitford indulges a proto-Joshian raking of his fingers through his hair as he calls to the unconscious Jodi, "You okay, babe?" He moves to the foot of her bed. Jodi is very white. Her eyelids flutter, but she's still out. Mark calls to Sean and tells him that Jodi has "eclampsia." Sean asks whether she's going to die; Mark assures him that she won't (of course she won't!), but that they need to admit her. Cut to Jodi's face; she seems to be awake for a second, and then her head lolls back and Carol yells, "She's seizing!" Mark tells Carter to get a bite block. Sean rushes to the side of the bed and leans over her, begging them to help her. The medical staff all call out orders. The seizure goes on for a pretty long time. Sean is anguished. Jodi finally stops seizing, and the machines all relax into normal-sounding beeps. Orders fly, more calmly. As Mark goes south of the border for a quick pelvic exam, Haleh performs an ultrasound and announces, "Fetal heart tones strong at 140." Carol turns to Sean and translates, "That's good news." Sean looks like he's exhaling for the first time in the past five minutes. Mark reports, "Two centimetres dilated, 80% effaced; membrane's intact." He asks Carol to call OB and see who's on call. Sean, looking shell-shocked, demands of Mark, "What the hell is going on?" For the viewers' benefit, Mark explains, "Your wife has a disorder of late pregnancy known as eclampsia. The blood vessels go into spasm, causing a lack of oxygen to the brain, which leads to the seizures. We're relaxing them with this medicine." Sean, marginally calmer, asks, "What about the baby?" Mark gravely declares, "We need to deliver." "When?" Sean asks. "Soon," Mark ponderously replies. "Very soon." In bed, Jodi slumbers after all the excitement. But I'm sure she's fine.
7:28 PM. Susan's back for the graveyard shift. In the hall, she asks Mark who's in Trauma One. Mark gives her the bullet on Jodi. Since Jodi now appears to be stable, Susan offers to take over, and tells Mark to go home. Mark dismissively says he'd like to stay and see Jodi through to OB. Susan, a little defensive, tells him, "I can handle it." Mark explains, "It's not about you, it's me." Lowering his voice a little, he adds, "I saw her earlier, and I diagnosed UTI. Sent her out, and she seized in the parking lot." Susan's all, "Nice one." So...wait. It was 1 PM just before Mark saw Jodi, and he didn't send her out to the parking lot until six hours later? I guess that's how long it takes to get test results back, but still. Mark continues, "I thought the protein in her urine was due to cystitis, and I blew off one borderline BP. I'd feel better if I saw her through." "Yeah," Susan curtly agrees, charitably neglecting to add, "She'd probably feel better if you went home and left her alone, rather than continue on your path of incompetence while also growing exhausted and hazy, but whatever." Anyway, Mark's a good doctor. I'm sure the scare of seeing nice Jodi all seizing in front of him due to his own oversight will get him back on his game, and that nothing else will go wrong after this.
Another ultrasound. Mark hands Carter a print-out, explaining, "Fundal placenta looks okay." Carter adds that Jodi's blood pressure looks good. Jodi's awake now, and she and Sean watch the ultrasound monitor. "Look at little Hunter," Jodi mumbles. She sounds tired, but otherwise fine. "Dermot," Sean replies. "Jason," Jodi shoots back. "Patrick," Sean volleys. Patrick O'Brian? That's tough. Sean adds with a chuckle, "Boy, is that a boy or what?" "Four-plus turtle sign," Mark jargons. Jodi and Sean both make "huh?" noises, and Mark points to the monitor as he explains that the baby's penis looks "like a little head kind of peeking out." The O'Brians giggle. Mark tells Carter, "You give a score of zero or two for each category. Movement?" Carter observes that the baby "seems very active." "Every night, around the same time," Jodi murmurs. Mark adds, "Also breathing, tone, amount of fluid." He confidently concludes, "He's an eight. Anything less than a six and you worry." Sean and Jodi beam at one another. Mark tells Carter to do the AFI, and then -- once more, for the viewer's benefit -- coaches, "You divide the abdomen into four. Find the deepest pockets of fluid without fetal parts or umbilical cord. You mark each corner of the quadrant, measure, and then add up." Sean asks Mark, "Is that what this number is, over here?" The camera cuts to the fetal heart monitor, showing 140. Mark says that number is the fetal heart rate, and that it should be between 120 and 160. "So 140's perfect," Sean proudly surmises. "Yeah," Mark chuckles. Jodi and Sean exchange another happy glance. Sean swallows hard, and looks back at the monitor.
