Previously on Everything Rotten: Sam pinned Romano to the wall and tore off southern Utah after it groped her ass. Susan considered dumping Chuck because she wasn't inspired. Romano threatened to fire Pratt, because he is inspired.
We fade up on Trauma Yellow to the dulcet tones of Romano announcing, "He's going to blow an O-ring!" Is this gay porn? No, it can't be. There's no fuckswing. Abby is gamely leading a trauma with Sam, Neela, and Lester while Romano watches disapprovingly. The patient begins to twitch. Romano produces a vial of a substance and proclaims that the paramedics must have missed it. Abby glares at it. "What are the physiological effects of cocaine?" Romano quizzes. "It's a sympathetic stimulant," Abby answers. "Alpha, or beta?" Romano asks. "Both," Neela says. Abby flinches, mildly irritated and imagining Romano roasting on a spit with the apple in his mouth that Neela's probably saving in her coat to give him. As the patient's sats go down, Abby starts compressions amid Romano's taunts. "The beta-blocker made him worse," he says sternly. "His BP's through the roof and he's bleeding in his brain." The patient courteously underscores Romano's point by hitting asystole. "What should she have given?" Romano asks. Neela answers him correctly. ''Gold dot for your forehead," he says, racistly. I'm so delighted this show has given me cause to turn "racist" into an adverb. Upset, Abby defends that she's seen beta-blockers work before. "Oh, I forgot, you have nursing experience, which means you can handle ninety percent of the patients," Romano snorts. "Unfortunately that means you might kill the other ten percent." Abby insists that her patient isn't dead yet, but Romano calls it off. "Just another dead junkie," Romano mocks her. Everyone around looks sad and hangs his or her head as Romano congratulates Abby on killing the practice dummy. We cut out to a shot that's wide enough to confirm that, yes, lying in the trauma room is not an actual junkie but a training dummy. "Okay, reset for the student," he says. The dummy's eyes fly open, and suddenly it's a blue-eyed possessed-looking doll, and we smash into the credits shuddering, because in general dolls are the creepiest things on the planet besides cockroaches, toe shenanigans, and Pratt.
Abby and Neela fold up the dummy, as if that bastard isn't going to get possessed with the embittered spirit of Lucy Knight and show up in their classes the day to out-med-student them all in a bloodless coup. Neela tries to make small talk about how much it stinks that they're working through the holiday, but Abby's not really connecting with her. "Your overdose was much harder than my dialysis patient," Neela tries again. Abby doesn't answer her, because Neela sits at the right hand of Romano while Abby's stuck on the other side getting clumsy myoelectric bitchslaps.
We pick up Luka on his way to get a patient admitted to intensive care. Chuny tells him there's no room upstairs, so Luka's forced to deposit the old codger's gurney in the hallway. "Mr. Garland has pneumonia with hypoxia," Luka informs a passing Abby. "He needs IV antibiotics," she determines correctly. "I need to be with my family for Thanksgiving," Garland says. Luka's like, Suck it up, I have a war-torn past.
Luka walks away with Abby and asks her how the exorcism with the hideous demon dummy went. "Fine," she lies. "So Romano humiliated you?" Luka asks knowingly. "I looked like an idiot," Abby mutters. "Or maybe I just don't get it." Luka reminds her that Romano does it to everyone, and assures her that if she calms down and is patient and stops shitting little prisons in which her mental demons can live in captivity for an eternity while she throws them scraps of moldy bread and shoe leather, she'll be fine. "It just takes a little time," Luka says.
Frank is putting up Thanksgiving decorations. He's struggling to hang a turkey, which would also be an apt description were he to botch a suicide attempt. "Son of a bitch," he curses. He got stuck hanging paper cheer and coordinating the pot-luck supper. Abby chuckles at this. It's nice and surprising, almost like she forgot to put in her dental lemon this morning. Meanwhile, Sam is chatting quietly into the phone, telling Alex that she left a sandwich in the fridge and that she'll be home soon. Oh, Sam. She hasn't learned about the jinxes yet. "Don't answer the door," Sam offers up suddenly before ringing off, as if she has a 365 Parenting Platitudes desk calendar and she's afraid to get any further behind. Abby asks Sam if everything's okay at home, and Sam shares that she had to leave Alex at home for the day, presumably because someone at the hospital grabbed her by the neck and shoved her face into a thesaurus opened to a page that points out "nurse," "workplace," and "babysitter" are not, in fact, synonyms. "It's just until 3," Sam says. "I'm finally going to make my kid a real Thanksgiving dinner. Most years I've had to work." I guess Sam's parents aren't in the picture. I smell May sweeps. They smell faintly of manure and arsenic.
Chuny, Abby, and Sam all grab coffees from a collection sitting on the front desk. Neela walks up and gratefully snags one. "That's Lily's," someone says. Neela is confused. "I thought it was pot luck," she says. Abby tells her it's a coffee club -- they pay into it each month. That sounds like a really convoluted way to go on coffee runs. Neela asks how much it costs to join. "It's a nurses' coffee club," Sam shrugs with a superior expression. Shut up, Sam. Neela looks crushed.
Susan comes down the hall with Coop and Lester. "Time to stamp out disease," she smiles. She hands out an arm laceration to Coop, an asthma patient to Neela, "bugs are crawling under my skin" to Lester, and vaginal bleeding for Abby. "Lovely," Abby grins. Susan orders Pratt to take an incoming with her; Pratt just wants Frank to turn off the parade and turn on the game. Frank won't, because his brother-in-law is marching in it. Pratt makes a crack under his breath about his marching on behalf of the Klan. God, when one of your least likable characters is calling one of the other least likable characters a racist, you ought to know your show has problems. Pratt notices Malarkey rifling through charts and choosing select ones. "You skipped over bloody diarrhea for eye pain," accuses Pratt. God, he is the dumbest man alive. That one's a no-brainer for me. Before Pratt can pound him, Frank takes a photo with a bright flash. Evidently, he found a camera lying around from a year. "What do you think is on there?" Frank asks curiously. "Maybe a couple of shots of Romano and Weaver in a compromising position," Pratt snorts. Oh, the poor unsuspecting photo-lab technician. Frank, naturally, wants doubles.
Abby calculates how long Amy Pietz has been pregnant. The answer: six and a half weeks. Amy looks rough. I can't tell if it's age or lack of work or that her character is pregnant and bleeding from the genitals, but she's definitely looked fresher. Abby tells her they'll check an ultrasound to make sure everything's okay with the baby. Amy exposits that she's on prenatal vitamins and the triple cocktail -- she's been HIV-positive for ten years. "Just a loser ex-boyfriend," she sighs. "[But] my fiancé's driving up from Iowa City. This guy's the real deal." She's glowing. Well, underneath the pallor and the cold sweat and the thick, thick paste that's been applied to her face by the crack ER Vaginal Difficulties Makeup Specialists.
