Try Carter

S11E03

Previously on ER: Neela told her parents that medicine might not be for her, but she has no backup plan, and Weaver wouldn't throw her a bone. Carter confessed to Luka that he can't sleep because when he does, the lambs cry, or something.

It's dark outside. Luka exits the ER to wait for something -- an ambulance, character development, Godot...who can say. Carter glides up on his bike, fresh off his paper route and all set to ask the nice guv'nor if he'd like a shoeshine in exchange for a shiny tuppence. Luka is surprised to see Carter. "I couldn't sleep and I wanted a jump on the day," Carter says. Luka tells him that the night shift started out crazy but has quieted down in the last hour. "That won't last. Sunburn, blown-off fingers...food poisoning...there's nothing like the ER on the Fourth of July," Carter says with forced lightness. The weird thing is, I can't figure out -- because I know what's coming -- why it was necessary to set this episode on the Fourth of July. Just because the writers wrote it on the Fourth, drunk while they flipped their beer brats on the grill and spilled Old Milwaukee all over the pages, doesn't mean they needed to set the whole show on that same day. The cognitive disconnect is weird. They've ignored Susan for entire episodes before; they certainly didn't need to do this to justify her being on maternity leave. And Sam and Luka could only benefit from the passage of time and the presumed subsequent strengthening of their relationship. And Carter could still be haunted. All of this could happen in September or October. Luka calls out to Carter, "Have you talked to Kem?" Carter chokes when he tries to glibly pretend they talked, and then clarifies, "The time change makes it hard...we email." Luka asks if everything is okay, even though he really should be able to read between the frown lines. "These things take time," Carter replies vaguely. Not finished pressing Carter like a wrinkled shirt, Luka further wants to know if Carter is okay. "I'm here, aren't I?" Carter says, throwing open his arms. Well, if that's the only criterion, then he was totally healthy and fine the day he stumbled in drunk to overstep his bounds with a patient's personal life before passing out in the lounge. An arriving rig saves Carter from any more of that irritating friendly concern.

Abby finishes getting dressed and heads into her kitchen. Neela is awake and curled up on the couch, eating cereal and watching television with all the vim and vigor of a robot. She has apparently returned unscathed and unenlightened from her run for the border. "Oh, we're out of milk," Neela calls out as Abby pours two meager drops into her coffee. She bites back the urge to throw the carton at Neela's head -- which is understandable. If, in that situation, I was told we were out of Diet Coke, I can't be held responsible for the carnage I would leave in my grumpy, undercaffeinated wake. Abby, however, instead chooses to offer Neela a ride anywhere she needs to go. Neela shrugs that she's fine, and then tips Abby off to a really important story coming up about a woman who fought a mountain lion to save her baby. From the look on Abby's face, Neela is about to experience a similar battle first-hand. On her way out, Abby suggests that Neela work on Weaver one more time, but Neela emptily doesn't want her to bother. She claims she has job interviews set up. Abby brightens and asks where. "I don't want to jinx it," Neela mumbles. Abby knows she's lying and tries to beat a retreat. "I can pick up groceries today, if you'd like," Neela pipes up at the last second. Abby is happy. "I'll just need to borrow some money," Neela adds with a tinge of bitterness. "Just until I get my first paycheck." Abby purses her lips and nods before she quacks -- er, cracks -- Neela's skull.

County. In the bottom corner of the shot, Luka sits with his sunglasses on, facing a very focused Hapless Howard as he presents a case. Carter passes, rounds a corner, and happens upon Frank clad in an Uncle Sam costume as he hangs decorations. Oh, I understand now why they set this episode on July Fourth: They had an Uncle Sam outfit for Frank. The writers obviously couldn't let it go to waste -- I mean, they are only half-human. When Carter fumbles for the word to describe the whole effect, Malik chips in with "Gay." Oh, Malik. So much to learn. A gay man would never be caught dead in stars and stripes, unless he was in a cabaret.

Carter rattles off a string of things he's done so far that day, impressing Malik. "You're on fire, dude. How many Red Bulls have you had?" he asks. We lose Carter as the camera finds a passing Malarkey, who has a posse of three students hanging around him. Outside, I believe there are religious types holding aloft their Bibles and screaming that the apocalypse is nigh. "Why is it important to check pedal pulses?" Malarkey asks. One student gets it wrong. Malarkey makes a buzzing noise. Penny answers incorrectly as well. "Close, but no cigar," Malarkey says. "More studying and less time at the hair salon." What an ass. This is a true case of the hind leading the blind. There is also a third student there, and he is wearing some sort of earpiece that I can only assume has a microphone attached, as he keeps repeating everything into it in a low voice. I guess he's recording everything. Malik watches the group walk down the hall and sighs, "I guess it's true what they say -- those who can't do, teach." My second-grade teacher would so kick his ass right now. She was very adept at handwriting in her own right. Sam smiles at Malik's remark, and then turns to Carter and says, "Yeah, but what's he teaching them? Yesterday I caught him injecting lido with epi into a toe." I hope she means a real toe and not a Heathen toe. Maybe I need a new word. Carter thinks she's joking at first, but when he realizes she's as serious as a heart attack brought on by a Malarkey misstep, he bounds after his resident.

Back to Hapless Howard, who is asking Luka for advice and then answering his own questions immediately, interpreting the quiet as agreement. When Hapless leaves, Sam creeps over and gently removes Luka's sunglasses to reveal that he has been asleep the whole time. We smash to the credits hoping that Luka feels guilty when Howard kills a patient based on that silent assent.

Ding! The elevator brings us back into County, where we see that Carter has corralled the med students. He introduces them to Pratt, who has apparently decided that his brain is plenty undamaged. Carter wants Pratt to instruct them on the initial management of chest pain. "All chest pain consistent with ACS gets O2, IV, aspirin, beta blockers, and nitro," Pratt says mechanically and without much energy. A semi-cute student named Urbanus, according to the captioners, asks a question, and Pratt grouchily repeats exactly the same answer. Getting clocked on the noggin hasn't improved his temperament any. Pity. Pratt doles out charts and then shouts too loudly after them, "Make me proud! First one to kill a patient buys me lunch." Then he swings around and makes eye contact with a guy being wheeled into the ER, now looking very green around the gills because he overheard Pratt's remark. It's about time somebody overheard the typical County unprofessional junk. Flee, sad sick man!

