Previously on ER: Abby graduated from med school; Steve told Luka that Sam and Alex belong with him; Sam took a page from the book of Andy Dick and acted like the little angel clown who...that cries; Fry Cook had congestive heart failure; Kerry prepared to fight for custody of Henry; and Carter and Kem's baby became an ExCartus. It is no more. It has gone to the great beyond.
The episode opens with a woman shrieking as though she's being hollowed out with sandpaper and a wooden spoon -- the very sound my soul makes when I hear the opening credits. We see Nurse Abby preparing this woman for a shot. "I haven't started yet," Abby sighs. The woman keeps screaming. Sam pops up and asks Abby if they can swap a day week so that Sam can go to Alex's parent-teacher conference on Monday. If she's smart, she'll switch a few days, because with Alex as the subject, that little confab could stretch well into Wednesday afternoon. "Find another nurse," calls out an eavesdropping Weaver, who -- excepting the Henry stuff -- has officially been relegated to window-dressing because all she does is overhear things and then use the information to act like a ho bitch. "Can't have one of our interns changing bedpans during their residency," Weaver says, abusing grammar like it's one of her employees. Abby lightly coughs that she's technically not an intern, because she's still waiting to hear whether she passed her boards. Weaver crabs that Abby really should've called the USMLE by now; Abby blinks, because it never occurred to her to come into voluntary contact with anything whose name is so close to being a direct order to break into a grin, or otherwise act happy. "OW OW OW OW OW," Abby's patient is still screaming. "It's multiple choice, for God's sake. It's not rocket science," Weaver crabs, speaking of the test scoring but possibly also underhandedly cutting down Abby's performance on the test. Abby finishes treating the screaming woman, who immediately stops squalling and sighs, "You're God's gift to nursing, you know that?" Abby rips off her gloves and returns to Sam, agreeing to switch their schedules. "I thought you were starting," Sam says, confused. "Not 'til I pass my boards," Abby reminds her. "Can't quit my day job."
Neela saunters in, dressed up in a pink shirt and black blazer, looking formal and a tad stiff, but nice. "I thought you left already," Abby says, surprised. Neela stacks up a bunch of books, explaining that orientation doesn't start until the afternoon, giving her time to do productive things in the morning -- returning her microscope to the lab, turning in keys, selling her textbooks, and generally snaring as much screen time as she can get in this final episode. Abby marvels that Neela's not using her last day of freedom to sleep in, or go to a movie, or something else that the young people term "fun." However, she's forgotten that Neela wouldn't know "fun" if it wrapped itself in medical jargon and put itself between the pages of a Cardiology tome. Abby asks whether Neela's found a place yet; she hasn't, but she figures she'll look once she gets out there. Right, like it's that easy. This is all just to show us that Neela didn't match at County.
A guy in an orange sweater runs up to the desk, his hand purple from being slammed into a car door. He asks where he can get his shot of morphine. And, to this man I say: Who are you, and where have I seen you before? It has been driving me INSANE since this episode aired. Where have I seen this person? How dare he waltz into my life in a burnt-orange atrocity and not even drop off a copy of his résumé. At any rate, he only exists so that he can ask Neela if she's a doctor, to which Neela replies, "No, but..." Elizabeth interrupts, "Yes, actually, but she's not on duty." She then scolds Neela for not referring to herself properly, because it's not exactly a confidence-booster for her patients. Sick people don't usually like to hear people they think are trained professionals hedging with words like, "No, but..." Neela can't quite call herself a doctor yet. "It just doesn't feel right," she laments. Elizabeth knows just the pearl of wisdom for the occasion. Opening up her book, So I Married An Asshat, she pinpoints exactly the phrase she needs: "Fake it until it does." Elizabeth then asks Neela where she matched. "University of Michigan at Ann Arbor," she replies. Elizabeth smiles that County will miss her, although it's supposed to be nice at Michigan. "A.k.a. rich and easy," Pratt scoffs. "Unlike my friend Abby, who has decided to stay at County and do God's work, just like the rest of us suckers." Then he whips out some car keys and jangles them in front of Abby's face. "The doctor is in," he smarms.
Cut to a Chrysler sedan. Chrysler: Cars for cocky bastards, and this week's sponsor of mediocrity. I didn't think people actually bought Chryslers. I thought they just won them in raffles, on game shows, or in golf tournaments. Pratt rattles off a list of specs, including its "hemi" engine. Figures Pratt would own a car that runs on something that sounds like it's a synonym for "boner." Malik loves the car, which is a giant gray testament to all things bland. "What'd you drive before?" Malik asks. Pratt claims he drove nothing, although I think in Season 9 we were shown otherwise. "I finally got the prize," Pratt beams. Neela, showing curious lack of understanding, wonders if this means he won the car. See? She doesn't think people actually buy Chryslers, either. Pratt snorts that he's paying for it his own damn self, because not everyone gets funded by their parents. Neela rolls her eyes. Just then, Chen comes rushing past them, head down. Pratt calls her over to the car, but she ignores him and darts into the hospital.
An ambulance driver pulls up and bitches to Pratt that he'd better move his car. "This is a hospital, man," he whines. Pratt spits that he's lucky it is, too, because if his rig dings the Chrysler, the dude's going to get his head torn off by a horsepower addict. Lovely. If you don't want your new car dented, don't park it in an ambulance bay, dicksmack. God. Abby intercedes to ask if the patient who's arriving is her intractable vomiting case. It is. Glory be! And here we thought her last day of freedom wouldn't be enjoyable. The guy's unloaded, and it's the old codger Bill Macy, better known to millions as Bea Arthur's husband on Maude. If only it were actually Bea Arthur. Playing a man. The way it was meant to be. Macy has end-stage colon cancer and is jaundiced.
