First, a lifetime of props and happy thoughts go to Wing Chun, whose recaps of this show remain beacons of humor, grace, good writing, and Goose-bashing. I can't equal what she's done, but bear with me and I'll try not to let down her loyalists. But it might take me a while to be as facile with the medical stuff. ["You'd be surprised. And, aw!" -- Wing Chun] Also, thanks to Omar G, who taped the show for me.
Last season on ER, Kerry Weaver announced her lesbianism to Dr. Romano. Benton's nephew Jesse died. Mark Greene let Bad Dad Fossen die.
A young brunette sits in her hospital bed, looking dazedly around the room and half-listening to the muffled voices of doctors and patients. She's sporting messy hair, bruises on her face and an ass-chin that puts Rose McGowan's dimple to shame. Zombie staggers through the hospital without attracting the attention of John "Get" Carter and Abby "Lisa" Lockhart, who lean against a counter while the former barks orders into a telephone and looks mighty suave in a dark suit. "Dr. Wiseman. You have a patient, Holly Evans, who was supposed to be admitted last night," Carter says authoritatively, while Abby watches him impassively. Mark "It Ain't Easy Being" Greene strolls past with his wife, Elizabeth "It Ain't Easy Doing Greene" Corday; the camera follows them, under some grand delusion that Mark might say something worth the trip. Elizabeth notes that delaying surgery could kill an unspecified "him." Mark posits, "Say he doesn't die on the table, or in post-op. We ship him back to the convenience-store alley, but this time, instead of getting beaten up, he gets eaten by dogs because he's too weak to move." Lizzie is amused. "Eaten by dogs? In Chicago?" she asks. "It happens...a lot. A cop told me," Mark insists. Time for a brain scan, pal. Randi interrupts to tell Mark he's due in Romano's office to talk about the Bad Dad Fossen case. Elizabeth too-quickly asks, "Something wrong?" Mark lies, "I don't know."
Benton intercepts Mark, who bitchily insists that he lacks the time to field questions and never so much as looks at Peter. Worried about Cleo, Benton begins quizzing Mark about whether she's experiencing any complications with medication that she's taking. Ah, but this is the prologue, so that's all we get. They walk off-screen past Abby, who is still watching Carter ream Dr. Wiseman for leaving a young girl alone for twenty hours. "Pull your thumb out, get down here, and admit your patient," barks Carter, secretly pleased that his set of You're A Big Boy Now: How To Sound Like You Really, Really Mean It subliminal self-help tapes seems to be working. He and Abby take off toward the doors, Carter prescribing a liquid diet and a gram of Cefoxatin for Holly and demanding that Abby call him the minute anything changes. "'Pull your thumb out'?" she asks wryly, suppressing a snicker at Carter's all-business attitude. Suddenly, Dr. Kerry "I'm a Les-gaspian" Weaver charges in through the lobby doors and walks between them with a quiet, matter-of-fact greeting. The duo falls silent until she passes. "Things are a little tense," Carter duhs before leaving.
A paramedic wheels in an African-American woman with a Haldol deficiency, who Abby agrees to see in a nearby room. "Queen Elizabeth wants me to meet her boy," boasts the matronly marm. "We are compatible!" Abby grins. "You and Prince Charles?" she asks. Prince Charles? Pickings aren't that slim in the sex-fantasy department, are they? I mean, has she seen William? Hello! Talk about a guy who's screaming for the love of a sassy-but-gentle recapper. But, our lady is still waxing rhapsodic about Chuck. "He likes coffee, and so do I," Matron proudly insists. Cocking her head with a tiny smile, Abby decides, "I could be a princess." Matron sits up sharply and narrows her eyes. "He is mine, honey," she snarls. Abby backs off just as Luka calls her to help with an arriving patient.
Steering Abby outside, Luka "Yes, I Think You've Seen Me Before" Kovac excitedly whispers that he found an apartment listed in the building on Clarke that she covets. It's got two bedrooms -- one for her, one for me and Luka -- and wood floors, and the manager already has two leads so they need to act fast. Abby smiles at him, but her eyes brim with curiosity and hesitation. She completely fails to do the requisite cartwheels. "Are you seriously considering it?" she asks. Luka's bubble suffers a wee pin-prick. "I thought you liked that area," he stammers slightly, taken aback by her lack of enthusiasm. Abby starts babbling a list of excuses, rent being chief among them. Luka's aforementioned bubble, once delicately pierced, has now been gored, popped, mixed with vinegar, and poured into his eyes. He musters a smile, and as they try to cover the pause with awkward banter, metal and debris drop from the ceiling; the duo turns to see Zombie drop from the roof and through a glass ceiling, landing hard on the concrete ground. They stare at her placidly, oddly unsurprised. Roll credits.
