ER S08E19

It had to happen, dammit. One stupid scene in the middle of theERhalf of the crossover felt so random and so stand-alone that I not only skipped it in the recap, but mocked its pointlessness, built a high horse out of paper clips and old pillows, and climbed upon it so I could sneer from a nice vantage point. So what happens? The show shoots my high horse and turns it into Alpo. That's right: my stupid scene showed up in the previously-on for this Third Watch, and now I get to feel stupid. But it happens, you know, this crankiness. Sometimes I get tired. Don't be angry, baby. It's not you, it's me. And the painkillers. The painkillers made me do it, okay? Hold me.

Anyway, recently on The Show That Isn't ER, a hot firefighter with dimples smiled at the camera, and I turned into a big puddle of love sweat. His name is Jimmy, and apparently he just reunited with his son, who appears to be eight or so. Susan Lewis got a scary message from her panicked niece Suzy, and hightailed it to New York, where she found her sister Chloe drugged out and without her daughter. Susan got scared. Bosco and his partner, Faith Yokas, were on the case. And the goddamn neighborhood-watch guy rode up on his bike and started telling Bosco that he takes Polaroids of people in seedy neighborhoods doing seedy things, in the hope that the cops will arrest them. Bosco dismissed this cyclist as readily as I did. Bosco and I are kindred. Oh, God, wait, that feels so wrong. I need mouthwash.

The New York Police Department rushes into a drug den while kicky electronica-style music heralds their work. Officer Maurice "Loose Cannon With the Heart of Gold" Boscorelli (Jason Wiles, of Kicking and Screaming and guest appearances as Colin on Beverly Hills, ) is leading the charge. Officer Faith "Streetwise, Tough Broad With a Heart of Gold" Yokas (Molly Price, known to Sex and the City fans as Susan-Sharon) is also there. There are stylized shots of junkies huddled around fires, tying tourniquets with their teeth, being apprehended by officers in the dark and dank warehouse. It's a really weird scene that's a bit funky to watch, with jumpy cuts and confusing shots and swelling music; I feel like I'm both drunk and hanging upside down from my bed. Which I guess I might be, as far as any of you know. Two by two, the crackheads load into the police van. I'm sure Noah would be very proud of the way the NYPD has adapted his ark concept to suit the dregs of society. The music slowly fades out as Bosco, looking grim, wipes the dirt off his hands and hops back into his patrol car. Yokas watches him appraisingly. "You all right over there?" she asks in that tough-mom fashion she pulls off so well. "Not yet," Bosco shakes his head, revving the engine. As the music kicks in again, the patrol car speeds away from the crack hole.

Dr. Susan "If John Edward Can Do It, Then So Can I" Lewis sits stiffly on her usual bench in the 55th Precinct. She'll miss that bench when she crosses back over to ER and has to stand around sobbing for a dead bald man with strange lips. Bosco and Yokas enter, prodding a passel of arrestees so that they'll march right on into the interrogation room, or wherever they put dirty, shifty extras who got paid decent money to shuffle around and let their pupils dilate. "Move faster, or I'll put my foot up your ass," growls Bosco. He manhandles a dude who'd dropped down to Susan, throwing him in the correct direction. Susan peers warily up at Bosco. He meets her eye. "What?" he asks, defensive. "Any sign of my niece?" she asks nervously, Suzy's stuffed toy sitting to her on the bench. Bosco shakes his head, allowing her a glimpse of his actual regret at this fact, and then leaves. Susan looks put-off. The credits pounce on this and roll with abandon.

A big lug of an officer named John "Oafish Protector With a Heart of Gold" Sullivan rolls awake to the sound of shattering porcelain. Grabbing his gun from the bedside table, he vows to teach that no-good stinking toilet a lesson. But when he inches out of the bedroom, a female voice calls out an apology. Sully enters the kitchen in shock and discovers the familiar face of Tatiana, his Ukranian bride, who'd fled his life when a crime lord from her country started getting all up in her shit. "I break a dish," she says pleasantly. "I want to surprise you. I was making eggs." Tatiana, for all you ER fans out there, reminds me of a slightly less edgy Randi. She's young and pretty. Sully gapes at her. "I miss you so much," she offers sweetly with a smile. Sully still can't think of anything to say. He looks as if he's searching his mind for the right words, or perhaps asking himself the universal question that so often plagues us all in times of confusion: What Would Cliff Huxtable Do?

