Thanks to Moira, cookie, owen, and Wing Chun.
Previously on ER: Hawkeye gets duped into revealing his Alzheimer's, and laments his memory loss; Luka explains his work schedule; Kerry pink-slips Luka; Meg gets arrested while Carol looks on sanctimoniously.
Fade up on the screen of a laptop and Mark "Putzing" Greene playing Tetris. Without a shirt on. Bleccchhhh. Elizabeth "Cut The" Corday wakes up and points out that "it's five-thirty in the morning," and Mark says he couldn't sleep. Corday asks if it has anything to do with his father's impending arrival later that day; as she snuggles up to him in bed (yuck), Mark says, "No, of course not." Corday says Mark would feel worse if he let his dad spend the holidays alone, and Mark grumbles something about "turkey and guilt" before saying, "God, I hope we can fake at [sic] getting along." Corday hopes Mark's father will "be comfortable with our sleeping arrangements." Hey, what about how the viewing audience feels about your sleeping arrangements? Because I find them downright revolting, myself. Mark makes a feeble joke about Corday bunking on the couch, and she giggles, and they canoodle. Ick.
Haleh throws open a door and hollers, "Peter! Peter, wake up!" Peter "Uncle" Benton sits up and wants to know how long he slept, and Haleh snarls, "How should I know, I just came on -- we need you now!" Peter shushes her and makes placating gestures with his hands, then lurches to his feet and into the hall, where an entering gurney nearly knocks him over. Kerry "Bide A" Weaver bellows, "Peter! Rough night on call?" Peter says they "got slammed" as he follows Kerry into a trauma room, and Kerry says, with a little too much relish for my taste, that "there's nothing like a trauma to get the juices flowing." She and John "Go" Carter help the paramedics hoist the patient onto the table, and Carter gives Peter the bullet: a choir bus, on its way from Louisville to a gospel festival, got hit by a semi. After assessing a blunt abdominal trauma that may require surgery, Carter makes a big point of assigning the patient to Benton. "'Assigning' him?" Benton repeats incredulously. Carter announces, "I am the triage officer; you need to let me know what's going on with your patients." Peter adopts a tone of weary -- not to mention hilarious -- resignation, sighing, "Oh God, this is a nightmare," and glancing at Kerry in disbelief. Kerry shrugs and informs him, "He's a senior, he requested more responsibility." She tells Carter, who has borrowed Luka's Mobsters 'R' Us black-on-black look from a few episodes ago, to let her know if he needs help before crutching away. Carter booms, "Right-o!" "Right-o"? Does ER share a soundstage with Fawlty Towers now? Anyhow, Carter proclaims in the same hearty voice that "the blood bank is running low on O-neg, so let's all try and go easy," goes door, and gets the bullet from Cleo "Dorsal" Finch; Finch briefs him, he gives her instructions on X-ray procedure, and he breezes through another door and treats Chuny to the same overly hearty non-authoritative show of great non-authority before making his grand entrance into the hallway, and as Lucy "Starry" Knight hustles by, he thanks her "for joining us." Lucy, looking as annoyed by Carter's stentorian dinner-theater voice as I feel, says she slept through her alarm. Carter needs her in exam four, and Lucy asks sarcastically if she can take her coat off first, and Carter says no, she can't. Lucy vanishes, and Carter follows another gurney, this one attended by Dave "Dr. Dave" Malucci. A few more shots of Carter acting overly officious, followed by an interchange with Kerry in which he asks to attend the emergency-services committee meeting that afternoon and Kerry shoots him down. A little boy tugs on Carter's sleeve and says he has to go the bathroom. Carter tries to get Haleh to take him, but she can't, and neither can Chuny or Lucy, so Carter once again assumes his scoutmaster tone and declares to the ER at large, "If anybody needs me, I'll be in the men's room!" and leads the little boy around the corner, and for some reason, the same tone of voice I found so irritating throughout the entire scene totally cracked me up when Noah Wyle delivered that last line. Anyway, the kitchen gets started on that order of humble pie, and we go to credits.
Oh, for Christ's sweet sake, will you look at that? Now batting tenth in the ER line-up -- Dr. Dave.
Dear Paul Reiser: Get a job. Signed, the English-speaking world.
At the front desk, Carol "Buttinsky" Hathaway nibbles on a snack while the phones ring; she starts to hitch herself over to one of the handsets, but Conni picks it up instead. Carol thanks her, and Kerry appears and thanks Carol for manning the phones. Carol says she can't do much else anyway. Well, except sit in police cars and radiate smugness while getting other pregnant women get arrested. Anyhow. Conni tells Kerry that Robert "Ecce" Romano wants her to bring "the QA data" to the meeting later, and Kerry mutters something snide before reminding Carol to keep her feet elevated to reduce the swelling in her ankles. Conni puts a stool under Carol's feet at Kerry's request and asks Carol, "Anything else I can get you?" Carol says, "You know, a carton of milk would be great, and I could use some pens." Conni says, "My pleasure," but shoots the back of Carol's head a look that clearly says, "Except for the 'pleasure' part." "Morning," says a voice from the other side of the desk. Woo hoo! It's Luka "Walked Into A Door Again" Kovac, reporting for duty. "You're back," Carol notes with surprise. Luka says Kerry called him in, and Carol makes flapping motions and says, "I thought you went south for the winter." "Soon, before the first snow," Luka says, adding, "You look great." Carol says she "feels like an overgrown pumpkin," and she has to explain the whole pumpkin concept to Luka, who nods and says, "I'd say more like a lubenica," but when Carol asks what the word means, Luka doesn't know how to say it in English, and he leaves Carol to puzzle over it. I know what I think it means.