Carter is surprised to see Pratt back at work. "A guy can only play so much X-Box," Pratt replies. Tell that to every college kid in the country. Carter wonders if he's experienced headaches or dizziness, but Pratt insists that he's just fine and wouldn't miss July for the world: "New interns, new med students -- I know more than the newbies this time of year." Then there's an awkward exchange where Carter asks about Chen. "I think she's good," Pratt hedges. When Carter asks if Pratt has spoken to her, Pratt is saved by the yell.

The yell of a paramedic, that is: A twenty-four year-old stabbing victim has arrived, and he is shouting up a storm. In particular, he seems to feel that he is not a victim. His pierced bowels probably disagree. Nonetheless, Non-Victim insists that he is bulletproof and thrashes around in the hope of being released. Pratt assures Carter that he can take care of "Bulletproof Monk here," and wow, is that a culturally irrelevant reference. What's ? A Super Trooper?

Luka is on his way out for the day, but first he stops to see if Sam wants to hang out later. "Maybe," she says. "Alex has a soccer game. Steve talked him into signing up, but he never stuck around long enough to see any of the games." I presume she means that he talked Alex into it in other cities, and that Alex kept signing up to do it in new places just because he wanted Steve's approval. Otherwise, it's awfully revisionist of the Chicago days -- she left first. Luka winks that he'll call her later.

Shane West ambles over in the guise of "Ray" -- meaning, he threw a lab coat over whatever he wore to set that day. Carter hands him a drunk guy who was found on the street with a blood-alcohol level of five hundred. Apparently, the guys has to sober up before Neurosurgery will take a look at him, and MRI is too booked to take him. "What am I supposed to do?" Ray asks. "Babysit," Carter smirks. "Hang a banana bag, and I would hunt around for a mop and bucket." Frank chortles at this, so Ray bets him forty bucks that he gets the drunk into MRI in twenty minutes. Frank starts the clock. What follows is a really lame, unfunny, and I think badly constructed montage of "wackiness" that's driven by overly aggressive "funny" music, all showcasing Ray's craaaaaazy bet with Frank. But the problem is, I only barely understand what Ray does, and it doesn't make me think he's charming, smart, irreverent, or interesting. In a nutshell: Ray checks out a nurse while he calls MRI and gets rejected; he snags someone I think is a technician and asks for the MRI schedule, and then studies it with glee; he steals two med students from Abby; he takes them upstairs and delivers the clunkiest of expository lines ("I heard you had a good one up here in the ICU..." -- because of course real doctors always have to remind themselves where they are), and then he apparently jiggers with the schedule, sending his students to work up a guy who has other problems, and then stealing that MRI spot for his drunk. Except that's a better explanation that the way it was written. Also, the nurse gives Ray googly eyes for no apparent reason -- this is how we know he's "appealing." The whole thing was totally unfunny. But he wins his forty dollars, so bully for boring, fugly Ray.

Neela goes to a Starbucks to speak with a manager. She gets an oily self-important squid of a person who, typically, wants to know what her coffee experience is. Sadly, this is totally the way it happens -- somebody shows up with all the academic credentials you could want, but if they haven't worked retail, no one bothers to consider them teachable; instead, they're sent away. This happened to someone I know. Businesses are stupid. Anyway, as Squid asks her about her café experience, Neela smiles and says, "I'm used to working in a busy hospital, so I think I can handle a few coffee orders." Squid cocks his eyebrow. The gauntlet has been thrown. "Oh yeah? How do you prepare a venti triple-skim no-foam caramel macchiatto?" he dares her. Neela gulps. She's not armed for this kind of battle. (Although if she had a scalpel on her, she could make sushi of this sludgeheap.)

Urbanus the med student wants to know if Abby is seeing anybody. He makes the error, though, of asking Frank, who can only respond by affirming that he and Abby are involved in a raucous sexual affair and are always open to finding a third. Blessedly, before Frank moves on to detail their escapades in the Tahitian sex swing, Urbanus deduces that this is a falsehood, and sets off after Abby like Frank to a cruller. He fires off two work-related questions and then coyly coos, "And what would you do if a med student asked you out?" Abby blinks. "Call for a Psych consult," she says dryly.

An incoming patient distracts Abby from the lusty advances of her little admirer. It's a "bike vs bike" collision. Ray comes over to assist, and Shane West struggles to unhinge a neck brace. Velcro is hard. Ray notices that the biker has a Funky Monks t-shirt on, and identifies them as a Red Hot Chili Peppers tribute band. Apparently they split when the singer discovered Jesus. Poor Jesus. Always the scapegoat. Although in this case, he's a hero, because the only thing worse than the Red Hot Chili Peppers would be a band trying to echo the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Welcome to hell. Ray says he is thinking about forming a new band. Really? What happened to his old one -- the one with whom he was going to check to see if he could dial down the edge? "Abrasions and echymosis on the right hip, Dr. Bon Jovi," Abby snarks. Ray glares at her.

Just then, The Other Guy is wheeled in, and he's ragin' furious. "I want to make a statement to the cops. That idiot rode right into me!" he shouts. "I didn't see him, man," moans Funky Monk. Furious, The Other Guy winds up his helmet and prepares to whale on Funky Monk, but Ray blocks it with his clipboard and whisks Funky Monk out of harm's way. Abby takes The Other Guy off somewhere and then makes fun of him for being a cycling enthusiast who bought a six-thousand-dollar bike. Whatever, Abby. No one shows up at your ashtray and tells you what pack to smoke, so cram it.

Penny wrestles with a patient, who is drunk, singing, and trying to steal her stethoscope. "Oh, my God," she gasps, when he succeeds. Carter walks by nonchalantly and recovers it for her. He's so dreeeeamy.

