Props to all the bad-ass mofos that were kind enough to host Glark and me in Los Angeles this past week, and to Sars for holding the fort while we were gone.
Only one more recap stands between me and glorious summer. Mmmm, Juuuuuuuuuuune.
Previously on ER: Carla came on to Benton; a woman brought her neighbour's son, Ben Fossen, to County, and he was very bad; Mark told Mr. Fossen that they'd found some unusual bruising on Ben; Adele told Mr. Fossen that they were taking Ben away, at least for a few days; Mr. Fossen lost it and had to be restrained by security guards as Adele took off down the hall with Ben in her arms; Weaver told Carter that his application for Chief Resident was basically a joke to her, and Carter was sad.
Valium Villa. Elizabeth "The Mummy Returns" Corday dozes sitting up on the couch with Ella resting against her shoulder. Mark "Papa Doc" Greene creeps in, dressed for work in chinos and the Blue and White Checked Short-Sleeved Shirt of Milquetoastitude. He gingerly perches to her on the couch and takes Ella from Elizabeth. Ella awakens but doesn't fuss, and Mark asks Elizabeth, "How'd she do?" Elizabeth says that the baby was up from 3:30 to 6 AM, and then "wanted to feed" at 7. Mark joggles the baby and tells Elizabeth to lie down and take a nap -- which strikes me as a good idea, since Elizabeth has barely opened her eyes throughout this exchange. Mark crawls forward on his knees to set Ella in her playpen. Elizabeth asks whether he's leaving, and when he tells her he is, feebly implores, "Please don't go," but she's so tired she really doesn't seem to care much either way. Mark whispers that he has to go. Mark settles Ella in her playpen and she drifts off almost immediately. Behind him, Elizabeth flops into a slightly more horizontal position and breathes, "I want you to stay." Mark says he wants to stay, too. She asks whether he can call in sick, and he says he wishes he could. "Just do it," she exhales, but before he can answer, she's already asleep. I like to think that this scene is a meta-statement on the craving Elizabeth is supposed to have for Mark -- or at least for Mark's company -- but that she actually doesn't have at all, which leaves her wanly going through the motions without much conviction. Don't try to dissuade me. My mind is made up. Mark wraps a throw around her and says he'll leave the van.
Seconds later (or so it seems), Mark wakes up on the El. He squints out the window to see a homeless guy judgmentally staring back at him as if to say, "Dude. Get it together. At least wait until you can get to a park bench." Suddenly, there's a loud explosion. A woman behind Mark asks the car at large what it was, and some dude across the aisle exposits that "they're demolishing the old textile building on State." "That'll wake you up," mutters a guy behind Mark. In a gesture of transit camaraderie, Mark smiles and nods. When he glances out the window again, the homeless guy is gone -- which, as any Classics scholar can tell you, is an unfavourable portent of pestilence and discord to come. If Mark knows what's good for him, he'll call back his armada and cancel the attack on Carthage. The car lurches forward.
Once off the El, Mark buys a paper at a newsstand, where a construction worker is bitching at the newsstand guy that the demolition of the mill to erect a mall somehow points to a defect in society: "All we do is buy and sell. We don't produce nothing." Hearing an ambulance, Mark searches the streets for it; seconds later, his pager goes off. Seeking, I guess, to bolster his point, Construction Guy asks Mark what he does for a living. Mark tells him he's a doctor. Construction Guy hesitates, and then says that's a bad example. As Mark wanders off, Newsstand Guy says he doesn't know what Construction Guy's problem is: "You're the guys building the mall." "Not for long," Construction Guy mutters, and then somehow leaps from that point to this: "Freaking internet. I'll tell you, they can take their information age and shove it up their ass." Um. Shout-out? I don't see what the internet has to do with the decline in manufacturing sectors, but then mine is clearly not the finely tuned economic mind Construction Guy boasts. A pair of ambulances speed down the street toward Mark.
Mark runs to the ambulance bay, and joins John "Whine and Cheese" Carter, to whom Doris is giving the bullet; the patient is a twelve-year-old boy named Martin who's been shot in the arm. Mark asks Carter what happened, and Carter disgustedly replies, "Some guy opened fire at a foster-care facility." "Foster care?" Mark repeats incredulously. Carter confirms the location, adding that there are "twelve down," and that he doesn't know how many are coming to County. Mark jogs toward another rig, but Kerry "Out for Justice" Weaver is already there, and points him toward yet another rig, just now pulling in. Mark's patient is a woman named Maria who was shot in the groin. She doesn't have any belly pain, but says her leg is cold. As Mark moves to cover her, she chokes out, "Did they get him?" Mark asks who she means, and she says, "The man with the gun." Mark doesn't know, and asks her whether she saw him. Maria says they were hiding in a closet, but he shot through the door. There's general chaos as all the doctors wheel their patients, en masse toward the door. Cleo "Torture Droid" Finch calls Mark back to deal with an eight-year-old girl shot in the head. From the sound of all the machines attached to her, I think she's just about done for, but sure, tie up Mark's time. It doesn't matter. As they move the girl toward the hospital, Finch asks Mark whether he just arrived. Mark says he did, and adds that he was going to call in sick. He glances at the newspaper in his hand, and then tosses it into a nearby garbage can. Aw. What with all the mortally wounded children coming in, Mark's not going to have a chance to read Marmaduke today! Bummer!
After the credits...jargon as far as the eye can see. Lots of kids are very hurt. Weaver crutches into a trauma room, where Mark and Finch are flogging the shot-in-the-head girl; Mark thinks she has brain-stem failure. Abby "Lisa" Lockhart enters to tell Weaver that the last patient from the foster-care facility, a patient with a gunshot wound to the chest, is en route. Mark and Finch are distractedly shocking the patient as Weaver and Lisa confer about where to put the incoming patient. Mark asks Lisa whether the patient is a victim of the same shooter, and Lisa, on her way out, tells him that it is, and that the gunman shot the gardener on his way out. Everyone makes disgusted noises. Cut to the girl's head; there's blood all over the backboard. Weaver mutters that she's surprised the shooter "had any bullets left." Yes. Because if there's one thing that's hard to get in Chicago -- based, at least, on what I've seen on this show for the past seven years -- it's guns and gun accessories.
Weaver enters the adjacent trauma room, where Carter and Jing-Mei "Deb" Chen are working on Martin. He's conscious, and watches through the glass as Mark and Finch continue shocking their patient. "Is that Helen?" Martin asks. Chen glances up and asks, "Who?" Martin repeats, "Helen. She's new. Foster mom bailed on her." Chen says she doesn't know. The door between the two trauma rooms swings shut, obscuring Martin's view of Helen's continuing death. Carter does something to Martin that makes him wince. Carter asks Weaver whether the shooter's been apprehended yet, and she says no: "Dispatch doesn't know anything." Martin pipes up to exposit, "He was waving the gun at Mrs. Buckley and yelling, and then he shot her." Carter turns to Weaver and quietly asks whether a Mrs. Buckley made it to County. "DOA," Weaver replies. Carter turns back to Martin. Weaver orders some drugs for Martin and tells Chen and Carter there's another patient waiting for them. She leaves. Blah jargon blah. Chen asks Carter, "Did you turn it in?" Carter's all, "Huh?" Chen exposits, "Weaver said my application was incomplete? I'm missing my peer reference?" Carter dismissively says he'll do it today. Chen purses her lips and tells him, "It's due today!" Carter repeats that he'll do it. She thanks him. Oh, Carter. Must you be passive-aggressive all the time? Can't you just be passive once in a while?
In the hall, Weaver runs into Peter "Punch Drunk" Benton, who's ushering a patient to the OR. She bellows at him to come see to another patient, but he yells back that his current patient's femoral artery is pumping blood, and that he has to keep his finger on it. This seems like a spurious excuse to me, but whatever. It's like when I ask Glark to help me tidy up the kitchen and he's all, "Wait, I just have to make sure this new videogame works. Well, if it's defective, we could all die!" Anyway, Weaver yells after him that he needs to send her down some surgeons, since she has three unstable patients in need of immediate attention, and a fourth on its way. Benton says that Anspaugh (who? Oh, right) will be taking the femoral artery patient, so Benton will return momentarily. Weaver doesn't look convinced, but it's not like she can force him to leave his patient immediately.