Lily peeks her head in and beckons to Abby. Apparently, three nurses called in sick. "Yeah, on Thanksgiving," Abby snickers skeptically. Then she realizes Lily is trying to get her to cover a shift. "We really need someone who knows the floor," Lily wheedles. Abby rejects this outright because she's on duty all day as a med student. Susan conveniently appears to offer to let Abby leave early and take a nap so that she can cover the nursing shift. "Take one for the team?" they beg, grinning pleadingly. Abby blinks at them. Gotta love it when your co-workers take advantage of knowing that you don't have family around you on the holidays. I sort of wish Abby'd tell them to suck on it, frankly. But instead she agrees to cover if they can't find anyone else. The way Susan and Lily scurry delightedly out of the room, you know they're not going to bother.
Malarkey is shining a light into an old man's eyes. Phew! That could have been so much worse. Malarkey accuses him of not using his prescribed eye drops, and the old man knowingly nods that is nephew gave him an herbal remedy instead. "It's called Kona Gold," he says, pulling a bag of weed partway out of his shirt pocket. The clouds part over Malarkey's head and a beam of heavenly light shines down upon his troubled, dumber-than-a- Pratt-photo-album soul. It's all Malarkey can do to stop from kissing the man's feet and singing hosannas.
Coop calls Malarkey away from the pot at the end of his rainbow. He needs bandages. He's treating a German man whose carving knife mistook his forearm for the Thanksgiving turkey. The wife made him use the electric knife. "It's from Germany," she says helpfully.
Pratt wheels in Morgan Westbrook, who fractured his pelvis in a traffic accident. He seems otherwise okay, but is on the phone to his regular doctor. Pratt grabs Malarkey and they set him up in Trauma Yellow. "How do we tell pelvic bleeding from intra-abdominal?" Pratt quizzes Malarkey. Except they're both second-year residents, so since when does Pratt do the teaching at this hospital? I know Malarkey's a new, probably inbred species of idiot, but Pratt's totally overstepping. Nevertheless, Malarkey answers him. Elizabeth enters and adds, "What if he's unstable?" Malarkey suggests doing an ultrasound. "No. Superpubic mini lap and DPL," Elizabeth replies. Wow. I have no idea what any of that means, although "superpubic" would make a great name for a garage band. Pratt wants Malarkey to stay and assist, but he fumbles through some excuse to get back to Old Man Reefer. "This is a primo teaching case!" Pratt scolds him. Malarkey blubbers another excuse and scurries away. "He squeamish?" Elizabeth asks. "No, just stupid," Pratt frowns.
Frank unwraps everything and carefully sets up the Thanksgiving buffet. Abby needs a chaperone for a pelvic exam, but there aren't any available nurses. Neela pipes up and offers to help Abby, who pauses and then glibly refuses the aid. Neela's left standing there wondering if someone put crushed halitosis pills in her toothpaste.
There's still gridlock in the ICU, so Mr. "Judy" Garland won't be getting home to Kansas any time soon. He's fine with it. Nobody likes Kansas.
Frank has a turducken as part of the spread. Neela's confused and maybe a little horrified at this -- a chicken stuffed inside a duck, stuffed inside a turkey. She bolts rather than accept a taste, but I've heard they're awesome. There's stuffing in between each layer, usually Cajun, from what I've seen. They sound so tasty. It looks a bit freaky, though -- the legs look kind of tied together, as if they can't be allowed to spring open lest the "ducken" portion shoot out like a cannonball. A delicious, juicy cannonball. This part of the episode is shamelessly dragging. They know we know there's a crash coming up and they're making us wade a long, boring slog through badly paced non-drama before we get the fireworks.
Amy Pietz moans. "Sorry," Abby says. She's gone ahead and done the pelvic on her own. Ruefully, Abby tells Amy that the bleeding is more than she expected, and that Amy's cervix is open. "Meaning?" Amy asks. "You can't maintain a pregnancy," Abby says. Amy starts moaning that she knew it, she just knew it, and they've been trying to hard to get pregnant, and...as Amy passes out, we realize we've come to a crossroads. Either Amy's uterus is totally hosed, or there'll be an ER Thanksgiving miracle and Abby will find a secret fetus tucked away up there. Abby notices that Amy's stopped talking, and pokes her head out from between Amy's legs. Hurriedly, Abby rips off her gloves, which, despite having come from the hemorrhaging birth canal of a miscarrying woman, are spotless and new. Apparently Amy's fallopian tubes also produce Soft Soap. Abby punches the call button and orders Frank to find her some help because Amy's bleeding out and it might be handy to find someone who could stem the tide before her antiseptic bodily fluids disinfect the entire room and leave it smelling like winter pine. Abby works away, lonely, and then looks up and plaintively shouts at the window, "I could use a little help here!"
Sam treats Westbrook as he wakes up in Trauma Yellow. "You're at County," she tells him. "You got clipped by a tow truck." Elizabeth orders him not to move his leg. Westbrook announces that he's going to call his lawyer, because he'd rather get treated anywhere than County, what with the assholes and the promise of people's stray hairs drifting into his body cavities. Elizabeth warns him that he's bleeding internally, but basically Westbrook would rather die than lie down for any of the doctors at this place, ostensibly because he hasn't met Luka yet. Pratt angrily orders Westbrook not to use his cell phone, but Westbrook persists, so Pratt snatches it out of his hand and slams it down onto the instrument tray.
Cue Romano. He glides in on an oil slick of his own greasy sycophantism, telling Westbrook that they'll basically do whatever he wants them to do, and Pratt will be disciplined for stealing his mobile, and if he needs any massages or blowjobs or a toupee made of Sam's unkempt locks, well, they'll make it all work. Elizabeth shoots him a glare and then announces that they're taking Westbrook up to CT. "After a few tests, we'll work on a transfer," he says. "You're in excellent hands with Dr. Corday. Believe me, I envy you." Well, maybe Romano needs a different approach, then. He should try telling Elizabeth that he has life-threatening internal bleeding...in his penis.