The first of our four vignettes begins with Weaver's morning commute. Her cane pokes out of a car door, followed by one blue-polyester-clad leg, then another. She straightens; her pantsuit screams "flight attendant." Hurrying to a street vendor selling African bracelets, Weaver selects one and buys it, receiving assurances that it was imported directly from Kenya.
The Saturn negotiates morning traffic while Kerry listens to a radio show sounding suspiciously like Howard Stern's. The male and female co-hosts are bickering about homosexuality and gay rights, with the latter adopting the more sensitive position and the former arguing that role models -- people in a position to educate and influence -- should either deny being gay or refrain from flaunting their sexuality. Kerry stares ahead, her jaw clenched, taking it all very personally. She switches off the radio and breathes a very nervous "Okay."
Kerry arrives at the hospital and says her uncomfortable good-morning to Abby and Carter. Dr. Dave "Blink and Miss Him" Malucci shouts, "Hey, Chief, back in the saddle so soon?" Kerry's eyes mist, because this reminds her of that one night she and Legaspi re-enacted the movie 8 Seconds and she got to play Bodacious the bull. Malik is surprised to see her, too. "It's been three weeks," Kerry says tersely. "Well, time flies when you're...missing a colleague," Dave trails off uneasily, scared Weaver will notice the Rogaine he pilfered to grow so flowing a brown mane in such a brief period. To change the subject, Dave asks Malik to handle a child's x-ray. Weaver tries to escape, but Randi stops her and gushes, "I love your hair color," then fondles it and tousles it and touches the Kenyan bracelet and then takes a bite out of Weaver's left breast, because Weaver is a lesbian. Weaver lies and says she got the bracelet at a shop in Nairobi, adding with selective honesty, "It was exactly as I remembered it."
Alone in the locker room, Kerry touches the cold, closed metal locker, a metaphor for her cold, closed life, and gulps back her discomfort. A commotion attracts her to the window, where she sees the aftermath of Zombie's spectacular belly-flop.
Zombie is wheeled into the trauma room, flanked by Luka, Abby, Weaver, and the usual gaggle of nurses. They call out diagnostics and Weaver orders two pints of O-negative for the infuser. "How did she get upstairs?" Luka muses angrily. Weaver jerks her head up. "She is an ER patient?" she asks. Abby exposits that Zombie arrived with abdominal pain, a facial fracture, and a broken wrist, and Chuny chips in that the girl also needed a Psych consult because she's pregnant by her own brother. Luka fumes that someone should've been monitoring her behavior and whereabouts; Haleh notes that Psych is desperately short-staffed without Legaspi. The Psych department and Weaver's bedroom have something in common, then. Distracted but trying to cover it, Weaver asks for some meds and a vascular clamp. Abby decides it's a good time for gossip, wondering why no one has replaced Legaspi. Haleh offers that Kim got a job in California. Weaver can't focus. All the rubber gloves and "job" talk is flustering her libido. "Have you heard from Dr. Legaspi?" Abby innocently asks Kerry. Overwhelmed with memories, Kerry jolts herself into consciousness and jams her fingers into Zombie's body; a surge of blood and other fluid immediately splats all over her neck. I desperately hope that's not part of these so-called subtle reminders of Kerry's life with Kim. Backing away from the table, Kerry wipes her face. "Probably a tension pneumo," Luka says, comfortingly, and it soothes me even though I have no idea what it means. It could mean "bubonic plague" and I'd feel relieved if it came from him.
Benton brusquely charges into the trauma room and takes over Zombie's treatment; Kerry feebly tries to participate, but Luka politely insists they have the situation under control. Weaver slowly departs.
Newly clean, Weaver encounters Jing-Mei "Deb" Chen in the hallway treating a mild head wound. "I never got the chance to thank you," Chen says sweetly, her beaming face aglow with gratitude. "I got my Chief Resident confirmation. I won't let you down." Kerry distractedly mutters, "I'm sure you won't," and tries to proceed, but catches sight of a woman wailing at Luka with palpable grief. Kerry stops walking, unable to find a low-stress place in which to clear her mind. "We should sue that Scottish bastard," blurts Chen's patient. Kerry whirls around, because Lesgaspi's uncle's college roommate was a Scottish bastard and she doesn't appreciate the reminder, thank you very much. "That sleazebag host will say anything to get people to fight on his show," seethes the man. Chen clarifies that Mr. Peterson, her patient, started a talk-show brawl and got smacked in the head with a microphone.
"I killed her, I killed her!" screams Luka's woman from off in the distance.