A little later, Mark's on the phone in the hall, having a nosh. He tells whomever he's speaking to that the baby's "in great shape," rattling off a list of stats. Susan rolls up and peers at the chart as Mark talks. There's a pause, and then Mark answers, "I feel very comfortable -- I've delivered a couple of hundred babies." In a reassuring tone, Mark says, "It's nine o'clock! So we'll see you in an hour?" He hangs up. Susan asks what Coburn (that's Dr. Amy Aquino, my favourite) said. Mark tells Susan that Dr. Aquino is at St. Luke's, and that she'll get to County as soon as she's finished with her repeat C-section. Susan sort of laughs, though I don't know why that's funny. Mark adds that Dr. Aquino wants him to start an induction: "That is, of course, if I feel comfortable." "She said that?" Susan marvels. Mark confirms that she did. "What a bitch," Susan drawls. Yeah. What a bitch that obstetrician is! Mark is completely capable to deal with this situation, obviously! ["Dude, I love Aquino, and Mark clearly bricks the case, but Coburn is a right bitch, in this episode and in several others." -- Sars]
Their pedeconference ended, Susan takes off down the hall, and Mark enters Jodi's exam room and greets a curly-headed dude named Drake, asking how things look. Everyone in the room seems to concur that things look normal. Then Drake's pager goes off; as he leaves to return the page, Jodi jokes, "He can't be more than twelve years old." There is a distinct just-bar-mitzvahed look about him, I have to say. Mark exposits that Drake is the OB resident on call, and then gives Jodi the short version of his phone call with Dr. Aquino: "She agrees that we need to deliver you soon." Sean asks whether that means Jodi would have to have a C-section; Jodi interjects, "I want to deliver naturally." Mark jargons a bit, winding up, "I'd say we do a trial of labour." Jodi smiles beatifically. Sean asks, "And if that doesn't work?" Mark reassures him, "I think it'll work." Jodi slowly rolls her head toward Sean and says, "I want to give it a try." Sean quietly studies her for a moment and then energetically concurs, "Let's do it!"
Drake, out in the hall, gets Mark's attention through the window. Mark excuses himself and heads out there, whereupon Drake asks Mark whether he feels confident to handle Jodi's delivery in the ER: "We're getting slammed upstairs." "I think I can muddle through," Mark deadpans. Drake checks his watch and says he'll come back and check on Mark "at 2300." "Roger," Mark nods sarcastically. Heh. Drake takes off. Carol rolls up behind Mark, and he gives her an order of Pitocin. Carol exposits, "You're going to induce her down here?" Mark tells her they'll start labour in the ER and then send her up to OB. They go their separate ways.
10:12 PM. Carol seems to have just fetched Mark; he asks how frequent Jodi's contractions are, and Carol tells him they're every ten minutes or so. In the exam room, Carter's standing by the bed as Jodi painfully exhales, "Let's let Dr. Greene decide." Sean yelps, "You're kidding!" Jodi matter-of-factly tells him, "We can't call him 'Baby X' when we call our parents." Mark takes a look at Jodi's action and reports, "Five centimetres dilated, 90% effaced, station minus two, membranes intact." Jodi sarcastically asks Carter, "You wanna look, too?" Carter grins, "May I?" Jodi sighs, "Why not? Everybody else has been poking around down there." As Carter literally rolls up his sleeves to get a better purchase on Jodi's genitals, Jodi hands Mark two lists. Mark reads, "Ian. Patrick. Dermot." "Sounds like the cast of Finian's Rainbow," Jodi snorts, before reproachfully exclaiming, "Ow!" in Carter's direction. Carter apologizes. "Hunter?" Mark reads. "Hunter...O'Brian?" says Sean, trying it out. Mark asks Carter, "You agree with my assessment?" Carter says he does. Mark tells Jodi that her labour is progressing normally, and quickly, and that the baby's looking great. Sean glances at the fetal heart monitor, and asks Mark whether it's normal for the baby's heart rate to go down. Cut to the monitor, which shows the heart rate at 129, and then suddenly 121. Mark calmly says that it is normal, as long as it's only briefly, and as long as the heart rate stays over 120. Mark glances back at the lists of names and observes, "Jared's on both lists." Jodi and Sean both make dismissive noises at that one. Mark heartily orders, "Compromise is the soul of marriage. Jared it is." He leaves, and Sean and Jodi both repeat "Jared" a few times, evidently warming up to it.