Elsewhere, Peter performs laser surgery on a liver lac. Corday offers to scrub in, but Peter tells her not to bother. He does have a favor to ask, though: "I need some time off." Corday asks how much, but Peter doesn't know; the custody case is going to trial, and he doesn't know how long it'll last. Corday asks if he'll take extra shifts and holidays, and Peter says yes, "whatever it takes," so Corday says she'll see what she can do. A call comes into the OR just then; Peter needs to go to the scene of an accident off the Roosevelt. Corday says she'll go in his place, and Peter tries to talk her out of it, but Corday says no, commenting somewhat acerbically that "even you can't operate and fly on a chopper at the same time" before dashing out. Peter calls after her, "I owe you."
In a conference room, Romano picks at a fruit plate and snipes about the compliance rate for something or other; Kerry and Haleh won't take the bait. Enter Mark and Carter. Romano asks to what they owe the "unexpected pleasure" of Carter's company. "Well," Carter explains, "Now that Elaine Nichols has changed her name and gotten an unlisted phone number, I didn't really have anything else going on, so I thought I'd stick my big old crooked nose in here for a change of pace." Okay, so he didn't really say that -- actually, Mark explains that Carter wanted more administrative experience, so he appointed Carter "the new resident representative. I thought I told you." Romano says evenly that Mark didn't tell him "squat" and asks Kerry if she knows anything about it; Kerry says, "Carter asked, I said no." Haleh tries to suppress a giggle as Romano observes, "Ah, so, it appears that Carter's been playing mommy against daddy," and Carter starts to get up, offering to "step out" if they don't think he should participate, but Mark pushes Carter back down in his chair and says with false bravado, "Ah, there's nothing to discuss, Carter -- have a seat." "Really?" Romano asks, and Carter half-rises from his seat again while Mark wonders pointedly, "You're comfortable sending the message to our residents that their opinions are worthless and they're just here to serve you?" Way to serve Romano his line on a bed of lettuce, Mark. Predictably, Romano characterizes himself as "completely comfortable with that," but he admires "the deviousness" with which Carter insinuated himself. Mark interrupts, "Good. Carter, welcome to the emergency services committee. Unfortunately, I have to take off," and he shoots Kerry a look, and she shoots him a "you'll pay for this, Chrome Dome" look right back, and Mark tells Carter to "take good notes." Mark leaves, and Kerry and Haleh watch with "whatever" faces on as Carter dutifully opens his little notebook, clicks his ballpoint, and asks, "So, what's on the agenda?" Snort.
A mom, who used to play Aaron's wife on Chicago Hope (thanks, Wing), tells Lucy that her son's weight and grades have both dropped lately. "Mom, I'm fine," the kid sulks. Lucy checks the kid's eyes and inquires about his appetite as the mom goes on, "He's doing drugs, I just know it." Mother and son argue over whether he uses drugs, the "losers" he hangs out with, fishcakes, and Lucy says she'll order tests to rule out anemia, but the mom says she brought Chad in for a drug test, and Chad objects, "See? She never believes me!" Lucy tells the mom she doesn't "feel it's appropriate to force that on Chad." As Cleo looks on in the background, the mom demands to know "who's in charge here," and Lucy tries to parry this question by offering to call a social worker, but Cleo steps in: "Is there a problem?" The mom says that she suspects her son of using drugs, but Lucy refuses to test him; Lucy argues that Chad denies drug use, and she wanted to suggest family counseling instead. Cleo looks at Chad: "Chad, do you object to being tested?" Chad exhales noisily and snaps, "Whatever. If it'll get her off my back." Cleo says, "Problem solved. Lucy, run a tox screen." Lucy says crisply, "Fine," and stalks from the room. Cleo follows her, but before she can say a word, Lucy starts telling her off: "Look, I'm a medical student, you're a resident, and you have every right to question my clinical judgment, just don't do it in front of my patients." Nice attitude, Shorty. Cleo doesn't want to hear it: "Chad had no objections. You didn't have to choose sides." Lucy says defensively that she didn't choose sides, she just tried to "work with them," and Cleo points out a little more gently that "sometimes the path of least resistance works best." Lucy gets even more defensive and says, since she has it "all figured out," maybe Cleo should take the case, and she hands Cleo the chart and flounces away. Cleo watches her go and joins the rest of North America in rolling her eyes.
Doris gives Dr. Dave and Carter the rundown on a gunshot victim, whose husband apparently shot her by accident while trying to scare the hiccups out of her. Dr. Dave suggests "sweet pickle juice" as a safer and more effective alternative, and as the woman continues hiccuping, Carter tells Dr. Dave to go find some sweet pickle juice while he takes care of the patient. "Oh no you don't, Carter," Kerry blares. She shouts orders for an upright chest X-ray after Dr. Dave, then informs Carter that he can review the positive charts. Carter asks if he can't do those later, and Kerry says, "No -- people could be getting sick and not even know it." She tells him to review all positive urine and sputum cultures from the last three days and call any patients not treated with the appropriate antibiotic; she adds, while piling large stacks of file folders on the desk in front of him, that when he finishes with that, he can check the compliance for TB-mask fit testing. Carter glances at his watch and smiles in the patient way he used to during a Benton browbeating in seasons past. Kerry remarks that he did want more administrative experience, and Carter says, "And yet somehow I feel I'm being punished." Kerry replies, "Yeah, no pain, no gain." I wish these two still lived together.
