Previously on Excellent! Reruns!, Carter rescued Luka from the brink of death in the Congo and got a kiss on the cheek in return. Six months later, he found a horse's head in his bed and took his first pair of cement boots for a stroll in the lake.
A stray fallopian tube beseeches Mother Nature to "Let It Snow," and She Who Is Easy has responded in kind in Chicago with a blizzard. Think she can conjure up cash? Or houseboys? Abby struggles through the snow and slushes into County General, greeted by the dulcet tones of the NBC Vomit Comet: Dream Big, Puke Bigger. She turns her disgusted head toward the culprit -- a Santa who's going to boot camp in a trash can cradled by an unlucky elf, and shakes her head in surprise, like Sloshed St. Nick isn't an annual guest there. "Merry Christmas Eve, huh?" Sam says wryly as Abby unwraps her scarf and warms up. "If you say so," Abby sighs. Weaver immediately gets on Abby about being late. Abby defends that her bus crashed into a UPS truck. Why is she not driving? I guess she and Carter broke up before she could get a guilt transmission out of him. Weaver isn't that interested; she just hands Abby a collection of patients and orders her to start right away. Abby would rather remove her wet shoes, but Weaver is basically like, "Dry off your feet on your own time," and sails out of there, having completed her descent into irrelevance. "Where's she going?" gapes Abby. "Home to wait for the Ghost of Christmas Past to show up," Frank cracks.
As the camera moves -- which it's wont to do because this show is in love with having a camera on rollers -- it catches Gallant giving Neela a compact disc as a holiday present. She thanks him. "I was afraid you already had it," he says. "No, it's great," she says, and I think she means it. I've decided she does, because I think Neela needs to get laid, and gratitude just might be Highway 69 to Gallant's pelvis.
Rolling Cameraman swings back around to Abby, who's gently encouraged by Luka to wait on treating that baby with bloody stool until she's changed her shoes. Frank asks if Abby's opened her trinket from Carter. She's like, "You're not kidding it was a trinket! It was like putting a toothpick in the Lincoln...Oh, wait, are we talking about something else?" Apparently, Carter sent gifts from Africa for everyone. Luka got a tribal mask of some kind that Frank is certain was used in Satanic ceremonies, because for Frank, it all comes back to the devil. Anyone who isn't an overweight, crotchety old man with a buzz cut and the sexual prospects of a eunuch at a petting zoo is apparently automatically a Satan worshipper. Frank hands Abby a package and waits for her to open it. She stares at it as if she fears it's her biological clock, set to self-destruct in five seconds. Luka quickly asks Frank if he sent out the package to Africa. "Toys for Third World Tots? Went out last week," he says. He keeps staring at Abby as she picks off the wrapping with confused irritation and a little embarrassment. "What'd you get?" Frank asks. "A box," Abby says, confused, lifting it out of the paper. Luka explains that it's a tribal shaman's box that medicine men used to store potions. Abby's expression says, "Yeah? Well, now it's an emesis basin that homeless men can use to store urine."
Across the room, Gallant fires up Neela's new CD and they start to boogie down to a song that I'm fairly sure was used in Bend It Like Beckham. It's really cute, Gallant is grinning and Neela's smiling and getting her groove on, and it makes me warm inside. Pratt wanders over, all impressed and interested and asking about the music. "Sikh rap," Gallant replies. He spies his sister Valerie and asks if she's ready to leave, but Valerie's enjoying the show and is all, "Keep gyrating, 'cause she's good, and well, you need it."
Finally, we go back to Abby, who shakes off her surprise at a gift from Carter and glumly toddles off to change her shoes. Luka watches her, worried, because he notices that she's left the gift behind. He even picks it up so that we can see she's ditched it, because he knows somehow that the director won't have called for a shot that includes the box in frame.
