Previously on ER: Whatever. And also, feh.
The small gray blob of a new fetus throbs inside a womb, as seen by ultrasound. We get a tight shot of Dr. Kerry Weaver announcing, "There he is. See the heartbeat?" The woman with her is confused. She just sees a gray blob. As the camera pulls out, we're treated to the alarming reality that Useless Confused Wench is the doctor treating Kerry, meaning it's slightly off that she can't read an ultrasound. The gray-blob baby, then, is Kerry's. I wonder who the father is. Because going solely on resemblance, the Weaver fetus -- the Weavus -- in its current state looks a bit like Mark. Useless Confused Wench, M.D., notes Kerry's pronoun choice and asks if she's hoping for a boy. "Not particularly," Weaver says serenely, smiling adoringly at Weavus. "A boy would be nice, but I don't care. I don't even really want to know." They agree that having a healthy baby overrides the importance of the penis vs. vagina debate. Kerry is glowing.
Dr. Jing-Mei "Deb" Chen treats a patient while med students Gallant and Erin Harkins observe. She's quizzing them, and they reply with animated competitiveness, each jumping on the question in the hope of scoring the first right answer. I believe the polite word for Erin is "perky." Gallant looks a mixture of amused and annoyed. "Settle down," Chen smirks. "This is a teaching hospital, not Medical Jeopardy™." Dr. Susan Lewis enters tiredly and crabs that she can't find any doctors. "Carter's stuck in triage, Pratt's on at midnight, and Weaver's MIA," reports Chen. "What else is new," mutters Susan. "Kovac is sleeping," Chen offers. "With who [sic]?" Susan spits. Not me, that's for damn sure, and don't think I haven't noticed, Goran. Can't you fight for us? Chen bites back a laugh, expositing that Luka's back from his fleeting suspension and is cat-napping in the lounge. Meow, baby. Susan invites Erin to assist in casting a cranky old lady's fracture. "Sure," Erin says too quickly. Chen fires off a question at Gallant, which Erin answers as she exits the room. Gallant shakes his head.
The old woman they're casting is not so much cranky as she is clammy. As in, an ex-woman. She'd deader than a parrot nailed to its perch. "I need a crash cart in here!" Susan yells futiley. A young nun enters. "Sister Beth?" she asks, worried. "She was a nun?" Erin gasps, as if nuns don't die in her teacher's-pet world. "Oh boy," Susan mutters. We fade to black hoping that this show crosses over with The Simpsons so that Ned Flanders's Satan can deliver some fiery redemption.
Paul "Don Cheadle" Nathan gabs forty winks of his own in a private room. Malik wakes him up. "Shake a leg, come on, Corday's looking for you, man," he says. "Shake a leg"? That seems a little crass, considering. Nathan gets up stiffly, looking as if he's having trouble shaking anything.
Frank gruffly asks Susan to move to a different computer. "I don't want you anywhere near me when God strikes you down for killing that nun," he whines. Whatever, Frank. Maybe God found Sister Beth's humor refreshing and smote her so he could have some good conversation and some serious climb-every-mountain opera singing in Heaven. Susan's pissed, and contends she didn't kill the eighty-seven-year-old sick woman who just happened to have pledged her life to the sweet baby Jesus. "What, you only save the healthy ones?" he crabs. "She stroked out," shouts Susan. "Try not to be twelve, try not to be twelve," I mutter to myself. "I'm not the one doing the judging," Frank shrugs.
As Nathan searches for Elizabeth, Chen enters with a John Doe on a gurney in an altered state of mind. "Promise you won't let them near my face!" he wails. "Nobody's near your face, sir," Chen replies. "Just don't let them near me!" he panics, grabbing Erin's lab coat and tugging hard. She looks scared. As Chen yells for Haldol, Nathan tries to calm the man until he all of a sudden hauls off and socks the guy in the face. Erin gapes, freaked. She didn't know boxing was going to be on this test. "Uh, damn dyskinesia," Nathan says, referring to the jerky, uncontrollable motion of his limbs that's usually attributable to the medication he's taking. Although the way he says it, he seems to be blaming his urge to wallop the shlub on his condition, which I find fairly entertaining, and I sort of wish I had a similar excuse. Chen shakes her head and carts John Doe away. "You okay?" Erin asks. "Nothing that twelve hours of sleep wouldn't cure," sighs Nathan.
Jody seeks out Carter, who waves at her happily. "What are you doing here?" he asks. "I'm looking for Eric," she admits. Cut outside to Abby, who's donning rubber gloves in anticipation of a trauma patient's arrival. "What's going on?" Abby asks. "Where's Eric?" Jody confesses that she has no idea. "We were in Indiana on our way back from my parents'...it was hardly an argument. He got really angry," Jody whines. "I was just asking him stuff about us, and our future, and stuff like that..." Here, Abby and Carter exchange disbelieving smirks, because holy dumb-ass, Jody must've been wearing her Bad Idea thong. "He took off," Jody finishes. Abby figures he's just back at the base, but Jody explains that she called there, and the base claims he's been on unauthorized absence -- UA -- for weeks. "He's AWOL?" Abby gapes. Jody nods.