As Weaver heads back in the direction of trauma central, a uniformed cop introduces himself to her as Officer Napolitano. He's played by a minor TV Hey! It's That Guy! but I don't know the actor's name. And does it really matter, in the last recap of the season? No. He tells her he needs someone to "pull out a bullet for the crime lab." She asks which patient; he tells her it's the one with the calf wound, and she says he's stable and that they'll get to him as soon as they can. "As long as we get the evidence," Napolitano stresses. Weaver irritably orders, "Just find the shooter." Hey, you catch more homicidal maniacs with honey than with vinegar, lady.
Weaver crutches by in the background, while in the foreground Kim "Mitchell" Legaspi counsels a chick who's querulously telling a story about hearing noises and being in the bathroom and that building that's getting torn down and screaming and blah...just cut to the chase, lady -- you didn't get shot, so no one cares. As Weaver crutches past Mitchell, the two briefly register each other's presence, but there's no time to sift through the ashes of their former relationship since Heather the paramedic is wheeling in the gardener and giving Luka "Nosy Parkovic" Kovac the bullet. Luka asks Weaver what happened. She tells him. He asks why. She basically tells him he's not paid to be a reporter and sends him on his way with the patient. Weaver glances toward Mitchell again but continues to the desk. Not Shot Chick is crying that she should have done something to help, but Mitchell assures her she did the right thing, and promises she'll be right back. Not Shot Chick asks for a cigarette, and Mitchell says she'll see what she can do. I wonder if she'll get her one of those pharmaceutical cigarettes -- you know, for emergencies.
At the desk, Mitchell tells Weaver she's got a hypertensive social worker: "Probably just stress, but you should check her out." Weaver's like, "Whatever." Mitchell takes a step away, but then returns, leans closer to Weaver, and quietly says, "I read your letter." Weaver, looking like she fears what's coming , clips, "Good. I was wondering." Behind her, Frank calls for Mitchell to take the phone; Romano's on the line for her. Mitchell asks Frank to tell Romano she'll call back. As we faintly hear Frank saying, "I can't make her call you..." Mitchell tells Weaver, "Anyway, I appreciate the sentiment --" "'The sentiment'?" Weaver repeats, disappointed. Frank breaks in again to tell Mitchell, "He says to get your ass on the line now; he needs to talk to you about a transfer." Weaver turns her head and barks, "Frank, she's busy. He should be, too. We could have as many as eight GSWs going up." Chuny, also behind Weaver on another line, adds, "Nine -- carjack victim." Weaver yells for Chuny to divert that one to Mercy, but Contrivance...I mean, "Chuny" says that Mercy refused any patients due to arrive between 9 and 10 AM. "Why do they bother calling?" shrills Weaver. She turns back to Mitchell with an expression like, "Well? How are you going to break my balls, now?" Mitchell awkwardly continues, "Anyway, thank you, but I don't think that anything's changed." Weaver's face falls, but she curtly replies, "Right. Okay." Mitchell says she should go. Weaver agrees. She is still for a moment, and then, without turning her head, tells Chuny to get Finch: "The kid she's with isn't going to make it." Duh, I could have told you that when they were in the ambulance bay. And I think I did.
Sure enough, Helen's basically dead. Well, she's asystole, and she's been down an hour since the shooting. Chuny enters to call Finch away. Mark tells her to go ahead, since Helen's is a fatal wound. Finch asks what's on its way, and Chuny tells her it's a gunshot wound to the abdomen. Finch takes off. Mark huffs, "Someone should have told me today was Gun Day." Um. Heh? "Gun Day"? You're not at a baseball game. Shut up, Mark. He calls Helen's time of death and snaps off his gloves.
In the ambulance bay, Morales introduces Finch to her new patient, carjack victim Mr. Jeffries. He suffered a gunshot wound to the left lateral abdomen. Also, he has AIDS. I wonder if he got to read Marmaduke today. His blood pressure is good. Benton comes out, and Finch gives him the bullet. Mr. Jeffries muses, "I was getting out of the car. He shot me anyway." What a jerk! Is there no honour among thieves?
Finch and Benton burst through the doors with Mr. Jeffries in tow. Benton asks Frank what's open, and Frank calls back, "Nothing!" Benton adds, "I got a GSW!" "Don't make you special today," Frank replies. Heh. Finch tells Benton that Mark just called the time of death in Trauma One, so the team heads there. All of a sudden, Deacon from The King of Queens is stomping down the hall toward Benton. I don't think I watched The King of Queens back when Roger was last on the show (as opposed to being a disembodied topic of conversation à la "Walt" and "Doug Ross") so I never made the connection that it was the same guy. Anyway. Benton recognizes Roger, but before the two of them can catch up properly, Roger plows Benton right in the puss. Benton reels from the blow, and Roger yells, "Stay away from my wife!" Benton's all, "What?!" "Dr." Dave Malucci pushes Roger away from Benton, but Roger hasn't finished, and continues, "She told me -- she told me everything! You had your chance, you blew it, she's my wife now!" Benton looks completely shocked by this turn of events -- and after all, when have we ever known Carla to be deceitful or manipulative? Almost never -- and yells, "I don't know what you're talking about!" Roger bellows, "I'll take care of Carla! You stay away from her!" Things continue in this vein a little longer, as Dr. Dave yells for Frank to call Security and continues shoving Roger out of the way.
As they resume moving Mr. Jeffries into Trauma One, Finch fixes Benton with a contemptuous, baleful look. "Nothing happened!" Benton insists. Finch ignores him and calls for some...stuff. Whatever. It's the last recap of the season! Morales smirks at Benton, "He really nailed you." Benton orders, "Shut up and mind your business." Hee! Napolitano enters and asks whether the patient on the bed is the carjack victim. Finch says it is. Benton apologizes to Mr. Jeffries for the contretemps with Roger. Napolitano immediately starts questioning Mr. Jeffries about his assailant, confirming that it was a Caucasian male. Napolitano asks whether he was wearing a yellow windbreaker. Mr. Jeffries says he was, and asks, "How'd you know that?" Napolitano exposits that police think Mr. Jeffries's carjacker may have shot some people at a foster-care facility two blocks away from where Mr. Jeffries's assault took place. Everyone in the room is horrified that the two events are related -- because random violence is much more reassuring. With tense, near-fish-eye close-ups, Napolitano asks Mr. Jeffries whether he can remember his own license-plate number; Mr. Jeffries can't. His blood pressure starts to fall and machines start beeping. Before Mr. Jeffries loses consciousness, Napolitano tries to get him to confirm that his car is a black Acura Product Placement. Mr. Jeffries doesn't answer Napolitano right away, and Benton tells the officer he'll have to interview the patient later. Mr. Jeffries gasps, "What's wrong?" and Finch tells him he may be bleeding in his abdomen. Mr. Jeffries asks how they'll know for sure whether he's bleeding internally. Benton calls for an ultrasound. Napolitano repeats his question about the make of the car, and Mr. Jeffries distractedly confirms the officer's information.
Elsewhere, Luka preps the gardener for a chest tube; Lisa assists. Heather relays Luka's explanation to the gardener in Spanish, and then leaves. Once she's gone, Luka busts out his latest means to annoy Lisa: "You almost missed your deadline!" Lisa's all, "Huh?" Luka exposits, "I was eating breakfast and saw your med-school reinstatement form on your counter." Warily, she asks what he did. By way of answer, Luka tells her, "You were lucky. The lady in the registrar's office has a daughter who's a nurse." "'The registrar's office'?" Lisa anxiously repeats. Ha. Yeah right. Registrar's office staff don't do favours for anyone. They hate people. Trust me. I know whereof I speak. Luka concludes, "I told her you had a bunch of night shifts, and she slipped it in with the others." Lisa incredulously asks, "Wait. You handed it in?" Luka says he did: "This morning." Lisa demands, "Luka, why'd you do that?" Luka cheerfully tells her, "It was due Monday!" Lisa informs him, "Well, I didn't want to turn it in!" Luka says he thought she forgot, and she tells him she didn't: "I changed my mind." He asks why; she deflects, "Now they're going to come after me for summer tuition!" Luka irritably tells her he can help her with the money, and she whines, "I don't want help with the money -- I just wanted to let it go." Luka asks why, then, she filled out the form. "I'll get you some xeroform," she deflects again, and takes off. Luka angrily tosses an instrument toward a tray.
