Never Say Never

S08E04

After the credits, we see that Susan has finally hooked up with the core group of nurses. They're telling her all about how Carol disappeared -- she got on a plane, sent for the twins the day, and never contacted her old ER buddies again. She didn't? That's really, really lousy. "Dr. Kovac don't [sic] know what happened," Haleh sighs, shaking her head. Um, I'm sure he can take a guess. Susan doesn't know who Dr. Kovac is. "Tall, hunky guy, dark hair," winks Lydia. "Can't miss him." Haleh intones, "Don't want to!" Hee! Haleh rules. Suddenly, Weaver shrilly yells that someone must move Mr. Schnack "before we have to hold the wake ourselves." She's trucking down the hall. Susan takes one look at Weaver and gasps, alarmed. "She's still here?" Susan whispers, appalled. "Even worse, she's in charge," replies Haleh. As she reaches Reception, Weaver scolds the hens for clucking when they should be laying eggs. "We have patients breaking the eight-hour mark," Weaver notes, pointedly. Glum, they disperse, but not before bidding Susan a friendly farewell.

Grabbing her purse, Susan blatantly tries to make a getaway. Weaver glances up, then double-takes when she realizes that someone in the ER has a worse hairdo than she. Seriously, Susan's hair is all styled and blunt-cut in the front, but dead flat in the back, creating the effect of severe and unfortunate bedhead. "Susan?" Weaver asks, smiling. Susan fakes enthusiasm and explains that she's interviewing in Chicago, and planned to lunch with Mark. "He's in with a bad GSW," Weaver explains. They small-talk that Susan is interviewing for staff positions at Rush, Northwestern, and some private hospitals. Kerry thinks a minute, then snaps back into business mode and curtly clips, "Well, good luck with that." They exchange polite farewells. "Welcome back," Kerry calls as she bolts away. "Sort of," Susan says under her breath, accompanied by a mild eye-roll. Frank then kicks her out of Reception, because he is the master of that domain.

Inside a trauma room, Mark and Dr. Elizabeth "\%$@!@#!" Corday hack away at a very bloody patient. "Chest cavity's filed with clot," Elizabeth shouts. They're covered in goo. Susan peers through the window and decides that what Mark really needs right now is an erection, so she knocks and waves with a warm smile. Bing! Mark's head pops up -- the one with his face on it, thankfully. "Who's that?" Elizabeth demands. "Susan Lewis," Mark answers. "Your friend from Scottsdale?" she asks, pointedly. "Phoenix," Mark corrects her, trying to be blasé. "It says Scottsdale on the phone bill," Elizabeth grumbles. So evidently, Mark has been calling Susan, and Elizabeth hadn't -- until now -- let on that she was paying close attention. Another completely manufactured point of tension, a chewy piece of revisionism to fuel Elizabeth's fury. Okay, let's say it's true -- wouldn't Susan therefore already know about Carol fleeing town to find Doug? Mark probably would've told her while they rehashed old times, especially given how close he became with Carol. Bah. Humbug. Elizabeth continues working as Chuny lauds, "[Susan] looks great, doesn't she?" Mark darts a look at Elizabeth, who pauses and glares at him. "Pericardium's tense with blood," Mark offers, reminding everyone that the blood-soaked slab of meat on the metal table is not, in fact, tonight's dinner, but a breathing patient. Elizabeth would rather know why Susan has inconsiderately chosen to reinvade her husband's life. Mark tries to be flip about their lunch date, but Elizabeth instantly calls him on the fact that he never mentioned it to her. Susan signals that she'll wait in the lobby for him, and disappears from view. "That's a big bleeder underneath," Mark says, again trying to sound relevant to the surgery at hand. He acts innocent about his omission and carefully keeps from meeting his wife's eye, but Elizabeth still shoots ocular daggers at him for roughly the eighty-third time this season. They probably hoard stock footage of Elizabeth's evil eye, just to save time and money. She is so one-dimensional this season. Mark shakily says, "Can you feel the defect?" He's referring to the patient, but it smacks of being a meta about their marriage. Chuny watches with barely contained amusement, ever more certain that she's going to win the office pool.

