Previously on Exasperating Residents, Malarkey quit in an incompetent huff, while Pratt butted heads with Luka and refused to present to him in future. Romano rushed through learning to use his new arm, Sam's diabetic kid Alex got a condition called DKA when Luka unknowingly fed him ice cream, which pissed Sam off, and Bob Newhart brought Susan flowers.
Susan lies awake in bed blinking at the ceiling, wondering how on earth it is that she's been on both ends of a May-December Inappropriate Doctor-Patient Relationship and vowing to tear those pages out of the writers' beloved Love Is... desk calendars. Chuck trundles over to the bed and curls up with the paper. "You ever realize a month's gone by without you noticing?" Susan asks idly. "And that it wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either?" Chuck isn't listening; he's skimming the front page of the paper. Susan shoots him a look like she's about to tie that comment directly to him and the performance of his hair in a guest-starring role, which right now is worthy of a Razzie, since it's oily and bed-heady. And although that's realistic, it's also not exactly turning the crank on my Jack In The Box. The ringing telephone interrupts Susan's thought; it's her accountant calling to remind her about their date with doom that afternoon. "I'm getting audited," Susan tells Chuck. "Which blows, considering I file 1040EZ." Chuck is surprised. Susan explains that it just makes sense, since she is single, owns nothing, and has no dependents except for a blinding old sitcom star with jowls that need a bra. "Want some [dependents]?" Chuck asks casually. Susan's like, "Your crazy mouth said what now?" "Kids. Instant tax write-off," Chuck clarifies. Susan's mentally what-the-fucking her way through the awkward silence. "Come on, baby, let's do it," Chuck grins. "We like each other, right? The sex is pretty good. What are the odds we're going to find something better, huh?" He winks at her. Susan's staring at him as if a Quarter Pounder with a thumb in it would be a more appetizing proposition. At first I was so disappointed that the writers did this to Chuck, because he was totally funny and charming and not an ass before this. But then I decided that he was just being facetious with her, because it better suited my desires. Although frankly, I think if he was kidding, it was only by half. Sigh. How delightful for Susan that she gets the same kind of misery heaped on everyone else.
At County, Romano is frantically trying to erase the clear board and bitches mightily about the foolish choice to purchase it. The camera operators flip him off as they relentlessly shoot through it. Frank blames it on Weaver. Romano complains that the ink takes forever to erase. "Need a hand with that?" Gallant asks. Wait...Gallant! Hi! How's it going? You look great. Have you lost weight? Let's get together for coffee soon and catch up. Bye! See you season! Romano spits that he doesn't appreciate the pun, and Gallant blithely insists that he was just trying to be helpful. "Don't bother, Boy Scout -- I just finished your evaluation and you should practice these three words: 'Paper or plastic,'" Romano snots. The hell? How can Gallant get a bad evaluation? Has he been engaging in some off-screen shenanigans? Because he certainly hasn't been on-screen enough to deserve that little comment. Bastards.
Romano then aims his barrage of spite at Pratt, announcing that he's compiling a giant report about Pratt's habitual lateness, failure to attend required conferences, and general asshattery. Pratt's all, "Waaah, I work lots of shifts, it's hard." Romano doesn't care, because he has no time for people who can out-shitbag him. "Yelling at an x-ray tech?" he asks. "He gave me a lateral C-spine without T-1," Pratt complains. "The repeat took over three hours." Romano agrees that this is unacceptable. But he also doesn't much care, because this is a witch hunt, and to him it's all ammo in the gun that's going to fire Pratt out of County for good. Romano just hasn't been the same since he bought that house in Salem.
Turning around, Romano's Go-Go-Gadget Ass-Texture Analysis Tool bumps Chen's ass and gets a piece of it, which promptly breaks off and melts in his palm. "Hey!" she snaps. "Uh, electrical malfunction," he claims, quietly. "Only on women?" Chen snarks, walking away. "It happens!" Romano says defensively. I buy that. Any muscle twitch he gets is going to direct that thing to do something. And that was a really great sentence I just wrote. Meanwhile, Sam crabs into the phone at a babysitter who thinks Alex has chicken pox and won't sit for him. Turns out he just wrote all over himself with a Sharpie. That happened to me at the hands of one of my friends when I was four, but it was a green marker. My mother's face when she saw me was priceless. It was like, "Oh, not smart, child. Not smart." Alex is perched on the front desk watching his mother try to cope with parenting obstacles, as if he is a walking, talking test. Romano spits at her, "Hey, Teen Mom! This is not day care. Eighty-six the love child and stop tying up the phone lines." Sam slams down the phone tiredly and orders Alex not to decorate himself like this again until after she gets a sitter, or such time as he wants to dress up as a drag queen for Halloween. She then sends him to the lounge.
Luka enters Reception and ruffles Alex's hair affectionately. "Don't even," Sam snaps. Hey, Sam? Eat it. Abby notices this and wonders what ate Sam's hairnet today. Oh wait, she doesn't wear one, because she enjoys shedding on her patients. All of these people do. Except for Abby, who today has her tresses in a topknot. Luka conversationally asks if she's still in Surgery. "Nope, I start my ER rotation today," she smiles. "Welcome home," he says warmly. Abby melts into a puddle. And by "Abby" I mean "me."
A medic loudly wheels in a family that was in a small car accident. The mother has a face laceration, the daughter has a sore wrist, and the dad is bitching about needing six thousand dollars to fix the car. Doesn't sound like a minor accident to me. Apparently, the second kid, a baby, was found on the floor looking fine; his demon sister unbuckled the baby seat because the kid cried every time he was put in it. Demon Seed glares at her mother for busting her. The dad wants no part of all this medical hoo-ha. "The shock from the accident can often mask injuries," Neela says, very clinically. Luka asks Strange Med Student, Neela, and Lester each a question and they proffer answers. Neela's wins a compliment. Abby shoots Luka a pointed look as they deposit the gurney in a trauma room. "What?" he asks. "You know this stuff." They stare at each other for a second, Abby clearly feeling like she hasn't been given a fair shake to prove her knowledge, but biting her tongue. There's something odd about the pacing of this episode. So far, every scene just sort of ambles. They're even meandering to the trauma room. It's like a long scenic route. I think they're going to swing by Not Magoo's for some coffee and a game of Street Fighter.