Romano grabs Pratt and pulls him aside. "That guy is the biggest real-estate developer in Chicago," Romano lectures. "More like the biggest prick," Pratt mutters. Wow. That's the pot whispering to the cookie sheet that the kettle looks a little rough around the edges and could use a Palmolive scrub. Romano points out that Westbrook is a VIP; Pratt argues that he shouldn't get special treatment. Apparently "special treatment" means "a transfer that's totally ill-advised but upon which he's insisting," and frankly, if I were that VIP, I'd want them to ignore my sorry ass. "He could have an ongoing hemorrhage," Pratt points out, but Romano counters that the only mistake he's made is letting Pratt continue to practice medicine. "You're willing to compromise patient care so you can suck up!" Pratt spits. Romano boots him off the case, and just as Pratt rejoices that his name will be left off the malpractice suit when Westbrook's spleen bleeds out of his nose, Romano drops the bomb that he's firing Pratt. Suddenly, Romano is the bravest, smartest man in all the world. "You just pissed me off for the last time," Romano sneers, exiting. Pratt stares after him, dumbfounded. We fade to black feeling a sudden rush of warmth for Go-Go-Gadget Utah Fist Of Rage.
Sam is in with Abby and Amy, the latter of whom regains groggy consciousness. They tell her that she simply passed out from all the blood loss. "That doesn't sound good," she says. Suddenly Luka is in the room as well, listening as Abby tells Amy that a "D&C" could fix the bleeding tissue. Or remove it. Or something. ["Remove it, I believe. I think I read something about that in the second Flowers In The Attic book." -- Wing Chun] Luka clearly doesn't like this answer, so he calls Abby into another room and testily tells her that Amy has no retained tissue and multiple uterine fibroids, which are a whole lot more complicated than anything you can fix with a simple D&C. Abby flares her nostrils as Luka tells her to be careful what she says. I get the sense she hates being questioned because she's a med student, thinking maybe that if she were there as a seasoned nurse, she'd be treated differently. I'm not sure. Maybe she's just defensive about having possibly erred. Either way, Abby tersely suggests that most of the time the tissue is retained. I don't really know what any of this means; basically, Abby thought it would be a simpler procedure and shouldn't have given the impression that it was cut-and-dried. Luka orders her to call OB/GYN and walks away. Abby looks sad.
Pratt asks Frank the score. I believe it's Romano 10, Pratt 0. Westbrook's scans come in, and he's got a shattered pelvis. Pratt is secretly delighted that Westbrook won't be having sex for a long, long time, and only wishes it had been crushed by a giant dominatrix named Bertha with a camera and a signed blackmail-ready statement. Apparently the man's private physician has arrived and they've got a place reserved for him at the Mayo Clinic. Romano oozes that they'll all be fine there. Pratt floats around and Romano hisses, "What part of 'you're off the case' do you not understand?" Pratt shrugs that he's just checking up on the patient's best interests. Romano stiffens and snarls that he and Weaver and Anspaugh will be meeting with Pratt at the end of the day. "On Thanksgiving?" Pratt asks, dumbfounded. "That's right," Romano says, satisfied. As he watches Romano walk away, Pratt murmurs, "Guess that saves you from spending it alone." Hey, Pratt? How's Leon, huh? Think he'd have liked to see you on this major holiday? Right. Shut up.
Lester and Neela report to Susan -- his guy's got scabies, her asthma patient needs heliox, which I guess is helium and oxygen, which...sounds pretty damn fun, come to think of it. Each episode of this show should come with a free dose of that cocktail. Romano blazes past Susan and orders her to find coverage for Pratt's shifts. She's all, "Whatever, nice arm, fuckbelt."
Coop puts nice stitches in the German man's arm. I need a name for him and his wife. Let's go really obvious: Olaf and Brumhilde, because how often does a girl get to type those words? Abby passes, and Romano shouts out a snotty medical question that she doesn't answer, and which floats right over my head. Abby just arranges her features into something approximating abject hatred. Were this an Agatha Christie novel, we'd be firmly convinced of her motive by now. We'd also have a mustachioed Belgian and some plot intricacies, which actually don't sound so bad to me right now. As it is, Abby just snarls and then tries to ignore Romano.
"Did you put your clothes in the hamper?" Sam asks the telephone. "Did you check your sugar at noon?" Excellent. She's now caught up to February on the desk calendar. Keep trucking, Sam! Only ten months of belated parenting to go!
Malarkey prescribes Old Man Reefer some eyedrops. "What about the other stuff?" OMR asks. Malarkey's eyes get all shifty and he grumbles that Old Man Reefer doesn't need any of that. "It's illegal. Just say no," Malarkey attempts sternly. Hee. "Just say no to what?" Pratt asks suspiciously. "Uh, altar boys," Malarkey replies, escaping quickly. I do like Scott Grimes a lot. It's not his fault that Malarkey is the fattest weenie at the roast.
Yay! Gallant is here! "Look at this rack," Luka says. Oh, my, please do, boys. "Do I have to?" Gallant asks. Yes. YES. Luka takes him off to triage to treat-and-street some patients. Sam stops them and corrals Luka to help deal with some hallway traffic. They blah their way through two patients before getting to Judy, who's still sitting there in the hallway waiting for someone to bring him his pretty red pumps. "Sorry for the delay, sir," Luka apologizes. "It's okay, I like to people-watch," Judy replies cheerfully. Luka then asks Sam to pitch in at triage, but she can't because Luka just dumped a bunch of orders on her. "No beds, no staff, and we're doing the work of the entire hospital," he complains. "Welcome to my world," Sam brave-little-soldiers. Suddenly, Luka gets an idea: he asks for hard restraints for Judy. "He's a pussycat," Sam says, confused. "The kind that lock," Luka whispers conspiratorially. Sam makes a mental note to keep him away from Alex but good.
Amy Aquino! Hooray! It's so good to see her gap-toothed grin. Except that she's not smiling. Not even a little. So really, it's just good to see the frown that we know is just an elaborate cover for the presence of a gap-toothed grin that probably doesn't belong in a room with a miscarrying HIV patient anyway. Dr. Aquino tells The Other Amy that they're going to need her to sign consent forms for exploratory surgery that might include a hysterectomy. Amy is stunned and doesn't want to sign the papers because she wants to have kids. Abby is so surprised that Dr. Aquino dropped the H-bomb that she does what everyone apparently has been told to do in this episode: she pulls Dr. A. aside for a chat in a conveniently empty Trauma Green. I'd have been way more entertained if there'd been a bloody and horrific trauma case going on in the background during the forthcoming sensitive conversation. I can just see Dr. Aquino's brow furrowing and Abby's lips quacking out as Weaver whips out some dying guy's intestines, lassos Malarkey, drags him into the room, and forces him to smoke them.