Cut to a tree in Africa, inside a small room belonging to one John Carter, The Lost Bee Gee. His hair's overgrown in a 1970s kind of way and he's got a beard that swallows up his face, and any second now he's going to throw out his hip and point a finger in the air and shake his groin until someone gets him his night fever medication. Carter picks up a little present and carries it back to the bed. "Don't you shake it," cautions a laughing Thandie Newton, looking as luminous as someone can when she's supposed to be living a simple life in Africa. As Carter opens it, Thandie reaches out and strokes his hair, and I'm impressed that she infused such natural affection into the gesture. It looked almost like a reflex. Carter unwraps a box of medicine and laughs, "Mebendazole! How romantic." He cracks open the box and tips out a bracelet, cradling it with awe. Thandie says it was her father's, and that she wants Carter to have it. Moved, he wraps it around his wrist and she fastens it, whispering, "Wow. It suits you." Then she threads her fingers with his and smiles at him affectionately. Man. If Thandie Newton can have chemistry with a Bee Gee, she can pretty much light anything on fire. They kiss, and then she giggles and asks what he got for her. Carter, who can't go five seconds without turning somber, shuffles over to a corner and picks up a box that he deposits on the bed. Eagerly she opens it, jokingly shaking it and hearing a metallic clink before pulling out a silver rattle, spoon, and cup. "They were mine when I was little," he explains. She lifts them to her lips and pecks them. Gamma is spinning like the Tazmanian Devil in her grave, because one of the servants clearly didn't polish them in anticipation of a smooch. Then Carter directs her to a plane ticket jacket, which she picks up confusedly. "I want you to come back to the States with me," he says quietly. "I want our baby to be born in America." We smash to the credits wondering why, sweet heaven why, Carter's sperm had to come into play.
Seven months earlier. In the Congo, Luka's jet takes off, leaving Carter on the ground with Debbie and Angelique. We've seen this already: Debbie can't believe Carter doesn't like the Dixie Chicks, Carter looks slightly interested, Debbie needs deep conditioner on her hair...Nothing new.
Cut to the treatment center, where Carter's with a sick man and is taking a new guy through the drill. It's like the torch is being passed, a ceremony this show appears to enjoy. The new guy, who has a French accent, wants to give the man a spinal tap. I wish fervently that Christopher Guest were involved. "We have to save the taps for patients who really need them," Carter says. "If he doesn't improve in a week, we'll tap him then." Oh, boy. He's going to be just like Luka when he gets back to County. Minus the sultry. And the accent. And me trotting after him like a bitch in heat.
Carter heads into the scrub room, where he encounters Angelique. "How's our Belgian dermatologist?" she smiles. "Suffering from first-day shock," Carter says. He's grown The Beard by this point, so I guess enough time has elapsed that he can be all superior about having busted through the shock barrier. Angelique asks him if he's coming to something that night, and he is. "Coming alone?" she asks. "No," he replies. Angelique grins and says she thinks it's great, but Carter insists that it's nothing serious and Angelique trots off into surgery with a sultry smile, porn music dripping from her salivating maw. Seriously, she's begun looking like she'd like to fuck everything that passes her.
The event of which they spoke appears to be some kind of party. Carter hurries through vehicles and a throng of people until he gets to a big table. "Bonjour," he grins, giving Debbie a kiss. Apparently, she doesn’t mind his musical tastes as long as he's got a fully functioning rhymes-with-Dixie-Chicks. A French nurse is yammering about imperialism. Another guy rants that the conqueror brings with him the seeds of his own destruction. I hope that's not an omen, considering Carter's future conquering of Thandie and the involvement of his seed. It's an incredibly boring conversation they're having --everyone who isn't American is bitching about the Americans, and Carter just sits there and chortles and occasionally offers up what he thinks are witticisms, uttered in a bad French-American accent. To wit: Frenchie is talking about how corporations and commercialism suck, and she mentions McDonald's, and Carter says, "Mon dieu, what I wouldn't give for a Quarter Pounder avec cheese right now!" It's a Royale with Cheese, Gerard Depardumb-ass. Don't you watch movies? Frenchie complains again that Americans are ruining other cultures by spreading theirs, as if it's somehow our fault that France sucks. "From what I've heard of French rock and roll, you were well on your way to ruining French music on your own," Carter laughs. He tries to change the subject, but a lovely young thing at the end of the table -- namely, Thandie -- pipes up that she's pretty much okay with Americans intervening in Iraq, given that the Ba'athists were rapists and mass murderers. Her blithe delivery piques Carter's amusement, and he sort of snickers, "Hear, hear." Then Thandie rants that she's not as okay with Americans' dismissing other international concerns and trampling over diplomacy to achieve selfish ends, and blah blah blah, if America sucks so badly, why doesn't ER go shoot in Canada? If I want to be beaten over the head with a producer's political views, I'll go watch The West Wing. Or the Fox News Channel. It's certainly not why I watch ER.