Nathan presents Elizabeth with a man found dehydrated at Navy Pier. He's got pancreatic cancer; as Elizabeth presses on the man's belly, you can see the ugly red roadmaps of some nasty operations. The old man sputters something, but I don't speak Spittle, so it flies right past me. "They said I might have a year with chemo, but I'm not doing too good," he adds coherently. Nathan explains that Spittle had two stints placed in his bile duct to relieve obstructions, but there's probably another one now. Spittle whimpers that, every night, he goes to bed praying that the pain will be gone. "Is there a surgical alternative that will help?" Nathan asks hopefully. Elizabeth says there isn't. Spittle wonders what might happen if they take the Do Nothing approach. Nathan paints the picture; it's not pretty. It looks like a shredded Picasso, but with more innards. Susan enters at this point and offers him some twice-weekly home hospice care until such time as he slips into a coma, at which point they'll throw him out in the back yard and let the autumn leaves be his casket and Mother Nature his coroner. Spittle reminisces about his dead wife's joke that he'd kick off in his Barcalounger watching a football game. "I'm starting to think that's not such a bad way to go," he observes. Hear, hear. Elizabeth smiles gravely. "Does that mean you're no longer interested in further treatment, [Spittle]?" she asks. Spittle nods. Nathan is visibly perturbed, which is pretty much his constant expression, although it's possible the wind changed and froze him that way.
I may have mentioned this before, but my big fear in this world is ocular tomfoolery. I can't stand to look at, think about, or even acknowledge the existence of anything that could in any way pierce or damage the eyeball. It makes me want to regurgigate everything I've ever eaten in like. The movie Minority Report almost made me pass out. So you can imagine the toasty delight in my soul when I saw this patient: a boy with a shotgun pellet in his eye, the area around which is blackened from gunpowder. Luka pokes at the kid's eye and it actually makes me queasy -- and they could've made it bloodier, too. Ew. "I can't see," the kid, Nick, has the presence of mind to wail. I certainly hope he can't see. Weaver tells him to relax. "Did you try to kill yourself?" she shouts thoughtfully. Nick babbles that "he" didn't mean to do it; we learn that "he" is Nick's little brother Tommy, who was playing with the gun. Nick lunged at him to prevent an accident. Naturally, the gun went off, but as far as I'm concerned, the bullet went nowhere near his face. No. Sorry. It's in his toe. Yup, the toe. And the intense pain is just temporarily blinding him and making his face bleed.
Elizabeth promises that Spittle will be made as comfortable as humanly possible, given that his insides are crapping out on him and he can barely breathe. Susan smiles and gently tells him to notify them if he needs anything else. Nathan tails her out of the room and insists that they should've pursued other options with Elizabeth. "I asked for a surgical consult, and she didn't think it was a good idea," Susan protests. "What if it's in his best interests?" Nathan presses. Susan sighs. "I know you went up against Carter on a terminal patient, but that's not your job, you're a med student," she says, and quite rightly. Nathan worries that Spittle's just a guy having a bad day. You reckon? An old, wheezing, decrepit, and dying old man might be having a bad day? But the thing is, Nathan, this day's probably no worse than yesterday, with the exception of the tubes up his nose. "We try to do what's best for the patient and respect their wishes," Susan says. "If we're lucky, we get to do both. This is one of those times." She leaves him looking skeptical. Nathan needs to shut up.
A sad-eyed man shuffles up to Luka and introduces himself as Mike Hobbs, husband of Heather, whom he thinks Luka knows. In the Biblical sense, if you get my drift, nudge-nudge, wink-wink, chitty-chitty bang-bang. Mike politely asks Luka to stop Biblically seeing his wife. Luka suggests he talk to Heather about this. "I did," he says sadly. "Are you married?" Luka pauses, then nods that he was indeed hitched once. "Then you know how hard it can be," Mike says desperately. "I'm not trying to threaten you, but I've got two daughters. What am I supposed to tell them when their mother doesn't come home at night?" Yeah, I guess "Mommy leaves because she's a dirty sausage-hungry whore" isn't terribly polite. Luka shrugs noncommittally. Mike bleats, "I'm just trying to keep my family together, that's all." Okay, so first there's eye hijinks, and then a ho-bag named after me? Is it a coincidence? Probably. But let's pretend it isn't. Because that way, sure, I'm a ho-bag, but I'm also banging the Croatian sensation.
Abby leaves a message for Eric, pleading as casually as possible for him to call her. She slams down the phone and pouts. Susan notices all the signs of a lousy day, and commiserates. "At least you haven't killed anyone," Susan notes. "I'm 0 for 2. All these patients could be my victim." Who was her second patient ? Old Man Spittle? He ain't dead yet, missy. She rifles uncomfortably through all the charts, then yanks out the most benign-looking one: "'I have the crabs and it itches bad.'" Abby smirks that she could take the chest-pain in Exam Four. "Not if he wants to live," Susan self-pities. Abby offers her the swollen scrotum in exam two. That's an offer that's tough to refuse, but Susan does so on the grounds that he's a three-hundred-pound man. "Big scrotum," Abby observes. Susan laughs, but frets that he's a heart attack waiting to happen. When Carter approaches to ask about Eric, Susan sighs, "Screw it, give me the swollen scrotum," and leaves in a fit.
Carter tries to offer up excuses for Eric's disappearance, but Erin keeps interrupting because she needs him to reassess her allergic-reaction patient. She's relentless, that one. She follows him and constantly breaks into their conversation. Nothing she's tried works, and his sats are dropping. "Why didn't you come get me?" Carter suddenly blurts, running off and leaving Abby. "I just did," Erin sighs.
Abby uses this alone time to sit in the lounge and frown at the phone. She might not be trying to frown; it might just be that by this point in the show, her frown lines have etched permanent trenches on her face and are building small communities there where they breed 2.5 baby frown lines per family and buy station wagons. Yanking the phone toward her, Abby rifles through her pocket and finds the number for Eric's Air Force base. She's connected to the medical facility and lies that County General is treating Eric and needs faxed copies of his records. Clearly, the person on the other end wants to know who's treating him. "I don't have the chart in front of me," she hedges. "Does it matter?" Apparently, it does. Abby pretends to go find the chart, holding the phone away from her face and taking a deep breath. "Um, the physician's name is Dr. John Carter," she winces. We fade to black thinking she's bloody lucky she managed to remember his first name this time.
