Previously on Emmy Repellant, a hotshot surgeon called Dr. Eddie Dorsett hit on Elizabeth. Romano returned to the ER after having his arm amputated and was, unsurprisingly, pretty peevish. And A Hero Rescued That Other Hero in The Congo, and sent a letter back to Abby. Because when the writers realize that they lack the skill to write emotional scenes, they revert to the postal service.
The episode begins with Abby "The End Of The Affair" Lockhart, who's giving some new residents a free course of "ER 101." She explains with a touch of the bitter that in a given day, three hundred people receive treatment in the ER and forty come and go without getting any help. "This all starts with the nurses," she says. "Treat them with respect, it'll get you through your shift. Treat them as your own personal scut slaves, you'll be lucky to get out of here alive." She's not kidding. The reason we haven't seen Haleh? She got suspended for giving a med student a scalpel enema. The three newbies listen eagerly. One is a good-looking Michael Vartan's-little-brother type, one is our old pal Scott Grimes, who played Malarkey on my beloved Band of Brothers and Will on Party of Five, and the last is a pretty Asian girl. Oh, great -- a mini-Chen they can write into all kinds of stereotypes! I can't wait until she starts doing lots of complicated math, performs mystic herbal healing rituals, and carries personalized chopsticks.
"Triage is your first line of defense," Abby explains. "Patients will be signed in and vitaled by whoever's working the cage." Malarkey doesn't get why it's called the cage. He's been to strip clubs, and this thing's about two nipples and a wedgie short of being a cage. "It's like a shark cage -- you can see them out there circling around, but they can't get at you," Abby smiles. I get that the rigors of dealing with hypochondriacs and other run-of-the-mill things can be exhausting and tedious, but she really shouldn't be dissing the sick people on whom she plies her trade. Malik interrupts to ask Abby when Luka is arriving, and she replies that his flight's landing at 7:30. "What about Carter?" Malik asks. Abby shoots him a look of unhappy amusement -- lips pursed and turned up as if smiling, she's clearly perturbed that she can't answer that question.
Abby then begins to explain where triage charts go and why the board exists. Dr. Greg "Hollow Man" Pratt is scribbling stuff onto the board and reaping the benefits of its transparency to make sure we get his good side. Which is to say, his less-bad side. "Dr. Pratt is also a second-year resident," Abby says. "Pratt, this is [sic] three of our new R2s." Robots? Fabulous. CleoBot 3000 was truly a pioneer. Abby exposits that our residents are: Sofun (mini-Chen), Morris (Malarkey), and Cooper (hot). "Welcome to the zoo," Pratt snorts. As he's walking away, Neela appears at his side and asks him a question about road rash that basically exists to give Mekhi Phifer a chance to spout multisyllabic jargon.
"Med students work up patients and present them to the residents," Abby continues. "You can mentor them, but ultimately every case has to be presided over by an Attending." Are you getting all this? Here, give your wrist a break while this loud and belligerent man screams his way through the ER as security escorts him out. He's yelling that he's going to come back for somebody. "Yeah, yeah, bring me a latte when you do," grunts Dr. Susan "Toilet Tango" Lewis. I think obscure movie titles with bathroom references are my new favorite discovery for Susan. Abby introduces Susan to the residents; Susan dryly invites them each to grab some charts, and then orders Abby to set up an airway box in Exam Three, and let's just not worry about why, because it's only here to illustrate that doctors often tell nurses what to do. Abby blahs about where nursing and clerk orders go, and introduces Jerry and Frank. Why all this tedious exposition? This show is nuts if it thinks it's getting new viewers at this stage. Oh, and for the score-keepers, all that pesky ER construction that made life a muddle in the first episode of this season appears to be finished. Meaning it was just a tool for that fascinating story where Kerry yelled a lot. I'm so thankful for it. At least Abby gets off a decent line: of Frank and Jerry, she cracks, "Don't feed them." Then she turns and invites questions. Malarkey, bless him, pipes up with the question that's been on all our lips: "Why is the board see-through?" "So we can see through it," Abby deadpans. "Word," shouts the guy on camera one. Jerry and Abby tag-team the exposition that an ambulance picked up Luka an hour ago. Wait -- just five minutes ago, wasn't Abby telling Malik that Luka's flight was landing at 7:30? Now suddenly he's already on the ground and en route? How long has this tour been? I know it felt like an hour, but...eh.
Lydia and Conni appear behind Abby and bitch about the new nursing schedule, which Abby hasn't yet seen despite the fact that she's the Nurse Manager and would already be apprised of such things. Is she just bad at her job, or badly written? Or a dangerous combination of both? The nurses' shifts have all been reduced, and they explain that it's because Romano wants to bring in cheaper nurses. They beg Abby to talk to Romano. Yosh butts in to tell Abby that she lost the triage lottery and is working the cage from 9 to 1. "No WAY!" Abby wails. "I lose every time! That's, like, statistically impossible!" And that's, like, a grand meta-statement about her life. Then Frank yells for her, and Abby turns to see Luka getting wheeled into the ER. Her face breaks into a wide smile and she books straight toward him.
Before Abby can get to Luka, Pratt interrupts her. Luka's gurney is trucking toward the elevator, Gillian by its side. Abby asks for a minute to go say hi to Luka, but a thrashing patient in need of restraints -- no, not a euphemism -- distracts her. Then Neela contrives her way between Abby and Luka, babbling about a pregnant woman whose water broke. Abby briskly orders Neela to page OB and call an Attending; Susan appears right in time to deal with this and sends Abby in search of a fetal monitor. On her way, Abby trots along a path parallel to Luka's neverending route to the elevators -- apparently he did a victory lap on his gurney before heading upstairs. Abby dumps the fetal monitor on a cooperative Malik and races to the lift. "Luka!" she calls out, smiling, but the doors close before he sees her.
Cooper pokes his head into the scene. "I think this old lady stopped breathing," he says casually. Abby takes a deep breath, puffs out her cheeks, turns toward Cooper, and exhales hard. We hit the credits happy for actual incontrovertible proof that Abby blows.
Dr. Robert "The Long Arm of the Law" Romano enters a lab where, I kid you not, a man with a half-mullet, half-Farrah Fawcett hairdo looks like he's slicing merrily through his fake fingers while frowning pointedly at his prosthetist. It's like he's saying, "See? I can still cut them off. This isn't working." Another prosthetist pleasantly asks Romano how his stump is doing. "Suffering from delusions of grandeur," he barks. "Still thinks it's an arm." He punctuates this with a morose, almost disgusted look at himself in the mirror. His eyes flicker away and alight on a sight even worse than his own reflection: his new prosthesis. It's a hook of sorts -- basically a metal contraption whose prongs can grip things, but otherwise looks as if there's a crocodile out there somewhere with a price on its head. "Okay," Romano seethes. "I just assumed, as a prosthetist, that you would have some rudimentary knowledge of medicine." The woman stiffens that she's got a degree in bioengineering. Romano barks back that he can't very well perform his duties as a surgeon with Go-Go-Gadget Hook hanging from his stump instead of a Utah arm. Apparently, the hospital won't pay for this myoelectric device. "I lost my arm on the roof of this damn hospital trying to save a patient's life!" yells Romano, appalled. "The insurance company needs proof that you can't live without" the Utah arm, his prosthetist explains. Romano's all, Here's your proof, bitch, and carves "OPERATE THIS" into her left buttock. "What am I supposed to do, just duct-tape a coat hanger onto my stump?" he shouts, choking on that last word like it's poison. Angry, the woman keeps her composure and offers to draft another letter to the insurance company. "I've got two letters for you and the insurance company: F and U," Romano spits. Aw. The most informative episode of Sesame Street ever.