A firefighter fills in Corday on the multi-car accident. Corday wants to know, "Any criticals?" and the firefighter says, "The truck driver's okay -- we don't know about the guy underneath the truck." Corday checks a patient going past on a gurney and clears her to "go by ground" before dashing over to a car getting doused in foam and asking when she can get in and check the guy inside. She peers through the window but can't see anything, so she asks one of the firefighters to break the window, and inside she finds a guy upside-down and calling for help. Corday reassures the guy, Dean, and shouts to the medics that he has a weak carotid pulse; then the firefighters bust out the Jaws Of Life to get the guy out of the car.
At the desk, Carol knits with pastel yarn. She takes a call and tells the person on the other end that no, "you don't need an appointment." Then she says, "Stupid!" and hangs up. Nice attitude, Pumpkin. Dr. Dave asks her to order a gram stain for him on a sputum culture, and Carol continues knitting and says poutily, "I'm just answering phones." Oh, I see -- so you can deal with answering phones, but dialing one would jeopardize the health of you and your unborn children? Lucy asks, "What're you makin'?" Carol holds up the swatch and asks eagerly, "What's it look like?" "A blanket," Lucy answers, and Carol gets pouty again and mumbles, "It's a hat." "Sorry. Nice color," Lucy says. Cleo comes up behind Lucy and says she wants to talk to her. Lucy asks self-righteously if Cleo changed her mind about drug-testing Chad, and Cleo says, "Nope -- waiting for the results." Lucy looks down and grimaces as Cleo goes on, "I know it's rough being a fourth-year; you wanna fly solo, but nobody thinks you're ready." Carol answers the phone in the background. Then a man starts dinging the bell on the desk and says that a few members of his choir still need attention, and that he has a cut on his hand. Cleo throws Lucy a responsibility bone, letting Lucy assess the choir folk and order tests, and Cleo will sign off before Lucy discharges them. "Sure," Lucy chirps, and bustles off. The phone rings again, and Carol sighs deeply and answers the phone all put-upon: "ER." Behind her, Dr. Dave on the payphone says, "Hey, Carol. Can you order my gram stain now?" Ha! Carol whips around to glare at him. Dr. Dave grins at her. Carol curls her lip and slams the receiver down. Um, Carol? If you don't want to work, then go home. And please, for the sake of all of us who have long since wearied of your Uppity Crockett routine, stay there -- until, say, the twins go off to college. Oh, and I never thought I'd write this, but go, Dr. Dave.
Back to the scene of the car accident. Corday works on Dean, and a Detective Cruson gets out of his car and introduces himself and wants to know if Dean is still alive. He tells Corday that Dean should have had someone else in the car with him: "He car-jacked a lady this morning." Dean moans, "Help me," and Cruson -- played by a minor Hey, It's That Guy who appeared in The Accused as one of the cheering Neanderthals -- leans over Dean and demands, "What'd you do with her? What'd you do with the lady you car-jacked?" Just then, Corday starts yelling that Dean has cut his carotid, and Dean keeps begging for help and Cruson keeps asking what Dean did with the car-jacking victim, and they go back and forth like that for a minute until Corday orders Cruson to "back off . . . and let me work," and Cruson points out that "there's a woman out there, and God knows what he did to her," and Corday tells Dean not to move, and Dean begs her not to let him die, and Corday reassures him, "I'm a doctor, I'll look out for you." Cruson gets in Corday's face about finding the victim, and then he turns his back on Dean and Corday in frustration, and Corday regards him doubtfully before asking Dean, "Where is she, Dean?" Dean doesn't answer, just gasps in terror. Corday pulls the bloody dressing off of Dean's carotid and holds it up in front of him; the African-American paramedic with the braids eyes Corday with suspicion as Corday continues, "You're bleeding really badly. Where is she?" "I don't know," Dean croaks. The paramedic reports that Dean's blood pressure is falling. Corday: "This is your last chance. Do you want to die?" Dean locks eyes with her and shakes his head, groaning, and Corday says in a steely tone, "Then you tell me where she is. You tell me where she is, or I'll let you bleed to death." The paramedic looks disturbed. Moments pass. Finally, Dean gasps, "Linc -- Lincoln Park, under the bridge." Corday relays this information to Cruson at the top of her lungs, and Cruson shouts it to someone else and takes off for his car as Corday begins yelling orders to stop Dean's bleeding. I'd find this plot a lot more compelling if we hadn't seen it two seasons ago in the "Carter recycles a rapist's blood instead of using fresh and Anna gets angry with him, and even though he acted unethically, we find it hard not to get behind him on that" storyline.
The helicopter lands on the roof of the hospital, and Benton and a cop run up a ramp with a gurney as The Synthesizer Of Great Moral Portent sounds in the background. "How's he doing?" Benton yells over the rotor wash, and Corday says he's stable and she intubated him on the chopper. They jog down the ramp as Benton hollers that he heard Corday tied off Dean's carotid: "That's a pretty aggressive move!" Corday shouts back that she had no choice, and yells at the cop, "Are the handcuffs necessary?" Benton points out, "He's not going anywhere," and the cop says he has to follow procedure because Dean is under arrest for attempted murder.