Luka drives down a busy Chicago street that's got one blocked lane and some other congestion. He sees that the other blockage is caused by a woman who is checking under the hood of her car, and he pulls over to help. "I think my battery's dead," she sighs. I don't think that's possible, though, as long as her car was running. Having just had this happen to me, I think it's her alternator, because when that stops working, your battery dies and your car stops moving. Whatever. I'm no mechanic. I just know that once second I was going forty, then I was not moving, and two hundred bucks later I had a new alternator. Anyway, regardless, Luka offers to give the woman a jump, and if this had been last season, I'd be getting pretty stoked for some shirtless, pantsless action right now. The woman yells tiredly for her son to stay in his seat in the back of the car, but he's climbing around and whining that he has to go to the bathroom. She then goes to the back hatch of her SUV and starts rummaging for something -- perhaps the thread of logic that's missing. Other drivers honk and swear. As Luka wanders back to his car to get jumper cables, an impatient driver barrels around the line of cars, through the cones, and then swerves back into traffic and rear-ends the truck that's behind the woman's SUV. As she turns around in a horrified and slightly horrifying close-up, the truck is forced sharply into her bumper, crushing her. Luka runs to her and sees her torso slumped on the truck's hood, her bloodied feet poking out from below the mess of tangled metal. As we smash to the credits, my knees start to throb in sympathy. This sort of reminds me of the season premiere, when we had that enormous car accident and a mother and some kids were involved...is this full circle, or are they just sort of running low on ideas?
Carter walks into the hospital. Chuny spies him and, in a low voice, begins to tell him she's sorry. "Thanks," Carter says, cutting her off gently. And dare I say it, smugly. It's just such a perfect word to describe the saintly way he shushes her, as if he's like, "It's all right, my child." Jesus would not approve. Maybe Carter doesn't care. I know that for me, personally, the "J" in "WWJD?" stands for "Joan Collins." Frank leans over the desk and murmurs that his wife wants Carter and Kem to let them know when they can bring over dinner. Aw, that's such a Mrs. Frank thing to do. As Carter starts going through the charts, Weaver notices him and sidles over quietly. "You all right?" she asks. "Yeah, how's Henry?" he counters. "Haven't seen him all week," she replies. "We're in court today." Then she pointedly tells him that keeping busy helps, and they swap understanding looks.
The accident victim is not looking her best. Her mouth hangs open in pain, and she seems groggy. Luka frantically calls 911 as he tries to pry apart the bumpers with his bare hands, because he's Jean Valjean all of a sudden, and after he parts the cars with his superhuman strength, he's going to let a French hooker die in his arms and then adopt her child. Hello, Season 11. "Can you feel me touching your legs?" Luka shouts. The woman can't. "Where's Michael?" she groans. "I can't breathe!" A random motorist has run up to the scene and is trying to open the door, which is smashed. We see again that the woman's lower half is going to be pulverized, if she's even still attached to it by anything other than the tangle of car parts. The guy whose truck hit her leaps out of his seat and swears scaredly that he was knocked into her. "Dude came barreling through the cones," he babbles. Luka orders someone up to his car to get a first-aid kit. The driver who caused all this falls out of his car and tries to run. "Somebody stop him, dammit!" Luka yawns, lacking the urgency one might expect.
And here it is, folks: the final appearance of the Vomit Comet this season. Here, it's wired to Bill Macy as he horks up chunks of The Budget Gourmet's mashed potatoes and Salisbury steak. They plop into an emesis basin that Abby's holding under his chin. Based on how it looks and sounds, I will say only this: it will be a while before I can eat hummus again. Chen walks up to treat him, and we see that her right eye is bruised and blackened. Abby notices and stares pointedly at Chen so that Chen knows she knows -- yikes, what a sentence -- and Chen blinks self-consciously and continues with her workup. She tells Bill Macy that he's jaundiced, and that his fever and vomiting are probably symptoms of his end-stage cancer. She's not sure what they can do to help, really. "I'm not ready," he cranks. "We can treat you for the pain..." she begins. "I said I'm not ready!" he insists. Abby rattles off under her breath the list of tests she'd run and things she'd prescribe, and Chen, affirming Abby's instincts, says, "Thought you were a nurse today." Chuny loyally says, "Abby's a nurse every day. That's why she's going to kick ass as a doc." Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Outside the room, Chen asks Abby how she scored on her boards. Abby admits that she hasn't heard, and Chen marvels that it's a bit close to the wire now. Abby pauses and leans against a table. "Dr. Chen, is everything okay?" she asks. Chen deliberately ignores the implication and gives her an answer about Bill Macy. As she blithely walks away from Abby, we see Abby looking skeptical and concerned.
Pratt's on Chen duty , flagging her down and immediately noticing her shiner. "What happened there?" he asks, sternly. She shrugs that it's nothing. "Doesn't look like nothing," he scolds. Chen offers up what sounds like a sincere attempt to allay his concerns, claiming that since her father's not sleeping, she isn't either, and she forgot to turn on a light and ran into a doorframe. Then she slips away before he can contest that ridiculous story. I can't believe she didn't come up with a better cover story than "I ran into a doorframe," since that phrase is pretty much on the poster for abuse. And her tone and facial expressions certainly don't indicate that she was hoping he'd read between the lines.
Neela interrupts Pratt's silent contemplation of The Shiner That Came Dangerously Close to Being Something I Couldn't Stomach Recapping. "How many times I gotta say goodbye to you?" Pratt barks. Neela explains that she was visiting Fry Cook before she left, and that she thinks Pratt ought to see him, too. "I get the impression he looks up to you," Neela suggests. "Figured he was smarter than that," Pratt snorts. Huh? Since when is Pratt not all about himself? Neela thinks Fry Cook could use a positive male figure, but because it involves actual effort and emotional investment without the promise of a blowjob, Pratt isn't interested. "I'm nobody's role model," he mutters. Damn skippy.
