There is no "previously on" segment for this episode. That's because nothing that came before it matters. Everything you once knew? Irrelevant. This changes everything. It's the episode your whole family should watch together. This episode will dye your hair and paint you red. It will take your virginity. And it will not hesitate to steal your car.
A fax shoots off the machine at the front desk. Everyone ignores it. I think they can sense its origin.
Dr. John "Isosceles" Carter and Dr. Susan "Look out, West Wing" Lewis stroll the hall while the latter fills in all the blanks about her Chloe storyline. Apparently, the authorities found her after she fled New York -- Chloe grabbed Suzy and took her to a cheap motel upstate, and the charge showed up on Joe's credit card. "He's driving up to find her," Susan shares. "Maybe I should, too. God knows what she's doing." She sighs in exasperated fatigue and closes her eyes, leaning against the wall in worry. Carter feigns interest while tending to a patient who has a fishing lure stuck in his mouth. I think. It never seems to matter. Susan frets that Suzy is missing school, and that Chloe could easily lose her in any custody case that might ensue. Carter suggests that Susan have her sister declared an unfit mother. "Then Joe gets Suzy," points out Susan. Carter shrugs that he may not want her. Susan's generally despondent about the whole thing, mostly because she senses it will get dragged on ad nauseam season when Suzy shows up demanding to be raised properly, then sinks into an abyss of heroin. And she'll be played by a new actress, and it will be Hallee Hirsh again.
An angry man crutches his way through the hallway. "Hey, lady, where's my leg?" he snarls at Susan. "I believe it was amputated," she snips, not looking at him. He's a grubby little dude named Toby, and he's embittered. "Not the real one, you moron," spits Toby. "My prosthetic!" Carter wonders innocently if Toby ever had a prosthetic. "Oh, yes. And she took it," Toby spits. "What would I want with your leg?" Susan asks, annoyed. "You tell me, you pervert," he leers. Carter steers Toby to a bed and says, quite gamely, "Can you describe the leg?" And all I can hear is The Geek -- Anthony Michael Hall -- asking Principal Vernon if he could describe the ruckus, right before The Rebel puts his head between The Prom Queen's legs. And I laugh, because I'm in a happier place. Which is not to say that "between Molly Ringwald's thighs" is my happy place. I just meant...oh, forget it. Basically, we get the sense that Toby is full of shit, and has come in before claiming that his prosthesis was stolen when, in fact, he never owned one. Carter promises to investigate, then quietly asks Haleh if they have any spare prosthetics to give Toby. "Somebody stole [his] leg again," he says. "Uh huh," Haleh growls knowingly. Isn't a prosthetic something fairly expensive to give away on a whim? Like, if I can spend $6000 on getting a fake molar jammed into my gum, then I'm fairly certain Carter shouldn't be handing out false limbs with nothing but a smile as payment. Unless he's accepting sexual favors. That slut.
At the front desk, Carter tries to use the computer, but Frank appears and says that the server's down because they're installing new software. Carter then asks for test results on a patient, and Frank grouchily points him to the fax machine. This is all an elaborate ruse to get Carter to grab A Hero's Last Fax (tm the forums) off the machine. It's very contrived. Carter skips off to the fax machine.
Pratt appears and asks Frank whether his match letter arrived; the match letter lets him know where he'll spend his residency. "Do I look like the postmaster?" Frank crabs. Gallant helpfully calls out that they hand out match letters at the Dean's office. "Yeah, I know that, genius," bitches Pratt. Apparently, he forgot to get his, and they're sending it to County General by messenger. Susan's stunned that Pratt forgot about it. "I had a date," he smarms. No, you didn't. Women wouldn't date that. Would they? Well, maybe women who are vegetables. And deaf.
Carter chirps, "Hey, when did this come in?" He brandishes A Hero's Last Words, and announces that it's a letter from Dr. Greene. "What does it say?" Susan asks, eagerly. "It says, 'Dear ER gang,'" Carter reads. "Oooh, we're a gang now?" Susan giggles, secretly hoping this will be a Pink Ladies thing where she gets a satin jacket and a pre-screened boyfriend in black leather. Oh, man, I'm getting Luka flashes, and it works. "We got a secret handshake and everything," Carter cracks.
Here it is. The letter. A Hero's Last Outpouring. You will be shocked, okay? So I want you to be prepared for that. Swaddle yourself in thick blankets to dull the shockage. (And if you prefer, you can click here to skip to the end of the recap, where I've included a full transcription of The Letter with no snark breaks.)