Carol, still working on the hat, which looks way too big for a newborn. Another nurse introduces herself to Carol as "Judy Rogers, Meg Corwin's nurse," and tells Carol that Meg has given birth and really wants to see Carol. "Why would she want to see me?" Carol asks disingenuously while unspooling more yarn. Gee, Carol, maybe she wants to tell you to mind your own damn business. Again. Since you didn't hear her the first thirty-eight times she told you. Anyway, Judy says that Meg didn't say why. Carol asks after Meg, and Judy says she's doing "quite well, under the circumstances. We were able to get Meg off the heroin before she delivered. She said you got her arrested." Carol shrugs defensively, "Well, she refused treatment, so I didn't have much choice." God, shut up! Let other people live their own lives! Jesus! Judy says she agrees with Carol's decision and tells her that if she wants to see Meg, "She's on the jail ward." Carol thanks her, and Carter comes running up to the desk and asks about the trauma. Carol tells him that Peter and Corday have it, and Carter says he'll go see if they need a hand, but Haleh says, "Not so fast." Apparently, Carter needs to have a TB mask fitted, and he tries to whine his way out of dealing with it, but Kerry crutches past and says she expects Carter to set a good example for the other residents. "Let's go," Haleh says. Carter makes a face at Kerry.
Peter and Corday clatter off the elevator. Corday orders O-neg on the rapid infuser, but Lily says the blood bank has run out; they figure out from Dean's blood-donor card that he has B-positive blood, so they order that instead. Corday and Peter order more tests, noting that Dean has an unstable pelvis, his blood pressure is "sixty palp," and he's begun to bleed out. A brief argument with the cop over whether to uncuff Dean for some tests. Peter offers to take over, but Corday wants to stay with the case.
Lucy stitches the choirmaster's hand and asks about the competition, then instructs him on the care of the wound. The choirmaster thanks her, but he has trouble getting the words out, and Lucy notices that he's "breathing kind of fast." Choirmaster protests, "Oh, I'm fine," but Lucy checks his lungs anyway and informs him that he has wet lungs. "Are you on any medications?" she asks, and Choirmaster tells her he's on Digoxin and Lasix "for congestive heart failure." Lucy wants to run some blood tests, but Choirmaster says not to bother; he's had this condition for five years, and right now he needs to round up his singers and "reassign parts." Lucy says gently that his lungs sound bad. "So will my choir if we don't rehearse," Choirmaster chuckles. Lucy looks grave.
Back to Peter and Corday. Dean has a pelvic hematoma. Four units of blood arrive. The nurses continue to give status reports, and The Piano Of Dramatic Irony heralds the arrival of the car-jacking victim in the neighboring trauma room.
door, Cruson looks on as Luka assesses the victim: she has multiple stab wounds to the chest and decreased breath sounds. He and Kerry decide to put in a chest tube. Still not enough blood. The victim's husband doesn't know her blood type. A nurse straightens the victim's head on the gurney, and she stares up, unseeing, as Cruson pushes his way in and asks, "Are those scratches on her neck?" Kerry tells him to step back, and Chuny points something out to her; Kerry looks, and mutters, "Abrasions to the external genitalia. Yosh, get the camera." Yosh runs off. Cruson asks the patient if she can describe the man who stabbed her, and from under her oxygen mask, the patient moans, "Ron. Where's Ron?" Kerry realizes she needs to intubate, and she again tells Cruson that he has to get out of there; he insists that he needs a positive ID, and Luka growls, "You heard her -- get out, now," as Kerry explains intubation to the patient. Cruson paces around. Kerry reassures the patient that her husband "is on the way." Luka says that she's bleeding out, and Kerry asks Chuny to lean on the blood bank for some type-specific blood.
Back to Dean's room. Peter is putting in a central line as nurses rush around the table, and Conni notices that Dean can't hold his arm up. Corday calls his "right-sided weakness," and Peter observes acidly, "You tied off his carotid -- what'd you expect?" Corday says Dean should still have "good collateral flow to his brain." Cruson watches from the door as Corday worries about Dean stroking out and Peter finishes the central line; then a vessel of some sort starts squirting everywhere. Corday gets splashed with blood, and she tells Malik to get Dean's clothes off, but when Malik chucks Dean's clothes into the medical-waste bin, Cruson rushes in, barking, "Whoa, whoa, what the hell are you doing?" and bitches Corday out for destroying evidence. Peter says grimly that Dean's weakness "is progressing" and he needs to put in a shunt, and Cruson tells Corday to keep Dean's belongings separate and not to clean him up until Cruson returns with a warrant.
Back to the victim, Sandra. Yosh photographs her prone body while Kerry and Luka try to give her blood from auto-transfusion and the cellsaver; Chuny reports that the blood bank needs ten minutes to come up with the type-specific blood. Luka says they can't wait that long because she's lost too much already, and Kerry sends Chuny out to see if anyone on staff has O-negative blood. Chuny asks Dr. Dave -- no luck, he's A-positive. Hey, so am I. She barges into Carter's TB-mask fitting and asks Haleh -- no luck there either because Haleh has AB, but Carter murfles something from within his plastic TB-mask contraption about having O-negative blood. Carter, who looks like a duck in a chef's toque in his TB rig, follows Chuny into the trauma room, and Chuny and Haleh plop him down on a stool and jam a needle in his arm just as he asks for lidocaine to numb the area, and he yowls in pain. Suck it up, Carter, you big baby. Haleh bitches at him to keep his arm straight. "She's tachycardic, heart rate's one-forty!" Luka calls out. Did I mention that I could listen to Luka talk all day, even using medical jargon? Kerry asks for the paddles.
door again. Corday and Benton put a shunt into Dean's carotid. We see a lurid close-up of the wound which I could have done without. For the benefit of the radio audience (tm owen), Corday mutters, "With any luck, he'll be able to stand trial."