By Heathen

Still not content to sit patiently, and evidently having forgotten the hospital floor plan, Susan grabs Yosh and asks about Mark. Again, she's directed to Frank, who is screaming, "Go ahead, call the Mayor! Shut us down for all I care!" Finally, someone calls out, "Dr. Lewis!" Susan turns expectantly, but alas, it's no one familiar. A tall, dark man in an electrician's jumpsuit hurries over to her and introduces himself as Ralph Binks. Susan doesn't recognize him, though, so he explains that he once took a 20-amp current in his ass while working in the hospital basement. Panning behind him, we see a white sock stuck to his back. "You treated me -- said I would be just fine," he barks. "Well, I wasn't. My life has been a living hell of static cling since then!" Susan stares at him, flummoxed, convinced she'll end up on Oprah for this. Ralph storms away. "Thanks, Doc. Thanks for nothing," he yells.

Suddenly, another voice rasps, "Bet I know what you came here for!" Whirling around, Susan sees The Flasher open his trenchcoat and bare limp man-boobs, a hairy pot-belly, and a crotch we don't see thanks to an extra's well-placed noggin. I wonder if this is a meta-statement about the possibility that Susan is really returning to Chicago for a chance to run free through Greener pastures. Tired of all this, Susan gazes at him for a second and then says disdainfully, "Is that it?" Yes, Susan. It really is.

By Heathen

Carter is treating a middle-aged woman, who corrects him that her name is "Miss McDuffy." She claims she can't quite put her finger on the particular problem that brought her in -- she's just tired, depressed, can't concentrate, has headaches and hives, and suffers from bloating and constipation. So basically, she's human. McDuffy devours Carter with her eyes while he checks her heart rate. Grabbing his hand and putting it on her pelvis, McLusty purrs, "It hurts here, too." Carter sputters, "Uh, any chest pain?" McChesty moves his paw straight onto her breast and pants, "Oh, that's the worst of all." Carter, by the look on his face, agrees. Yanking his hand away, Carter orders Abby to perform eleven tests that probably sound more serious than they are, and starts to hoof it out of the room. "I've got a yeast infection, too," McCrusty smiles. "Wonderful!" Carter chirps. "Wanna see it?" she growls. "Maybe later," he chokes quietly, trying to quell the rising bile tide, certain he could conceive of no fresher hell.

By Heathen

Following Carter into the hallway, Abby smirks that he should be a sport and play gynecologist. "I think that might just put me over the edge," Carter winces. "Into what, celibacy?" Abby cracks. Does he really need help in that department? Carter corrects her by saying that it might push him into taking a new position he's been offered. Abby brushes him off, insisting he won't take it because he adores County General. "Abby, I don't have a job here!" Carter complains. When his residency finishes, Weaver has guaranteed him some shift work, but that's it -- and he could do shit work...uh, shift work...anywhere. "Northwestern," Carter proclaims importantly, as though he's trying the word on for size. "It's a tenure-track clinical faculty position." Abby snorts, "You want to be a professor now?" Carter argues that it's better job security, although Abby rightly counters that he certainly isn't in medicine for the money, given his family fortune. "My money is, they have yeast infections at Northwestern, too," Abby says. She continues to rib him, and the more she does it, the more certain he grows that Northwestern is the place for him. I think he wants her to cower at his feet, weep tears of passion, and beg him to stay with her so they can breed baby doctors and smooch between pelvic exams. "Have to let them know by Friday," Carter goads her. This jolts Abby. "Tomorrow's Friday," she gapes. "I know," Carter answers smugly.

Chen interrupts, handing Carter a chart and ordering him to treat the hypochondriac with a spider bite behind Curtain Two. He considers trading up for the mystery box, but that's probably McCrusty's yeast infection, so off he trots to the curtain. Rounding the corner, Chen spots Weaver and stops dead for a second, gulps, then continues toward her. Weaver is treating a man who got mugged. "Stan tripped over a curb trying to get away," his wife snipes, as Stan quietly roasts in his own humiliation. Weaver says all he needs is an ice pack, then strolls away with Chen. The duo hashes out clerical business before Chen clears her throat and casually wonders if there's anything she should know in advance of her afternoon meeting with Romano. Clueless, Weaver stops and stares. "Risk Management called me, so I assume it's about the Marfan's death," Chen exposits. "Oh," Weaver says lamely, totally out of the loop on this one. "Has there been a wrongful-death suit filed?" Chen presses. Weaver covers that an in-house review of the situation is standard procedure with such cases. Chen counters that this is different, because her audience is a lawyer, not fellow physicians, as with Mark's Morbidity & Mortality briefing on the Bad Dad Fossen case. Weaver once again tries to assure her that the lawyers exist for her protection, and that of the hospital. "And assess exposure," Chen correctly assumes. Then she levels with Weaver. "Dave was fired," she says flatly. "I just thought maybe...." God, spit it out, Chen. Weaver bumbles that Malucci's termination reflected several other circumstances unique to him and his personality. "Am I in trouble here, Kerry?" Chen finally asks, whipping out the big gun by using the first name. She's appealing to Weaver as a friend. Too bad that f-word is foreign to Weaver.