In Trauma Green, Abby politely asks why a hysterectomy is necessary here. "Because it might save her life," duhs Dr. Aquino. Abby wonders why they're not pursuing other options. "I don't usually justify my approach to a nurse," Dr. Aquino says icily. Abby stiffly smiles that she's a fourth-year med student now, but Dr. Aquino doesn't give a crap in a mixed-metaphorical henhouse. She says that they make people sign to cover all contingencies, because you never know what hijinks may ensue when you go rooting around a woman's womb. Abby wants Dr. Aquino to attempt embolization. "That would take hours," Dr. Aquino says. Abby's all, "I'm sorry, and your problem is...?" "She's bleeding out and she isn't stable enough for it," Dr. A says, a hard edge creeping into her voice. Romano has taken up eavesdropping in the background, just waiting for the right time to deploy Go-Go-Gadget Mental Poison. Abby implies very, very strongly that Dr. Aquino doesn't want to go to extreme lengths to avoid a hysterectomy simply because Amy in the other room has HIV. "What the hell are you accusing me of?" Dr. A sneers, rightly. "I can settle this catfight," Romano decides. "Abby, you're wrong." Abby tensely spits that she and the good doc are simply discussing uterus-saving procedures. "On an HIV-positive woman? Why?" Romano says disdainfully. To her credit, Dr. Aquino recognizes a bitter blowhard when she sees one, and shoots Romano a look so withering that even his metal arm tries to shrivel. Abby points out how badly Amy wants to have a baby. "Maybe this is God's way of saying, 'Bad idea,'" Romano suggests cheerfully. Through gritted teeth, Abby points out that transmission rate of HIV from a mother to a baby is less than 3%; Romano counters that it doesn't change the fact that the kid will be motherless in a decade. I feel like this story, and Pratt's of two weeks ago, are so easy and repetitive. Any time you want a moral quandary, throw in a precious wee baby, and put the character you want people to like on the side of the baby so that he or she looks virtuous and everyone else seems evil. Dr. Aquino shakes her head, but does promise Abby that she'll do everything she can to avoid removing the uterus. Romano flares his nostrils at Abby as she shoots him a dirty look and exits.
A guy tore his rotator cuff during a game of some kind with his hypercompetitive sister. Would've been funnier if they'd gone ahead and cast David Schwimmer. Chuck shows up and interrupts Susan with a bouquet of flowers, a smile, and a flourish. She looks mortified. Malarkey and NotSchwimmer sit back and watch this with amused smiles. "Thank you," Susan says awkwardly. "Don't thank me, thank some dead guy from Mercy," jokes Chuck. Susan decides not to see the charm in this, because the writers have decided to give her doubts. Chuck wiggles his eyebrows and asks Susan if she wants to get together for some late-night pumpkin pie, and although I'm pretty sure he wants to throw some nooky in there as well, I'm equally sure that he really does intend to sit there with her and get down and dirty on some dessert. "I'm beat," Susan says, shaking her head with one of those really uncomfortable screwed-up facial expressions that's intended to convey regret but which really means, "Dear God, I can't think of anything I'd like less, short of letting Romano loofah my inner thigh with his chin." Chuck is perceptive enough to pick up on the disconnect. Susan, flustered that he's calling her on it, pretends she's fine and just a little tired. "Of me?" Chuck asks, a bit gingerly. Aw! Susan conveniently gets interrupted before she can answer: a gunshot victim is en route. With an aw-shucks smile, Susan bids adieu to Chuck and hands Frank the flowers.
Chuck heads into Trauma Yellow, where he's helping to escort Westbrook to his private helicopter. Westbrook's personal physician introduces himself and announces that he'll be on the flight with them. Romano makes a lame excuse for why he can't walk with them up to the helipad, and accepts a bunch of praise for how put-upon and special he must be in order to work in such a crusty, pressurized, and lowly place as County. "Hey, it's my calling," Romano smarms. "Take care. Have a good flight." Abby surges past him, shouting for them to hold the elevator. They're sending Amy up to the OR. Abby promises to bring up Amy's fiancé when he arrives, and then stares after her so that we know all is not as it should be, and that things might go terribly awry, and other such predictable omens.
Coop prescribes painkillers to Olaf for his arm. "Keep them. After ten years of marriage, I'm immune to pain," Olaf jokes, exiting with Brumhilde so as not to be exposed to the fallout from that clunker -- which would be impassive facial expressions and an uncomfortable silence. Neela gives her asthma girl a mask of helium and oxygen. Frank opens up the buffet, and Romano makes a joke about needing emesis basins to go alongside the spread. "Shouldn't you be on the roof?" Frank suggests. He brandishes a watch in a baggie and says that it's Westbrook's Rolex. "Hey, Indira, take that up to the helipad," Romano rudely tells Neela. She's all, "Okay, Rom-arsehole." Frank faux-supportively says he doesn't blame Romano for being scared -- he doesn't need to lose another limb up there. Tensing up and yet oddly unwilling to engage in a pissing match with a man who doubtless has the bladder of a camel cultivated after years of guzzling beer on the couch, Romano snatches the Rolex and tells Neela he'll escort her on her first trip up to the roof.
Old Man Reefer shows back up and complains that someone stole his home medicine. "Talk to the hand," Romano snaps, whirring Go-Go-Gadget Cliché up and down in front of OMR's face. Neela stops long enough to ask which doctor he had. "Young guy. Red hair, goatee," Old Man Reefer pouts. Susan wheels in a gunshot wound to the face and yells for Malarkey.
Cut to Malarkey outside the hospital, sitting in what he fancies is a hidden alcove. He's rolling a joint, because he's just really, really stupid, dumber than you'd ever think a person could be.
Luka and Sam are doing some pointless adventuring, at which time he decides it's convenient to ask her if it's okay if he comes for Thanksgiving dinner, because he couldn't have asked her about this in the week or so since Alex invited him. Sam, of course, is shocked because Alex didn't tell her whom he had invited, and Lame and Contrivance do the happy tango. Luka rolls his eyes. They're actually escorting Judy up to the ICU, where Kit is annoyed to see them because they don't have any beds. Perhaps if Judy clicks his heels three times he'll wake up in one. Luka smiles and cuffs Judy's gurney to the wall using the hard restraints. "He's a troublemaker," Luka says. Sam thinks this is asinine, and Kit wants to open up a cold can of whoop-ass on his smoldering Croatian behind. "We can't take extra patients," Kit complains. "Why not? We do it all the time," Luka says smoothly. "And now you can't send him back."
Romano and Neela are standing in the elevator, facing forward. She's got on safety goggles, and he rubs his bald pate as some syrupy Muzak hangs heavily in the air. If they'd been in there half a second longer I'd have expected him to hit "stop" and throw her against the wall for some passionate but vaguely logistically uncomfortable sex.