Romano, as usual, decides to rub his home-brewed salt into Abby's wounds. He shouts that he needs a Foley, then smarmily corrects himself: "Oh, sorry, you're playing doctor today. Okay, I'll find a nurse who's not kidding herself." He turns to Sam, who regards him with obvious distaste, which doubles when he tells her to go shove a tube up some guy's urethra. I think she'd prefer to grab Romano's and let Alex use it to practice tying noose knots or something. As Sam trots away to do some stage business that keeps her within armshot, Susan flags Romano and reminds him that her IRS audit is today. As she blathers, Romano moves around to Sam, and we hear the faint whirring of Go-Go-Gadget Buttock Trap. Irate, Sam whirls around, pins him against the wall, and twists his wrist until the hand neatly comes off. The Utah arm people won't be pleased at how easy it apparently is to take apart their fine appliance. Also, what is wrong with Sam? Yes, Romano's an asshole, but she should have just slapped him. I'd like him to take Go-Go-Gadget Metal Stump and shove it up her right nostril. "Here, take this to church and have it exorcised," Sam says, rudely dumping Susan with the evidence of her shit fit. Susan stands there holding the hand, like, "Holy shit, I am surrounded by fuckpunchers." Romano makes an idle threat about getting Sam fired that wins him the promise of a retaliatory lawsuit. I seriously doubt he did it on purpose, honestly. This show's not that subtle: they'd have shown a giant close-up of the Claws Of Certain Ass-Doom and given us a nice shot of them clamping down on some meat while Romano made an "Awwww YEAH" face. Romano quietly demands the return of his hand. Susan refuses: "You can have it back by the end of the day if you learn to behave." "GIVE ME MY DAMN HAND BACK!" screams Romano. We smash into the credits thinking that the show has hit a new low of hideousness, and that it's wasted a potentially good story about the arm loss because it was too obsessed with making Romano two-dimensional and a freak. I shudder to think about Paul McCrane getting these scripts and being like, "I say what racist remark? And they do what to my Utah arm? And how much longer is my soul owned by this hell dimension?"
Bob Newhart, who is getting his blood drawn, wants to know why Susan smells so good. He correctly identifies her scent as Dove soap. These are lines that could have been lifted from an after-school special about children who shouldn't go home with suspicious adults. "They say smell...is a more powerful sense...than sight," Bob rambles. "It has a...stronger impact...o-on your memory." That's exactly how the captioners transcribed it -- pause for pause, stammer for stammer. I guess they have a lot of respect for Newhart's chosen speech patterns. "Given the choice, I'd choose sight," he adds. "I could do without smelling dog poop again. Or stepping in it." Susan laughs and asks how wee little Twopper is doing with the housebreaking. Bob insists the dog is fine, and thanks her for the gift. "He laughs at all my jokes and licks my feet. I think I'm in love," he smiles. "That's funny. Chuck does the same thing," Susan thinks. But also, aw. Damn you, Bob, for being old and harmless and a victim of circumstance, because that's exactly the stuff that gets me choked up, because I'm easy. Bob's subsequent dinner invitation to Susan dips a stick of Awkward into some fresh-made Uncomfortable sauce and rolls it in crunchy chunks of Embarrassed. "I'm quite the chef, really," he says hopefully. "I'll throw in a good bottle of wine if it would close the deal." Susan pauses. "Sure," she what-the-hells. Wow. Sorry, Chuck. On the scale of life, you're outweighed by a man who could cloak you in his jowls. Susan and Bob make plans for 8.
At the front desk, Sam catches Susan and apologizes for earlier. Because Susan should be affronted that Sam ripped off an armless man's fake hand. Unless Sam is confusing Susan with Romano, in which case Susan really ought to get that face waxed. "What did you do with it?" Sam asks. "Put it where it ought to be -- under lock and key," Susan replies.
Malarkey gets pizza delivered and opens the box with glee. Pratt walks up and is surprised to see that Malarkey not only still has a job there, but that he's actually so stupid, he really didn't know a good idea (quitting) when it grabbed him by the brain and squeezed the juice out of the pea. Malarkey's father, it seems, threatened to cut off his money pipeline if Malarkey didn't see this through. Malarkey cheerfully offers Pratt some pizza. "It's 10 AM," Pratt scoffs. Then he stops and sniffs the air near Malarkey. "You been smoking weed?" he asks suspiciously. Malarkey takes an enormous whiff of his lab coat, probably gets high all over again from the odor, and glibly blames it on his roommate. Then he toddles off while shoving an entire piece of pizza into his mouth, because the best way to prove you're not high on pot is to exhibit symptoms of The Munchies.
Demon Seed is rustling around a box in the trauma room and throwing bandages that were tucked away. The mother just sits there gamely. Angry Dad tells Demon Seed to knock it the hell off, and she shoots him an evil glare. My fantasy is that Demon Seed is secretly another Spawn of Chen. Abby is tending carefully to the baby while Neela examines Meek Mom. "He likes you," Meek Mom tells Abby, who's got the baby really calm. "Colin cries with strangers." Angry Dad bitches that Colin's always crying. I think Angry Dad's glass is half-empty. And he's thirsty. Abby is startled by Angry Dad's vitriolic reaction. Luka disrupts the party when he enters and wants a brief presentation on each patient. This is when Meek Mom exposits for us that the kids don't belong to Angry Dad; he's actually just Angry Boyfriend. Maybe he should consider not getting involved with a mother of two if things like, say, crying and parenting piss him off. Or maybe he and Sam would be a match made in heaven. Lester tells us that Demon Seed seems fine, Neela says the mom is okay, and Abby begins to present the baby with a bunch of details. Luka clears his throat. "Start with the vitals," he interrupts. Abby smoothly corrects course and recommends a babygram and a head CT because he wasn't restrained. "A full-body x-ray?" Neela says, all stunned, which makes her look bitchy but really it's because she's being asked to spit up all the explanatory language. Abby points out that she thinks that since Colin can't tell them where or if it hurts, they should be thorough. "Trust your exam, Abby," Luka says. "No unnecessary x-rays." Abby bites her lip. "Um, he already got a portable," she confesses. Luka is irritated, but swallows it and orders her to discharge the baby. Meek Mom looks at Abby sympathetically. "Maybe you're like me -- better with babies than with school," she says. Abby tries to pretend that didn't hurt. I can't figure out why that was even written into the script. The only thing Abby did was reverse the order of the information in her presentation and then order an extra test that, while expensive, isn't a monumental fuckup. So it's totally unrealistic that Meek Mom would be questioning her academic abilities. Shut up, Meek Mom, and go find a corner you can huddle in and suck on your own lack of personality.