The blood arrives in Sandra's room. Kerry orders it onto the rapid infuser. Carter, holding a pad on his elbow, asks what he can do. Kerry tells him to go to the lounge for juice and cookies, and Carter says all blasé, "Hey, I'm fine," before knocking over an equipment tray. Ba dum bum -- ksshh! Not (although I frame-by-framed through the shot and I could see Goran Visjnic laughing). Kerry tells him to get out. Carter futzes out into the hall, past Sandra's husband, who has on a duffel coat and a horrified expression. Sandra's condition worsens, and her husband draws closer to the room and mutters, "Oh my God," and Kerry and Chuny look up like deer in the headlights. Kerry tells him he has to leave. Hubby asks, "My wife -- she's gonna be all right?" and Kerry says, "We're doing everything we can," and the monitors start beeping madly, and the sound of singing wafts into the room. Kerry demands to know where it's coming from, and when Haleh tells her it's "Lucy's gospel singers," Kerry tells her to tell the singers to shut up and let them work. I can see how music could get distracting during a medical trauma, but on the other hand, gospel music couldn't hurt in a situation like that, if you see what I mean. Luka asks for a thoracotomy tray because they've lost Sandra's pressure, and Hubby asks, "What are you doing?" Luka says quietly to Kerry that they have to stop the bleeding, and Kerry tells Chuny to get Hubby out of there. Chuny leads him out.
Haleh books down the hall into Choirmaster's room. Lucy fiddles with Choirmaster's IV, and Haleh tells Lucy, "Dr. Weaver wants them to stop." "What?" Lucy calls over the sound of their singing. Haleh shouts that she's sorry, "but you just can't sing in here." "Then we'll rehearse outside," Choirmaster says, wheeling his IV out into the hall. Lucy tries to stop him, saying he can't leave and telling Haleh that his blood tests haven't come back yet, and Haleh tells Lucy to take it up with Kerry.
Cleo sees Chad walking down the hall and wants to know, "Where are you going?" "I gotta pee," he says snottily. "Do I have to go in a cup again?" "No, you can flush this time," Cleo tells him, and asks at the desk if Chad's drug test has come back yet. Carol tells her that the tox screen came back negative, which Cleo calls "good news," but Carol adds that "his liver-function tests were abnormal." Cleo asks her to call the lab and add on a blood-alcohol level, and Carol says, "Sure," but as she gets up to order the test, she sort of swoons. Cleo and Dr. Dave lower her to the floor as she avers that she's fine. Cleo says she's putting Carol and the babies on a monitor. Carol protests some more. Cleo won't hear it and tells her to breathe. Carol sighs and looks put-upon.
Hubby watches the doctors work on Sandra. Yosh shoves past with four units of blood, and we pan over to yet another graphic close-up of an open chest wound. According to Luka, Sandra is "losing blood faster than we can give it to her." Luka and Kerry try to repair Sandra's heart, and Kerry goes in with the cardiac paddles while Hubby watches.
Conni, Corday, and Peter prepare to move Dean upstairs for surgery; Corday says she'll take him up, but as they leave the trauma room, she spots Hubby standing at the door of Sandra's room, and she tells Conni to go ahead. "Can you tell me what they're doing to my wife?" Hubby asks Corday. Corday says quietly, "They're shocking her heart to try to get it beating again." The camera doesn't move from Hubby and Corday, and after another moment, Hubby chokes out, "Why are they stopping?" Corday doesn't answer. Shortly thereafter, Kerry emerges and tells Hubby that they need to talk to him. Hubby enters the trauma room as we hear the monitors getting turned off, and he sobs at the sight of his wife's ravaged body. He hugs her and kisses her forehead and weeps into her hair; Corday watches uncomfortably from outside.
Wow, Pierce Brosnan really had a big pouf in Goldeneye.
Carol asks her OB what's the what, and the OB reports "good variability, no contractions," adding that Carol's babies "are doing great -- it's you I'm worried about." Carol says, "I'm taking it easy," but her OB points out that "there's no such thing" in the ER, and that she's in her third trimester with twins and should go home and rest. I agree; she can sit in a chair by her window and phone in parking violations or something. Mark hurries in and says he heard Carol collapsed, and she says she didn't collapse: "I'm fine." The OB tells Mark that Carol's blood pressure was low, and that that's normal for this stage of the pregnancy, and after telling Carol to call her if she has any problems, she leaves. Mark orders Carol to go home. Carol makes "yeah, yeah" noises and asks about Mark's dad; according to Mark, Holling never got off the plane. Carol asks if Holling took the right flight, and Mark says it came in on time, but no Holling, and he called a neighbor who went over to check the house, but no Holling. Carol sits up and theorizes that Holling may have taken a later flight; Mark helps her on with her sweater and grumbles, "Yeah, or he's just lost in the continental United States." Or he just doesn't want to see you, Mark. ["I can sure sympathize with Holling there." -- Wing Chun]
Cleo strolls into Chad's room. Without meeting her eye, Chad sulks, "Guess I'm off the hook, huh?" "Not quite," Cleo says. Still not looking at Cleo, Chad gripes, "Your tests are a bunch of crap. I'm clean." "You're drunk," Cleo shoots back, and Chad tells her that if she calls this drunk, she doesn't get out much. Cleo arches a brow, sits down, and asks, "When was your last drink?" Chad cops to having a few beers the night before, and Cleo says he must have had more than a few, because he still has alcohol in his blood. Chad looks resolutely away from Cleo and says, "Okay, so maybe I had a couple six-packs. I don't remember." "Is that because you blacked out?" Cleo asks, and finally Chad looks at her and shrugs, and she mockingly shrugs back at him before informing him that he already shows liver damage from alcohol, which means he's "been doing some seriously heavy drinking." Chad says he likes to party with his friends, "nothing wrong with that." Cleo says they need to talk to Chad's mom, and Chad wonders aloud what his mom would have to say about it, since "she gets bombed every night herself."