Luka heads into Trauma Yellow to check on Nick, who's been blinded by the tragic bullet to his toe. En route, he bumps into Chuny, who's also headed there; he apologizes under his breath for the collision. "My [toes] hurt," Nick says. "Can you see?" Luka asks. Are you insane? The poor boy's face is blackened from the toe bullet, which is still lodged within the toe. Of course he can't see anything. "No," Nick says, as perturbed as I am. Chuny passes to exit. "Chuny?" Luka calls out. "I'm sorry. About everything." Chuny smiles. "Me, too," she admits. And, ladies and gentlemen, we've just witnessed the death of a storyline. What was the point of suspending Luka for nary an episode? Why the hell bother? Sure, we get it, he's descending into the pit of despair, or the bog of eternal stench, or the fire swamp, or whatever. Fine. But what's the point of involving other characters if you're going to do it in such a back-handed, forgotten way? And which three nurses got fired? I'm watching you, TPTB. I trust you about as far as Ed Rooney could throw Ferris, what with his bad knee and all. Not to mention his recent child-porn woes. But, let's forget that for now and go to a happier place where people don't put illegal shit on tape.
Nick asks point-blank if he's blind. "You shot a pellet inside your [toe] and we're bringing in a specialist to repair it," Luka says. "You're lucky you didn't blow your head off." Nick pouts that his father would prefer it if he was dead. Luka avers that he's a heroic life-saving victim of toe gunfire.
Abby tries to get Carter's attention, but an incoming trauma delays the conversation. Haleh carries in a sweet little Asian moppet; the paramedics follow with a young girl they identify as the baby's mother. They were outside playing when she collapsed, but there's no signs of trauma. Carter yells at her, but gets no answer. They cart her away...
...past Luka, who is growling into the telephone. It seems the eye doctor -- who also, um, doubles as a podiatrist -- isn't answering his page. Luka is desperate for initial orders as to this kid's treatment. Pause. "He's where?" Luka gapes. "Playing golf," the voice on the other end says. This piques his irritation. Nick's toe can wait for no sand wedge.
The young Asian girl isn't responding to Abby or Carter; Erin reports that the tot is in fine health. Carter smells alcohol on the girl's breath. Erin and Gallant swap medical banter like sweet nothings. It's "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better," but with more syllables and less sense. Abby's mobile phone rings in the middle of the trauma, and because she's a pretty responsible nurse, she ducks away and takes the call. Carter tries not to judge. "Eric," she says. "I need to see you, talk to you." Erin and Gallant argue about whether charcoal is an appropriate measure of testing for toxins; Gallant wins that one because the charcoal test can approximate when she took pills, if indeed she took any. I like when Gallant wins. I'd like it better if he had won in some kind of hair match, wherein Erin got her head shaved for her folly, but I can't win 'em all. Carter yelps a few instructions at Abby, who bobbles her phone, drops it, and glares at the floor, that foul bearer of linoleum. Gallant wins another one when Erin suggests the wrong drug. "Did you lose him?" Carter asks quietly. "I lost him," Abby says darkly. Foreshadowing rings the doorbell, and when I answer, he tries to tongue-kiss me. I feel violated.
Elizabeth passes Spittle's open door and pauses when she sees Nathan and an older man inside. "It's not unusual to see these feelings when you're dealing with chronic illness," the man is saying. Coldly, Elizabeth summons Nathan to the hall to join her. Looking as busted as an issue of Playboy, Nathan skulks outside. "What's he doing in there?" Elizabeth hisses. Nathan obtusely introduces the man as Dr. Harvey, whom Nathan called on a Psych consult, to which Elizabeth retorts that she's well aware of his identity but can't fathom why he's in Spittle's chamber of death. "He was down here on a consult with another patient and I asked him to speak with [Spittle]," Nathan says innocently. "Did you run it past Dr. Lewis?" Elizabeth asks in clipped tones. "No," Nathan says casually, adding that the good doctor agrees that Spittle was too depressed to make sensible treatment decisions. "He's willing to consider other options, such as...a whipple," Nathan says with some hesitation. "A whipple," fumes Elizabeth. This is where I'd be unable to complete the scene without giggling, because really, "whipple" is a hilarious word. Smoke emits from Elizabeth's fast-flaring nostrils. She's irate that someone whipped out the whipple. "Uh, I'm not sure who brought it up," lies Nathan, trying to be all ignorant and innocent. "Well, whoever did must be literally insane," Elizabeth says, and thank God she differentiated between that and "figuratively insane," because I think a lot of us were going to be really confused. Literally. Elizabeth points out that the six-hour operation will be capped by months of recovery, if Spittle even lives through the whipple, and is it really worth it? "He's dead in two months if we do nothing," Nathan argues. "That's right, but only you seem unable to accept that," spits Elizabeth. And she's kind of right -- again, I fall somewhere in the middle here. I think it's really annoying of Nathan to presume he knows best and is the champion of all the lowly sick and weak peasants of the world, but also it does seem weird that they didn't at least delineate the options and all the risks and advantages each one entails. But actually, I'm glad they didn't, because wow, that would be some boring recapping there. Nathan insists that they should at least give Spittle the whipple bullet and let him decide if he wants to embrace the whipple or live a whipple-free life. Elizabeth charges into the room. Nathan moves to follow her. "You've done enough, thank you," she snaps. Nathan lingers outside the room, looking wounded that she's all whippled about the whipple.
