Previously on ER: Weaver's first attempt to find her mother failed, so she fired her investigator. Abby encouraged Carter to apply for the Attending job in the ER, because Chen won the Chief Resident gig. Chen, meanwhile, tempted fate by promising not to let Weaver down. Carter basically told Abby he was interested in a relationship with her, but won't wait around forever for her relationship with Luka to combust. Finally, Roger punched Benton because he thought Benton wanted Carla back. ["The cheesiest thing about this 'previously' is that when this actually happened last season, Roger was played by Victor Williams, a.k.a. Deacon from The King of Queens. Now Roger is played by Vondie Curtis-Hall (formerly of Chicago Hope, and also the director of Glitter), so they reshot the scene with him. WHY?! That was just dumb." -- Wing Chun]
"One-hundred-forty patients, twenty-seven admissions," Carter marvels. "That has to be a record." Frank snorts, "I got a record for you: a guy in Exam Four swallowed fifty hot dogs in nineteen minutes." And that will yield yet another record for Most Vomit Ever. Carter gleefully announces that his shift is over. Abby "I Survived Sally Field And All I Got Was This Lousy Kidney-Stone Patient" Lockhart arrives and dismissively asks Carter about her kidney-stone patient. He admitted the man to Urology, so they both decide it's time to dash. "Give me the beer!" bellows Haleh as Abby scrambles past her. An old man in a wheelchair protests loudly as Haleh rips two cans from his tightly clutched six-pack. ["I'm not positive, but I think the old man is my beloved indigent Pablo." -- Wing Chun] Haleh shouts for Abby's assistance, but Abby glibly brushes it aside. "He's drunk, combative, and he won't give up his beer!" complains Haleh. She doesn't understand that sometimes, those exact conditions make for a stellar weekend. "I need help!" yelps Haleh. "I need to pee!" grouses the man. Abby smarmily punches out while Haleh mentally plans to punch her out. "That's gonna cost you," Haleh threatens. As Abby breezes toward the exit, a cold front with a baby strapped to it sweeps inside. "Where's Mark?" Elizabeth "Tornado of Bitchery" Corday snaps. "Who?" Abby replies. "Mark Greene, your Attending," sneers Elizabeth. "I think he quit," Abby says airily, leaving. Elizabeth's poisonous expression is all, "Don't tease me," and my gasp of hope is all, "Do NOT tease me!"
Frazzled, Elizabeth whirls into another room. Dr. Kerry "Muff Enough" Weaver is treating an elderly woman with third-degree burns. "Kerry, have you seen Mark?" Elizabeth asks. Kerry tells Elizabeth to check into a post-op seroma, and Elizabeth snaps that she'd much rather do it after dumping her kid into someone else's lap -- well, take it from me, that's what she meant. Kerry distractedly waves her toward Curtain Three for Mark; Elizabeth briefly considers trading up for what's behind door number two, but shakes it off and forges ahead toward mediocrity.
Jing-Mei "Deb" Chen grabs Weaver and frantically asks for advice -- X-ray is behind and her patient with a wrist-fracture is sick of waiting and wants to bolt. Weaver sighs that Chen needs to figure these problems out herself and learn to keep ER traffic flowing. Chen complains that time is too short even for the quick patients. "Turf and admit, treat and street," Weaver recites. Whatever. That acronym would be "TATS," and...no.
"Mark!" screeches the Demon Hormone. She storms into his exam room. Mark "Mr. Mom" Greene stammers that things got really jammed, as he tries to attend to a patient. "Drunk boating accident," he explains. "Busted face. We need to crike him." Elizabeth knows exactly where Mark can shove his crike. She grouses that they need a weekend nanny. "A weekday nanny is bad enough," Mark says quietly. Elizabeth spits that it doesn't make them bad parents. "I just want to raise our children," Mark argues gently. That's a flagrant misuse of the plural -- one spawn of the hell couple is quite enough. Elizabeth bitches that if that's the case, then Mark had better get home when he says he'll be home; as is, he's an hour late. Mark tries to dispense proper medical care during this tirade. I'd hate to be the patient. "Finish the procedure, give it to a resident, and meet me upstairs," snarls his wife. Malik waits for her to leave, then smirks at Mark. "You're in trouble, doc," he says.
Speedwalking away from the hospital, Abby ribs Carter for being too stubborn. With six weeks left of his residency, he needs a job, and yet hasn't spoken to Weaver about applying for the Attending position. Chuny scrambles outside to beg Abby for help with a case, but Abby waves her off and refuses to do it. As she and Carter part company, Abby yells one last time, "Talk to Weaver!" Pausing, Carter takes a deep breath, smiles, and goes back inside.
Weaver is treating a guy with a bee sting in his mouth. It flew into his Coke. Seriously, that's one of my biggest fears. Carter trots up and tries to play casual about how the ER sure does need a new Attending, and hey, by the way, is Weaver actively recruiting people to fill the job? She replies that there's a classified ad running in the Annals. Carter gulps that he wants to apply. "It is my step," he points out. Weaver's lack of interest is so strong, it could bench press the Sears Tower. She snaps Carter's heart in two with the revelation that they ideally want someone with five years of post-residency experience, but then halfheartedly tells him to apply. "In case you can't find anyone better," Carter mutters to her back.
Chen urgently calls for Carter, begging him to handle a toe laceration behind Curtain Two. "I'm off," he demurs. She complains that the guy has waited five hours for a fifteen-minute treatment, and that she desperately needs the bed for other patients. Carter tells her to give it to Malucci, but he won't be in for another hour, "Cleo's stuck with a pulmonary edema, I'm babysitting four ICU players, we're down two nurses, and the rack is overflowing," Chen babbles. Carter's eyes still have a twinkle of defiance, but it's waning. Finally, Carter snatches the chart and agrees to handle just one easy patient. Starting off down the hall, he spins around again and asks, "What room?" Chen is already gone. Suddenly, a graceful, high arc of urine cascades from the crotch of Haleh's rude drunk and onto Carter's elbow. The Urinator lets loose a relieved, angelic smile as Carter slowly turns around, realizes whence the wetness has come, and convulses with horror. Finally, we're at the credits.