Suddenly, Mr. Peterson catches sight of a familiar face and yells, "Stay the hell away from me, you queer!" A HeShe in a shiny purple dress and hot-pink boa pleads with Peterson to accept a ride home. "I don't dig penises, okay?" Peterson shouts. Kerry dodges a falling anvil to investigate the situation. Apparently, the HeShe had dated Peterson, then took him on a talk-show to confess being in the middle of a sex change. Peterson didn't react at all well. "You knew," minces the HeShe with exaggerated grief. "Part of you knew." Peterson grabs Kerry and spits, "See this? Man, woman. That's what I know! That's what's normal!" The aggrieved HeShe moans, "It's still love, Carl! Love is love!" Carl lunges at the HeShe, who throws a hand to his/her forehead and scampers down the hallway, away from this plot and the Great Anvil God, who's got nasty chronic dropsy. Aren't we five years beyond making fun of Jerry Springer episodes?
Luka, having calmed down Peterson, asks Kerry whether she's okay, and then points out that the M&M hearing on Bad Dad Fossen has commenced. She looks confused, having blissfully blotted Mark's existence from her mind.
Bing! They hop off the elevator at another floor. Kerry, visibly preoccupied, confronts Luka about her worst suspicions. "Luka, has there been any talk about me?" she asks, trying to keep her voice low. He doesn't quite follow her meaning, gently saying, "People always talk about their bosses." Kerry explains that she needs to know whether personal gossip has spread; again, Luka is adorably confused. At that moment, Dr. Anspaugh bellows, "Well, Dr. Weaver! I thought you fell under the spell of some Masai warrior and were never coming back!" Kerry is morose. She and Legaspi used to spell together.
Mark stands at a wooden podium and fields questions from an audience of doctors, each of them trying to dissect the night of Fossen's death. A Dr. Zogoiby wonders why lidocaine wasn't administered, and Mark shakily states he didn't have the ACLS drug box with him and had sent a nurse to fetch it when the doors closed unexpectedly and the dog ate his English paper. As Mark's methods come under scrituny, Kerry zones out completely, focusing on the back of Romano's bald head and recalling the time he discussed Legaspi's lesbianism with her. Voice-over comments swirl in her mind, each one referring to her inner turmoil and struggle to cope with homosexuality. A giant vagina drops from the sky and bleats, "Loooove meeee!" as Kerry's internal Legaspi Quote Generator produces the words, "Deal with the stigma of being gay!" Dr. Anspaugh barks, "Care to comment on that?" Kerry jumps in her seat. Everyone is staring at her. "Dr. Weaver, in your opinion, was the patient's care at all compromised?" he asks, sternly. Kerry fumbles. "Did the ER accept too many patients that day?" presses Anspaugh. A flummoxed Weaver stammers that she recalls things being busy, but manageably so and aptly handled. Anspaugh nods grimly.
Kerry charges out of the room and into the hall, when she almost runs into a rolling gurney. "Watch your back," the medic says presciently, for at that second, Dr. "Everybody Loves Ray" Romano appears behind her and it seems his fangs are bared. He sweetly asks, "Kerry, are you under the weather?" It appears he noticed her lagging mental perception. She unconvincingly blames it on jet lag. "Oh, yes, a trip to Africa, was it? Spontaneous decision. Doesn't seem like you," he smarms. Kerry looks like every muscle in her body is rigid. Through gritted teeth, she monotones that her accrued vacation was about to expire so she decided to burn it. Romano insists that she gave insufficient warning, so Weaver flatly states she might take her remaining nineteen days sometime soon. "Might want to try Papua New Guinea for your adventure," Romano oozes. "I hear they put gourds on their penises." I could be wrong, but I could swear he's implying she needs a good, vigorous lay with an oversized man-tool -- but it's unclear where he gets off saying that, because if anyone needs to blow off some...er...steam, it's Romano.
As the elevator door closes on Romano's inane comment, Kerry jams her cane into the gap and blocks it, struggling through the tiny space and looking unfortunately frail in doing so. Romano -- boo, hisss! -- smoothly drenches his voice in saccharine concern and says, "Careful...you know you can just call my office; you don't have to go beating up the elevator." Weaver demands to know whom he told. "About what?" he asks. "About what we discussed," she replies, edgily. Romano plays dumb and insists that he eased up on Legaspi, but that she decided County General wasn't friendly to her and relocated to San Francisco. "Go figure," he adds, almost as an afterthought. Weaver's agitation grows with every reinforcement of his dense façade, until she finally blurts, "Have you told anyone that I'm a lesbian?" Romano stares at her. "Oh, uh, no," he answers. "I mean, if you want to tell anyone, that's your business, but I don't see how a person's sexual affairs are appropriate for workplace conversation, do you, Kerry?" She looks at him in silence, then mutters, "No." Romano pointedly adds, "Then we're on the same page," and breezes past her, his words laced with a decidedly don't-ask-don't-tell vibe. Kerry zones out one last time, wondering what her moment of honesty has wrought.