11:47 PM. In the hall, Susan signs the little old lady's get-well card, saying she hopes the lady feels better. In the foreground, Carter futzes with beakers and such. Mark comes up alongside Susan, and she asks him why the OB case (a.k.a. "Jodi") is still in the OR. Mark irritably says that they're still busy upstairs, and that he has to call again. As he's reaching for the phone, Sean runs out to the hall and breathlessly cries, "Something's wrong! The baby's heart...the monitor's down to 90! Something's not right!" Carter, Susan, and Mark take off running. Sean, no dummy, figures, "It's not supposed to go that low, right?" Well, no -- but surely Mark knows how to fix it.
OR. Mrs. Benton is being wheeled out of recovery, and Benton and Jackie greet her warmly. Benton asks Blair, "Why so long in recovery?" Blair points out, "She's seventy-six!" Benton starts sticking his nose in, and Blair grabs the chart back, snapping, "She may be your mother, but she's my patient. We're taking the OR elevator. She's going to 604." The surgical team wheels Mrs. Benton away, as Benton, Jackie, and Frank nervously watch her departure. Jackie murmurs, "It was bound to happen sooner or later, Peter." Benton wraps his arm around Jackie's shoulders and huffs, looking lost.
12:45 AM. Jodi is in labour, her hairline dark with sweat; she's screaming with pain and the effort of pushing. Sean recommends that she try to take some deep, cleansing breaths, but she sits straight up and bellows, "Shut up, Sean!" None of the ER staff gathered around her bed -- including Carol, Mark, Carter, and Susan -- seems surprised or alarmed by her mood. Mark asks Carol to call OB, and then asks Jodi how she's doing. Sarcastically, she tells him, "I believe I'll have an epidural." Susan says that "contractions are two to three minutes apart," and Jodi barks, "No kidding." Hee. Susan tells Mark, "Tracing's showing reduced reactivity." Sean asks, "What's that?" Mark explains, "The baby's heart rate is reacting or varying less than it should, but babies sleep in twenty-minute cycles, so what we want to do is wake him up." Mark applies some kind of small, hand-held device to Jodi's belly; it makes a brief whirring sound, and then the read-out on one of the machines shows a change. Confidently, Mark tells the room at large that they woke the baby. To Carol, Mark urgently but quietly says, "Get an ETA on Coburn." Carol takes off. Some dude wanders in, and cheerfully introduces himself: "I'm Dr. Urami, [from] Anaesthesiology. I'm here to do your epidural." Jodi emphatically welcomes him: "Oh, yes, please. Let's do that."
2:30 AM. The room is much more calm. Susan asks Jodi, "How's that epidural?" "Wooooonderful," Jodi drawls. Sean is leaning on his elbows on the bed, flipping through a few photos (which I'll assume are from the ultrasound) and saying he'll have to show them to his students. Chen, standing beside Sean, gives him a wary look. Jodi, through the epidural fog, murmurs, "Eighth-graders?" Sean says it'll be like show and tell. "In Math class?" Jodi asks dubiously. Carter, Carol, and Mark have been messing around in the neighbourhood of Jodi's action, and Mark exposits that they're going to get a pressure reading from inside Jodi's uterus. Carter is staring so intently up Jodi that he probably has a clear view of her epiglottis. Mark blathers about scalp electrodes until Jodi asks Carter, "Enjoying the show?" "Yeah," Carter mutters distractedly, before realizing what he's just said, straightening up, clearing his throat, and correcting himself, "I mean, no." Jodi and Sean share an amused look, as he smooths the hair off her forehead. Mark declares, "She's eight centimetres dilated, completely effaced: won't be long." Susan, still examining the print-out from the fetal monitor, immediately contradicts him: "There's another decel." Mark looks over her shoulder, adding, "Variable, with a late component." Susan and Mark are clearly both concerned, and trying to cover it: Mark's voice gets high and tight as he calls out, "Let's infuse 500 ccs normal saline through the uterine catheter....We need to get her up to OB." Carol leaves, saying she'll try to "light a fire under someone." Sean asks whether something's wrong, and Mark -- not at all convincingly, of course -- assures Sean without meeting his eye that they're fine. Before Carol's out of the room, he calls after her in a strangled voice, "Page Coburn again!" Susan studies Mark's face for a moment, but quickly turns away as soon as Mark is about to look back at her.