Abby bangs on an industrial stapler. Patients all around are vying for her attention, including an older growling man who won't stop asking how much longer it'll be. "I don't want to miss my turn," he says. "Then you should sit down," she replies, pleasantly but with an edge. This kicks off a montage of disastrous patients: mulish little girls, people with bizarre bites and fishing lures dangling from their lips, and of course the requisite violent puker, courtesy of the NBC Vomit Comet: Now With A Greater Projectile Radius. A really odd guy brought his own urine sample to save time. Abby bangs on the stapler a hundred times, tears off several boxes' worth of rubber gloves, and fends off The Return Of The Crabby Old Man, who wants a sandwich while he waits. The moral of this story: Don't go to an ER. They don't want your business unless you're dying, and even then, sometimes they'd just rather have coffee. Or sex in a handicapped bathroom.
A quiet, pale redhead waits while Abby listens to her breathing. Her name is Elle, and she's developed a mysterious cough. "She lets herself get run down and she doesn't eat enough," says her mother with an affectionately scolding edge to her voice. Abby explains that the level of oxygen in Elle's blood is low, so she admits her into Curtain One. She tries to corral Susan to handle the case; when Susan tries to pass it off to a resident first, Abby pointedly but politely tells her that she'd prefer an Attending, a message Susan picks up loud and clear: Elle is hosed.
The two set up Elle at Curtain One and examine her, Susan calmly suggesting that the fluid in her lungs is probably just due to pneumonia. "She never dresses warm and she goes out with wet hair," supplies the mother. Elle's a bit mortified. Abby bites back a smile as she prepares to send off some tests. "Are you coming back?" Elle asks hopefully. "Yeah," Abby replies. "And don't worry. The only thing you can catch from wet hair is split ends."
Susan asks Abby how Luka's doing, and Abby frustratedly admits that she hasn't had a chance to go see him yet. "If you do, let me know. Maybe I can come," Susan says. Abby nods, but before she can reply, she gets a nasty fright -- a faceful of Lydia. "Have you talked to him yet?" Lydia asks. "Luka?" Abby asks, confused. Lydia harrumphs that she means Romano, and she and Conni threaten mutiny if Abby doesn't talk to Romano soon. Then they disappear to darken someone else's day. "[Luka] looks good," an eavesdropping Frank offers. "You saw him?" Abby gapes. "Just popped my head in to say hello," he says innocently, "Wouldn't hurt you to do the same thing." Abby turns away and rolls her eyes clean across the country.
Abby calls upstairs for an update on Luka; while she's waiting for an answer, Gillian appears behind her and cheerfully shares that he's lucid between naps. "And he's asking for a...meatball sub?" she twinkles, appearing confused. Perhaps Jared hasn't made it up to her neck of the woods yet, so French-Canadians don't know about the marriage of meatball and sub. Gillian's exuding joy. She also looks older than she did when she was sweaty and dirty, and her freckles are more pronounced. Abby blinks at this strange woman with total alarm. Did she not notice Gillian hovering over Luka earlier? Maybe she thought it was a crazed fan hoping for a glimpse of naked Luka. "Never mind," Abby says into the phone, never breaking eye contact with Gillian. "Hi," Abby says, startled, introducing herself. Gillian is delighted to recognize the name. "John talked a lot about you," she gushes. "John...Carter?" Abby realizes, surprised. I love that she doesn't call her own boyfriend by his first name, yet this stranger does. "I'm sorry, who did you..." Abby begins, perplexed, and I believe a bit suspicious of why this strange woman is on intimate terms -- that is to say, a first-name basis -- with her boyfriend. "You don't know!" Gillian realizes. "I'm Gillian! I worked with Luka and John in the Congo." She grins at a completely confused Abby, who apparently makes her living dealing with strangers yet is unaware how to react civilly to them. "Oh!" Gillian then jumps. "I have something for you." She roots around in her purse and produces the letter Carter pressed into Luka's manly, soft palm...I've never wanted to be a folded piece of paper more in my entire life. "John asked Luka to give you this," Gillian explains. Abby can only stare at it, flummoxed. "He wrote me a letter?" she finally gulps, dazed. Gillian excuses it by claiming it's hard to find any kind of working phone in the Congo, and charmingly changes the subject by asking where she might find "Doctor Magoo's." Frank gruffly replies, "You don't. It burned down." Which is a nice bit of continuity for a change, because it combusted after Luka had left, and of course he'd send Gillian there for a meal without realizing that it's a charred ruin. Or, maybe he knew, but having spent so much time in the Congo he thought she'd be homesick for something smoking and in shambles. Abby hightails it out of the ER, yelling over her shoulder that she's taking a break, and leaving Gillian to wonder why a rich guy like Carter dated someone with no social graces.
Romano barges into Dr. Kerry "Intolerable Cruelty" Weaver's office and pretends he didn't know he'd be interrupting. Weaver's on her feet, and her hair's darker, almost brown. I miss the red. There are also two other people in her office, so Romano feigns embarrassment and swings around to greet them such that Go-Go-Gadget Hook knocks everything off Weaver's desk and onto the floor. "I'm not good at using this thing," he explains. "Maybe if workers' comp covered a myoelectric device...what, do I have to pay for the damn thing myself?" He turns to the two strangers and says, in total false joviality, "Hey, it'd make a damn good news story, don't you think? 'Amputee Surgeon Has to Pay For His Own Arm To Work In The Hospital Where He Lost It.'" Weaver tightly remains calm and informs him that this really isn't the best time for Go-Go-Gadget Vengeful Acts. "Fine, I have a lot of patients to see in the ER," Romano shouts shrilly. "That's where using this hook gets kinda dicey. Really. Wish me luck! Hopefully I won't take someone's [toe] out with this thing." Ohhhh, TPTB. See that? I caught that. I'm onto you. Make no mistake. My toes of hate are watching you like a hawk. On his way out, Romano allows his Go-Go-Gadget Gouger to take a chunk out of the top of Weaver's end table.