Now it's Benton's turn for story. He's at Walt's body shop, and the latter ["totally not Ving Rhames, of course" -- Wing Chun] orders his daughter Joanie to order a rotor and new brake pads for Benton's car. "I'm sure your father will give me a deal," Benton hints broadly. "If I ever need an operation, you'd better not charge me," Walt sighs. Benton grins. "Only for parts," he says. As soon as her father is out of earshot, Joanie whispers that Benton should pay full price if he can -- her mother got fired and the family is strapped for cash. Then she breaks into a wide smile and tells Peter to bring Cleo over, because they haven't seen her in ages and the young kids really love switching her off and bedecking her with fridge magnets. Peter sighs that they're taking a break because Cleo needs space to deal with "some rough stuff."
Cut to County General, where Benton pulls on a pair of rubber gloves. In the background, little Holly asks Abby whether she reached another unnamed "him." Peter yanks the curtain around his cubicle to freeze out the distraction, and examines the older man assigned to his care. "Nine years hosting a talk show, and I've never gotten bit [sic]," groans the man with distaste. Peter mutters that he thought the shows were all staged. "Not exactly," SpringerLite says. "People don't usually get hurt. We use lightweight furniture just in case." As he blathers, Benton spies Cleo "Mrs. Roboto" Finch chatting with Mark, overhears a reference to a damaged liver, and visibly tenses. "I think a transsexual bit me," frets SpringerLite, implying that he might've caught something. Benton is fresh out of shit to give. He leaps up and hightails it toward Cleo, although if the closed-captioners had their way, she'd be called Claire. Benton inquires about her health with obvious concern, but she lightly brushes it aside and insists she's perfectly healthy. "But you're still taking [the meds]?" Benton persists. He's referring to the incident in the season finale, when Cleo cut her hand and exposed her blood to that of an HIV-positive patient. She's on a course of treatment to prevent herself from being Jeannie Boulet Redux. Cleo stalls Benton's questions by handing off Zombie's case -- she's twenty, she broke her wrist and got smacked repeatedly in the head with a folding chair. Cleo further exposits that Zombie just learned her boyfriend is her half-brother, and is in need of delicate handling. I'm not sure which of these two would be more inept at that.
Zombie uneasily complies with Benton's eye exam. He explains they're going to x-ray her face to detect fractures, then plans an ultrasound to check her abdomen for internal bleeding. He's very methodical and mechanical with Zombie, who looks deeply traumatized; she springs to life when her mother gingerly enters the room. "Get out! Get out!" she screams frantically. "You tell me on TV?! You keep this from me, you let me date him, you knew we were having sex and you tell me on TV?!" It's hard for me to garner sympathy for someone who, in 2001, still thinks that being taken on a talk show can end happily. There's almost always a fetish, a sex scandal, or extra genitals involved. The mother is played by perennial guest-star Conchata Ferrell, who has been in everything ever made, but who is closest to my heart for playing Leona in Mystic Pizza. Leona begs her daughter to understand the pressure under which the producers put her, but Haleh, at Zombie's request, kicks out Leona before she can continue.
Trembling, Zombie watches Peter administer the Ultrasound and nervously wonders whether he can determine pregnancy. Peter peers at the screen, then sighs, "Looks like about ten weeks." Zombie chokes that she'd intended to keep her baby, but news of her unwitting incest shadows that decision. "This can't be happening," she wails. "This can't be true. I love him so much! It's so unfair." Hmm. Incest baby? Talk to Mark and Elizabeth. They made it work. Zombie's obviously crying out for some kind of reassurance, or even sympathy, but Benton's incapable of administering either and instead spits more jargon at her. Peter's bedside manner is, as ever, free of warmth and fuzz.
Outside Zombie's room, Benton is ordering a facial CT and a psych consult for Zombie when Malik sprints into the lobby and loudly whispers, "Weaver's here!" Dr. Dave is startled. Peter treats another transsexual from the talk-show battle, but it's quite boring, so I'm giving it a miss. This whole thing is turning into a choppy mess. Peter catches Greene on his way up to Romano's office and begs for answers about Cleo. Mark snaps that he isn't making time for this. "Is she having trouble with the triple cocktail?" Benton asks, worried. Mark tells him to check with Cleo. Benton barrages him with a few more questions until Mark turns and pointedly says, "You should talk to her, Peter," or as I heard it, "Me, me, me, me. Me!"
Upstairs, Benton trots off the elevator and is hailed by Joanie, who shouts, "Uncle Peter?" She wants to talk about her parents, Uncle Peter. They're having problems, Uncle Peter. Are we clear that he's her Uncle Peter? Joanie frets about her mother's deteriorating emotional state, wherein she appears fine one second and then locks herself in the bathroom the . Benton calls this normal behavior. "No, it's not," she argues. "They fight all the time about her job, about Jesse's room. Dad washed a shirt that had his scent on it, and Mom went nuts!" Joanie implores Benton to confront her, but he insists there's nothing he can do and that time will fix the problem. "It's almost been a year," Joanie breathes tearfully. Benton looks extremely put-out, and practically shudders with relief when his beeper interrupts the conversation. I hope Joanie bills him for forty sets of brake pads.