Ding! The elevator doors slide open, and Romano comes face to face with the whirring rotor of his old and aptly named nemesis, Chopper. Of course, he looks a lot less imposing when there's a really fake green screen in the background and some manufactured wind, but nonetheless, Chopper's back and he's still a carnivore. "WE MEET AGAIN, MY OLD FRIEND," it sneers. Romano stares at it. "I REALLY LIKE WHAT YOU'VE DONE WITH YOUR STUMP, BUT THE FACIAL HAIR HAS GOT TO GO -- PERHAPS I COULD GIVE YOU A SHAVE?" Chopper whirs. Romano starts to sweat a little. "YOU'RE AWFULLY QUIET TODAY. ROTOR GOT YOUR TONGUE?" Chopper cackles. "Dr. Romano?" Neela asks, having dashed out onto the roof. Romano has a flashback to the night the Chop-o-dile ripped off his arm and made him Dr. Hook. "I DIDN'T EVEN GET A CLOCK OUT OF IT, YOU RUDE BASTARD," Chopper intones, ripping Romano out of his frightened reverie. "Here, take it," Romano trembles, throwing Neela the Rolex and frantically trying to close the elevator doors. "YOU MAY HAVE BESTED ME WITH SILENCE AND A DIFFERENT SCRIPT THIS TIME, ROMANO, BUT YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE LAST OF ME," Chopper sneers.
Chuck goes to load Westbrook into Chopper and realizes that there's another flight nurse aboard. "This isn't your flight," he shouts. "There's only room for two attendants!" She tells him that it's going to be her and Westbrook's private doctor, but Chuck refuses. "I have to go. Insurance requirement. You're off the flight," he yells over the noise of Chopper's rumbling stomach.
Romano bolts through the ER and bursts outside, panting. He gasps for breath, rattled and desperate and pained. Ominous music plays. He stares hollowly at the activity around him -- a woman limping toward the ER doors, an ambulance unloading people -- and tries to orient himself and find his breath after being confronted with his demon. Then he rubs his face and does a double take.
Cut to Malarkey savoring his doob. "Hey!" Romano shouts, stalking over to him. Malarkey coughs tries to cover up his joint, but Romano snatches it and angrily crushes it out. "Get your ass inside and do not move until I come get you," he hisses. Malarkey scrambles out of there.
Neela waves Chopper up into the sky. As she and Expendable Nurse go to load Westbrook's gurney back into the elevator, we see a shot of the windsock and understand that the winds of change, they are a-blowin'. "THESE JACKHOLES THINK I'M GOING TO FLY ON AN EMPTY STOMACH," Chopper cackles, beginning to pitch and roll as he bides his time until Romano is back in plain view and ripe for the snacking. A strap on the gurney gets stuck in the elevator, so Mighty Doomed Nurse fumbles with it as Neela peers up at the out-of-control helicopter. Chopper smashes down against the helipad, breaking both his legs and effectively ending his water-skiing career. "DAMMIT, THIS IS NOT HOW THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO GO -- I WAS GOING TO DO A REALLY AWESOME TRIPLE-AXEL. BOITANO WILL BE SO PISSED," Chopper moans, flipping on his side and skidding across the helipad, spinning willy-nilly and shooting pieces of broken metal in a bunch of different directions. GodDAMN, people, cover your eyes! Sweet Jesus, I can't look. A barrage of shards hits the wall above Neela's head as she ducks from the madness that's unfolding nowhere near her because it's on a distractingly obvious green-screen. Startled, Neela turns around in time to see Told You She Was Toast Nurse take a piece of Chopper right in the back. She keels over onto the gurney. Neela looks terrified.
Chopper gets sick of flailing around on the roof and decides to heave himself off the roof in a convulsive fit of obvious and painful CGI. Inside the ICU, Sam and Luka are arguing about the merits of cuffing Judy to a support beam; Chopper chooses this moment to explode with wrath, which blows in the windows. Luka, Sam, and everyone but the incapacitated duck for cover.
Outside, still getting a breath of fresh air in the ambulance bay, Romano notices a commotion overhead and peers up at the air as bits of fiery debris rain down upon him. He sees a roiling fireball, the sum of this show's respect for his character bearing down upon him with the fatal quickness of a paper shredder making love to his contract. "SINCE YOU'VE NEVER GOTTEN ANY ACTION ON THIS SHOW, I'M GOING TO DO YOU A FAVOR AND TAKE YOU ROUGHLY," roars Chopper. Romano's eyes widen and he turns around, terrified, figuring that if he puts his back to his mortal enemy, it will get bored and go bother someone else. He doesn't even try to run. But Chopper won't be denied. "AND THE BEST PART IS, YOU WON'T EVEN GET YOUR NAME ON THE SPECIAL-EFFECTS EMMY!" Chopper spits. "NOOOOOOOOO!" Romano shouts, because God forbid his last line on the show should be original when he's been a thinly drawn cartoon for a year now. Also, he totally knows they're not going to win an Emmy. "YEEEEEES! I THINK YOUR ARM WAS MADE FROM SOME OF MY OLD PARTS AND I WANT THEM BACK!" Chopper replies, crashing down on his old nemesis with a plume of smoke and golden flame. We fade to black alternating between horror, regret at losing Paul McCrane, and totally hysterical laughter at the horrible and embarrassing farce of a death scene that just got handed to a very fine actor who did an underpraised job.
Naturally, there is mayhem after the break, because this show gets off on complicated blocking. Everyone's running around the ER trying to move patients and put out fires and ascertain which doctors are where. Pratt learns that there are three critical patients outside, and calls for oxygen and IVs to be delivered out there. "Get busy," he snaps at a clueless Malarkey, who replies that he can't, and opts instead to sit there and bliss out during the chaos.
Neela wheels Metal-Shard Nurse down from the roof and hands her off to Pratt. The nurse is alive but has decreased breath sounds and a whopping chunk of Chopper still protruding from her back, which means she's probably being imbued with his flesh-craving evil spirit as I write. I can't wait until Chopper Nurse explodes and drops from the sky onto an unsuspecting Malarkey. Abby tosses Neela a giant Tupperware storage box -- a casualty bin -- and the two of them head out to triage.
En route, Abby bursts into Trauma Yellow and asks Susan how much longer she'll be. "As soon as I get this crike -- why, what happened?" Susan asks cluelessly. "Helicopter crash," Abby answers. Susan pales. "Up on the roof?" she freaks. Susan orders Abby frantically to figure out if there were any survivors. "There's a hole in my throat. Anyone want a piece of this action?" Half-Crike asks.
Abby instructs Neela to use the color-coded slips of paper to mark the condition of each person. Red is urgent, black is dead, and green and yellow don't really matter because none of those people is going to get treated in the half-hour.
