We get a nice sampling of old ER moments before the new episode starts. We're reminded that Abby is an alcoholic who's been sober for five years, and that she was around when schizophrenic Paul Sobriki terrorized the hospital, stabbed Carter, and killed Lucy. Finally, Abby confessed to her mom, Sally Field, that she'd had an abortion and never told her then-husband, Richard.
It's minus-29 degrees in Chicago -- so, just another spring morning. Abby "The Twelve Steps of Post-Christmas Letdown" Lockhart is lying in what looks like the coziest, warmest bed ever. My bed-envy radar is bleeping like an episode of The Jerry Springer Show. Through the wall, she can hear the couple upstairs -- at least, I think they're upstairs -- bickering loudly. The husband seems to think his wife is a bitch of some sort, so she throws in his face that she's paying for his education right now and that he treats her more like a slave than as an equal partner. He would prefer it if she'd kindly wait five minutes each morning before unleashing her inner hellcat, and she requests that he seal his baconhole for two seconds. You've heard this love story before. The prattle doesn't matter; what does is that Abby looks tired and a mite haggard rolling out of bed, as though she's used to waking up to this particular verse of "Shut Up, You Fucking Bitch (This Fork Ain't Just for Eatin')" and isn't overjoyed to know all the words. "Both of you shut up," she mumbles. The phone rings, and she ignores it until Sally Field's shrill voice fills the air. "Hello, Abby? Are you there?" she asks. "Abby? I thought I'd catch you before your shift." She's calling to wish Abby a happy birthday. Smiling as much as she ever does, Abby picks up the phone to thank her mother for remembering. She seems genuinely pleased.
Across town, or so I presume because it's an easy transition, Sandy Lopez puts the kettle on and rushes back to bed. Evidently it's cold, a problem that could be solved by eschewing her tank top and boxers and investing in some righteous flannel pajamas. Sandy snuggles up against a lump. The lump jumps. It's Kerry "Cold as Ice" Weaver, shocked by her lover's chilly feet. They spoon, Sandy cupping Kerry and giggling that Kerry snores really loudly. Laughing, Kerry protests innocence, and the mock argument devolves into a flirtatious pillow fight and tickle session. They retreat under the covers.
Given that Sandy has just exposited that it's 7:30 AM, it seems weird that John "Too Low for Zero" Carter is now wheeling Gamma inside her house. Apparently she's an early riser and she lives on the edge by tempting frostbite at every turn. Carter informs her that he's hired a nurse to take care of her; Gamma, put off, insists that her half-dozen servants could amply do the job. "If it gets any colder, I'm wintering in The Bahamas...alone," Gamma says pointedly. Suddenly, the thermometer plummets below minus-40. The world's coldest wind blows down the stairs, and her name is Eleanor "Mary McDonnell" Carter. Gamma reads my recap. "Is it just me, or is it freezing in here?" she mutters, underscoring my point. Apparently, Eleanor didn't notify anyone of her plan to visit, and claims she's there to help out with Gamma's recovery. "How are you feeling, Millicent?" she asks, coldly. "I've been better," Gamma says, eyeing her suspiciously. The Ice Queen exposits that her husband, Stephen Keaton -- or "Jack Carter," if you prefer -- is stuck in Kansas City on an extended business trip. Carter blinks hard. "We missed the pleasure of your company at Christmas," Gamma lies. "You know how the holidays can be," Eleanor frosts, her smile never quite reaching her empty eyes. Carter is also shocked to learn that Eleanor, who has always preferred staying in hotels, will deign to sleep at the manor. "It is freezing in here," Gamma crabs quietly.
A pretty, low-key redhead stands on the ground floor of Abby's building, her grouchy husband sitting on the steps. He's played by Matthew Settle, a.k.a. smoldering Lt. Speirs on Band of Brothers. He's got shaggier hair and sports a knit cap, but there's definitely some smoking embers in there, hinting at the hottie within. He condescendingly grills his wife about all the things she probably did to mess up the car, but she swears she checked everything. "Did you leave the lights on again?" he accuses her. "No, I didn't," she answers patiently. "You probably did," he sighs. Abby appears, clearly uncomfortable at having to pass the couple whose domestic unrest she knows quite intimately. Matthew asks her for jumper cables, but Abby takes the El and isn't equipped with them. He angrily snatches the keys from his wife and lopes outside. Brushing aside his rudeness, the woman eagerly introduces herself to Abby as Joyce, saying that she and her husband just moved to Chicago from Virginia; she excuses him by claiming he's "not a morning person." And from what we've heard before, he's not a night person, either. I guess the afternoon is when he really comes into his own. Joyce is white as snow, and Matthew's aura is a lot darker, so that helps us unravel the tricky good vs. evil equation in this relationship. Joyce notes that they're in 205, which is apparently right to Abby, although when we heard them fighting before, we saw that they live upstairs. "I guess we're neighbors," Joyce says happily. "Just a wall between us," Abby says wryly, trying to leave. Joyce offers her a ride to work. "It's really cold out there," she warns. Abby declines politely. Just then, Matthew enters and barks that, of course, Joyce flooded the engine. She shoots Abby an "Oops, color me embarrassed!" look. "Welcome to Chicago," Abby says, fleeing outside. Once there, when the full weight of the chill wallops her in the chest, she curses, "SON of a BITCH!" and takes off toward the El station.
Carter trots downstairs and catches The Big Chill donning her coat and wrap. He assumes she's leaving, but it turns out she's filling Gamma's place at a Pediatric Cancer Society function. "She wasn't planning on going," Carter says. "She just does that for effect." Well, then Gamma is a bitch. Seriously, why else would she promise to attend stuff and then bail? For sport? Eleanor flatly states that the society actually seemed to expect Gamma's presence, so she's happy to substitute. She makes a remark about seeing Carter that night, and he's astounded that his mother will be staying. "Unless I'm not welcome," she prods coldly. Carter, aware that his parents are divorcing, wonders if she's just covering for his father, who by the last report was in Denver, not Kansas City. Suddenly, he realizes that his mother thought Stephen would still be there; she claims they left things "open-ended" and seems a tad unnerved that Carter knows about the divorce. "It's good to see you," she says casually, pecking him almost imperceptibly and leaving a perfect icicle on Carter's cheek. She leaves him speechless.