Peter suits up and heads to trauma one, in which Zombie now lies. He's stunned to learn that she jumped the four storeys while waiting for her consult, and swiftly assumes control of the situation from a blood-soaked Kerry. He orders a chest tube and a milligram of atropine, suspecting a case of pericardiocentesis -- which absolutely would have been my diagnosis, had I ever gone to medical school. Peter commences compressions to revive her flagging pulse, but with blood seeping into her pericardium -- the sac encasing her heart -- it looks bleak. Luka prepares to tell Leona that Zombie is dead, but Peter isn't ready to call it yet because, if he does, he'll have to go pay attention to his niece again, and he's not interested enough in her life. Luka insists that Zombie is moments from death, quietly exiting to find Leona. Abby and Haleh yank Benton's attention back to the patient, who is in asystole -- her heart is fast losing the ability to force blood through her body, and she's all but officially toast. Haleh looks sad. Benton pumps her chest a few more times, then resignedly calls the time of death as 12:17.
At night, having apparently donated one thought to his sister's plight, Peter strolls casually toward her garage. Jackie is clearing the whole thing out and donating to the Salvation Army; the whole process has the distinct air of a forced distraction from deeper problems. Benton makes a lame stab at excusing his visit. "I came by for...a snow shovel," he offers, then shakes his head at the silly falsehood and confesses that he's checking up on her because he knows she's unemployed. "We'll just have to wait to extend that porch," she non-sequiturs. Peter is confused. "Thought it was time for a change," explains his sister. "Walt took some pictures of the back yard that we could draw on, make plans...When I went to pick up the prints, I found three pictures of Jesse left on the roll. Fell apart right in the store." She weeps for the cruel loss of a young life, and for a son frozen in time at age fifteen, unable to grow and change and mature. Sitting dejectedly on the hood of her car, Jackie whispers, "You think every day you're getting a little better, getting through it. And then you're right back to the day it happened." Peter listens intently, sensing her desperate need to speak unchecked. "He's still my baby, Peter," she finishes. "I'm supposed to take care of him. I feel like somewhere, sometime, he's going to be sad or cold or scared. Who's taking care of him? Who's being his mother?" During her final speech, Benton sits beside her and wraps his arm around her neck, letting her lean on him.
Carter begins his story inside a car. Rolling down his limousine window, Carter gazes at the passing graveyard, clearly headed there for a funeral. There's been rather a lot of gazing and staring in this episode, which is taxing my mental thesaurus. Perched beside Carter is his mother, clad in a black suit and wide-brimmed matching hat, sitting stiff as a double bourbon and ice-princess pale. We see the coffin come out of the hearse, Carter in position as a pallbearer, then move to a snippet of the ceremony. During the priest's oration Carter's mobile phone rings, a repulsive sign of our era. What could be that important during a funeral? Does Abby have a hangnail? He switches off the ringer and gently clasps the hand of his emotional grandmother, Gamma. Yay! She's alive!
Ice Queen and Carter return to the limo, an appropriately frosty silence in place. "Dad did a nice job with the eulogy," Carter offers. Ice Queen boredly says he worked on it for ages, and when Carter expresses his certainty that Grandpa Carter would've loved it, she offers only an uninterested "Yes." Trying another tactic, Carter says, "Gamma seems to be holding up," but he gets a snotty "Yes, I expect she would" in return. Ah, saved by the cell phone this time: Abby calls to alert him about a problem with little Holly Evans, who hasn't been admitted to the ER despite already having spent a night at the hospital. Carter presses her for Holly's stats and then orders the limo driver to stop at County General so that he can impress Abby with strong language and manly assertiveness. He promises his mother it won't take long, but she's too chilly to answer. She might actually be frozen in place.
Holly is bedded down in a high-traffic area, where talk-show brawlers are bitching about the program while waiting for treatment. Abby tries to quiet them while Carter soothes his patient. "I'll make sure you get your own bed and room upstairs," he says. "You said that last night," grouches Holly. He swears it will happen, tells her that Abby will chat with her in the meantime, and stage-whispers that Abby will call him again whenever Holly needs him. "Thanks for coming back," Holly says sweetly.