Outside on a bench, Abby's taking what looks like her second pass at Carter's letter. She stares blankly at the pages and shakes her head, biting her lip with a hurt, tight smile. Suddenly, Lydia, Conni, Yosh, and six extras who are totally going to get fired appear and announce they're walking out and convening at Dunkin' Donuts: For All Your Glazed And Fresh-Brewed Nurses' Strike Needs. "If we don't take a stand, they're going to replace us with part-time nurses so they don't have to pay benefits," Lydia explains. Don't they have unions that would handle this type of thing? Wouldn't there be a formalized strike, rather than this half-assed Carter-style ill-planned I Can't Believe It's Not "Insurrection" walkout? Abby sighs that Romano's welcome to replace her, and doesn't follow her fellow nurses to the donut shop on The Someone's Having A Bad Day Contrivance of 2003.
Frank shows up outside to bitch -- rightly -- that no one's working. Abby has resumed staring at the letter, which she then tries stuffing back into the envelope, wounded. "Someone fainted in the waiting area, took a header into an end table; there's blood everywhere," Frank informs her. "Abby?" She lets her head loll backward in grief, trying to soak in having just been dumped by Second-Class Luka Mail without getting any actual time to let it sink in properly. I feel pretty sorry for her. Not only is Carter a giant coward for saying it in a letter -- no phones in Congo? Please. They found one to call him about Luka, and I'm guessing they didn't have the kind of cash Carter could spread around -- but he didn't warn Luka not to deliver it at work. What's that smell? Eau de Douchebag?
Abby collects herself and jerks upright, griping to Frank, "Why are you telling me this?" Frank tsks that her break is over, so Abby gives the letter one last, pained look, and then slowly crumples it up and tosses it at the trash can. But she misses, because she couldn't play basketball with George Clooney back in the day, since she wasn't on the show then. "That's right, leave me to pick up after you," Frank grumbles, grabbing the paper and not even pretending to think about throwing it out before he unfolds it and begins to read.
Cooper chases after Pratt, sucking on his inhaler as he tries to keep up. Man, Coop really does look like a mini-Vaughn, which is a whole lot better than Wee Chen. Pratt's carrying an enormous stack of charts and files. "You're Pratt, right?" Cooper asks. "Yeah," Pratt growls. "I'm Nick Cooper. My friends call me Coop," says Coop. He asks a question about protocol, and Pratt's clearly kind of annoyed that a new person's asking him for help. "Listen, you guys gotta start picking it up. It's already 10:30 and we're twenty patients behind," he sighs. "I got six," argues Coop. "But the other two guys are dragging their asses," whines Pratt. Coop tries to stick up for them, to his credit, and then grabs the stack of files as a peace offering. "We'll blast through these," he says. "They're out the door in twenty." Pratt waves him off brusquely, because he's a shit.
Neela speaks softly in Punjabi as she sutures a man's forehead. Pratt overhears and stops curiously. "What's that you're saying?" he asks. "It was a prayer," Neela says. "He's not dying," Pratt smarms. "It wasn't for him. It's a private prayer," Neela says. "Like, 'Please, Lord, don't let me kill somebody today'?" Pratt teases. Shut up, Pratt. Dr. Jing-Mei "The Joy Luck Deb" Chen catches the two of them talking, and blows in on her frigid wind to give Neela some gangrenous frost bite. She sends the med student on a tedious and long errand, and I can't even stand to listen to her. Once Neela's gone, Pratt purrs, "Hey there." Chen reacts smugly to being Queen of the Dicksmacks and husks, "Don't forget, dinner tonight [at] 8...I'm wearing my little black dress." Pratt chortles in delight. He knows what this means: time to dust off the assless chaps.
Malarkey and Susan are hanging out in Trauma Yellow. Coop pokes his head in, not wanting to miss anything gory. As Susan teaches, Malik enters with Elle's x-rays and throws them up on the light board. "That's a huge heart," Coop says. Susan's face falls. "Call Cards. She's in failure," she says sadly, looking at Elle through the blinds.
Cut to Abby staring up at the clock. It's a few ticks from 1 PM, and she's listening to a guy ramble on about his screwball symptoms. The second the hour hits, Abby smiles brightly. "I'm out! A nurse will be with you in one minute," she says, exiting. Heh. She passes Old Man Crabby, who's now lying on a gurney and still asking about his sandwich. She ignores him and seeks out Frank; when she finds him, the camera pans around behind him so that we can see he's hiding her letter, now fully opened and practically ironed out to improve legibility. I don't know why he bothered. I read the letter posted on NBC.com, and the wrinkles could've only improved its pathetic phrasing and smug, ham-handed grasps at depth. Frank tells Abby that all the relief nurses are at Dunkin' Donuts being a plot contrivance and hitting on the mustache guy who makes the donuts and brews the coffee, and they're not leaving until one of them takes him home for a strategic shave.
Romano stalks up with the nurses' petition clutched in his good hand. "Did you sign this?" he asks. "No," Abby says. "Smart girl," he retorts. "Should have," she mutters. Romano orders Jerry to collect all the signees within five minutes, but Jerry busts them thoughtlessly: "They staged a walkout." Abby smacks Jerry behind Romano's back and covers, "No, they're on a break." Romano threatens to fire them, and Abby claims he can't, but he points out that he can do as he likes if they walk off the job in an effort to service Abby's storyline. I'm not sure how much of this is true, but it definitely seems like Romano's wielding more power over union employees than he realistically would, and that Abby's officially the least effectual Nurse Manager in history.
Abby trots off to find her fellow nurses. Frank spies Go-Go-Gadget Nurse-Axing Attachment and grins, "Hey, you got a hook! Suits you." Romano fumes, "Shut up."
Outside, Abby bumps into B.Y.O. Urine Sample; now he's toting a stool sample in a Ziploc bag. Horrified, Abby tells him to dispose of it, and runs off to find her colleagues. She's interrupted by a young kid tumbling out of a car, clutching at his profusely bleeding left side. "Somebody shot me," he sputters. Abby runs to him and lets him collapse against her. His name is Bobby. "It's okay, Bobby," she soothes him. "Don't let me die," he blubbers as she hugs him and yells for assistance. We fade to black wondering how long it will take those words to form a sandwich and force-feed themselves to Abby with a side of potato chips and a pickle wedge.
It's half-past midnight and I'm about to crack open a bottle of Diet Coke. I just thought I'd share. Incidentally, I'm also watching Bob Hoskins and Ralph Fiennes pay the rent by agreeing to star in Maid in Manhattan, and really, I have to wonder if both of them were drugged into signing their contracts.