Outside County General, Dr. Susan "Hair That's Too Cold to Grow Out" Lewis shivers in her lab coat and waits for a patient that sanitation workers found in a dumpster. She spies Abby approaching and hands the man off to her, because Abby has the luxury of a coat. Abby doesn't wholly appreciate this, given that she hasn't clocked in yet, but it's too early to pick a fight, and the nearest can of whoop-ass is frozen to a bench.
"Oh, MAN!" Susan chatters in the lobby. Frank trots over merrily, extolling the joy of an empty waiting room and low patient traffic. "Nothing like Arctic temperatures to keep the freaks at home," he crows. Onto the table, he dumps a box of Burberry-glazed Krispy Kreme donuts that play Cake songs and drive Jeeps painted to look like Tylenol. Susan complains that the hospital thermostat is broken, and Michael "Smell Ya Later, Benton" Gallant shows up to point out that maintenance workers are working on the problem. Frank, though, doesn't like the freezing weather. "This is what we get for punching holes in the Ozone Layer," Frank grumbles. No, this is what you get for living in Chicago. Susan points out that the Greenhouse Effect is supposed to make things warmer. That's what passes for a joke on this show. Abby wheels in Icicle Andy, apparently a recurring wintertime patient, and Gallant ships him off to an exam room while Susan makes Abby remove her plain winter overcoat and don one in fashionable plaid instead.
Icicle Andy's vital signs grow weaker, and Susan decides he's probably got pneumonia. The man's face is crusty and almost gangrenous; his blackened fingers most definitely are gangrenous. Abby tries to take his pulse ox, and snaps off his finger in the process. It makes a clean cracking noise, like breaking a twig. She yelps in disgust and holds up the charred-sausage finger. "He gave you the finger, huh, Abby?" Malik grins. Gallant wonders if they can reattach it. "Not without superglue," Susan snickers. Abby, suddenly, is cracking up as silently as she can. Makes me wonder if this scene required a bunch of takes and netted a dozen finger-related practical jokes. I can just see Malik popping it in his mouth.
A blond, cherubic little boy confusedly peeks into the room. "Mother?" he asks. "No, Ruprecht, this is not your mother," Abby explains. So little Ruprecht picks up his pots and yells "Oklahoma" until his contract is up. Abby tries to dismiss him, but he's lost and looking sadly for his mother. "She's not in here," Abby says. "Yes she was," whimpers Ruprecht pathetically. Abby hands off her duties to Gallant, and escorts Ruprecht to the lobby in search of his mother. She's confused by Ruprecht's stubborn insistence that his mother was in a trauma room. Abby also gets his name: Douglas Leeman. His mother is B. Just B. Because she's busy, she gently fobs Douglas off on Frank. "He's good at finding people's moms," she offers lamely. Frank, cranky on the surface, is a big galoot on the inside. That's right, I said "galoot." And I meant it. He squats, squints and stares Douglas right in the eye. "You like donuts?" he asks, very seriously. Douglas' eyes widen adorably.
Luka chats with a frail, pale redhead on a gurney. She's short of breath and suffering from chest pains, the sudden onset of which followed a few days of grogginess. She reminds me of Miranda from Sex and the City, so that's what I'll christen her. Miranda apparently fainted after a bout of dizziness, and has been taking fertility drugs. They jointly exposit that she's been on them for ten days, being as today's the tenth, and it's a smug moment that smacks vaguely of "aren't we clever for getting the date right?" Luka looks knowingly at Abby and orders up a spate of tests, while Miranda freaks about whether the fertility drugs have risked her health. Luka calmly explains that she has fluid in her lungs, which could signal the presence of a blood clot. Miranda whitens, impossible as it seems. She's actually transparent. Luka trots off to be pretty somewhere else, leaving Abby to ask Miranda for contact information. This becomes the reveal that Miranda is single, and chose a scientific fertility process because she "got tired of waiting around for Mr. Right." Abby's head jerks up a fraction, and her mouth twitches. "I know that story," she murmurs, smiling.
Exiting Miranda's room, Abby draws the curtain and rejoins Luka. Gingerly, she notes how little she's seen of him lately. "I've been working nights," Luka says. The exchange is awkward, filled mostly with one-word answers: Luka's Christmas was "quiet," for example. He's also made a resolution for 2002: buy dinner for The Lawyer Fairy, who stopped by and gave him an out clause that lets him flee to make a movie overseas. As such, Luka will be volunteering for Doctors Without Borders for two months, living in Bosnia. The Lawyer Fairy deserves a promotion for that one -- perhaps demigod status would suffice. Meanwhile, do we really think Romano and Weaver are okay with Luka just taking off, leaving them short an ER doctor for eight whole weeks? I think Weaver would rather eat wax. Abby's completely taken aback by Luka's decision, and slightly stunned that his do-gooder disease -- the one that so fucked him over with Neecole -- has become full-blown. Luka shares that the change of scenery sounds really appealing, which elicits an empathetic mouth-twitch from Abby.