"Dear ER gang," Carter reads. "So here I am, out on the beach at 5:30 in the evening. Elizabeth is sitting with me drinking a juice, but I'm all about the Mai-Tais." A Hero's Last Tipple. Abby approaches. "What's he reading?" she whispers. Haleh tells her, and she stops walking and joins the congregation. "The sun is going down," Carter continues to read. "Rachel is dipping Ella's toes in the ocean as they head off on the quest for the perfect seashell." Abby smirks. "A 'wish you were here' would have done it," she grins. "He doesn't have to rub it in," Haleh agrees, laughing. Oh, but their merriment will be short-lived. There is a major shock coming. Major. Mark my words. Pun intended. Carter continues, "Weirdly enough, I find myself thinking, you know what would make this moment complete? Some jogger dropping to the sand, short of breath, so I can swoop in with a piece of bamboo to perform a nice, clean intubation, fix the guy up, and send him off with a good, simple dispo." Luka approaches and spies the assembled masses. "What's this?" he asks. "It's Mark," Susan shushes him. Luka settles back to enjoy The Gospel According to A Hero. But Abby wants to make a joke first. "The day I start fantasizing about critical procedures is the day I leave, too," she teases. Susan simply stands near Carter, smiling adoringly up at him, as if the spectre of Mark has perched on his shoulder and begun plucking out his hairs, one by one. "Which, I guess, is my way of saying that I miss you all, and that dingy place," Carter reads.
Malik interrupts to talk to Luka, who shushes him impatiently because Mark's words are too perfect and pure to be sullied. Oh, if only he knew what was coming. Brace yourself, sweet Luka. "Lots of times, I thought I should've chosen a different career, or gone into private practice -- something easier, less grinding, more lucrative," Carter reads. "But since I've been gone, I realized that outside of what I'm doing right now -- sitting on this beach with my family -- staying at County all those years doing what we do on a daily basis was..." Carter pauses here; then his voice catches in a warm way that indicates that he's touched and surprised to read they way Mark finishes that thought: "...the best choice I ever made. I know what you're thinking, but trust me, it's not so hard to appreciate once it's over." Carter stops and laughs. "I think that's the Mai-Tais talking," he giggles, eliciting a laugh from the enraptured masses. Except for Susan, who snaps, "Shut up, keep reading." To which Carter says, "Fine, you read it," and makes sure to give her a paper cut on the handoff. Sigh. No? Okay, fine, no. Instead, Carter obeys. "As much as part of me would like to believe that the ER can't go on with out me," he reads, "a smarter part realizes that you're an incredible group of doctors and nurses who approach every day with such skill, compassion, and thoroughness that when it comes to patient care, I know my absence will hardly be felt." Haleh snorts sadly and says, "Hmm, I'm not so sure of that." The camera, meanwhile, has panned across a group that includes Lily, Lydia, Luka, Malik, Gallant, Abby and Haleh. They're all, as you might expect, chugging A Hero's Last Drops of Wisdom.
"As for friendship and camaraderie, well, that's another matter," Carter reads, and here I swear I expected Mark to have written, "You are all a boorish bunch of freaks who hate each other. Learn to get along and stop trying to get inside each others' pants." Except then, this would be A Hero's Last Hypocritical Diatribe, and we can't have that. No, instead, Mark writes, "In order to leave, I had to go the way I did, but I wouldn't want any of you to think that that meant I didn't value each of you and the years that we worked together, or that I didn't have things of a more personal nature to say." The camera stops on a profile of Susan, facing right and in the foreground of the shot. "Most of you, I think, have an idea of what those things might be without me writing them down, but still," Carter reads. Susan blinks back tears, because she thinks this is a giant fucking cop-out and that he should've bloody well said some of those things in person before he pissed off to Hawaii to get drunk and surf.
There is silence. Luka can't stand it. He can't handle not hearing more. His mama always taught him to eat his Greenes and he wants to gobble all the droppings he can. "Go on," he urges Carter, who simply shrugs. "There's just a couple dots, and then, 'Ella is laughing and waving at me. Rachel's found her shell.'" Lily wonders if there's anything else to come. Carter leafs through the pages and finds a third sheet of paper, which he reads. His smile slowly fades and his expression darkens. Abby, in the background, jokes that Mark was trying to avoid sending macadamia nuts by sending a friendly fax instead. But Susan knows something's up. With dread in her eyes, she whispers, "What? What is it?" Carter is silent, stunned; then he exhales sharply with a bitter and sad smile. "This is from [Elizabeth]," he says. "Mark died this morning at 6:04 AM." No one really registers any surprise except Abby, who looks like she was caught off-guard in the middle of another joke. Her mouth hangs open slightly. Susan accepts this quietly, swallowing hard. "The sun was rising, his favorite time of day," Carter reads from Elizabeth's message. "I sent this on so that you might know he was thinking of you all, and that he appre--" Carter falters, choking a tad. "Appreciated knowing you would remember him well," he finishes, his voice breaking.
A fax? A death fax? What a pile of bull. And The Letter? The "moving" letter in which he says deeply important things to the ER gang? I think that letter went to the wrong fax number, because this wasn't it. But a fax? How graceless. Obviously, it gets the handwritten letter there faster, but couldn't she call and tell them it was en route? Elizabeth could and should have sucked it up enough to realize that at least Susan, if not others, would be deeply affected by this, given the supposed depth of her caring for Mark. And I'm still disgusted that Mark wouldn't take the time -- before Hawaii, or during -- to call people and say more personal farewells. He probably knew he wasn't going to see any of them again, even if his condition hadn't suddenly turned for the worse. Ugh. Annoying people, all of them.