A prisoner named Jimmy has a wound in his shoulder blade from a monkey knife fight. ...No, okay, that's not what it's from, but wouldn't that be awesome? It was actually just a prison fight. Snore. Neela is treating Jimmy with Chen, who points out gently -- I know, right? It sounds wrong but it isn't -- that Neela forgot to introduce herself. "I'm Neela Rasgotra. I'm going to listen to your lungs now," she tells Jimmy. It's kind of endearing because she is so formal and clinical. However, I am wondering where this came from, because she was quite good at relating to patients before. She was so nice to little Frizzy. As Chen works up Jimmy, we're treated to some background information: Jimmy's eighteen, even though he looks ten years older, and he's in jail for aggravated assault and breaking and entering. Chen orders up some tests, but is interrupted by Sam, who has a call on the line for her from the Chinese embassy. Chen exits. Neela asks the nearby cop what Jimmy broke into. "My stepfather's house," Jimmy says. "He locked me out." Neela is taken aback that everything is so damn depressing today.
This image of blurry Sam is brought to you by BobVision. He asks if she's seen a cabbie around -- he called one an hour ago. The giant fuzz that is where Sam's face would be apologetically says she hasn't, but she offers to call him another one. Bob seems sad. Bob! You make me sad. He always seems to have the weight of the world in his eyes, and that serves him well in dramatic stories. Sam notices something's off and asks if he's okay. "I'm blind, getting blinder by the day," he says evenly. "Life is good."
Frank interrupts by bleating that Sam's backup babysitter has pinkeye and can't take Alex. As Sam runs to the phone, she blazes past Romano, who's got something like pincers where his hand used to be. It's Go-Go-Gadget "Danger, Will Robinson." Frank, fascinated, asks where the other gizmo went. It's called a "hand," Frank. Remember those? You have two of them. They help you eat donuts. Susan sasses that the hand is being punished, and refuses to tell Romano where it is. Personally, I think it's in Weaver's locker abusing the dildo. Frank exposits that Susan's boring audit storyline is going to continue a bit longer because the IRS agreed to let her postpone it by an hour. "Nothing like delaying the inevitable," Susan anvils. Somewhere, Bob Newhart keels over under the weight of one that reads, "After all, Suicidal Blind Bob, this is your last episode."
Romano follows Susan into the lounge to beg for his hand back, but she refuses to oblige until he learns to behave. Oh my God. Okay, he's a shithead, we get it. But he's learning to use a new prosthesis. Cut him some slack and enjoy that it wasn't his other hand on your ass -- oh, and by the way, Susan? It wasn't EVER your ass, remember? Butt out. "May I remind you I'm in charge here?" Romano hisses. "You have to convince me first," Susan replies.
Alex is studying in the lounge. "What's a prolapsed rectum?" he asks. Susan's like, "It's what your Mom wants to do to Romano." "Shouldn't you be reading Harry Potter?" she asks suspiciously, eyeing the medical text in his hand. Then she turns around and pockets a tampon. "Are you menstruating?" Alex asks. Horrified, Susan tries to distract him by suggesting that perhaps, across the room, there is a...toe...that in some magic and painless and non-gory way has been displaced from its home and is floating around somewhere safe and antiseptic and invisible and not on the floor and far away from...things. She's trying to make Alex look, because he likes creepy things, but instead she is making me squeal. Shut your face, you monster. I want someone to remove the "e" and "y" keys from the writers' computers. They are ABUSING the right to use those letters.
Chen hangs up the phone, and Susan turns away from her hideous, cruel conversation with Alex to ask about Chen's situation. "My parents were in a car accident," Chen says distractedly. She doesn't know the extent of the problem, or even really where or how it happened, but my guess is that the script writer did it, with the green dry-erase marker, in the conference room. It was between "car accident" and "crushed by the burden of their own stereotypes." Susan promptly promises to cover for Chen. "You okay?" she asks. "Not really," Chen admits. "I've got to pack, get an emergency visa...I don't even know if my passport's still good. [And] there's no trauma centers in China." Susan sadly watches her friend leave.
When Pratt gets wind of the tragedy, he runs outside to catch up to Chen. "Are your folks okay?" he asks, worried. "I won't know until I get there," she frets, fighting tears. Pratt reaches out to her and tries to envelop her in a comforting hug, unconcerned that his body heat might melt her icy frame. She lets herself go with it for a second, and then backs away. "I've gotta go," she gulps, trotting away. Pratt stares after her, concerned. A few pieces of snow drift through the shot -- that, or the guy working the jib overhead just flicked his cigarette.
Because basic math is apparently not available to her, Susan checks out a staff list and reads off a list of fake doctor names in order to determine the bad news that, with Chen missing, they're short one attending. The good news is, the room temperature just went up ten degrees. Romano offers to pick up Chen's patients. "I'll give any reductions to residents like you with two paws and half a brain," Romano snots at Gallant. I don't know what a reduction is, but I'm praying it doesn't have to do with screen time, or else at this rate Gallant's only appearance will be in the credits. Susan wonders what pleasure Romano derives from humiliating people. "It's fun. You ought to try it sometime," he says. "What'd I miss?" Pratt asks, returning from outside. "Your calling. As a hoodlum," Romano retorts. He hands Pratt the prison-stabbing case, figuring it's his type of patient. Pratt ignores this. "If it's any consolation, we all suffer at his hand," Abby cracks under her breath. No one laughs, because she missed the memo that all punny references to "hand" were to be changed to "giant tweezers" after today's tragic Rape Of The Arm.