Hubby stares sadly at his wife's body. Luka and Kerry stand behind Hubby, who says his wife had just gone out to get coffee. Luka asks Hubby if they can speak with him outside. Hubby says firmly, "I can't leave. N-not yet." Kerry says gently, "We need to talk to you about something that's going to be very difficult," and Luka knocks what little wind Hubby has left out of him by adding, "We have to do a rape exam on your wife." Kerry pats Hubby on the back and says, "Please come with us." Hubby follows them. Luka apologizes before asking awkwardly whether Hubby has had intercourse with his wife in the last seventy-two hours, and Hubby looks utterly stricken and whispers, "Why?" Luka looks over at Kerry, who collects herself and tells Hubby, "If the exam is positive, we have to make sure that it wasn't you." Hubby shakes his head and half-sobs, "No," and he turns for one last look back at Sandra and shuffles out.
Corday speaks with a radiologist about Dean's condition; the radiologist says that Dean is in bad shape, and cracks a joke about all the doctors and all the radiologists failing to put Humpty back together again. Shut up, radiologist. Cruson comes in, and Corday asks him to step out, but Cruson has a warrant to gather evidence: "The charges against this guy have been changed." Corday asks what Cruson needs to do; we see a shot of Dean blinking in terror before Cruson answers, "Fingerprint him, scrape under his nails." Corday looks concerned as Cruson addresses Dean: "You're looking at murder one, pal."
Outside the ER, the gospel choir practices. Lucy walks out to check on Choirmaster, who is conducting with his IV cord flapping, and tells him that his lungs sound better "since the Lasix," which Choirmaster tells Lucy "made [him] pee like a fountain." Wow, thank you for telling me that. Choirmaster checks his watch and makes we're-late-we-gotta-go noises, and Lucy tells him that he can't leave until his blood tests come back, but Choirmaster won't disappoint his choir; he promises to come right back after the concert. He waves at the choir to get ready to go, and Lucy tells him he's leaving against medical advice so he'll have to sign a waiver. She goes to get a doctor, and Choirmaster says all exasperated, "I thought you were a doctor." No, no, Choirmaster. Real doctors put. Their hair. UP. Lucy says bossily, "I'm a medical student -- you stay there!" Choirmaster rolls his eyes.
Cleo talks to a social worker in the elevator. Social worker "if the boy doesn't want help, there's not much we can do" blah blah blah Cleo "if he keeps it up, he's going to kill himself or someone else" blah blah blah social worker offers names of treatment programs blah blah blah Cleo tried that but Chad refused and can't they commit him blah blah blah fish-rum-and-cokes. The social worker points out that they "can't pull him out of his home for being an alcoholic"; Cleo wonders if convincing the mother to send him to a treatment facility would work, and the social worker says, "Maybe," and just then Lucy runs up to Cleo and begins blathering on about Choirmaster leaving AMA. Cleo asks for his EKG stats, and Lucy fills her in on how she's treated Choirmaster so far. Then Cleo asks, "Where is he?"
Cut to a shot of an exhaust pipe; we pan up to a shot of the choir bus pulling out of the parking lot. Cleo, hands on hips: "Why didn't you get me sooner?" Lucy, glumly: "Thought I could handle it." Cleo: "Well, if his enzymes shows [sic] he's had a heart attack, you'd better find him." Sars: "And a freakin' barrette, while you're up."
Mark asks Carter how the meeting went. Carter says dryly that Mark can read the minutes, which Kerry is making him type up. Mark still can't find his dad -- whatever. Then Mark joins the rest of the English-speaking audience in asking Carol, "What are you still doing here?" She says that if she doesn't finish the timecards, the nurses won't get paid. Well, thank heavens for the largesse of Saint Carol Of The Midwest, watching over her RNs in spite of the risk to her own health, because nobody else in the entire hospital could figure out how to fill out a timecard. Oh, wait. A three-year-old could fill out a timecard. My mistake. Anyway, Mark points out exactly that, and Carol says that it would take her just as long to explain the procedure to someone else, and besides, she'd just end up doing them at home anyway. Mark nags her to take it easy some more, and Carol blows him off some more. Chuny takes a call from Neuro; either Mark or Kerry has to go up to Six West to see about Hawkeye. Kerry has the rape exam to finish, so Mark goes. Then Chuny tells Carol, "Oooh, I almost forgot -- some girl named Meg called, she says she really wants to see you." Carol chews on her lip.
A neurologist shows Hawkeye flashcards with drawings on them. Hawkeye fulminates, "This is ridiculous, I feel like a lab rat," but the neurologist urges him to bear with her. Hawkeye can identify some of the things, but can't remember the words for others, and when he can tell from the neurologist's face that he isn't getting the answers right, Hawkeye looks terribly sad. After a while, he gets impatient and stands up and pitches a fit, but then he sits down again and apologizes. The neurologist suggests taking a short break, and she leaves; Hawkeye makes a beleaguered face.
Okay, I may have hormones to blame for this, but I think that McDonald's commercial with the girl learning to read Braille is kind of sweet.
Luka and Kerry work silently on the rape exam. Using the fluorescent lamp, Luka finds a spot, and he takes a sample, remarking, "Looks like semen. That's it." He sighs. Somber music plays.