Back in the ER, Abby deflates a tad, Luka stares at the floor, and Susan tenses. Carter hands The Letter to Frank so that he can post the whole thing on the bulletin board at the front door. Slowly, the group disperses, resuming business as usual. Susan is the only one who remains motionless, staring off down the hall without focusing on anything. She isn't crying; she's just totally still. Slowly, she turns her head and watches Frank post the three pages -- two from Mark, one from Elizabeth -- on the corkboard. They flutter. We go to the credits wondering why Mark and Elizabeth appear to have exactly the same handwriting, and whether she forged his goodbye and faked his death, and whether they're actually living as con artists who fleece rich people on the Italian Riviera.
The paramedic leaps out of the ambulance. "Auto versus cement truck," she shouts. Ah, a classic battle. During the crash, a ten-year-old girl in the back seat of the car flew into the front and hit the airbag, apparently; her name is Melissa, and as she's unloaded, Susan greets her kindly and establishes that the girl wasn't knocked unconscious, and that her chest hurts. Her father, a thirty-six-year-old named Dan, got banged up in the driver's seat, and tells Carter that his right leg and throat are in pain. "Has his voice changed?" Carter urgently asks the medic. "Maybe a little," the medic says. I should hope so. It's a bit late for puberty. Dan rasps, "Is my daughter here?"
Trauma Green. Susan tells Melissa to follow the flashlight with her eyes; Gallant shouts out some stats, and Haleh shares that Melissa's blood pressure is cycling. Susan tries to reassure Melissa through use of the word "sweetie," but it doesn't really work, and also that's the name of my friend's bird sister. Seriously. His mom called him one day and said, "You have a sister!" and she was referring to their recent acquisition of a parrot named Sassy, who became Sweetie after they taught her to meow like a cat. I don't know. They live in a small town. "Where's my dad?" Melissa interrupts me, weeping. Susan calmly says that he's being helped by another doctor, and instructs her patient to hold still while they remove the neck brace the paramedics put on her. "Oh, good girl," coos Susan once it's off. Ew. She's a bit smarmy today. Abby bursts in to fetch the fiber-optic scope, and the double doors don't swing shut behind her. Melissa turns her head and sees her father knocked out on a gurney and looking very weak indeed. "Dad!" she whines. Abby exits and again the doors don't close. "Dad!" screams Melissa. Susan quietly urges Abby to close the doors, and she does, taking us into...
...Trauma Yellow, where Carter is freaking out because Dan isn't doing well and they need to clear an airway. Abby examines him and curses, "Oh, God, large hematoma right in front of the trachea." Carter can't believe his bad luck -- if he cuts through it, blood will obstruct his view of and access to any airway. Abby starts to stress. "What do you want to do?" she asks, expectantly. Carter thinks. "Give me the scope," he finally says. Right then, Dr. Robert "Rocket" Romano enters to save the day. Somebody should get this man a cape. Abby gives him the bullet, and Romano is stunned that Carter hasn't "criked" him yet -- this is, I think, some procedure involving piercing the throat in a certain place to form an emergency airway, but I'm not sure why it's a "crike" and not a "tracheotomy," but I also sort of don't care and that's why I'm not a doctor. That, and the fact that I hate blood and innards. Carter insists that he can't crike Dan yet because of that hematoma. This is Carter being hesitant and not making snappy decisions. Romano takes control and prepares to cut Dan's throat. Carter, working the fiber-optic scope down Dan's throat, screams for Romano to wait. "His heart rate's 60. Most chief residents know that means he'll arrest," Romano says, ignoring Carter's plea and cutting. Blood squirts onto Carter's lab goggles. Romano steps up with some snappy procedure he knows, jabs a giant tube into Dan's throat, and voilà, you have a "field airway," which makes me wonder if he might've trained once as a paramedic. You can hear air rushing out the tube. "A little less whining, a little more action time, Dr. Carter," Romano lectures blithely, leaving. Carter looks frustrated and cute. But don't worry -- I sense he'll learn something very important about himself before this hour is over.
Lydia enters Trauma Green and calls Susan to the telephone. It's Chloe calling. We then jump to the middle of the conversation, where Susan is lecturing Chloe while tacking Melissa's x-ray up to a lighted board. "You disappear with Suzy after almost killing yourself, you don't call for three weeks...." There's a pause as Chloe answers something we don't hear. "Yeah, well, I hope so," Susan spits. We learn that Joe took Suzy back while Chloe is in an out-patient program for her drug addiction. Suddenly, Susan looks up at Melissa's x-ray and curses. "I have to go," she tells Chloe hurriedly. "Chloe, I have to go." Susan jots down Chloe's phone number on her hand and adds a hesitant "yes, I love you, too," before slamming down the phone and staring sadly at the x-ray. Gallant approaches; Susan tells him to forget everything they were doing with Melissa and page Pediatric Oncology. "[She has a] calcified mass in the lung field," Susan says. Gallant blinks. "She has cancer?" he gapes. Susan nods, then leaves to find little Melissa a cheap plane ticket to Hawaii, where all tumors congregate.