Susan changes the subject by asking Abby to present a patient. Abby leads her to Franny, a thirty-four-year-old mother who came in with chest pain and heart palpitations, but no history of problems. Her EKG is normal. Susan conducts the regular exam and extracts some information, mostly that Franny doesn't drink soda or coffee. "Really? That's amazing," Abby and I say in unison. I give my Diet Coke a loving pat, because I would never leave it. Franny freaks that she's got to go pick up her little girl from pre-school. Susan cautions her that she could end up staying overnight, which agitates a whole new gallon of sweat from Franny's overworked pores. "My husband can't do anything. He works, too," she panics. "I have three kids and a full-time job. This is nothing, really." Abby calmly insists that they need to look at her labs and check up on her heart. Franny fidgets.
As she and Abby walk away, Susan says, "You seem to be doing well." Abby sighs. "One-on-one," she says. "I'm not so hot in a group." That's just what she told Carter when he asked for a threesome with Luka. Susan promises that everything clicks in time. Abby invites her to grab some food, but Susan tells her she has a quasi-date. "Chuck?" Abby asks, intrigued. "No. We're kind of at that point where we should either be spending all our time together, or none at all," Susan shrugs. "I'm leaning toward none at all." Maybe they should just move into the bathroom. They seem to get along fine there. Abby asks if it's someone new. "Someone old, actually," Susan replies cryptically.
Bob Newhart is at home painting a little soldier that goes into his miniature battlefield. There are lots of close-ups of his eyes behind the magnifier, because the directors are trying to give me a coronary. The wee soldier falls over. Bob's enormous toes look very disappointed.
Alex trots around after Luka as Luka tries to assess some patients. He keeps asking a bunch of distracting questions ("Did his head get cracked by a bat?"), and Luka wonders aloud why Alex is not hanging out in the lounge, or running with some sort of street gang. Alex says that Sam wants him away from Luka. "I don't know what my mom's problem is," he shrugs. "I've been in DKA a thousand times this year. It wasn't your fault." Way to go, Sam and Alex. Such the dynamic duo. Luka tries to shove Alex playfully back toward the lounge, but stops when he sees Elizabeth laying into Coop about a patient with a possible appendicitis. Apparently, Elizabeth wants CBC results, but Coop didn't order a CBC, and that appears to be greatly impeding his ability to give her the test results. "Incredible," Elizabeth nods. "You didn't think checking the white cell count on a possible appy would be a good idea?" Luka steps in and takes the blame, saying he instructed Coop not to order the test for a variety of reasons that have to do with him tempting Comeuppance. "It's not useful for anything else but leukemia," he argues. "It's also a primary indicator of infection and I have no intention of proceeding without it," Elizabeth retorts in clipped tones. Luka's like, "Fine," and spits out a number. "You just told me you didn't order the test," she catches him. "I forgot to put the results on the chart," he shrugs. I can't tell if he's lying or if he's just trying to do tests and not bill for them. My bet is he's lying. Coop's eyes are darting back and forth between them like it's a tennis match. A boring, jargony tennis match with lab coats instead of short shorts. Elizabeth thinks it's an unconvincing case for an appendicitis, with which Luka agrees, but she primly orders some tests to be certain. "And if you're on a mission to subvert protocol, maybe you should clear it with the administration first," she snots.
Leaving Luka with a stunned shake of the head, Elizabeth crabs to Abby that she can't believe Abby can deal with life down here because everyone's much more agreeable upstairs. "Why do you suppose that is?" Abby asks with a careful head-flick in Romano's direction. Romano obliges by turning around and bitching at someone so that Elizabeth can roll her eyes in amusement. Romano announces that there's a feverish twelve-year-old girl at a community hospital who needs to be transferred for treatment. "Who's expendable? You are," he says, pointing at Abby. "But you're neither fish nor fowl, so you're useless even on a mindless transport." Abby bites back any kind of reaction. "Robert," Elizabeth warns. Gallant ends up getting the call and is dubbed "our affirmative-action hero," which he lets slide right over him. Oh, but hi, Gallant! Fancy meeting you here. Honestly, I never thought I would again. Sam gets the nod to join Gallant on the pickup. "My kid's here and I don't have a sitter," she protests. "That's my problem how?" Romano retorts. He's right. Deal with it, Sam. It's your life. Luka offers that the nurses can take care of Alex. Chuny actually agrees with this without any apparent exasperation. I didn't realize that the nurses, who were so recently either too small in number or too high in inexperience, could stop and play babysitter to a demanding, precocious budding mullet. Perhaps one of them should just grab shears and snip. That'd keep him seated. Alex is bouncing around the front desk listening to all this, and his eyes settle on Go-Go-Gadget D-Plot. Romano glares at him. "Ebony and Ivory can go off into the sunset and the rest of us can get a little work done without being STARED AT," hisses Romano. "I don't think his mom loved him very much," Susan says. Okay, hasn't she said this before? I had a huge déjà-vu moment there and I really hope I'm right and that the writers are recycling, because it just fuels our collective burning resentment.
Susan calls the IRS again in what we can safely deem the least interesting tax-related subplot imaginable, if you can fathom that such an idea might have degrees of boring beyond simply "mind-numbingly dull." Abby interrupts to whisper that Franny, the spaz mother, wants to leave. Susan gets through and waves off Abby, who looks over and notices Franny pulling out her tubes. "You need to see the doctor before you go," Abby says. Franny flips out that she can't, she doesn't have time, and someone stole her shoes, she can't find her shoes, and she has no time, and she's busy, and my God, she wishes she could reveal now that she's taking speed or somesuch chemical, because she's got three kids and a husband and dinner to make and she really just can't afford to wait for this plot to plod along. Abby tries to comfort her, but Franny still collapses with a weak pulse. We fade to black thinking she's very lucky that she gets to take a nap.
Neela attempts to make small talk with Jimmy the prisoner. It turns out that he's only been in prison for a few months. He then proudly shows off the tattoo his girlfriend Lila bought him before he was arrested. He's being chatty, and Neela sort of freezes up and tells him that his stitches can come out in ten days. Seriously, she used to be better at interaction than this, didn't she? Pratt enters to get an update; they end up moving Jimmy around on the bed. When he gets up, though, there's a bloodstain on his gown and the sheets. Neela quietly points it out to Pratt, and when Jimmy sees it, he screams that Neela needs to leave. "Jimmy, it's all right," she attempts, but he's clinging to the wall and insisting that she leave, so she does. "I'm not a fag, all right?" Jimmy says desperately. Pratt very carefully asks if he was raped. "Don't come close, okay?" Jimmy trembles. Pratt eventually makes him listen by pointing out that a rape exam buys him an extra day in the hospital, whereas refusing treatment buys him just an hour. Oh my God, this episode is such a downer. How can it be only the second act? Could someone just please do something quickly? Or with music? Or with some happy?