Mark enters a ward and asks Hawkeye, "Finished up?" Hawkeye says grumpily, "I'm just waiting for the test results. Have a seat. Share my boredom." Heh. Mark invites Hawkeye for a cup of coffee, and Hawkeye says what the hey and follows Mark into the hall, and Mark asks, "How are things going?" and Hawkeye says sadly that, for a doctor who can't practice, he can't complain. Mark says he called Hawkeye's son, and "he's on his way over." Hawkeye makes distressed noises and says he just told the neurologist that he doesn't want his son "involved"; Mark says matter-of-factly that Hawkeye needs to have a caregiver in order to enlist in a clinical trial. Hawkeye says, "My son is not gonna baby-sit me," and he probably means "my son wouldn't want to baby-sit me," rather than "I don't want my son to baby-sit me." Mark reminds Hawkeye that he took care of his son when his son needed him, "and now it's his turn." Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I did order Item No. 4399, the Parallel Plot Anvil With Bevelled Edges -- thanks! Hawkeye feels guilty; Mark compares him to Holling in his head. ["Harry Chapin sits by some celestial mailbox waiting for his 'Cat's in the Cradle' royalties." -- Wing Chun] !
Corday and Peter scrub up and discuss the impending procedure. Romano strides in, walks over to Corday, and says he understands she has had "quite a day." "I'm not in the mood," Corday says, not looking up. Romano tells her "what's been going on downstairs -- your patient raped that woman." Corday sighs, "Oh, dear God," and Romano goes on to say that an investigator for the public defender's office paid him a visit, and "some bleeding heart is claiming that you coerced Rollins" -- Dean, that is, as opposed to spoken-word-ist Henry -- into telling her where he left the victim. Peter looks from Romano to Corday. Corday stares into the distance, then looks down and says nothing. Romano prods her, "Did you coerce your patient into giving information in exchange for his life?" Peter snaps, "Dr. Romano, you're outta line," but Corday says, "It's okay, Peter, I'll answer that," and meets Romano's eye: "I think it's fair to say I pressured Mr. Rollins." Peter looks shocked, shocked! Romano comments that he didn't think Corday had it in her "to cross that line," then suggests that she rethink her characterization of what happened, "because in this country, when a confession is coerced, it's usually thrown out." Um, excuse me, but doesn't that miss the point by a fairly wide margin? Do doctors not take the Hippocratic Oath anymore? "First, do no harm" and all that? Corday, as she usually does after screwing up royally, looks sick. Romano leaves.
Cut to Carol getting buzzed into the jail ward. Judy asks, "Change your mind?" and Carol says tersely, "I wanted to see the baby." Judy tells her she came just in time: "Social services'll be here soon to take him." She lets Carol into Meg's room. On the monitor, we see Carol waddle in and greet Meg; Meg introduces him to the baby, Joshua, whom Carol calls "beautiful." Meg says, "They're -- they're sending me back to jail. I need you to talk to someone about letting Joshua stay with me." Carol says dismissively, "Aw, Meg, that wouldn't do any good," and Meg says in a pleasant tone while rocking the baby, "You did this. I mean, if you hadn't gotten me busted, I wouldn't be here right now." Carol's face hardens into its customary Mask Of Great Sanctitude: "I did what I thought was best for you and your baby." Meg tells Carol, "I'm gonna be in jail for ten months -- you think that's what's best for him?" Carol tries to soften the blow with some patronizing twaddle -- she knows how hard it is, if Meg gets her life together and proves that to "them," Meg can get Joshua back, yadda yadda yadda -- and Meg cuddles Joshua more frantically and asks, "How can you be so damn self-righteous?" Good -- nay, excellent -- question, Meg, but Carol gets saved from having to answer by the entrance of Judy, who tells Meg that Social Services has come to take the baby. Meg begs for "a little more time," and Judy informs her in a really weird Stepford-y singsong that mothers can't keep their babies in jail, and we pan up from Judy in the doorway to the camera posted above the doorway as Meg says this isn't right, and she knows she screwed up, but Joshua needs her, and then we cut to the monitor and Meg begging Carol to do something, and Judy leans over Meg to pry Joshua out of her arms as Carol, near tears, says, "There isn't anything I can do," and she throws up her arms and makes to leave, and Meg keeps pleading, "Carol, please," and Judy tries to coax Meg into handing Joshua over, and Meg yowls at Carol, "You did this!" as we pan back from the monitor to show Carol at the door, pounding on the wire and demanding of the guard in a desperate voice, "Can you open this door?" but the guard is on the phone and tells her to wait, so she has to stand there and listen to Meg trying to reason with Judy and Judy trying to calm Meg down, and she bangs on the door almost crying and shouts, "Open this door now, please!" Finally, the guard buzzes her out, and Carol waddles by as fast as a pregnant-with-twins woman burdened with the weight of a halo can waddle as Meg starts keening, "Please don't take my baaaaay-beeeee!" and she gets to the second door and signals the guard, and he buzzes her through as Meg keeps ululating, and as soon as she gets into the hallway, Carol sighs and pushes her hair off her forehead, and as she disappears from the frame, we hear Meg coo, "I love you," to Joshua before screaming at Judy, "I'm his MOTHER!" Hey, Carol? Choke on it.
Hawkeye sits in the hallway of the ER with a box of things from his locker, waiting for his ride. Doris brings in a seizing patient and gives Carter the bullet, and Carter takes over and tells a nurse to page Kerry.