Debbie -- with what seems like a touch of premature impatience -- introduces Thandie as Makemba Likasu of the Ministry of Health, and her boyfriend Peter of the Ministry of Finance. Carter's eyes are all aglow, because if you're not blonde, you can still nail him if you've got spunk. Debbie explains that "Kem" is setting up a clinic for AIDS patients. Angelique chooses that moment to grab a friend and ask him to dance. Carter then leans in to ask Kem for more details; she replies that her program's funded by the Global Fund, and that she's bringing antiretroviral therapy to Africa. "The triple cocktail? Here?" Carter asks. "Your skepticism is well-founded," says Peter. "We have our doubters," Kem says loudly, with pointed irritation. Carter wonders how she can afford it if the medicine costs fifteen thousand dollars per year for each AIDS patient, yet they can't even get IV antibiotics to Congo. Peter's like, I know that song -- it's called "Disbelief in D Minor." Kem explains that they're not using American drugs, which is just what Frenchie needs to go off again on American commercial self-interest and shittiness. Debbie explains that the WTO ruled that really poor countries can ignore drug patents, which Frenchie claims has blocked them from using cheap generics, and the WTO's action has allowed India to develop a generic triple cocktail that Kem can get for only two hundred bucks a year per patient. "Money we also don't have," Peter says. Peter apparently only knows how to naysay. Kem's pissed at that, railing that perhaps he would prefer to sit back and watch AIDS wipe out thirty million Africans in the ten years. Kem wants her program to prove to the UN and other "rich countries" that there can be effective aid this way. "I think I just heard someone playing our song," Debbie grins. "Imperialist Yankee dollars ride to the rescue again!" crows another nurse, amused. This cuts the tension, and Kem tells Peter to stop pouting and dance with her. I'm not sure what Peter's problem is. Just because he works in a boring financial job doesn't mean Kem can't be an idealist. Here is where I would speculate that Peter's going to get dumped, but we already know that's coming, so all we can do is shake our heads and cluck that if he couldn't get interested, he should've faked it. Hell, women fake it all the time for men. Carter watches Kem go with a twinkle in his eye that Debbie notices, and not without annoyance.
Hospital. The same sick man from before is being worked up by Carter, the Belgian guy, and Frenchie, who points out that it's Bastille Day. "So I'll be forced to say nice things about the French all day?" Carter scoffs. She smiles. The Belgian notes that Sick Man isn't improving, and wants to know if now's the time on Sprockets when we use spinal taps. Indeed it is. Carter explains to the man's wife, whose name is Celine, that her husband isn't getting any better, but that they'll keep trying. "He will die soon?" she asks. "Not immediately, but yes," Carter admits. Celine's sad. She's six months pregnant and her husband's dying of AIDS. Carter asks if she's been tested; she hasn't, nor have her children. Carter tells her that if she has AIDS, there are things they can give her that might prevent her from transmitting it to her baby. She's grateful.
Later, Carter tracks down Kem at her clinic and tells her about Celine -- apparently, she, her five-year-old son, and her eighteen-month-old baby are all positive for AIDS and living in a refugee camp. "She needs ARV drugs," he says. Kem realizes Carter wants to get Celine enrolled in the clinic's pilot program, and Carter points out that Celine's got no way to support her family when her husband inevitably dies. Kem then crushes Carter's dreams by explaining how lengthy and hard a process it can be to get someone into her two-hundred-person program, which is highly selective and requires promises that the people will adhere to regular checkups and the drug schedule, and Carter just listens to her say all this because her British accent is lilting and he wants to lick her. Kem explains that they have six full AIDS wards. "Who would you like me to exclude so I can take [Celine]?" she asks, throwing open a door. Carter enters and sees a room jammed with AIDS patients, adults and children alike, and he fixes on his face that look of total astonishment with which he has greeted every realization that Life In Africa Is Unpleasant. We fade to black wondering what's -- shock that there's no Starbucks? Utter jaw-dropping amazement that Celine isn't TiVoing her favorite episodes of The Sopranos while she tends to her dying husband? SHEER and COMPLETE CONFUSION that there won't be snow in Africa this Christmastime?