Toe Boy is a heavy metal-lovin' dude and concert roadie with an extremely disgusting foot wound. Carter prods it gingerly, then unwraps the makeshift bandage. Toe Boy explains that he and his pal Metalhead were unloading the volcano when they accidentally dropped it. Metalhead exposits that the concert ends with a major lava explosion. Carter takes one look at the crusty crimson toe and decides this is more than a flesh wound. "No kidding, the damn thing almost sliced my toe off!" dudes Toe Boy. "Yeah, it was just hanging there like...a big noodle, or something," Metalhead grins. Carter is pissed. He didn't come here to deal with a complicated patient who has a floppy noodle toe. He barks to Chuny that he'll need to wait for X-ray to be ready and perform a two-layer repair job on this laceration, which will take more than an hour. He tosses his gloves in irritation. "You signed up for it," Chuny snorts. Metalhead urges him to hurry up so that they can catch the end of the concert. "We're roadies for Touching Wood," they explain. Chuny brightens. "All right! What's the name of that song?" In unison, Toe Boy and Metalhead yell, "Rapture Bitch!" And the B-side is probably something like "Blue Crotch Pumpkin" or "The Hair Skank Overture." Carter is having none of this banter, muttering that he's numbing the toe's nerves and preparing to flush it. Metalhead faints as Carter jams a long needle into Toe Boy's damaged digit; when Chuny checks his vitals, she realizes Metalhead's not breathing.
Elizabeth still has the baby strapped to her chest, and the child is still screaming. Yeah, I wouldn't want to be there, either. Bouncing her daughter, Elizabeth is tersely speaking to the mother of one of her patients -- homeless Joe, from last week. "The surgery caused the infection?" MamaJoe asks, dumbfounded. Elizabeth evasively suggests that it might've contributed to it. In your face, fool! Last week she and Mark battled over this, and she ended up surreptitiously sneaking Homeless Joe into surgery without her husband's direct consent. Her arrogance has stuck Elizabeth with a patient who might not otherwise be dying right now. Because of his "compromised state," as in his alcoholism and possible cirrhosis, Homeless Joe can't fight the infection even with the help of antibiotics. "I told him not to drink so much," weeps his mother, who goes to see her son just as Mark staggers over to his shrew. By way of apology, he says, "[The patient] started seizing, so we had to get him Dilantin and get him to C3." But Elizabeth is having none of his smooth words and sweet nothings. She shouts again that this is the last time they will ever accept weekend shifts scheduled even remotely near each other, because she no longer wants to counsel a grieving mother while her baby yelps in the background. Mark, to his credit, has this discussion in a loving voice in order to try to soothe his daughter; Elizabeth doesn't even look at the kid. Mark asks what patient of hers is about to die, and she points to Homeless Joe. "He has a mother?" Mark marvels. Lizzie fumes, "Apparently we all have a mother!" and stalks away. "She's a little cranky," Mark coos to his child, delivering a grand and delusional understatement.
Carter intubates Metalhead while trying to ascertain what drugs he took. Toe Boy suggests it was a cocktail of beer, pot, and Georgia Homeboy, or GHB. Carter orders a ventilator, BAL test, and tox screen, then shouts for the aid of one Cleo "Nope, No Emmy Nod Here" Finch. "I can't, I have the stampede!" she yells apologetically. Malik clarifies that a guitar player collapsed at a rock concert, and the audience mobbed the United Center stage. "No way! Metallica, or us?" gapes Toe Boy.
A paramedic wheels said guitarist into the ER, where Weaver gets the bullet: he abruptly slumped to the floor, and his girlfriend might have answers about his health history. Chuny warns her that Carter has already treated one roadie for mixing alcohol and GHB, so Weaver orders all the toxicity tests and decrees that Carter can handle both patients' results simultaneously. Frank pops in and says three more crush injuries are en route, in addition to the fact that a ponytailed man is awaiting Weaver at the front desk. "Take a name, make him wait," Weaver snaps.
The camera follows Finch and Dr. Peter "I'm So Outta Here" Benton, who wheel in a seven-year-old boy complaining of abdominal pain and bearing multiple contusions to the trunk and extremities. The paramedic explains that he was alone in the concert crush, separated from his chaperone. Cleo is mechanically disgusted that anyone would bring a boy so young to a rock concert. The boy -- Kevin -- is conscious, so Cleo asks whether he can recite his parents' number. "I can't breathe, they were pushing me," he sputters. Benton reports epigastric tenderness, "no rebound, no guarding." And no traveling! And no shooting the ball from out of bounds, dammit. Cleo says as reassuringly as an android can that Kevin is safe now and should relax while they treat him.
Officer Exposition enters and tells Benton that an ER doctor at Saint Rafe's thinks they've got Reese over there -- it was the "Reese Benton" written inside his jacket that tipped everyone off. The officer says he's looking for a parent, and can't answer Benton's queries about Carla's whereabouts. "Lily, get another surgeon. Peter, go," Cleo urges.
Abby lets herself into Luka's apartment. He's sitting in the foreground playing a videogame. She acts uncomfortable from the get-go, ribbing him that he bought only a television set, a Sony PlayStation for all your most exciting entertainment needs, and an aquarium. The product-placement people at Sony should get promotions -- both this show and Undeclared worked in loud plugs for the game console. Abby skeptically looks at the aquarium. "Couldn't get a bigger one, huh?" she jokes uncomfortably. Luka is enthralled by his game, and barely acknowledges her, but not in an unfriendly way -- he's just got a toy and he wants to use it. Abby fingers some pizza boxes and passive-aggressives that she thought the plan was to grab some dinner. "Want to play? We can hunt zombies together," Luka offers brightly. Abby grimaces and decides she's going to leave, because pizza and zombies aren't good enough for her. Luka sighs. A glimmer of joy drains from his eyes. "All right, let's go," he says, shutting off the machine. So far, my sympathy is with Luka. From the second she stepped into his apartment, Abby acted totally judgmental and condescending, like his surroundings are beneath her and she deserves nothing less than to be the center of his attention. And, as last we saw him Abby was rejecting his offer to move in together, Luka's step of emotional distance here seems normal. Abby should be jumping into Luka's lap grabbing whatever controller he wants her to play with, but whatever. I'm just blinded by his beauty.