By Heathen

A man holds up a tiny glass jar, his homemade prison for the spider that nipped him. This is a huge spider. This is the kind of spider that makes me move out of my apartment, but leave all my stuff, just in case it befouled something with its hairy legs and venomous fangs. This man had to get close to The Beast in order to catch it; thus, I'm dubbing him "Foolish." Anyway, Foolish found the spider in his slipper and brought it to the ER so they could milk it and find the antivenin. Right. Carter smirks and points out that no form of dangerous spider is native to the Chicago area. Therefore, I will be moving there tomorrow. "So this one hopped on a bus across the border," argues Foolish. "All I know is, the little bastard took a chunk out of my foot." Abby leans down to investigate, and deems his wound a flea bite. Foolish tries to argue, but Carter concurs and orders a treatment of hydrocortisone and a flea bomb. "See, look -- you've got this down, why would you want to leave it?" Abby snickers to Carter as they leave.

By Heathen

"Pardon, miss?" Julie Delpy calls out to Abby. "What's your name again?" Abby stares at her and introduces herself somewhat reluctantly. Julie says her name is Nicole, pronounced Neecole. Carter walks away, ogling Neecole the whole time. Neecole reminds everyone that she met Abby in the dive bar with Luka. She cut her hand, and thinks it's deep enough to warrant...and she can't think of the word. "Sutures?" Carter white-knights, sidling up to them with an extremely pleasant smile on this face. Neecole thanks him, then complains that Frank rudely refused to notify Luka of her presence. She wanted Luka to kiss her wound better and then hook her up to an IV of Love. "Dr. Carter's very good at suturing," Abby offers. Crushed, Neecole asks whether this means Luka isn't working. "No, I think that he is, isn't he, Abby?" Carter asks, aware that this is Luka's conquest and enjoying it immensely. Abby grudgingly affirms that Luka is indeed there, and leads Neecole to a room -- despite the extremely long line of complaining patients who've spent eight hours waiting to see a doctor. Abby could've very justifiably sent Neecole to the back of the queue, and richly enjoyed watching her twiddle her thumbs. I need to teach her some Nasty. Carter watches them go, then blithely turns his gaze to his shoe -- across which Satan's Pet Spider is scampering. He jumps ten feet in the air and kicks it across the linoleum. "Don't hurt it!" screams Foolish. Carter can't figure out why the hell that monstrous demon is running loose, but it turns out Foolish unleashed the beast because "[Carter] said he was innocent!" Foolish is hereby re-christened, "The Twelve Ways of Stupid."