Apparently, Cliff Huxtable would cut away to a new scene and throw on a Barenaked Ladies CD. Jimmy "Scorching Hot Hottie With A Heart of Gold" Whatever (Eddie Cibrian, of The Young and the Restless, Sunset Beach, and But I'm a Cheerleader ["and the boy band 3Deep" -- Wing Chun]) plays the song "If I Had a Million Dollars" while he activates the toaster. His son Joey roots around under the bed and finds treasure. I can't actually tell what it is -- it looks metallic and sharp, and I'm hoping it's not a knife because I don't want Jimmy to fail at fatherhood here, since he's going to be fathering a few of my children soon. When the Pop-Tarts bolt out of the toaster, as steaming hot as Jimmy himself, Joey drops whatever he picked up and wriggles out from under the bed so his father can toss him a tart. Ha ha. I said "tart." And I meant it. Cut to a cute scene in which father and son brush their teeth together and sing along, off-key, with the song. Then Joey helps Jimmy find his socks, and finally Jimmy stands and surverys the messy wreck that is his apartment. "Guess what we're doing tonight?" he grins. "Look at that -- we're cleaning this house." Joey cheerfully suggests getting a maid. "What, you think I've got a million dollars?" grins Jimmy. Aw. Cheesy, but cute. They leave together.

Bosco sadly hangs up the phone and looks up at Susan, who sits near his desk. Yokas appears and confirms that the New Jersey police department is going to take another crack at locating Joe -- who is both an NJPD officer and Chloe's missing husband, while also a possible clue to Suzy's whereabouts. Bosco nods grimly and bolts out of his chair to go beat the truth, the tar, and the toxic hallucinogens out of some drug addicts. Susan watches him go. "He's wound a little tight," she observes. Yokas sits in the seat Bosco just vacated and says good-naturedly, "Yeah, sometimes." She senses Susan's lack of faith in her partner, and decides to vouch for the goofball. "I got two kids, and if one of them ever goes missing, Bosco's the guy I want looking for them," she says sincerely. Susan absorbs this. Little Suzy's stuffed monkey is sitting between them on the desk, and I find myself more worried about who's giving it a good cuddle than about whether Suzy shows up again. I'm also the person who, after wading to the end of A.I., could think of nothing but who would look after the gravelly-voiced teddy bear who was left alone at the end. I am a pathetic woman.

"She's a good mother," Susan offers. Yokas glances up from her paperwork, surprised but not bothered. "She is," Susan avers. "Drug addiction is a disease. It's recognized as a disease by the American Psychiatric Association." Yokas twitches a trifle. She knows rationalization when she hears it, and it rankles her eyebrows -- look, there goes one of them now, shooting right up toward her hairline. "What about pedophilia? That's recognized as a disease," Yokas points out acerbically. "Want a child molester raising a kid?" Susan loathes the analogy, but Yokas defends it. "I'm not really interested in why somebody hurts a kid," she begins. "I don't care. All I want to do is stop it from happening." Susan claims that Chloe didn't hurt Suzy. Susan evidently didn't hear the terror in that girl's voice on her answering machine. "No," Yokas shoots back, "she lost her." Susan is taken aback, but can't deny it.

The lieutenant interrupts and calls Yokas away. "Anything yet?" he whispers. Yokas exposits that Bosco is "sweating the junkies" -- that's a fun potential euphemism -- in the hope that they'll spill information leading to Suzy's whereabouts; she restates that they're actively trying to find Joe. Yokas thinks the marriage is shaky, and hopes Suzy's disappearance stems from a custody squabble and not something more nefarious. The lieutenant asks how Susan's been holding up. "It's been a bad twenty-four hours," sighs Yokas. "Let's hope it doesn't get any worse," the lieutenant sighs. And a jinx fairy is born.