Ambulances arrive at the accident scene. The woman is still asking about her son, and the paramedics are preparing to carve up one of the bumpers to free her body. They ask Luka, who is kneeling in the back of her SUV so that he can comfort her torso, to get out of the way so that he doesn't get the business end of some man-hungry metal shards. He refuses to go anywhere, because he is A Hero, and Heroes don't earn that capital letter by doing what emergency rescue personnel tell them to do. The chainsaw fires up and cuts up the bumper, and the truck falls away. This is shot from behind the woman, through her SUV, so that all we see is the truck going backwards. This is actually remarkable restraint on the show's part, as I figured they'd use this as an excuse to show just how grisly her pureed legs must have looked. Maybe the makeup department was like, "Look, we want an Emmy too, but seriously, that's disgusting. No." Luka lies the woman down in the back of her SUV and barks at everyone to put direct pressure on anything that's bleeding. Which would mean pretty much anything below her thighs. "How are you doing, Linda?" he shouts. Ah! A name. She moans that they need to call her husband. "We need to get you to a hospital first," Luka insists. The paramedic tries again to kick Luka to the curb, since he's breaking all kinds of protocol, but Linda begs Luka not to leave, so he just insists firmly that he's going to ride in the ambulance with her, and presumably the medics relent, because that's what you do when Heroes get assertive.
Pratt enters the children's ward. Fry Cook is tucked away in the back, a huge, smiling lump who looks simultaneously out of place in the room of kids and just boyishly cheerful enough to fit in perfectly. He's waiting for his mother to come pick him up and take him home. "So what have you learned from all this?" Pratt says sternly. "Five a day, exercise some, and find myself a job at vegetable stand or something," Fry Cook says with an innocent, sheepish smile. Pratt waves at him, tells him to take care of himself, and begins to leave. Fry Cook calls out, "You have an office somewhere?" He wants to come back to see Pratt, so Pratt explains that he isn't in private practice. Fry Cook doesn't immediately understand what this means, and asks if they can work out some kind of arrangement. Pratt insists that Fry Cook and his family will have to settle for the family clinic. "Tell 'em I sent you," Pratt smiles, bumping fists with Fry Cook and then skedaddling like he's been aching to do the entire time. Fry Cook looks sad. God, he looks like he just lost a sibling or something.
Carter and Sam treat a precocious young girl who was thrown from her horse, injuring her collarbone. She's freaking that she might miss her big competition. Carter and Sam swap dumbfounded looks. "Wish I was that fearless when I was fifteen," Sam whispers as they walk away. "Is it fearless, or reckless?" Carter says, apparently trying to purge himself of his hackneyed paternal attitudes now that they won't come in handy for a while. "She's fearless. I was reckless," Sam laughs. When they reach the front desk, Sam turns and begins to offer Carter some awkward condolences, saying she hadn't wanted to irritate him by adding to the throng of platitudes, but didn't want to ignore it either. She's interrupted, though, by Frank's announcement that Alex didn't show up at school. Sam is immediately furious and picks up the phone to call home. No one answers. Presumably once her message plays, Sam announces who it is and begins yelling at Alex or Steve to pick up the phone -- as if she has an answering machine, when we already know she has voicemail. Naturally, then, no one picks up.
Carter murmurs to Abby, "She's got it rough with him." Abby wonders if he means "the kid or the ex," which really underscores how trite and formula this storyline is. "Both," Carter decides. Abby turns to him and asks outright how he and Kem are doing. He says nothing, twitching a little in what appears to be a way of saying, "Not as well as I'd hoped." Abby puts her hand on his shoulder and leaves it there for a few beats. "You'll get through this," she promises. Frank busts in on this moment to alert them to the impending arrival of Linda and her son Michael. He describes Linda as "cut in half," which makes me wonder if her legs even made the trip with her on the same gurney.
Outside, Chen has greeted Luka and Linda. "She's tachy," shouts Chen, which of course sounds like "tacky," which has the unfortunate air of, "With those stumps, she should've gone with vertical stripes. And beige? Oh, honey, no." Chen screams for trauma, orthopedic, and vascular surgeons. As they go inside, Sam is leaving to track down Alex and Steve, and Luka almost stops moving altogether so that he can stare at her. She ignores him. GIVE IT UP, LUKA. She's awful. And she's got on a long denim coat. Every time she's on screen these days, she has a new coat. I didn't realize nursing was such big money.
Carter and Abby greet the rig carrying Michael, and do their best to comfort the terrified, wailing child. Pratt gets the third ambulance, which carries Antwan, the driver who started it all. I guess somebody jumped him, or he collapsed on his own. The medic says she smelled something on him. "Been shooting up? Sniffing?" Pratt asks harshly. "No," Antwan says. "You gotta back me up, brother." Pratt snarls, "I'm Dr. Pratt, you're under suspicion of DUI, and you sure as hell ain't my brother." We fade to black delighted that this is the last Sassy Pratt act-out we're going to have to digest for at least three months. I want to dance.
We return on a close-up of Linda's blood-streaked hand. Panning up the side of her body -- again, restraint on the part of the show, which I would think would've wanted to show some crushed femur right about now -- we arrive on her face as Linda wails that she can't feel her legs. That can't come as a surprise to her. Was she there during her accident? Luka and Chen ignore her questions about whether she's paralyzed, possibly because they're not really sure how to tell someone with massive internal injuries that her legs look like they went through a wood chipper. But they could also be thinking, "Is she kidding with this? Should we have a good laugh?" Elizabeth arrives to ask how she's doing, and stares a second too long at Chen's black eye; Chen notices, and there's a telling little beat pause in the middle of her list of Linda's extensive problems. It's very subtle but it's there. So she's self-conscious. She should've worn an eye patch. That would've been so awesome. Pirate medicine. They could've made that apt by giving Linda some swanky peg legs. Apparently, Linda's hypotensive and has a fractured pelvis, so Elizabeth gently tells Linda that she needs to go to the OR. "What about my son?" Linda asks. Luka looks over and sees Michael convulsing painfully in Trauma Green with Carter and Abby. "He's in good hands," Luka promises. Maybe Abby's been working on a backup career as an Allstate representative. Elizabeth asks Luka whether she had distal pulses. Chen says something about how she should ask Luka, because Luka was there, and it ends up coming off really, really snotty, like Chen's jealous that Luka got to be there for the leg-crushing and she was stuck at home sponge-bathing her father. Elizabeth wonders why Luka was out in the field. "Good Samaritan," Linda manages through the pain. Luka gives her a blank look, because apparently, no one is ever again allowed to know what Luka is feeling. Heroes are stoic.