Susan weaves through the hospital, seemingly finished up with Half-Crike. Either that, or he was like, "Go, it's fine, Reefer Madness can roll me a joint big enough to plug this thing." She runs outside in a confused haze and sucks in a sharp breath when she takes stock of Chopper's flaming carcass. Coop screams for a backboard. A woman whose legs are crushed is groaning. "Did they pull anyone out?" Susan asks Abby worriedly. "Not yet," Abby says. She gives Susan the bullet on this woman -- her name is Reina and she came in for heart failure. And if she hadn't, Hellfire From Above would've induced its rapid onset. "Hurts quite a bit," Reina says politely. Everyone around her groans, and I know it's not at her bravado, but it should be.
Olaf and Brumhilde are hurt. We don't really stay with them, though; Susan bends over Reina again instead. Abby notices that Susan is struggling to maintain her cool. "Susan, go inside. We've got this covered," Abby says quietly. Susan shakes her head and continues giving instructions for Reina's treatment, but her voice breaks and she's barely able to suppress her tears, and it's a pretty wonderful scene for Sherry Stringfield. ["I am not too proud to say she and Donal Logue totally choked me up throughout this episode." -- Wing Chun] Susan's grief is palpable, as is her fight to control it. Maybe she's just upset that yet another love interest is being unceremoniously yanked away from her. "You okay?" Reina asks her, which is very thoughtful, considering Reina's the one with a crushed body. "It's just the smoke," lies Susan emotionally. The Drums Of Damn I Wish I Hadn't Treated Chuck Like Crap The Last Time I Saw Him beat energetically through Susan's pain.
Judy screams himself silly up in ICU, because he's not sure what else do to, because the hard restraints bar him from doing anything really useful like running away or flailing or looting. Predictably, Luka can't find the key to free him. Delectably, Luka has gotten all wet, drenched by the emergency sprinklers. God bless you, emergency sprinklers. Long may you douse my Croatian love slave.
Reina starts babbling about her granddaughter's wedding, which is coming up in a month. Gallant, Abby, and Coop are taking patients into the ER as a firefighter asks who's in charge. Susan gets up to speak with him, and he says they've put out the fire and have four dead bodies from inside Chopper. No survivors. Susan looks like she wants to throw up all over the Nielsen Media Research headquarters for bringing this sweeps evil upon her world. Abby gently offers to ply Luka into covering for Susan, but Susan shakily refuses to vacate her job. Which, in this moment, is staring around emptily wondering when the show will allow her to get laid again.
Judy is still screaming like the little bitch we're learning he is. Okay, fine, he's chained to a pillar in what was recently a burning room, but he could dial it down a few notches. People are trying to act over here. Luka, for instance, is tending to a woman who sustained both facial burns and a melted tube in her chest. He needs to reintubate and rescue a portion of the tube that she aspirated into her lungs. He tells Sam to find something he can use to fish it out. She toddles off to call Richard Dean Anderson for advice.
Susan checks up on how Reina's doing. "Better than those poor souls in the copter," she says. Susan flinches. Suddenly, Weaver appears, a breath of wool-coated fresh air despite the fact that she's still pretending she's not a redhead. "Are you okay?" Weaver asks. "Who are the other attendings?" Absently, Susan ticks off Luka and Romano, but admits that she isn't sure where they are. "Don't get tied up with one patient when you're the incident commander," Weaver lectures. "Keep an eye on the big picture." Susan blurts out that Chuck was on the chopper, and Weaver blanches. She's touchingly aghast for Susan. I have to say, Sherry Stringfield's story here is the only one I even care about, and I was spoiled, so I knew it wasn't going to end in disaster, yet I still was gnawing on my fingernails wishing Chuck would appear from the wreckage holding a mangled Utah arm and swearing vengeance on the cruel skies before using it to scratch a really persistent itch on his middle back.
Reina gets carted inside, still babbling about all the wedding details. Malarkey idly watches all this, content to do nothing. Everyone around him is darting around trying to treat people. Gallant and Weaver wheel Olaf into one trauma room just as Brumhilde is coming out of the other, headed up to the OR. She has blood in her belly. "She's in God's hands," Olaf nods. He's mighty well-adjusted for a man who just saw Romano's Armageddon. You'd think one of these people might have been like, "If I remember right, there was a short guy screaming at the wreckage before it dumped itself on the ground..."
Dr. Anspaugh shows up and sarcastically wishes Weaver a happy Thanksgiving. Anspaugh! Nice to see them trotting out the ones we expect to come through in a tragedy. One of the nurses passes by with an injured wrist. Pratt is appropriately impressed that she lifted patients with her injury.
A big music swell blasts our eardrums, so that we know A Hero Who, If He'd Known He Could Fall 1500 Feet And Get A Promo Dedicated To Him, Probably Might Have Gotten On The Chopper After All is about to burst back into our lives in a blaze of implausibility. "I need a doctor here!" Chuck shouts. He has a man with a neck wound. "Weren't you the flight nurse?" Pratt asks. "Supposed to be," Chuck says. They wheel Chuck's patient into the trauma room. Where the hell did Chuck and his mystery patient come from? No other copter arrived. No one was on the helipad -- we saw only Neela and the nurse while Chopper was thrashing around showing off. Maybe he was just waiting for Susan in the downstairs bathroom.
As Coop sucks on an inhaler to quell his asthma, he points shakily at the trauma-room window. "I thought he was dead," he says. Susan turns around and, when she sees Chuck, lets tears spring to her eyes. Chuck seems relieved to see her, and they both drop everything as the background music drops out. "Baby, I had to tube..." Chuck begins. Susan throws herself at him and her arms around him, clinging tightly. "It's not that big of a deal," he laughs, confused. "I thought you were on the chopper," Susan says between happy sobs. "No, they brought their own flight nurse, and the bitch wouldn't let me fly," Chuck says, smiling. "That bitch saved your life!" Susan cries. She's called away. "I know, I know," she stomps her foot, sweetly torn between wanting to revel in Chuck and knowing that she's needed. "I thought you were dead," she says emotionally, glowing at the sight of him. "I scraped my back a little," Chuck boasts teasingly, touching the spot and pulling away a bleeding hand. Susan backs away to tend to her patients, positively beaming. Again, very well acted. These two are way more appealing than any other couple on this show, as long as the writers don't decide to make Chuck a complete knob for the purposes of giving Susan relationship angst. Which...yeah, Chuck's probably still doomed.
Sam produces a vascular clamp so that Luka can MacGyver the chest tube out of Burned Woman's lung. He does it with relative ease. I'm surprised he's not all, "We didn't have tools in the Congo -- we used our hands for this stuff." Impressed, Sam watches Luka reintubate the woman and then dashes off to find a surgeon, because the woman's liver is lacerated. Luka stays behind to keep pressure on it, and also so that he can be impressed by Sam's moxie, or some such bullshit.