Gallant relieves the entire world of the weight of suspense when he says that the Asian girl's vitals are normal. Carter -- clearly so involved in this case -- promptly asks Abby if her phone is working. "No," she says curtly. They then establish that the girl tested positive for barbiturates, has no blood-alcohol level, and is pregnant. "Ma'am, are you pregnant?" yells Carter, because shouting at the top of your lungs truly breaks the language barrier. Carter asks for Chen to translate, then announces they'll perform an ultrasound to rule out an ectopic pregnancy. Erin immediately asks to do the ultrasound. Carter's fine with that.
Abby is pouting outside. Carter apologizes for making her drop the phone, but does point out that they were stuck in the middle of a trauma case at the time, making it possibly the worst moment to be away on the phone. "Maybe he'll call back," Carter offers. Abby isn't comforted, so Carter asks how Eric sounded. "Depends who you ask," she says. "Happy, carefree, having the time of his..." Here, Carter pauses to sign something. "...life," Abby finishes lamely, visibly annoyed that he's not a devoted Abby Show spectator. "He's manic, Carter," she insists.
Frank escorts two soldiers to Abby. A Sgt. Andrews identifies himself as a representative from the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations, which sure worked mighty quickly. "I understand you're treating Eric Wyczenski," he intones. Abby awkwardly lies that Eric bolted against medical advice as Carter watches her, bemused. Then she tries to hustle Carter out of there, ascribing her hasty retreat to an incoming trauma. Andrews wants to see the treating physician. "He had to leave," Abby fibs badly, suggesting that Andrews leave him a card at the front desk. She shoves Carter away somewhere private. Ew, no, not there.
"What was that about?" Carter whispers suspiciously. Abby coughs that she was about to tell him everything, and hands over a copy of Eric's medical records. "I said we were treating him," she confesses. Carter lists the things she'd need -- Eric's signature and a written statement from his doctor -- and as he speaks, locates both items, which Abby had forged. He's stunned to see his own name involved. "You forged my name, too?" he asks, softly. "Do you know how much trouble we could get in for this?" Abby just urges him to read the file, but Carter won't, so she gives him the skinny: Eric took a leave of absence for post-traumatic stress disorder after a near-miss incident as an air-traffic controller. He was in therapy, but not medicated. Carter insists that in a high-stress job, such things happen, and drugs weren't necessarily required. "What if it wasn't PTSD?" Abby whispers, convinced that Eric's turning bi-polar. Carter insists Eric's too old; Abby swears that if he was depressed six months ago, he's now cycling into a manic phase. "Why didn't the Air Force catch it?" Carter sighs, exasperated. Abby triumphantly, if a bit sadly, reveals her ace, which is that Eric lied to the Air Force about his family's history of depression. "He's lying to his doctors," she says. "Like you did to get those records," Carter says importantly. And as irritating as that remark came off, I have to agree that Abby acted a bit stupidly. Couldn't she have called as Eric's of kin?
Nathan walks in on Susan, who is filling out the final death paperwork for her swollen-scrotum patient. Evidently, size does matter: It kills. "I thought this was a surgical consult," he says, confused. "It was," she sighs. Malik says the fat lady sang. "Fat man," corrects Susan. "We did everything but order him a deep-dish pizza." Malik chortles, "Say no to drugs and double-bacon cheeseburgers." Nathan gets all self-righteous about how the poor guy couldn't control his size. "Certainly not if he was running downhill," Susan snickers. Nathan turns to leave and she apologizes for offending him. "I'm having a really bad day," she frets. "Not as bad as him," Nathan says humorlessly. Aw, man. Bring the funny to Nathan, please. This show's making his character insufferable and overly moralistic. They bring a Parkinson's character to the show and make him completely fucking irritating. The only reason he's not unwatchable is because Cheadle is one talented man.
Luka's penis-mobile, the Viper, charges onto a golf course and screeches to a halt. "You can't drive on here, idiot!" one of two men in sensible sweaters shouts. "Which one of you is Dr. Abrams?" Luka says breathlessly. "I am," says one of the men. Luka exposits that he's got a fourteen-year-old boy with a ruptured toe who may go blind because Abrams didn't answer his page. "You're insane," Abrams says. Pretentious Crimson Sweater tries to kick Luka off the golf course. "You a doctor?" Luka asks. "Oral surgeon," PCS answers smugly. "Then shut up," Luka replies. Hee. "What about my clubs?" Abrams asks pathetically. "You -- take his clubs," Luka says to PCS. Hee again. They load into the penis and shoot off.
Weaver compliments Susan on how quickly she's clearing patients off the board. "It's easy to be fast when you're killing them," Frank sasses. Weaver ignores this and tells Susan she'll be taking some personal time, and with Romano "out of commission" -- and here, the nation's collective heart drops through the planet -- Susan will be forced to pick up the slack. "Bad idea," Frank mutters. Susan turns and rips him a new Frankhole. "I mind your insinuations and smart-ass comments," she seethes. "This is an ER. People come here because it's an emergency, and guess what, some of these people are going to die. I've saved hundreds of lives." Frank is either chagrined, or he was too busy dreaming of his Marie Callender's microwave dinner to listen to her rant. Chuny then calls Susan to the aid of a drunk she intubated who's about to vomit and aspirate. Apparently the intubation either didn't stick, or he yanked it out. Susan runs to him, pissed. Jerry and Frank put their heads together. "Twenty bucks says she kills this guy, too," whispers Jerry.