Michael cries out for his mother as Abby and Carter try to restrain him. They give him some morphine. "Daddy," whines the kid. Carter's expression darkens, because of The Grief. Suddenly, Michael passes out and his blood pressure crashes. Carter wants to intubate and gets impatient when the others haven't anticipated his every move in enough time. We're treated to a wary look from Abby at his snappy tone. You know, this show absolutely LOVES doing this -- ending scenes with annoyed or skeptical looks from various people. It's like every character exists in a given scene to drive another one up the wall.
Pratt observes that the driver, Antwan, has a cut on his shoulder. "He must've hit the door frame when he was fleeing the scene," Chuny says. "You don't know that! You don't know nothin' about me, bitch!" screams Antwan. She knows you're a fuckwad, though, and that's about all there is to know. Pratt smacks Antwan down for backtalking just as Weaver enters to check the chart. Pratt says the kid tested positive for opiates, and Pratt thinks it's heroin. Antwan's impatient to leave, because he's demented and unrealistic. "Dawg, you caused an accident," Pratt sputters. "No," Weaver says calmly. "An accident is when bad things happen for no reason. [He was] high and ran into people." She swans out of the room, cruising on the quality of that retort, which is relatively high when you consider most of the drivel they've had her spew all season.
Kerry sails right into Trauma Green and gets the bullet on Michael: blunt chest trauma, hypoxia, collapsed lung. Carter freaks that there's compressed air in his chest that's causing his sats to plunge. Weaver prepares to assist, but Frank interrupts her, because that's what his function in is: to burst in and make announcements. He's like some sort of plot fairy -- and the use of that term to describe him, incidentally, would probably give him a second coronary. Anyway, Frank tells Kerry that if she stays, she'll be late to court. "I don't need any help with a chest tube," Carter barks at her. Weaver thinks for a second, and then heads on into Trauma Yellow and asks Chen to assist Carter. "Why, is he in trouble?" Chen asks, surprised and still trying to attend to the legless patient who's currently bleeding rivers in front of her. "I'm afraid he's too emotionally vulnerable," Weaver says. "Are you saying he can't..." Chen begins. "DO IT," Weaver booms. Chen pauses, and then goes quietly, because that's really all you can do when Weaver gets a notion into her head.
Meanwhile, as Chen and Weaver monopolize the foreground, the ortho surgical team arrives and Malik marvels at the throng of people crammed into the trauma room. "We're going to need bleachers soon," he observes. And cheerleaders. And, given what attention whores its members are, probably the USC Marching Band. Ortho Guy salivates that he hopes this is more interesting than the Achilles repair they just did. Someone lifts the blanket for him, and I imagine it's like placing a four-course meal on a domed platter in front of a gourmand and then lifting the silver lid. The guy's eyes widen and he all but licks his lips. Mmm, Pâté of Femur and Thigh Muscle. A delicacy. "Wow, pretty ugly stuff," Ortho gasps. In the greatest tone of utter disdain, Luka says quietly, "She's conscious. She can hear you." Ortho's more sheepish than a shepherd's flock.
This about catches us up to the end of the scene in the foreground; Chen is gone and Weaver immediately turns around and asks, "What happened to Dr. Chen's face?" Elizabeth's shrug is like, Freak, I have NO idea, but I do know there's a woman lying in front of me with COMPLETELY CRUSHED LEGS, and that's a bit absorbing. Linda wants to wait for her husband to get up there, but Luka insists that she needs surgery too desperately for that.
Neela is driving on a highway, listening to an ovary insist through song that it's going to be just fine. That ovary has never been a patient at County. Gritchily, Neela flips through other stations and then shuts off the radio with a put-upon sigh. How exciting.
Michael's still suffering over in Trauma Green. "Abby, check the thoraseal," Chen says. "That's not it," mutters Carter. "Lung's down again," someone says. "That's not it," Carter says. "Maye the tube got kinked..." Abby offers. "No, that's not it," Carter snaps, at a loss for why the kid's vitals are plunging. He goes into v-tach, and they fire up the paddles. "Normal heart, no...lung disease. This makes no sense," Carter frets. They shock him, but it doesn't work; Carter has them hold back while he jams a needle into the kid's chest, and I wish I knew what the hell it was doing. There's a hissing noise that I only really spotted because the closed-captioners deemed it noteworthy. Whatever it does, which might just be that it released compressed air, it seems to help stabilize Michael.
Chuny runs in and tells Abby that Bill Macy is looking for her, and that he's none too happy. Abby, who has her hands all up in a dying kid's grill, is basically like, Hey, well, I'm a little occupied. Chuny sasses that she told the old guy she wasn't going to deal with his crap. Carter quite rightly gets irritated that Chuny is being a total bitch, distracting Abby with this in the middle of a trauma. "Who's in and who's out?" he yells. Chuny throws up her hands and gets in so that Abby can go deal with someone who's barfing beige chunks.
And, naturally, the only thing Bill Macy really wanted was a cuddle. Well, no, he wanted his own room, but I think there was probably some lonely old man subtext. There's always lonely old man subtext. Abby gets impatient that all he wanted was to bitch about a private room, so he calls her a smart-aleck and starts talking about all the junior-high kids he taught for thirty-seven years. "I bet you were the kids' favorite," Abby says, tongue so firmly in her cheek that the wrong audience might confuse it with the universal gesture for "blowjob." As Abby's backing out of the crank's room, Frank appears, a crank himself who is insisting that Abby take a call from Weaver. From her car, Weaver is calling to demand that Abby call USMLE immediately for her boards scores. Abby makes nice and then hangs up with a sullen expression. "I'll be back," she says dully to Bill Macy. "Whatever," he groans.