Carter and Mark examine an x-ray. Carter thinks he's found "soft-tissue sarcoma." Mark tells him to get a biopsy. Weaver crutches up and asks whether Carter's patient, Martin, is stable. Carter says he is, and she instructs him to clear the room: "round coming in: two more gunshot wounds -- one chest, one neck." Carter takes off, and Mark accompanies Weaver down the hall, marvelling, "Two more? It's not even ten o'clock." "It's the same guy again," Weaver quietly tells him. Mark's all, "What?!" Second base! (Sorry.) Weaver exposits, "CPD tracked a carjacked Acura to a private residence -- found the mother and son shot inside." Mark asks whether the shooter's been apprehended yet, and Weaver says, "Not yet." Mark asks whether there are ORs cleared, and she says they're working on it. They do a quick audit of which surgeons are doing what.
When Mark and Weaver arrive at the desk, Mitchell is there bickering with Robert "Rocket" Romano. She tells him that Psych nurses "aren't trained in ostomy care," and Romano shoots back that the patient in question, whoever that is, doesn't need ostomy care: "He can change his own damn bag." Weaver calls back to Romano that they need him to attend to the patients rolling up. Romano snaps at Weaver that he'll be there in a minute. To Mitchell, he snaps, "When I call you, you get on the damn phone." Mitchell looks at him sharply, but before she can answer, Weaver interrupts to defend her: "She was helping with a mass casualty! We needed her down here!" Romano barks, "And I needed to clear Recovery for the barrage of gunshot wounds you keep accepting!" Mitchell replies, "I'm not taking responsibility for post-op complications in the Psych ward!" Romano sarcastically shoots back, "Oh, really? Okay, well, then, we'll have to find someone who's interested in responsibility." Mitchell gasps, "What's that supposed to mean?" Romano snaps, "I'll tell De Raad he can finish your shift." "What?!" hisses Mitchell. "Nice knowing you," Romano dicks, stomping off.
Ambulance bay. Paramedics unload a little kid from the rig; he's the one shot in the neck. The kid tells Mark his name is Ted. Mark asks Ted to swallow (ew, not like that), but before he does, Ted asks, "Where's my mom?" Mark indicates the blood all over Ted and asks the paramedics, "Is all this his?" Dirk says it's not: "His mom was wrapped around him." From across the ambulance bay, Lisa calls for Mark. Dirk adds that it looks like the bullet went through Ted and into his mother. Lisa calls Mark's name again, and Mark gives Dirk some instructions before heading over to Lisa. At the rig, Lisa says she thinks the patient is Mrs. Neighbour, the woman who brought in Ben Fossen, the abused kid, last week. And...it is. Of course. Because the rest of us saw this coming from Missouri. Mark says Mrs. Neighbour's name (which is long and Polish and hard to spell, so I'm sticking with "Neighbour"), and she asks him where Ted is. Mark tells her Ted's inside, and that he'll be okay. Mrs. Neighbour begs him to take care of Ted, who apparently was bleeding quite a lot when Mrs. Neighbour last saw him. Seeming to know the answer (finally), Mark asks Mrs. Neighbour who shot her. She chokes, "Derek. I told the policeman it was Derek Fossen." The Marimba of Terror throbs on the soundtrack. "Your neighbour," Mark exposits. Mrs. Neighbour babbles, "He was looking for Ben. I told him I didn't know where he was, and he said if I was going to take his boy away from him, he was going to take mine away from me. Please! Please, help him! He was bleeding." Something attached to Mrs. Neighbour starts beeping. She starts heaving, and Mark immediately tells everyone to roll her, whereupon Mrs. Neighbour spews a prodigious quantity of blood onto the asphalt. Lisa estimates that it was about two litres. Mrs. Neighbour then loses consciousness, and they rush her inside -- and, for once, the commercials come sooner than I'd anticipated. Woohoo!
Trauma room. As Mark works on Mrs. Neighbour, he spells Mr. Fossen's name for Napolitano. The officer asks for an address, and Mark says Fossen lives door to Mrs. Neighbour. Lisa can't get Mrs. Neighbour's pressure. Mark intubates, and gives Napolitano the back story about Ben. Lisa loses Mrs. Neighbour's pulse. Mark's final instruction to the officer is that he must find Ben: "That's who [Mr. Fossen]'s looking for." Romano sends Lisa for the rapid infuser...
...which is in the room with Benton and Mr. Jeffries. Lisa enters and takes the infuser as Benton passes the ultrasound over Mr. Jeffries's gut and determines that the liver and spleen are both intact. Mr. Jeffries chokes that maybe he isn't bleeding, but a bored-sounding Benton says, "No, you've got a slow leak from a small vessel. You're going to need surgery." Mr. Jeffries says he doesn't want surgery. Benton shrugs off his concerns, minimizing the scope of the surgery Mr. Jeffries requires, but Mr. Jeffries ruefully points out, "Doc, I'm already dying!" Finch gently assures him that although his infection might slow his recovery, the surgery he requires is routine: "People live with HIV." Oh, that must be a big comfort to the HIV-positive patient, like, I think he knows, Condescenchata Tomei. Mr. Jeffries informs her that he's been living with it since 1986: "I responded to the AZT and the protease inhibitors were a miracle. They gave me an extra five years. But my T-cells have been dropping since July, and my viral load's gone right through the roof, even with all these anti-virals." Benton stopped listening, like, ten minutes ago, and just brandishes the consent form, telling Mr. Jeffries he needs to sign it. Mr. Jeffries turns toward him, smiles wearily, and says, "No. I had pneumocystis three months ago." Benton tells him -- because I guess he's really thick and he doesn't realize that Mr. Jeffries gets it, already -- that if they don't operate, Mr. Jeffries will die. Mr. Jeffries whispers, "I'm already dead, Doc. This may just allow me to skip the very painful end." Finch and Benton stare at each other. Lily's like, "Let him go -- we need the room."
door, Mrs. Neighbour's heart's not filling. Machines are beeping. She couldn't be whiter. She's clearly going to die. Mark and Romano bicker until finally Romano catches his snap and realizes he "can't fix this defect." Mark obliviously calls for more epi. Romano tersely says, "She blew out her thoracic aorta and exsanguinated in seconds. We are not going to get her back." Mark -- his voice all high and tight -- suggests a bypass. Romano says it's too late for that, and orders Mark to call it, which he does, pissily. Romano mutters, "0 for 2 and it's not even lunch." Mark purses his lips, stares at Mrs. Neighbour's lifeless face, and curses Cruel Fate.
Elsewhere, Carter is telling Martin about the biopsy. "You think it's cancer?" Martin asks, no fool. Carter calmly says no: "It could be scar tissue. It could be a cyst. Cancer's only one possibility." Martin says his mother died of cancer when she was thirty-five. Carter reassuringly tells him that they'll do the biopsy, and then talk about what they know, as opposed to what they don't know. As he strides out, Carter asks over his shoulder whether there's anyone Martin wants Carter to call. "I'm in foster care," Martin bitterly reminds him. Carter says he knows, suggesting, "Foster parents?" Martin says he's between homes. Carter says, "Right," and then hurries out, hopping on one leg since the other's now firmly lodged somewhere in his esophagus.
Carter runs into Lisa outside Mrs. Neighbour's trauma room. Peering in, he asks whether Mrs. Neighbour "made it," and Lisa says she didn't, adding, "It's scary -- this guy's on a rampage." Carter can't believe they haven't found Mr. Fossen yet. Lisa says they're going to go to his house. Carter glibs something about "so much violence, huh?" like, how insightful -- where's the McLaughlin Group booker? A brilliant social commentator is going to waste! By now they're both in a supply closet, and as Lisa putters around, she leadingly asks, "Were you gonna tell me?" Carter asks, "Tell you what?" Lisa says she heard a rumour. "Oh yeah? A good one?" Carter asks. With a flourish, Lisa produces a slip of paper from her pocket and drawls, "Dr. Rosen called." Carter slowly takes the paper from her. Lisa exposits, "You know, from the Emergency department at Northwestern?" "You took the message," Carter sadly surmises. Lisa says that Dr. Rosen wanted to set up an appointment. Carter avoids her gaze and shrugs, "Just looking at options." Lisa folds her arms and asks, "Are you leaving?" Ew, I just noticed Carter's hair is all plastered down and feathered in the front. He's like the love child of Christopher Rich and a '70s-era Mackenzie Phillips. Anyway, Carter and his bad hair remind Lisa that he still has to make up three months of his residency. Lisa asks whether he intends to leave after that. Carter says he doesn't know: "I'm not even being considered for Chief Resident. I have to write this damn peer review for Chen. They're not even talking to me about an Attending position -- sometimes, you have to read the writing on the wall." All good points, except we already know Noah Wyle's signed on for two more years, so there's absolutely no suspense here. Lisa asks whether Carter's talked to Weaver about an Attending position. He smirks, "No...'cause if she wanted me, she would have asked me about it." Lisa suggests that Weaver might not think he's interested. "Maybe I'm not," Carter replies.