Abby grabs Frank and asks if Eric has called. "No," he says. "Are you sure?" she asks. "Let me double check. No," Frank lips her. Before she can clock him, Carter drags Gallant over for the happy purpose of expositing that an unauthorized absence is a serious offense, but if it's your first time and you can prove there was an extenuating circumstance, you can skirt major punishment. "Good to know, thanks," Abby spits, grabbing Carter for a private spanking. Jerry hands a dazed Gallant some paper. "Your girlfriend Harkins was looking for you," he sighs. Gallant gives a sweet little smile and reads the paper. Aw, Gallant, I love you. I don't love Erin, though, but maybe a little chivalrous nookie would cure what ails her.
Abby scolds Carter for blabbing about her brother's problems to the med students. "Gallant is in the Army," Carter defends himself. He's interrupted by an older Asian couple claiming to be the parents of the little moppet that came in with the young girl on pills. "She's the nanny," the woman says stiffly. "I'm Aidan's mother." She goes off to see the kid, while Carter talks to Sketchy Dad. "Is [Nanny] a drug user?" he asks. "Has she been depressed?" Sketchy Dad pleads ignorance. "Can you think of a reason why she'd want to hurt herself?" he presses. Sketchy Dad cannot. Carter reveals that she tested positive for pills, and Sketchy Dad easily barfs up the explanation that she'd had a stressful week with the baby and probably took sleeping pills with a glass of wine. In the middle of the day? Whatever, Sketchy Dad. You are indeed an aptly named rascal. "Does she have a boyfriend?" Carter asks casually. "I don't think so, why?" Sketchy Dad asks. Carter brushes it off and wonders if she has problems with her personal life. "We'd know -- she lives with us. Has been for four years now," Sketchy Dad says. Then, narrowing his eyes, he asks to see Nanny.
Nathan meets Elizabeth in the OR, where she's scrubbing up. Shirley pokes her head into the room and says, "Are we really doing a whipple on this guy? He's a little old, isn't he?" Then she retreats. Nathan feels really whippled about this whole crazy whipple. "Thanks to you, [Spittle] and his family seem to think the operation is worth the risk," Elizabeth snaps at Nathan. "But they may have second thoughts after we resect his pancreas, duodenum, gallbladder, and a large portion of his stomach." Um, well, they probably won't notice that you did all that, unless the object of the whipple is to resect it all and move it to the outside. Nathan haughtily points out that Spittle has daughters and grandchildren who will benefit from the extra year this will give them with granddaddy. "Perhaps, with a small miracle, which may be in order seeing as you seem to have become the Patron Saint of the Terminally Ill," Elizabeth spits. Nice one. Nathan tenses. Elizabeth asks him to assist. "You got us into this," she says darkly. Alone, as Nathan reaches out for the soap, his hand trembles. Nervously, he looks around, then pops a pill. We fade to black certain that Nathan's about to whipple the whipple out of this whipple.
Carter explains to Nanny, who wears a blank expression, that he's still running tests on her. Susan enters and says she needs the trauma rooms, plus Gallant and Harkins. They exit, leaving Sketchy Dad and Carter alone. Sketchy Dad primly insists that Nanny be moved to a private facility rather than share a room. "Did you ask her why she did it?" Carter asks. Stiffly, Sketchy Dad turns to Nanny and asks her something in Chinese. She gives a brief, embarrassed answer. "She's not depressed!" Sketchy Dad says with totally false relief. "It was an accident! She had taken a couple of pills with wine to help her sleep, and she's sorry to have caused you any trouble." Carter cocks an eyebrow. Impressive how her answer magically matched his theory. Sketchy Dad is psychic. "She said all that?" Carter says sarcastically, alluding to the brevity of her reply versus the long-windedness of his. "Yes," glares Sketchy Dad.
Nathan stands opposite Elizabeth over Spittle's whipple. He's swaying a trifle. "You okay?" she asks. "I've been up for twenty-four hours," he says. "It throws off my meds." Elizabeth yells for suction, so Nathan obliges; his hand is unsteady. "Stop, stop!" she yells. "You're up against the portal vein; pull out before you tear the wall and kill him." Nathan, wounded, panics and says, "Just tell me what to do and I'll do it!" Elizabeth huffs, "I'm trying. Shirley, suction." Nathan steps backward to make room, looking rigid and unsteady, and his elbow suddenly whipples into the instrument tray. The tray goes flying. Elizabeth winces in discomfort and asks for another tray, which they don't have. "Tell me what you want me to do," begs Nathan, desperate. "Nothing," Elizabeth snaps, ordering Shirley to re-sterilize the instruments. "This will pass in about an hour," Nathan whimpers. Elizabeth stares fire right into his chest. Again, a really nice, restrained performance from Don Cheadle, whose body carriage and movements really subtly convey Nathan's physical constraints. He makes me feel sorry for Nathan here, despite my constant irritation with how pushy he's been.
Susan greets two traumas: a man and a boy injured in car accidents. Gallant grabs the father and she takes the eleven-year-old boy. The paramedic says they needed to tube him, but they were so close to the hospital that they just waited. "Get one of the Attendings," Susan screams at Erin.
Sketchy Dad spies Chen in the room with Nanny. "Who's that?" he asks, irritated. "Dr. Chen is translating for me," Carter says brightly. "I should be doing that," bristles Sketchy Dad. "We're a full-service hospital," Carter replies with sass. He enters the room, where Chen informs him that Nanny didn't know she was pregnant. "Ask her if she's sleeping with her boss," Carter insists. Chen seems struck by the bluntness of the query, but Carter wants it asked, so she does it -- and Nanny hangs her head, humiliated, while nodding as slightly as possible.
In Trauma Green, Weaver and Gallant check out Car Accident Dad. A truck fell on him, it seems, turning his face purple. Susan yells for help in Trauma Yellow, and Weaver calls out, "Take a deep breath." Susan is trying to intubate, and is nervous, having trouble working the scope to get a clear shot down his throat.
