Some rich lady is telling Ben (who looks extremely bored) about how her minister was "stalking" her at some party, trying to get a donation for his church. Apparently, she has a disease called "myelofibrosis." She keeps babbling on and on, and Ben tries to ask her a question, but she tells him that it's "rude to interrupt." Yeah, well it's also rude to babble endlessly when the person you are talking to looks bored. He's your doctor, not your therapist. The lady says (and this will be important later, so take notes), "Father always said that everyone wants something from people like us, and Father was never wrong." Ben tries to find out whether she went in for her transfusions while she was on vacation. The woman (Camellia) refuses to answer the question directly, and starts talking about the seven deadly sins, noting that Ben "descends from an earnest, church-going race." Huh? So she's not only a Chatty Cathy, and a snob, but she's racist too? Interesting. Ben tries to bring it back on topic (and Lord, after moderating the Real World boards, I know how that goes), but Camellia is having none of it. She mentions that she gained six pounds on vacation. She starts talking about her new boyfriend. Ben tries to find out again if she had her transfusions on schedule. She keeps talking about her new boyfriend. When Ben asks again, Camellia refuses to answer again. As the credits roll, we still don't know.
Boies works at a laptop in his office while Sid paces in the background. Ollie comes in and asks if he's giving rich lady Camellia her transfusion. Sid says she's late, and that he sent her breakfast that morning. Boies expositions that if Camellia gets her transfusions on time and doesn't take aspirin (also important later), she'll live a long life. Sid keeps defending Camellia, saying that he feels bad for her. Boies looks at Camellia's x-ray and says that he doesn't see a heart.
Sid is giving the transfusion to Camellia, who is bitching that Ben isn't there to do it. Sid asks if she liked her breakfast, and Camellia complains about that too, and then makes another racist comment about people of Indian heritage. Sid tries to take her temperature orally, which would at least mean that she would shut up for a minute. As soon as the thermometer is in, Sid mumbles, "It's the thought that counts." Camellia snatches it out of her mouth and tells Sid that "anything worth doing is worth doing well." Sid starts to defend himself, and Camellia makes another racist remark about how Sid smells like "a Jaipur bazaar." Sid takes her temperature in her ear (somewhat roughly). As soon as he turns his back, Camellia rips the IV out of her arm so that there is blood dripping on the floor, and smiles at Sid triumphantly. What is she, five years old? Scratch that -- I would expect better behavior from a five-year-old.
A guy in a priest's collar grabs Stiles in the hallway, telling her that there is a woman in a nearby room who needs spiritual help. Stiles think that should be the job of the man of the cloth, but he says it "crosses a line." Stiles enters the room to see what's doing. The patient says that she is dying, and she wants to "go to the afterlife with a clean heart." Stiles think that she means spiritually, but she means literally -- she wants someone to clean her organs. And she wants to be mummified. Stiles nods as if this makes a lot of sense.
Ben is typing something when Sid appears in the doorway. Ben calls him in and asks him about the problem with Camellia's transfusion. Sid immediately takes the blame and says he will apologize to her, and it won't happen again. Ben wants to discuss it. Sid confesses the racist remark, and says that she really frustrates him, despite his best efforts to "cut her some slack." Ben admits that Camellia made racist remarks to him too, repeating the "earnest, church-going race" line in a dead-on Camellia impersonation, adding that he didn't know "whether to break into a gospel chorus or throw her out the window." Sid says he will try harder. As they walk out, Ben says that his way is that people treat each other with respect, "doctors and patients." Sid looks relieved.
Stiles asks Ollie if she knows anything about "the preservation of organs." Ollie starts giving her information on preserving organs for transplants and such. Stiles finally clarifies that she's talking about mummification, and Ollie can't believe they're having the conversation. Stiles thinks she should talk to a professional. A professional mummy-maker? Where might one find such a person? I'm sure we'll find out later in the episode.