Weaver walks up to George, her patient who cut his hand. He's played by Chris Burke of Life Goes On. Is ER going to go ahead and hire the entire cast of that show? I never liked it, but I'll always enjoy Chris Burke after hearing his stirring rendition of the tune "Eating is Fun, Eating is Serious," which is a stunning truism. Weaver is impatient with him, stitching up his hand and brusquely ordering him not to touch it. He whines that it's itchy. "I'm done," Weaver says curtly. "Keep it dry, come back in ten days." While George blathers on and on about itchy sutures, Weaver catches sight of Romano staring at The Letter. All the background noise fades away as she watches his reaction, which is to put his hands on his hips and exhale softly, staring at his shoes for a second. We know what he's thinking: He's alone in this now, carrying the mantle for all bald men, and the least he can do for his species is try to nail Elizabeth once the proper mourning period has expired. Turning around slowly, Weaver snaps back into reality when she notices that George is picking at his stitches. She blows up at him. "I'm sorry," he says. "I don't care if you're sorry, I don't care if you're stupid," she screams. "You don't listen. If you don't listen, you don't heal!" Luka quietly appears and promises Weaver that he'll handle this so she can step away for a second. "I'm sorry," Weaver chokes. "I'm sorry, George." She flees into a room and throws her cane angrily against the wall, sinking onto the bed and weeping, her head in her hands. We go to commercial wondering why Susan hasn't done this yet, and whether it means her heart is a cold, black piece of coal.
In a supply area, Abby fiddles absently with a bottle of medication. Susan appears to swab her ear. "I don't know why I bought hoops," Susan grumbles. "They were cute," Abby suggests. "The three-year old in [Exam] Four thought so, too," Susan complains. Ouch. After a pregnant pause, Abby asks, "Did you think it was going to happen so soon?" Susan sighs that Mark had stopped treatment, so it stood to reason he'd kick off expediently. "I know, but still, he was just here working," Abby marvels. "I keep expecting to see him walk around a corner or something." Susan clears her throat and vomits up a Death is Hell platitude: "He was thirty-eight years old -- too soon by any calculation." Oh, Susan, your thoughts are so deep. Hee, I was going to say "weighty," but given the uproar months ago about her size, I held back. Abby says that her shift is over, but she doesn't feel like going home just yet. "What do you say we go out and get plastered?" Susan grins. Abby laughs. "I'd say that's an appropriate response," she smiles. And with that, her will power hops a plane to Tahiti and never looks back.
Weaver enters to tell Susan something about a patient; Susan exposits that she's almost done, and that Carter will be on for a few more hours to handle anything else that comes up. Pause. "I'm sorry about Mark," Weaver says sincerely, and with some difficulty. "Yeah," nods Susan, still emotionless and chilly. And impolite. Why are people on TV so rude? Maybe Susan agrees with me, because as her boss walks away, Susan gets an epiphany and calls out an invitation to the Lava Lounge to get slammed. Does every city have a Lava Lounge? Is that some kind of rule, just like the one that states every city must have a Cesar Chavez Street? Weaver awkwardly thanks her, but says she can't come. She isn't convincing. "Sure you can," Susan says. "I have other plans, but thanks anyway," Weaver chokes, fleeing.
Haleh pokes her head into the supply area to share that Romano is putting a chest tube into Melissa. "I thought I cancelled that consult," freaks Susan, running to the trauma room.
Trauma Green. Romano speaks soothingly to Melissa while he works on her chest tube. "Where's her CT?" he asks Susan. "Oncology has it," she says. "Incidental finding, likely rhabdomyosarcoma." Woo! It rolls off the tongue! I'm gleeful. Feel the glee. Romano gets into the groove as well: "Did she have a hemo-pneumo?" Say it out loud. You won't be sorry, I promise. I want to boogie. So, Susan discovered a potentially malignant tumor in Melissa, but Romano didn't know about it when he tried to tube her, and so it's caused some bleeding into her lung. Or, she had that anyway. I'm not sure. But they go ahead and finish the intubation, and Romano whips Melissa out of there and up to surgery to get fixed. Not the way pets get fixed, mind you.
Sandy and Kerry walk the stairs at the El station, waiting for the train. Sandy is trying to convince her girlfriend to blow off their plans and go celebrate with her co-workers. "No," Kerry says lamely. Sandy insists that Kerry should be with her staff tonight of all nights. "They were being polite," Kerry self-pities. "They're your friends," argues Sandy. "They're people I work with," corrects Kerry, a distinction she's made before and which says a lot about her attitude at the hospital. Sandy contends that it's a good way to handle trauma; when they lose a firefighter, they get sloshed. This plays into my lifelong theory that there's nothing margaritas can't do. "It's more for the unit than the guy who's gone," Sandy explains. Kerry shrugs as they board the train. "Mark and I always butted heads," Kerry says sadly, sitting down with her back to the window. Sandy perches in a spot at a ninety-degree angle to Kerry and leans forward, listening with concern. "I was always trying to maneuver him, gain some kind of edge, like it had to be a competition. And he just wanted to do his job well and go home," whispers Kerry morosely. "I've known this was coming for a while, and I never imagined that I would feel like this." She looks broken. Kerry? It's just Mark. Maverick lived on and triumphed without him, and so will you. Sandy closes her eyes and says with feeling, "You've lost a friend." Kerry exhales shakily and faces her girlfriend. "I think I have," she realizes.