As Abby looks up the number for the USMLE, Linda's husband arrives to see about his family. This is enough to pry her away from a thrilling finger-hike through the Yellow Pages.
Michael's all bloody and he has a weak carotid pulse. "Better than nothing," Chen observes. But his heart rate suddenly drops again, and she and Carter and Chuny spring into action. Naturally, this is when the father makes his appearance, and he just stands there watching Chen kneel on the table over his son to give compressions while Carter and Chuny do things that look fairly important. And what is the father's comment? "You have to do something." Chen's all, Dude, what does this look like -- pedophilia? Carter decides he wants to try a pericardiocentesis needle. That's jargon for "Big fat fucking needle." Then Chen says, "[But] he's not in tamponade." First, I heard "tapenade," and got all hungry for some appetizers. Then I saw the spelling and was momentarily -- okay, lengthily -- confused about the inclusion of the word "tampon," and what it all means. Then I remembered that I'm paid not to point out the things I don't understand, which are myriad, but to pretend I understand everything and that I am qualified to be really judgmental about it. So here I shall say, "Damn RIGHT he's not in tamponade," while secretly giggling that the word sounds like some sort of refreshing summer beverage that you make by adding sugar to freshly squeezed cotton sticks. Basically, Chen thinks Carter's being a renegade loon of some kind, probably because he's going to stick a needle in or around Michael's heart.
Sam arrives home and unlocks the door, only to be thwarted by the chain lock. She sucks wind and shouts, "Open up!" She looks royally pissed. Steve peers through the door and says, "You're home early." Sam glares at him so hard that she fogs up her corneas. Slowly, Steve unhooks the chain lock and lets her inside. She promptly storms in there and asks what they're doing. "Alex is supposed to be in school," she rages. "Dad said it was okay," Alex says. For someone who's supposedly as bright and curious as Alex is, he is so incredibly dumb. As if that excuse was going to work. "It's not exactly his call, is it?" Sam asks frostily, switching off the television set and thusly the incredibly loud noises emanating from it. A strange dude I just noticed decides that this is his moment to exit stage right. "I'm outta here," he drawls. Sam's like, "What the...DIE." Alex glares at her as she drags Steve into the kitchen to commence Asshole Relocation Surgery. She reams him for pulling Alex out of school, and when Steve begins to answer, Sam's face registers horror. "You're high," she realizes. "What?" Steve tries to play dumb. "You smoked dope in front of him?" she cries, trying to keep her voice down. Steve shrugs that he took a few hits outside while Alex was watching TV. "No big deal," he insists. "To me it is," Sam seethes. Steve changes tacks, putting the puppy-dog eyes into effect and murmuring pathetically that he just wanted to take Alex to his job interview. "He got the coolest job ever," a beaming Alex pipes up. "He's gonna manage this apartment building." At first I thought that meant the very one in which Sam lives, but later Steve lists a different location, so...carry on. Nothing to see here. Sam's flabbergasted, especially when Alex delightedly shares that Steve gets a free apartment in the deal. "So now I can live with Dad, too!" he enthuses. We fade to black on an irritated Sam making the same face she's made for half of the season, and we perhaps begin to wonder how, after ten years, she hasn't figured out a way to deal with this nightmare.
At the courthouse, The Bald Eagle is trying to prep Kerry for the hearing. Weaver's mad that she's getting judged on being a single parent, arguing that surely it's not her fault she didn't have a bigger extended family, and that her young age should be considered an advantage over the "elderly" Lopez parents. It's all point-counterpoint. Chrome Dome sighs that he's simply trying to come at her the way this conservative judge might. "Her idea of what represents the best interest of a family is basic -- two parents, a man and a woman," he explains. "Unless she's planning to take away the children of every other single parent in Chicago and place them with a heterosexual couple, she's a hypocrite," steams Kerry. The Bald Stallion agrees tiredly, having probably been on the listening end of a lot of similar tirades. Kerry rants that the idea of a perfect family and child-rearing environment is a total myth, and then catches her breath in her throat. "They brought him," she whispers. Cut to Florina cradling Henry. The Bald Ranger babbles on and on about the case, but Weaver's not even looking at him or listening. "He's grown," she murmurs. And morphed. I swear Henry looks like a different child every time he appears.
Sam sits quietly on her bed, her knees drawn up under her chin. She looks empty. Steve enters gingerly and asks if she's okay. There's some business about who the random dude was -- he had a "business proposition" for Steve, which probably means he had the phone number of some nubile prostitutes and a mickey of whiskey. Steve sits down on the bed and admits that he wasn't planning on staying, but the job fell into his lap, and evidently the sensation of something dropping onto his thighs feels a bit like destiny. Then he lies that he can go to night school. Sam just nods. "Know what Alex said to me the other day?" Steve says, going in for the kill. "He said, 'I love you, Dad.'" Sam looks away and bites her lip. Steve soldiers forth with his gentle act and tells her that he's going to Dallas to pick up some furniture, but he'll be back that weekend. He cups her cheek in his palm. "Sam," he whispers. Still she remains silent. "Okay, I'll see you soon," he concludes, getting up to leave. He runs into Alex outside the door, and of course Alex is all, "Why can't I just go to Dallas with you?" Yeah, whatever, Alex. Sam pretends that this doesn't hurt and just stares blankly off into space.