Meanwhile, Boies tells Wyatt that he's getting too many personal calls. When Wyatt protests that it's his wife calling, Boies says his wife should get a job. Wyatt says she "doesn't really know how to do anything." Um, I would bet that she knows how to clean and take care of the house, do your laundry, and make your dinner. Oh, but that doesn't count. And maybe she's calling so much because you barely speak to her? Just a guess. Boies gets a call, and the person who answered the phone says it's a personal call. Wyatt chuckles while Boies instructs the answerer to take a message. Wyatt goes on making excuses for his wife, about how she doesn't know anyone in the city. Boies makes the point that people call the hospital with medical emergencies and they can't be getting a busy signal. There's only one line? Couldn't Wyatt just get a cell phone? Boies walks away and looks at his message slip briefly before crumpling it and throwing it away. After he leaves, Cherry, Ollie, and Wyatt all look at each other. Cherry plucks the crumpled message slip from the garbage, reads it, and then says, "Who's Clark?"
Ben is giving Camellia her transfusion. Camellia is (as usual) complaining. Ben tells her that it doesn't do her any good to be difficult. Camellia accuses him of playing "Big Daddy." Hmm, do you think she has daddy issues? Ben tells her that she can't treat his "house staff" like servants, or subject them to "racial or personal insults." Camellia rips off the band tied around her arm in preparation for the transfusion, claiming that they look like servants in their white coats, and Ben looks like her "house man." Ben calls her on that comment, and she fires him, grabs her coat, and walks out. Ben just sits there, stunned.
Max meets up with Ben in the cafeteria. After some banter about how bad the cafeteria food is, they sit down together to eat. Max brings up Camellia. Ben gets defensive, but Max is on his side, saying that no one is going to push his doctors around. Turns out that "the Changs called." (They were mentioned in a episode as giving large donations to the hospital.) Max says that Mrs. Chang is upset about Camellia going to a different hospital. Max claims that he doesn't care, and Ben says he doesn't want to cause trouble for Max. Oh, Max is playing him like a fiddle, isn't he? I can't believe Ben doesn't see right through it. Then, Ben does. Max 'fesses up.
Wyatt opens a package that has his name on the front in a heart. He tells Boies that it's from his wife for his birthday. Wyatt pulls out a fishing rod, and Boies admires it, saying that Wyatt must be "a very good fisherman or a very bad husband to receive a gift like that." Wyatt doesn't understand, and Boies says that this "overboard" gift is a sign of desperation in a relationship. Wyatt looks sad, and Boies sincerely apologizes. Wyatt asks if that's really what it is, and Boies says that his mother used to do it to his father, so he knows. Wyatt speculates that the fishing pole cost a thousand dollars, and Boies thinks it's closer to two thousand. Good God!
Stiles is talking to some guy dressed up like a Pharaoh. Apparently, he wants thirty thousand dollars for mummification, which she thinks is too much. Pharaoh makes a joke about The Mummy and says that she needs to look at it like "an investment in [her] future." Well, technically it's an investment in the future of the deceased, no? They're in the morgue -- I guess the patient died. Stiles thinks Pharaoh is taking advantage of her, but he claims that he's doing a favor fitting her in.
Max walks into a waiting room and greets Camellia. He flirts with her shamelessly, complimenting her hair. She falls for it. Camellia claims that Ben is impossible and arrogant. Max kisses her hand. Oh, he is terrible. Camellia tells him to "calm that Latin blood." Is there any ethnicity that can escape her comments? Max begs her to come back to his hospital. Camellia makes another racist comment about Sid, and Max scolds her flirtatiously. Finally, she relents.
Ollie examines Camellia. I see -- they figure if they give her the white girl, all will be well. Camellia still manages to insult her, commenting that Ollie's lipstick makes her look like a hooker, and then disparaging Ollie's technique in checking her spleen. Ollie manages to give it right back to her without insulting her. When Camellia gets up, she stumbles and groans. Ollie asks about her back, and Camellia snaps that she's old and would like to get dressed. Ollie doesn't press the issue.
