We get some "previouslys" to start this episode, like we did last week, and the only reason I mention them this because I wonder at what point viewers will be given credit for being able to remember details from particular episodes. And also, the "previouslys" show yet another different version of Paul showing up at Miracles HQ for the first time.
Anyway, this show starts up with a shot of the Boston skyline, and then this close-up of someone opening a pill bottle and then a weird slo-mo shot of two pills falling into someone's palm and then we see it's an older guy in a doctor's coat, who I think was Prince's dad in Purple Rain, and he then walks into a room with a guy in a high-tech wheelchair hooked up to all kinds of gadgets. "Good evening, Sher-Wood," says the doctor, like, who would name their kid after a hockey stick? Sher-Wood doesn't answer; he doesn't appear to be able to move. And the doctor speaks in this really artificially upbeat voice: "I have to give a speech at the symposium tonight. Can you believe my luck?" he says, while fiddling with various devices. And Sher-Wood is attached to a little speaker thing, and we see a computer screen with a thin little keyboard hanging off it. "I need you to keep trying," pleads the doctor, who's exhorting Sher-Wood to move his eyes and pick a letter, any letter. Nothing. The doctor looks from Sher-Wood to the screen and back about five hundred times before sighing. He puts his hand on Sher-Wood's shoulder. "Well, we're going to keep at it; we're not giving up," says Dr. Pillpopper, and then we get a cheesy close-up of a single tear rolling from the corner of Sher-Wood's eye.
And maybe he's crying because all of a sudden he's black and white and horizontal and rendered two-dimensionally. Oh, that's only someone carrying a giant poster or something of him, and we're in some sort of lecture hall. And there's Keel and Skeet taking their seats and giving us a bunch of exposition; Skeet says he likes an "arcane medical symposium as much as the guy with no life," but he wonders why Keel's sudden interest in Sikofsky's Syndrome, whatever that is, and Keel says that a significant percentage of sufferers display paranormal tendencies, and Dr. Bauer -- we see Dr. Pillpopper -- is the world's foremost expert on the disease. You'd think they'd have gone over this already, like back at Miracles HQ or in the car ride over or something, but no. And I'd also like to point out that I prefer the structure of "miracle happens, then the team goes to check it out" to this episode, which seems to be "team shows up somewhere, and a miracle happens," like, this show better not turn into a pseudo-spiritual Murder She Wrote, like my parents used to joke that the worst feeling in the world had to be being at a party and seeing Jessica Fletcher show up.
So after Keel's done setting the scene, Skeet wants to make sure they're there just to listen. "As opposed to…" says Keel, smiling a little as he turns to face Skeet, who's really worried about Keel asking questions with words like "paranormal" in them at a scientific conference. And Keel's all, dude, I can't keep silent, and so Skeet bags on him and says he'll be in the back, and Keel says "suit yourself" and smiles as Skeet skurries away.
Then the doctor starts yammering about the disease, and he's using that same weird pod-person voice like he's talking to a bunch of three-year-olds, and he asks the assembled crowd to imagine that you have the disease, and can't move a muscle, not even your eyes, can't feed yourself or care for yourself. Dr. Bauer tells us -- and MAYBE THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT LATER -- that if your ventilator malfunctions, you will be dead in a few minutes. Meanwhile, a woman enters the hall at the back where Skeet is hanging out. She smiles as Dr. Bauer says Sikofsky's Disease is stubborn, but so is he. And everyone claps. Bauer opens the floor to questions, and Keel jumps up to ask a convoluted question full of words like "genetic" and "predisposition," but it's his use of the word "paranormal" that makes Bauer use words like "junk science" and "unaccredited." Bauer tries to move on, but Keel presses on, hogging the floor to ask if Bauer's noticed any anomalies in his own patients, and the doctor says none of them has ever predicted the future or tried to read his mind, if that's what Keel is asking. And five minutes later, the audience is like "ha ha ha." And then the woman in the back is saying "he's kind of a blowhard" and Skeet's all agreeing with her because doctors can be pompous, like, GET A CLUE, SKEET, and she says she's talking about Keel, and Skeet gets all embarrassed, so she asks if he knows Keel. "Only in the sense that I work with him," says Skeet, or as anyone else might say, "yes." And she's all "my bad," and that's not me paraphrasing, she ACTUALLY SAYS "my bad." And she introduces himself as "Raina Bauer," and genius Paul asks if she's related to the doctor, and it's a good guess, especially as Raina and the doctor are the only two black people at the symposium. And Raina says "only by blood and temperament" or AS ANYONE ELSE MIGHT SAY, "YES," and we learn that this is Doctor Bauer's daughter, and Skeet apologizes for calling him pompous, but she agrees, like, nice daughter, and she adds that he's also brilliant and charming and funny "when he's had some sleep," which is really weird thing to say.
Then she asks what Skeet does with the "Englishman" and asks if they're "ghostbusters" and Skeet can only wish to have such a cool job. And he explains about Sodalitos Quaerito, which she translates as "brotherhood in search of truth," which for some reason makes him think she's heard of his rinky-dink little group, until she tells him she just knows Latin, after eight years of medical school. And again with the brilliant deductions is Skeet: "You're a doctor!" And he's really, really excited about this. He asks if she works with her dad, and she laughs and says, "God, no," and says that would be a disaster, since she and her dad get along better with a little space between them. She says she practices out in California and is visiting for a few days. Then Raina notes Skeet's "search for truth outside the normal boundaries," and asks if he's found any. Skeet looks gobsmacked. "That would require a long conversation. Which we could have…" he begins, and it's really unbecoming for Skeet to pop a boner over every new secondary female character on this show. But before he can finish hitting on her, Dr. Bauer's speech is wrapping up, like, nice rip-off three-minute speech including questions. So Raina's all "gotta jet" and says it was nice to meet him, and Skeet makes The Skeet Face watching her go and turns back to a smirking Keel standing there saying, "Miss me?" and I'm one of the few TWoP regulars who thinks that constantly searching homoerotic subtext between two men is a big waste of time -- although I do play team sports -- but even I can tell that Keel wants Skeet very badly.