Carter orders a course of medicine for Holly while he dials her regular physician, Dr. Wiseman. "Nice suit," Abby remarks. "Who died?" "My grandfather," Carter replies matter-of-factly. Abby whips her head up and regurgitates the foot lodged in her throat. "Wow, are you okay?" she asks, apologizing for her accidental lack of tact. Abby invites him for coffee, but Carter declines, citing the throng of two hundred mourners swarming his house expecting to offer condolences over champagne and caviar, which is acceptable because it comes in mourner's black. "There's coffee there," Abby notes pointedly, but Carter brushes aside her words, saying he couldn't possibly subject her to that. Translation: not only does he want her to come, but he wants her to help him cope with desolation the only way he knows how -- by playing Strip Eulogy.
Carter and the ice sculpture that is his mother arrive at the party, pausing long enough for her to straighten his tie and chip the frost off his ear. Stephen Keaton from Family Ties wanders over, alleging that he's Carter's father and pausing to passive-aggressive something about whether their driver got lost. "John had something more pressing," brats the icicle. Equally coolly, Carter corrects her by saying that a patient required urgent attention. "Gamma is lying down," Stephen says, then establishes that he and his wife will stay at a hotel rather than bunking at Gamma's house. This perturbs Carter, who wants to check on Gamma but who is instead commanded to go "introduce himself" to a senator's daughter, which is socialite shorthand for "check for a naked ring finger and childbearing hips."
Instead, Carter does neither, preferring to roam aimlessly until he arrives in the mansion's study, whereupon he gazes pensively at a portrait of two young boys that I'll wager are the young brothers Carter. The butler interrupts his trance to alert him that he's got a friend waiting to see him.
Naturally, Carter's mystery friend is Luka. No! Abby. Sorry, I mixed up the legs of the love triangle. She informs him that, moments after he slammed down the telephone in a blaze of testosterone, the chagrined Dr. Wiseman hurried over to admit Holly and get her settled in a proper hospital room. "Amazing what a little 'pull your thumb out' can do," she chuckles. Abby looks great. I've always loved Maura Tierney; anyone who can turn in a composed, clever performance opposite the wailing banshee Sally Field has run my gauntlet. Carter politely asks whether Abby nibbled on anything from the buffet. "I couldn't decide between smoked tongue pâté and the whitefish mousse," she grins. They giggle, because it's such a ridiculous choice -- obviously, the mousse wins every time. Carter cracks that they're fresh out of pigs in a blanket.
The duo ceases strolling at a bench near a broken birdbath. Carter recalls that his grandfather loved riding around the lawn on his power mower. "He drove into the birdbath?" snorts Abby. "Well, he was having a fatal M.I. at the time," Carter answers calmly. Abby coughs and hides her face, so far beyond a mere foot in her mouth that she's actually chewing on her own upper thigh. Carter's probably envious. They both try to stifle laughter, but can't, especially when Carter keeps talking: "Not a bad way to go. Sunny day...get on the mower..." Abby sobers up long enough to apologize for crashing the reception, but she claims she felt overwhelmed with distress at the idea that Carter's grandfather died and he kept it quiet.
Ice Cube interrupts the warm bonding between the two colleagues, demanding that Carter fetch Gamma immediately. He introduces Abby; Abby is met with zero interest from the Ice Queen, who drifts away after uttering some other rude command to Carter and temporarily freezing his chin. She's actually making me want to put on sweats and a flannel shirt. "[My parents] don't handle loss well," Carter understates. Abby is sympathetic, especially when Carter reveals that they haven't faced death since Carter's brother passed away. Abby shoos him away to complete his mission, spotting Chill Factor darting another aggravated glare their way.
Stephen is watching business news reports in the study, quietly sipping whiskey and grousing about plunging biotech stocks. How very Alex Keaton of him. Carter peers in to check for Gamma, and is startled by his father's indifference to everyone around him. Stephen ribs Carter for his insistence on finding Gamma; Carter retorts that his father should stand up to the Frozen Femme just once and stay in the house that night, for Gamma's sake. He tries to press the issue of his father's apparent avoidance, but Stephen wants no part of this armchair analysis. Carter bristles, then blurts, "Bobby's not coming back. If Mom wants to walk around in a bubble for the rest of her life, then fine, but don't let her keep holding you inside of it." Stephen sneers and turns up the volume, but then sighs and calls out to his son that Gamma might be in the garage.
Stephen's hunch proves true -- Gamma's in the garage, along with a bunch of other mint-condition vintage machines. She's revving a nifty two-seat convertible, bright red but stubbornly resisting her pleas to start. Carter gently suggests that it's flooded and needs to rest for a second. He admits that his mother sent him to fetch Gamma so that the guests can pay their respects. "They can wait," Gamma insists. "I'm the widow." She whips out a bottle of champagne that she and her husband had saved for their 60th anniversary. "Missed it by a year," she frowns. "Open it," she orders. Carter resists, but she wants to toast her late husband in style, so he pours Gamma a glass and raises the bottle for himself. "To John Truman Carter: entrepreneur, philanthropist, family man," Carter begins. "And friend," Gamma finishes, guzzling her glass. Carter swigs from his share of the champers and twinkles, "We gonna take this old girl out for a spin, or what?" Gamma laughs, "Damn right," and successfully starts the car, puttering down the driveway at a blazing 2 mph. Is it wrong that I'm rooting for her to drive it into the birdbath?