Sketchy Dad and his prim wife are arguing; Carter interrupts, and the mother stalks off with baby Aidan. "What's your relationship with your nanny, again?" Carter asks. Sketchy Dad reminds us all that she's been a live-in worker for four years. "Have you been sleeping with her?" Carter asks. Wow, he's so calm and casual about it. Sketchy Dad doesn't seem to appreciate the question. "She's pregnant and she says the baby's yours," Carter adds for effect. Sketchy Dad rails that even if such madness happened to be true -- but it's madness! Untrue madness! -- it wouldn't be any of Carter's dirty business. "It is the minute she became my patient," Carter argues. "She won't be your patient much longer," steams Sketchy Dad, toddling off to skeeve out somebody else.
Eric then slides into the ER like Tom Cruise sliding on the wood floors in Risky Business, but minus the undies and sunglasses. "Where've you been?" Carter asks jovially. "Jody's driving me nuts," groans Eric. "Nothing like a road trip to bring out your issues." Imitating a flight attendant, he intones, "Please limit your personal baggage to two carry-on items." He doesn't let Carter get a word in as he talks about how often Jody's bladder needed emptying on the car trip. "I thought you flew," Carter says. This triggers another babbling rant about how Jody gets sick every time she moves, then insults her crazy parents, calling Mrs. Jody "too much woman for me to handle" and "sumo-big, minus the agility." TES's delivery of that line is really funny, actually -- it comes paired with this matter-of-fact knowing nod, as if to suggest that Carter's well aware of how well those wacky sumos can work it. Carter is amused, if a little frightened by all the words flooding from Eric's mouth, and all the large, dimpled imagery they've spawned in his fertile mind.
Luka promises Nick that he'll check on his kid brother. "Will you talk to my dad?" begs Nick. "I'll do better -- I'll convince him you're a hero," Luka promises. They load Nick onto an elevator; Abrams is a few paces behind, bratting that an in-house doctor could've handled this. "You're the [toe] specialist," Luka points out. "There's a pellet in the other [toe]," Abrams says, annoyed and refusing to guarantee that he will be able to do anything to save Nick's sight. What's with doctors not wanting to do their jobs today? This guy resents being called to work, and Elizabeth's all up in a whipple about the whipple. I know it's not always fun, but people, it's your JOB to try and fix people who are broken. Stop with the whining and just do it. "Perhaps you could've come sooner," Luka says. "[Podiatry] isn't emergency medicine," sneers Abrams. Um, it can be, though, right? Like when a patient comes in after an accidental tragic sight-threatening toe shooting? Sounds like an emergency to me, bucko. Abrams complains that most guys wait a week before performing this operation. "All you did was stop me from shooting an eighty-two," he pouts. "Tell that to him," Luka spits.
Abby calls Luka into Trauma Yellow with Susan. As she turns, Eric spies her and calls her name, still trailing Carter and babbling about buying planes and money and the air-speed velocity of unladen swallows. "I tried calling you," Abby frets. Eric energetically apologizes for Jody being an immature drama-queen product of the Jerry Springer generation. Abby busts him on being gone from the base for two weeks, and Eric tries way too hard to lie that the base is on a streak of screwing up his leave, and he can fix it with a phone call, and isn't that great, and shouldn't they all do something zany this weekend like fly to Vegas, gamble, and get Abby and Carter hitched at an Elvis chapel. Oh, please do that episode. Seriously. Please. That is Must See TV. Abby finally puts a stop to the rant by firmly raising her voice to say, "Stop it." She busts him on the PTSD. "That was nothing, they cleared me," Eric waves it off. "Every controller I know has PTS assessments. It's their way of getting time off. We even joke about it: How do you know when a controller's suffering form PTS? His tackle box is missing..." And this devolves into a story about how Eric doesn't like fishing, and doesn't Abby remember the time he blah blah yawn-snort drool blahed? Yeah.
"I got your medical records," Abby interrupts Eric desperately. "You didn't tell them Maggie was bi-polar." Eric stops. "What are you, the KGB?" he shouts, betrayed. Sgt. Andrews -- who can smell a kerfuffle from a mile away and a squabble from even further -- shows up just in time to apprehend his miscreant. Eric gapes. Abby insists that she didn't call them there, and tries to protect Eric, but Andrews grabs him to arrest him. Eric wriggles and spouts facile lies about how the guy covering for him was in an accident and he only just now found out about it, and they should call his CO, and he's only there to inform Abby en route back to the base, and it's a really painful and long fib and Abby is clearly wrestling with alarm. Eric begs Abby to confirm this, but Andrews is trying to cuff him. "Let me get my stuff!" Eric screams, trying to bolt to his car. "Just...don't hurt him," pleads Abby, her voice breaking. "At least let me give him something to calm him down!" Andrews refuses. Eric is led off in fury, screaming at Abby. "Is this what you wanted, Abby? Are you happy now? Lock me up and throw away the key, Eric's been a bad boy," he shouts. "Thanks a lot, Abby! Thank you!" Abby stares after him, trying not to cry.
The boy Susan's treating, now with Luka's aid, is in shock. His breathing's bad. Erin looks nervous as Susan tries to intubate. Chen offers help. "Nope," Luka says. "Yes," Susan panics at the same time. "I can't see squat." Erin purses up her perky little face. With difficulty, Susan finally intubates and hands the case off to a startled Chen. "You're not done here," Luka says, surprised. "He's in good hands," Susan calls out, leaving. Weaver, from Trauma Green, sees Susan go and seems perplexed by it. We fade to black hoping this doesn't end later this season with a heartwarming moment in which little Weavus is christened "Susan."