Douglas happily chomps away on a donut. He's the picture of bliss, except for that whole missing-mother thing. Dr. Mark "Brain Freeze" Greene approaches, clad in a horrible olive-and-orange toque that's protecting his skull from a potentially embarrassing case of frostbite. Someone rip that thing off! If Icicle Andy's finger can take a suicide leap, it seems fair to hope Mark's head might do the same. "Nice hat, Snoop," Frank says. Mark complains about the cold hospital, claiming the lounge thermostat reads fifty-six degrees, and Frank snipes that he should get used to this, for it heralds an imminent ice age identical to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. "The cold didn't kill the dinosaurs, Frank," Mark says loudly, and too slowly. "Cholesterol did." It's not a great line, but it hit me that other actors on this show would've pulled it off and made it chuckle-worthy. But coming from Anthony Edwards, it sounds more like a plea. "Please like me," he's saying. "I'm funny! Remember Goose? You liked Goose!" Yeah, and Goose died. On so many levels.
Dr. Elizabeth "Heart Like a Tundra" Corday appears, busy and barely looking up from her chart. Mark pulls her aside and frantically whispers that he found a lighter in Rachel's laundry. "She's smoking," Elizabeth deduces. Good thing she cleared that up, because I was pretty worried that Rachel had started chugging butane. It occurs to her that Rachel might have graduated to the bong, since her boyfriend Andrew -- "Ex," Mark says snottily -- tested positive for pot. Mark wants to search his daughter's room, but he's too weak to make that decision himself and wants Elizabeth to do it for him. She's not giving in, though, because she has an actual brain, and though she turned it off on her wedding day, she's determined to use it now. Mark reminds her that asking Rachel won't guarantee a true answer -- duh -- but Elizabeth still thinks that a room search unforgivably invades his daughter's privacy. Sure, she suggested he rifle through Rachel's pockets, but only because it's a natural part of the laundry process. Come to think of it, what idiot hiding a smoking habit isn't meticulous about checking pockets? Rachel is dumb. Totally gets it from her father. Mark, suddenly distracted by a so-called "patient" at this big building with doctors, drops the subject and leaves.
At the mall, Carter and Jing-Mei "Deb" Chen horse around in a toy store. She coos over a toy, but when Carter suggests she buy it for her absent son, Chen's face darkens and she tries to answer, casually, that "they won't let me send any gifts." She does perk up when talking about the video she got of the child learning to walk. Chen seems awed by this, and partly wounded that her son is taking these strides independently of her. Bummed, she wonders aloud if she'll ever make any right decisions in her life. I'm guessing no, since she already blew her chance to leave this show for a better one. "Something will open up," Carter assures her. She cryptically suggests that it might open up at County General, takes a deep breath, and admits to Carter that she interrogated the waitress at Doc Magoo's to see if she remembered Weaver getting paged the night Paul died. Carter is noticeably taken aback. Chen confesses her desperation, but follows with the reveal that the waitress recalled Weaver coming in looking for her pager and ultimately finding it in the bathroom. "She couldn't answer my page, John, because she didn't have her pager," Chen stresses. Carter looks away, swallows, and looks back. "That explains it," he says. He seems dispassionate, which is realistic given that Weaver gave him his dream job because Chen quit. Chen doesn't say what she'll do with the information, but her eyes betray her.
Abby tends to Icicle Andy's corpse. It seems the poor sod kicked it. "I heard bums reincarnate as pigeons when they die," Malik offers cheerfully. Why, so they can crap on the society that crapped all over them? I think I just answered my own question. Abby fishes around and whips out a pair of great tickets to the evening's Chicago Blackhawks game; Malik brightens and begs her for them. She won't fork them over because it smacks of grave robbery, but Malik insists that no one's going to claim them and Icicle Andy won't be thawing out this time. "Abby, look, he's straight-up DEAD," Malik whines. But Abby, being joyless, ignores this.
Gallant flags down Abby and asks her to check and make sure he ran the correct tests on an elderly patient. She spots something he skipped and, with an air of "be careful, kid," she dispatches him to remedy this. Suddenly, Abby feels a tug on her heartstrings and whirls around to see Douglas standing alone in the ER playing Abandonment in A Minor on the violin. He's stranded and alone. And probably on a raging Krispy Kreme sugar high, but that's glossed over in the editing. She bolts to read Frank the riot act, but he's rifled through the check-in logs for a B. Leeman and didn't find one listed. Abby tells him to surf the admit log. How is that different? ["Maybe the check-in log covers everyone that walks off the street, including those that don't stay to be treated, and the admit logs cover actual patients, and she's guessing that Douglas's mom didn't check in?" -- Wing Chun] Whatever -- she's interrupted by her ex-husband, Richard, who showed up out of the blue. Abby stares at him as if he's Neecole, which is to say, a putrid manure-eating toad.
"It's colder in here than it is outside," Richard says lamely. He and Abby are in Doc Magoo's, and she's acting as cold as Carter's mother. They swap incredibly uncomfortable small talk about work and whether she's dating. That divorce was a good idea. Then, Abby does something incredibly stupid -- she lets herself ramble. "What do you want, X?" she asks. "Can I call you X? It's almost, like, sexy. People might think it's short for ecstasy, or XXX, which stands for porn...uh, except for in cartoons, where it stands for poison, which I always thought was funny..." Yikes. This is what being single has done to Abby. No, strike that -- this is what being Abby has done to Abby. Richard coughs that he has something to tell her, and his serious demeanor makes Abby smirk. "Oh my GOD! Are you going to jail?" she gapes. Richard, by the look of it, deeply appreciates her faith in him. He then opens his mouth and vomits up a partially digested anvil: "I'm getting married." Abby's jaw hits the floor, but mine's still neatly in place, thanks to the fact that I've watched television before. Abby tries to discredit the wench, hoping she's a rich young bimbo who'll get dumped the minute her ankles threaten to swell and Richard decides she's not that pretty or special. Richard dispels that immediately. Corinne is thirty-four, down-to-earth, a teacher, and above all, a single mom to six-year-old Adam. The idea of Richard as a father, especially when he admits he's always wanted kids, clearly affects Abby -- remember that secret abortion? Right. Abby stares into her coffee, having just suffered a nasty kick in the gut. Cocking an eyebrow, she pretends the wall is Richard, and asks it why he chose today, of all days, to drop the bomb. Richard, bless the bastard, doesn't remember that it's her birthday, so a betrayed and wounded Abby bolts from Doc Magoo's. But her conscience stops her, turns her around, and forces her to say, "I hope it works out this time." Richard thanks her, and Abby -- cold inside and out -- flees into the snow.