Bosco screams in the face of a sticky, long-haired junkie who we'll call Chris. As in Robinson. As in Kate Hudson's crusty husband. Bosco shakes Chris and yells that he isn't trying hard enough. "What do you want me to do, Bosco?" Chris whines shrilly. "Want me to make something up? If you want me to, I will -- just tell me what you want to hear!" Bosco frustratedy shouts that he's not looking for false testimony. Chris is jumpy and just wants to please his master and get the hell out of there in time for Happy Hour. "I need to find this girl, all right?" Bosco says levelly, rubbing his forehead as if to massage the impulsive rage away. Chris whimpers truthfully that he doesn't have any information about Suzy. The lieutenant enters to further serve his purely expository purpose; here, he morosely tells Bosco that a detective is on the phone for him. Bosco picks up the call, and slowly, disappointment spreads across his mug.

As Sully approaches the office, he sees Yokas on the steps outside. "Tatiana came back this morning," he shares. Yokas can't hide her surprise. "I wake up, she's making eggs like she never left," marvels Sully. Her story is that she fled Chevchenko -- the Russian villain -- and went to Ithaca, where her father's relatives live. Sully didn't know about them, so he couldn't find Tatiana; she only returned to suss out whether it's safe to bring her son back to NYC. Yokas clearly thinks that Tatiana's full of shit, but she bites her tongue, because Sully has a cute foreign wife and is therefore an object of jealousy for almost every man alive. Why deprive him of that? It's just cruel. Yokas says she's most startled that Tatiana mentioned Chevchenko at all. "Only in passing," Sully admits. "There's a lot of stuff I haven't been able to ask her yet. She just got back this morning." Yokas carefully lies that she's really happy for Sully. Obviously, though, she's troubled for him.

Jimmy sings his way into the firehouse. I love a man with a song in his heart. His co-workers razz him for the cheery mood and the singing. "Can't I be in a good mood?" Jimmy smirks, then admits he's on cloud nine because of his blossoming relationship with Joey. "It was tough at first, but now it's...really good. Yeah, really good," Jimmy grins adorably before taking great pains to swig a Diet Coke. Oh, wow, that seals it. He's perfect: he shares my nectar of choice. The guys just gape at him, and then rib him again for singing off-key. Jimmy responds by warbling even worse.

Bosco skulks toward Susan and Yokas. Susan's Bad News Antenna shoots right up, and she lifts her head to meet Bosco's eye. "I just got a call," he chokes uncomfortably. "There's a girl they want you to identify." He looks away. "She's at the morgue," he finishes. Susan reacts by not reacting. Sherry Stringfield reacts by not acting. She just stares at him without anything going on in her eyes. Yokas lowers her head ruefully as Susan blinks hard and tips her head back, exhaling tensely. We fade to commercial with a lovely view of her neck.

Firehouse. Jimmy is playing gin rummy with the guys, and when the group is polled for a volunteer to rustle up some grub, Jimmy gleefully offers himself, claiming he wants the practice. "Joey's getting tired of my specialties," he explains. "How long does it take to get tired of toast?" teases one of the guys. Jimmy uses this as a springboard for Mr. Mom 101: Getting Day-Old Cheddar Off Your Skillet. He blathers that dishwashing liquids brag that they can cut grease, but they can't chip caked cheese off a pan. His friends look at him like he's just sprouted Mr. Clean on his left shoulder and Betty Crocker on his right, and they're engaging in a wild three-way orgy. Jimmy even starts talking about his struggles with certain persistent stains. Then, he wins the gin game. I want to sit on his lap. Everyone continues staring at him, confused. "What?" he asks. "Grease-cutting detergent?" one guy parrots.

Jimmy is saved by the bell: an occupied apartment building is on fire and the guys need to slide down a large metal pole for a while. And they do. Oh, my, they do. They load up the trucks and screech out to the emergency site.