3:15 AM. Mark is back on the phone in the hall outside Jodi's room, saying, "Why can't I just send her up? She's inches away and the epidural's wearing off." He pauses to hear the answer, and then demands, "Well, then find Drake. Hurry up!" He slams down the phone and hurries back into Jodi's room. She's yelling the way she was before her epidural; clearly things aren't going well, but she still has the presence of mind to inform Sean, "You know that fantasy you have about me quitting work, staying home, and having a bunch of kids? Forget it -- this is it!" Susan is still monitoring the monitor; Mark checks it and determines that they need to deliver. He gets arm-deep into Jodi's wonderfulness and pronounces her "fully dilated, 100% effaced. It's time to start to push." Jodi breathlessly asks, "Already?...Here?" Mark gives her a yes on both counts. Before they get down to it, Mark quietly asks Carter to "run and get Carol." He does so. Presently, Jodi sits bolt upright, clutching her belly, and gasping sharply. Sean tries to soothe her, saying, "I love you so much!" "SHUT UP!" she screams, before flopping back down on the bed.
Carol and Carter run down the hall to Jodi's room. They spot Chen coming toward them, and Carol yells to Chen, "Get a baby warmer and a newborn resuscitation tray in three, stat!" Chen takes off running (really dorkily, I might add).
In Jodi's room, Jodi's pushing as Sean counts. Now Lydia is assisting as well, and helps Mark to spread a clean sheet over Jodi's legs. Carol enters and tells Lydia, "Welcome back." "Did I go home?" Lydia asks ruefully. Sean starts counting again.
Some time later (everyone around the bed is in a different position, and Mark is gowned whereas he wasn't before), Sean finishes counting ten (again). Jodi yells that she isn't ready to be a mother. Mark tells her to bear down, and Jodi moans, "I can't -- it's going to tear me apart!" In the background, a new piece of equipment is wheeled into the room by an unseen nurse or orderly. Sean starts counting again.
More time goes by. Jodi begs, "Get it out!" Mark tells Carter to "go up to OB and drag Drake down! Tell him to bring some forceps, okay? Go!" As Chen eavesdrops, Mark tells Susan, "She's not progressing. The baby's heart rate's dangerously low. I'm going to start the pudendal block." Boy, that doesn't sound like something I would enjoy having done to me -- especially when we get a shot of the needle used to administer it. That needle is big.
4:13 AM. Carter tears down the stairs and into Jodi's room, where he announces, "OB's got two C-sections and three imminent deliveries." Susan quietly promises Mark, "No one will blame you if you wait for OB!" Mark counters that "the baby monitor says it's now or never." Susan rhetorically asks, "Why put your ass on the line?" Mark, sounding totally unprepared and terrified, tells her, "Because I've come this far -- I'm going to see it through." This, by the way, for those keeping track, is really the moment where everything goes to shit and Mark becomes responsible for everything bad that ensues. At this point, Jodi's in pain, but she's still stable. Sure, Mark claims it's "now or never" according to the baby monitor, but Susan's been hovering over that monitor for hours; if she also thought there was a serious problem, she wouldn't advise him to wait for OB. Mark isn't thinking clearly as to what is best for Jodi and the baby; he's still anxious and unnerved because he misdiagnosed her in the first place, and as each new thing goes wrong, he's all the more determined to fix what he may have broken in the first place -- which would be sweet and admirable if he were actually qualified to fix it. But he's not qualified, and that's why his time would have been put to more productive use by his running upstairs himself and pleading his case to OB in person, begging someone to come down and take over Jodi's clearly very unusual and complicated case. ["I'm slightly more sympathetic with Mark here, but I do agree that he should have marched his own ass upstairs and physically escorted an OB resident downstairs to handle the situation; every time I see this ep and he tells somebody to 'drag such-and-so down from OB,' I'm like, 'Dude -- do it yourself!' But he never does. Sigh." -- Sars]