Carter and Susan spent the commercial break ordering Chinese food, and are now huddled in the lounge eating lunch and flipping through skiing brochures. Carter extols the virtues of Aspen and its varied-skill slopes. I can't tell if they're vacationing together, or if being rich has made him boring. When he notices Susan's faintly popping jaw, Carter tries to press his ear up to it; Susan flirtatiously fights back and ends up getting kissed. A cold wind blows in from the reception area. It's an Abby gale. Carter and Susan leap apart and pretend they're just casually going about their business. Susan even bolts the room. Wordlessly, Abby opens her locker and digs around inside. "Sorry about that," Carter says. Abby plays dumb. "I should've said something sooner," he clarifies. "It snuck up on me." Yes, if by "snuck," he means "developed slowly from Thanksgiving until today." Abby totally knows he's full of shit, especially when he tries to play it off like a friendship. "Never seen you kiss Frank like that," she says, pointedly and with a slight smile. Carter is being an ass. He should grow some hair on his chest and take ownership of his love life. I think he just feels guilty because he rejected Abby's ham-handed advances and wasn't completely honest about why. She brushes off his attempt at diplomacy. "Don't sweat it, Carter," she says, tiredly crossing the room and exiting.
Douglas is still alone, playing "Nobody Knows The Trouble I Seen" on the guitar of our heartstrings. Abby kindly sits down and offers to buy him some pizza or a hamburger. "Mom says fast food isn't good for you," he answers sweetly. Abby catches herself mid-eye-roll and lies that hospital fast food is fortified with nutrients. Eagerly, Douglas accepts her offer of French fries -- after all, if his mother turns out to be gone forever, he can use them to build a crude potato replica. Abby scurries to Frank and hisses that he'd better work harder and faster at finding Dougie's mother because he's been waiting for a few hours now. "If I find his Mom, can I have the hockey tickets you pinched off the stiff?" Frank whispers sensitively. Abby refuses. Gallant rushes in looking for Luka, because Miranda's blood pressure plummeted. Abby runs toward the trauma room.
In Trauma Green, Abby and Gallant prep some oxygen and dopamine for Miranda, whose heart sounds are muffled. Gallant makes a diagnosis that I don't understand because I'm ignorant; apparently, they'd figured Miranda had a blood clot, but Gallant just figured out that it was something else. Gallant gloves up to assist Luka, who has just entered, and Abby is already working frantically on the other side.
Frank bursts in with the mixed news that he found Douglas's mother: sporting a different surname, a Belinda Matheson arrived with a headache last night that turned out to be a brain bleed. Abby is appalled that Douglas sat there overnight, unnoticed. She asks Frank to escort Douglas upstairs to see his mom, but Frank horks up the reveal that Belinda is dead. Abby is stunned. She sags a bit as her eyes register total dismay. She chokes that Frank needs to find Douglas's father and bring the boy a plate of fries. Meanwhile, Gallant has rescued Miranda from the hungry jaws of death, and Luka compliments the young student on a good catch.
It seems Douglas's father lives in L.A., but the tot doesn't know the phone number. He sits peacefully in the waiting room while Abby turns around and rails on Frank. She can't believe that an ex-cop like him wouldn't think to call the school and track down a contact number that way. "Act like a cop!" she scolds. This answers the question of whether the actor, who appeared early in the series as a detective, is playing the same character -- it appears so. And to his credit, Frank doesn't get arsy with Abby. Instead, he's almost -- gulp -- gentle. I find myself wanting to hold him. Abby figures out that Weaver treated the mother, and she loudly hisses in disgust that someone from neurosurgery ought to come down and tell little Dougie that his mother has died. But from the look on Frank's face, it's apparent that someone already let slip that information -- sure enough, Abby turns around to see Douglas peering up at her, confused and upset. "No, she didn't [die]," he whimpers. Abby cringes, picks the toe lint out of her back molars, and escorts Douglas to the waiting room so that she can explain about the birds and the bees, and what windshields and flyswatters do to them.
"It was...pretty bad," Abby chokes, referring to B's headache. Abby explains that a blood vessel in B's brain ruptured, then realizes that a kid who didn't even know his mom's first name might not understand the word "rupture." So she clarifies, "It broke." Dougie doesn't like the idea of a broken brain. "The doctors tried really hard," she says, "but they couldn't fix it." Douglas gulps, then brightens and asks if his mother can come home. "Only if you bring in a taxidermist," Abby thinks. Out loud, she tries again to make it clear that his mother is dead, but Douglas freaks out and runs screaming to the exam room and the trauma room where he last saw his mother. "Mom? Where is she? MOM?" he screams, terrified. He throws open the door and, when he sees strangers inside, bugs out his eyes. Confusion and panic wash over his face as he looks around wildly, sees nothing familiar, then bolts back out into the lobby. "Mom, where are you?" he sobs. Abby chases him, grabs his arm, and finally corrals him. "She's dead," Abby says. "I just want my Mom," he cries, throwing himself into her arms. Abby gently soothes him, patting his back. Putting a little boy in distress feels as hackneyed as putting pregnant women in complex and perilous situations from which only a nonconformist doctor can save her. Yet, despite this blatant attempt to make the audience Feel Something Profound, Maura Tierney does a great job with the boy, who is the second most adorable child ever to guest on ER (Reese, we miss you!).
Cut to a shot of the cherub sleeping on a gurney. The poor wee tyke wiped himself out, what with the screaming, crying, grieving, and donut-scarfing. Frank is sweetly sad for the exhausted Douglas. Quietly, he shares that he reached Mr. Leeman and learned he's in Australia on business and can't leave until he catches a red-eye tomorrow night. This means Social Services must take Douglas; Abby grimly promises to make the call.