Bill Macy groans and pulls himself into a seated position. Abby sees him through the window and rushes in there to help. He wants to use a bathroom. "Let me get a bedpan," she says, insisting that he's too weak. But he doesn't want to die steeped in such indignity, so Abby gets a wheelchair for him. "So what have I got? A week? Three days?" he mutters. "Never mind. Doesn't matter." Abby asks him what he taught. "Algebra. Thirty-seven years," he says wistfully. "I taught four thousand thirteen-year-olds. What the hell for?" Abby politely and truthfully says she's sure he made an impression. "And at the end, you're alone, and you've got cancer," Bill says bitterly. "I'm here," she points out. "Only 'cause you're paid to be," he mutters. Aw, shucks, I know teachers aren't rolling in dough, but aren't there any misguided, money-hungry widows down at the home who want to latch onto a wee pension and some life insurance?
Linda's surgery is going awkwardly. Elizabeth's got the innards --- liver trouble and spleen removal -- while the Ortho team is stationed at her legs getting ready to amputate. Well, I assume. If they're not already gone. Luka enters to observe and asks how Linda's doing. "On a scale of one to ten, a four," Elizabeth says grimly. Then the machinery freaks. "Maybe a three," she amends, throwing bloody lap pads around -- or at least, I hope that's what those are, because if not, then they look like things that belong inside the body, hooked up to the plumbing.
Michael's now sporting two chest tubes and he still doesn't have a pulse. "There's a huge air leak," Carter shares, considering putting in another tube. "That's his third," Chen says. Sesame Street would be proud. Chen tries to convince Carter that the kid's injuries are too severe, and that he's been coding on and off for forty minutes. "Well, come ON, then, think! I don't know!" Carter shrieks. Chen tenses and announces that she's calling a time of death. Carter shakes her off and talks it out: "We're pumping air into the pleural space faster than the chest tube can suck it out....I'm going to bypass the left." Apparently, this makes them realize simultaneously that the air leak is a tear in Michael's left bronchial tube. Chen still wonders if the kid's been without oxygen too long to recover. Carter begs for ten seconds, completes the procedure, and gets a pulse. "We saved him," Chen realizes, stunned. Carter tells Michael's father that his son has a hole in his airway and needs surgery, but that they think they can fix it. He then offers to take the man up to the OR waiting room, but he wants to be in there with his wife. Oh...really? Wow. I think that sounds like a hideous idea. "She'd want me there," the guy insists. So you think you're ready to know what your wife's spleen looks like? That sounds like the title of a very helpful hospital leaflet explaining to grieving relatives that the solution to your stress is not, in fact, watching someone chop up the person you love.
Pratt grabs Carter for a second to talk about Chen. He's worried about the black eye, which he and Carter both suspect came from her father, and he knows that Chen won't be completely honest with him about it because of their history. Carter promises to chat to her about it, and buzzes off with Linda's husband. Pratt, meanwhile, goes to check out Antwan's tox screen results.
Aaaaand, it turns out that in addition to being high, Antwan was hammered. And I just noticed in this scene that his lips are the most enormous things I've ever seen on a face, and yes, that includes the Streisand schnozz. Bee-stung, sure -- if we're talking a thousand very angry, vengeful bees. With toxic stingers. Antwan sulks that the cop outside his door told him that, because this is his third strike, he might get life in prison. And he's only twenty. Well, that's young to rack up three strikes, but hey, when you're a stupid jagoff, you're a stupid jagoff. "You hit a woman and a kid," Pratt points out. "But, life?" Antwan pouts. "You think that's right?" Pratt shrugs that it's the law. Antwan goes off on the Poor Me spiel where he moans that he never had any other path to take. "You grow up in Winnetka?" he sneers at Pratt. "Cabrini-Green," Pratt spits, naming one of Chicago's most infamous projects. "So I don't want to hear excuses." Antwan bristles and more or less calls Pratt a dickhead for getting out and not looking back at the place from whence he came. "Doc," he throws in bitterly, for good measure.
Neela's parked by the side of the road. She's smoking. Her car is silver. She looks sick. She is such an afterthought.
Alex pads through the apartment to ask Sam about dinner, and bumps into her as she's charging into the living room with a pile of suitcases. She tells him she'll deal with all the clothes if he'll pack everything else he wants to keep in those bags. Guess she's not worried about getting back that security deposit. "We're moving," she tells Alex. "I don't want to go!" he wails. "I like it here. You're just being a bitch." Sam freezes. "I'm sick of moving just because you're screwed up!" he shouts. I know he's a kid, but again, he's clearly fairly bright in some areas -- why can't he be the rare kid in this situation who actually gets what his mother's worried about? I see why Sam's leaving, but Alex is so broken about being jerked from town to town that it actually makes me dislike Sam more for choosing to run away rather than spend some time trying to hammer out a solution to the Steve problem that will last her longer than nine months at a time. Sam is fed up with Alex, though, and she hisses at him that she's sick and tired of pretending Steve's a good guy. "I'm sick of keeping my mouth shut about all the crap he's done and all the stuff he hasn't, and I'm sick of him tracking us down every time he loses his job so he can come here and buy you enough presents to make you think he's actually a father, because he's not -- he's a user and a loser and I'm not going to let him turn you into one, too," Sam says, her voice breaking. "Now get your ass in that room and start packing." Maybe instead of running, Sam should try calmly explaining something to Alex first. He can always fail to understand -- but I'd like to see that she's ever actually tried communicating anything to him. I actually will go on a limb and say that I dislike them more than I do Abby's family, because at least there, you can see some undercurrents of mutual love. It's messed up, but it's running underneath all their fights; with Sam and Alex you don't see anything going her way from him, so it just makes him look like a whiny, pouty, badly brought-up brat who has no respect for his mother and thinks she's a loser. And says so, to strangers. Gah. How is that an appealing story?
Elizabeth wraps up Linda's surgery and lauds Luka for being nice enough to stop and help her in the first place. A nurse notices that the father's upstairs observing, so Luka goes up to introduce himself. He gently breaks it to Mr. Linda that, although Linda will live, they had to amputate both her legs. Here, for the first time, we see Linda's lower half; her stumps are tightly wrapped in white bandages. The father looks gutted by what he's seeing. If I remember correctly, the spoilers claimed he said something shocked and scared about how they'd basically cut her in half, but I guess that line got exorcised. Which is kind of a shame, because it actually sounds like kind of an honest reaction from someone in this situation who can't believe what he's seeing and wouldn't be emotionally capable of having completely appropriate things to say. The father watches as his wife's lifted onto a gurney to be wheeled into post-op.