Franny is on an inhaler. "Has anyone seen Sam's weird little kid?" Chuny asks. Check with that CBS show, Chuny. Maybe he ran over there, like so many other people. "Am I having a heart attack?" panics Franny. Susan doesn't think so, but her pulse is now beating faster than average. Neela pops in to report that the EKG technician is on his way down, and based on something Susan says, she correctly identifies what medicine Franny needs and then carefully explains that it's to normalize her heart rhythm and better understand the problem. "Nice assessment, Neela," Susan compliments her as Abby dies a little inside. So what does Abby do? The mature thing, which is, learn her shit and make her friends respect her? No. She decides to wheedle. I hate a wheedler. "You never compliment me like that," Abby whines. "I do!" Susan insists. Abby contradicts. "I don't?" Susan asks. "Noooo," Abby says quickly. Susan is flustered. "I give you my time. Which is the highest form of a compliment," she attempts. Abby, though, walks away in the middle of this sentence. I know she's worried that people aren't taking her seriously as a med student or are taking it for granted that she isn't in need of the same encouragement just because she's been a nurse for so long, but it's so unbelievably rude just to walk away like that. Not to mention that she's fishing rather pathetically for compliments. Were I Susan, I'd tell her to go stuff it.
Bob Newhart is merrily vacuuming his carpet. Twopper darts around the vacuum cleaner skeptically and playfully while Bob laughs delightedly. So far, Bob's day is getting better. Bob is happy. This means Bob is going to die.
Speaking of puppies, Alex is following Luka around like a stray one. Where is the pound when you need it? "What's the weirdest thing you've ever taken out of someone's body?" he asks. Luka ignores him. "Like, a really long tapeworm?" he persists. Luka says, "Worse." Alex guesses a gerbil. Lemmiwinks! No! Methinks Alex has been reading about Richard Gere again. Luka sighs that he really, really has to go work now, and doesn't have time to babysit a kid who normally would so have been shut up inside Carter's old locker by now. But as Luka storms off, he notices that Coop's appendix patient is gobbling up some food. "The rule-out appy guy is eating?" he asks Chuny, annoyed. "He's on his second tray," she says. Luka grits his teeth, marches up to the guy, and signs his discharge papers. Coop is conveniently hovering nearby, and pops up to point out that Elizabeth did want a test performed on Appy Guy. Luka figures that the patient's appetite is a sufficient sign that Appy's appendix isn't going to blow. Coop worries that it's an unusual presentation, so Luka blithely tells Appy that if he vomits, has a fever, or gets worse pain, he should return. "Otherwise, have a nice day," says Luka, skipping off into the sunset. Coop and Appy are both like, "What the fuck?" I think Appy is just worried he won't get to finish his Jell-O.
"Where are you going now?" asks this week's most annoying running plot. "X-ray," Luka says. "Can I come?" Alex asks. "No!" giggles Luka, shoving him toward the lounge. Alex follows him around anyway. Security! What is wrong with these people? Nearby, Pratt asks Chuny if the rape kit they use on men is the same one they use for women. He also needs an attending to perform the exam; Luka offers to do it once he returns from radiology, but Pratt stiffly refuses this without so much as a sidelong glance. Professionalism is his enemy, class his bitter nemesis. "A guy can get raped?" Alex asks, fascinated. Luka more or less grabs him by the scruff of his neck and pulls him away.
Pratt decides to ask Romano to perform the rape exam. Romano is confused until Pratt clarifies that it's the male prisoner who came in with the knife wound. "Oh, well," Romano says. He pauses. "Go ahead, I'll sign off on it," he announces. Pratt can't believe that, after all the lectures he's gotten about being a total fuckwit shitbat, Romano's now ordering him to break the rules like they're a Utah arm. "Suddenly you're Mr. By-The-Book?" seethes Romano. He orders Pratt to follow his heart and breach protocol.
Sam and Gallant arrive at the other hospital and are led toward the room of Michelle, a pre-teen whose parents brought her up from Michigan to see a concert as a way of celebrating her successful bone-marrow transplant. This means she is going to die. That's the rule on this show, I think. If you are happy, and you know it, clap your hands -- because that will get the attention of a doctor, and you'll need it, because you're completely and utterly doomed. As soon as Gallant gets a look at the sleeping girl, he freaks out. "I thought you said it was just a cold," he says, running to her side. Hurriedly, Gallant introduces himself to Michelle's parents and tries to wake Michelle. She, of course, won't open her eyes. They don't have a proper pediatric oxygen mask for her, and she's wearing too much nail polish to get a good pulse ox reading. "She was stable," her doctor says helplessly. "Well, now she's septic," Gallant pants. Michelle's parents are very confused. A second ago, their daughter was taking a sweet little nap, and now she's being likened to a tank of infected sick. "She might have a blood infection, and her chemo weakened her ability to fight it," Gallant explains very competently. He scoops Michelle up and begins to explain the risks of transport to the parents, and it's impressive that he'd know to do all that. "Dr. Gallant, I need to talk to you," Sam says discreetly. He doesn't listen. She slowly insists more loudly that she needs to have a word, so as soon as he's got Michelle situated on a gurney, Gallant jogs to Sam's side. She whispers that they should stay and intubate before transporting Michelle, because she's unstable. "She has a strong pulse," argues Gallant. "We should scoop and run." Sam frets that, in twenty minutes, Michelle will stop breathing. Gallant thinks they can have her at County with five minutes to spare, and is scared that if they linger, she'll die because the hospital is so terrible. Sam defers to him, and he gets Michelle's parents to sign the consent forms so that they can move her to County.