In Trauma Yellow, Bulletproof Monk thinks he's getting some Bad Medicine from Pratt. "There's blood in Morrison's," Pratt reports to Carter. "That's bull!" snorts B.M. "Do you know what Morrison's is?" Pratt says tiredly. "Do you?" the kid snaps. Pratt is irritated with the kid's attitude. B.M. gets really annoyed when he finds out he has to have surgery to see if his bowels got nicked in the stabbing (making that "bulletproof" comment kind of irreleavant) or else he might get a fatal infection. B.M. wants to leave The Brothers Grimm behind. Pratt's full of bile and thinking Very Bad Things, so he shouts, "What part of 'You could die' don't you understand?"

Carter takes Pratt outside. "Let the fool go, he deserves to die," Pratt scoffs. That's charitable. Carter sort of sternly tells Pratt that he's not the attending physician on this case, so they're not going to let the patient walk out and die on the street. Carter wants to call for a Psych consult; Pratt thinks it's an "idiot consult." But Carter is adamant, so Pratt says he's going to try B.M.'s brother first to see if a family member can make some headway with the belligerent freak.

Then, Carter turns back around and calmly rescues Penny's stethoscope again. Whee. He is the real hero.

Ray checks out Funky Monk, and Shane West struggles to look like he knows how to examine a joint. The joint on a leg, not a joint joint. That, I'm sure he could handle with facility. Abby walks up to observe, and asks Funky Monk how many miles he rides on his bike. "Lots," he says. "Lots and lots of riding. I ride here, I ride there, like the wind." Abby stares at him. Ray taps away at the guy's knees to test his reflexes. "There's nothing wrong with my reflexes. I got good re...catlike reflexes. I'm like a cat," he drawls. Abby all but tsks disapprovingly and calls Ray over to one side. "Did you order a head CT?" she asks, kind of rudely. "It didn't indicate," Ray replies. Abby points out that Funky Monk seems a bit "altared." Hee! Thank God I at least make myself laugh. Ray insists it's just a mild concussion; Carter approaches and gets right in the middle of it. Ray thinks the guy's fine, and Abby thinks he's messed up somehow. Carter registers this weirdness, but before he can say anything, a guy comes in with a bullet in his head. He tried to help a store owner during a robbery and got plugged for his trouble. Ray starts to take it, but Carter calls for Abby to run it and orders Ray to get a head CT done on Funky Monk. Ray stops, irritated, as Abby doubles back and snatches GSW Guy's budding chart from his hand. Ray shakes his head, and we fade to black wishing that Ray would do the same. He's like a walking nap.

In Trauma Yellow, GSW Guy is moving further and further away from needing me to document his actual name. "Doll eyes," someone says. Ew. That must mean, "Glassy, with a murderous gleam; full of hypnotically venomous nothingness." A random guy wants an otoscope, and everyone looks up, as if to say, "Who...?" Oh, no, wait, then Abby actually does say, "Who are you?" and thereby confirms that nobody on this show has very consistent, reliable social graces. He introduces himself as Dr. Dubenko, the new surgical Attending. GSW Guy's girlfrend watches tearfully as everybody comes to the realization that he is brain-dead. Abby walks over to her and gently, quietly, explains that he has no neural activity; Dubenko chips in that there's nothing they can do, and that they're very sorry. They all want to notify his family, but the girlfriend sniffles that she's all he's got. There was one moment here where I thought she was going to lie about this -- I don't know if it's just that the actress isn't that good, or if there was supposed to be a measure of suspicion, like she pretended to be his closest thing to family so that she could make something good (get the liver to their dying friend) out of something horrific. But I don't think, as I think some people wondered, that she was hoping for this to happen to get the liver. But I'm getting ahead of myself: Abby basically repeats how sorry they are, and rattles off the tests they need to do on the dead body. "CBC, HIV, ABC, DEFG, LMNOP,WXYZ" she says. "Did I forget anything?" Carter answers, "HIJK, QRS, TUV." Oh, those. Of course.

Carter sees Pratt sitting down and filling out paperwork. "You have time to sit, you have time to treat patients," he says shortly. Pratt slowly gets to his feet and shuffles off. We then land on Shane West, who is having an unconvincing phone call with somebody about drug-testing patients without their consent. "Ray" hangs up the phone in a tizzy. "Calling Mom?" Abby asks. "The bike courier's boss wants us to drug-test him," Ray replies. "[But] there's no need." He then snots that the head CT Abby forced him to order was negative. As they arrive at Funky Monk's bedside, Abby asks, "Do you remember your doctor's name?" Funky Monk searches his brain. Then he brightens. "That guy!" he says, pointing to Ray. He fails another question, but then Ray shows off how hip and edgy he is by asking Funky Monk to rattle off the first three chords of "Californication," which of course he does to perfection. Abby is like, oh, whatever, pissant. Ray insists that this is proof that nothing is wrong. He has a point -- this dope would be able to recite that but nothing else -- and yet I love that Ray is missing what are blatant signs of a problem -- the speech patterns in the first scene being one. It's obvious so that the viewer knows that's what is wrong, and in being that obvious, it means Ray is dangerously oblivious and assy in not seeing it too, and thereby makes him unlikeable. More so, at least. Abby wants a drug test, but Ray refuses, saying it could go on his record if this becomes a workman's comp case, and Funky Monk could lose his job just for smoking a little pot. Hey, Malarkey got away with it -- the kid just needs to drop a helicopter on his boss and everything will work out fine. When Ray leaves, Abby sidles up to Sam and asks her to add a tox screen to Funky Monk's spate of tests. "Sure," chirps an oblivious Sam.

Neela is at the mall, which is surprisingly bustling for a shopping center on the Fourth of July. Aren't a lot of stores closed on national holidays? Or is it October in her storyline? Anyway, a blonde bitch at a clothing boutique gives Neela the Pretty Woman treatment, so Neela leaves feeling like a discouraged, undesirable, and unfashionable piece of dirt. I can't wait until she gets a job at, like, Saks, and swans back in wearing a fur-trimmed uniform or something so that she can say, "Big mistake. HUGE."