Chad's mom tells Cleo she guesses she "got all worked up over nothing." Lucy walks past and shoots them a curious look, and Chad slumps scowling nearby; Cleo explains that "alcohol abuse is hardly nothing," but Chad's mom scoffs, "So he had a few beers with his friends -- at least it wasn't speed, or coke." Cleo tries again, telling CM that Chad has a serious alcohol problem, and with CM's permission, she can refer Chad to a treatment program. CM starts to get impatient, saying she came in to get Chad tested for drugs, but she didn't give Cleo permission to test his blood for alcohol; Cleo cuts her off with, "Your son needs help." CM says, "Look, he's not on drugs, right?" and she gets up, and Cleo gets up too and asks, "Are you avoiding this because you have a drinking problem?" Chad finally shows some interest in the conversation as his mother glares at him and then at Cleo before gasping, "How dare you? Come on, Chad." CM leaves; Chad gets up, fixes Cleo with an inexplicably furious glare, and follows her. Cleo walks back towards the desk, massaging her temple, and Lucy watches her with a mix of pity and self-regard. Did this plot have a point? Because I don't see one anywhere, frankly.
Back in the trauma room, nobody can figure out why the guy won't stop seizing. Hawkeye watches from his seat in the hall. The guy stops seizing, then starts again, and it looks like he might have a heart attack. Carter runs out into the hall and asks Hawkeye to help. Hawkeye grumbles, "I don't work here anymore," but Carter begs him to take a look and briefs him. Hawkeye decides to help, slams down his box, and marches into the trauma room as Carter lists all the things that he knows aren't wrong with the guy. Hawkeye calls for Pavulon. Kerry comes in and wants to know what's going on; Carter briefs her as well. Hawkeye diagnoses strychnine poisoning and grabs the kit from Carter to administer the dose. The guy's seizure stops, and Carter announces, again for the benefit of those following along on their wireless sets, "It worked! How did you know?" Hawkeye explains why, adding that he had a case like this one "twenty years ago," and continues to expound folksily as everyone around the table looks on admiringly. Carter thanks him, and Hawkeye says, "Score one for the absent-minded professor, huh?" Kerry looks at him sadly; Hawkeye beams at everyone around the table, then says, "Well, I gotta go." Everyone around the table watches him walk out. Kerry follows him out and tells him, "Gabe -- that patient would have died if you hadn't been here." Sorry, I just need to run outside with my bear-shaped squeeze bottle of honey and write "WE GET IT" on the sidewalk in giant letters and wait for ten thousand ants to come to the honey letters and spell out "WE GET IT" with their seething little black bodies. Because we do in fact GET THE POINT. Hawkeye makes yet another feeble old dog-new tricks joke, and Kerry reminds him for the umpteenth time, "I wouldn't be here without you." Hawkeye demurs that he just gave her "a little push in the right direction." Kerry asks, "What're you going to do?" Hawkeye says that Mark called his son, and Hawkeye and his son talked, and now Hawkeye will go live with his son. Kerry nods, "I'm glad." Hawkeye says he has to go, his son is picking him up: "I'll see you, Kerry." "I'll see you," she agrees in a brittle voice. Cue Poignant Piano as Hawkeye exits the ER with his box under his arm and walks out through the ambulance bay, but we don't see him get in a car or anything.
At the desk, Mark asks Lucy if she found her patient yet; seconds later, a paramedic comes in with Choirmaster himself on a gurney and a diagnosis of suspected carbon-monoxide poisoning, but Choirmaster is peppy enough to blame Lucy for the fact that he and his choir missed the festival. Go, Choirmaster. Lucy tries to protest, but Mark talks right over her, ordering her to call cardiology, "and don't lose him this time." Choirmaster disappears down the hall, rolling right past Holling, who calls out, "Mark?" Mark runs over and asks if Holling is okay; Holling says he's fine, "a little tired, but two hundred bucks richer." It seems the airline paid Holling to get off an overbooked flight and take a later one. Father and son get a little snippy with each other, and Mark tries to rise above it by offering his father a tour of the ER, taking his father's suitcase. Holling points out, "I've been in plenty of hospitals," and Mark says, with an effort at self-control, "Well, you've never been in this one." "You're one of the bosses around here, right?" Holling asks, and Mark says, "Yeah, one of them." Hmm. "Boss" must have a different regional meaning in Chicago.
Luka, putting on his coat. Kerry comes in and thanks him for "doing a good job on a tough case." "Till time," he says, and makes to leave, but Kerry says she would like him to stay permanently. Yeah, you and every hetero female with a television, sister. Kerry adds that they have an opening because of Hawkeye's departure. "Okay," Luka says. "Great," Kerry says. Laura Innes looks a little, well, moon-eyed in this scene. Not that I blame her. I'm just saying. Anyway, Luka makes to leave again, but Kerry asks, "Don't you want to know how much it pays?" "You'll be fair," Luka says mildly. "See you tomorrow." Kerry says, "See you." Then she smiles. Why? Because when a man is that fine, you have to smile. I'm smiling right now.
[Sound of cold shower running.]
All righty, then. Corday and Peter, practically on top of one another, operate on Dean. Corday mutters things like "lucky bastard" and "I should have let him die," and Peter tells her not to beat herself up, because the fact that she got Dean to talk made it possible to find Sandra. Corday echoes my thoughts by growling, "Fat lot of good that did," and Peter very nicely points out that at least she didn't die alone under a bridge or something. Dean crashes, and a nurse charges the paddles and holds them out to Corday, who just stands there for an endless moment while Peter shouts, "What do you want to do, Elizabeth? Elizabeth?" Corday grabs the paddles and shocks him, and Dean comes back, and Corday stands there wide-eyed. Abrupt cut to end credits.
week, Carol swoons on the subway, Luka carries her to the ER, Carter reassures Carol, Carol wails to Mark that it hurts (uh duh), Carol looks at her babies and smiles victoriously, and we can look forward to "a night of small miracles, as a woman becomes . . . a mother." Pass the iron smelter, because I've got the night off.