Carter gripes to Chuny that all he signed on for was to suture a lacerated toe, yet now he's got three patients -- Toe Boy, Metalhead, and the guitarist. Chuny figures the last two are mostly the same, so he can just order two of everything. "Get Chen," seethes Carter. "She has a bad head trauma," Chuny replies. She does? Well, that would explain her inability to organize the ER. Although technically, she probably shouldn't be at work in her condition. Carter insists he's handing off the patients, trying desperately to prove he's got balls of steel just like Abby's.
Elizabeth steps in to fill Benton's place treating Kevin. "He was pushed against the stage at a Metallica concert," Cleo whispers. Elizabeth is surprised. "They didn't start. It was the warm-up group," Kevin says with difficulty. Oh, well, that changes...absolutely nothing. A nurse enters and relays that she was only able to reach his parents' answering machine. Cleo confirms that there's no apparent internal bleeding, and that his liver and spleen are intact, but that there is curious tenderness. "Could be an abdominal wall injury, a small bowel perf, maybe a bruised pancreas," Elizabeth muses. "Kevin! Oh my God, Kevin!" shrieks a young girl. "You let go of my hand!" And you let go of his, Marla. She's his babysitter, confessing that her boyfriend brought the tickets over and they planned to leave early so that Kevin could be in bed by 11 PM. Cleo glares at her. Elizabeth looks ready to light another fuse. Marla admits that she has his parents' cell phone number, but waited until she found him to call. Cleo raises her eyebrow. "You found him," she sighs.
Dr. Dave "Whose Line Is It, Anyway? Not Mine" Malucci arrives along with another crushed music fan. This scene exists so that we can hear Weaver bark disapproval of Dr. Dave's attire -- he didn't come to work dressed and ready. Weaver charges straight out to the front desk, where her Ponytailed PI softly greets her. She stares at him, then informs him that she's through with him, and calls orders out to Frank and Yosh. "I found her," interrupts Ponytail. He explains that he ran a few clients' names through a brand-new database for adopted children seeking birth parents, and Weaver's name hit the jackpot. "I double-checked this time," he adds, before she can throw his past mistake back in his face. He hands her a business card and prices the information at $400. Weaver, curious if for no other reason than to seek answers about her heritage and how it may relate to her lesbian tendencies, accepts the card and stares at it.
Luka escorts Abby to a local bar, warmly greeting the elderly chess-playing regulars when both of them recognize his hot Croatian mug. Sorry, I can't help editorializing when it comes to Luka. Abby raises a brow. "You know them?" she asks, dripping with contempt. "We met at lunch," shrugs Luka. "Is the smoke going to bother you?" See? He asks her, and she says no, so I'm not convinced Luka should lose points for bringing her there. Although Abby does enjoy a quick brood, so who knows whether she was honest. Julie Delpy trips over there and oozes the name of Luka's favorite drink, which sounds Abby's threat alarm. "Diet Coke and a couple of menus," Abby orders. Julie sweetly tells her that the kitchen closed at ten. "It's, like, 10:02," Abby argues. Right. So, past ten. "I'm sorry," Julie says. "I'm starving," Abby says, combatively. Luka runs interference, begging Julie to check for any appetizers that might be sitting in the kitchen. She muses cutely that the chef might not have trashed the soup yet. "Potato cream?" she asks Abby. Looking extremely put-upon, Abby sighs that potato cream soup will be just fine and then silently fantasizes about pouring it up Julie's cute French nostrils. "Is there anyone here you don't know?" Abby tweaks Luka, who shrugs and smiles innocently.
Carter tries to figure out where he can bunk the guitarist. Two punk chicks, Harmony and Dianna, peer nervously through the glass; Harmony -- a blonde with spiky hair and heavy makeup -- is the guy's girlfriend, and Dianna -- pierced and dark-haired and spacey -- is her druggie pal. The actress who plays Dianna, incidentally, starred in my boss's movie, The Fluffer. No, not Wing Chun and Sars; my other boss, from whom I now expect a healthy raise. Dianna gets up in Carter's face begging for information about the musician. "Tell her he's all good," she demands. "He's all good," Carter obliges. Harmony, however, is experiencing anything but. "I saw him stop breathing!" she panics. "You don't just stop breathing!" Carter reassures her that they're helping her boyfriend breathe, but that he'll be conked out for several hours on account of the alcohol-GHB cocktail he ingested. "Are those blood stains?" Dianna asks wonderingly, staring at rust-colored splotches on the ceiling. Carter tries to shut her up, but she's fixated on the idea of dead bodies lingering and bleeding out just one floor up from her face. And that is a sexy concept...if you're high. And crazy. And dumb as a fingernail. Harmony is having trouble breathing, though, and admits to an asthma problem. "Are you on something?" Carter quizzes her. "A little acid," Dianna replies, fondling an IV bag. "I'm not talking to you," spits Carter. Harmony insists she's clean, but Carter is still concerned and tells Haleh to have someone work Harmony up for an endocarditis. "Someone...as in you?" she sasses.
Benton sprints into the Saint Rafe's ER. There is a giant statue of the saint standing across from reception, looming over Benton's shoulder. I had to look up saints' names before realizing "Rafe" is just colloquial shorthand for Raphael, the patron saint of healers. Sorry, Mom. The receptionist tarries while she wraps up a phone call; during that time, Peter peers down the hallway and spots Reese sitting up on a gurney, a small portion of his head bandaged. He runs over to ask Reese what happened, and a nurse notices; she can't field his questions about seatbelts and car seats, so she sputters that she'll find the doctor. This requires little more than pointing to the woman hovering behind Benton's shoulder. "Julia Scoft," she says. "So the police found you?...One of our nurses thought there was a Benton at County with a deaf son." The medical grapevine is a quick one. Scoft explains that Carla and Reese were in a single motor-vehicle accident, in which "[his] wife" swerved to avoid hitting....Well, we never find out, because Benton would rather correct the doctor's assumption about their marriage than find out what actually happened. Scoft pulls back a millimeter and clams up, insisting that she must speak with a relative first. Considering he's a doctor, I doubt her evasive tactics are fooling him. He knows Carla is toast; he read about it on Mr. Showbiz.