County General. October, according to The Graphic Of We Like To Cover The Fact That Our Story Isn't Compelling By Playing Tricks With Time. Frank gives Luka a pack of AIDS drugs and thoughtfully shares with us that it's setting Luka back $1200. "Carter's paying me back," Luka says. Elizabeth, standing nearby, expresses interest that Carter needs those pills, and Luka explains that it's for a patient. "Say hello to him," Elizabeth smiles. Luka suggests that she write him a note and throw it into the package. Then he shovels Halloween candy into a bag and puts it in a courier envelope. "You're Kovac, right?" Sam says, approaching the front desk. Luka nods. "Med student needs you down the hall," she says, walking away all sullen. Wow, was she ever pleasant to be around? Luka seals the package and then lifts it up high over the counter so he can drop it...
...and we see it land in front of Carter on a cafeteria table. He's talking to a redheaded, matronly new addition who's from Boston, I think, based on the accent she appears to be affecting. It doesn't sound natural, so if it is, she needs either to immerse herself deeper in Boston culture or work like hell to lose it. "What is that?" Boston asks, scrunching her nose at what Angelique is eating. "Lasagna," Angelique says. "Made with potatoes?" Boston asks. Angelique grins. That actually doesn't sound so bad. Carter cracks open his package and peers into the candy bag. "Eeeexcellent," he says, à la Montgomery Burns, dumping the candy out onto the table. Everyone's psyched. A folded piece of paper drops out, and Angelique picks it up, because she's apparently confused as to the fact that a private package isn’t actually her business. "Who's Elizabeth?" she asks. "A friend from work," Carter says, taking back the note, which, from the looks of it, says, "Hi. A note. Elizabeth." Angelique asks if she's a blonde. Wow, Angelique knows Carter's past pretty damn well. Carter turns back to Boston and draws from her that she worked in a children's ward, so he drags her off to see Celine and her family.
Celine's had her baby, and Boston proclaims it in good health. Carter explains that the antiretroviral drugs he's gotten for her will cut down the transmission rate, and that if she doesn't breastfeed, it could be even lower. Celine's heartbroken that her milk is dangerous; Carter extols the virtues of formula, until Boston pulls him aside and points out that it's a powder and Celine's living in a refugee camp, and probably would contaminate it with water that would kill the kid with dysentery. Carter's like, "Fine, I'll get her Evian all the time just like she's J.Lo or something." Boston wonders if he can sustain that eight times a day for six months to two years. Carter's stubborn and insists that he can. Boston thinks that's insane. Carter thinks it's a fine way to spend Gamma's money. Gamma's corpse throws up all over itself, because it would rather he donated it to the DAR, or endowed a monthly tea party for snooty old crones.
At another social function, there are more long, drawn-out, one-sided political discussions about how America sucks. I'm all for free speech, but this show should at least attempt a balanced perspective, rather than having Carter sit there chortling and waving his hands and saying, "I voted for the other guy!" He's like a library of bad bumper stickers. Boston's like, "Is it always this tedious here?" Carter pretty much confirms it. A guy takes over the ranting until Angelique yells at him to shut up because they all get it, they hear it, and they want him to stuff it. Or at least mix it with sweet nothings. Angelique grabs him and takes him off to dance. Slowly, everyone else joins them, leaving Kem and Carter alone at the table. As if no one would've snatched her away for a quick boogie. She's too hot to have been left there. Carter smiles at her, his usual smarmy self, until she asks where "his friend" is. That seems a bit weird -- Debbie knew Kem well enough to introduce her by her full name, yet Kem's like, "Yeah, that dried-up blonde who worked some place and was here that time." Carter says she's on a food convoy to Goma, and at his prodding, Kem admits that Peter's away at a conference in Nairobi doing things that are almost as boring as what we've been forced to sit through so far. Carter can't hear her, so he scoots down the table and sits across from her.