Carter groans and peeks around the Reception area, hunkered down near the floor checking for the elusive arachnid. God, Carter, do not descend to its level! That's exactly what the spider wants. "Frank, I think I need Housekeeping in here," he says, backed by the Punchy Synthesizer of Wacky Misadventures. "Funny, that's not how I remember you," Susan says lightly. At the sound of a familiar voice, Carter jerks up his head -- and bonks it under the reception desk, cursing. "That is," she nods. He glances her way, then grins. "Dr. Lewis!" he says, bounding over and embracing her. "Susan, Carter," she corrects. Or maybe she's channeling Miss Cleo, knows the year's scripts, and introduced herself as Susan Carter in order to drive Carter/Abby fans straight to aneurysm. The hug is sweet -- genuine, if not impassioned, and the first such greeting she's received. "What are you doing here?" he asks, still amazed to see her. "Would you believe I'm looking for work?" she says with a self-deprecating chuckle. "In Chicago?" he clarifies. "Yeah, never say never," she smiles. Then, Susan considers Carter for a second, and breathes, seemingly impressed, "Wow, you look...different," as though his Y chromosome has kicked into gear and Carter's now dripping with machismo. He appreciatively states that she looks the same, which is true except for the mess on her head. Many people have ripped into Sherry Stringfield's apparent struggle to lose her pregnancy pounds. For the record, I think she looks healthy, and in real life is probably a totally normal size eight or ten. I refuse to rail on her for that. I'd rather see ten curvy Sherrys on my TV screen than the twig I would get if I squished together Portia de Rossi and Jennifer Aniston. Back to the scene. Susan mentions an interview with Northwestern, and Carter's competition radar bleeps -- curiously, he asks whether she's up for the clinical faculty position, then smugly confirms that job has already been offered to him. Susan is confused, because she didn't realize Carter transferred back to the ER. "So you must be Chief Resident!" she realizes, unwittingly opening an old wound and dumping a can of salt into it. Carter corrects her by saying that Dr. Chen is Chief Resident. "Deb Chen?" Susan asks, wonderingly. Also correcting her on Deb's new name, Carter fumbles the pronunciation of "Jing-Mei" a bit -- even if he doesn't use that name, shouldn't he know how to say it, out of respect for his friend? He asks Frank for help. "I don't know what she calls herself," Frank grumbles.

By Heathen

Weaver anxiously leans against the wall outside the men's room, appearing almost nauseous. Dr. Robert "As Bald As Greene, but Better At It" Romano shoots out the door, and as he does, we hear a loud zipping noise. From the motion of his hands, he clearly wasn't closing the trou, so clearly, an editor somewhere got all frantic and sweaty-palmed at the idea of dubbing in the sound of a zipper being closed. Because that's real, folks. These are the sounds of life. Romano snarks, "Kerry, lurking around the men's room now? What, are you changing teams again?" I love Romano. Long may he flavor this show with flippant evil. Weaver demands to know why he's scheduling meetings with her residents without notifying her. "I'm sorry, did you not get the memo?" he asks, almost apologetically. Momentarily appeased, Weaver replies, "No. What memo?" Romano barks, "The one that says I run this place." Romano 2, Weaver 0, although if we adjusted that for past incidents, the score would tip much closer to Romano 324, Weaver 0. "Dr. Chen is my responsibility," Weaver argues, claiming that she ought to receive warning of any Risk Management hearings that involve her staffers. Romano blithely tells her to consider this her warning. "Good. I want to be there," Weaver says. "No, you don't," Romano answers. "I don't even want to be there." Weaver thinks it's appropriate for her to attend, but Romano waves her off again, on the pretext that he prefers not to interfere with Risk Management's investigations. "Now it's an investigation?" Weaver squeaks. "Information gathering, whatever," Romano groans, annoyed. Trying another tack, Weaver alerts him of Dr. Chen's uneasiness that the meeting is with a lawyer, then blatantly lies that Chen wanted Weaver to join her there for comfort. This should've set off Romano's mental alarm, because they all know a pit bull would bring more cuddly relief than Weaver. Kerry then attempts to convince him that her presence could head off the involvement of yet more attorneys. "Does she have something to hide?" Romano asks, pointedly. "No, the truth is bad enough," Weaver insists. "I think we should be trying to protect her." Romano stops, swivels and sighs, "Sure you don't just have a little thing for her?" Weaver growls, "Oh, Robert!" but she comes off sounding amused and more than a little aroused by his teasing. They should totally hit the sheets in a hot three-way with...oh, I don't know, Cleo. She seems bored. Finally, Romano agrees to let Weaver sit in on the inquiry, and charges ahead alone through swinging double doors.