At the morgue, Susan is pacing while Bosco and Yokas wait silently. The county medical examiner, Tony, introduces himself to Susan and kindly explains to her the procedure for identifying a body. He goes back into the morgue and she stays put; when she's ready, she taps on the glass window in front of her, and he yanks back the curtain to reveal the cadaver and see if we've got Bingo. Susan digests all of this as if in a fog, drifting toward the window. Bosco and Yokas flank her, the former darting sidelong worried glances at Susan that reek of the kind of metallic caring only a true heart of gold can muster. "You just take your time and you do this when you're ready," Yokas soothes her. "Would you ever be?" whispers Susan. Yokas turns away. "No," she admits throatily. Susan stares at the glass very intently, then grabs Yokas's arm for support. Bosco catches all this with his stunning peripheral vision, and appears to be a tad envious. You go, Bosco. Let crime be your dating game. Susan finally lets out an anguished sigh and lunges forward, tapping the glass. On cue, the curtains rip apart, and Susan yelps, covering her face and turning away, shaking. She's nauseated, and covers her mouth, her entire body shuddering alarmingly. This continues for a few beats. "No," Susan finally shouts. "No, it's not her!" She's smiling and crying. Bosco asks if she's positive, and she is; Yokas smiles, "You're all right?" Susan beams through her tears, and Bosco privately appears relieved on Susan's behalf.

The fire truck pulls up to the apartment building, and as the men head for the doors, a deluge of broken glass rains down upon them. They drop and try to take cover. "What the hell?" one of them shouts. A woman starts screaming for aid in Spanish; the men peer up and see her leaning out one of the windows on the flaming floor. They scream for her to stay put, which is the last thing she apparently wants to do. Afraid she'll jump, they leave some men on the ground, while Jimmy and his two pals grab some rope and head up to the roof.

Yokas approaches Lieutenant Exposition. "I heard it wasn't her," he says. "It was another little girl," Yokas retorts sadly. The Expository Lieutenant explains that the parents of Hayley Carter just reported her missing after two days, claiming she was last seen not six blocks from where Suzy disappeared. Shaking his head, Bosco marvels that these kids are hanging out so close to a drug den. Duh, Bosco -- obviously they're not kids. They're a merry and covert band of midget dealers. Yokas points out that the kids don't exactly choose to gather there; more likely, they're stranded there while one parent -- or both -- gets high inside the shooting gallery. Amazed, Bosco swears he's never noticed a cluster of children there before. "Well, we always go in looking for skels and junkies," Yokas notes. Suddenly, something dawns on both of them. "Maybe we scooped up the wrong people," she realizes. They bolt, leaving Lt. Expo to watch over Susan. "She's getting pretty worn out," Yokas says quietly. "That ID was hard on her." Susan is sitting across the room, zoned out and pained. Lt. E. promises to tend to Susan so they can go fishing in the sandbox. Excited, Bosco and Yokas bolt.

At the fire, our señorita continues to scream for help. "Ayudame, alguien," she moans. Jimmy shouts down at her from the roof that they're above her, and they're getting ready to help. The woman screams again. "Give us a second," Jimmy begs. But his pal, who we now know is called D.K., worriedly points out that there's nothing to which they can tie the rope; no makeshift anchor. "Please hurry," yells the woman, suddenly speaking English. Jimmy furrows his brow. I'm not worried. He's probably just trying to decide among three different ways of saving the day.

Bosco is appalled at the grotesque neighborhood flanking the shooting gallery, saddened that any kids can play out here, what with the barren patches of land, chain fences, graffiti, and abandoned, junked cars. "[Kids will] play wherever you put them," Yokas replies. They find two tots wandering around, and Yokas asks Bosco to let her speak with them first. She never comes out and says that he's a scary and impatient freak, but she doesn't have to -- that's why they're good partners. He knows. Bosco pulls over so that the kids don't run away at the sight of the patrol car, and Yokas arms herself with a photo of Chloe before getting out and strolling to the sorry excuse for a playground.