But Mark doesn't do that. He takes his place beside Jodi's bed. We can tell some bad shit is about to go down as the pulsing synthesizers start to thrum on the soundtrack. Mark asks where Coburn is, and Carol tells him she's in transit. Mark anxiously asks whether she's travelling by camel. Mark quickly dips a pair of forceps in what I think is a steel bowl of betadine. Even as all the chaos and bad news (blood pressure climbing, the baby "bradying down") swirls around the room, we see Sean smiling at Jodi and trying to keep her focused on him. Mark tells Jodi not to push, and asks for a median episiotomy. Eeeeyow. None of the medical staff looks at all confident in what they're doing. Mark calls out, "Here comes the head....It's coming!" Jodi looks exhausted and still in terrible pain, but at the news that they can see the head, she manages to smile at Sean. Cut to said head as Mark tries to guide it, and the body to which it belongs, out of Jodi. Sean and Jodi kiss. Susan rather urgently tells Mark to "get him out!" Mark says that the baby is stuck, and that they have a case of "shoulder dystocia." Sean snaps, "What's that?" Mark explains that the baby's shoulder is hung up on Jodi's pubic bone. Jodi starts to cry as an anonymous nurse slips an oxygen mask over Jodi's face. Something starts beeping in a less than encouraging fashion. "Oh my god!" Chen gasps -- which I'm sure is exactly what Jodi wants to hear from someone attending at the birth of her child. Someone notes that the monitor's not reading, and Mark says, "Leads off," but I can't tell if he's intentionally removed the leads, or if they've accidentally fallen off. Oh man, I can't believe I never noticed this before in the many times I've watched this episode: the baby -- whose head is out in the world but whose body is still stuck inside his mom -- starts to cry. Which means, I think, that he is ready to come the fuck out. The crying (understandably, if you ask me) rattles Mark, who hastily calls for a "MacRoberts Maneuver." In order to perform it, personnel must raise Jodi's legs straight up on the air while someone pushes down on Jodi's abdomen, all in an effort to free the baby's shoulders. The baby, by the way? Still intermittently crying. His shoulders? Still stuck. Mark screams for someone to stat-page OB. "Do something!" Sean yells. Mark seems to be running out of tricks, and suggests they try "a Woods." He asks Susan to extend the episiotomy. Jodi sounds like she's hyperventilating. Susan suggests that Mark "try to deliver the posterior shoulder." Mark says the baby's "jammed in." Sean loses it and shrieks, "Why can't you deliver this baby?" Carol snaps, "Mr. O'Brian -- please." Mark decides that the Woods isn't working either, and changes tactics to attempt "a Zavenelli." Carter's all, "Huh?" Mark explains that they're "going to push the baby back in." Um. But the baby's sort of...out. He's breathing. He's crying! If you cram him back in, won't he suffocate? I guess not, since no one seems to argue. Carter asks what happens after they get the baby back in Jodi. Mark doesn't really answer, but tells someone to roll Jodi onto her left side. Jodi sobs. Mark tells Susan to "get [her] hand in here," and calls for a Caesarean tray. They throw a sheet over Jodi and prepare to move her to Trauma One. Mark asks someone to see whether Benton's still in the hospital.
Before they go anywhere, Sean darts in front of Mark and demands, "Where are you taking her?!" Mark explains that they're going to do an emergency C-section, and that they need Sean's consent. Sean sputters, "You don't know what the hell you're doing! Have you ever done this before?" Mark says, surely striking pure molten terror directly into Sean's heart, "I've scrubbed in many times." Oh. Great. Well, I've driven my car "many times," but that doesn't mean I'm about to pull onto the track at the Indy 500, douchebag. Sean says that he wants another doctor to do it, but Mark says there isn't time: "If we wait five more minutes, your baby's brain-dead." Sean gets a change of heart and screams, "Oh my god. Go! Go! Go!"