Gallant grabs Abby and asks her if County General permits Psych transfers to other hospitals. It seems a patient behind Curtain Three suffered a scalp laceration from a slip-and-fall, but is begging to be moved from that room, and wants them to call his case worker from a private hospital. "Is he altered?" Abby asks. "No, but agitated," Gallant replies. Abby asks if he's called for a Psych consult, but by her expression, it's clear she can tell he hasn't. As she dispatches Gallant to do so, Abby yanks back the curtain and comes face to face with someone she never thought she'd see again -- Paul Sobriki. Sobriki, who obviously knew this moment would come, blurts out an explanation and looks very much like he'd pay the bed to swallow him whole. "The paramedics brought me to this hospital," he says hurriedly. "I didn't want to come here." He begs Abby to call his case worker and get him out of Curtain Three, which is the scene of his earlier crime. Abby just stares at him, waiting for her breath to return.
Susan appears after the break, having been assigned to the Sobriki case. She bursts into his room to discover Abby and some security guards putting Sobriki in tight restraints. Susan doesn't know what kind of kinky hospital sex game this is, but she's offended because no one ever includes her. "Please, it's not necessary, you don't have to do that," Sobriki pleads. Susan's miffed that Abby put her patient in chains, so Abby huffs into the hallway and barks for Susan to follow her. Susan ignores Abby and quizzes Sobriki, during which time he exposits that his case worker is a psychiatrist who's monitoring his conditional release. "From where?" Susan asks, confused. Sobriki pukes, so Susan figures now might be a good time to address the fuming Abby, who is waiting outside.
Susan crosses her arms in a very maternal "Abby Moesha Lockhart, this better be GOOD or you don't get dessert!" kind of way. Abby explains that he's the schizophrenic who knifed Carter and "killed a med student two years ago." Susan says, "Him?" She sounds more let down than shocked, as if she's disappointed in Sobriki for trying to whittle a sailboat out of Carter's back fat. Then she softens a bit. "He stabbed Carter?" she breathes. "What's he doing out?" Abby has already called the cops about it, but she's anxious to transfer him before Carter accidentally finds him there. Susan refuses, insisting that she should administer the head CT and determine his status before moving him anywhere else. "He stabbed two people in that room!" Abby shouts indignantly. Susan refuses to transfer a patient with a head wound, no matter what he did or who he is. Honestly, I did expect more concern for Carter to come from Susan, but ultimately, she's the only doctor who should be seeing Sobriki; she and Gallant are the only ones who could even be remotely impartial and fair in giving medical treatment to this man. Although it's a fluke that she got the case. I admire her for being a doctor first and a girlfriend second, but I do wish the girlfriend side of her hadn't come in quite such a distant second. Show some emotional layers, please, Susan. Abby is distracted by a phone call from the morgue, so she spits that Susan should at least move Sobriki to the suture room to best avoid Carter. "I got it," groans Susan. "And take his name off the board!" Abby bellows.
Cut to the morgue, where Abby has taken Douglas to let him say goodbye to his ashen and cold mother. How creepy. Douglas takes a slow step into the room, seeing his mother alone on a slab, covered in a thin cloth, a spotlight illuminating her utter deadness. "She looks like Snow White," he sighs, awed. That's kind of sad. So why did I laugh? Maybe because it's so fucking creepy to bring a child that young into a morgue containing his dead naked mother. He approaches gingerly. "Hi, Mom," he whispers. "I drew you a picture." Bending over, he whispers into her ear and then kisses her cheek. Abby fights tears as she watches the boy say his goodbyes.
Downstairs, Dr. Kerry Weaver has arrived, and is slightly appalled that Abby brought Douglas up to the morgue. "He didn't believe his mom was dead," Abby defends herself, although as Weaver points out, Abby could have called a Psych consult. Abby subtly berates Weaver for not attending to Douglas yesterday, when his mother was admitted and died. "She vagaled in triage," Weaver says. "No one told me she had a kid." Because Abby is frantically trying to locate another family member, she hasn't called Social Services, which annoys Weaver. The two bicker over each others' voices, with Abby arguing that shipping Douglas off to Social Services is unfair because he has dealt with enough strangers for one day, and Weaver deciding that a holding facility is less intimidating than the ER or the morgue. "Call now," Weaver orders.
Randi appears for two seconds, long enough to read out horoscopes. It's irritating, so I'm skipping it, especially because she offends Frank, and today Frank is my best friend because he's been cute with Douglas. Yeah, I'm that easy. Basically, Abby avoids confessing her sign to skirt the birthday issue, then realizes Carter is about to go investigate why a patient got moved out of the suture room. Abby diverts Carter from going there by lamely asking him to check on a man with explosive diarrhea. "He's pretty miserable," she says. "She," corrects Carter, bemused. Abby shrugs and watches to make sure he doesn't hit the suture room. Question: why did they put him in the suture room if it involved evicting another patient? As Chief Resident, Carter would naturally find out and check into it. Maybe age has addled Abby's brain; I mean, she is an entire year older today.