"How's your study coming?" he asks. She grins that it's full, with a perfect adherence rate. Carter is impressed. The Beard twitches with lust. This thing is aching to belong to a pirate, I think. Kem and Carter make small talk for a while -- she's half-Congolese, with a French mother who left her father and raised her in London, and of course Carter's a native of Chicago with Snow White for a mother, a controlling patrician grandmother, and Captain Spineless for a dad. Kem's never been to America. "I've seen it in the movies," she shrugs with a giggle. The Beard swigs some moonshine and contemplates asking her to suck on its peg leg. Carter cuts it off by asking her to dance. They leave.
We fade to Kem and Carter back at the table later that night, after the place has clearly closed. He's asking what her most embarrassing moment is and she's cutely refusing to tell; right as she admits that it involved a lack of clothing, the lights come on inside. "Oh, thank God," Kem says, calling out a thank-you in French to the woman who flipped the switch. Then they get up to leave and don't go inside at all, which is weird to me. I can't really figure out what they were waiting for, but evidently, it was just their cue to walk across the set. Chattily, Kem asks what happened to Celine. "She's doing great," Carter smiles. "I got her on ARVs." Kem's stunned. Carter says he had a friend ship him the pills. "You smuggled them in?" she gasps. "No, I used FedEx," he says, amused. Kem shakes her head and walks away from him. Carter doesn't get it. Kem wheels and spits that all drugs entering the country have to go through the ministry. "You didn't have the resources to include her in your study," Carter counters. So? The law is the law, ass. Kem can't believe how expensive that is, nor that Carter paid for the drugs out of his own pocket. "I could treat four patients a year with what you're spending every month!" she gapes. Then she rants that it took her two years of blood and sweat to get all the approvals, and the funding, and then Carter trots along with his checkbook and his FedEx account and threatens her work by acting like Santa Pharmacist. He doesn't really get what she's saying. "It's not sustainable," she seethes. "What happens to that poor woman when you leave? Are you going to keep on shipping her drugs for the rest of her life?" Carter shrugs with a condescendingly approving smirk that he was planning on it, yes. Kem challenges him: how will he monitor her progress? How will he prevent her from sharing the drugs with her kids, which helps none of them? How will the FedEx guy find her? "What's going to happen to your patients when your funding ends?" Carter retorts, still grinning. I want to slap the smirk off his face. It's like he's mocking her. He broke the rules, and he's mocking her for being upset about his self-righteousness. I so did not miss Carter. He's roundly unappealing now, and not just because The Beard is now sucking on two wenches and sporting a parrot. Kem's just upset that Carter's started Celine on these drugs without necessarily being able to ensure that he can continue supplying her. "And you can?" Carter says. Kem nods defiantly, her eyes flashing, and spits that she's trying to show the world that ARV therapy works her way, and that she can save cash with the generics, in addition to millions of lives. Carter throws up his hands with a twinkle. "I'm just trying to save one," Carter says. Whoa there, John, you're going to throw out your back if you so vigorously keep trying to pat yourself on it. Kem snaps, "One's not enough!" She stalks away. Are we supposed to think this sort of exchange is what made her fall for Carter? I can buy that he digs her, but he is so condescending and smarmy to her and his beard is such a combination of Ugly Pirate and Maurice Gibb that it's unfathomable to me that Kem lets Carter see her naked.
At the hospital the day, Charles runs up to Carter and tells him that Kem's there looking for Celine. Carter is alarmed to learn that Kem has spoken to Angelique, and runs out to find them. When he does, Kem is speaking gently to Celine in French while Angelique crosses her arms and fixes him with a stony gaze. Still with an element of "Ride me, Long John," but mostly pissed. "You shipped in drugs," she accuses. Carter's like, "Hey, whatever." Which sucks, because if he'd gotten in trouble, that whole clinic might've, too. Ass. Checkbooks don't solve everything. Kem turns to Carter and tells him that she's enrolling Celine in her program. "I thought you were full," he says, surprised. "I was," she says, leaving. Carter follows her, so she says, "I met this rich American who can afford to commit fifteen thousand [dollars] a year to my study for the five years," she says. Wow. She's got balls. "You can afford that, can't you?" she says, softening a bit. Carter, bemused, nods. That kind of money will allow forty more people into her program, so Kem's letting Celine be one of them. Carter doesn't know when to stop, so he suggests that she admit the two kids, too. Kem sighs. "Don't push your luck, Doctor," she says. Carter nods and smiles, and Kem pauses, and then runs up to him and kisses him on each cheek. Carter glows like a little kid, because he's snagged a woman by doing nothing but act like a shitmunch. A little kid watches him and grins. Carter shrugs and giggles. We fade to black thinking that now The Beard has taken on a startling lumberjack element, and we wonder if Carter wears high heels and a bra, and wishes he'd been a girlie just like his dear papa. It so wouldn't surprise me if Captain Spineless wore lingerie, by the way. Not that I ever need to see Stephen Keaton in a teddy, so let's all pray I'm wrong.