Howard dutifully takes forever to suture somebody. Carter watches. "I like them to be the same length," Howard says intensely. Carter shrugs. Then Malik bolts past. "Hey, Malik, where's the fire?" Carter cracks. "Exam Three," Malik replies. Carter resumes flipping through his chart, then double-takes and dashes after Malik. That was well-timed by Noah Wyle. Apparently, someone set off a stink bomb, and there's smoke and stench everywhere. Delicious! Then Carter whirls around and spies an incorrectly set wrist fracture, perpetrated by RoboStudent and his earpiece of crazy. Carter explains that the wrist can't be set at an angle, which RoboStudent repeats into his microphone. Eh, I'm bored of this scene. Summary: Carter basically saves a woman from wrist-related treachery.

Ah, and we're back to the Bulletproof Monk and his insistence that he is fine. Corday, Dubenko, Pratt, and Carter are discussing what needs to be done to fix up this kid's potentially injured bowel. Dubenko insists they can make a small incision and just look around and see what's happening in there. Reason #5412 why I couldn't be a doctor: I don't want to know what's happening in there. Carter is surprised that a laproscopy is enough for what might be a penetrating trauma that's Big Trouble. Elizabeth insists it isn't Enough. "Y'all don't know what the hell y'all doing!" shouts B.M. Carter and Elizabeth lob what-if arguments at Dubenko, which he deflects ably, pissing Lizzie off in the extreme. "You better ask to see a specialist if you wanna get outta here without dying!" B.M. yells genially at a woman in a bed across from him. Elizabeth insists that nobody, but nobody, can cover all his bases by using a simple scope. "Ummm. I can," Dubenko shrugs. "Welcome to the world of modern medicine." Burn. B.M. taunts them as he gets wheeled up to the OR. Pratt and Carter heave put-upon sighs and look at Elizabeth. "Don't look at me -- I didn't hire him," she insists. And for punctiation, sure enough, the woman B.M. yelled at tells Pratt that she wants to see The Specialist herself. (She can, but she should return it on time -- late fees aren't worth it on that one.)

Carter needles Ray about not clearing beds with sufficient speed. "I'm taking them through like fast-food orders!" Ray insists. "It's the back door plugging us up." Oh, so Shane West can get off that double entendre without snickering like a ten-year-old, but medical jargon is beyond him? Right. Carter shrugs that he was able to get the old man up to MRI fast enough -- maybe he should show some more initiative. Ray does this by whining to Sam that Funky Monk is still around, which she claims is because they're still waiting for his tox screen. "I didn't order one," Ray says. "Abby did," Sam replies. Ray cocks his eyebrow and flares his nostrils. Shut up, Ray's nostrils. For one thing, Carter's nostrils might think you're stealing their move.

Carter heads out to triage to get a Cold Drink, and he lets his head rest momentarily against the machine. Pain and fatigue wash across his face as he closes his eyes and tries to shut out the world, but the noise of kids and sirens wailing in unison won't let him escape. He sees GSW Guy's girlfriend on the phone crying, then looks over his shoulder and jerks back into action. "What are you doing?" he shrieks at Urbanus, who is about to give...something...to someone. Carter finds out that the guy is giving nitro to a teenager who has chest pain, which -- with a little examination -- could be traced to lifting weights too vigorously. Carter stomps off and finds Pratt, who is again sitting down and furrowing his brow as he fills out paperwork. "Comfortable?" Carter sneers. "I just prevented one of your med students from giving nitro to a seventeen-year-old on your recommendation." Pratt shrugs that he never said that. Carter corrects him that lack of specificity is tantamount to a recommendation when you're dealing with med students, who tend to think too literally at first. Pratt apologizes. "You all right?" Carter asks, softening a bit. Pratt says he has a slight headache. Carter thought Pratt wasn't experiencing any headaches or dizziness, and Pratt retorts, "Only from working here." So Carter gets crabby again and orders him to leave. "You've been dragging ass all day," he says. Pratt claims he has time-consuming patients. Carter tells him to get himself into shape before he shows up trying to fix other people. "You can't afford to lose me [today] -- I'm worth two other doctors and three interns," Pratt says arrogantly. "Not today, you're not," Carter snaps.

Abby tells Carter later that GSW Guy's blood work came back -- except she calls him "the biker," and for a second I thought this was a huge error on the part of the show. Then I realized they were typing him as a motorcyclist, not to be confused -- except, totally to be confused -- with the two bicyclists who came in earlier. Very sloppy of the show to have three biker characters in one episode, especially when at least two of them are being referred to in those simple terms; even worse that the one they're referring to as "the biker" wasn't ever shown in relation to any kind of bike, so naturally, I thought they'd made a mistake in the writing. Because of course that's the assumption one would make with this show. Anyway, GSW Guy is HIV-positive, so he can't donate his organs. Carter nods, and then tells Frank to call Luka and have him cover the rest of Pratt's shift. Abby invites Carter out for an AA meeting and then dinner. "My treat," she says. "You're buying?" Carter says, exaggerating it so he can avoid having to react.

Ray pops up and asks Abby if she ordered a tox screen on his patient. "Which one?" she asks innocently. Please say "the biker," Ray. But instead he just says, "You know which one." Abby turns to Carter and says, "The altered bike courier." Ray snots that she can't do that, and anyway, the urinalysis was negative, so big fat HA! to her. "Okay, so now we know," Abby shrugs. "No, what we know is that this is the second time you've been wrong about one of my patients today," Ray argues. "You treat your cases, and I'll treat mine." He stalks off in a cloud of his own relevance. Abby tsks and snorts, which is what people do when they've just been called out correctly in front of their superior. "Can you believe this guy?" she says half-heartedly. Carter nicely points out that she is supposed to take it up with the Attending if she has problems with another doctor's work-up. "It's easier to fix it. That's what nurses do," she points out. Carter stops short of pointing out that she's no longer a nurse, and suggests that she find a way to get along with Ray because she's going to have to work with him for four years -- read, four more episodes, max, because Shane West is so getting written out for being useless. It has to happen.