Douglas still sits alone in the waiting room, playing "My Mama Done Left Me" on his banjo. Haleh asks Abby for a favor, and in the process of completing it, she walks past Susan, who is consulting with Sobriki's case worker. He's played by Scott Bryce, formerly the dad on Popular and who also starred on As The World Turns. Scott exposits that Sobriki was found not guilty by reason of insanity, but got bumped down into a less restrictive facility after making great strides with his recovery -- and ten months after that, he was put on conditional release. Abby stops to glower fiercely at Scott and Susan. "He's agitated," Susan says, worriedly. Scott assures her that Sobriki is nervous because he just slipped, and suddenly he's back at the scene of the crime. Abby noses in and asks why he got out in two years. "Who are you?" Scott asks rudely. "I was working? When he attacked my friends?" Abby says strangely, sounding awfully Clueless for a second there. Scott kindly gives his condolences, and shares that because Sobriki was a law student -- and because he was apparently doing well on his meds -- a professor did some pro bono work and got him out on a writ of habeas corpus, which releases a man from unlawful restraint. But is it really unlawful restraint if the guy killed someone? My instinctive reaction would probably be horror, matching Abby's. There's a quick shot of Sobriki in bed looking very placid. "Love me," he is saying telepathically. "The drugs stop the voices!" Scott insists that most schizophrenics aren't violent at all. "This one was, wasn't he?" Abby snaps. "If they are, they usually aren't twice," Scott says with a twinge of anger. "He's not a danger to himself or others -- not on his meds. There are safeguards in place." Abby is pissed that Susan isn't sticking up for the hospital and for Carter, but hides it. Gallant decides that this is the perfect moment to display his incompetence: A Foley is overflowing. "Clamp it," Abby spits. "I did," he says. "It's overflowing." Fuming, Abby hisses for Susan just to get Sobriki the fuck out of County. Scott asks that the restraints be removed, which stops Abby dead in her tracks. She refuses to allow it, which is a bit presumptuous of her, but Scott swears his patient is lucid, and that a guard outside the door will suffice. "He needs reassurance and respect right now," Scott says. "'Respect'?" Abby seethes. "YES," yells Scott. Susan makes Abby leave. What a bitch. Yes, Abby is taking it to the extreme, but Susan has to realize that she's reacting out of fear -- and fear for Susan's own boyfriend, no less -- and deal with her a bit more sympathetically. Susan's just being bratty. It's like she's disagreeing with Abby just because it's Abby.
Abby bursts into Trauma Yellow in a right old snit. She takes over for the inept Gallant in trying to fix whatever's wrong with Miranda's Foley -- a catheter which apparently helps drain urine and other fluids from the bladder. Tense and pale as a tissue, Miranda asks if the fertility drugs are messing up her system; Abby crabs that the doctor needs to review her labs before making that diagnosis. Miranda's lip trembles, and she starts weeping softly. Abby clearly regrets being so cold, and nicely asks whether Miranda wants Abby to fetch Luka. But Miranda writes off her crying jag to hormones. "Sometimes being a woman sucks, you know?" she moans. "You grow up praying you won't get pregnant, and then when you do want [to], you can't." Abby gazes thoughtfully at her as Miranda anvils that she had her chance and might've blown it -- she aborted a fetus a few years ago when she got pregnant at a really bad time. Abby blinks. "It happens," Abby stammers, affected. Again, remember that abortion? Abby does, too. Miranda sniffles that she only did it out of concern for the child, so she could wait and reproduce at a time when she'd be the best mother possible. "I'm sure you're going to be," Abby smiles. Miranda starts banging Abby over the head. "Unless I waited too long," she weeps with one final thwack. As blood trickles down her forehead from the Gaping Head Wound of Hey, Abby, Hope You Got All That, Abby stares sadly at Miranda and ponders her own decision.
Now Abby is roaming the hallway, grabbing her head and trying to make the voices inside stop telling her how lonely she is. Oh dear God, please don't make Abby decide to get pregnant. Unless she asks for Luka's sperm, which would solve his longing for children and would result in a delightfully non-ugly kid. Chuny pops her head in to warn Abby that Weaver's on the warpath about calling Social Services for Douglas. Fatigued and frustrated, Abby goes to do so, and spies Scott chatting calmly with Sobriki's wife, who is holding the kid with which she was pregnant during her husband's rampage. She's played by Liza Weil, or Paris on Gilmore Girls. It's jarring to see her as a mother when I'm used to seeing the snooty Chilton uniform. Malik shows up and makes one final entreaty for the Blackhawks tickets, so Abby hands them over and says that Susan was asking for them, too, so he should offer her one. It's very casual -- I don't think she was conspiring to get rid of Susan, since Susan wouldn't be able to leave until her shift ended anyway. Malik kisses Abby with gratitude, which is more action than she's seen in a long time. She turns back to the phone and tells the operator to page the on-call social worker.
Carter appears out of nowhere and gives Abby the lowdown on the diarrhea patient she fobbed off on him. Panicked, Abby realizes that Paris and child are visible from there, and she then spies Sobriki being wheeled down the hallway, so she steers Carter toward a room so that his back is facing the hallway. Abby proceeds to ask him some weak questions about a tot with abdominal pain. As she blathers on to keep him distracted, though, Sobriki starts chatting quietly to his child. Carter hears this. His eyes glaze as he processes that voice, and his body visibly tenses. He stares hard at Abby, willing her to prove him wrong even though he already knows who's behind him. Fear, anger, hurt, disbelief, and a hint of betrayal wash over his face in a split second, and the guilty expression on Abby's face gives away the game. Slowly, he turns and peeks around the corner. His slowly reddening eyes lock on Sobriki's frame. "They put you in restraints," Paris notes. "It's just a precaution," Sobriki says soothingly. "They're a little paranoid." Paris spots Carter and is visibly concerned; Sobriki turns and the two men finally make eye contact. "Oh, it's you," Sobriki says. "I'm sorry." He seems lightly remorseful, as though he hasn't considered the full emotional impact on Carter of his homicidal schizophrenic episode, or as if he'd just pricked him with a toothpick. Sobriki acts more concerned about proving he's better, as if that will magically heal the inner scars on Carter's soul and erase the memory Carter's own struggles. Carter has barely blinked once. "What are you doing here?" Carter breathes. Paris shares that her hubby slipped and fell outside his office building; the latter two words gut Carter, who hadn't heard about the conditional release. "You're out," he spits, hatred and resentment in his eyes. "I'm sorry," Sobriki pleads, more earnest now. "That wasn't me who did that to you, to your friend. You know that, right? You're a doctor. You know it's a disease." Carter's neck vein throbs. "I'm being treated," persists Sobriki. "I'm okay now." Carter swallows hard, sickened, struggling against tears, or an outburst, or his primal urge to lash out at his former tormentor. "Great," he chokes. "Glad you're okay." He whirls around and leaves.