Bobby is in the process of depositing the contents of his veins onto Trauma Green's floor. Pratt barges in to help. "He got dumped by a homeboy ambulance," Abby says, and I have to say, I like that turn of phrase a little. Okay, a lot. Shit. I need to bathe in lye immediately. Suddenly, Bobby passes out, just plain disgusted that he's going to give up his life in this dreary room but glad he drew this one instead of Trauma Yellow, which wouldn't flatter his coloring. "Bobby?" Abby yells. "No radial pulse!" Pratt orders her to page surgery. "Penetrating trauma with impending arrest," Abby notes. "You've gotta crack him." Pratt waves her off. Abby blinks. "I'm prepping the chest," she says firmly. Pratt's annoyed, but Susan enters just as a bunch of machines start to beep this scene into total incomprehensibility. Thank God I cracked this Diet Coke. "Abby, crash cart, now!" Pratt yells as she preps the chest. "What are you doing?" Susan asks. "Talk to Abby," Pratt snaps. "I'm just trying to put in a chest tube." Abby explains to Susan that Bobby was talking to her moments ago and now he's about to arrest. "Run the code," Susan says, as if any of us know what that means. "What are you going to do, Abby, crack him by yourself?" Susan adds. "Get Corday and order some more O-neg." She shoots Abby a pointed glare, and Abby frustratedly throws down whatever she was holding -- it looks like a rag -- to pick up the phone. Susan watches her and they swap glares. Pratt even gets in on the action. Everyone's good and stubborn today. I'm not entirely sure why no one addressed the thoracotomy issue, but I'm guessing -- and call me crazy, but I'm going to say it anyway -- that this might come up again later.
Romano musters up a pleasant and professional demeanor to treat a little girl. He asks her to follow his finger, but she ignores him. When he asks her again, he notices that she's fixated on Go-Go-Gadget Child Repellant. "Don't stare," hisses her mother, subtle as Chen's evil, evil eyes. Romano hangs his head. "Excuse me," he says softly, scooping up the chart. He dumps it on Malarkey and leaves. Aw. Paul McCrane is so good. He actually makes you ache for him, and wish that he'd puree that little brat with one wave of the weapon.
Bobby's crashing. His vasculature has collapsed. Dr. Elizabeth "The Merry Widow" Corday has arrived, and she's saying things like "femoral" and "bagging," and Abby's going on about the faint carotid, and there's lots of beeping and general confusion. Sometimes, my medical knowledge and prowess at interpreting complex scenes amazes even me. Elizabeth calls for more blood just as Bobby crashes again. "Hey, I have an idea, how about a thoracotomy?" Abby mutters to herself. "'Wow, that is just so crazy, Abby, it might WORK.'" No one really cares, though, because they're more focused on juicing Bobby's pulse than on Abby's bitter ramblings. "Prep for a thoracotomy," Elizabeth says. "He's already prepped," spits Abby. Elizabeth slowly lowers scalpel to Prop Belly and slices. Oh, ew. I know it's fake and it still makes me want to curl up into a ball. "Clear!" Susan shouts, trying to shock Bobby's heart back into a rhythm. Abby meets her eye petulantly.
"What does Carter mean by 'unfettered'?" Jerry asks, confused. "He means, 'I have enough decrepit luggage -- I don't need one more old bag,'" Frank says, except it comes out as, "It means she's been dumped." Eh, six of one, as they say. Romano storms up to inquire about the nurses; Jerry says that they went up to Nursing Administration muttering about hit men. Whatever. No one cares. The extras will get the axe and the nurses will return to normal after they've served the purpose of summoning cosmic anvils about Abby's life.
Romano notices an older woman hanging around the desk and screams, "Whose patient is this?" Coop pops up, because she's his. Lucky woman. I can think of a few uses for his ten-blade, if you know what I mean...which I hope you don't, because my brother-in-law reads these, and I think that was going someplace neither of us wants him to follow. Also, Luka might get jealous. Coop brushes off the woman as harmless and asks Romano to sign off on a wound infection. "No. Go away and take her with you," Romano crabs. "Seriously, she's cool," Coop says. Yeah, she rocks. The way she lopes and lists and shuffles -- she's a party in an open-backed gown. Coop introduces himself with his by-rote line ("...but my friends call me Coop"), and Romano feigns interest. "Do me a favor, Coop. Air rescue's bringing in a bad MVA," Romano says. "Will you go up on the roof and wave in the chopper, and make sure you stand right in the middle of the landing pad so they see you?" He turns to leave. The clever comeback would be "I think you should go -- might even you out, and two hooks are better than one," but Coop doesn't have that great of a death wish. He does, however, make the mistake of not letting Rocket end the conversation on his own terms. "You're Rocket Romano," Coop says. "You were a surgeon." Romano turns and snarls, "Still am a surgeon." Coop calls out, "Yeah. You got scalpel attachments for that bad boy?" The whole ER goes silent. I'm a little shocked that Coop -- who seems otherwise pleasant -- actually talked back to Romano; I don't care how wrong he is -- he's your boss, and it's your first day, Coop, and you need to either bite your tongue or put it in my mouth. Good GOD, I've become boy-crazy. Romano sucks in a breath and turns around, silently striding right up into Coop's face. "Right-handed," he huffs. "Lucky," Malucci...er, Coop grins. "So, this guy..." Romano cuts him off with a glare and informs him that they don't do remedial medicine at Country. "You don't talk to me. I talk to you," he adds. "Should I be writing this down?" Coop cracks. "STAY OUT OF MY FACE!" screams Romano. Sadly, Go-Go-Gadget Wit Void has really diminished the bite of his quips. As he turns and flees in a fit of rage, Coop chuckles a little to himself. His nads are larger than Jupiter at this point.
Things aren't going too well for Bobby. I say this because he's got an elaborate design painted in blood on his torso. They start compressions, but he's been down for over half and hour, and no one's got any hope left but Abby. Wow, there's a reversal. "We could shock him into sinus," Abby suggests. Elizabeth shoots down this idea. "He walked in here! He was talking to me!" Abby protests. Elizabeth shakes her head. He's gone. To punctuate it, an anvil drops onto his heart that reads, "Got Med-School Aspirations?" Pratt calls the time of death, and Abby deflates. Susan asks her to locate the family, and they leave Abby alone to cover up the corpse. She does, treating us to a really splendid view of scissors sticking out of Bobby's open and dead chest. It's very Dead Again.
Neela and Coop assist a man to a curtain. He was sanding something and fell off his ladder, twisting his ankle and maybe breaking his collarbone. As they investigate, a cloud of dust explodes from his shirt. "What were you sanding?" Coop chokes. "The hull of a boat," he replies. "Fiberglass?" gapes Coop, grabbing his inhaler and sucking for dear life. Neela tries not to be turned on by this. Susan notices the commotion and tells Neela to give him an albuterol treatment so that he can help her clear the board.
Elle's cardiologist tells Susan that Elle has primary pulmonary hypotension. That's got too many syllables to be good news. "Tough break. Seemed like a nice kid," he says, leaving. Susan peers at Elle again and sighs.