"How many people died here today?" Dianna asks Carter while she spins around and around in her chair. She's seated in the corner of a room in which Carter is trying to treat Harmony. Carter blows her off. "You're afraid to tell me," Dianna infers. "This place is full of dead people." Carter is more concerned with Harmony's medical history. "My piercing's been bothering me," she confesses. Dianna weighs in that it's "so dope." Carter, alight because he believes an infection has caused her palpitations, demands to see it. Harmony turns modest, until Carter explains that bacteria from an infection might've snuck into her bloodstream, troubling her heart. "It's important that we locate the source, so we can treat it," he explains. Reluctantly, Harmony spreads her legs to reveal a genital piercing. Ha, except my sister saw that plot twist coming long ago, and she's in England and about a year away from even seeing these episodes. Carter and Yosh look at it, look at each other, then cough and look away. Dianna is fascinated. Dope, indeed. Harmony sheepishly admits that it's been infected for about three months. "I'm going to have to drain it," Carter decides. "Nooooo!" screams Dianna in a fit of drug-induced idiocy. "Don't drain her!" She darts across the room and leaps onto Carter's back; he spins around to try and shake her off. He succeeds. She flies up against the window, slamming her palms and cheek against the glass before sliding slowly onto the ground. She moans. Yosh gazes at her for a second and then offers, "I'll make a new chart." Yosh needs to cut his hair. What with the bob and the specs, he too closely resembles Lane on Gilmore Girls.
Abby makes small talk with one of the chess players while Luka shoots pool. "What made you become a nurse?" the chess player asks. Abby can't remember. The chess player holds out his hand so that she can examine whatever about it is bothering him, but Abby can't pout with interruptions, so she waves it off and says, "You should ask Luka. He's good with pus." Sticking her arm up in the air, Abby points to her watch so Luka is absolutely clear that she wants to leave. Her table companion kindly offers her a cigarette, but Abby declines despite the flash of longing in her eyes.
Carter is swamped. While he sets Dianna's arm in a cast, Yosh holds his mobile phone while Carter apologizes to his parents and tries to reschedule a get-together. Toe Boy screeches that he's still waiting for treatment before his digit drops off. Carter tries to enlist a passing Malucci's assistance with the toe suture, but Dr. Dave doesn't have the time. He's got a craft-services table to visit. Carter sings his favorite new song, called "Where the hell is Chen?," and rants until Yosh volunteers to go get her. Malik breezes past and tells Carter that Abby's kidney-stone patient, Pilar, finally got sent to Urology. "Abby said she gave him GENT, but it wasn't charted, so should I give him a dose?" he asks. Carter replies, "Not if she gave him one," and tells Malik to call. "And if she's not home?" he presses. Carter leans back and smirks. "Know what? I need to yell at her anyway," he says, whipping out his cell phone to blow off sexual steam through witty banter.
Abby leans against a parked car, sucking on a taboo cigarette. She answers her ringing phone. "Having fun? Are you out having a good time?" Carter guilts her. "No, not exactly," Abby groans. Brought to you by Hertz. Carter sunnily tells her he's setting the broken wrist of an "LSDiva," blaming his disastrous return to the ER on Abby's insistence that he speak to Weaver about the Attending position. "I got sucked into the ER vortex," he finishes, annoyed. Abby smiles. "I didn't tell you to talk to her tonight!" she says. They clear up whether or not she administered GENT (she didn't), and then she gripes that Luka dragged her to a bar -- just as Luka wanders up behind her. That's three times in two episodes; Abby should really get that foot-in-mouth disease treated. "So much for quitting," he says under his breath. Abby rolls her eyes. "Hey," she high-schools nonchalantly. Simultaneously, Carter and Luka both realize that the geometry of their love lives is once again complete.
Weaver chooses that moment to blast through the ER and announce her imminent exit to Doc Magoo's, lying that things sure seem to be dying down. She tells them to page her with any problems. "Things aren't dying down!" insists Carter. "I've got five patients, and I'm not even on!" Weaver flatly tells him to bloody well sign out and leave, then. Poor Carter. He's taking Chen's incompetence right on the chin.
Abby gloomily tells Carter that she needs to hang up, then does so without saying goodbye and turns to face Luka. Ladies and gentlemen, the faceoff begins. "Ready to go?" she asks. "If you want," shrugs Luka. "Yeah, I want," Abby snaps. Luka blinks. "Fine," he mutters. "What, now you're mad?" Abby gripes, because Little Miss Cranky-Pants wants sole ownership of this thunder. Luka goes inside to pay the bill while she finishes her cigarette. She stares after him, annoyed, then throws her smoke on the ground because his mood has taken all the joy out of tar.
Benton stares through glass doors at Carla's lifeless form. We know right away that it's not Lisa Nicole Carson, because it's a side shot of her prone body and the hundred-foot peaks are missing. Roger arrives and bolts down the hospital hall toward Benton, panicked. "I'm sorry, man," Benton says quietly. Roger spies Carla. "Is that her? Do I go in?" he asks. Peter advises him to wait until Dr. Scoft arrives, but Roger can't be consoled and demands some inkling of her status. "She came in without a blood pressure," Benton says softly. "They worked for over an hour, but she had massive internal bleeding...too severe to repair." You can tell he's a doctor -- anyone else would have first said, "She's dead," and then delved into the clinical specifics. Such is the state of Peter's social skills. Roger exhales brokenly. "Was she awake?" he chokes. Benton shakes his head. "There was a faint pulse in the field, but she was pretty much gone on impact," he says. Roger grieves. Something's always bothered me about Vondie Curtis-Hall, and I think I've pinpointed it -- he resembles a Klingon. He self-flagellates that they were slated for a Wisconsin trip that weekend, but he cancelled for work reasons. Benton confirms Reese's good health, and just then, Dr. Scoft arrives to be totally pointless, since Roger already knows about Carla. Dr. Scoft allows Roger to visit the body; as he rubs Carla's forehead and kisses her hand, Benton watches impassively. We zoom in on Carla's open wallet, which contains a jolly photo of Reese and Roger together. That must be from their summer trip to Anvil City.