As Carter heads for the restroom, strains of "Battleflag" by Lo-Fidelity All-Stars plays -- the same song that played over the scene in which Sobriki committed the stabbings. Carter bursts into the bathroom and grabs the sink, leaning heavily on it and trying to collect his thoughts. He's clearly rattled that this troubled man, this schizophrenic killer, so casually asserts his complete normalcy when Carter -- the innocent victim -- struggled for so long and still can't say that he's completely recovered. And won't ever be able to say it, either, because his painkiller addiction will haunt him for the rest of his life. Noah Wyle manages to convey all this with simple facial expressions, and it's the best and most subtle performance he's given in a long time. As the music crescendos, Carter whips around, paranoid that the demon is behind him. Exhaling shakily, he splashes water on his face. But he hasn't completely regained equilibrium, and pukes violently into the sink. Yes, in searching for words, for a way to cope, for an expression of his every emotion at this second, Carter plumbs the depths of his soul and comes up with his breakfast. We go to commercial wondering what Carter ate.
Sandy escorts Kerry to the Blackhawks game, the latter clearly not a major hockey fan, for she's rambling on that the puck needs to be bright pink or have a flashing light so that people can follow it. She should watch a FOX telecast. The puck's blue, just for her. Sandy laughs at her silly stereotypically girly girlfriend with the dumb girly talk and the bad haircut. Whoops, that last one was my complaint, actually. Laura Innes is beautiful. Someone, anyone, please fix her head! Kerry, mid-laugh, suddenly spots Susan and Malik and ducks her head, trying to hide in the swarm of people. Malik and Susan breeze right by, with him spouting some nonsense about being the Bruce Lee of love. People have railed about Susan going on a "date" with Malik instead of consoling Carter, but honestly, I think it's pretty clearly not a date. I don't really understand why she bolted without worrying about whether Carter saw Sobriki or not, but I don't like Susan that much anyway, so I'm going to ignore it and assume she's self-involved. Sandy totally busts Kerry for being closeted, railing at how horrible that makes Sandy feel, and reminding Kerry that she hit on Sandy first. Kerry says something very telling: "They're not my friends. They work for me." That speaks volumes to me about her detachment from people in the ER. Sandy asserts that Kerry needs to out herself in the workplace. "I don't got time for this," Sandy says idiotically, disappearing into the crowd. I hate, hate, hate "I don't got." Why does Sandy have to sound illiterate? Who made that decision? What, because she's a firefighter, she's lax with her English? Whatever.
Douglas hangs up the phone, having chatted with his father, who assured his son he'd be there the day to collect him. Abby chats with him about living in Los Angeles, and how he'll enjoy the sunny weather and its proximity to Disneyland. They sit together in the waiting room, Douglas leaning into Abby for a cuddle, and Abby patting his back and resting her chin on his head. It's completely adorable, even if it is a trifle manipulative by the writers. MT plays maternal instincts really well.
Paris approaches Abby gingerly with a note for Carter. They're discharging Sobriki and she needs to drive him home, so she can't give it to Carter herself. "They wouldn't have released him if he weren't better," she insists. "He's taking his meds, he's in therapy. He has a disease, but it's being treated. That's what you do here -- you treat diseases so that people can try to move on with life." Wow, Paris is really pretty wooden in this part. She's better when she's mean and catty. She also sounds like she's trying to convince herself as much as she's trying to sell Sobriki's new health to Abby. Except that Abby never asked. "He's my husband. We're his family," Paris continues. "I can't give up on him." Abby shoots her a matter-of-fact expression and says simply, "Good luck." And she's thinking, "I know a good divorce lawyer, when you're ready."
Carter crankily hangs up his lab coat in his locker. I swear Benton's name tag is hanging on the locker to his. Abby enters the lounge and quietly hands him the folded note from Paris. "Lewis discharged Sobriki, and his wife asked me to give you this," she says. "Guess you couldn't protect me from her, either, huh?" Carter growls. Abby tucks the note inside Carter's locker and says she's sorry. "Forget about it," he cuts her off, bitterly. The roles are reversed here. Earlier, it was Carter apologizing about Susan and trying to protect Abby, who took it pretty graciously; now, Abby is the one who's being overprotective, and Carter's decidedly less kind about it. Granted, Abby wasn't stabbed, except perhaps through the heart. It does at least demonstrate their mutual interest in caring for each other, which harks back to their good friendship, which feels real. Abby invites him out for dinner or coffee, but he refuses, too wrapped up in his own pain -- understandably -- to respond to her bad day. He just wants to go check on Gamma, and he leaves unceremoniously and without looking at Abby. She sighs.
In the lobby, a social worker tries to wrest Douglas from his seat in the waiting room. "Abby!" he cries, spying her and bolting into her arms. She tries to console him, telling him that he'll be okay and needs to sleep and eat and take a nice bath. Douglas wants to stay with her. "I don't stay here all the time, honey, but you can come visit me whenever you want," Abby promises, disentangling herself from the boy's desperate embrace. "Abby!" he wails as the social worker snatches him up and carries him outside. "Wait, I'll stay with you! Abby! Please!" Abby watches him brokenly. "You'll be fine, Douglas," she calls out, catching her voice before it cracks. She looks profoundly disturbed, valuing her attachment to the boy but kicking herself for getting too close.