In the hall, Sean runs up beside Jodi's head and says, "Sweetie, I'm right here. I love you so much." Mark keeps yelling at Sean to get out of the way and let everyone work, but it's not until they actually get to the trauma room that Sean allows himself to be separated from his wife. As Mark closes the doors on him, Sean continues to murmur, "I'm right here. I'm right here." ["Aaaaaand cue Sars starting to cry." -- Pavlov]
In the trauma room, Jodi looks terrified. They roll her onto her back again, and someone squirts betadine all over her belly. Susan still has her hand in Jodi's crotch, where it's been since they left Jodi's first room. She asks Mark about anaesthesia, but Mark says there's no time, and that he'll "throw in a local" in the same tone I tell Glark I'm going to throw on a bra and go to the corner for a Slurpee. Chen squeals, "She's seizing!" and indeed, Jodi is seizing. Mark calls out a bunch of drug orders, and intubates. Susan gets Carter to stick his hand in where hers was. Mark says they'll bag Jodi for now. Chen knocks over a tray. Susan yells, "She's going to stroke out!" Mark calls for everyone to chill for a second. Everyone takes a breath and stays frozen in place. Mark slowly and calmly calls out more drug orders, and asks for someone to call NICU and get someone down for the baby. Finally, he very emphatically says, "Somebody physically go up to the OB and drag somebody down here, okay?" By now, Mark is gowned and gloved. Sean stands in the hall, in shock, watching through the window. A nurse masks Mark, who starts with the C-section. He asks Susan to back him up on where the fascia is, and she's all, "Uh. Yeah. That looks right." Mark's all calling for equipment, but Carol isn't even familiar with what he's asking for. Once Mark's made his incision, Susan blurts, "Isn't there something about a bladder flap?" Over his mask, Mark's eyes pop, and he chokes, "Pickups." And then...oh, man. Susan grabs one side of the incision, and Mark the other, and they pull -- with evident effort -- away from each other. Perhaps there's a smell or something, because Chen and Carter both start and blink and look a bit nauseated. Looking for reassurance, Mark (sort of) asks, "You cut across the lower segment of the uterus?" "You're asking me?" Susan mutters, and Mark replies, "I'm asking God." In the hall, Sean sweats and swallows. Mark calls for suction. Susan cautions, "I don't think you're all the way through," and Mark quietly admits, "I don't want to cut the baby." Chen and Carter swallow and try not to vomit. After a moment, Mark says, "I think I'm in." Right on cue, a machine starts beeping angrily. "Oh my god!" Susan squeaks. "There's two litres in there," adds Mark. "She's got an abruption!" Susan exposits, "She's bleeding out!" Mark tells Chen and Carter to "gown up," and from some unseen part of the room, Carol calls, "Get the baby out!" Cut to Jodi's face, which is calm (probably because she's unconscious). Susan reminds Mark to "hurry" and "get the baby out," but Mark either doesn't hear or ignores her, because Carol has to say it again. Mark yells for them to forget about cross-matched blood, and to get eight units of O-neg instead. Susan tells Mark to hurry. Mark insists, "I've got him. He's big." We see from Sean's perspective as Mark wrestles Jared out of Jodi's womb. "He's blue," Mark calls. Sean starts to smile at the sight of his son, but doesn't quite make it. Machines beep some more. Mark calls for Susan to suction Jared's nose, and then to clamp the umbilical cord. Dude, he really is blue. Mark snaps, "He's not breathing." In the hall, Sean swallows hard.
4:42 AM. Mark hands the baby to Susan and instructs her to "bag him." The sheet covering Jodi's abdomen and crotch is completely sodden with blood. Mark calls Carter over and instructs him to follow Mark's hand into Jodi's gaping incision, and to find Jodi's aorta. (Mark's helpful hint? "It's pulsing." Thanks, chief.) Carter finds it. Mark tells Carter to push down on it and not to let go. Mark moves toward the plexiglass crib where Susan, Carol, and some other anonymous nurse are working on Jared; Chen quavers, "Is he alive?" Mark pulls over a tray of instruments and orders everyone out of the way (because that's worked so well so far), and announces that he's going to intubate. Susan gives him a "sure, why not make another risky decision that could well make matters worse?" look, but doesn't contradict him. Mark orders a "heel stick of glucose." After a few moments during which it's clear that pretty much no one knows what they're doing, Mark hesitantly declares, "I think I'm in." He tells the anonymous nurse to bag Jared; that seems to do the trick, and Jared's chest expands as a result of the bagging. Mark orders a drug. Susan says Jared's "got no veins," and Mark tells her, "Hyperventilate him; I'm going to try an umbilical line." In the hall, Sean watches silently. Cut to Jodi's face; she's still out cold. Mark makes with the umbilical line. Susan marvels, "Oh my god, how can you see?" Mark admits that he doesn't know. More blood orders. More drug orders. Working on the baby is evidently still a challenge. Suddenly, Susan exclaims, "He moved! I swear to god, he moved!" After a moment, she adds that "he's pinking up." That's all Mark needs to move along; he changes gowns and returns to Jodi. Lydia gives him Jodi's vitals. Susan calls out that the baby's much improved.
