Forgive And Forget

S10E16

Neela tells Carter that Sam's looking for her, and just as they're turning to go inside, an older woman toting a Down's syndrome child calls out to them. "I'm looking for Francis Martin," she says. "He works here." The daughter adds, "My daddy answers the phone. He's in charge." Carter almost does a double-take when he realizes that they're talking about Frank, and that even Jabba the Hutt has a family. Again with the surprise, Carter. Guess what? Tanks are big! Are you shocked yet? Carter gently informs them that Frank had a heart attack, and tells a terrified Mrs. Frank that he's up in the cath lab. "Oh my God," their daughter says. Mrs. Frank touches her face lovingly and then listens as Carter defines what an angioplasty is. He has Neela take them upstairs, then sticks around so the camera can lovingly catch that stunned expression we've come to know and not love.

Chen yells at Veggie in an attempt to get him to wake up and focus on her. I'm sure that all the commotion is really making him anxious to oblige. Dahlia insists that her father blinks constantly and that it meant nothing; Sam thinks he blinked twice to tell her not to resuscitate him if his heart stops. "You guys need me?" Carter asks. "No," Chen retorts, annoyed. Sam admits that she asked Carter to come so that she could get an objective opinion, which pisses Chen off. But before she can lay into Sam, Veggie crashes and Chen orders epi. "It's not what he wants," Sam swears. Chen snaps at her to get the damn epi and be quick about it.

Frank opens his eyes. "I wonder what's for dinner," he muses. Beef. Dipped in lard, rolled in bacon, and fried in beer batter. Eat up, supremacist hog. Pratt grins that hunger is a good sign that he's going to be fine. Frank starts to reminisce about his time in the military, and how they'd always get a hot meal flown in after a firefight. "You know how to use a bazooka?" Pratt says, impressed. "Could use you outside right now." Frank can't believe that, so close to death, he'd be thinking about beef stew. Neither can I, frankly, because I'd rather gnaw on some shoe leather dipped in Pratt's bathwater. "You're not dying, Frank," Pratt insists. Frank smiles dreamily that half his army unit was black -- "cocky SOBs like [Pratt]" -- and that they were his best friends in the world. His voice is low and choked, possibly due to the fact that a compression of the larynx is an unfortunate byproduct of the battle for supremacy that's going on between his chin and his neck. He looks and sounds like Anakin Skywalker, after (spoiler alert!) his Vadar mask's been pulled off and he's dying on the floor of the Death Star. If he dies, they can burn him, and Ewoks will dance. Abby will fit right in with them -- she's about that tall. Anyway, from this we learn that many of Frank's nearest and dearest were African-Americans, which surprises Pratt, although it shouldn't, since the whole reason to give assholes medical problems (see: Romano, Robert) is to peel away some predictable layers -- the bigot has a pure heart! -- and confuse you into wondering if you ought to like him or her. If Hitler were in the ER, the writers would give him a baby with no arms and a sister with Alzheimer's, and invest all their residuals in Kleenex. Clueless. Frank is sad that his compadres from the war all died, and one of them took a bullet somewhere I refuse to acknowledge by any word other than "toe," and suffice to say I'm shaking my fist in the air and cursing the day someone in the entertainment industry decided that the toe was the new trendy spot to abuse. "Know what you are, buddy?" Frank rasps. Please say he's your son. "You are what those boys could've been," says Frank. A womanizer? An oil slick in a lab coat? A bulls-eye at which prejudiced desk clerks can aim their verbal darts? Pratt is touched, though, because that's what the writers wanted. Frank -- unable to maintain this level of pleasantness any longer -- passes out on the table. His pressure drops, his pulse skyrockets, and we learn he's bleeding into his chest.