Weaver enters Trauma Yellow to check on the boy. Chen says they put him on a ventilator, but his pressure's dropped. "Could be a tension pneumo," Luka observes. Erin says his sats are dropping. They commence compressions and Luka yells for a thoracotomy tray. They're going to crack his chest. "What is he doing?" Erin whispers to Chen. What? I'm not a med student, and I hate Learning Channel-style medical programming, yet even I've seen a rib spreader at work. And, oh look, here I get to see it again, replete with goo. Rollicking. We get a shot of the boy's heart as Luka pulls apart his rib cage. That's so pretty. Erin looks freaked, and so do I. "Bag him faster," Luka says, leaning down to listen to the heart. "Hear it?" There's a leak somewhere. Luka fiddles with the boy's heart, plugging and clamping something that I wish I understood, and lo and behold, he saves the boy's life. Weaver looks relieved when Chen announces that she's got a pulse. "Wow," breathes Erin, gazing into the boy's open chest. She needs to get out more.
Carter and Chen double-team Nanny to convince her that she can leave the confines of the family and still be safe. Chen tries to explain the concept of a women's shelter in Chinese, at Carter's behest; Nanny shakes her head. "What is she afraid of?" Carter asks, impatiently. "Living in poverty, deportation, take your pick," Chen says. "It's called trafficking in persons -- women are brought over, offered jobs, and wind up indentured servants." Nanny sees fit to speak English all of a sudden. "I can't leave my baby," she cries. Carter promises no one can take it. "Not THIS baby," she spits. "Aidan." They can't believe the kid is her boy; Nanny nods, sadly.
Nathan watches over Spittle, who's all whippled out for the day. Elizabeth approaches to try extubating him; it doesn’t work. He can't breathe on his own. Nathan shakes his head sadly, unable to understand. He seems chagrined. "I'll go talk with the family," he offers. "Nope, I'm afraid I get to do that," Elizabeth sighs. Wuh? He's not dead. He's just not breathing on his own yet. Give the whipple time to work its magic.
Abby hangs up the phone. "I knew something was wrong. I knew it. I told you," she panics to Carter. He does the worst thing anyone can do in this situation: He says everything will be okay. "No, it's not. Don't say that. He's sick," Abby whimpers. "I don't even know where they took him...I can't go bail him out, I don't know who [sic] to call." She's scared he's languishing in a VA loony bin somewhere. Carter reassures her that they'll hire him a great lawyer. Okay, moneybags, that's not helping, either. Carter orders her to go home and get someone else to cover her shift. Abby doesn't seem thrilled at the idea, and mopes.
Susan stands outside, stone-faced. Weaver sidles up to her. "I thought you left," she says. Susan asks how the boy is; Weaver says he had a hylar leak, but Luka cracked his chest and everything came up roses. "You would've done the same," Weaver insists gently. "I killed three people," Susan self-pities. "It would've been four if I'd stayed with that kid." Weaver shakes her head and clarifies that Susan killed nobody -- she was just unable to save three people. "I've seen you save twice that many without breaking a sweat," Weaver smiles comfortingly. Susan nods gratefully. She's been Touched By A Weavus. That's going to be a killer spin-off. "Go home, have a drink. Tomorrow's another day," Weaver smiles. "But if you lose more than one patient, you're fired." They swap grins.
Sandy Lopez approaches, and she and Kerry envelop each other in a loving hug. Now, that's chemistry. Are you watching, Abby and Carter? Susan does that thing where you smile happily for a person but you aren't sure if you should look or not, so she lets her eyes flicker around. Kerry and Sandy begin to leave, but Sandy urges Kerry to tell Susan the good news about Weavus. Kerry turns. "Susan, uh, we're going to have a baby," Kerry beams. Stunned, Susan looks at Sandy and says, "You're pregnant?" Man, wonder how that made Kerry feel. Sandy protests laughingly and points to Kerry. Susan is delighted and hugs Kerry, whose face is absolutely radiant. It's sweet.
Sketchy Dad frostily escorts Nanny out of the hospital. Carter and Chen chase after them, the former shouting that there are laws against slavery. Sketchy Dad leaves Nanny there to hash this out while he brings around the car. "It's wrong," Carter insists. Nanny cries that she's got family back in China who need the money she makes. Chen offers to help her find another job. "They'll take your baby, just like they took Aidan," Carter says cruelly. Nanny sobs that she spends more time with Aidan than Sketchy Dad and Mrs. Sketchy Dad do. "Does he even know? That you're his mother?" Carter asks, trying to prove a point. "He doesn't," Nanny weeps softly. "But I do." She leaves. Carter and Chen look defeated. They're not as good at crusading for social justice as they thought.
Elizabeth corrals Nathan for a private chat. She's looking very pointy, so you know it can't be good. "When you first came to me, you requested that I treat you like any other med student on rotation," she begins. Nathan thanks her for making an effort to do so. "I know your disease presents you with numerous challenges, and the very fact that you're standing here is testament to your character," Elizabeth begins. Nathan watches silently as she takes a deep breath to propel the bad news out of her mouth. "I would fail any other student for a similar performance," she avers. Nathan protests that he realizes he has to make adjustments because of his disease. "No, political correctness aside, you are handicapped and I'd be doing a disservice to your future patients," she insists. Nathan bristles and asks what his appeal process might be. "A promise," Elizabeth growls. "I will pass you if you do not practice clinical medicine. You can do radiology, psychology, but you must give me your word you will never treat patients." Nathan digests this in shock. "No," he says, hurt. "I can't do that." Elizabeth stares him down. She owns a mighty glare, that one. "Then you will fail, Mr. Nathan," she shrugs, leaving. I sort of do agree that his disease is one that should prevent him from studying surgery, but it seems like there should be dispensations for that and ways that he can still treat patients without having to cut them open. On the other hand, wow, Spittle was lying there cut open and Nathan was all, "This will pass in an hour." The man doesn't have an hour to lie there with his whipple hanging out waiting for your meds to kick in.