Stiles and Lab Guy discuss the mummification process. Lab Guy is all fired up, but Stiles is worried that it's too expensive. Lab Guy claims that he can get some machinery to accomplish the mummification process and bury it in his budget. In the process of the conversation (and please don't make me try to explain it), Stiles reveals that her mother always used to say, "Get me another beer. My breakfast is getting cold." Since they are, as usual, talking at cross-purposes, Lab Guy doesn't comment on it until the end of the scene, when he asks her about it and then cracks up. He thinks it's funny. So does Stiles. They are a match made in heaven.
Ben's phone rings at home. Camellia says that her legs are paralyzed. Ben tells her that the ambulance will pick her up in five minutes and that he'll meet her at the hospital. Cue slow-motion montage of Camellia on a gurney being wheeled somewhere. Ollie runs down a hallway. Camellia is lifted onto an examination table. Ollie enters the room and stares. Then she squints. If Rhona Mitra was a better actress, perhaps I would have some idea what she's supposed to be conveying here. Fear? Regret? Who knows?
Camellia is getting an MRI while Ben talks to a fellow doctor, or the lab tech, or someone. The problem is that the other guy whispers. All the time. Ben keeps asking him to speak up. The guy agrees, and whispers some more. Lather, rinse, repeat. It's actually pretty funny, but only because Andre Braugher rules. The gist is that Camellia has some sort of blood clot that is causing her paralysis, and they'll know more after they go in for surgery.
Ben approaches Ollie to tell her about Camellia. Ollie confesses that she gave Camellia the last transfusion, and that she knew about Camellia's back pain, but she was intimidated so she didn't follow her instincts. Ben tells Ollie that this could have been avoided if she had done an MRI, but relents, saying that he never said, "Don't make a mistake." Ollie confirms that, indeed, Ben has always told them to tell him everything and to tell him the truth. Ollie asks if Camellia will be all right, and Ben says they don't know yet. Ben adds that he normally would have come in at the end of the visit to check in, but he didn't want to this time. In other words, they "both let her down."
Wyatt, Cherry, Sid, and Stiles discuss Stiles's mummy project. Sid thinks it's weird because it's taxidermy. Wyatt thinks it's weird for quasi-religious reasons. Cherry says that he died once -- but actually he faked a death certificate to get out of his debt to Columbia House.
The phone rings in Boies' office, and Cherry answers. Of course, it's the mysterious Clark. Cherry closes the blinds and continues the conversation.
Ben is checking out Camellia, who still can't feel her legs. Ben tells her that the feeling may return, and that they still don't know what caused the problem. Camellia asks Ben about love, and how it makes you feel invincible and as if nothing will ever end. Ben tries to explain that this isn't the end, but Camellia asks him what he wants from her, since "Father always said that everyone wants something from people like [her family], and Father was never wrong." Then, Camellia non-sequiturs that she took some Alka Seltzer for a hangover, not knowing that it contained aspirin. You may remember from earlier that aspirin exacerbates her condition. Ben reminds her that they don't know what caused her problem. Camellia goes back to talking about love, saying that her boyfriend won't want her because of her ill health. Camellia doesn't want her boyfriend's pity. Ben tries to talk to her about physical therapy, but Camellia commands him to leave, since "the Kelloggs have never been seen to cry."
Cherry gives Sid the lowdown on the mysterious Clark. He's a concert promoter, and he's also Boies's father. Just then, Boies walks by, and Sid and Cherry turn away quickly and inspect their ties. No, really. They simultaneously start staring at the ends of their own ties as if there are soup stains there or something.
Stiles is working on washing her ex-patient's intestines. Lord, I never thought I would type that sentence in a million years. Max is asking about the procedure. Stiles is trying to convince him that it's not a crazy idea. Max is worried about the budget accommodating a "bronze sarcophagus," and suggests as an alternative "papier-mache and bronze paint."