Bracing himself, Benton slowly wanders back to Reese and sits down to the bed. A doctor has finished treating the head wound, and gives them a moment alone. "Mom?" Reese signs. Benton gulps and replies, "No. Mommy went away. She's gone. Mommy was hurt very badly." Reese can't grasp it, and calls for her again. "I can't," Benton whispers. "Ma!" Reese cries. "I can't, she was bleeding, the doctor..." Benton tries again, but the words fail him. "Mommy went bye-bye." Reese shakes his little head and reaches out for Peter, again calling, "Mom!" Benton swallows hard again, then leans into his son and says, "She went to be with God...She's sleeping. She'll sleep forever." Reese signs again that he wants Carla, almost in defiance of Peter's calm words. "I can't...She won't wake up. Sometimes people can't wake up." Reese vigorously signs something, his arms raised, flailing, as his eyes turn wet. Peter desperately fights emotion as he grabs his son's distressed arms and whispers, "Reese, Reese, Mommy died. Mommy's dead." Reese stops and whimpers. Benton lightly touches his son's forehead and rubs it lovingly as the boy moans in grief. It can't be easy to learn lines in sign language as well as by standard rote, and incorporate both into a performance that depends as much on what isn't said as what is. As much as I think his Benton is too expressionless and cold sometimes, I think Eriq La Salle handled that scene touchingly well.
Haleh wheels in a young man trailed by his brother. The patient complained of chest pain, has a pulse of 110 and hasn't responded to Narcan. "We thought it was the meatball sandwich he had for lunch," his brother says, worried. Malucci establishes that there's no known family history of heart disease, and orders a series of tests that lead me to believe he's testing the patient's blood and anticipates intubation. And if not, at least I got to toss around the word "intubation." Malucci edges up toward the patient's head and yells, "Paul, can you hear me?" His pulse drops to 98. I don't believe the two things are related. Paul's brother explains that Paul's first art show opens Monday, so he's been an insomniac all week. "Does he do drugs?" Malucci asks, with the air of one who has already decided upon the answer. "No, I don't think so," Paul's brother muses. "This is the first time I've seen him since he moved to Chicago." And here marks Malucci's first mistake: the assumption that he's smarter than the process. Haleh passes him an EKG, and Dave orders a tox screen while noticing that Paul's ST elevations are off the charts. "He's having a major MI," he proclaims. The brother is stunned that a twenty-seven-year-old could be suffering a huge heart attack, at which point Malucci again smarms that it's common among cocaine users, because the drug can constrict arteries. "Oh God," Paul's brother says, as though Dave just told him that his pencil's broken and they're fresh out of sharpeners. Malucci orders 40 ccs of tenecteplase. Setting his jaw in his best action-hero imitation, Dave intones, "We gotta bust the clot." Haleh refuses to administer thrombolytics -- blood-thinning agents that destroy clots -- until an Attending or Chief Resident signs off on the procedure. "Come on, time is heart muscle!" barks Malucci, making a mental note to write that down and maybe have it emblazoned on a "Men of the ER" t-shirt. Haleh isn't impressed by his verbal stylings and insists on running it past Chen or Weaver. "Get one of them!" he shouts.
Swiftly, we switch to the room in which Elizabeth has cracked open young Kevin. His pulse is steady, but blood pressure is dropping; the mood in the room is placid, though, as Dr. "Big Brother" Romano waltzes in to observe. "I heard you've got bleeders popping up like prairie dogs in here," he chirps. Elizabeth steadily informs him that she's working on a pediatric pancreatic transsection in which the splenic vessels won't separate. I hate when that happens. Romano wonders whether she's removing the spleen. "Not unless I have to," Elizabeth replies, surreptitiously kicking her special "Saving Spleens, Saving Lives" duffel bag into a hiding place under the operating table. A nurse reveals the child has lost more than a liter of blood. "Back in at 140," someone else shouts. "Must've torn the splenic vein," Elizabeth sighs, as though it's the vein's fault. "Side biting clamp!" I think her mouth needs one of those, too. Actually, I'm not sure what I meant by that, but whatever. At least I'm more pleasant than she is. And, because this recap isn't about me, I'll move along. The nurse quietly says, "Dr. Corday?" Elizabeth barks, "WHAT?" Clearing her throat, the nurse whispers, "You're leaking." And sure enough, a wet spot has appeared in the vicinity of her right nipple. "%@#!%^$%^!$#&(*@!!!" Elizabeth wants to scream at her accursed mammaries. Breast milk is unsterile, so Romano puffs up and insists that she scrub out, having contaminated herself. Elizabeth howls for a fresh gown and new gloves, but Romano correctly notes that it will leak again, so she storms out to pump out the milk -- and, with it, the last vestiges of her goodwill -- from her chest.
Carter and Chuny elbow their way through adoring masses huddled outside the fallen guitar player's room. "Thought this guy wasn't famous yet," Carter remarks flippantly, causing a groupie to scream, "It's not about fame, jerkoff!" Carter groans and yells for Jim the Buff Security Guard to clear the area immediately. He then sends Chuny off to find an available bed for the guy, who must move in order to make room for new patients. Jim wrestles the groupie past. Groupie: "Fascist." Carter: "Freak." Groupie: "Geek." Carter: "Goof." Groupie: "What?"
Officiously sweeping into Toe Boy's room, Carter seats himself at the wounded toe and prepares to resume treatment. Toe Boy isn't impressed that he's waited so long for toe treatment, and Carter explains that all the stoned hooligans are complicating ER patient flow that particular night. "It's not my fault!" protests Toe Boy. "Are you saying it's mine?" Carter counters. Toe Boy ponders this. "I'm just saying you guys need more doctors," he pouts. Carter stares at him with a wry grin and looks about to play the "You Don't Know Shit About My Day" game, but Malik interrupts. He's got Vincent Newberry's mother. "Who?" Carter asks. Apparently, she birthed Metalhead. "You don't even know his name?" sputters Toe Boy. "He almost died!" Carter: "I saved him." Toe Boy: "Do you even know my name? What kind of doctor are you?" Carter guides Mrs. Metalhead to a more remote corner and reassures her that her son is intubated and not comatose. "It's that liquid G junk, isn't it?" she says, wringing her hands. "I told him to stay away from the stuff!" Suddenly, her nose starts bleeding, which she ascribes to tension. Carter calmly sits her down, chalks up one more patient on his mental roster, and helps her stem the ride.