Abby quietly tells Franny that her heart rate has normalized. "My husband's picking up the kids," Franny says faintly. "One less thing for you to do, right?" Abby says kindly. "Try to get some rest." Gulping, Franny confesses that she can't sleep much anymore at all. Abby pulls up a chair, sits down, and gently suggests that it's hard to deal with the three kids and a job without a little help. Franny snorts that they don't have any kind of nanny. "No, I mean for energy," Abby says. "Are you taking anything, or drinking anything?" Franny's totally clammy and her expression is shifty. Then she twitches and reaches into her purse to pull out a bag of crystal meth. , she gets the crazy eyes and starts babbling about getting it from another mother. "Please, don't tell my husband," she wigs, widening her eyes and going loopy. Abby's like, "Okay," and gets up as Franny's expression turns inexplicably insane. She should get cuffed for safety. I seriously think she's about to fashion a weapon out of her gurney and go rampaging.
Abby proudly tells Susan that she learned Franny's on drugs. "What?" Susan gasps. "Did she just tell you out of the blue?" Abby blinks. "No. I asked," she says, hurt a bit that Susan didn't pat her on the back or throw her a little cookie and clap.
Angry Boyfriend interrupts, toting Colin, who apparently fell asleep on the way home from County and now won't wake up. "You must've missed something," he pants.
Bob Newhart sets the table as classical music plays. He smiles and shifts silverware around and puts salt and pepper shakers in the center. Bob looks content. He is a dead man. He might as well get metaphorical about it and make toast.
In Trauma Green, Neela, Abby, and Susan frantically examine Colin. "Did he get a CT?" Susan asks. "No," Abby admits. Susan can't believe that they didn't do that when the kid wasn't wearing a seatbelt during the accident. They swiftly tube Colin as Abby reviews that she checked for a cranial bleed and the boy was fine. Angry Boyfriend seems agitated. I'm not sure why Meek Mom didn't come in with him. Perhaps she's too busy sitting on the couch watching the dust collect on her knees. As they wheel the boy out to CT, Susan sternly says, "Not restrained and no CT? Are you kidding, Abby?" Her momentum gone, Abby stops in her tracks and lets out a totally exasperated sigh. We fade to black thinking it's very big of Abby not to immediately -- and justifiably -- point the finger at Luka, but also a whole lot more concerned that the great toast rack in the sky is making room for Bob Newhart.
Susan rushes out to her audit and passes a brooding Abby, glowering outside the hospital. Susan tells her that Colin has a subdural hematoma and a fracture, and that he's up in neurosurgery now. "How could I miss an intercranial bleed?" Abby spits at herself. Susan tries to comfort her and does point out that she had an attending there to direct her through it. "If I can't trust my clinical skills, I might as well go home...The book stuff's not going that great either," Abby sighs. Susan promises to pull the charts and pore over them with Abby when she returns. "It's how you learn," she says. Aw. That's nice of Susan. Does Abby thank her? No, of course not.
Gallant and Sam roll up in the rig and unload Michelle. They catch Susan at a weak moment, and she joins the party to try to save Michelle. "What about your audit?" Abby asks. Susan shrugs helplessly.
Bob Newhart is chopping a red pepper so that he might spice up Susan's life with a loving tang. Bob, the first rule of going blind is, "Do not chop." And the second lesson is, "Seriously, we weren't kidding about the first one." So naturally, he accidentally slides his veggies off the cutting board, and naturally, when he bends down to pick them up, he puts his hand on his sharp knife. Confusion and then recognition dawn on Bob's face as we see blood slowly start pooling on the cutting board. His hand's covered in it. Bob's jowls twitch in anger. This is enough to snap his jolly mood. He hurls everything off the kitchen island and onto the floor. Mercifully, Twopper was not hanging out down there to absorb the painful brunt of Bob's old, bleeding, blind rage.
In Trauma Green, Gallant frantically defends his decision to transport Michelle -- she had a pulse, and the hospital there had no equipment. It definitely sounds like he was damned either way. Susan wants to know why he didn't tube Michelle. "She was breathing on her own," he says sadly. Frank ducks in to tell Susan that Bob is on the phone for her, but she waves off the call for now, and they frantically try to save the girl. At this point in time, I have never been so depressed by an ER episode in my life. I'm now completely understanding why Zoloft got all that product placement: the writers have been needing to overdose on it in order to get through their scripts.
Elizabeth stops with bemused ire to Malarkey and sweetly informs him that his feared pancreatitis case is actually just a woman with menstrual cramps. Malarkey's expression is all, "Women menstruate from the pancreas?" She lightly suggests that he actually begin reading his textbooks instead of using them as coffee tables on which to rest bongs. On her way out, Elizabeth notices a familiar face in the waiting room -- it seems Appy is back. She grabs Coop and angrily demands to know what's going on; Coop says that Luka discharged Appy. "Without the CT I ordered," Elizabeth realizes. As they run up to Appy, the NBC Vomit Comet winds up and shoots a wad of lumpy puke hard out of Appy's mouth and onto the floor, at which time we get a shot of the barf splash at Appy's feet and his apologetic expression. Looks like oatmeal today. Everyone in the waiting room looks on as if they want to applaud, but they aren't sure if the fireworks show is over. "It hurt for a while but it's much better now," Appy murmurs. "Think he perfed?" Coop asks. "Yes," Elizabeth says smugly. She explains to a horrified Appy what it means when one's appendix explodes. It's a pretty sick explanation that involves fecal matter in the stomach, and in many ways I'm sorry I know this, although I guess it's good to have a reason to coddle my appendix. Hi, muffin. If you need anything, let me know. Appy is scared when he finds out that this demands surgery, and refuses to go under completely. Apparently, his mother died during surgery and he insists that the anesthetic did it. Elizabeth can't even believe she's hearing this, and stands up positively aglow with fury. "Where are you going?" Coop asks. "Oh, I'm going to find Dr. Kovac," Elizabeth practically salivates.