Carter and Pratt hover over Al's bedside. "All I got out of him was that they put him on dialysis for three days upstairs once, and he hated it," Pratt says. "Then he passed out." Carter squints. "As in vagaled?" he asks. "As in 'old,'" Pratt snorts. He goes on about the sheer size of the man's chart, underscoring that he's a regular patient, and asks Carter to cough up the cash because Al's glucose is way over four hundred. Al is also altered enough to have called Pratt "son," and might be uremic. "Your basic 'mimp,'" Pratt concludes. Carter looks at him like he's insane. "MMP -- multiple medical problems," Pratt clarifies, as if again, Carter is old and stupid. "You just make this stuff up!" Carter groans. He orders up a bunch of tests, then changes his mind; Pratt ribs him about this cruelly. Suddenly, Carter's all indecisive, as if the very promise of a living, breathing Mark gave him a poise and certainty that has been cruelly yanked from him. I hate, hate, hate that. Don't rob Carter of his skills just because some owlish walking phallus kicked the Hawaiian bucket.
Frank hands Pratt his match letter. "Where was it?" he asks. "Filed under 'N' for 'ne'er-do-well,'" Frank snots. Thank God somebody recognizes that Pratt's a prat. Carter curiously wonders what Pratt's top choice was. "I ain't saying," Pratt says gruffly. Gallant, ready to leave, asks Carter if they'll see him that night at Lava Lounge with Luka, Haleh, Susan, and Abby. Naturally, when Carter hears the last name, his ears and his brain -- you know which brain I mean -- both perk up. "Yeah, maybe, I dunno," Carter bluffs, even though we all know he's going to show up and try to save Abby's drunk soul before having his earnest way with her. Carter notices that Pratt is mightily pissed. He got his last choice in the match. "Where is it?" Carter asks. "Here," Pratt gapes, dumbfounded, unable to believe his terrible luck. We, too, are unable to believe ours. Carter looks up, amused. "Good for us," he sighs. "I'd better be getting my damn locker," Pratt grumbles, stomping off in a right tizzy. Oh, grow up, dildo.
Carter inadvertently turns toward The Letter and catches sight of Dr. Jing-Mei "Deb" Chen reading it. She meets his eye despondently, and Carter nods grimly. They each know what the other is thinking, and silently agree that it's sad Mark clearly flunked Handwriting in second grade.
A bleached-blond bartender leers at Susan, noticing Chloe's number still scrawled on her hand. "You haven't had a drink yet, and you've already got somebody's number?" he grins, unfortunately making no excuses for the hideous Hawaiian-print shirt he's wearing. The whole bar is Tiki-tacky -- neon lights, hula music, faux wood. No parrots yet, but it's early. The bartender presents Susan with two gigantic bowl-glasses of red punch, stuffed with fruit on sticks and umbrellas. "Two Sacrificial Virgins," he says. Susan's eyes bug out. "How much alcohol's in there?" she gapes. "Enough to make you forget you're being thrown into a volcano," he answers. "Oh, I get it," she says. "Uh, I think." Abby approaches to help, spies the virginal vats of voodoo juice, and gets a gleam in her eye that says, "May the puking commence." Abby and Susan tease each other about how stupid the bar is, and how they left their coconut bras at home; Susan says she picked Lava Lounge because Mark had a birthday there once, and it seemed right to remember him there. Not sure how the Sacrificial Virgin is apropos where Mark's concerned, but I'm certain I'd prefer to die ignorant of the connection.
The ugly bartender, who looks a bit like Anne Heche's ugly husband, flirts with Susan a little. Carter enters at that second, and she greets him warmly. "Hey, Carter, I thought you were going to blow us off," she laughs. Carter squints at the bar and dryly wonders who picked it. "She's outside," Susan smiles. Carter plays dumb, but...
....we cut outside to Abby sitting on the porch, and within seconds, Carter exits the bar and watches her quietly. She knows he's there. "John Carter makes an appearance," she says grandly. "Abigail Lockhart sits alone," he replies. Still facing forward, she giggles that she watched him circle the parking lot twice. "Thanks for yelling out directions," he grins. "I didn't want to encourage you. I don't think you should be hanging out in bars," she says, clearly tipsy. "Great letter, though...I especially enjoyed the surprise ending." Her mood has taken a turn for the glum, and Carter crosses to sit to her. "Suddenly antisocial?" he asks, peering quizzically at her. She wriggles under his stare and drunkenly cackles, "You just missed my table dance." Awkward pauses. Abby stares off into the distance and puffs on her cigarette. "How many lives do you think he saved?" she asks suddenly. "Hard to say," ponders Carter. "One per shift, on average, five shifts a week for ten years...Two or three thousand." Abby smiles sadly. "Forget Superman," she whispers. "I'll take Mark Greene." Not in tights, though, Abby. Not in tights. And let's ignore the nausea building in my stomach, because it's a tidal wave of vomit that could take out this fine nation. "If I knew you felt that way," Carter says, "I would've shaved my head long ago." Don't even joke about it. Please. You don't want to go there. Plagues live there.