Olaf has a collapsed lung. In Trauma Yellow, Pratt's got a guy with left-side paralysis and a neck wound. Weaver insists that he call a vascular surgeon to repair the carotid, but Pratt says it won't work, because...look, who are we kidding, there are words being uttered but none of it really makes it clear to me what the hell needs to be done. Pratt basically thinks he knows a better and faster way to save this man, and Weaver doesn't want to hear it, because she hates the sound of Pratt's voice. "Don't do it, Pratt," she warns. No, please do it, Pratt, so that we might find out what "it" is. As long as it's nothing to do with the merger of his crotch to another, I think I can handle it.
Coop coughs as Susan notes that Reina's about to go into arrest. "She needs an amputation," Susan decides. Apropos that Chopper caused yet another person to face a limbless life. Coop sucks down the heliox and then Chipmunks that an amputation would kill her because her heart's too weak. Ah, Coop. So cute. I know he was on That '80s Show, which on principle I loathe, and by extension I loathe the cast. Except...dammit, the man keeps winning me over. Chuny expresses doubt that Reina will make it to her granddaughter's wedding.
Lester, Abby, and Neela perform quick analyses on a couple patients until Chuck lists to the side and collapses. Abby springs into action, ordering Neela to go get a Sonosite while she and Lester move Chuck onto a bed. Suddenly, Abby discovers that Chuck's back is badly cut and bloodied.
Neela heads into the trauma rooms in search of a doctor; Gallant and Weaver send her to Pratt, who gives her a snappish answer because he's trying to demand that a surgeon put a stent in his patient. Neela takes stock of this, then grabs the Sonosite, halfheartedly announces that she's taking it, and trucks back to Chuck's room.
Susan frantically tries to restart Reina's heart.
Neela reenters the room with the Sonosite. In her absence, Lester and wee Abby somehow managed to lift the somewhat more substantial Chuck onto a bed; thanks to Neela's exciting adventure in the trauma rooms, the show was able to gloss over this complete and utter mismatch. "No one's available," Neela pants. "He needs intubation," Abby answers, checking out Chuck. Suddenly, the Vomit Comet, having been sufficiently filled up with orange juice and refried beans, erupts from Chuck's mouth and cakes his face in orange slime. Easily the nastiest moment of the episode. Lester, Neela, and Abby struggle to roll Chuck onto his side, which makes it all the more implausible that Abby and Lester actually lifted him alone. Abby furrows her brow and looks around, bites her lip, and then decides to be a bit more like Pratt. She tells Neela to prep a tube. She wipes the caked puke off Chuck's face in order to position the tube, and then bends over him and brushes her hair away with the same vomitous glove. Luckily, her hair color is so abominable, you don't even notice the addition of Chuck's chunks. Neela seems a bit horrified that Abby's doing this, but she also quickly helps. Lester holds the Whatever Apparatus steady while Abby slides the tube down Chuck's throat; it goes smoothly. Abby grabs the Sonosite and determines that Chuck has a metal fragment in his spleen. "He needs a central line," Lester determines. "Shouldn't an attending be here?" Neela frets. "Yep," Abby says evenly. "See anyone around?" Neela can't argue with that one.
Ew, Burned Woman's liver appears to be sitting outside her body, but it might just be my sickened imagination. Anspaugh shows up to take her to the OR. "Looks like I'm eating cold turkey tonight," he sighs. Sam jolts upright and panics when she learns that it's 5 PM, and that she's two hours late getting home to Alex. Then she grabs a rescue worker and asks for some bolt cutters. "You're lucky, Mr. Garland," Luka smiles at Judy. "Your burns are only minor." Judy wails, "I liked it better downstairs. I only had pneumonia downstairs." Sam bites back a smirk and looks at Luka with something less than her usual distaste.
Olaf, sadly, is a goner. They have to wait to tell his wife, because she's in surgery herself. Weaver asks Pratt what the vascular surgeon said, and Pratt says that no one ever came. Weaver's about to rip him a new one, but Pratt smugly shows off that whatever alternative procedure he devised has apparently worked. Paralysis? Gone. We should put Pratt in pill form...oh wait, we have: cyanide capsules. Weaver swallows hard her urge to yell, and ends up just flouncing away.
Susan hopes Reina will wake up, but she doesn't stick around to find out because Neela grabs her for help with Chuck. Terrified to hear bad news about him again, Susan scurries into the room and stops short when she sees that Chuck's been intubated and has a central line. "Who did this?" she asks. Abby twitches. "Sign this and say you did," she offers. "It was either that or let him die." Susan signs it without question just as Elizabeth enters to escort Chuck to the OR. She's stunned to learn that it's Chuck, and offers to let Susan observe. A shaken Susan feels she can't, but wants to walk up with them anyway. "Abby," she calls out. "Thank you." The doors close.
Abby and Neela let out a deep breath. They walk back toward Reception, which is eerily quiet. "Is it over?" Neela dares to ask. We fade to black a little bit pissed off that no one's noticed Romano's absence yet, because love him or hate him, he's hard to ignore.
Susan gratefully hangs up the phone after learning that Chuck's surgery went beautifully. "We're opening to traumas," Abby tells her with a bewildered smile. "Too bad it takes a disaster to whip this place into shape," Susan says. And just as I thought I was going to get out of this without wanting to disfigure anyone, a patient whizzes by with a ruptured globe, and I resume wanting to rip off a few key wangs. SEE THAT, TPTB? I wrote it without sobbing! The tide has turned now! ...I would gloat, but I get the nagging sense that I am Romano and TPTB are my flaming chopper of completely ridiculous symbolic death.
Dr. Aquino finds Abby and tells her regretfully that she tried everything, but that she couldn't avoid removing Amy Pietz's womb. No mention of the fiancé -- I was worried he'd get toasted in The Great Fiery Contrivance of 2003, but it seems he either didn't or went the unnoticed final way of Romano. Abby sadly digests this information as Dr. Aquino gracefully and with a measure of respect wishes Abby a good night.
Alex dashes in and right up to Sam. "Are those body bags out there?" he enthuses. "Did you see the crash?" Man. What a weirdo. I don't even know how to react, other than to pray that I have only daughters. Luka hovers nearby as Sam offers to take Alex across the street to "Ike's." "You're still coming, right?" Alex asks Luka hopefully. "No," Luka says, hesitantly. "We're fine on our own," Sam says to Alex as if Luka's not there. I hate her. She's got the parenting calendar, but someone ought to give her one with etiquette tips. And also advice on how to open her eyes. He's hot, dumb-ass. Feed him something. Alex complains that she said he could bring a friend. Sam swallows her irritation and halfheartedly tells Luka, "You're welcome to join us." Luka insists that he doesn't have to, but Sam, now resigning herself to the idea while making sure he's as uncomfortable as possible, drones that he should come with them. Alex grins.