Michelle is not doing too well. Gallant gulps and doesn't want to stop compressions, but it's not working. Sam calls a time of death. I guess this is audacious of her, based on the gossip on the forums, but I'm going to accept it because I'm actually surprised they didn't have Alex pop up from underneath the gurney to do it. "There's only so much responsibility you can take for what happened," Susan tells Gallant. "You didn't give her cancer." Wow, that is phenomenally unhelpful. Ron Obvious faints dead away in the corner. Poor Gallant. He looks absolutely miserable as he shuffles off toward Michelle's parents. "Gallant?" Susan quizzes him. "I'll tell them," he says softly. We see him go outside and speak to Michelle's parents, and her mother's face crumples as she collapses against her husband. MISERABLE. This episode is miserable. Everyone's cranky, dying, depressed, whining...they'll need a slapstick hour to make up for this one.
Bob Newhart is slumped on the couch holding his cordless phone. There's a bloodstain on his shirt, but the bleeding seems to have stopped without a Band-Aid, which must mean he bled out in the kitchen and then fled when the sharks started circling. He pushes "Talk," and then has a change of heart and rings off. He looks depressed. Twopper is nowhere to be seen, which is good, because I can't think about that poor little orphaned puppy right now. I'm way more concerned that Bob Newhart is successfully playing The Sad Old Man Tango on my heartstrings.
Neela enters Jimmy's room and asks if he's doing okay. She also apologizes for the rape-kit delay. "Did you report it?" she asks. "I never said anything happened," tenses Jimmy. Neela suggests that he could possibly get transferred to another facility. So he can get prison raped by inmates in a new, fresher setting? Very helpful. It'll be the beautiful rediscovery and subsequent painful loss of his ass virginity. "There's no shame in this," Neela insists. "No one's going to think less of you for it. Not me or your girlfriend." Jimmy spits that he doesn't have a girlfriend any more. "I'm the girl now," he moans. He kicks Neela out of the room and she shuffles off, sad at having managed to say the wrong thing again.
A patient of Luka's is thrashing around in the x-ray room, and he forcibly injects her with Haldol to calm her. Alex watches from just outside the room. Okay, these floors have front desks, people. There's no way Alex would be making it around the hospital without anyone's grabbing him by the ear and chaining him to a pole, or tossing him down an elevator shaft. "Did you kill her?" he eagerly asks Luka. Yes, Alex. He didn't think her leg bone would heal in a perfect fusion, so he figured her life wasn't worth living anymore. Excitedly, Alex asks what the big machine does and whether it can make you glow. It's an x-ray, dumbass. You asked where he was going and he said, "X-ray." Oh, I'm so irritated by Son of Sam, I can't even type his name without my forehead vein throbbing. "Only after a thousand x-rays," Luka smiles. Then he pauses. "Want one?" he asks. Alex delightedly asks for a head x-ray. "Long as your department gets charged for it," the tech shrugs. Luka nods his assent. Apparently he is willing to x-ray the skull of a bratty parasite and spend hospital money on it, but when sick people come in and need "tests" and "treatment" and even "medicine," Luka's like, "Hmm, not today."
As the illicit x-ray begins, Elizabeth shows up to tear Luka a new one. Except she sort of doesn't, which is amazing to me. She was way, way bitchier to Mark when he was dying of the tumor; I know she's capable of a lot more. I give her a D. Come on, Elizabeth. Your bitchiness would finally be useful. Elizabeth overly politely clarifies that Luka did override her order for the CT, and then informs Luka that Appy's appy blew itself up and sent him straight up to surgery. Luka totally doesn't care, because he's way more engrossed in administering an unnecessary x-ray to a moppet who probably just wants to know if something inside his head is forcing his hair to grow out that unfortunate way. "Your actions made his life and mine a lot harder," Elizabeth says stiffly. She informs Luka about the no-anesthetic rule, and of the greater risks to Appy himself, but Luka still maintains that the tests wouldn't have been conclusive. As he talks, Elizabeth notices with shocked eyes that Alex is frolicking in the x-ray room. Oddly, she doesn't say anything. Come ON, Elizabeth! Find the inner bitch! She can't be far away! "[Appy] came back as directed," Luka points out. "The system worked." Elizabeth is angry that the system ended up dumping fecal matter into Appy's belly that she now has to fish out instead of having dinner with Ella. "Score one for your bloody mission," she complains, flouncing out without even hinting at the delicious confrontation we'd been anticipating. That's so disappointing. That is every bit as depressing to me as all the other crap we've had to endure in this episode.
Susan tries yet again to telephone the IRS, but this time she's interrupted by Pratt, who wants her to do the rape exam because Romano seems unwilling. "Homephobe," she curses under her breath. Rolling her eyes, she agrees to do it. Abby trots up with Colin's films under her arm and asks if Susan can help her read them; Susan spies a passing Romano and asks Abby to wait one second.
Flagging down Romano, Susan sasses that she's taking the rape case that he refused because he's either afraid of the gays or can't do it with his Go-Go-Gadget Please For The Love Of Mary Get Those Pincers Away From My Ruptured Ass. With the latter argument, I have to say he might have a point. "Pratt doesn't know what he's talking about," Romano spits. He says he'll finish what he starts, and snatches back the chart. Okay. As Romano walks back past Pratt, he makes a finger gun and shoots it off. Oh, yes, that's very tasteful.
Sam demands to know where Alex is. "Stalling Kovac," Frank complains. Sam doesn't seem bothered by this, because she's a bastion of unprofessional selfishness. She's no better than Crappy Last-Season Abby.
Susan rushes up and asks if the IRS called. Frank gives her the delightful news that it did call, and that it's going to penalize her monetarily at her earliest inconvenience. I can only pray that this is the end of her dramatic tax-problem storyline, so that week we might get into something a little sexier, like Susan Gets A Mortgage. Frank also tells her that Bob called to cancel dinner.
Neela quietly tells Susan that Franny agreed to seek counseling, so nobody is going to intervene in her family life. "She's obviously devoted to her family and takes good care of them," Neela points out. Susan wonders if Neela will feel that way once Franny takes her last baggie and has a heart attack. Perhaps Neela should prescribe Franny some Red Bull. "I'm sure this scared her [enough]," Neela insists. Susan pauses, and then shrugs it off and tells Neela to go with her gut. "Are you sure?" Neela asks, uncertainly. "It's a weakness on my part, not reading people well. It never occurred to me that a working wife and mother would be a meth user." Susan macabrely points out that people are capable of doing anything.