As soon as that pointed, wistful flirtation pops out of his mouth, Carter bites his lip, as if trying to suck the words back inside. He is nervous, staring away from Abby and getting mildly pissed at himself. Abby swings her head around to stare at him warmly, appraisingly, hanging her head down a little as she cocks it and peeks at him. Slowly, she reaches up with one hand and grabs his cheek, turning his face toward herself. Her hand lingers. They gaze at each other with a glint of hunger, a trace of nerves, and a lot of heat. It's the first time I've ever actually seen chemistry between Carter and Abby; it seems to be here in force, and it looks like they're about to kiss each other. But they don't. "Are you okay?" she whispers instead. Carter nods wordlessly and one or both of them leans forward a fraction as if to commence tongue suckage. But again, no. Abby smiles and turns away, then shoots her head back around to look at him again. Carter leaps off the porch and stands in front of her, taking her hands. "Come on," he says. "Let's get out of here." Abby chuckles. "And ditch our friends?" she asks. "They'll get over it," Carter says intensely. Abby slides off the porch and stumbles a bit; he catches her and they start walking to his car, hand in hand. "I have a free Tiki mask in there," she slurs. "I'll buy you another one," he says evenly.
Okay, pause here. Now, what really cheeses me off is that the Lava Lounge scene was a good opportunity to show the cast members really talking to each other outside the ER, and trying to console each other and just connect on a different level. We could've seen Kerry trying to relate to everyone, the awkwardness of Sandy being there, people's acceptance of them as a duo, and all that good stuff...but we got robbed of it. I feel like that is lazy of the writers. They got everyone there, then just sort of stranded them because they couldn't figure out how these people would actually talk to each other and what they would say.
Chen bursts into the diner -- yup, it's gotta be Doc Magoo's, the only restaurant in town -- and is relieved to find Carter. "I was going to page you, but Jerry said you're on at 7," she says hurriedly. Abby's startled that Carter's working in an hour and never mentioned it, but Carter shrugs. "I've done it before," he says. Aw. Chen breaks the news that something's up with Al, and that he needs Carter.
In Al's room, everything's awry and it sounds like no one knows quite what is happening or what to do. All we can tell is that his condition is worsening. Carter clarifies for Chen that Al is pretty much a special, private patient of Mark's, and that none of them is quite sure how to handle him. Al decides to give them a hint: his pulse and blood pressure plummet. Carter begins compressions, and Chen calls for an intubation tray. They charge the paddles to 200 and shock him, and it works. I should point out that he hasn't had any lidocaine because Chen couldn't find a way to administer it, so Al just got shocked into a giant plate of Ouch pie. "Tough old bird," Carter says admiringly. Chen points out that Al is trying to speak. Carter leans down and holds his hear just over Al's mouth. "Dr. Greeeeeeeene," he rasps, displaying a strong affinity for vowels. "No tubes and no shocks." Carter stands up grimly and announces that, quoth the patient, "No more."
Susan waits tensely outside the OR. She's without a stitch of makeup, her hair is down and slightly mussed, and she's staring at Romano as he finishes up with Melissa. Sherry Stringfield looks better when they don't put extra makeup on her. Romano exits the OR, fatigued. "Did you get it?" Susan breathes tensely, because the war against cancer is America's war, people, and this time, it's personal. "It bled like stink," Romano bitches. "Control was impossible around the rib cage, I was inside and outside her chest simultaneously." Susan prods, "Did you get it?" Romano sighs. "Yeah, I got it," he announces. Susan is delighted that he saved Mark...er, I mean, "Melissa." Susan exposits that Melissa's father is fine and due to be extubated in the afternoon. Romano visits the water fountain to splash water on his face, and marvels that getting hit by a cement truck turned out to be that girl's greatest blessing because if that cancer had gone undiscovered for much longer, she'd have had barely a 50% chance of surviving it. "You should get some sleep," he says helpfully. "You look like crap." But Susan's still tense. "Are you sure you got it?" she urges. Romano is sure. Susan nods, relieved, and gazes fondly at little Melissa on her gurney, praying she'll grow up into a fine young man with spectacles and a penchant for misery.
Carter and Chen pedeconference about Al, the former noting that the only consistency in his treatment is that he doesn't want anything done to him. Chen reasons that if he had that discussion with Mark, then Mark should've damn well added that note to Al's chart. "Maybe Dr. Greene expected to be here," Carter retorts meaningfully, and his expression says, "Go flog yourself." Chen looks guiltily at the ground, aware that she just mentally cussed out a dead man and figuring she'll be haunted for that. She throws up her hands and says, "Fine. He's your patient."
Carter and Chen are interrupted by the sound of Pratt arguing with a flamboyant Italian grandmother, who brought in a young boy. She's waving her hands and yelling urgently at him, and Carter and Chen resort to rock-paper-scissors to see who's stuck saving his ass. Chen shoots rock -- hee, that sounds funny -- and Carter picks scissors, which is bull, because he should be squeamish about sharp objects. Carter's totally not a scissors guy. He's paper all the way. So, Carter loses. Except that if you think about it, scissors should always win, because although rock smashes scissors, scissors stab the rock-wielder. Anyway, Carter trundles over to Pratt and dons his best "What's All This, Then?" smile. "I don't speak Portuguese," Pratt snaps. "That's Italian," Carter points out. "That either," Pratt snorts. He did manage to figure out that the grandmother was babysitting for the tot when he woke up with a rash on his face. Carter reaches out and rubs the rash, then tastes it. It's the sweet flavor of youth. "Strawberry," he announces. Pratt is stunned. "Jelly, jam, cereal...." Carter supplies. Pratt is embarrassed.