By Heathen

Mark and Elizabeth continue to prod away at their patient who, by the amount of blood loss, seems a goner. "Good femoral with compressions," offers Chuny. Elizabeth tells them to stop CPR, which reveals that the patient lacks a pulse and blood pressure. Susan raps at the window. "Your friend's back," Elizabeth spits. Mark apologetically smiles at Susan, then quizzes Elizabeth on what she's feeling inside the patient. "Probably entry wound through the left ventricle," she answers. "He's ragged through the mitral valve." They establish that it's a dangerously large tear, and as the nurses relay that the monitors aren't showing any positive stats, Elizabeth darts two evaluative, chilly glances at Susan. "He's gone," Mark sighs. "You want to call it?" She would prefer to keep working, so Mark marches out of the trauma room to delay his lunch with Susan yet again. It's so romantic. Fists aloft at shoulder-level and caked with the blood of a dying man, Mark booms through the door and practically shoves those fuckers right in Susan's face. Somehow, inexplicably, Susan has not keeled over with lust. He begs for ten more minutes. "You look great," he says, trying not to sound inappropriately enthusiastic. "You look great, too," Susan says. Her nose shoots out, a rod of deception that smashes the left lens of Mark's spectacles. Haleh yells that she needs Mark to treat a little boy, age six, with vomiting and dehydration. He wants her to get Cleo on the case, but Haleh relays that the kid has a genetic disorder. Is Cleo not a pediatrician? Or, maybe there's a specific qualification she lacks, barring her from handling this case. Either way, she's deemed the wrong doctor for it. Susan doesn't want to be late for her interview, so she offers to return to County later for coffee. Beleaguered, Mark consents to the plan and checks to see whether Elizabeth can spare him. Need he ask? "Forget it. Go," Elizabeth allows. Susan smirks, "Good to see things never change," referring to the ER chaos. Yanking off his bloody gloves and gown and heading for the young lad's room, Mark shouts, "Knock 'em dead!" Susan replies, "You too." The odds of that are definitely good -- this is County General, after all.

By Heathen

The little boy, curled up sweetly on the stretcher, has been vomiting for three consecutive days and is severely dehydrated. Mark tries to scold the tyke's parents for waiting so long before bringing him in, but they claim their insurance screwed up and barred them from seeing their regular geneticist at Mercy. That isn't exactly an answer, because for all we know, they went to Mercy that morning and not two days ago. Mark doesn't dwell on this, though, so neither shall I. The tyke, a sweet, sickly little boy named Kenny, has Trisomy 18, a.k.a. Edward's Syndrome, a genetic condition in newborns that results in malformed organs, cardiovascular difficulties, unusually narrow hips that obscure normal body functions, and apnea, just part of a long list of dire complications. That rare defect usually claims the lives of afflicted children much earlier than this; Mark posits that he didn't know such cases could live past age one. "They don't. He's special," Almost Bradley Whitford chokes, while his wife averts her eyes, pained. Mark presses on Kenny's belly, proclaims it rock-hard, and bellows for Elizabeth to hurry to his aid. Then, he calls for a rectal temp. "I can do that, if you want," offers Kenny's shaken mother, an older, ragged Kirsten Dunst. Mark assures her that a nurse can handle it. "She only means she does it for him all the time," snaps Almost Brad, a tad too bitterly. Elizabeth enters, and Mark gives her the bullet; she's equally stunned to see a six-year-old with Trisomy 18. Haleh struck out with the IV, so Mark calls for a subclavian; Elizabeth determines that there's a loop of bowel, which on further analysis seems perforated. UnDunst bites her lip and averts her eyes, wincing. "I'm surprised he doesn't have a fever," Elizabeth muses. "He will," Almost Brad says. Elizabeth figures there's also dead bowel inside Kenny, and they prepare to wheel him to the OR; right then, Kenny vomits. All we see is a spray of yellow landing on linoleum; here, I notice they haven't shown Kenny again, so it's likely they chose not to subject the real child to a lot of prodding. That's a tasteful decision. "Please, this has to stop," UnDunst begs desperately. Mark starts to give an answer specific to the vomiting, but Almost Brad has a different end in mind: "Give him something for the pain." Elizabeth oddly obliges, calling for a dose of morphine at the behest of these armchair medics. Is it that easy? Because my tooth sort of hurts, and a little morphine might do the trick. Thanks. But Elizabeth still hasn't grasped their meaning. "No, to end it," Almost Brad wails. "Please, just end it for him." Elizabeth shoots him a strange glance before wheeling their son away.

By Heathen

Sassy music blares through the speakers at a lesbian bar, because lesbians listen to sassy music sung by women with scratchy voices. Weaver timidly enters, sitting at an empty barstool and ordering a vodka neat. She looks around, but doesn't engage herself in her surroundings, staring at herself in the mirror behind the bar as though she doesn't quite recognize the reflection. The singer croaks, "There's a time for living to start!" and we're to assume this is Kerry's time. Live, Lesbian Kerry, live!

time, Susan returns to the ER and things get predictably hectic. I predict the rapid onset of carpal tunnel syndrome.