Pratt rattles off a list of things for Abby to do. "What, am I the only nurse working tonight?" she grouses. It's heading into night already? It was just barely 1 PM a second ago. What's going on? I miss The Graphic of Helping Recappers Navigate Our Skewed Sense of Time. Pratt exposits that Romano fired the six extras who showed up on set today to follow Lydia and Conni around. Abby's appalled at how understaffed that leaves them. Pratt knows it. He then apologizes for not cracking Bobby's chest earlier. He's surprisingly cavalier about it, considering that he's essentially admitting that he might've thrown away this kid's life by not listening to her. "And for what it's worth, I think it's Carter's loss," Pratt adds before peeling off to go his own way. Abby stops dead in her tracks. "WHAT?" she gapes.
Elle wheels up, toting her IV bag and tiredly seeking her parents. Abby goes off to find them for her.
As Coop tries to breathe deeply, Malarkey and Neela deal with him. The show doesn't do a great job distinguishing between Neela, as a med student, and these two bumblefucks, as second-year residents. Maybe that's the point, though -- Malarkey's a total knob, and Coop's just kind of...Coop. "Epi," croaks Coop. Malarkey reads out, "Point three," and then hands Neela a needle and tells her to push it. She mistakenly thinks he means all of it, and not just 0.3 Whatevers, so she jams it all into Coop's vein. Coop's eyes fly open. "Too much," he gasps. Malarkey can't believe she pushed it all, and I'm not sure why he gave her so much extra in the damn needle to begin with. Perhaps filling a needle with that little fluid puts him at risk for air bubbles in his vein. Okay, I totally made that up, but it sounded plausible, huh? Nice. "He can handle it," Malarkey says hopefully. On cue, Coop drops onto his back and thumps at his heart pathetically. "V-tach," Neela groans. "Crash cart!" Abby runs up and takes control: they want to charge him to 300, but she intervenes. "Stable v-tach only needs fifty," she instructs. She offers Coop valium, but he stupidly doesn't accept it, so she shocks him and his entire body jolts with the current. It doesn't work so she winds it up to 100. "Valium," Coop croaks, but she shocks him anyway and it fixes him up nice. Not before his toenails curl, though. "Congratulations," Abby says stiffly to a guilty-looking Neela. "You just saved your first resident." We fade to black hoping that her goodwill toward men doesn't extend to saving Pratt time he's in a jam, and wishing that the anvil with "Abby Is As Smart As These Doctor-Types, Isn't She?" etched into it would please stop dropping onto our feet.
A couple of the nurses are sitting petulantly in chairs. "You can't just sit here," Abby begs. "The union steward said we have to stay our entire shift," Conni grumbles. Abby begs them to help, but Lydia hops on Abby's back and uses it to propel herself onto the high horse that's going to carry her, we hope, far away from this episode. "Think about how you'll feel ten years from now when they start replacing you with minimum-wage grads out of nursing school," she preaches. I didn't realize the nursing pay scale was so vast. I'm guessing it isn't, really, based on how realistic all this sounds.
Malik summons Abby to help Susan, and she asks why he's not striking or fired. "I'm LVN," Malik says. "Don't get no cheaper than me." I have no idea what that stands for, and I'm too tired to look it up right now, so I suggest that we all just do the logical thing and assume it stands for "Lusty von Nuttensachen" and leave it at that. They good-naturedly trade a few patients before Abby pleads with him to cover for her for five minutes so that she can duck into Luka's room to say hi. "Are you kidding? I haven't stopped for six hours and I had to use a patient's urinal," he groans. "And that Carter letter...look, I'm sorry, I know that was harsh," he adds. I don't understand why everyone first read the letter on the sly, then felt the need to mention it to Abby despite the fact that it was clearly being passed around without her knowledge -- I mean, sure, Abby likes Me Time, but not the kind of spotlight that involves Carter, pen and ink, and the word "unfettered." Abby finally thinks to ask how they heard about the letter, and Malik pins it on Jerry. Abby sets her duck lips in motion and starts quacking off toward the front desk.
First, Abby bumps into Romano, and demands some help treating the patients, lest they all die in a flurry. He tells her that the service should send some help, and in the meantime, Geriatrics loaned them Edna. Abby and Malik swap a look, and approach a frail old woman with her wiry gray hair in a giant bun. "Edna," Abby calls. "Edna! Excuse me, hi! There's a drunk in Exam Four that needs more Ativan." Edna continues doing whatever she was doing and mutters, "I'm sorry, dear, he's a putz." Abby's confused. "That Carter boy," Edna continues. Wow, she's quite perceptive for a befuddled old biddy. "Too bad you didn't dump him first," Edna adds. Abby is starting to get pretty damn perturbed, but where I'd normally expect her to start wailing or sucking on cigarettes, she manages to keep it inside. "You've got to be kidding me," she does allow herself to mutter. Edna pins it on "the big man." God's all, "Whoa, Granny, keep me out of it, or you'll be roasting on Satan's spit in a totally non-euphemistic way."
Susan heaps a bunch more orders onto Abby, and Malik flees before he can get anything added to his workload. "Okay, did YOU hear about my letter?" Abby hisses to Susan through clenched teeth. A distracted Susan doesn't know what she means, and asks her to check on Elle. "How's she doing?" Abby asks. "PPH," Susan says. "Won't live to see her twenty-first birthday. Other than that, she's fine." Abby's shocked. Susan exposits that the test results won't be conclusive for another few days, and Elle's mother and father aren't telling her anything until it's definite. "You're not going to tell her for three days?" gasps Abby, appalled. "I know, it's awkward," Susan defends herself. "It's not awkward, it's stupid," Abby argues. "She already senses something's wrong. She deserves the truth." Susan reminds Abby that it's Elle's parents' decision, and that it's best for them all to stay out of it and let them make the mistake. I'm with Abby on this one to a point; legally, the parents probably can make this decision if Elle's under eighteen, but it does totally suck to treat her like a kid and keep her in the dark, which is probably a lot scarier than getting the facts.
Abby settles in for a nice, long pout, but she's cut short by a teacher toting a gaggle of students. They're visiting someone in the children's ward, and Abby begins to direct them, but then she shakes herself and smiles pleasantly -- even helpfully! Good lord -- and offers to escort them herself. Maybe she thinks this is her ticket upstairs to see Luka. Wait, that probably is it. Okay. So, it's not an unselfish impulse. Oh well. Can't blame her. "Who here wants to be a nurse?" the teacher asks merrily. No one raises a hand. "Boys can be nurses, too," Abby offers. "I want to be a doctor," one kid shouts. "ME TOO!" they all scream. A gurney rolls by with "Are you getting the message yet?" painted on it in Bobby's blood.
Weaver gets off the elevator and bumps smack into Romano. "To what do we owe this royal visit?" he sneers. Weaver isn't amused, nor did she appreciate his earlier antics. "It was inappropriate," she says. "So was this hospital boning me with a prosthesis that has a limited functional field," he snaps, listing all the things that could go wrong for him with a crap hook like this one. I have to say, I'm a bit surprised that Kerry isn't more of an advocate for him on this one. She did stand by him a little when the shit went down and the arm got lopped off, and even though they're archrivals and they kind of hate each other, it seems rather overly cold to refuse help. Especially when she strikes me as one who'd want to avoid potential lawsuits like this show avoids her lesbianism.