GSW Guy's lady friend enters with a sickly older man; she introduces him as Douglas, and says he needs a liver and has the same blood type as GSW Guy. "I'm HIV-positive, too," Douglas says. "I'm taking Interferon for hepatitis C, but they've given me three months without a transplant." Carter says cautiously that direct donations are discouraged. "I'm HIV-positive," Douglas says. "You think anyone's ever gonna give me a liver?" Carter is affected, because he's never met a lost cause he didn't like.

Ray gets petty with Sam, ordering up a bunch of ridiculous tests for a kid with only a small burn on his finger. When she protests, he brats, "Oh, so you only like to do unnecessary tests on my patients when Abby asks for them." That's revisionist -- they didn't actually know it was unnecessary until they got the results that showed Funky Monk was clean. Ray needs to take his laptop and go somewhere far, far away, where he can revise history over and over again to his imbecilic heart's content. Ray gets a head of steam going on his rant about how his patients are his patients, but Sam spies Luka and immediately walks away while Ray is in midstream. And normally this would be rude, but I am totally giving her a pass because it's Ray she's leaving in the dust. "What are you doing here?" Sam asks. "Carter needs me to cover for Pratt," Luka replies. "Why didn't you say no?" she asks. Luka shrugs.

Frank passes and hands Sam the lab results on the Funky Monk. Wait, I thought Ray said those came back already, and that they were negative. I guess that was just the urinalysis and this is the tox screen.

A woman is wheeled in at that moment with labored breathing. She's not conscious. Sam and Luka wheel her into Trauma Green and try to figure out if she might have had an allergy attack related to food or bee-stings. Hapless Howard, meanwhile, is taking ages to prep some medicine but he finally pushes it, which merits a disgruntled "Finally" from Luka. Sam discovers intense deep bruising around the woman's neck, and Luka pales. "What does that mean?" Howard asks. "It means someone tried to strangle her," Luka says simply. Sam looks down at the woman, whose stars-and-stripes bikini is showing underneath the bruising. "God bless America," she grunts. We fade to black thinking about the sad, trag...no, okay, actually we're thinking, "That is kind of a cute bikini."

When we return, something remarkable happens, ladies and gentlemen: the only two characters on the screen are Weaver and Elizabeth. And they talk. If I didn't suspect this was the work Contrivance, leaving his bloody and aggressive handprint all over what is probably Alex Kingston's exit arc, I might actually be encouraged that the writers remembered to give these two some lines. Elizabeth wants to chat, but Weaver makes a big show of how busy she is, asking Lizzie to make an appointment with her for the morning. Bitch. Elizabeth hurries after Weaver, asking her to listen to her complaints about Dr. Dubenko. Lizzie doesn't think he's working out at all. "No one bothered to tell me you'd hired him," she says, exasperated. "That's what search committees do. Perhaps if you'd been to more meetings..." Weaver says pompously. "I missed one meeting," Elizabeth fumes. "What did you do, wait until I wasn't there to hire the only candidate I didn't endorse?" Weaver blinks and innocently suggests that it's bizarre how personally Elizabeth is taking this. "I'm sure the two of you can work this out," she says faux-reassuringly.

Okay. I really want to side with Elizabeth on this, because Weaver's so smarmy. But honestly, what was wrong with Dubenko? He only got snippy and superior with them after Carter and Elizabeth challenged his judgment in front of a patient and looked at him like he was a moron. In my opinion he was kind of right to be annoyed. So basically, the only reason Elizabeth doen't like him is because he can do a bunch of big stuff with a small scope, and she can't. Ugh. So irritating. I mean, I know Lizzie's been a bitch before, but her motives have to be really clear for what she does later, and this is just some petty personal shit she could've swept under the rug.

Carter flags down Dubenko -- who also calls GSW Guy the "brain-dead biker," which gave me another second of pause -- and explains to him the transplant situation. Dubenko accurately points out that it is illegal to harvest the HIV-infected organ and hand it off, even if the recipient is also HIV-positive. Then Dubenko catches a whiff of the stink bomb. This comically embarrasses Carter. "They warned me about this place," Dubenko says. "They weren't kidding." No, sir. No, they were not.

Carter can't seem to believe that a little matter like the law is stopping Dubenko, so he runs to find Corday and tattles that Dubenko won't take his case. "What, too mundane for our new superstar?" Lizzie says rudely. Oh, God, stop it, Lizzie -- she's so petty that if she put on a jacket, Little Bo Peep would try to don her under her shepherdess's dress. Carter sheepishly says it's more an issue of the operation being a tad illegal. "Oh, so he's cowardly and cocky," Lizzie sniffs. "You know, he's a perfect complement to Weaver's treachery and ambition." Then she tells Carter to suck it up and deal, because if she has to, then so does the world.

Luka leaves Howard with the strangulation case, and he and Sam begin to talk until they spot Alex hanging around nearby. "You're supposed to be at your game," scolds Sam. "Did Dad call?" Alex asks hopefuly. "No," Sam says. Well, allegedly he doesn't know you're back in Chicago, Sam. I mean, I know that's Steve's M.O., but she did just up and leave, so why would Steve think she'd turn around and come back? Unless when they ran away, Steve had already left to pick up his stuff in Dallas, in which case, Sam's acting like Steve fled again like all the other times must mean she assumed he was just lying and it was an excuse to run -- which leads to the question, why did she then run away? This show needs to get its hackeneyed stories straight. Luka offers to take Alex to his game, since he's off in a few minutes. Sam thanks him.