So, having been shown up by Carter, Pratt decides this is the right time to ask for a favor. "Know anybody at Northwestern?" he asks. Carter does, but doesn't say who; Pratt asks him to call and put in a good word, and get them to admit they erred and accept him to the hospital. "No, because I'd have to believe it," Carter replies coolly. Bravo! Amen! Hooray! Praise be! And testify, my son! Pratt resents this. "Come on, you know I'm good," Pratt insists. "Too good to be wasted at County?" Carter asks sarcastically. "We're underserviced and we need doctors. For better or for worse, we drew you." Carter hands Pratt twenty bucks for the bet on Al's blood sugar, compliments him on the catch, and buzzes off into the lounge so that The Sultan of Suck can marinate in the juices of his own ripe ego.
Susan is in the lounge, sobbing. Finally. Carter walks in on this, and Susan leaps out of her chair. "I shouldn't have sat down," she chuckles through her tears. "If I don't sit down, I won't cry." Unless you're at a bar with a sacrificial virgin in front of you, in which case you're drier than the Sahara. Susan cracks that she wants to pretend Mark moved to the South Pacific and lived happily ever after while washing that ER right out of his hair -- oooooh, no, sorry, Mark, not possible. Back luck, buddy. Carter melodramatically says that, in a sense, Mark did end up that way. Susan, struggling to control her emotions, wanders over to the coffee machine and blubbers about Melissa finding her cancerous growth purely by happenstance. "Mark walked the halls of a hospital every day, and didn't know about his brain tumor until he presented with symptoms," she marvels. "Well, we save who we can," Carter whispers, staring sadly into space. "It has to make more sense than that," frets Susan. She gulps that she misses Mark already, despite having vanished for five years and not keeping in touch regularly then. "I miss him," she repeats, her voice catching in her throat. "I thought he'd always, always be here." Sing it, sister. For a while there, so did I. Those were the worst of times. Luckily for Susan, Carter has just finished reading Ten Lies You Can Tell To People in Mourning, and barfs up the platitude, "It's good to miss him -- it's missing him that keeps him here." According to a few forum posters, that line has been used verbatim twice before, at least once by Mark. So evidently, Mark is already inhabiting Carter's body, and he's got some serious balding to do. Carter hugs Susan tightly while she bites back more sniffles. "You should write for Hallmark," she suggests.
Weaver walks in on the embrace, and starts to back out uncomfortably, apologizing. "No, I should get back to work," Susan says, wiping her eyes. "I have a pilonidal cyst in Five waiting to be lanced." Weaver cracks, "Give it to Pratt. He needs the humility." Ha! "It'll be cathartic," Susan says as a thank-you. She exits.
Kerry walks to Mark's locker and opens it while Carter watches. He draws out of her that she snagged the locker combination from the personnel department and needs to give the locker to Pratt, in addition to hoping this will spare Elizabeth the painful chore of cleaning out Mark's things. "Heard you had trouble with Romano yesterday," she says lightly. "He was right," admits Carter. "I took too long making a decision." Weaver pauses and levels him with her gaze. "Well, you don't have that luxury any more," she says. "Never really thought I did," he retorts, not unkindly. Kerry clarifies that because Mark's gone on to the great Hair Club in the sky, Carter -- as the doctor who's been at County longest -- will be expected to fill the void. "Big void," Carter murmurs. "Yes, it is," Kerry says with feeling. She stops, turns her head, and rests her face against the door of Mark's locker. "I can't do this," she whimpers. "Will you do this?" Carter nods, engrossed. Kerry thanks him, with difficulty, and hightails it out of the lounge.
Slowly, Carter makes his way to the open locker. In one swift motion, he wrenches A Hero's Nameplate off the door and empties A Hero's Worthless Knick-Knacks into the cardboard box Kerry provided. Mark has approximately five things in his locker. Carter spies Mark's stethoscope, and with a grin removes his own and drops it into the box, because Rachel is a giant sucker, and anyway, who the hell cares if she or Ella or Elizabeth get to keep anything of Mark's? Chopin's lesser-known master work, "Channeling My Dead Colleague's Soul in D Minor," swells as Carter grabs A Hero's Last Standard-Issue Stethoscope and caresses it, fondles it, massages it, commits other unmentionable molestations to it, and then snakes it around his own neck, a self-satisfied, post-coital smile smoldering on his lips. He is filling the void. His hairline, filling the void a little too well, begins to recede on the spot. Gently, Carter closes the locker, and we fade to commercial wondering if, as the new Mark, Carter will have to be neutered.