The kids are cute. They're stuffed into tight, wooly toques, and they're largely content to amuse themselves in a wasteland. It's kind of sad, but I'm still thinking about that lost and lonely stuffed toy, so I'm too busy to emote here. Yokas genially greets them and manages to draw out their names -- Shannon and Darren. Calmly, Yokas takes out the photograph and begins to ask the two tots whether they've seen the girl pictured there. "That's Suzy," Shannon blurts immediately. Yokas is stunned. "That is Suzy," she says carefully. "Have you seen her?" Shannon says that Suzy left with "the policeman" yesterday. Yokas thanks them, then quite sweetly offers to buy them some food. The kids are well-reared enough to be wary, but Yokas wins them over with the badge. You know, this is interesting. It's exactly the way Suzy went missing -- she wandered off with a policeman -- and here is Yokas, rewarding the kids for helping her out by encouraging them to wander off with a cop. Ooookay. Yokas ups the ante, telling them she'll turn on the siren. Shannon says she'll go as long as Yokas promises to bring her back. "I love cheeseburgers," offers Darren. Good lad.

At the fire scene, the panicked potential victim throws one leg over the window ledge, pretty much primed to plummet. "Stay inside," Jimmy shouts. Turning to D.K., he outlines the plan: they'll tie the rope around D.K., who will brace himself against the parapet and rely on Billy to push down on his torso to anchor him to the ground. It's a really dicey plan, but for whatever reason, all the men agree to try it. I think it's because they're heroes.

Yokas helps the kids into the patrol car and maternally reminds them to strap on their seatbelts. I love that cop cars still provide safety belts in their back seats, so that felons will enjoy state-of-the-art safety. Although I guess not wearing a seatbelt is technically illegal, but whatever. I gave myself a good chuckle, which is evidently very easy. Yokas shuts the door and walks around to the front of the car. "They know anything?" he asks. She: They know everything. They said the policeman came here yesterday and took Suzy. He: Policeman? She: The sister's husband...He: Is a cop from Jersey City. She: Bingo. He: It's a domestic thing. The revelations pour from them, and they excitedly head for their car doors. "Looks like if we find the husband, we all get to go home," Bosco breathes. We fade to commercial on the realization that nothing will ever be as simple as Bosco wants it to be.

A portly man wanders into the police station. He has an open and friendly face. He is Joe. We know this because Susan shouts, "Joe?" He's startled to see Susan, who makes a beeline for him while firing tense and intense queries about Suzy's whereabouts. "Where's Chloe?" Joe asks, confused. "DO YOU KNOW WHERE SUZY IS?" Susan yells. Bosco intervenes and introduces himself, asking Joe when he last laid eyes on his stepdaughter. "Oh my God, what happened to Suzy?" Joe gasps, eyes wide. Bosco looks perplexed. This isn't how he expected Joe to react. Bosco is a few beats behind us. We pegged this at the commercial break.

The firemen rig D.K. with ropes and climbing hooks. Jimmy fixes him with a confident look. "You go, I go, brother," grins D.K. Jimmy leaps over the wall and gets ready to climb down a rope that's attached to a man who's probably lighter than he. D.K. is lying down perpendicular to the roof wall, his feet planted against it and swathed in rope. The other man pretty much plans to throw his entire weight against D.K.'s torso. This is the part where I would run. Far away.

Bosco has Joe in an interrogation room. Joe learns that Chloe's still in the hospital, and miserably blames himself for this tragic turn of events. Bosco paces. "When is the last time you saw your stepdaughter?" he asks. "A week ago," answers Joe, agitated. "I knew this was gonna happen." It all pours out of him: they settled in Phoenix and then St. Louis, and each time, Chloe hit the crazy juice again and they had to skip town. Joe's sick and tired of running away from various communities that have enabled Chloe's relapse, and wants to stay settled in Jersey City. Watching through a two-way mirror, Susan bites her lip, struggling with this dark insight into her sister. Yokas, as is her custom, stands by silently. "I met somebody a couple months ago, and she's nice," confesses Joe. "Your wife's in the way?" Bosco asks. Joe peers up at him with sad brown eyes. "My wife is a junkie," he says plainly. "I've had her in and out of treatment, she stays clean for a few months and then she disappears, and I'm out looking for her on street corners in the middle of the night." Joe reveals that Suzy is the only thing that's kept him in the marriage this long. Susan closes her eyes, pained. Bosco finally asks if Joe took Suzy. "I was in Atlantic City with my girlfriend," he says guiltily. "Chloe figured it out, and we had a fight. It's all my fault."