In the mall, Neela sits down dejectedly on a bench. From an aerial, we snap to a mid-shot that enables us to read the bench, which is an ad for a temp agency. Cut to her inside it. Again: what temp agency is interviewing people, much less placing them, on July Fourth? Is she in Canada? It's early October in Canada for her, isn't it? Neela cites her restaurant experience at the curry house, but with the caveat that she never wants to work in one again. "I don't even like eating in them," she shudders. That doesn't speak highly to the quality and cleanliness of her parents' establishment. Neela explains that the restaurant is the last of her job experience because she went to med school. "Wow!" the woman gushes. "We don't get many doctors in here." She reviews Neela's placement test, on which she scored highly, but they can't figure out what relevant experience she has. They quickly rule out retail, sales, secretarial, bookkeeping, horticulture (?), electrical, and mechanics. "Perhaps we'd have better luck if you told us what you can do," the woman says. "Let's see: I can crack open your chest, reinflate your lung, and squeeze your heart back to life," Neela says bitterly, without missing a beat. "Okaaaay," says the creeped-out temp lady. I love Parminder Nagra. I seriously just love seeing her on screen -- she's so good. Even though I hate Neela's story and wish she would quit moping already, I think Parminder is brilliant at it. With her, there's truth in all of it. Even the parts that are ridiculous.

Outside Trauma Yellow, Elizabeth and Carter are staring in at GSW Guy's brain-dead body. "Dubenko was right to pass," she says. "Why are you pushing so hard?" Carter's heart bleeds through the litany of reasons: this is Douglas's last hope, he couldn't save GSW Guy, he wants to find good in this tragedy, he has a hero complex, his kid is dead, he dieted a lot before this season, Alex Kingston got axed and this is how the writers are making her leave...it goes on and on. "What if they sue?" Elizabeth counters. "Who?" Carter retorts. Elizabeth thinks. "The hosptal could fire me." And here, it's interesting that Carter's response is "Well, that is a concern." Instead he just says, "This guy's going to die and he won't get another [liver]." Way to worry about your single-mother friend, Carter. "They could pull my license," Elizabeth insists. "Not likely, it's in their best interests," Carter says. I wish Carter would do something like this and then have a cop arrest the shit out of him for it. That'll teach him to treat the law like it's his floorboards. God, I sound so militant. But seriously, he's not the one performing the operation, so he should stop being so uppity about it all. Elizabeth notes that she could go to jail. Carter shrugs that legislation has already been passed legalizing this, but that it just hasn't been signed yet. Nice try, Carter. He rattles off all the reasons why this is the best idea he's ever had in a long list of brainwaves, the likes of which the family-free GSW Guy will never get again, leaving nobody to sue the hospital on his behalf. Lovely. "How do you think Weaver's going to react?" Elizabeth asks. Carter hedges. "She'll have a bloody conniption fit," snickers Elizabeth, and Carter cracks a smile. "That's almost worth the risk," Lizzie says wistfully. Then: "Screw it. Screw it! Prep him. I'll mobilize the team." Carter blows her a kiss. Ugh. I'm all for helping people and all that, but...really? If her license gets pulled or she goes to jail, what happens to Ella? Is this really worth it for her, just for the sake of maybe upsetting Weaver? Hate. HATE.

Sam lightly slaps Abby's wrist for sneakily ordering the covert tox screen. "You totally boned me. I felt like an idiot," she scolds. Abby apologizes. "But, you were right," Sam grins, whipping out the tox screen results. Abby takes the paper and promises she'll tell Sam time she alters another resident's workup. "You won't do it time," Sam corrects her. Just then, GSW Guy and The Gang head for the elevators. "You talked [Corday] into it?" Abby gapes. "No," Carter lies. "Well, maybe a little," he concedes. Again: Ugh. Once everyone's loaded onto the lift and taken away, Abby takes the quiet moment to ask Carter what he thinks of her offer of dinner and meeting. "Do you still go?" he asks her. "I'll go if you go," she replies. "I'm good," Carter says by way of refusal. Abby clears her throat. "I see how hard you've thrown yourself into the job, Carter," she begins. "It's a hard job," he says. "So's sobriety," she replies pointedly. "And so's losing a child." Carter walks away from her in the middle of that thought, which isn't that nice, but then again, I'm not sure bringing up the dead Cartus and then referring to grief as his job was terribly thoughtful. For one thing, grief is surprisingly unprofitable.

Hapless Howard wants Luka. Don't we all, Howard. Don't we all. Abby asks him what's wrong. "I think his Jane Doe is having trouble breathing," he frets. Abby shunts him off onto the folks in respiratory therapy, because she has a really satisfying scene coming up with Ray and she doesn't want to miss it. And sure enough, as soon as Ray comes up to be annoying, Abby points out that he needs to alkanalize Funky Monk's urine. "Toxic aspirin level," she sing-songs, dropping the lab results into what I hope is Ray's empty coffee mug. Ray looks irritated and very much foiled, a mere step away from muttering that he would've gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids.

Yay! Susan! She appears in a very matronly-looking shirt and red skirt, holding her enormous baby. He apparently had an appointment with the pediatrician for some shots, presumably to halt any further rapid and unnatural growth. "Hi, Cosmo," Carter coos. COSMO? Since when?!? What is that, the drink she was pounding the night she and Chuck got drunkenly hitched? There is no WAY Susan Lewis would go for that. At least, not the real one -- the character of old, who actually did stuff on-screen. If they were going to do that, the least they could've done was hired Michael Richards to replace Donal Logue as her love interest. (Nothing against Donal Logue. I like him. He does well with very little.) Susan heads straight to the board and squints up at it as Carter gives her a light rundown of how things are running. Susan scans for the nurses, because she needs to hand off Cosmo before going to the bathroom. Carter stares at them, and gulps gently. "I could do it," he says tentatively. Nice line delivery. You can hear the nerves and the longing and the sadness, all at once. Susan's face registers all this but she clearly doesn't want to acknowledge the elephant in the room because sometimes they don't like to be the center of attention. So she keeps it casual as she hands over Cosmo and gets the spit-up cloth in place. "That's what he does -- spit up, poop, eat, sleep, repeat. Just like his Daddy!" she giggles. Carter asks how Chuck is taking to fatherhood. "You mean motherhood," Susan cracks. "I swear the guy's more maternal than I am." She thanks Carter and dashes off. Cosmo gurgles. Carter stares. "She'll be right back," Carter says. Cosmo gurgles and Carter tries not to love it, but can't help it. Aw. I actually felt for him here. Love him or hate him, he'd have doted on his child.