"Did you fire six nurses today?" Weaver accuses. "It was the only good part of my day," he affirms. Weaver gets right up in his bearded face. "How'd you like me to fire you?" she hisses. Abby and the kids are listening as they wait for the elevator to return for them. "I've got a handicap, remember?" Romano says sweetly. "Somehow I don't think that would be an issue," Weaver retorts. Abby whispers that they've got an audience, but neither looks at her or acknowledges that she even said anything. I expected this to send Abby over the edge into a scenery-chewing frenzy of stuttering and smoking and pouting and stalking around and the sudden arrival of ten of her closest family members, all of them on bipolar benders. But instead, she just fades away and eavesdrops with enjoyment. "You are one Grade A bitch, you know that, Kerry?" Romano says as she walks away. A little girl's jaw drops at all the profanity. The teacher doesn't even register this; I'm wonering if she knew she was on-camera. She's like, "La la la, I'm getting SAG points, screw the tots." Weaver turns around and, with immense satisfaction, savors saying, "You know, Robert, I'm your boss. And as long as I am, you're my bitch. Now get your ass back to work." Abby unsuccessfully bites back a giggle, and Romano looks at her, and I swear even he can't pretend he didn't appreciate the brilliance of that repartee. He punctuates it the only way one can: "Fecal impaction in Four needs some good old-fashioned finger-digging," he says, throwing Abby the chart. She's so delighted with what just transpired that she doesn't even care that she got tossed a fetid asshole.
Jerry lopes down the stairs with an armload of something, and Abby asks him to escort the kiddies upstairs while she deals with the impaction. He nods. The little girl asks what he's carrying. Cut to a POV shot of Jerry peering over her saying, "This is human blood." Naturally, they all start shrieking at the blood-toting giant, because they didn't see a beanstalk anywhere and weren't prepared for this horror.
Abby stops outside Elle's window, takes a deep breath, and enters. "Hi Elle, feeling any better?" she asks with false cheer. "Yeah, I can finally take a deep breath," Elle rasps. She perceptively asks Abby why a heart doctor came to see her if she has a lung problem, and Abby gives a very tactful explanation that amounts to "The hip bone's connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bone's connected to your knee bone, and your heart bone's connected to you're lung bone, and I'm totally stalling because I can't tell you what's up." Elle points out that her parents are acting strangely. "All parents are a little weird, right?" Abby says with a half-smile. "I'm sure they just want you to get better." She excuses herself under the guise of checking to see if Susan's learned anything. But when she leaves, she sighs really loudly for us and shakes her head, so that we're absolutely sure that she disapproves and that if she were a doctor -- I know, we're talking CRAZY here! She LEFT med school! But a force greater than me wants me to continue this thought about "if she were a doctor" -- she'd be doing it differently.
At a swish Chinese restaurant, Pratt's led to a table where Chen's sitting with her parents. She introduces them and tries to explain that they invited themselves along to dinner. "Hope you don't mind," she says uncomfortably. Pratt handles it smoothly and kisses her on the cheek before sitting down. Everyone either looks uneasy or fixes a tight smile to his or her face. Chen, it's worth noting, looks so stupid. She's got a feathered hairdo worthy of Charlie's Angels, but in a bad way, and she still looks like a walking frown.
Susan is calmly telling Elle that her treatment appears to be helping when Neela bursts in, babbling about how Cardio told her to come listen to a tricuspid regurge murmur, or somesuch tomfoolery. Elle blanches. "A WHAT?" she shrieks. "Is that what I have, is something wrong?" Susan shits a house the Big Bad Wolf couldn't blow down, and ushers Neela outside before Elle's parents sue them for disobeying their orders to treat Elle like an idiot. "This is not a good teaching case," Susan says. "She's a girl who's about to find out she's going to die a slow, horrible death." Neela's stunned that Elle doesn't already know. Susan tries to explain, but she spies Malarkey chowing down on a sandwich that's sitting on Old Man Crabby's tray. He finally got his sandwich, and he passed out. Isn't that always the way? Through a mouthful of tuna, Malarkey chokes that Old Man Crabby wasn't eating it, so.... Susan scolds him, then realizes that all isn't quite right in OMC-ville. "Tell me he's sleeping," Malarkey pales. "Not unless he's taking a dirt nap," Susan spits. She detects a faint pulse and grabs an ultrasound, screaming for Corday. "While you were stealing his tuna, he was bleeding out from a triple A!" Susan yells. Holy shit. That's so...I have no idea what that means.
We cut inside the trauma room, where Elizabeth demands a vascular surgeon. But they're ignoring Susan's pages, so Elizabeth clears her throat and orders a nurse to page Dr. Dorsett. "Tell him Dr. Corday needs him badly," Elizabeth says firmly. Then she meets Susan's eye, and Susan giggles, because she's twelve. Her expression darkens, though, when she sees Abby in Elle's room.
Abby lightly tells Elle, "I tried getting you a room with a fireplace by the pool, but the guys from Coldplay rented out the top floor for a party." Oh, Abby. So hip. So attuned to what the kids are liking these days. Abby's there to escort Elle to her room, and luckily not to keep cracking special pop-culture one-liners. "Where are your parents?" Abby asks. Elle gulps that they're in and out, pretending they're making work calls and returning half and hour later with tear-stained faces. "Either the stock market crashed, or there's something really wrong with me and no one's willing to talk about it," Elle says, her voice cracking with a sob that's waiting to burst forth. Abby looks down, eyes flickering from side to side. She has the worst poker face in the entire world. "Abby, are you bluffing?" "Uh, I...uh...I'm not not bluffing..." Elle peers up at her, tired and weak and blotchy, and asks point-blank if she's dying. Abby gulps and begins to level with her, but Susan enters the room just in time and yanks Abby off the case. Abby smiles ruefully at Elle and exits.
"This is wrong," Abby lips. "You know it. We're teaching her not to trust us at exactly the time she should be trusting us the most." Susan throws up her hands and wonders what crawled up Abby's ass and laid spinal eggs. "You practically start a thoracotomy on your own, and then you talk to my patients when I ask you not to!" Susan marvels. "Someone should," Abby mumbles. "It's not your call. You're not her doctor. You're her nurse," Susan says. The blinds open and close rapid-fire, and the Morse code message reads thus: "If you don't know where you're going, then you should have your driver's license revoked." Susan snaps that Abby should obey her direct orders, and Abby morosely stares through the window at Elle's retreating figure. She gnaws on the inside of her cheek for a second so that we can feel her inner conflict, and we fade to black wondering how much more her cheek can stand before she bites right through to the outside.