Boies is asking Ollie about her conversation with Ben. Ollie doesn't think it was entirely her fault. Boies thinks she got off easy, which is "the freeze." Ollie says it didn't feel like a freeze. Boies compares her to the planet Pluto, and tells her that the step will be Max asking her if she's interested in transferring to a psychiatric residency.
Now comes the part of the show we like to call, "And that's...one to grow on." Ben lectures the class on favoritism in medical treatment as we see shots of Camellia in various parts of the hospital getting rehabilitation, getting examined, and refusing her food. Ben quotes twelfth-century physician Moses Maimonides, who prayed, "Deem me worthy of seeing in the sufferer who seeks my advice a person neither rich nor poor, friend nor foe, good nor evil. Show me only the person." And that's...one to grow on. See how that works?
Ben wheels Camellia (in a wheelchair) into her posh home. Camellia notes that Ben "wanted to see the Degas." He pushes her around a room containing not just one, but numerous, works by Degas. Wow. Camellia explains that they belonged to her father, who could have cared less about painting, but loved the ballet. Ben thinks it's strange to see museum-quality paintings in a home, and asks Camellia if she ever danced. Camellia scoffs, and says her father said that she was very clumsy. Ben wonders if she takes after her mother, but Camellia says that her father loved her mother, and Camellia is nothing like her mother. Camellia starts spinning a tale about how her father liked ballet because the dancers were something he couldn't quite grasp, and thus he got "the excitement of the chase." Then, she says that she used to wave to him while he drove off to attend the ballet, but he never waved back. He was "off to see the one thing he could never attain, leaving behind his one true disappointment." Ben adds, "And Father was never wrong." I told you that would be important later. Camellia agrees.
Cherry is on Boies's phone, discussing stocks with someone. Boies walks in, and Cherry gets off the phone quickly. Boies tells him to go see a patient while disinfecting his phone. Hee! Cherry stammers and reveals that he was on the phone with Clark. Boies can't believe Cherry was talking to his father. Cherry thinks he's a nice guy. Boies comments, "He still has a way with the ladies!" -- a comment which made my napping boyfriend laugh out loud. Boies and Cherry argue some more, and Cherry ends by saying that Clark left a message that he's proud of his son.
Stiles is actually constructing a sarcophagus out of papier-mache while Ollie sits in the corner, talking about how she's "out in the wilderness" and "off [her] game."
Boies walks into a swanky hotel lobby. He asks for his father at the desk. His father checked out, but he left Boies an envelope containing two tickets. To paradise? Simmer down there, Eddie Money.
Boies and Wyatt sit on the roof. Wyatt uses his expensive fishing pole to cast from the roof. Boies complains that his father left him two tickets to a concert he doesn't want to attend. Aw, they're becoming friends. Wyatt confesses that his wife had been saving the money she used for the fishing pole for a long time. Boies asks about Wyatt's father. Wyatt says his father thinks he's stupid, and every time he makes a mistake in the hospital, he hears his father's voice. He thinks he married his wife just to prove he wasn't a bum. Boies says that his father is a concert promoter who bought them a nice big house, but then he got arrested when Boies was in high school. Boies jokes that his father got arrested for tax fraud, so Boies couldn't even get street cred for having a father in jail. They talk about fishing for a minute, and then Wyatt reveals that his wife bought the fishing pole with the money she had set aside so that they could have a baby.
A handsome older man pushes Camellia's wheelchair into Ben's office. It's Camellia's boyfriend, Jed. Ben compliments her on her choice. Camellia announces that she's giving away her Degas, and that it's a relief not to have to "look at those tiresome women with their eating disorders and their broken feet." Ha! Camellia cracked a funny. Ben comments that Camellia seems happy. Camellia admits that she is, and it's a strange feeling. Ben tells her it's because she found love.
week: Seriously, I have no idea what this episode is about from the preview. There's some guy. He has a disease. He's going to die. Ben doesn't know what's wrong with him. It's a mystery. It seems sinister. That's all I can give you.