This puts Abby in a foul mood, so she's none too receptive when Gallant hails her with yet another annoyance. She won't listen to him. "I'm not your Attending," she fumes. "I'm not a resident. I am a nurse." Gallant, taken aback, gapes at her. But Abby's on a roll. "You want me to assess a patient, push meds, check vitals, or explain a situation to a family? That's fine," she says. "What I will not do is carry you through med school. You want to be a doctor? Start acting like one." Gallant vows to insert his own Foley catheter, lest another moment like this ruin all his pants.
Valium Villa. Mark taps on Rachel's door, but she's not there; he opens the door on a room that's a total disgusting mess. And she has this bizarre, poorly chosen green plaid wallpaper -- I'm certain my grandfather once had those pants. Mark starts rummaging through her belongings, ending up with his hand elbow-deep in Rachel's backpack. It's only a matter of time before he's caught in the act and has to pretend he was trying to clean the bathroom, ran out of rubber gloves, and needed a roomy substitute. Mark yanks out an open pack of cigarettes with a condom tucked inside. "What are you doing?" snipes a teenage voice. Rachel, of course. Mark spins around and tries to pretend he was tidying up her room, but he then thrusts the cigarettes in her face and angrily asks if she's smoking. Infuriated, Rachel stomps into the den. "I bought that pack a month ago on a dare," she seethes, which of course doesn't explain why they're open and why some cigarettes are missing. Perhaps someone dared her to get lung cancer. Mark's not too bright, though, so he doesn't pick up on this probable falsehood and instead demands the truth about the condom. "They passed them out in health class," Rachel replies. She's a skilled liar -- she knew she'd get caught, so she prepared a story just in case. Mark figures she didn't have to keep the condom. "Why, you'd rather I not have them?" she sasses. Damn! She's good. And so bad. In fact, I hate her. Mark just wants her to be honest at all times, but Rachel rightly points out that he won't believe her anyway, and will just keep searching her room, so why not go ahead and lie? "I was looking for drugs!" blurts Mark. Rachel's eyes widen. She just totally busted her father, and it's so very sweet. "You said you were picking things up! Who's lying now?" she crows, still riled. Mark blathers about trust, so Rachel storms into her room and screams that she's hooked on drugs and nicotine and sex. She slams the door in the face of her impotent parent.
Carter arrives home to find that Gamma's new nurse isn't there. Annoyed, he calls the service to complain, but Eleanor appears and says she sent the woman home early because she was annoying Gamma. "She'll be back at 6 AM," Eleanor says casually, promising to get up if there's a problem in the night. She wanders into the library, leaving an astounded Carter alone with his brewing resentment.
Carter follows his frosty mom. "What are you doing?" he asks. "You show up uninvited..." "Uninvited?" Eleanor bristles. "...And now you're making health-care decisions?" Carter rants. Frosty the Snowman plays it off like she was just being an obedient daughter-in-law, heeding Gamma's wishes, but Carter isn't having it and basically implies she's useless. Chilly O'Frigid sits down and self-righteously says she's suffered through enough abuse at the hands of Gamma -- she doesn't need her son to turn on her, too. A heated Carter burns the Ice Queen by explaining rather angrily that HE is the authority on Gamma's situation, and all decisions pass through him. To be contrary, he's calling to demand that the nurse return. "I'm not leaving this house," the ice sculpture swears. "I don't care if I'm uninvited. I'm not going to let your father break up this family." Mary McDonnell isn't doing a very good job. Her way of playing a closed-off patrician matriarch is to enunciate too much and restrict her speech to a monotone. It's so grating it could shred cheddar. Carter, half out of the room by then, turns right back around to challenge his mother's fairly revisionist take on the family history. "You checked out of this family twenty years ago," he snarls. "I refuse to let you [spin] this with you as the injured party!" Queen Zero Degrees tries to sweep past him to her bedroom, but Carter grabs her to block her exit. She's either trying to keep a stiff upper lip, or it's just frozen that way after years of being the coldest woman alive. "Step aside," she hisses. "No! I got stabbed!" Carter yells, shoving her backward so she'll stay and confront this. "Where the hell were you? Same place you've been my entire life -- someplace else." She gulps and stammers that they got stuck in Tokyo, and Carter claimed he was fine. "Well I wasn't fine," Carter says. "It wasn't okay." She can't look at him, gritting her teeth and asking if he's trying to blame her for his drug problem. "I'm blaming you for not being my mother!" Carter shouts sadly. "Bobby died and I lost a mother." Bobby, his brother, died when both boys were young. Eleanor spaces out, trying to catch her breath. Her lips tremble and her eyes are liquid. Finally, some decent acting from her. "May I go to bed now?" she whispers, haltingly. Carter sets his jaw bitterly and lets her pass, glaring at her back. He sits down hard and sighs, wounded. "Yeah," he mutters. "Run away."
Abby staggers toward her apartment building and tries to let herself in, but the door sticks from the cold. Fortunately for her, Joyce is loitering in the lobby and opens it from the inside. "I'm guessing it's going to stay cold for a while," she says. "I warned [Matthew] that January wasn't the best time to move, but that's when his semester starts. He's in law school." From what I understand, Virginia winters aren't a picnic either. It's not like they should be unfamiliar with seasons. Abby asks if Joyce is locked out. "Fight," Joyce smiles ruefully. She went to the store and picked up some beer to pass the time, figuring that he'll be asleep in half an hour. She and Abby make small talk -- Abby's from Minnesota, Joyce is from Idaho, "the potato part, not the white-supremacist part." Wow, someone's been aching to shit on Idaho. Unless, as punch lines go, Idaho is this year's Kentucky. Joyce offers Abby a beer. "You look like you've had a long day," she says. Abby seems grateful for this, the only modicum of sympathy she's received all day. She screeches her wagon to a halt, parks in front of a hydrant, and accepts the beer, sitting on a step and taking a very nervous sip. Joyce catches sight of a birthday card in Abby's mail pile and toasts that she made it through another year. Abby laughs wryly and clinks bottlenecks with Joyce as AAA arrives and tows away her illegally parked wagon.