Paul's brother, who the closed-captioners thoughtfully name "Glenn," frets that he should be with Paul if he's having a heart attack, but he's told to give the doctors room to do their work without scrutiny. Chen charges into the OR to see whether Malucci needs assistance. He gives her a brief bullet: twenty-seven-year-old man, acute MI, possibly a cocaine user. He is ready to push TNK. Chen asks whether he sent a tox screen; Malucci says he did, but frets that Paul is "killing myocardial cells while we wait." He offhandedly hangs up Paul's chest x-rays, then clarifies that Paul's had no recent surgery, and that blood draws indicate no disorders in that department. "What about the cath lab?" Chen queries. Malucci argues that they can't wait the two hours it will take for those tests to be processed. Briefly, Chen starts to founder. "Where's Weaver?" she frets. Despite repeated pagings, Haleh can't locate her. "Do you want to wait for him to arrest?" pressures Malucci. This seems unfair. Granted, Chen is hedging like a seasoned horticulturalist, but mockery and condescension are the surest paths to misdiagnosis. Chen briefly furrows her brow and looks desperate for a miracle that might suck her out of this mortal coil. None comes, so she sighs, "Yeah, okay, do it." As Dr. Dave discusses the treatment options, Chen grabs the just-in toxicology results. "Cocaine, right?" Malucci smarms. Wrong! He's clear of that and there's no traces of amphetamines, either. Malucci tries to justify his initial instinct by claiming that Paul's probably on drugs, but took them too recently for them to have shown up in a drug screen. Dude, let it go. He's not a coke fiend. Chen asks whether he did a lipid panel, and Malucci suggests that they add it onto the slew of other tests they'll perform. Beeping interrupts the discussion. "We've got V-tach," Haleh states. Paul has no pulse, so Chen calls for the magic paddles and an amp of epi -- epinephrine, I assume -- to jolt the heart. Dave looks up and grimly growls, "It's too early for reperfusion arrhythmia." Erik Palladino is definitely trying to milk these scenes. Haleh just looks at him, vague disapproval on her face, as Chen shocks him. There's no response, so she bumps it up to 300 while Malucci compresses again. "Clear!" Chen shouts.
Abby storms back into the bar, where she sees Luka chatting in sotto voce Croatian. "I'm taking a cab," she announces. Luka asks where she went, to which Abby frostily replies that she has been waiting outside for him to settle the tab. "I thought you were coming back in!" he protests. She storms out and steams outside until Luka joins her. "That guy's father was diagnosed with prostate cancer last month. He was asking [about] treatment," Luka explains, softly. Abby lies that it's okay for him to go back in there and play doctor, but Luka insists the conversation is over. "Luka, you forgot your credit card," Julie calls from the bar's open door. Her dulcet tones tense every muscle in Abby's face. Julie flirts that the last two drinks are on the house as a goodwill attempt to turn him into a regular. Abby's muscles move from tense to twitching. "Nice meeting you," Julie calls to Abby, who hisses, "Yeah," and bolts.
Luka chases her. "Could you be a little bit more rude?" he scolds. "Could you be a little bit more friendly?" she snaps. "I'm glad one of us is," Luka retorts, walking a bit behind her. Abby brats that he should just go back inside the bar and cure cancer for the UN, and he can damn well take back his letter jacket because she is so not going to the prom with him.
Paul is still in trouble. Chen administers lidocaine and prepares to cardiovert again. Carter strolls in and glibly calls out, "I'm not staying! I'm going to pack this woman's nose, and then you are going to take the rest of these misfits." Turning around after fetching the supplies he needs, Carter suddenly notices the palpable panic in the air. "Are you sure there wasn't [gastrointestinal] bleeding?" Chen freaks. Malucci replies that his stool was "quiet, negative, no contradictions." Just like Abby -- well, the "negative" part, anyway. Malucci briefs Carter that they're coping with a fatal MI, probably drug-related. Give it UP, Dave. Don't force a damn diagnosis. Carter contemplates the hanging x-rays and innocently asks, "Are you sure? He looks Marfanoid." Chen freezes. She's not authorized to treat robots. Malucci has the nads to ask what Carter means. "Marfan's syndrome," Carter explains. "Tall stature, pectus excavatum, loose joints." Ahem. That's no good to me. The best I could find was that Marfan's Syndrome is a disorder of connective tissues that often results in circulatory defects. Chen stares daggers at Malucci and hisses that she thought he got a medical history. "I did. The brother didn't say anything!" Dr. Dave insists defensively. Carter logically points out that Glenn might not have known. Chen dazedly walks to the x-rays and stares at them wanly. "They have weak connective tissue in the aorta," she breathes. "He's dissecting!" Essentially, I think his veins are falling apart. Carter suggests that they check the aorta for a rhythm, but Malucci admits that they administered tenecteplase. "What?" thunders Carter. "You gave thrombolytics to an aortic dissection?" He directs his oral dart at Chen, but it's Malucci who feebly argues, "We didn't know it was a dissection!" Carter seethes that the drug exacerbated the condition, creating ultra-thin blood that flooded the aorta and thus bathed Paul's chest in fluid. Throwing on a gown, Carter listens as Chen rejects Malucci's suggested thoracotomy tray on the grounds that Paul will bleed out all over the floor. "Well, we gotta do something!" he panics. Calmly, Carter steps in and calls out gentle instructions, though his eyes convey, "You're screwed."
Luka has followed Abby onto the El Train, which is slowing to a halt at her stop. "I was trying to have fun, is that a crime?" Luka asks, desperately. "No, go have fun," Abby fumes. "I can be left waiting out in the street by myself, [and] I can walk home by myself." They're booking it down the platform now, Luka still chasing behind his prickly girlfriend. "Why do you have to make a big problem out of everything, like you have an insect in your anus?" Luka sputters. Abby is in no mood for cute slang slip-ups. "'Bug up my ass,' Luka," she corrects, haughtily. "Bug up my ass. If you're gonna insult me, you can at least get the words right." Offended, Luka spits, "Fine. How's this: stop being such a bitch." Ooooh! Fifteen-love. "Okay, fine, as soon as you grow up!" Aaaaah! A tied score. "Right, you're so mature, Abby!" yells Luka. "You don't even know what you want!" Abby obtusely sneers that she does, indeed, know what she wants, and that is to go home. "You play games like the schoolgirl who can have any boy and treats all of them like crap!" Luka volleys. Abby spins and smashes back, "Why don't you just call me a whore and get it over with!" One point to her. "I'm tired of it," Luka says. "You're not that pretty. You're not that special." Wow. He comes back with an ace. That is incredibly cold, and although Abby's irritating immaturity to this point has riled me, I'm ashamed of Luka for stooping to her playground pettiness. Except, on another level, daaaaaaamn! Abby whirls around and stares at him in disbelief, then smiles coldly and spits, "I'm pretty enough in the dark, though, aren't I?" Tied game. I wonder if it was hard for Maura Tierney to be in this scene, in which her looks come under fire. Certainly the words came out of Luka's anger, but a writer had to craft a phrase that has basis in reality, and that's what he or she decided to type. And it's believable. Ouch. "You're never happy," Luka complains. "I don't think you're capable of being happy." She scoffs, but he forges ahead and insists that when she isn't depressed or ashamed, she's just angry. "And you're married to a ghost!" shouts Abby, spinning around again and silently daring Luka to keep chasing her after that sliver of cold truth. He pauses. "At least I treat you with respect," he says quietly. Abby has already recommenced speed-walking. "Oh, I know, you're a saint, Luka," she tosses over her shoulder. I have to give her the edge in this one, even though they're both right in a lot of ways. I still don't think Luka needed to match her bad mood and malice, and I feel for Abby because he childishly tried to scotch their dinner plans and then ignored her at the bar. But they do both make valid points, although I'm not sure I buy Luka's infatuation with his dead wife, given his profound feelings for Carol Hathaway.