Last, and certainly least, is Mark Greene. His day begins inside the radiology lab, where he's getting a brain scan to make sure everything's been successfully removed. Let's hope the Grim Reaper's got an itchy trigger finger gripping his scythe. Mark faux-casually wants to know how the readout looks, but the technician insists that he isn't qualified to give an opinion. "See anything bad?" Mark chirps.
We then make a clunky cut down to the lobby, where Luka is asking Mark to give an oral report about Bad Dad Fossen. They're holding a Morbidity and Mortality (or M&M) briefing about that night at the hospital, and Luka figures that Mark should present Fossen since he "treated" him. Mark distractedly agrees to do it, then gets sidetracked by Cleo and Leona, the latter of whom is looking for her daughter while Cleo woodenly scans the room and exposits that the hospital is overrun with injured loons from the talk show Battle Royale. Luka reappears long enough to clarify that he's presenting the case of the cab driver at the M&M, and he's visibly nervous about participating. "Relax," Mark says, "Stick to the facts, and you'll be fine." The Jinx Fairy is going to leave a dollar under his pillow tonight.
Cleo suddenly bolts to one of the exam rooms; Mark looks up and notices her gagging into a bag. "Third time today," she tells him minutes later. He inquires about her medicine, offering to change up the prescription to minimize side effects. "I can live with the nausea," Cleo insists. "[But] my liver enzymes are up." Mark understands that she's worried that the medicine is giving her hepatitis; since she only has one more week on the course of treatment, Mark suggests foregoing the drugs altogether for the sake of her liver. "I want to be safe," Cleo bleats, unwilling to assume that she's already in the clear. "Want my opinion?" Mark asks. "I guess so," Cleo shrugs, dripping with deeply appropriate reluctance. Mark tells her to lower her dosage and closely monitor all her related vital signs, like rust levels and battery strength.
Abby and two paramedics wheel in an elderly homeless man from Casey Square, assaulted by a handful of teenagers who wanted to steal his coin cup. Abby is appalled that people witnessed the beating and didn't intervene, because somehow she's clung to the idea that human nature is some kind of benevolent force. Ha. Good one, Abby. Mark calls for an x-ray and surgical consult, then wheels around to see Adele -- the social worker Fossen shot -- wheel herself toward him. "I hear you got up on crutches," Mark says encouragingly. "With leg braces, yeah. I'm trying, but I'm realistic," she grimaces. Adele adds that she's attending the M&M as "a show-and-tell," and raises her eyebrows when Mark confirms he's presenting Fossen. "Have fun," she says, shaking her head.
In Trauma Two, Abby and the nurses work frantically to raise Homeless Guy's blood pressure. His body hurts. Elizabeth enters to assist, choosing this moment as the best time to ask about the results of Mark's head scan. "I still have a brain," Mark lies. Elizabeth grouches that six weeks of maternity leave hasn't been nearly enough, then notices fluid in Morrison's Pouch, which if I remember right is a small vacation spot in southern Australia. Mark makes note of the patient's internal bleeding, but wonders whether some of the symptoms are a complication of cirrhosis and discovers the man's blood-alcohol level is 3.15. Wow. My ex-boyfriend's GPA was lower. Mark and Elizabeth bark medical stats back and forth, which turns into an argument about the man's suitability for surgery. "He's high-risk," Mark determines. "Even riskier if he bleeds out," Corday counters. Oh, get a room, you two.
Elizabeth and Mark opt for the hallway instead. "He's a homeless alcoholic with pneumonia," Mark points out. Elizabeth, incensed, wonders whether her hubby is implying that such a man doesn't deserve full treatment. "He's as healthy as he can get right now, and I'm trying to keep it that way," insists Mark. "Surgery could kill him." Corday snipes, "Delaying surgery could kill him." By now, they've moved into reception, and initiate the conversation we heard earlier to the effect that surgery won't help the man if he's so weak that dogs attack and eat him in a cold, dark alley. Shut up, Mark. That's precious oxygen you're wasting. Randi interrupts with Romano's summons, and Mark departs up to the demon's lair.
