No Strings Attached

S09E14

Chen is stitching up some incidental injuries on a now-coherent Purple Fur/Monica. Monica tells them that the guy who slashed her was a regular who just went nuts. Chen says, "May be time for a new profession," because after all, being the morality police is what she went to medical school for. Monica says that she does it to feed her kids. Abby asks how old the kids are, and Monica says they're seven and twelve. Chen asks if they know what she does, and Monica says no. She says she's with them in the mornings, and she's with them in the evenings, and she only leaves after they're asleep. Chen asks, shocked, whether Monica goes out after her children are in bed. Beginning to feel the pressure of Chen's judgmental gaze, Monica points out that she has no drug habit and no pimp -- she does this only to support her kids. "But they're home by themselves," Chen says in an entirely inappropriately sing-song tone of judgment, because she's quite an authority on how to live one's life. Just then, a cop knocks on the door. Monica says she doesn't want to talk to him, but of course, Chen implies that she has to. I would point out that unless she's under arrest, I don't think she has to explain her situation to the police if she doesn't want to. Shut up, Chen. Abby goes to the door to tell the cop that Monica doesn't want to say anything, but to her surprise, the cop is there to see Abby, not Monica. He tells Abby that Eric's plane has gone missing over Lake Superior, which is what her mom has been trying and trying to call her about. The cop tells Abby she'll have to call the FAA for the details. Abby stands there looking shocked.

Commercials. Willie Nelson, stat!

When we return, Abby is sitting in the lounge on the phone just as Susan enters. Susan tries to half-eavesdrop on Abby's efforts to get the person on the phone to tell her how it's possible for a plane to disappear from radar. The person on the other end of the phone is obviously telling her that they don't want to jump to conclusions, but they think the plane probably went down. She muddles around looking for other options for why this might have happened, but since they got no communications from Eric before the plane disappeared, there's very little they can tell her except that first the plane was on the radar, and then it wasn't. Eventually, Abby hangs up. Susan comes over to Abby and says, confused, that she thought Eric was an air traffic controller. Abby confirms that he was, but that he'd also been interested in flying, and just recently got his license. She says she tried to reach Carter before his plane left Miami, but she was too late. Susan asks whether the Flying Mom knows anything else about Eric's situation, but Abby says, with obvious guilt masquerading as bravado, that she hasn't called the Flying Mom yet. She's finding Eric's disappearing act to be enough to deal with without taking on her mother's histrionics. Although it sounds sort of cold, I really can't blame her. Her whole life with her mother has been caretaking, and there does come a point where you have to reserve enough to take care of yourself. She'll feel better when she's talked to the Flying Mom, but I'm not surprised she hasn't been able to take it on yet. As Abby leaves, she asks Susan whether people know about Eric. Susan says, "Some." Abby says she'd rather it didn't get around any more than necessary. Susan encourages her to go home, but Abby doesn't really want to go stare at the walls, so she decides to hang around.