In the trauma room, Chen frantically tries to thread the guide wire for a thoraseal, but she's struggling. Dave is still administering chest compressions. As Carter leans over to help Chen, something gives, and Paul's blood sprays all over Carter's pants and gown. Chen screams for more O-negative blood and bellows for Weaver again. Suddenly, Carter recalls that she said something about Doc Magoo's. Yeah, dolt, something like, "I'm going to Doc Magoo's."
Abby's pace is really blazing now. "I've been patient," Luka argues. "Right, I know, you're so good and I'm so bad," she childishly retorts. "I put up with a lot, Abby," he continues, as she further brats, "I'm such a mess, and you're so understanding." This has devolved into eighth-grade banter. "I'm sick of it!" he explodes. "Ugh, and I'm such a burden!" Abby mocks. "Why don't you just break up with me?" Luka shakes his head and suggests that she's gunning for exactly that. It occurs to me that Abby's behavior in the bar, her run-for-Carter attitude, and her childish petulance are her way of trying to hurt him first, so that when he inevitably wakes up and wants to dump her, she can convince herself it won't ache. I'm sure that's been observed, but it's new insight for me and I'm happy with it. That fact also makes her more sympathetic to me, because that kind of crippling insecurity is painful. "If I'm such a horrible person, how could you possibly want to be with me?" she shouts, throwing up her arms. "I don't know how to be with you!" he cries. "I don't know how to help you!" Abby rants that she doesn't want help, or pity, or a savior. "Okay," Luka says, stopping. "I give up." Abby cocks her head. "What does that mean?" she asks. When he doesn't answer immediately, she irritatedly repeats, "What does that mean, what does that mean?" Luka screams, "I'm done! I'm done! Carter can have you!" Game, set, and match to the Croatian sensation. Abby and Luka stop walking and stare at each other. For some reason, Abby is genuinely startled that he called her bluff. "Okay," she finally breathes, awkwardly touching her hair. "Okay." She walks away. Luka starts to follow, but is too drained, and lets her leave.
Chen's gotten the catheter in place, but the chest compressions on Paul have only yielded a weak pulse. The plasma arrives, and they prepare to run it in, but still argue about whether to open him up. Malucci, classy in times of stress, barks, "Are we cracking him, or not?" Nice. Chen counters that they can't, because his blood won't clot and he'll exsanguinate. "He already has," Malucci notes. Desperately, Chen begs Carter to get Weaver immediately -- and not from yet another unanswered page. She refuses to cut Paul open without Weaver there, so Carter tears off his soiled gloves and bolts for the exit. His red-stained gown still stuck to his clothes, Carter takes off down the hallway. That seems highly irresponsible, given the immense number of people crammed in the hallway who could bear witness to the mayhem or touch the bloodied gown, but Carter is a man in search of his back-pain subplot and dammit, he's going to get there if it kills him. He rips off the gown and trashes it. "Slow down, Doogie!" shouts his old nemesis, the groupie. Hee! Wouldn't Neil Patrick Harris be a spectacular cameo on this show? It's not like he's too busy or anything.
Outside, Carter sprints to Doc Magoo's. He leaps over a concrete step and lands wrong, careening to the pavement and hitting hard, recoiling in pain. Slowly, he staggers to his feet, taking a second to catch his breath and swallow the pain before limping over to the diner. Inside, Weaver is chatting with Ponytailed PI when Carter bursts through the door and calls her name.
Weaver charges into the trauma room, then freezes. "Wait, where are you?" she asks, a bit puzzled. The grim facts reveal themselves: ruptured aortic dissection after a forty-unit dose of tenecteplase. The color leaves Weaver's face. "Put the scalpel down," she orders softly. Malucci insists that their time is better spent opening the chest to fix the defect, but Weaver knows that won't work. Frustrated, Chen finally throws up her hands and begs for Weaver to offer one more possible path. "Stop compressions," Weaver instructs. "You killed him." Malucci yanks away his hands, as if to say, "Who, me? She did it." Chen hangs her head and knits her brow, angry at herself.
Roger approaches Reese and Benton, gently ensuring the young boy's good health. "The doctor will make it better, right?" he smiles. Reese signs in the affirmative, then adds something about Carla. "I know," Roger frowns. "Mommy's gone." Roger explains that he's swamped, what with the funeral arrangements and having to call Carla's parents, so he would really appreciate it if Peter took Reese for the night. Benton, taken aback, stammers, "Yeah, I was going to anyway." Pause. The two men stare at each other. "Right, right," Roger finally says. He turns his attention to the child. "Reese, you have to go with your father tonight, okay?" he signs, as though it's torture for the kid to grieve in the arms of his biological dad. He promises to visit Reese in a day or two, then departs with words of love. Benton turns around and spits three nails into the wall. Then, he kisses his son, who caresses Benton's cheek sweetly.
Doesn't it feel like years ago when this show started? Back when Toe Boy and the punk girls were our comic relief, and no one was depressed, and Cleo had three lines, and Lisa Nicole Carson still had a job? Sigh.