Bob Newhart is capable of anything. He can vacuum, he can paint, he can catch cabs...he's not so good with the chopping, but he did get halfway through his pepper. Bob Newhart might also turn out to be good at suicide. He tapes a note to his chest and picks up a pistol sitting on his coffee table. The sight of him putting it to his head and looking scared, desperate, relieved, and resolute all at once is a really moving one. The record skips behind him as we pan down to the note, which reads simply, "Do Not Resuscitate." Then a gunshot tears through the air and blood splatters all over Bob's chest. We fade to black cripplingly depressed on poor Bob's behalf, and wondering what will become of sweet little Twopper, the most likable character on this show, on account of the fact that it's not possible to give him any lines.
Romano finishes up Jimmy's rape test with Chuny. He tells Jimmy that the bleeding has stopped, and that the tear will heal on its own. He then signs the paperwork to send Jimmy back to the "daddy tank" as soon as everything's processed. Neela appears looking grim, clutching some paperwork. "You're already my favorite. Want people to talk?" he teases. Neela quietly ignores the implications of being Romano's pet, because we all know Azrael got kind of a raw deal just by being associated with Gargamel. Ruefully, Neela hands Romano some test results that he digests with shock. Then he reenters Jimmy's room and very nicely delivers the news that Jimmy has AIDS. There is a pause. I don't even know what to say, other than that few shows besides this one could actually find a way to make an anal rape story more depressing. Bob Newhart had the right idea. "Did you hear what I just said?" Romano asks. Jimmy turns to him and smiles. "Yeah, thanks, man," he says, holding out his hand. Romano's dumbfounded. "At least now I know it's not going to be forever," he says. Romano doesn't know what to make of this, so he makes it time to leave. "Is that the guy who got punked out?" asks a fascinated Malarkey, eating and gabbing on the phone outside the room. Romano taps the audience's carefully sent vibes and spits out, "Shut up."
Susan explains to Abby that she'd have scanned Colin's head, but that Luka's argument against doing so is not a bad call either, and that it comes down to personal judgment. "That's why I ordered a babygram," Abby says. She's looking at that right now. Suddenly, Susan squints up at the babygram film Abby has. "This is the wrong film," she says. "No, it's Colin," Abby says. "I still don't see it. Is it more superior?" She screws up her face and stares at the picture before her. They grab Colin's recent head CT to try to locate the fracture so that they can cross-reference. "I still don't see it," Abby frets. "It's not there," Susan realizes. They stare at each other for a second. "Get a social worker and find the boyfriend now," Susan says in a low voice.
Susan goes into the trauma room to attend to an incoming gunshot wound to the head. "Self inflicted," Pratt says. Pratt moves to intubate despite the DNR note, because suicide is against the law and that waives Bob's right to refuse treatment; also, it's possible he flinched and the bullet went off-target. As Sam lifts the bag off the man's face, her expression darkens. It's Bob Newhart. Who knew that chopping a red pepper could be so fatal? "Dr. Lewis," Sam chokes. Susan looks down and sharply takes in a breath. The sounds around her turn echoey and distant, as if she's leaving herself from shock. "He used a gun," she murmurs, realizing it was deliberate. Then she orders Pratt to stop trying to resuscitate him. "It's what he wanted," she says, unable to hide her regret and disappointment. She looks so crushed.
Abby charges up to Angry Boyfriend with the social worker who isn't Adele in tow. I can only hope this means Erica Gimpel is getting work somewhere else. Boyfriend asks if Colin is out of surgery, and exposits that Meek Mom is at work, because apparently she lacks the balls to point out that she was just in a car accident and might need a day off to recover mentally. "You mentioned Colin cries a lot," Abby levels. "Was he crying when he got home?" Angry Boyfriend doesn't know where this is going, because he's really dumb. Abby aggressively intimates that he clocked Colin in the head, or bashed his skull against something, to get him to stop crying. Angry Boyfriend makes an eloquent defense: "I didn't hit that stupid kid!" Well done, Angry Boyfriend. Although I personally still think it was Demon Seed who did it. Angry Boyfriend is carted away by Security.
Sam finds Alex in the family room playing a videogame with some random extra. She makes him quit so that they can go home. "Did you make a new friend?" she asks, tiredly. Alex nods and asks if he can invite his new friend to Thanksgiving dinner, because he doesn't really have any family. Sam clearly thinks he is referring to Family Room Extra, but the smart money's on Luka showing up at their door. Sweet merciful Jesus-child, I would give thanks for that until I wept myself dry. Alex suddenly remembers his x-ray, and runs back to the family room to get it. "Look, it's my head!" he says proudly. "Dr. Kovac gave it to me." Sam doesn't seem too alarmed at this, oddly, considering that an episode ago she thought Luka was trying to hit on her kid and now he's literally getting inside his head.
Franny stops Neela, dressed and aglow, and thanks her for the help. She looks super-happy. She is clearly hopped up on something. She runs up to her family and shouts that she's going to make spaghetti for dinner. Neela watches curiously. ["Hey, Meth Mom. I hear that there are actually places that will cook food and bring it to your house on days when you don't feel like cooking because you had heart palpitations. It's called Pizza Hut. Get it on speed-dial, speed freak." -- Wing Chun]
Abby interrupts to ask how one calculates creatine clearance, and Neela rattles off a convoluted formula that glazes Abby's eyes like Krispy Kremes. Eventually she's like, "Uh, thanks," and leaves with an amazed shake of the head. Neela clears her throat and asks Abby if she'd be interested in studying together. "I'm good at the academic stuff, you know? But you're good at everything else. Maybe we can help each other," she suggests. I love her for the fact that I know what she meant, but it still came out a bit like an insult. Neela's kind of boring, but I can't help liking her.
Susan sits morosely in the trauma room, looking at Bob Newhart's dead body and wondering how many patients she's going to make dates with and then lose. She goes about leaving in a total daze, a lump in her throat. "Time's up. Where's my hand?" Romano demands. "It's in the women's bathroom in the tampon machine. Get it yourself," she says in a monotone. How the hell did Susan know how to get a hand inside a locked tampon machine? That woman is resourceful. Also, completely wasting her time. As Romano stares at her, noticing her demeanor, Susan exits, dragging her feet in a depressed gait. Yeah, Susan, we're walking right along with you.