In Trauma Green, Abby has apparently decided to help Howard with Luka's patient. She needs a new IV. Howard is working methodically and mechanically, repeating steps to himself as if reading a manual. Abby watches him do this with growing unease. "You got this, Howard?" she asks as he checks the bulb in the larynoscope three times, exactly the same way.

The nurses fawn over Cosmo. "I can't believe how big he is," one of them says, so that Susan can claim he eats a lot to cover up the fact that her child is way too massive to be believed. Chuck dashes in and scolds her for keeping him waiting because he was parked in a red zone. Then he snatches Cosmo away from everyone and frets about all the germs around the hospital. "Chuuuuuck," Susan laughs. "It's good for his immunity!" Everyone cracks up at that crazy Chuck.

Penny comes up and confesses to Carter that she called for a consult, but shouldn't have. Before she can explain herself, the surgeon in question comes over and reprimands Carter for his stupid student. I guess that's going to go somewhere in the future...who knows. I'm sort of bored with the "med students are dumb" stuff, especially when the far dumber Malarkey is still lurking.

Trauma Green. Sam enters as Abby struggles with Luka's patient. "Find Kovac?" Abby asks. "Couldn't find him," Sam lies. Oh, never mind, it's not a lie -- because she couldn't find him, because she knows full well he is escorting her son to a soccer game right at that moment. Way to go, Sam. Howard starts checking a needle over and over again to make sure the dosage is right. Abby crabs at him to hurry up and push it already. Impatiently, Sam reaches out to snatch the needle, and it knocks over a tray of things that Howard had carefully arranged. He all but screams. "You ruined everyting!" Howard screams. Abby tries to calm him down, but he's in pieces. "She messed it all up," he trembles. Sam is wigged out. "Give her the damn meds!" Abby yells, growing impatient. Howard whines that this is his patient, but Abby doesn't care and grabs a tube from him so she can intubate. "It was on the floor," he sputters. Well, that is kind of gross, but since the woman can't breathe, there isn't much choice. In it goes, as Howard turns green. "I always check four times," he says absently. As the woman's color returns, Howard turns silently and leaves the room. Sam and Abby are left alone, swapping confusd glances, and we fade to black sort of bored with an act-out that hinges on a character about whom we don't really care.

Alex's kiddie soccer game is in full swing, and parents are clapping. Alex dribbles toward the goal. "Shoot," Luka shouts lamely. Alex does, sending it very slowly right into the arms of the opposing goalkeeper. Game over, apparently; Team Alex loses. Alex walks away, irritated by the celebrating of the other team. As they leave the field, Luka tries to be all sympathetic and complimentary, but Alex just shrugs that his entire team blows. "Just try your best," Luka says. "Want to grab a pizza?" Alex does. Luka then offers to kick around the ball sometime, since he used to play a little. In addition to doingHamlet? That Luka is a Renaissance man. "Look, Luka," Alex says. "I'm glad we're friends, but I've got a dad, and he's coming back." Luka doesn't seem that hurt by this announcement. I think it mostly reflects their buddy-buddy rapport, and honestly, I think that frankness is only in the show so that they can have a scene way down the line where Alex does need a father, because his is still missing in action, and he goes to Luka and it's all "sweet" and stuff.

Abby runs off in search of Howard, straight past an admiring and drooling Urbanus. "Need something?" Carter asks wryly. "Think you could get me her number?" Urbanus beams dreamily. He needs to get out more.

Abby finds Howard sitting alone outside and tries to get him to talk about what's happening. "Olfactory overload," he fibs. Abby shakes her head and asks point-blank if he's got obsessive-compulsive disorder. Howard gets up and leaves. There's been a lot of flat-out leaving in this episode. There must have been a fire sale on "______ gets up without a word and walks away" devices.

A gazillion people chase after Carter for information or a favor, so he takes refuge in the staff lounge. And there, he comes across one of the more disturbing sights in the world: Chuck with his shirt hiked up, a baby clutched to the spot where his nipple will be. It's unspeakably odd and unpleasant. Carter is like, "WHAT in the name of genetic impossibilites is going on here?" Chuck smirks, "What, you've never seen a father breast-feed his kid before?" He shows Carter a strange device that I won't even begin to understand, which apparently helps simulate the experience to faciliate father-child bonding -- "If you can get past the sore nipples," Chuck explains. EW. And then, worst of all, Chuck actually asks Carter if he wants to TRY it. WHY would he want to breast-feed someone else's child? I am thoroughly squicked. And at least one of my breasts wants very badly to shrivel up and hide. Carter quells what is probably a grief and nausea cocktail, and decides that the mayhem outside the lounge has to be better than the madness inside it, so he surges back outside.

Outside, Abby is leaving work. "Hey, Rockhard," Ray shouts at her. I hate him. Do TPTB think this is a charming character? Really? What dictionary are they using? "What did you call me?" Abby asks suspiciously. "Lockhart," Ray lies. He asks if she's heading home. "That's what most of us do" after work, she says. "I'm in between places right now," he exposits totally needlessly. Then he apologizes for the way they got started today and wants to buy her dinner to seal the apology. She refuses this kind offer as she crosses the street. But then Abby gets an idea and wants to ask Ray a question.