Anspaugh grabs Pratt for their little tête-à-tête; Weaver's too busy to join them, and Romano's not around. "Why in God's name did he insist on meeting tonight?" Anspaugh complains. He sighs and then explains to Pratt that Romano sent him a file of disciplinary letters. "Sometimes we don't see eye to eye on things," Pratt says diplomatically...by which I mean, blatantly lies. The height differential between Pratt and Romano alone is enough to ensure that "sometimes" is a complete fib. Anspaugh allows that there's enough documentation to support a suspension. "I may have been out of line..." Pratt begins. Anspaugh interrupts him. "Baloney," he snorts. "I don't give credence to these. If they were true, I'd get complaints from other attendings, and obviously Robert doesn't care enough to even show up." God, he's that blasé about a file full of complaints? Pratt's pissed off at least two consults who promised to report him to Romano. That really ought to be evidenciary support. Bastards. Anspaugh smooches booty and tells Pratt that he's an excellent physician, from what Anspaugh saw today. Pratt smiles smugly, because his self-esteem had plummeted to a mere fifty times the average, and it was long past time for some ego-inflation.
Alex chirps that he wants French toast, but Sam tells him not to order that because it's Thanksgiving and he should eat turkey. Alex asks Luka if he would order French toast. Luka gets a vibe off this and diplomatically says that he doesn't care for it, so it's a moot point. Alex tells him that he and Sam should order pancakes, and then Alex can have his French toast, and they'll fill the turkey quota with a sausage. Luka and Sam shift in their seats. Alex picks up a figurine on the table that looks like it was a Pilgrim, and tips it into the candle flame. Sam watches this for what feels like a second too long before sort of half-assedly taking it away and asking, "Why would you do that?" Alex replies, "Payback." No idea whom he's lashing out at here. Sam thinks it's her, and apologizes for their plans' having fallen through, but I wonder if Alex is just getting revenge on the Pilgrims for bringing their Puritanical views and tall hats to a place that didn't want them. Luka -- hip to the fact that this isn't a fight he needs to see -- goes to wash his hands. Sam stares at his ass as he goes up the stairs -- at least, I assume she's this kind of right-thinking woman -- and then turns very suspiciously to her son. "Why did you invite him?" she demands. Alex insists that he and Luka are friends. "You shouldn't have friends over thirty," Sam decides. She heaves a sigh of relief that she fielded that one despite not having her parenting desk calendar backlog at her fingertips. "I like him. He's cool," Alex decides. "I know what you're trying to do," Sam says, speaking for all of us. Alex insists that he isn't, and airily tells Sam, "You're probably not his type. Besides, he's my friend, not yours." Sam is totally floored. Apparently she's never met her son before.
Abby's in her nursing scrubs now. Lester and Neela call out to her with questions that she answers without missing a beat; there are anvils pinning me to the couch and straightening my hair, but I don't yet know if they say that she's better suited to nursing, or that she's just totally competent when she's able to relax into confidence. Either way, she needs a new hairdo.
Frank passes out photos from his mystery roll of film that he apparently got developed despite the fact that a helicopter blew up at his workplace. Pratt stumbles upon Malarkey spacing out at Reception. "Dr. Romano told me to wait here," Malarkey shrugs. "So you sat on your ass through a mass casualty?" Pratt gapes. "Yeah," nods Malarkey cheerfully. Pratt resists the temptation to roll up The Complete Filmography Of Scott Wolf and give him an enema with it, mostly because that wouldn't be a big enough object to cause any lasting damage. Neela interestedly peers at some of the snaps. There's an old one from a Christmas party with Mark, which is a nice touch despite the fact that I don't enjoy revisiting his existence. "I'm going to need massive caffeine to make it to sunrise," Abby grumbles good-naturedly. The nurses hand her a candid of herself and Romano in which he's frowning death and malice in the background and she's furrowing her brow right in the foreground. Abby's horrified by the shot. Chuny finds one from the 2001 Secret Santa party, and wonders if anyone's heard from Carter lately. Apparently, he sent a postcard. Abby admits that she doesn't have any idea how he's doing, and absently starts erasing the board.
We fade to a view of one of the biggest natural disasters known to man: Carter with overgrown hair and a shaggy beard. He's staring off into space, most likely wondering about his friends but probably also hoping Abby's okay, since it's a holiday and she likes to park the wagon in a dark alley and run off for an illicit tipple. Suddenly, Thandie Newton sits up behind him, wraps her arms around his neck, and coos, "What are you thinking about?" Carter sighs. He's berating himself for blowing his Maurice Gibb tribute beard on the Congo crowd when it would've been hilarious at parties stateside. "Nothing," he finally lies. Thandie kisses him on the neck and purrs, "Come back to bed." Carter obliges, because he knows it's only a matter of time before she looks in the mirror and is like, "Oh my God, I'm Thandie Newton, and you're the fucking Unabomber." Also, I really, really didn't miss Carter one bit.
Susan gently kisses Chuck, and he wakes. She strokes his hair affectionately. "I should fake my death more often," he teases. Susan grins. "I knew it," Chuck murmurs happily. "[I knew] that we'd end up together tonight." Susan laughs. "This is your idea of a hot date?" she asks. "Yeah. It's dark, the nurses are busy..." he begins. "You just had your spleen removed," she snickers. "You know what they say -- lose an organ and the other ones get stronger," Chuck cracks. Susan beams at him happily and clasps his hand, stroking it.
Abby crosses the street, armed with coffee, and encounters a dawdling Neela. "I'm waiting on labs," Neela says. "I hate to pass on patients when it's busy." Abby smirks that Neela will change her tune soon enough. They walk back toward the hospital. Neela seems to want to talk. "Today was amazing," she confesses. "I've never seen anything like it. I didn't think we could handle it, but we did, and we did really well. We saved lives. It was like a roller coaster. I've always hated them, but I sort of can't wait for the ride." Abby seems to warm to her after this fairly heartfelt admission and jokes, "Just as long as it's not in the twelve hours." She then offers Neela some coffee. "I'm not in the club," Neela laments. "I got an extra," Abby winks.
As we pull back, rescuers lift Chopper's charred carcass off the ground, and we see the faint shape of a body. We fade to black waiting in vain for the possessed Go-Go-Gadget Arminator 2: Rise Of The Machines to poke from the rubble, clench its fist, and exact bloody vengeance. It never happens.