Just then Luka shows up at the window of the closet, asking Carter whether his cirrhosis patient is "ready to go to the floor." Carter says he still needs to do another...something...last recap of the season...don't care, and Luka tells him to hustle because they need the bed. Carter leaves, and Lisa turns her back away from Luka, resuming her puttering. Luka fidgets at the closet window and asks her about the gardener's chest-tube output. She chirps an answer and comes out of the closet, pawing through some bins on a shelf in the hall. Luka's right at her side, asking whether she's still angry at him. Lisa claims she wasn't angry at him. As they start pedeconferencing down the hall, Luka tells her that she seemed angry, and Lisa says it's her own fault: "I should have ripped it up." Luka says he thought she wanted to go back to school. Lisa shrugs that maybe she does, "just not now." Luka asks what happened (to change her mind, I assume is the unspoken end of that sentence). Lisa chirps, "Nothing!" "You don't want to be a doctor anymore?" Luka presses. Lisa pauses a moment, and then admits, "I don't know." They smirk at each other for a moment, repeating to each other that Lisa doesn't know, and Lisa points out, "It's $40,000 in tuition; it's lost wages; it's another six years of me killing myself...." Luka counters, "When it's over, you'll be doing what you want." Lisa posits that maybe she's already doing what she wants. Luka tells her that, if that were true, she never would have started medical school. By now they've arrived outside a trauma room (Mrs. Neighbour's, I think). Lisa tightly says, "Maybe I realized being a nurse is good enough for me -- is it not good enough for you?" Luka trips over his own feet to assure her, "No! No, it's fine." She looks disappointed, and goes into the trauma room. Luka rolls his eyes again. Hee! It's cute.
In the hall, Weaver examines Ted, Mrs. Neighbour's son. She tells him he did great, and that he'll be okay. Mark comes by and stops for just a second to put a Meaningful hand on Weaver's back. Weaver looks at him, and can pretty much tell what happened with Mrs. Neighbour from the look on his face. Mark moves on. Ted asks whether he may see his mother. Weaver tells him she'll check, and asks whether Ted knows his father's phone number at work. Ted doesn't. Weaver asks whether Ted knows where his father works, and Ted says, "Abisco." Weaver asks whether that's a company, and Ted says, "They make binders," but Weaver interrupts before he can add "...that my dad steals from work and gives me for school." I'll tell you, the years my grandpa worked for a stationery company were the best years of my life. Every new school or office-supply innovation that came down the pike, we had them first. Remember those silver felt pens that really wrote silver and not just sort-of-shiny grey like silver crayons? We had those. Remember those Staedtler brush markers that emulated the effect of watercolour paint? Had those. Plus the special paper they came with. Coloured looseleaf paper? Well, you get the gist. Binders were about the most banal things we ever got. (I love office supplies!) Anyway, Abisco. Not Nabisco, which would also be a pretty cool workplace from which to pilfer. Weaver gives Ted her notebook and a pen and invites him to draw while he waits. He suspiciously watches her as she crutches off to the desk; she shoots him one guilty backward glance.
At the desk, Weaver confirms with Mark that Mrs. Neighbour died. Weaver says that she has to find Ted's father, and asks what Mark wants to tell Ted. Mark says he'll stall. Napolitano calls Mark over and hands him an enlarged, colour copy of Mr. Fossen's mug shot, asking, "Is this him?" Mark says it is, and asks, "He has a record?" Napolitano says that he has one arrest: "Domestic dispute -- he hit his girlfriend." Frank nosily calls, "He wasn't at his house?" Napolitano shoots Mark a brief "get a load of this clown" look, and then patronizingly assures Frank, "I'll let you know when we have him in custody." Mark asks about Ben, and Napolitano says that they found his foster parents, and that a patrol car is picking Ben up now. Frank takes a few steps toward Mark and Napolitano and opines, "I think he's coming here." Napolitano's all, "What?" Frank explains, "Well, he was pissed at the neighbour for bringing [Ben] to the ER. I mean [to Mark], you took his kid away from him, right?" "Right," Mark says guardedly, adding, in a faux-hearty voice, "Thanks, Frank!" Oh, all right. Heh. Napolitano says he'll send in some extra units. Mark slowly walks back to Weaver, who calmly says, "Mark. He couldn't come here. He knows there's too many cops around." Mark tightly notes, "He hasn't displayed a lot of sound judgment so far." Weaver asks what Mr. Fossen's been shooting with, and Frank gruffs, "Semi-automatic pistol, thirteen-round clip. He's been reloading." The radio beeps. Mark chokes, "Probably picked it up at K-Mart on the way over!" Who are you, Rosie O'Donnell? Also, I have a sneaking suspicion K-Mart is no longer a sponsor. Frank Hestons, "It's not the guns. People kill people." Mark delivers the "kill people" in unison with Frank, snitting, "Yeah, right. Only not as fast." Frank insists that Mr. Fossen would have found another weapon. Well, maybe, but it's hard to carjack someone using a knife. Maybe an axe -- you could smash the window with it and bury it in the driver's skull. (Gee, can you tell I've been watching summer movies lately?) Anyway. Weaver, for some reason, feels it would be fruitful to engage Frank in a reasoned debate about gun control, and points out that there have already been fourteen people shot, and six deaths -- and she's right, of course; that's a lot higher body count than he could have achieved if he had a weapon that required him to go right up to his victims and take a hands-on approach, which is pretty much what she says: "You can't effect mass murder with a Chinese throwing star." True, you can't, but you look a lot cooler. Haleh calls out that a rig is coming in with an injured cop: "Motorist dragged him for half a block." Weaver and Mark both make "well, that's just great" faces, and Frank pipes up, "See? There you go. He hit him with a car. That's assault with a deadly weapon." Mark and Weaver both tell Frank to shut up. Heh. It's nice to see them working in concert again.
Mr. Jeffries. Finch wants to respect his wishes not to undergo surgery. Benton doesn't. Blah blingety blah. With no preamble at all, Benton non sequiturs, "All right. I went over there. She was upset. She was crying. She came on to me. I didn't do anything. I didn't want to do anything. [Because she's scary. And crazy.] Now, maybe she felt guilty -- she told Roger, she put a spin on it." "And you wouldn't put a spin on it," Finch snaps. Benton says he wouldn't. Finch asks why, then, Benton didn't tell her. Benton says, "To avoid this...you looking at me like I did something wrong." Finch pouts, "I see. You didn't trust me, and I'm supposed to trust you." Benton says he didn't think it was worth getting into. Finch clips, "Good. At least I know where I stand." Benton holds up a warning finger, telling her that isn't what he meant. Dude, don't wave your finger in her face when you're the one who fucked up. Behind them, Lily pokes her head out of Mr. Jeffries's room and says that his pressure's dropping. Finch tells Benton to go. And he does.
Benton enters Mr. Jeffries's room and makes with the orders. Contrary old Mr. Jeffries even refuses a blood transfusion! Benton's like, "But --" and Mr. Jeffries is like, "Save it." But more nicely. Stymied, Benton tries another tack: "What about your family? I mean, if you don't care about yourself, what about them?" Mr. Jeffries says he hasn't spoken to his mother in over thirty years. Ouch. He continues, "I outlived the two people that I loved in the world. I've lived longer than I expected! Just let me go! I'm ready." Yeah, Benton. Step off.