Nathan's troubles kick off a music sequence in which we see Susan, alone in her apartment, sitting down to dinner and a glass of wine. She pauses and lets her face fall into her hands, rubbing her eyes briefly before sighing, sitting up, and beginning dinner.
Luka sits in a blue-tinged, seedy bar, nursing what looks like a whiskey on the rocks. A pretty blonde Janel Moloney stunt double sidles up to him and perches attractively on the stool to his left. "You look like you've had one of those days," she says. "What do you do?" Luka opens his mouth, then bites back his answer and laughs. "I'm a jockey," he grins. Ooh, yeah. Ride 'em, Luka baby. "Ah, he has a sense of humor," Janel smiles. Luka shoots one back at her and then stares straight ahead, silent. "Pretty dead in here tonight," she observes. "That's the way I like it," Luka says quietly. "I don't buy that. You look like a guy who knows how to have fun," she purrs gently. As they make giggly eye contact, Luka's mobile phone rings. He answers; it's me, calling to beg for sex and a second chance. He should probably give it to her so that he and I can continue our illicitly hot rendezvous, but damn it, my husband tweaked Luka's conscience when he visited him earlier. Luka hangs up on me curtly, telling me not to call again. But I don't know when to give up, so I call again immediately. I am a slut. Luka hangs up without even speaking to me. Great. Now I'm stuck with my sad-eyed shlub of a husband.
Luka resumes staring silently at Janel. "Why don't we get out of here and see what kind of trouble we can get into?" she asks lightly. "I think I know the place," Luka husks adorably. "Three-hundred an hour, two-thousand for the night," Janel says, her face clicking from vixen into businesswoman. Luka humphs in surprise, stares at her with a highly entertained expression on his face, then shakes his head and gets up to leave. But, faced with a long, cold night in bed without me there to him -- a frightening, soul-crunching prospect indeed -- he pauses, then turns and downs the dregs of his drink. "Coming?" he whispers. Janel's lips twitch as she gracefully gets up to follow him home. Wow. He so does not need to pay for sex, but maybe he's paying for the companionship of someone who won't sign a petition against him or whose husband won't chase him down. He's paying for the lack of strings. I don't think he's desperate for the sex so much as he's desperate for an intimacy that he can compartmentalize and keep completely separate from the rest of his daily life. Boffing nurses just doesn't achieve this.
Abby is curled up on the couch, staring into space, when Carter lets himself into the apartment. Now, wait. This looks awfully similar to Abby's old apartment, except that the front door is in a different place. Way to go, set designers. Way to get creative. A depressed Abby says she hasn't been able to reach Eric. "Might have to wait until the morning," Carter says sympathetically. He brandishes a bag of fish and chips he picked up for dinner, and as he trots it into the kitchen, his gait slows when he sees a lone glass of red wine sitting on the table. Abby peers into the kitchen, almost as if awaiting an explosion, then scrambles to her feet and toward Carter. "I bought the bottle on the way home from work," she says, words tumbling out of her mouth. "It took me an hour to get it out of the bag and another forty-five minutes to pour the glass. I haven't had a sip. I just wanted everything to stop, I just wanted it to stop..." Her voice dies in his chest as Carter gently pulls her to him. She buries her nose in his sweater and holds him, but her head's being tilted at the angle it is prevents it from being a full-body hug. She's more resting against him than embracing him, and I wish it were a more intimate hug like the one Sandy gave Kerry, but at the same time it really just looks like she's trying to lean on something solid, which makes symbolic sense for her.
Carter rubs her back. "I'm so glad you're home," she whispers. Carter apologizes. "I wanted you to be wrong," he says. "For both of you." Abby backs away with a rueful smile, cursing her screwed-up family. She sits at the table. "If I were you, I'd run from my life and never come back," she says, subtly daring him to do it. Carter tries to lighten things by pointing out that she doesn't have the monopoly on certifiable families, pointing to his own brood as an example. She chuckles, but it's short-lived. "I'm really scared for him, Carter," she chokes. "It's so unfair. Because he was such a good kid, and...we went through so much growing up, and I thought I got him through, I thought he was safe." Abby blinks back the tears that are wetting her eyes and clogging her throat. She hasn't looked at Carter; she's staring off somewhere else, and I like to think she's staring morosely at the wine glass, but we can't see if that's true. Carter promises to get Eric some help. "Nothing that you did or didn't do would've prevented this," he offers. Abby blinks hard, her eyes actually managing to redden before our eyes. You know TPTB trusts Maura Tierney as an actress when they'll leave the camera on her for such long stints during an emotional scene. They know she'll let the feelings wash over her with the right nuances. "It's just that Eric, uh...he was the only constant thing in my life," Abby grieves. "He was the only thing I could ever count on." Carter leans toward her. "That's not true anymore," he vows. Abby still stares at the table, looking as if she's concentrating completely on keeping her lip from trembling. "Promise?" she whispers. And that's why I think Carter and Abby might end up doomed -- because I think she's with him so he'll help make her rock-solid, not because she's overcome with passion for his bod. Abby looks up at him. "Because I really need something to hang on to right now," she admits, her voice beginning to break. She looks lost, bites her fingernails in girlish uncertainty, then peeks up into her boyfriend's eyes. "I'm not going anywhere," he promises.