Outside in the ambulance bay, Carter shakes out a yellow trauma gown as he waits for the rig to arrive. Abby exits, already clad in her gear. "Shotgun to the face?" she grimaces. "This is going to be fun." Carter jokes that it's cheaper than plastic surgery. Abby moves behind him under the auspice of helping him tie up his gown, but really she's checking the freshness date on his buns. "How's the bite?" she asks. "I'm not howling at the moon," he teases. "How'd it go?" Abby immediately says, "What?" and she's genuinely not getting his drift. "The meeting," he prompts her. "It was boring," Abby says generically. But I think her first answer was too quick, and her second too trite, to have been sincere. I don't think she actually went, or if she did, she ducked in and didn't stay. She gets defensive when he's surprised that she actually went. I still think she's full of more shit than a shit sandwich on sourdough-rye shit bread. "You went for you, or because you promised me you would?" he asks seriously. Abby is silent as the sirens scream and edge closer. "Is this going to look like hamburger?" she asks, grossed out. "More like ground chuck," he answers. There's another pause. "I went for you," Abby finally admits, bolting to the ambulance. Carter stares after her and appears flattered, but he shouldn't be, because it's obvious she's not committed to her own recovery for the right reasons.
As Abby heads into the ambulance, the paramedic hops out and warns Carter that he'll need a lot more people. "Why?" Carter asks, innocently.
Cut to Trauma Green, where a mangled man is twitching so hard he's actually blurry. His torso is bathed in crimson, as is his face; we can see evidence of total structural ruin, but the strategically placed rags mopping up the blood flow obscure the view of anything truly gross. But it's nasty enough. Susan and Luka are pitching in, with almost everyone manning a limb and trying to keep the quivering man as still as possible. The paramedic shares that they got in some morphine before he yanked out his own IV. Abby shouts for the guy to keep still; when your face is in pieces and riddled with bullets, and you can't breathe, and your entire blood supply is coming out one of seven different gaping holes, a gentle "hold still" is extremely helpful. At least, in my experience. Malik wonders whether the convulsions are from PCP. "Or the gunshot wound," suggests Susan. The guy needs to breathe, so Abby hands Gallant the bag and orders him up around the victim's head. Gallant, whose head has been turned away the whole time, takes the bag with a sickened expression. "Wait, are we tubing him, or criking him?" Abby asks, confused. "Crike," Susan says. "Tube," Carter says at the same time. They look at each other, and Carter says he just wants to take a peek down the airway. Gallant stations himself by the head and grimaces, ill. "Oh, he's aspirated too much blood," groans Carter. He yells at Gallant to hold the man's jaw open -- I think; he says "unroof" -- while he tries to tube him. Holding his breath -- which is a cute touch, because that's totally what I would do -- Gallant reaches in there with a pained expression and does his job while Susan holds the guy's tongue down. "I can't do this," Gallant sputters. "Don't you move, Gallant! Just abduct the mandible!" yells Carter. "I need to sit down," chokes Gallant urgently. "Don't move!" Carter shouts again. The camera pushes in on Gallant getting sicker and sicker and greener and greener, until finally Carter yells, "I'm in! Let go, Gallant!" Gallant complies and whirls around, hunched over and panting, still queasy. Carter shouts out more orders and then kindly suggests that Gallant escape outside to get some air. Susan and Carter watch him leave. "Nice work, John," Susan praises him. Carter bites back a smile, and resists the temptation to lick and squeeze Mark's stethoscope out of gratitude for Greenifying him.
Evidently, we flash forward a few months, because suddenly it's summer. Susan's treating a guy who singed his own eyebrow at a barbecue. She and Abby then gripe about the broken air conditioning. "Why did I buy these shoes?" Susan gripes. "They were cute," Abby replies. Suddenly, two traumas come in and divert everyone's attention; the camera hones in on The Letter, yellowed and minus its extra thumbtacks, flapping in the breeze of the oscillating fans. A gust catches it and blows it away, and with it, any last vestige of Mark. Bless you, oscillating fans. Bless you.
And, the following is a complete transcript of A Hero's Last Musings. Enjoy:
Dear ER Gang: So here I am, out on the beach at 5:30 in the evening. Elizabeth is sitting with me drinking a juice, but I'm all about the mai-tais. The sun is going down. Rachel is dipping Ella's toes in the ocean as they head off on the quest for the perfect seashell. Weirdly enough, I find myself thinking, 'You know what would make this moment complete? Some jogger dropping to the sand, short of breath, so I can swoop in with a piece of bamboo to perform a nice, clean intubation, fix this guy up and send him off with a good, simple dispo.' Which I guess is my way of saying that I miss you all, and that dingy place. Lots of times, I thought I should've chosen a different career, or gone into private practice -- something easier, less grinding, more lucrative. But since I've been gone, I realized that outside of what I'm doing right now -- sitting on this beach with my family -- staying at County all those years doing what we do on a daily basis was the best choice I ever made. I know what you're thinking, but trust me, it's not so hard to appreciate once it's over.As much as part of me would like to believe that the ER can't go on with out me, a smarter part realizes that you're an incredible group of doctors and nurses who approach every day with such skill, compassion and thoroughness that when it comes to patient care, I know my absence will hardly be felt. As for friendship and camaraderie, well, that's another matter. In order to leave, I had to go the way I did, but I wouldn't want any of you to think that that meant I didn't value each of you and the years that we worked together, or that I didn't have things of a more personal nature to say. Most of you, I think, have an idea of what those things might be without me writing them down, but still.... Ella is laughing and waving at me. Rachel's found her shell.