Mark drinks from a water fountain in the hall. We can hear the sound of distant ambulances approaching. Resigned, Mark straightens up and walks over to Ted. They regard each other warily as they exchange "hi"s. Mark sits to Ted and asks how his neck is. Ted says it hurts. Mark says he'll get a nurse to give him some medicine. Ted asks whether he may see his mom. Mark says, "Not yet. We're trying to reach your dad." Ted asks whether he may stay with his mother until Mark gets hold of his dad, but Mark says no, and lies that it's because she's having an operation. Ted asks whether she's okay, and Mark says they're having trouble stopping the bleeding around her heart. Ted recalls that she was "hurt bad." Mark says he knows. He asks whether Ted's hungry, but he isn't.
Down the hall, Doris wheels in the car-dragged cop, attended by Luka. Doris says it looks like the C-DC dislocated his elbow. Luka asks where all the blood is from, and Doris says that C-DC tore off part of his ear. Another cop -- the injured man's partner, I presume -- is also in the caravan and demands that C-DC get more medication. Luka orders it, and asks C-DC whether he lost consciousness; he didn't. Mark confirms that Luka's on the case. Napolitano appears to ask C-DC's partner whether he got a good look at the assailant. The bed continues, but the cops stop. Napolitano asks whether the driver was wearing a yellow windbreaker, and C-DCP says he was, adding, "Colby said he saw blood on the car." Mark starts freaking out: "Wait a second -- this is Fossen? Fossen did this?" Napolitano tells him to shut up. Colby's partner (formerly C-DCP) continues, "Colby asked him to step out of the vehicle. When he opened the door, the guy punched it in reverse, smashed our unit, and took off. Colby's jacket must've got snagged. He was screaming -- he got dragged forever -- but the son of a bitch didn't stop!" Napolitano anxiously rubs at his mouth. Mark asks where Fossen got the car, and Napolitano guesses that he "probably boosted it off the street." Another officer runs up to them and asks Napolitano, "Jeep Grand Product Placement, first three license numbers G74?" CP says that's all he got. Officer #3 anxiously asks, "Could they be G79?" "You got him?" Mark steels. Officer #3 blurts, all in one breath, "Shots fired at 823 Piedmont. Jeep Grand Free Advertising parked at the corner, license number G79 6L5. Woman found down inside." Mark mutters, "Oh, God. Here we go." Napolitano asks whether the woman's dead. Officer #3 says they called in the paramedics.
Elevator. Weaver is trying to reason with Romano: "We're all overworked, Robert, but you can't insinuate that you're going to fire someone every time you get frustrated!" Romano says he wasn't insinuating it: "She's fired....Cleaning out her locker right now, so I'm told." Weaver says he can't do that. Romano gloats, "I just did!" The elevator doors open on the ground floor and they both stride out, Weaver arguing, "This is a County facility. Employees cannot be summarily fired." Romano reminds her that Mitchell was already on probation due to the incident with Shannon the Suicidal Train Wreck Causer. Weaver counters that Mitchell was exonerated on that charge. Romano continues, "Since then, she's had a history of violation of institutional policy." "Like what?" spits Weaver. Romano's all, "What do you care? It's not your department." Weaver hesitates for the shortest of moments before declaring that she works with the Psych department, and that Mitchell's a good doctor. Romano sniffs, "'A good doctor' who's had as many as thirty delinquent charts awaiting discharge summaries." Weaver yells that everyone gets behind on charts. Romano offers, "She used the County telephone WATS line for a personal long-distance call." Just one? Girl, please. Romano concludes by saying that Mitchell yelled at a patient in a public setting. Did we see that? By now, Weaver and Romano are at the desk. Weaver looks stricken and finally gets it: "You're trying to find a way to fire her." Romano shrugs this off: "There's plenty of written documentation that has been reviewed by the Disciplinary Committee." Weaver is advancing on Romano when Haleh runs up to her. Weaver asks Haleh to give her a minute, and Haleh blurts, "Adele's been shot." "What?" Weaver breathes. Haleh confirms, "That maniac shot her at her house." "The social worker?" Romano asks, following Weaver and Haleh. Hee! See, "The Social Worker" really might as well be her last name.
Sure enough, there's Adele, being moved onto the bed in a trauma room. As Mark starts quietly ordering various tests and pieces of equipment, Napolitano stands at the end of Adele's bed and asks whether she got a good look at the man who shot her. Adele says that he looked familiar: "He said something about his son." Mark jumps to a (fine -- fairly reasonable) conclusion and tells her, "We put his son Ben into protective custody last week." "Oh my god," murmurs Adele. Mark establishes that Adele can't feel her legs. Suddenly, Weaver and Romano are at Adele's bedside. Mark tells Weaver about the spinal-cord injury. Napolitano describes Mr. Fossen, and Adele says that sounds like the man who shot her. Romano asks whether she has any pain in her belly; she doesn't. Weaver guesses that Adele may have a pneumothorax. Mark says her lungs sound fine. Weaver and Romano offer other suggestions as to what might be ailing Adele. The patient herself pipes up to muse, "How did he know where I lived?" This pulls Weaver up short: "What?" Adele asks again how Mr. Fossen could have found her, adding, "I only saw him at the hospital." Romano blames the "damn internet" for allowing crazy psychopaths to find just about anything. (True -- kids, if you haven't already, you should do a search for your name and make sure those online phone books don't list your home address.) Weaver and Mark exchange a tense look, and Mark rather calmly asks Napolitano to send someone to Valium Villa. Napolitano's all, "Don't flatter yourself, Baldo." Mark repeats the request, and tells Napolitano his address as he lunges for the phone and dials the number. Napolitano takes off.
Outside Valium Villa, two cop cars pull up, and a few cops make for the door. We can hear the phone ringing inside, but no one comes to the door.
Trauma room. Mark waits on the phone as Weaver continues working on Adele. Mark anxiously mutters, "Come on, Elizabeth -- pick up. Pick up!" Why couldn't Mark have stayed home today to get shot himself? WHY?! Oh, right. Stupid contract.
After the break, Weaver's still testing to see how paralyzed Adele is. Mark is off the phone and working on Adele, as well. Weaver asks Mark whether he has voicemail or an answering machine at home. "Machine," Mark curtly replies. Romano asks whether Elizabeth would hear Mark leaving a message, and Mark says he doesn't know. Weaver determines that Adele can't feel the pointy instrument when Weaver runs it along her waistline. Mark asks whether Adele was already home, or whether Mr. Fossen was waiting for her. Adele says he came in, and she was sitting at her desk, paying bills. Weaver calls out, "Patellar reflexes are absent." Napolitano bursts in to tell Mark that no one's answering the door at his house; he asks whether Mark wants the cops to search the house. Mark tersely says he does. Napolitano tells him that the cops would have to force entry, and Mark bellows, "Search the house!" Napolitano takes off, giving the order into a walkie-talkie. Haleh says Adele's still hypotensive. Weaver and Mark give orders at cross-purposes.
The cops kick in the door at Valium Villa, guns drawn.
Weaver asks Adele to move her knee, but she can't. In the foreground, Romano barks into the phone, "Look, we may have an emergency laminectomy!" Napolitano sticks his head in to tell Mark, "They'll call it in when they have it secured." Mark looks like he's barely breathing. Adele asks whether she's paralyzed. Weaver tells her they hope it's just temporary. Mark snippily calls out an order. Romano, on the phone, determines that the OR is ready for them. As he turns to tell Weaver and Mark to get ready to move Adele, Weaver asks Mark, "Maybe she went out? Went to the store?" Romano asks Mark whether he paged Elizabeth; Mark didn't. Romano tells whoever he's talking to in the OR (Shirley, probably) to page Elizabeth.
Valium Villa. Cops creep through the house, still with their guns drawn.
County. Mr. Jeffries has apparently lost consciousness. Benton tells Lily to hang two units of blood. Finch wheels around and reminds Benton, "He doesn't want that!" Benton ignores her and tells Lily to call the OR: "Where's the surgical consent form?" Lily tells him it's on the cart. Finch shakes her head and tells him, "You can't take him up. He didn't give it." Benton splits hairs: "He's unable to give consent now; I just need two physicians' signatures for emergency surgery." "No," Finch replies. "You would have him die?" Benton needles. Finch tells him she respects Mr. Jeffries's wishes.