So we cut inside the Jumbo Mart, where Ray is filling a basket with groceries, and Abby asks her question. I love it when movies and TV shows do that: start a conversation in one place, then make one cut to a spot that would be five minutes later, yet the conversation continues as if there were no interruption. Although of course, whenever I enter a grocery store, I do tend to put a stop to all conversations until I'm entrenched in the act of shopping. "How well do you know Howard?" Abby asks. "Not very," Ray replies. Abby wonders if Howard seems strange, somehow. "Obsessive...compulsive..." she says. "He totally froze in a trauma today." Ray points out that Howard has only been in a few codes, so some slack might be required. "So you don't think I should mention it to an Attending?" Abby asks curiously. Ray shrugs, and then picks up a bunch of brats. Abby smirks. "I like to live dangerously," he says. "Hey, didn't she used to work in the hospital?" I hate that phrase. It never looks right to me -- "didn't she used to" always feels like it's made-up syntax. Anyway, the camera cuts to Neela standing behind the counter wearing one of those green foam Statue of Liberty headband-hats. She is moping furiously. "We have a special on cupcakes: buy two, get one free," she says dully. As Ray happily grabs one and starts eating it, Abby disbelievingly says she thought Neela was interviewing at other hospitals or clinics. "I didn't have much luck," Neela says. She didn't go to any of them, did she? "You only looked for one day!" Abby protests. "This is the only job I can get, because I'm a loser," Neela says, with the most hilarious mix of defeatism and defiance. Her delivery is as if she's the only girl in the class without her ears pierced, and she's telling her mom that she can't show her face in school now because she's a complete loser for having no holes in her lobes. It's perfect. "At least you're close to the hospital," Ray says helpfully. Abby not so subtly kicks him. If Shane West weren't such a charisma void, that might have been funny. Neela pouts that she blew it -- no job, no apartment, no money. "Look at me," she wails. "I'm not even American!" Parminder can make anything charming. Shane, take a lesson.

Luka and Alex are playing a racing game on the X-Box. "You're going down, you little freak!" Luka says. "You suck," Alex replies. "You're worse at this than you are at soccer," Luka giggles. "Bite me, you Slav bastard," Alex retorts. And there it is: this week's biggest point of controversy. The scene feels like they're relating as older and younger brothers, so the lines of normal adult-child respect are blurred, because Luka is acting much younger (and loving it) and this sounds like the type of thing a little kid would say -- the kind of "grown-up language" he would use -- to impress his older brother, so that the older brother treats him like an equal. (And it probably doesn't help that I imagine Steve was pretty loose with the swear words in front of Alex.) But that only accounts for the "Bite me, you bastard" portion of the remark -- still inappropriate, but for a kid like Alex who is impressionable, probably attributable to the aforementioned urge to use adult words around someone older so that he feels on that person's level. And like many older brothers would -- for better or worse, right or wrong -- Luka tolerates it, because he's having fun acting younger with someone and reveling in adolescent energy. But the "Slav" thing...that seems to me like careless junk from the writers. I certianly don't think it's meant to convey anything at all about Alex's character. I bet the writers were just going for something shocking, and something unlikely, and didn't even really figure that anyone would interpret it as Alex being rascist. Luka certainly doesn't -- he doesn't even blink. That's usually a gauge I employ in situations like this, where the line is so vastly inappropriate to the situation: I check out how the other character in the scene reacts to it. If we were meant to worry about Alex being rascist, Goran Visnjic would have been directed to flinch or look askance at Alex. But he doesn't, and indeed he even keeps a genuine grin on his face. Sam protests the line, but the way any mother would when she hears her child of that age say "bastard" to anybody. And she doesn't seem bothered in the "My kid is a racist" way -- more that she thinks Alex has a filthy mouth. But she recovers quickly, so again, I think it's more about Alex pushing boundaries than anything more troubling. I'm fairly sure that line was just another bad judgment call by the writers, who don't intend for it to mean anything other than being a sign that Alex is building a relationship with Luka that's based on this kind of joking-as-equals. Since Luka was already reprimanded for acting fatherly, he seems to be acting brotherly instead. So in sum: I think it was a stupid line, and I don't think it means anything about the people in the scene.

Anyway: Sam scolds Alex for using bad language, although of course Alex and Luka both play dumb and coyly suggest that perhaps what Sam heard was part of the videogame they're playing. "I don't want to hear that talk out of you," she says to Alex. Then she tweaks Luka's ear lovingly and says, "Or you," before flopping down on the couch contentedly. "How was the game?" she asks. "We lost," Alex says. "But he played well," Luka attempts. Sam tries to get Alex to leave, but he wants to keep playing. "No, or I'm going to fall asleep here on this couch," she yawns. Luka, never one to choose a moment wisely, turns full around and suggests that Sam and Alex stay the night. "Actually you can stay as long as you'd like," he says. Sam, thorugh gritted teeth, points out that perhaps she would like to talk to Alex about that first. "Talk about what?" Alex says, his ears pricking up when he hears something that concerns him. "Talk about you getting your butt in gear," she teases. They leave, but Sam sneaks back for a gentle kiss before departing. Luka smiles, but looks a bit lonely.

Carter is looking for Ray. "Try the roof," Chuny says. "I think he lives there." Frank corrects that Ray lives in the call room and merely cooks on the roof. How has no one noticed before now that he showers at the hospital? Oh, wait, right, they don't notice because he hasn't existed on-camera very much yet.

Upstairs on the roof, we hear the strains of a guitar (does he have an amp plugged in up there? Whatever) before we come upon Ray playing it. Brats are cooking on a charcoal grill. "What are you doing?" Carter asks. "You look all moved in up here." Ray says glibly that the rent's right and you can't beat the view. "While you're up here having a cookout, your patient has been circling the drain," Carter observes. "He's a DNR -- his daughter's bringing the paperwork from Milwaukee," Ray replies. Then he offers Carter a beer, which Carter refuses. He wanders over to the ledge and rests his hands on it, looking out at the city. "I heard about your son," Ray says. "I'm sorry." Carter thanks him without turning around. "So, you aren't really living in the hospital, are you?" he then asks Ray. Oh, please can he adopt Ray as his lost son. "Why, would that be a problem?" Ray asks. It's probably akin to squatting, but then again, this is Carter, and he doesn't care much for laws. "It might be for Weaver," Carter jokes. "She has it sprayed for interns." Ray smiles, then points out some fireworks. As Carter stares out at them, Ray starts playing the national anthem on his guitar. We push in on Carter and then fade to black on this very curious and kind of crappy episode ending.