Weaver stares agape at Paul's x-rays. "You don't know what Marfan's looks like?" she asks Malucci. "He's an artist, he was up all week. I was thinking cocaine," he blathers, like, shut UP Dave, do you have to be such a stubborn asshole about this? It. Wasn't. Drugs. "Did you check the blood pressure in both arms?" quizzes Weaver expectantly. Malucci mutters something. "Did you or didn't you?" she shouts. Fiercely, he snaps up his head and spits, "No." Satisfied that he's a dickweed, Weaver turns to Chen and wonders why she didn't spot the Marfan's Syndrome right away, because Paul's x-rays indicate a classic and perfect picture of the problem. "I was told that it was clear," Chen explains. Weaver can't even process this properly, so amazed is she that Chen authorized thrombolytics without staring down the x-rays and being totally secure with the diagnosis. "I should have," suffers Chen. Malucci tries to justify it by noting what a rapid decision they had to make. "Know what? That's your job. You make quick decisions based on the information available," Weaver lectures. "You had the right information, but you didn't bother to look at it." Bitter and bitterly embarrassed, Malucci sarcastically marvels, "And you've never made a bad call?" Carter charges forward with a muzzle and staples it to Dave's head. "Not as lethal and stupid as this one!" she rages. The young doctor explodes, demanding to know why she didn't arrive sooner in response to their numerous pages. "In a perfect world, Malucci, I wouldn't subject patients to your care," Weaver begins. "If you knew your ass from your elbow, or even gave a damn..." "I do, I do give a damn," he chokes. "...then this man might still be alive!" Weaver concludes. Carter takes a brave stab at diplomacy, but just ends up with the "dip" part. He tries suggesting that Paul would have died during surgery anyway, but Weaver rightly notes that it's pointless to say that because they will never know. Malucci chooses this time to act professional, heading outside to notify the brother and request that the whole family be screened for Marfan's, but Weaver angrily stops him. "No one talks to anyone about this case!" she bellows. "Is that clear?" Chen nods, tearfully trying to cling to dignity in the face of this shameful day. Malucci hisses his assent. "Ice that back, Carter," is Weaver's parting shot. Malucci immediately does the mature thing and knocks a tray of metal supplies to the ground, irate; Chen just puts a wobbly hand to her forehead and blinks away sobs.
At home, Abby absently brushes her teeth, spits, and flicks off the bathroom light. Hopping into bed, she exhales for what might be the first time in two hours and leans her head back disconsolately.
Mark's and Elizabeth's daughter tears through the silence with her screams, the cries of the damned. So young to be so astute. "Get up and help me!" rages Elizabeth, jolting her hearing-impaired husband awake. Hey, I'd learn to tune out shrill noise, too, if I was married to her. Apparently, the baby has made an enormous mess all over the bassinet, soiling herself and everything around her. Elizabeth blames this on Mark for not properly tightening the diaper. "What time is it?" he yawns. "Now!" screams his irate bride. She can't fathom why the wailing tot didn't stir Mark from his sleep, when she heard it loud and clear from downstairs. Apparently, she's sick and tired of the marriage bed already. "Calm down, it's not fatal," Mark bumbles. His wife lovelessly shoves the child at him and makes him commence cleanup while she prepares a bath. So far this season, she hasn't handled the child with anything resembling affection. Mark offers to take care of the whole thing so that she can return to sleep. "Don't make me the bitch because you can't follow instructions!" she seethes, because she can bloody well make herself the bitch anytime she likes, and in fact, she does. Mark coos that he was only trying to help, but Elizabeth then tramples all over his caretaking skills. In her research about motherhood, Elizabeth skipped the chapter about how sometimes, babies poop, and sometimes, they poop a lot, and sometimes, diapers aren't enough. Bitch. Not that Mark is helping things by snoring through his child's conniption. Their whole plot gives me a headache every time I try to recount it. His sincere offers of aid rebuffed, Mark gives up and says that he has a shift in three hours anyway, so she can take care of the baby's intestinal problem. He's swung too far to the other end of the spectrum, however, because Elizabeth deeply resents that approach too. "And what do you think I'll be doing in three hours? I'm the feeding trough, remember?" she snarls. Mark pointlessly blathers that he would gladly breastfeed if he could. Oh, Mark. Error. That's just the meaningless platitude new mothers don't want to hear. "Fine, you take it!" she screams. "Take it all: the sore nipples, the rashes, the hemorrhoids, the leaking [in the OR], the public humiliation, the sleep deprivation, the incontinence...You take it, it's all yours!" Elizabeth storms downstairs, and her child cries with renewed vigor, freshly aware of the hopelessness of her cause. She's destined either to be a milquetoast or Mephistopheles; a hairless weenie or a harridan.
Carter sews up Toe Boy, who snores gently throughout the procedure. He meanders toward reception and asks Malik to dress the toe. "Sorry, I'm off," he says airily, leaving. Carter stops dead in his tracks, unable to believe his hellish life. Meanwhile, Weaver sneaks back to the diner in search of her missing pager, which she locates in a bathroom stall. Checking it, she sees proof that Chen and Malucci summoned her, and Weaver curses her own stupidity. Because she's a lesbian. Oh wait, sorry, that was last week.
Doctor Who ["Dale Edson" -- Wing Chun] grabs Carter and grins that he checked out Mrs. Metalhead's bleeding nose, scheduling her for a septoplasty week. Carter is surprised to learn she had a nasal defect, and Doctor Who glibly grins, "Two grams of coke a day will do that." He encourages Carter to go home, especially after learning that the young resident wasn't even on the schedule that night, but Carter insists he should just stay and nap at County, because he's due in again at noon. "Bad idea," Doctor Who cautions. "You know what they say: 'The longer you stay, the longer you stay.'" Fatigued, Carter just shakes his head and bolts for a room in which to sleep. He passes the scene of Paul's demise, and notices Chen leaning against the wall, defeated and grieving and torturing herself. Sighing, he proceeds to a private room, slaps a "Do not disturb -- I gave at the office!" sign onto the door, and slams it. Carter should write bumper stickers.
Reese sneaks into Benton's bedroom and taps his father awake. "What's wrong?" he frets. "Bad dreams?" Reese nods angelically. Benton melts and invites his son into the big bed for the night. "It's okay, it's okay," he soothes, as Reese rests his cheek on a pillow and slips into more peaceful slumber. Benton, sad, lies down beside his son.