Valium Villa. Cops. Guns. They're in the master bedroom when we hear a tiny beeping noise; both cops immediately point their guns at the source of the noise -- duh, it's Elizabeth's pager, lying unattended in what looks like an ashtray.
County. Weaver is still testing Adele's reflexes and determines that the spinal injury is incomplete, which means they can operate. Benton enters and asks for an emergency signature. Romano curtly tells him, "Not now." Mark and Weaver jargon. Napolitano is on the phone in the hall, shooting anxious glances through the glass at Mark. Benton briefly gives Romano the background on Mr. Jeffries, and Romano crankily signs off.
Benton returns to Mr. Jeffries's room and makes with the orders. Finch pouts, "Whatever you want, Peter." Benton defensively says, "I've got my two signatures." Finch wearily tells him, "He made himself clear." Benton makes this totally ludicrous reach to justify himself: "Look, he has advanced AIDS -- he probably has an HIV encephalopathy." That's a medical condition the symptoms of which include apathy and depression; clearly, Mr. Jeffries wasn't exactly psyched to have an elevated viral load but he seemed to be making an informed and reasonable decision -- which Finch points out, saying that he was "alert and oriented." She stomps around the bed with a beaker of Mr. Jeffries's blood (which means the beaker is going to break, she's going to cut her hand, and Mr. Jeffries's poison blood is going to get in her, because this is TV), telling Benton he should have called Psych. Benton claims that he did, but that no one showed up. Lisa bursts into the room to say that the OR called to say they're "stacked up." Naturally, Lisa bashes the door into Finch, who naturally breaks the beaker of Mr. Jeffries's blood in her hand. Benton rushes over to ask whether Finch cut herself, but she says she doesn't think so; she thinks she just tore her glove on the broken glass. He hurries her toward the sink; she peels off her glove, and we see there's still blood all over her skin. Benton turns on the tap and Finch rinses off her hand. The blood all seems to be gone, suggesting that none of it was hers. Benton presses a gauze pad to her hand and then lifts it off; a tiny red pinprick slowly appears just below her middle finger, and swells into a small puddle of blood. Finch groans. Benton tells her to keep irrigating it. Lisa asks Lily for "zerowets." Benton gets on the phone to the pharmacy for a PEP (post-exposure prevention) kit; he pauses to tell Lisa to "use two litres." She nods. Into the phone, Benton barks, "I'm on my way up there right now." Lily asks, "What about the patient?" Oh, right. That guy. Benton tells her to keep transfusing him, and takes off. Finch sighs.
Mark, Weaver, Chuny, and Romano usher Adele's bed toward the elevator. Weaver explains, "Adele, there's a piece of bone from your ninth vertebra mid-back that's pressing on your spinal cord." "That's why I can't move my legs?" Adele asks, a hell of a lot more calmly than I'd be under the same circumstances. Weaver says yes, but that if the surgeons can remove the piece of bone, she may recover. Romano and Chuny enter the elevator just as Napolitano shows up to tell Mark there's no one at Valium Villa. Mark asks whether they checked the garage, and Napolitano says they did, and it was empty. Romano asks Mark to call him if they find Elizabeth. Because he wants to have a thousand of her babies. Adele groggily asks, "There's still a chance I'll be paralyzed?" "Not if I can help it," Romano confidently replies. The elevator doors start to slide shut as Weaver tells Romano she still has to talk to him. Romano orders her to drop it, and is on his way. Mark asks Napolitano whether his van was in the garage, and Napolitano says it was. Weaver hopefully asks, "But you have two cars, right?" Mark says Elizabeth's car is in the shop. Weaver asks whether Elizabeth takes the baby out, and Mark recalls that she takes Ella for walks, usually around 3 PM. Napolitano checks his watch and exposits that it's 1:05. Mark allows that Elizabeth's walk schedule depends on when the baby's up. Weaver asks Napolitano if they can leave a unit at the house until Elizabeth returns home. Napolitano agrees. Weaver shoots Mark a look of courageous solidarity that he totally does not merit, the penis. Officer #3 comes flying down the stairs to hold out her radio for Napolitano. A crackly female voice drones, "Shot in the head from the back, looks like the guy was riding in the back seat." Officer #3 explains, "Cab driver on Roosevelt." A dispatcher on the officer's radio says that Rescue's en route. Weaver surmises that the latest victim will be coming to County, too, because that's where the party is, and recommends that Mark give that patient to Luka. Mark takes off. Weaver says she has to go upstairs. Napolitano asks, "D'you think it's him?" Oh, so Mark is the cop now? "Yeah, it's him," Mark bitterly replies.
Mark rounds a corner, where he's intercepted by Lydia. She tells him she can't find Ted's father, and that she thinks he's figuring out the truth about his dead mom. She begs Mark to talk to Ted. Mark says he will. A single high string thrums on the soundtrack. Mark tells Carter to prep Trauma One for the gunshot victim coming in. Mark passes in front of the camera, and Carter returns to the x-ray he and another doctor have been examining. This other doctor is an older woman (she played one of Elaine's J. Peterman co-workers on Seinfeld), and while she's been on this show before, she played a pathologist, not an oncologist. But, fine, whatever; I guess if I'm allowed to play fast and loose with the recap of the season's last episode, the producers can do the same with continuity. Anyway, Carter and Dr. Peterman are discussing Martin's treatment. She recommends a course of action. Carter thinks it's too aggressive. She tells him it's a rare manifestation and that Carter might want to "write it up." Carter is not cheered by this suggestion. Dr. Peterman asks whether he wants her to talk to Martin's parents, and Carter tells her Martin has none. Dr. Peterman makes a "whatever" face and takes off.
The camera follows Dr. Peterman for a moment until she passes by Ted's bed in the hall. Ted's asking Mark where his mom is. Lydia gives Mark a "you're on your own" look, and sidles off. Mark sighs heavily -- because his mind is, you know, elsewhere -- and says, "The bullet...uh, she was shot in the back. The bullet passed through her heart. She lost so much blood that her heart stopped beating." Ted continues drawing, not looking at Mark, who continues, "We opened up her chest for an emergency surgery, gave her blood transfusions. The best surgeon in the hospital did it." Ted glances up. Mark concludes, "She wasn't in any pain. She didn't suffer. We worked on her for a long time. We couldn't stop the bleeding. We couldn't get her heart to beat again. Ted, your mother died." Ted looks impassive. Mark says he's sorry. Ted tries really hard to cry. But fails.
Benton busts into Mr. Jeffries's trauma room with a bottle of water and a tiny cup of pills, ordering Finch to take them. Finch asks whether they shouldn't wait until they draw "baseline labs," but Benton basically tells her to shut her fool mouth and demands that she take them now. Behind them, Lily says she can't get Mr. Jeffries's blood pressure above 80. Benton's like, whatever, the damage is done, I stopped caring fifteen minutes ago. Finch says, "He's already drug-resistant." Benton says, "You don't have a large viral load." "He does!" Finch retorts. I don't really know what that means, but then, it's the last recap of the season, and I don't care, either. Is she saying that Mr. Jeffries has some sort of Super-AIDS strain so she shouldn't bother trying to fight it if she's got it now? I don't know. Don't email me to tell me, either, because I don't care. Machines start beeping in the background. Benton blahs about "conversion rates." Lily tells Benton that if Mr. Jeffries is to have surgery, he has to go now. Benton gives Lisa some last-minute instructions, pecks Finch on the cheek, and makes for the OR. Finch tosses back her pills.