It's Thanksgiving at County. The nurses are looking at all those old photos, and it's a scene I've already recapped that initially ended with a pensive Carter staring off into space, and we were all wondering what he was thinking, especially with the advent of The Beard and all its inherent evils. But this time, we fade to Carter simply lying in bed with Kem, so I guess we'll never know if he was thinking about Abby, or the States, or Thanksgiving turkey, or why he's grown that downy hair down below. Instead, Carter's asking Kem to give us her backstory so that we will think she's a little angel who suffers. Kem explains that she returned to the Congo when her father was killed -- ambushed by Mai Mai rebels and shot in the head. He was an engineer who'd been working to upgrade the water supply and was on his way to fix a water main when he was killed simply for not being Mai Mai. Why is it that the crabby fucknuggets are always the ones who get guns? Kem starts to cry, and sniffles that she came back to settle his affairs. "He believed in the goodness of people," she says, snuggling against Carter's chest. "I came back for him."
We then make an incongruous cut into the hospital, where Carter is wheelchair-racing against a little sick boy. The mood shift is making me feel bipolar. Any second now I expect Abby to run up to me and try to forcefeed me some meds. Carter totally lets the kid win, and everyone cheers and claps, and Carter bows to him. Then he play-faints, and a couple kids tackle him and he giggles. Kem shows up and he stands up with a smile. But it fades when he finds out that Celine didn't show up for her regular testing.
Kem and Carter have Charles drive them to Celine's refugee camp. Kem exposits that she last saw Celine two weeks ago after her husband died, and that she was doing very well. "Something must have happened," Carter decides. Brilliant deduction, Watson. That's as tricky as coming to the conclusion that your refusal to shave has somehow magically turned your face into a Chia Pet. They hop out to try and spy Celine, and Carter stares across a river at a bunch of African families washing clothes and filing water jugs. That same pinched look of WHAAAAAAA? comes across his face, and I swear to God, I am so sick of everything catching him off-guard, like he hasn't already been here for six months. Carter suddenly spies Celine in the distance.
Celine's son is sick, as it turns out; he's gotten ill in the past week, and she was afraid to come in until he was better. Carter examines him, and we realize things aren't so good.
Cut to the child in a bed, where Carter confirms that the boy has an infection that might take hold if the AIDS has weakened his immune system. Celine, frightened, begs to know if the boy will get better. "I hope so," Carter says. Celine lashes out that she only ever slept with her husband. She's sad and scared, and Carter looks back at her with a trembly beard.
It's raining outside. Kem leans sadly against a doorjamb as Carter exits the room where Celine's son lies dying. "If he gets through the pneumonia, he's going to need ARVs," Carter says. But Kem doesn't have doses for children, and Carter wants to grind up the adult pills or come up with something, but Kem shakes her head. "That little boy's going to die," Carter snaps. "Yeah," Kem nods. He can't believe she can stand there and do nothing, to which Kem snaps that she most certainly is doing something -- she's protecting the integrity of her program so that it will take root and get funding and spread to help more people. "I'm proving drug therapy works so that we can save a thousand boys," she says, firmly but not loudly. "THEN HELP ME SAVE THIS ONE!" Carter shouts, a volume switch that's totally jarring and strange, and I wish she'd slap him, except I know he wouldn't feel it through the facial forest he's cultivated. "Don't you yell at me," Kem rages. "You go home, you yell at your president, you yell at your government, tell them we need REAL money...." And we lose her as Carter begins what is one of the most embarrassing and hideous moments I've ever seen on this show. He stalks around like he's having a seizure, and then starts screaming and runs out into the rain and shrieks at the sky. It's melodramatic and awful and loud and cringe-worthy and if Kem had any brains she'd be like, "Wow, look at the annoying idiot," and dump him. I appreciate that he's passionate, but God, Carter, isn't every day in Africa that hard, and haven't you figured out a better way to cope? It's as irritating a moment as when Josh yelled at the Capitol on The West Wing. Both John Wells shows. I know Wells isn't as involved at ER this season, but still.