Cooper skips into Trauma Yellow to watch Old Man Crabby get his fluids checked and his tires rotated. Dr. Eddie "Diego" Dorsett strides in, all cocksure confidence and swagger, and he's really pretty hot. Carter who? Pratt what? Mark heh? Exactly. "Your service refused to come down," Susan scolds. "Those bastards hate to leave the hot tub," Diego deadpans. "You," he says to Abby. "Grab the betadine." Abby's startled. Susan can't believe he's not taking Old Man Crabby upstairs to do whatever procedure is required. "You didn't leave enough gas to get him there," Dr. Diego says. Malarkey announces that he's scrubbed and ready. "Nicely done. Maybe you can detail my Jag after work," Diego smarms. Susan glares at him. "Try a little more teaching and a little less standup," Elizabeth warns stiffly. Susan can't believe Dr. Diego's about to cut into a patient in the ER when he should be in the OR, and she's worried about taking the fall if it turns sour. "It's like we say upstairs -- what happens in the ER stays in the ER," Diego shrugs. "Cover your eyes, kids. This is gonna be some bad-ass juju." God, he makes those lame words sound almost rhythmic. He may be a total jackass, but he works it.
Dr. Diego makes an incision and I wince. Elizabeth pulls apart the gash and they dive inside with a really juicy, sloshy noise, and I cover my eyes and ears and start singing the Notre Dame Victory March to drown out the sheer pain of the fact that, yes, I inexplicably recap a medical show. "Ohhh," Diego moans. "Remember the Law of Leplace?" The residents are silent, so Abby pipes up a perfect answer: it has to do with arteries and pressure divided by wall thickness, and my God, who has time for math in a situation like this? Up yours, Leplace. Take your law and shove it. "You two have just been nurse-slapped," Diego grins at Coop and Malarkey. He's still elbow-deep in Old Man Crabby's juicy abdomen, by the way. "Know what it means?" he asks. "It means he's about to die," Susan crabs. "Anyone can rip a man's heart out," intones Diego. "But fixing it without looking? That's why I get the big money and all the hot chicks." Susan and Elizabeth swap disbelieving looks. "Oh, I've got the superciliac aorta in my hands!" Diego says with a flourish. "That means we have proximal control." Elizabeth gets this dreamy look on her face. "Don't try this at home," Diego leers. "Or anywhere near this hospital," scolds a disapproving Susan. Diego and Elizabeth, meanwhile, are getting all moony with each other over rustling around inside the same old man's belly. "Do you need a clamp?" she asks, all breathy. "I can keep my finger in it," he replies. Translation: "Do you need a condom?" "Don't worry, baby, I can hold it a while longer."
As Dr. Diego winks at Elizabeth and wheels a now-stable Old Man Crabby upstairs -- his hand still clutching the Whatever Disgusting Artery Is Way The Hell Up There -- Elizabeth, Susan, Abby, and the residents watch him go, in awe. "How wicked was that?" Malarkey breathes. "Guy's got balls the size of my head," Coop affirms. He's one to talk, after going toe-to-toe with Romano. Taken together, I'd say it was a veritable nadfest in that trauma room just then. Susan rips off her gloves angrily while Elizabeth contemplates bumming a smoke off Abby.
Neela shuffles around a bunch of paperwork as people pass things around over her head. "A med student was crushed to death working on this computer last year," Dr. Michael "The Sweetest Thing" Gallant flirts. Neela grins at him. "Save any lives today?" he asks. "No," she sighs. "She saved one," Coop offers. And, yes, here it comes: Blah blah blah, "...but my friends call me Coop," Coop says, shaking Gallant's hand. Someone should just make him a sign. It'd save time. Gallant asks if he missed anything good, and Jerry cheerfully offers that Kovac returned and Abby got a "Dear John" letter from...John. That's trippy. Romano, observing in the background, asks what it says. "I imagine it's private," Neela says. "You're probably right. What does it say?" Romano repeats. Jerry begins to read, and mercifully, Abby appears to snatch it angrily from his paws before any more of Carter's insipid prose leaks into our consciousness. "Has anybody not read this letter?" she snaps irritably. "I haven't," says B.Y.O. Urine Sample, perched conveniently in the background. Abby spits that they're pathetic for pulling that letter out of the trash.
Lydia drifts by with Conni to let Abby know that they got letters, too -- official ones, heralding ninety-day suspensions and thereby signaling the end of their involvement in this episode. This must mean we're coming up to the big punchline. Wait, wait, here it is: Abby stops in her tracks, throws back her head, and shouts, "I HATE MY JOB!" Wow! So do you think she might, I don't know, do something about it? It's a mystery. If only there had been signs. Edna shuffles past and offers, "Don't worry, dear, it'll get better!" Abby stares at the frail, crazy frame of what she might become if she remains a nurse, ceases to eat, and flushes her marbles, and blinks with distaste.
Pratt is presented with a plate of something that looks rather intimidating. Chen's mother oozes that they ordered something off the menu, and they hope he doesn't mind their taking that liberty. Did he get there that late? I have a hard time imagining that he was so tardy that he'd have missed the ordering process entirely and not noticed until food was presented to him. "Fifty bucks says he won't eat anything," Chen's parents chortle to each other, because...what, Chinese parents are assholes? Nice. Lin Chen asks Pratt what his parents do. "My mom died when I was twelve," he says, adding that he does not correspond with his father. "That's unfortunate," Mr. Chen says. "Family is a valuable part of one's life. It's important to have roots." Chen rolls her eyes and doesn't appreciate it when her mother announces that Chen is going to be visiting China and rediscovering her heritage. "No, I'm not, Mom," Chen corrects tensely. "It's difficult to know where you're going if you don't know where you came from," her father says. "What's that, Confucius?" Pratt asks, recognition dawning appreciatively on his face. "Common sense," Lin Chen spits. Pratt nods, embarrassed, and Chen looks like she'd very much enjoy dropping through the floor. I wish they didn't feel compelled to make her parents so stereotypical. Bastards.
Elizabeth finishes up a few things at the front desk before taking off for the night. She's wearing a horrible blue shirt that looks like Laura Ingalls Wilder cut the sleeves off one of her prairie dresses. "Burning the midnight oil?" Romano asks, pleasantly. "Not if I can help it! How are you doing?" she asks. "Well, thanks," he replies gruffly.
Dr. Diego intrudes on this moment, making Romano the meat in his sandwich with Elizabeth. "Is this where the cool kids hang out?" Diego asks. "Not if we can help it," Elizabeth grins. Romano takes one look at Diego and slowly backs away; Diego and Elizabeth waste no time closing the physical gap his departure left. Diego flirts outrageously with Elizabeth about how she owes him one. "What do you want?" she asks, leaning into him. "A foot rub," he replies. Elizabeth searches for a snappy comeback, but she's too turned on, so Diego picks up the slack: "I'd settle for coffee." Elizabeth considers, and then whispers, "I have to be home in an hour. And there's nothing fancy -- no coconut-frosted double javaccinos..." she trails off. Diego nods and wiggles his eyebrows all over the place. They're a sex toy in and of themselves. He's going to make her reconsider the coconut frosting, if you know what I mean, and I think you do...I'm talking about ejaculatory fluid, if you get my drift. They take off, Romano watching them very pointedly. "'Night, Robert," Elizabeth says happily, trotting off in her big black strappy hooker shoes as Romano slowly advances back up to where they were standing, piercing their backs with his sad gaze flecked with something...lonely and yearning and even a little lost. I swear, Paul McCrane gives things nuance that the ER scribes can't even imagine.