Weaver gazes through the glass door of the Psych ward, and sees Mitchell with her back turned, behind the desk. Weaver taps lightly on the door. Mitchell looks over her shoulder and shakes her head "no." Wait, didn't Lisa let herself into the Psych ward last week using her ID tag? Shouldn't Weaver be able to do that, too? I guess not. Or else the continuity person's already left for summer vacation. Weaver knocks more loudly, and Mitchell relents and lets her in. Weaver urgently crutches around the bend, and goes into an empty exam room with Mitchell, who ruefully says she's surprised her code still works. "It's not gonna happen, Kim," Weaver says throatily. Mitchell crosses her arms and asks, "What isn't?" Weaver says that the administration can't fire Mitchell, "not legally." Mitchell quietly says, "No, they always intended to fire me. They would have done it sooner if they could have, but they needed to build up a nice, thick Human Resource file first." "Which is completely bogus!" Weaver exclaims. "They'll never get away with it!" Mitchell says that they already have. "Only if you let them," Weaver replies, all fire in the belly. Mitchell bitterly cocks her eyebrow and murmurs, "It's not worth the effort. I'm really not interested in working for a place that doesn't want me here." Weaver's voice starts to break as she mumbles, "No, you have the right to due process! We can find a civil-rights attorney!" "'We'?" Mitchell drawls. Weaver is silent, stung. Finally she says, "It's not right, Kim. You know why they're firing you. You have to fight it. You have to fight this!" Mitchell starts to cry, ruefully replying, "I'm supposed to fight? You're hiding, but I'm supposed to fight. Well, I'm sorry, but I don't want to fight. I just want to move on. So should you." Mitchell stomps out. Weaver stands alone, the unshed tears magnifying her eyes.
Downstairs, Mark tries not to sound too unhinged as he leaves a message on a neighbour's machine asking that they tell Elizabeth to call him if they see her. As he's in the process of leaving the message, Napolitano comes tearing down the hall behind him, calling his name. Mark hangs up, and Napolitano breathlessly exclaims, "We got him!" Mark's all, "Wuh?" Napolitano continues, "He opened fire in Lincoln Park. He shot three people before being taken down by a civilian packing a nine-millimetre." Mark asks whether he's still alive, and Napolitano says he is, as far as he knows. Mark springs into action, jogging toward the ambulance bay. Pam's doing compressions on the cab driver, who's been asystole since they found him. Luka's already on it; Mark calls out, "Cleo, why don't you jump in on this?" The camera pans slightly to the left, showing Finch leaning against the wall with her eyes closed. Mark calls her again, and she rouses herself to work on the cab driver who clearly has no hope of survival. The caravan moves into a trauma room. Napolitano calls the cop at the end of the bed "Darcy" and asks whether there were any witnesses. Darcy says no, but that they think it was Fossen. Napolitano asks why, and Darcy says, "1211 Dupont [Valium Villa] was the last entry on the driver's log at 1:14 PM." Mark hangs back, hears this, and squeals, "What?!" Darcy ignores him and continues telling Napolitano, "The house you had searched. Fossen must have been on his way over there. Cabbie probably heard his description on the radio or something...bang, Fossen blew his brains out." The camera zooms in on Mark's face as he's practically hyperventilating. Napolitano finds the silver lining: "Don't worry, Doc -- that means he never got there." Haleh's been calling Mark for about a minute; he finally hears her, and looks over as she tells him, "He's coming in." Hey, dude knows where the party is, just like everybody else.
Skiving off work -- because, really, do all those gunshot victims need to be attended by every single member of the hospital staff? Of course not -- Carter and Lisa are loafing by the river. Or perhaps they're off work. It's the last recap of the season, and I don't care. Lisa asks Carter whether that was a record number of gunshot wounds for a single shift. Carter broods and replies, "By the same guy? Absolutely." Lisa says, "He has a good chance. Like you said, you found it early." I guess they're talking about Martin. Carter blahs that he feels bad that he has to go through it alone, as if having cancer as a kid wasn't bad enough in itself. "He could get passed over for Chief Resident," Lisa needles. "That's true. Or he could get kicked out of medical school and have to work as an ER nurse," Carter shoots back, coming to sit to her on the bench. Lisa mutters that she wasn't kicked out, she was "suspended for being a deadbeat." They smile world-wearily, because life is tough for healthy American professionals. Lisa non sequiturs, "Do you know he offered to pay my tuition?" Carter asks who, and Lisa says, "Luka," like, duh. Carter's face is blank. Lisa drones, "And I know he means well -- it's just frustrating for me, sometimes, 'cause I have to explain my every feeling to him, and normally when you're with someone for a while they get to know your moods, but he doesn't do that --" "You know what?" Carter interrupts. How I wish he would, just for a moment, channel Jack McFarland, mime picking up a phone, and chirp, "Hello, I'm Bored?" But instead he says, "Stop it." "What?" says Lisa. Carter tells her, "Don't talk to me about Luka. I'm not your girlfriend, and I shouldn't really even be here with you." Lisa, seemingly genuinely surprised, asks, "Why not?" Carter Knolls, "Because I don't want to wish bad things for you and Luka, and I don't want to sit on the sidelines waiting for you two to break up. And I don't want to be your friend. It might be convenient for you, but it's not doing much for me." Lisa fondly asks, "What are you talking about?" Carter stares at her. Stare. Stare. He gets up and walks off. Lisa stares at the water. Her hair's all greasy. Lisa watches Carter walk off, looking dismayed.
County. Mr. Fossen's in a trauma room, all bloody, demanding of the room at large, "Where did you put him? Where did you put my son?" Luka yells at him to shut up. Mark, Luka, and Haleh determine that there are two entrance wounds on the left, one on the right, and two in the belly, for a total of five. Mr. Fossen turns his head toward Mark and grunts, "You! You did this!" Luka calls out orders. Mr. Fossen babbles, "You took him!...This is your fault!" Mark prepares to paralyze Mr. Fossen so he can intubate him. Mr. Fossen glares up at him and squeaks, "You stole my son! You destroyed my family! He's my son! What gives you the right?!" Mark puts a mask over Mr. Fossen's face, but we can still sort of make it out as he yammers that Mark can't take his son away. Mark refrains from Romano-ing, "I just did!"
I guess Carter wasn't off his shift, because he's back at the hospital, talking to Martin about his cancer. Carter's dumbing down cancer so that Martin can understand it, summing up by saying that you don't usually know you have cancer until a mass of bad cells gets so big it causes pain, and that they were lucky to find Martin's cancer when they did. Martin philosophically asks, "So you're saying I'm lucky I got shot?" "In a way, yeah," says Carter. Martin says, "So it's going to take longer to die." Carter says that, since they caught it early, there's a good chance Martin won't die. Martin asks, "What's a good chance?" and Carter tells him 70%. Martin doesn't seem cheered by this news, so Carter babies, "Do you know what 70% is?" Dude, the kid is twelve. Just because he doesn't have parents doesn't mean he can't keep up in math class. Martin tells him it leaves 30%. Carter advises him to concentrate on the 70%. Martin's all, "Easy for you to say, Smirk Cameron." Frank pokes his head in to say there's another gunshot wound coming in. Carter gets up to leave. Martin asks what happens now, and Carter says he'll send an oncologist to look at him. Martin asks, "No, I mean, where do I live?" Carter blinks, "Oh. I don't know. I'll find out."
Carter runs away, because he can't handle the truth. Once in the hall, he sees Mark working on Mr. Fossen. In the hall, Chen asks her patient when his last tetanus booster was. The guy doesn't know, and asks whether he'll need an x-ray. Chen breezily tells him it looks like he was only grazed. Carter motions toward Mr. Fossen's room with his head and asks Chen, "Is that the guy?" She says it is and tells him about Mr. Fossen's multiple wounds. Chen's patient Goetzes, "At the range, they teach you to shoot for the centre mass. It's not always fatal, but it takes them down." Carter duhs, "You shot him?" Goetz goes all snake-eyes and snaps, "I got mugged last year. Same park. I don't go there now without protection." Chen and Carter roll their eyes at each other. Goetz shrieks, "He started shooting people! Someone had to do something!" Carter sniffs, "Yeah, we should arm the whole city." Goetz snaps, "Hey, I stopped him. He would have kept going." Which, much as I hate to agree with a vigilante, is probably true. Carter dismissively tells Goetz he was lucky. Goetz agrees: "Lucky I was packing!" Weaver yells for Carter to come and help her with another gunshot victim from the park. Before he goes, he leans toward Chen and tells her, "I handed it to her....Your reference. Should put you over the top -- all fives." Aw. Okay, good for Carter. She seems a bit surprised, and thanks him. As he heads off, Carter adds, "I had to lie!" She snickers.