In bursts Dr. Aquino, demanding, "What's going on in here?" Mark replies, "I intubated; the baby went bad." Cut to said baby, who looks much better (well, he looks alive, for one thing, and all his limbs are moving in a normal fashion). Mark gives Dr. Aquino a short and incomplete recap of the evening's events: "I tried forceps and got a shoulder dystocia. She seized. I paralyzed and did a crash section. Got in there, and there were two litres of blood in her uterus." "You knew she'd abrupted?" Dr. Aquino asks sharply. Irritably, Mark replies, "No, once I got in there. The baby nearly died." Okay, Mark? Jodi looks like a fucking butcher delivered her baby with a bone saw. Dr. Aquino is the hospital's Head of Obstetrics. Maybe she can help, and maybe you could lose the attitude, son! ["I don't get 'attitude' from that exchange, but rather 'Mark trying not to break down sobbing.'" -- Sars] Dr. Aquino surveys the scene and, indicating Carter, asks, "Who is this, and what's he doing in there?" Carter -- unfortunately taking his professional cues from Mark -- shirtily introduces himself and tells Dr. Aquino he's pressing on the aorta. Dr. Aquino snaps, "It's a damned mess. What did you use -- a chainsaw?" Word. Mark snips, "Well, I couldn't just stand around waiting while that baby died!" Thank god for Dr. Aquino, who springs into action: "Get an NICU transport team over here, and the OB resident on call." To Mark, she barks, "You should have let me know you were in over your head." Again, word. Mark looks equal parts bitter and chastened, and he groans loudly.
5:30 AM. Sean paces the hall outside the trauma room, a triangle of sweat soaking his t-shirt. Behind him, the NICU transport team appears, and wheels an incubator into the trauma room. Pan over to Jodi's bed, where everyone is toiling under Dr. Aquino's direction. Presently, she says, "Okay, Carson, you can let go of the aorta." And then you can announce that Blink 182's new video is at #6.
In the hall, the NICU transport team is wheeling Jared toward the elevator when Sean pretty much pounces on the incubator to get a good look at his son. He stares at Jared, and then looks back over his shoulder toward Jodi's trauma room, where Dr. Aquino allows, "Looks good. Bleeding's stopped." She tells Mark to go talk to Sean. Instead of being relieved to have someone knowledgeable taking over him, Mark pissily doffs his trauma gear and stares back at Sean, whose poor, naked, vulnerable face lets us all know he's braced for very bad news.
Mark emerges into the hall, where Sean immediately asks, "Is my baby all right?" Mark jargons, "He was apneic at first, but his five-minute Apgar was very encouraging --" "Stop hiding behind that damn medical crap!" Sean snarls. Mark blurts, "I think your baby's going to be fine." Almost inaudibly, Mark tells the head of the NICU transport team, "Let's go." They start to wheel the incubator, but Sean all but lies on it, begging, "Don't take my son!" He asks Mark, "And Jodi?" Mark allows, "There was bleeding. She's had transfusions but she's stabilized now. [Dr. Aquino], the OB specialist, is in with her now; she's closing the incision." Cut to the baby, who is totally pink and clearly fine. Sean chokes, "How can this happen?" The elevator dings, and Mark babbles, "What we need to do right now is get your son upstairs. Now! Go, go!" The NICU transport team moves, and Sean moves with them, calling to Mark over his shoulder, "Everything's okay, right?" Mark deflects: "Go be with your baby! There's nothing you can do down here!" Sean, reading between the lines: "She's going to be okay, right?!" Mark yelps, "She's stabilized! Go be with your son!" Sean rakes his fingers through his hair again, and the elevator doors close on him.
Mark gulps, and marches away from the elevator, sighing loudly. When he reaches Jodi's trauma room, Dr. Aquino slams out, sneering, "I have never seen such a chain of errors in judgment." She's on the move, and Mark trails behind, meekly pointing out, "I did what you said!" Dr. Aquino yells, "You miss a pre-eclampsia, you underestimate the fetal weight --" "I was expecting OB backup!" Mark whines, which may be true, but he didn't give OB the full story, as Dr. Aquino indicates: "You miss a placental abruption!" Mark whimpers, "What?!" Dr. Aquino brandishes a print-out and points: "Blood clot? Right there?!" Mark studies the print-out in horror as Dr. Aquino spits, "You do an ill-advised forceps delivery on a baby that's too big, and then you do a hack job of a C-section!" Dr. Aquino starts stomping back toward Jodi's trauma room, and Mark scampers behind, crying, "Hey, look! It was me in the barrel with a baby goin' down the tubes!" Dr. Aquino reaches for a phone, but gets in one final shot: "The only thing that saved you from disaster was DUMB LUCK!" Quietly, a de-gowned Susan comes down the hall toward them. Mark insists, "Yeah, well if it wasn't for me, the mother would be dead and the baby a vegetable!" Dr. Aquino demands, "Who's on OB call?" "DRAKE!" Mark screeches. Dr. Aquino punches the keypad as Susan drags Mark away, quietly reassuring him, "She's just covering herself." Mark, tears creeping into his voice: "She's right. It was my screw-up." Susan strokes him (but manages to sound sincere): "You were great in there, Mark! I couldn't have done that!" Starting to cry outright, Mark mumbles, "It was my fault, you know? It was my fault she went sour!" Susan promises that no one is going to blame him. Mark is in the process of replying that no one has to when Chen bursts out of Jodi's room and screams, "She's crashing!"