And right off The Scream That Bled Out A Million Eardrums, Carter is now walking through a placid village in his stupid aviator sunglasses. Great. Now he's the Unabomber. Get that beard an Emmy, people -- it's a chameleon. He greets Debbie, who shoots him a fairly irritated and closed-off look, which I can only take to mean that she didn't appreciate his hopping into bed with Kem. "Still mad?" Carter asks, grinning glibly. God, could he be any less appealing? What is wrong with him? He dumped her and now he's asking her if she's still mad, like that's some kind of flaw in her character. Shut up, Carter, and go suck on a lightning rod in the rain. "I wasn't mad," Debbie defends herself. Carter then one-ups himself by suggesting that on her trip to the capital, Debbie should do him a favor and pick up Christmas decorations, if she can find any, and perhaps a few cylinders of oxygen. Debbie's like, "Oh, sure, I'll just hit up the 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' store, and while I'm there, do you want some condoms for your Yule Log so you can stick it to your new girlfriend, assmaggot?" Debbie's glance is stony. "I made a list," Carter says. Then shove it up your nose, Blackbeard. Sometimes I get tired of insulting Carter every other sentence, and then he does something else and I just can't help it.
Back at the love shack, Carter is at home wrapping gifts to send to his County friends when Kem arrives home. He teases that he paid fifty bucks for Luka's mask and Kem almost drops it. "I'm kidding. It was three," he giggles. Whee! He's cheap! He's willing to spend a fortune on drugs but he's not going to give a craftsman more than three dollars? Interesting. Kem notices Abby's gift and asks who that is; "She's a, you know, a friend," Carter hedges. "I hope she still is." Then he looks up and teasingly asks if Kem's jealous. She purses her lips comically and jokes, "Maybe." Carter laughs and returns to wrapping his gifts as Kem gazes at him, turning somber. "I think I might be pregnant," she blurts. Carter slows to a halt, then looks up at her. "What?" he asks. "How? When did...." Kem looks at him pointedly. "Oh, yeah," he says with recognition. I take this to mean that they had a condom break, or some other semen-related accident, and I so hate having to write "semen" with regard to Carter. I'm not surprised they were shagging, as when you work in such a depressing atmosphere, it's likely they seek whatever comforts they can to feel normal and human. But I am a little surprised they aren't SUPER-careful, since Kem's job involves trying to treat what is most commonly a sexually transmitted disease. Kem's nervous that Carter is angry or upset, and admits that she's actually pretty happy about it. Carter's face is slowly registering more and more delight. He gets up on his knees and pulls her down in front of him. "Do you want to have a baby?" she asks. "I don't know, do you?" he asks. Kem hedges that her program is pretty time-consuming and points out that they've known each other for about an hour. "Six weeks," he twinkles, taking her hands and gazing at her adoringly. Sparkly music plays as Kem blushes, "Oh, God, I'm really in trouble," and they hug happily. We fade to black still more or less unable to fathom which one of Carter's fairly annoying discussions with her was the one that convinced her to take off her pants.
This act begins with Abby and Vomiting Santa, which we've already seen. It seems Santa isn't the only one regurgitating things this year. Instead of following her over to the front desk, though, we cut to Valerie bumping into Pratt, who barely meets her eye. "Merry Christmas," he says. "Yeah," she says. Pratt then notices Gallant dancing with Neela and busts over there so that he's not talking to Valerie. I hate Pratt. Valerie's on crutches, Pratt. She's not steaming with the stench of a thousand corpses.