Romano slowly strolls into Trauma Yellow and sets his jaw. Then he sets aside his coffee cup, removes his stethoscope from around his neck, and shrugs off his long lab coat with difficulty. Off comes Go-Go-Gadget Heartbreak, which he stares at for a second, cradling it in his good hand before throwing it furiously through the window into Trauma Green. The glass shatters to match how he feels. A few people behind him stop and stare, confused, because that's what the stage directions told them to do.
Outside the restaurant, Chen's parents pull away in their swanky Mercedes, and Chen lets out a sign of relief. "How bad was that?" she giggles. "What, the jellyfish or the ambush?" Pratt asks good-naturedly. Chen apologizes sincerely for her parents' appearance. "If it's any consolation, they didn't hate you," she says. Are these the same parents who were so appalled at her relationship with a black guy in Season Six? Right. Maybe Pratt's just safe until he knocks her up.... Oh, God, don't let him knock her up. A Prattlet and a Chenette -- a Chattlet? -- would be a demon baby beyond anything even Rex The Wonder Preemie could be. Pratt's amused by her remark, so Chen clarifies that her traditionalist parents want her to marry someone Chinese and are scouting for husbands in China. "Just tell them to relax. It's not like we're getting married or anything," Pratt offers, raising his arm to hail a cab. Chen turns to stone. Burn. Because no matter how much she agrees with that sentiment, it's going to make her think bitterly, "Wait a second, though, why NOT? Why so vehement?" Then, Chen pulls a bad idea from her feathered hair shelf and throws it right at Pratt. "What are we doing?" she asks. A Mafioso runs out and gives her the kiss of death. "You're kidding, right?" Pratt gapes. "We're dating. We're having fun. Neither one of us is ready to settle down, right?" Chen doesn't like this answer, I guess, for reasons I will never understand because Pratt's always been such a sacfungus to her. Pratt doesn't get why she's freezing up on him. Chen gets into her cab, which she's clearly not going to share with him, and curtly says, "I'm sure you'll find yourself a new bang buddy. Good night." She leaves a dumbfounded Pratt standing by himself on the street, and a collective whoop rises from America's living rooms. Ding, dong, the witch is dead.
Cut to the interior of a car. A coffee cup in the front cupholder is shaking like there's a T-Rex coming, and as we pan to the back seat, I realize just how much Dr. Diego would thank me for making that last statement. He and Elizabeth are furiously humping, her shirt hanging open. "Thank God I got you a decaf," he growls. She giggles and they resume their frantic boffing. And that doesn't look too much like a Jag, but it doesn't seem that much like a minivan, either, so maybe it is Diego's car. Either way, Mark's rolling jealously in his grave while Elizabeth's tongue is rolling in plenty more illicit places. Yes! You go, Elizabeth! Get yours! And damn did you choose well. Again, he might be a complete smug jerk, but he's a fabulous choice for a fuck friend.
Abby finally gets up to Luka's room, and his bed's empty. She sighs sadly. "He left," a voice says from behind her. She turns, and it's Luka, up and about for a stroll, leaning heavily on his IV stand. Abby's face lights up affectionately, and she looks so relieved to see him alive and in front of her. He returns her grin. In advance, I'll clarify that my interpretation of this scene is not that they're still in love, and not that Abby is a selfish cold bitch who wanted to spread her legs for him again. Rather, it seemed like she came close to losing one of the few real friends she ever made at County -- one of the only people who knows that much about her life -- and she's realizing she's both lucky to have him and that she just lost the other one. I think she is desperate to cry on someone's shoulder but she's too protective of her emotions to do that, and I think she is legitimately trying not to make this dialogue all about her. I also think it's a great scene, because there is just enough glow and ambiguous chemistry between them that it makes you wonder. And that's my two cents, but of course, it's all open to interpretation.
"What are you doing?" Abby scolds lightly. Luka shrugs that he wanted to stretch his legs. "It's good to see you," he says warmly. "You look great." Abby cracks, "You look...like hell." Luka giggles. He's so cute. "Too much partying on the plane," he jokes. Abby steps forward awkwardly and tweaks his IV, and it seems pretty plainly her way of suppressing an urge to give him a hug, because she's too closed off to admit that she needs one herself and to express her full relief that he's okay. "So. I met Gillian," she says. "She seems...." "Yeah, she is," Luka interrupts. Insert your own adjective there, I guess. That way, the scene pleases everyone. "Must be nice having your own private nurse," Abby says with a tight smile, maybe a little wistful or maybe just trying to fight her urge to cry. Luka gently asks if Gillian gave her the letter. Abby clears her throat and looks away, blinking. "Did you read it?" she asks, trying to sound light. "No," Luka promises. "Well, you're the only one," Abby says, a flicker of hurt crossing her face. "I think he wanted to try and explain why he stayed," Luka offers. "He saved my life." The reality of that seems to dawn a little in Abby's eyes. "It's different over there. It changes you," Luka continues. "I think Carter found himself." Abby closes herself up again and protects herself with a joke: "I didn't know he was missing." Luka laughs with her, aware that she's covering. Luka softly assures her that Carter is going to be okay. "I don't want to talk about Carter any more," she says stiffly. "I think it was doomed from the start. I'm glad one of us had the courage to put it out of its misery." God bless, Abby. God bless. Luka smiles at her, and then muses that it feels strange to be back. "I think maybe I've changed, too," he says. "Change is good, right?" Abby smiles, her eyes maybe a tad moist. "I'm way overdue."
Gillian enters, beaming as usual. "Hope he hasn't talked you into helping him escape," she says. Abby smiles back at her, but a little uncomfortably, which intensifies when Gillian starts fondling Luka's forehead to check for a fever. Abby excuses herself. "Nice to finally meet you!" Gillian calls out to her. "You too," Abby says. "Glad you're back," she then says to Luka. She walks a few paces, and then turns back to see Gillian and Luka in an intimate little teasing moment. Abby's expression is inscrutable, possibly tinged with self-pity at the fact that someone's moving on while she's getting left behind, and she crumples the letter anew and tosses it into a garbage can. This time, she doesn't miss.
And then, ostensibly inspired both by Luka and Carter's change and all the anvils raining down upon County General on this day, Abby takes a deep breath and enters Elle's room. Elle is reading SAT Prep books. Aw. As Abby sits down on the girl's bed and begins talking, we fade to black wondering whether Elle's parents are going to slap Abby's ass with a sharp lawsuit.