"M&Ms," sighs Romano. "They serve a purpose in the practice of medicine, I guess, but they're a pain in the ass." He heard Mark is presenting Fossen the Serial Killer, and warns him that the legal department flagged something unusual about the case notes. He pauses. "No big deal," Romano insists. "It's their job to be anal." It seems there's an unusual time lag between Fossen's departure from the trauma ward and the code-blue notes from pre-op -- seventeen minutes, to be exact, during which he was in Mark's care and his heart stopped. Romano wonders why a four-floor ascent took so long, but just as a cornered Mark stammers his answer, Romano's assistant Brenda barges in with word that Zombie plummeted four floors and splatted in the ambulance bay. Romano is pissed -- not because an unattended patient leapt to her death, but that the suicidal impulse came at so inconvenient a moment. What if he'd been in the bathroom? I mean, really. Waving Brenda out of the room, Romano gives Mark thirty seconds or less to explain the time lapse without using the words "I helped him die." Mark obliges. "I was alone doing chest compressions and ran down the defibrillator battery," he says. "It took time to get help and transfer the patient to pre-op." Romano is fine with this half-assed explanation, mostly because he's not interested in seeing Greene throw his entire ass into anything. "I don't think anyone's going to be crying over this guy, do you?" Romano smirks. Ah! The Jinx Fairy's out two bucks tonight.
Mark, in the hearing room, explains that Fossen had injuries to his spleen and his superior mesenteric artery. Microsoft thoughtfully included "mesenteric" in its MS Word dictionary, and yet, what kind of world is this when that same electronic tome doesn't recognize "funktified"? Fossen was also apparently suffering from sanguination due to multiple vascular injuries. Mark confesses that he administered no lidocaine because he didn't have the drug box with him; when a nurse ran to get it, the elevator doors closed. We heard that during the Weaver segment. Anspaugh clarifies that Mark was therefore alone with the patient in the elevator, and Greene shakily confirms it. Elizabeth suddenly stares at her spouse and asks, "Did you say the original disrhythmia was stable v-tech?" Um, I think that goes without saying, Liz. She explains that she's trying to deduce whether Fossen had a pulse. Mark nods. Another doctor notes that, without lidocaine on hand, Fossen was conscious and unsedated when Mark cardioverted him. "Isn't that barbaric?" the man asks. Mark ascribes the act to the severity of the circumstances. While he talks, the camera closes in on Elizabeth, who clearly has reached some realization about what Mark might've done in that elevator and she's worrying about how it will eventually affect her windfall...er, "his pension."
Luka grills Abby about whether she actually knows Carter's grandfather, so I assume she's just informed him of her plan to attend the reception. Luka acts miffed. Greene storms past and asks Abby where his homeless patient is, and she answers that Lizzie swept him into surgery, supposedly at Mark's behest, which is a lie. That sound you hear is his emasculated soul crying for redemption.
Zombie's mother stands motionless over her daughter's corpse, still intubated as it stiffens on the operating table. She brokenly begs Mark to remove the tube, but Mr. Suddenly A Stickler For The Rules swears that only a coroner can handle the corpse. She begins to babble. The show flew her family to Chicago and put them in the Hilton, and even paid for her to fix her teeth, on the promise that she'd keep her daughter in suspense as to the reason for their voyage. Leona lovingly strokes Zombie's hair. "It was a lie," she chokes. "It was all a lie, that stuff about them having the same daddies. I just said that to get them on the show." Mark looks grim, darkening his expression by another degree when Leona recalls always teaching her child to tell the truth, lest she incur God's wrath. Mark borrows an anvil from Kerry's story line and whacks his own head with it.
Cuddled on the couch with his child, Mark hears keys jangling and knows Elizabeth is home. She walks inside seconds later, half-heartedly asking about the baby's welfare while she kicks off her shoes. Mark asks about the homeless man over whose treatment they sparred. "Extubated in recovery when I left," she sighs. "I think I repaired the oozing, but it might've stopped on its own." Mark waves it off as a judgment call; he prefers to kill his patients, but Elizabeth's allowed to be an idealist. Elizabeth still hasn't so much as looked at her daughter. Granted, she's tired and had a long day, but she isn't required to hold the baby or feed her because Mark took care of that. All she needs is to peer into her child's face, maybe caress her head once, showing some flicker of affection. But evidently she's dispossessed of the required selflessness. Mark begins his confession. "Elizabeth, in the elevator with Fossen..." She cuts him off, certain it's better to bury that topic temporarily. Pun accidental. She crosses to him, leans her cheek against his head, and kisses his shiny pate. They snuggle like that for a minute, then she kisses the baby and heads up to bed. Halfway upstairs, though, looking momentarily sickened, Elizabeth turns and calls his name. But instead of voicing her worst fears, Elizabeth swallows them and says instead, "I'll get up with her." Mark stares after her briefly, then focuses anew on the baby, the fresh life he created shortly before terminating another.
The preview for week teases some bad news Benton must break to Reese, and ends with the assertion, "Make no mistake: ER is back." And with it comes overblown ads.