Abby calls USMLE about her boards results and finds out that the scores were sent to her at the hospital. Angrily, she stalks over to Frank and hisses at him about where her personal mail might be. "It would be filed alphabetically in the mail drawer with everyone else's crap," he says grouchily. "As if I didn't have enough to do." Yes, so much that he doesn't have time to inform anyone that there is a mail drawer.
A friendly-looking bespectacled chap arrives looking for Bill Macy. Abby leads him into Bill's room, where the guy introduces himself as Ed, a former student. "I had you for Algebra in '73 and '74," he beams. Bill Macy frowns at him until a light of recognition goes on in his brain. "I flunked you because you didn't follow the directions on your final," he realizes. Ed grins affectionately. Apparently he's a math teacher at Bill Macy's old school now. "Kinda karmic," he says. Bill Macy looks tickled. Ed says that someone from the hospital called the school to let everyone know about the situation, and Bill Macy immediately points a shaky finger of gratitude at Abby. She has her lips pursed in that horrible duck expression, which is supposed to be "Who, me?" innocence, but which makes her look like she secretly has webbed feet and belongs on a lake eating soggy bread crusts.
The judge at Weaver's hearing says she's reviewed all the testimony and needs a couple follow-up answers. She asks if the Lopez parents are retired and in good health; they are. Then she asks if Weaver has two dead parents and no siblings. Anyone wondering which way this judge is leaning? The judge says she'll render a verdict in a week, at which point Weaver decides to do what nobody should do in court, which is make an impromptu statement that actually has your lawyer cradling his head in his hands. "Your honor, I love my son," she begins. She charts the history of Henry's conception and points out that she cut the cord and was with Henry and Sandy for all the dirty diapers and the colicky nights, and they were a family regardless of whether the law of society deems them as such. "And we still are," she says passionately. Florina gulps. The Lopez who is holding Henry looks touched. The judge frostily says she'll let them know in a week, and we fade to black relieved to have been spared a trial but a little annoyed that the entire thing was used to paint Kerry as a saint and the Lopez family as evil baby thieves. If the story was in any way meant to be balanced, we'd have heard testimony and seen Florina crack a smile. There's no way to win, I guess. Either we sit through boring court scenes, or we get Good vs. Evil.
Sam leaves to load up the car, so Alex sneaks over to the phone and calls Luka. At least the kid has good taste -- for a second I thought he was going to ring up Steve, and I'd have been forced to choke on some fury. "Could you come over? My mom's freaking out..." Alex says desperately. Sam catches him; the thing we see is Luka listening confusedly as the line goes dead.
Neela sits in her car at the University of Michigan and pouts. Then she walks from the car toward the building. Walking, walking, walking, still walking. She's all in shadow now, and she's right up in the camera lens, and she's walking, walking...holy GOD, can someone please yell "cut," or whatever it is they do when a scene has gone on way, way too long? I don't need to see her walking this much. The concept is fairly basic: she's traveling by foot. I get it.
As Mr. Linda hunches over Michael's bedside, Carter tells him that Michael came through lung surgery very well. "He has my ears," murmurs Mr. Linda. "I was hoping he'd get my eyes." Wait...am I mistaken, or did he just more or less say that he hates his wife's eyes? As if he married Linda despite the rather obvious flaw of her peepers, and spent his nights praying hard that their child wouldn't suffer the same fate? Or is it just that he deifies his own eyes? Either way, were Linda awake and possessed of legs, I should think she'd kick his ass for that. Suddenly, Linda does regain consciousness, and her husband rushes over to her and gently tells her that she lost her legs. "But you're going to be okay," he whispers. "You're going to be good." Linda's reaction is to flutter her eyelids -- you know, those blessed shades covering her hideous, monstrous, generically cruel eyes.
Abby rifles through the mail drawer, prying from Frank that her letter would be filed under "N" for "Nurses." Irritated, she grabs it from the folder and exhales hard, staring at it, unprepared for the moment of truth. And possibly hoping it will turn into a cigarette so she can smoke it and be free.
Neela's new supervisor gives a really lousy tour of campus, full of lame jokes and forced joviality. Weaver may be a bitch, but I'll give her credit for not trying to inundate people with this sort of annoying, strenuous cheer. After the tour is over, Neela asks to speak with the supervisor privately. "Dr. Rasgotra," he identifies her. "Transitional internship leading to Dermatology, right?" Neela nods. Wow, Dermatology? Well, I guess if she hates kids, and old people, and really sick and contagious people, and young babies, then she's finally zeroed in on the right field. As long as she doesn't develop a stomach-turning aversion to acne.
It's raining in Chicago. Abby is sitting on a covered step outside a building near County, and she's reading through her letter, rocking back and forth slightly. "HA!" she suddenly blurts, delightedly, hugging her letter to her chest. Carter, leaving the hospital, sees this with amusement. "Good news?" he asks. "I bassed my boards," she glows. Carter congratulates her with a gentle smile; it's clear he's still not quite himself. And he's carrying a mysterious cardboard box under his arm -- the kind you'd take from work if you had just cleaned out your desk. Or your locker. But the show doesn't address what it is, and Abby doesn't seem to notice. "Thank you!" she giggles. "Oh, GOD!" Then she pauses. "Sorry," she says, seeming to realize that her joy is something Carter can't wholly share, given his grief. "I'm just...You going home?" He nods. "Give Kem my best," she says. Carter turns away, then stops. "Hey, Abby. I never had a doubt in my mind," he calls out. Then he walks away with his box of clairvoyance. Abby nods, and then spins around and lets out a triumphant "YEAH!" It's sort of sweet.