Mark, Susan, and Dr. Aquino all tear into Jodi's room. Every machine in the room is honking angrily, and the scene is total chaos. Let me shorthand it: it's so, so bad. She's oozing blood every which where. They take her off the respirator and Carter bags her manually. They lose her pulse. Mark shocks her.
Time elapses and Jodi's still crashing. Dr. Aquino says, "We're chasing our tails in here." Jodi's been down thirty-three minutes. Mark does chest compressions, stopping only long enough to let Susan shock Jodi. Cut to Jodi's face; she couldn't be whiter, and blood is oozing out of her right nostril. Mark desperately continues his chest compressions.
6:45 AM. The camera pans from a pile of coiled ECG print-outs to a stack of empty blood bags, and then up to the bed. Mark is still doing compressions, panting from the effort. Everyone else in the room is standing by the bed, immobile. We can hear that Jodi's flatlined. Lydia says that it's been five minutes since Jodi's last dose of epi. Mark calls for another seven. A nurse duly gets it ready, but Susan quietly tells Mark, "Mark, she's gone. It's thirty minutes past too late." Dr. Aquino flintily declares, "I'm calling it. Time of death: 0646." Even as the bag is detached from Jodi's tube and everyone makes to start the death kit, Mark continues his Compressions of Denial. He looks at the ECG -- which shows a brief, squiggly, irregular line before returning to flatline -- and hysterically squeaks, "It's not flatline! It's fine v-fib! Another seven migs of epi!" Susan just stares at him; everyone else is like, "Dude, get Dr. Greene some Haldol, stat." Finally, Mark knocks off the compressions. Everyone stares. Chen cries. Mark is still panting as he ditches his gown, gloves, and mask. He steps into the hall with one lingering backward glance.
Mark staggers down the hall toward the elevator. The medical personnel standing there give him a wide berth, because he looks really scary at this moment.
Mark gets off the elevator on the OB floor and zombies through a series of doors to the nursery. He stands outside the door and watches through the glass as Sean cradles his son in his arms. After a moment, he pulls open the door, steps inside, and sits in front of Sean. We can't hear what he says -- we only hear Jared's crying -- but we see Sean gasp, then lean his head back and sob, and then clutch the baby tightly to his chest.
In the trauma room, Mark stares at Jodi's lifeless face. Carter, strolling past in the hall, spots Mark's vigil and enters. Carter says Mark's name a couple of times before Mark notices he's there, and blearily meets his eye. Carter stammers, "Dr. Greene, I just wanted to say, to...or to tell you that I thought what you did was a heroic thing." Mark blinks, and furrows his brow. He squints at Carter, and then leaves the room without a word. ["Okay, that's snotty." -- Sars]
Mark and Susan climb the stairs to the El; she's saying, "It's just one stop the other way, right by the train station!" Mark tightly replies, "I gotta get going." Susan kindly wheedles, "Come on! Not only does Shorty's have the greasiest eggs in town -- stuff falls from the ceiling every time the El goes by!" Mark says, "Sounds attractive, Susan. I've just got a million things I've got to do." The El pulls in and Mark goes to board it. Susan calls after him, "Are you sure you're okay?" Mark transparently lies, "I'm fine! Scout's honour." Susan calls, "Is Jen home?" but Mark's already on the train and doesn't answer. He walks to the back of the last car and stands by the window, waving back at her. Susan sighs, and watches as the train pulls away.
In the car, Mark finds a seat and sits down. The city landscape rolls by outside. Mark watches, and then tilts his head back and weeps at his own impotence.