Mr. Fossen's trauma room. Jargon blah jargon. Napolitano asks Luka whether Mr. Fossen will live, and Luka says he probably will, since none of the bullets hit "vital structures." "After five shots?" Napolitano spits. Luka says, "Some guys get lucky." Napolitano gets in Mark's face to recap, "Nineteen shot. Eight -- maybe nine -- dead. He's lucky we didn't take him down." Napolitano leaves. Lydia enters and tells Mark that Elizabeth's on the phone for him. He asks her to get it. Mr. Fossen's blood pressure goes up. Lydia holds the phone to Mark's ear; he says her name, and Elizabeth anxiously asks him what's going on. He asks where she was. She says she was at the farmer's market: "I came home, there are police in the house and the front door's been kicked in." Mark says he told them to. She asks why, and he says it's a long story. She pissily asks, "You're not going to tell me what happened?" Mark says, "Nothing. Just a bit of a scare." She confirms that he's all right; he says he is, and that he'll call her later. She says she told the cops to stay until she'd called him. He tells her the cops can leave now. She asks again whether he's not going to tell her what's going on; he says he'll tell her later, and that everything's okay. She lies, "I love you." He says, "Me too." Lydia hangs up. Mr. Fossen glares at Mark.
Weaver is upstairs as Romano and the surgical team wheel Adele out of the OR. They jargon. Romano asks whether they've found his girlfriend, Elizabeth, and Weaver tells him she's fine. Romano sighs, "Oh, good." Weaver asks about Adele's paralysis, and Romano says he won't know for twenty-four hours. Romano asks what the deal is with the latest patient. Weaver jargons the answer. We won't see this new one again, so it doesn't matter. Romano calls for a nurse to clear the OR, and says he'll be back. Weaver follows, saying she needs to talk to him. Romano breezes, "Yeah, sure. Anything but Legaspi." Weaver tells him he's making a mistake. Romano says, "My main mistake was not firing her three months ago when I first found out." Weaver seizes on his slip: "Found out what?" "That she is incompetent!" Romano covers. Weaver snorts, "That's not what you were going to say." Romano makes a stupid crack about Weaver's being a mind reader. Weaver asserts, "You're trying to get rid of her because she's gay!" Romano sniffs, "Of course I'm not! That would be wrong, or at least politically incorrect. I want to get rid of her because she's a pain in the ass." "Like Maggie Doyle was?" Weaver asks. Point to Weaver. Romano makes a face and tells her to stop right there. Weaver shrills, "And avoid your history of discrimination? If you don't rethink this, Robert, there's a good chance you'll be the one out of a job." They duck into a doorway, standing very close to one another. Romano puts his hands on his hips and declares, "Dr. Legaspi has demonstrated not only poor judgment, but a reckless attitude toward her patients, contempt for her colleagues, and a blatant disregard for authority. She's out. She's fired. End of discussion." Thinking he's had the last word, Romano bangs into the men's room, in front of which they've been standing. Weaver crutches right on in after him and, sounding like it's draining the will out of the rest of her body to say it, announces, "If she goes, I go." "What?!" he snaps. "You heard me," Weaver says. Romano incredulously asks, "Are you giving me an ultimatum, Kerry?" They talk over each other, as she insists she will walk out the door if he doesn't back off, and he bellows that he doesn't respond well to ultimatums. Romano wheels around and barks, "You had better choose your battles very carefully! You are the Chief of Emergency Medicine, not the County's lesbian advocate!" Weaver calmly (but loudly) says, "That's where you're wrong, Robert, because I am both -- I am the Chief of Emergency Medicine, and I am a lesbian, and if you pursue this matter any further [getting louder and more agitated], I will take it to the County Board of Supervisors, the ACLU, the press, and anyone else who will listen, so I suggest you choose your battles very carefully!" Oh, no she di-in't! Wow. I did not see that coming. No, I really didn't! Romano, obviously, is completely gobsmacked and can't respond. Weaver stomps out, gets into an elevator, and steadies herself against the side. As the door slides shut, she gently puts her hand over her mouth, clearly wondering whether that actually just happened.
Downstairs, Mark, Haleh, and Luka wheel Mr. Fossen toward the elevator. Luka offers to take Mr. Fossen upstairs. Mark doesn't hear him at first, because he catches sight of Ted sitting in the hall looking sad, with Chen obviously trying to console him. Mark hears Luka's offer the second time, and declines, saying he'll do it himself. As they reach the elevator, Mr. Fossen starts thrashing a little, and Mark notes that he'll need more Pavulon. They push the gurney into the elevator, whereupon Haleh notices that Contrivance took her drug box and she'll have to go grab another. She takes off, leaving Mark alone in the elevator with Mr. Fossen. After a moment, the door slides shut, since the gurney isn't blocking it as Mark waits for Haleh. Mark goes to stop it before it closes, but he's too slow. The elevator starts going up. As they roll past the third floor, Mr. Fossen starts to crash. Mark checks his pulse at his neck and goos up Mr. Fossen's chest for the paddles.
Suddenly something falls from the ceiling of the elevator and lands on Mark's shoulders. Mark rears up, shrieking, and knocks the object to the ground. It scuttles along the floor to the back wall of the elevator, and then climbs straight up, landing square in the middle of Mr. Fossen's chest. Mark presses his back against the elevator doors, staring in horror at the creature on the bed. Mark squints, and realizes he's seen this creature before. Like, eight months ago. Mark scrambles toward the elevator buttons, but the creature is too fast, lashing out with his prehensile tail and hitting the emergency stop button. Mark asks, "Are you...?" The creature hisses, "Yes, it's me." Mark, fearing the answer: "Rex, right?" Rex leaps up from Mr. Fossen's chest, spreads his wings, and lands on Mark's head. He stretches out his neck and cranes his head down so he's staring at Mark upside down and murmurs, "Yessssss." He jumps back onto Mr. Fossen's chest and regards Mark. "Why are you here?" Mark asks. Rex leans back and rests on his tiny elbows. Mr. Fossen grunts. Rex absently flicks him in the face with his tail, and Mr. Fossen shuts up. Mark swallows hard. Rex sniffs, "I've been watching you, Mark. Mincing around here all fucking bald and shit. Wearing that faggy-ass short-sleeved plaid shirt. Rolling over every time anyone gets all up in your grill. That bitch Weaver turns you in to the medical review board -- puts your whole fucking career in jeopardy -- and how do you get her back?" Mark murmurs, "Well, I..." "You didn't invite her to your wedding," Rex sniffs disgustedly. "Yeah, that fucking showed her. Way to hit her where she lived. Not." "What are you getting at?" Mark whines. Rex leaps forward and grabs Mark by the lapels, hissing, "Don't you remember, back in the day? You used to own this place! Now goddamn wops are scamming on all the best ass in this place!" "He's actually Croatian," Mark interrupts. "Shut up! Now, you only have one more year in this place before that bitch Wells kills you off. That means, after this, twenty-two episodes to wave your fucking dick around and make people remember Mark Greene as a force to be reckoned with, not a fucking bitch-boy whose own wife can't even stand him. Be a man, for Christ's sake!" Mark's voice goes up an octave as he asks, "What should I do?" Rex stretches out his neck and looks back at Mr. Fossen, gasping and choking. He looks back at Mark and whispers, "That asshole would have killed your family in cold blood. He shows up on the goddamn table in front of you, and you save his fucking life?!" "But I took an oath!" Mark protests, charging the paddles and resting them against Mr. Fossen's chest. "Fuck your oath," barks Rex, wrapping his tail around Mark's wrists and wrenching Mark's hands out of the way. "Be a man!" Rex yells. Mark crooks his neck. "Do it!" shrieks Rex. "All right!" Mark sobs. Rex scampers up Mark's chest and perches on his shoulder to watch. Mark slowly straightens up, holding the paddles facing out in front of him, and shocks the air. "Yeah!" Rex purrs. Mr. Fossen reaches out and tangles his fingers in the cord of the paddle. Mark reaches out to stop the elevator, but Rex reminds him, "I already did that." "Oh, right," Mark says. Once again, he holds the paddles aloft, stares Mr. Fossen straight in the eye, and shocks the air. Mr. Fossen blinks. Mark licks his lips, waits a few moments, and shocks the air again. Rex gambols about the elevator in delight, finally settling back on Mark's shoulder. Rex nuzzles his cheek against Mark's and murmurs, "Stick with me, and we'll have a great year. I promise." The light starts to fade from Mr. Fossen's eyes. "We'll fucking rule this shit-box," Rex promises. Mark shocks the air a fourth time. Blackout.