Neela sits down in her supervisor's office and wrings her hands. She tells him that when she was in third grade -- again, would a girl raised in the British school system have called it that? Do they use "grades" now over there? -- she told her parents she wanted to be a doctor, and they latched onto it and off she went. "I suppose it's a good thing I never said I wanted to be in the circus," she cracks lamely, and of course her supervisor doesn't laugh, because we've all seen his sense of humor on display and it was about as sharp as a paper towel. Neela tells him that she doesn't want to go through with this career, after a year of struggling with the feeling. The guy is dumbfounded, because that's a lot of money, time, trouble, and innards to go through if all you're going to do is quit. "You understand you can't get licensed without an internship?" he says. Neela nods.
Bill Macy has another student with him, this time a woman who went to MIT. "You always said, 'Math is the true universal language, and love is for suckers,'" the woman says, with Ed and Bill joining her in finishing the quote. It almost looks like she ended up marrying Ed, but who knows. At any rate, Bill Macy has gone from being a lonely old dying man to a happy old dying man, and on this show that's about as much as one can hope to achieve. Abby smiles as she introduces Dori, her night nurse and a relative of Paris Hilton in real life. I think she got featured because Paris visited the set, or something. Who knows. She does kind of look like a Hilton. Anyway, Bill Macy asks if Abby will be his nurse tomorrow. "No, I won't," she says. "But I will be here." Then she pauses, and grins, "Just ask for Dr. Lockhart."
Sam ties her trunk shut -- well, sort of; there's a string, but only one, and she's got so much stuff in there that something's certainly going to end up on the highway. It'll be a nice little trail of breadcrumbs, or lingerie, or items Alex stole from County, for Steve to follow. Sam orders Alex into the car and slams the door just as Luka runs up to them. Because he can just leave work at will, as Sam did. I guess when the cat (Weaver) is away, the mice run after their exes. "Luka!" shouts Alex, delightedly. Luka is confused. "I don't understand," he says, surveying the scene. "No one does," Sam says brokenly. That's because you never see fit to explain anything to anyone, dumb-ass. She's so in love with her own pathetic image of a person who Has Nobody that she's not even trying to confide in any of her new friends, or her former boyfriend...Gah. GAH, I tell you. "I can't let it happen," she says. "I can't let him get to my kid." Well, honey, your kid's a little messed up already; maybe letting him get to know his deadbeat father will actually reverse the trend. Alex doesn't want to go, but Sam speeds off. Luka smacks the car in frustration as he yells after Sam. Alex pokes his head out the window like a carsick dog, staring at Luka as they get further and further away.
Chen guzzles an ibuprofen as Pratt walks up to her and begins asking about her eye. "I was trying to give him a bath," she sighs. Pratt asks if it was an accident. She shrugs. "He doesn't know what he's doing any more," she replies. Pratt wants her to open up to someone, and promises that he's still her friend, no matter what their history. He then tells her to call her day nurse and have her stay late so that he can take her to dinner and let her unload. Chen looks grateful.
Frank calls Pratt to sign off on Antwan's chart so that the cops can take him and his planetary lips away. Pratt watches as Antwan is cuffed. They swap glares.
Apparently inspired to be that role model, or something, Pratt then heads upstairs to see if Fry Cook is still there. Of course, he is, since his mother hasn't come to pick him up and isn't answering her phone. Pratt offers him a ride in the Chrysler.
Cut to the car, where Chen's riding shotgun and Pratt and Fry Cook are blaring music as Pratt cackles gleefully. Fry Cook proclaims this the nicest car he's ever seen. He needs to get out more. Chen's amused, but begs them to turn down the music a tad. Pratt does, with a smile. They're stopped at a light; the car behind them honks impatiently when they don't start up immediately when the light turns green. Pratt's all, Yeah, keep your shirt on, fuckpipe, but the guy's not happy and speeds up alongside them to scream obscene things. Pratt tries to wave him off, but Fry Cook starts giggling and flips the other driver the bird. Pratt shakes his head and hits the gas, speeding them away and across the bridge.
The speed makes Chen nervous, so she pleads with him to slow down. "There, everybody happy now?" Pratt asks, slowing to a safer speed. Suddenly, we see headlights and hear squealing tires, and Chen's eyes widen. "Greg," she breathes. Pratt turns and sees the guy pointing a gun at them. He fires. "He's shooting at us!" Chen screams. Ha ha ha. This is the worst scene. The shooter follows them as they dodge traffic and try to escape, his Buick jealously tracking the Chrysler as if afraid the latter were threatening Buick's cherished position as the least relevant automaker in the world. Chen brightly offers up the suggestion that they try harder to lose the shooter. Thank you, Dr. Chen. You are such an intellectual bright spot. The gun goes off three more times, and Chen lets out an off-camera yelp.
This is where I just started laughing, and laughing, and laughing. Because why the HELL would you have a cliffhanger that revolves around an unlikable character, a character who was once nice but has become a cold bitch and is generally irrelevant, and a day player? Live, die, whatever -- pass the ice cream. It was a bit like on The O.C., when Marissa started chugging booze and it was suppoed to be all dramatic and sad, and yet I found yawning and idly hoping she'd drink herself into a coma before the season started. This will teach me to ask for a cliffhanger. God, this one didn't even really involve an existing story thread. It was just like, "Let's be as literal as we can about going out with a bang." Awful. Kind of canceled out some of the things that went right this season, which for me was basically Abby's move toward self-confidence and the introduction of Neela. Sam? Boring and largely unlikable. Luka? Hot but dull. Lester? Nice but dim. Malarkey? Malarkey. Weaver? Bitchy. Romano? Dead. Susan? Knocked up and knocked out of relevance. Carter? Puffy and smug. So although it couldn't have reached the pits of shitcrapitude that least season did, I think the bad outweighed the good. Again. But at least it got a bit better -- hopefully Season 11 will, too.