Debbie arrives at the hospital with three tanks of oxygen. Carter actually has the gall to act disappointed, when really, he should say, "Thank you, Girl I Dumped So That Africa Could Get Even More Depressing For You." She hedges when he asks what Christmas supplies she got, and when she shrugs that she picked up a knick-knack here and there, Carter acts annoyed AGAIN. Carter, seriously, there's not a Walgreen's in Kinshasa. There's not a Christmas tree forest. Can you lower the expectations just a tad? Carter hightails it into their storage room, and sure enough, Debbie was downplaying it -- she got a TON of boxes and stuff, which she claims she snagged from the embassy's basement. Very resourceful. Carter whips out a Santa hat with a ratty beard attached and dons it with delight.
Late that night, the hospital personnel unload the wrapped packages from Carter's pals in Chicago. He's thrilled at how many people chipped in, and points out that they marked the age and gender of the appropriate recipient on each present. Angelique hands Carter a package, which contains a card that everybody sighed. "What's Martin, Hall, and Jacobs?" Kem asks, pulling out a thick envelope and staring at it. Carter offhandedly shrugs that it's a law firm, then lets his jaw go slack. "Oh my God," he says. "Dr. Romano died." He seems surprised and affected, which is more than I ever expected from this show. But then Kem goes, "Was he a friend?" and Carter goes, "Uh, no," and brushes the whole thing off. And that's the measure of a life, I guess. Everyone gazes adoringly up at the tree they've decorated in the ward, and Kem and Carter swap loving grins.
Fade to the ward during the day, as all the workers pass out presents to the delighted kids. Carter, as Santa, has the ratty stained beard on -- it looks like the one that Santa Schnapps puked on back in Chicago -- and a pillow shoved under his nasty, sweaty undershirt. Ho ho ho. When Carter's handed a package for a little boy, he gets an idea, swipes two more, and sneaks off.
, he's by Celine's side; her son is lying in bed, unconscious. Carter grimly sits down with her as she haltingly asks if her son will ever wake up again. "No, I don't think so," Carter says, fighting tears. He gives her a present for the baby and her young daughter, and then holds up the final gift for the boy. "Shall I open it for him?" Carter asks. He unwraps a Tonka truck and then gently places it to the unconscious child, taking his hand and attempting to wrap it around the toy. But the boy's arm is limp, and it lists like rubber back down to the bed. Carter swallows a huge lump in his throat and whispers, "Merry Christmas." He blinks. Celine is sad. Beard is sad. Celine. Carter. Celine. Beard. The mustache part is practically weeping. This is a lot of cutaways, but I guess when you have three characters in a scene, you've got to get all their reactions.
And now we're back to Kem opening her baubles from Carter; he asks her to return with him to the States. Kem looks touched. "Oh," she sighs, moved and uncertain. Carter climbs onto the bed and quietly explains that he's got to go back -- the letter from the lawyers is one he used to get infrequently, but which he now gets every few days. "My grandmother died nine months ago and I have to settle her estate," he explains to a semi-startled Kem. "Just some financial things I have to deal with." He explains that he ran away after she died. "Ran away from what?" Kem asks. "From myself," he replies. He snorts, as if acknowledging how silly that was. "It's hard to explain," he says. "I wasn't happy. Something was missing in my life." Kem regards him understandingly. God, if they gave an award for Best Internal Glow, Thandie Newton would rule the Emmys. She's so lovely it's appalling. Although she could use a steak. Ruefully, Kem says she can't leave her work. "It's my life, you know?" she says wistfully. Carter nods that he doesn't expect her to come forever -- just for a month or two. Except, didn't he want her to have the baby over there? I didn't go to medical school, but I'm pretty sure I can say that's closer to eight months away than one. But maybe I'm wrong, and recapping this show has just made me cocky. Carter wants her to meet his friends and see his life there, in addition to getting good prenatal care. "You've got a great staff. They'll be okay without you for a while," he says. But he doesn't know how long he has to be gone. "We'll figure it out together," he says. Music starts up as Carter leans in and whispers, "What was missing in my life...isn't missing anymore." What's that? A beard so righteous you could bury Gamma in it? Kem is moved by this compliment, and jams her tongue down Carter's throat to prove it. We end the episode assuming that her impromptu game of Throat Swab means she wants to join him, and that we'll be seeing her again as she gestates the Cartus. Or is it the Feter? ...No. That sounds too much like a Peter Benton fetus, and though that might be Carter's procreation dream, I think we're pretty much done with that guy.
Happy Holidays, everyone! Thanks for reading!