Then we are at the "Steadman Clinic," according to an unnecessary on-screen title. Dr. Bauer is chillin' with Sher-Wood again and popping pills and talking into a handheld tape recorder, going on about Sher-Wood's elevated alpha waves, which are probably a result of the "flux treatment" and which the doctor says will continue until they're certain that there's been no progress. At this, a little blue light on Sher-Wood's headgear goes on, illuminating his face, and the "A" button on the little hanging keyboard lights up, and Sher-Wood's little computer-voice voicebox says, "A." Dr. Bauer turns, making The Skeet Face. "Sher-Wood, was that you?" And Sher-Wood spells out Y-E-S on his keyboard and corresponding screen. Bauer is stunned. "You did it!" he says, and Sher-Wood is all congratulatory, "No, you did it, doctor." And then, Sher-Wood lets loose with highly technical advice on how to improve the treatment -- the screen rapidly fills up while Dr. Bauer looks on. "Infusion every four hours is the answer," concludes Sher-Wood. He glances over at the dumbstruck doctor (Sher-Wood's eyes apparently the only part of him that's mobile). "Dr. Bauer? Are you getting this down?" Commercials.
When we come back, Sher-Wood is still filling up the screen with info at a frantic pace, including what looks like molecular diagrams, until he abruptly stops, his little blue headlamp light going off. "Sher-Wood?" says Dr. Bauer once or twice, just before a nurse comes in to announce that it's "beddie-bye" time for Sher-Wood, and how nice of her to infantilize the grown man just because he can't care for himself. And she injects him with something while she says, "Can you imagine not being able to sleep?" and Dr. Bauer absentmindedly says "yeah" while staring at Sher-Wood, and as the nurse leaves, she says, "Are you going to go home and get some?" and it took me a few seconds to realize she was talking about sleep. Heh. And he says "soon." The nurse leaves, and Dr. Bauer makes a few keystrokes on the keyboard and then takes a disc out, and we cut to him inserting the disc at his laptop at home. "I may be losing my mind, but apparently I'm getting information from my patient," he says into his tape recorder, and notes that Sher-Wood seems to be providing the cure to his own disease. Raina watches him.
Miracles HQ. Keel goes through books. Evelyn looks hot. Paul walks in, and Evelyn tells him that "some woman" called for him -- someone named Raina. He says, "Raina Bauer?" and she says, "You know more than one woman named Raina?" and Skeet says he met her at the symposium last night while he was "hiding in the back," and when she asks him what he was hiding from, Keel pops up and says, "Me!" and then, "I'm afraid I embarrassed Paul with some of my questions," and Evelyn assures Paul that he'll get used to it. Then Paul is wondering if they shouldn't be a little more "discreet" since not everybody can handle "all this darkness," and Keel wants to know if he's concerned about everybody or just himself, and shuffles off after delivering his pointed barb. And so Skeet asks Evelyn if Raina left a number, and Evelyn says she didn't, and Skeet says, "Why not?" like, what is his problem, and Evelyn says "because she didn't" and informs him that Raina said she was in Braddock Park and she'll call back later, and Skeet's all mumbly, "Braddock Park," and Evelyn all shifty says, "You like this girl, don't you?" and Skeet protests that he hardly knows her, and Evelyn is casually mentioning that Braddock Park is only a couple of blocks away and saunters off, and there's Keel all overbite smirking at Skeet, and this newfound jocularity down at Miracles HQ is really disconcerting.
There's the non-sleeping Dr. Bauer, calling up Sher-Wood's mommy to find out what subjects Sher-Wood was interested in before he got sick, and she's all "cars, TV, going to the beach" and I'm wondering just what the hell kind of school did Sher-Wood go to, and Dr. Bauer, eternal optimist, asks if he was maybe interested in "genetics" and "molecular biology," and this pod-person woman is saying no, and adds, "He always knew when the weather was gonna change, and who was gonna win the football games, and puppets. Sher-Wood loved puppets," and this is really weird, and I guess it makes sense once the episode is over, but it's just a really weird piece of information for this woman to volunteer out of the blue. Besides, who over the age of six loves puppets?
And we're in Braddock Park, I guess, but since I've never been to Boston, I can't verify that. And Skeet spies Raina leaning against a tree, only he does that turn-away-and-hope-the-other-person-sees-you-first thing, which she does, and he starts to pretend that he was just in the neighbourhood and finally just admits that he got her message, and she thanks him for coming, and she brings up Keel's statement about people with Sikofsky's exhibiting paranormal tendencies. "You believe in that stuff, right?" she says, and Skeet says yes, and she says, "You've seen things?" and we flash back to some of the creepier scenes of the pilot episode, but all Skeet can muster is "here and there," and Raina is explaining that her dad has been working on Sikofsky's for years, and the last couple of years have been especially tough, but he's come up with a breakthrough, handed to him by one of his patients. And Skeet's saying he thought the patients can't move or speak, and Raina's all, "They can't!" and says they're hooked up to communications devices, but patients in the most advanced stages have been unable to use them until last night. And we watch a little flashback of Dr. Bauer zonked out on the couch, as Raina moves in close to make sure he's sleeping before looking at the computer and seeing the Sher-Wood info. "This breakthrough came from the patient," she says. And Skeet wants to know if she's talked to her dad about it. "My father and I don't talk; there's kind of a gulf there." She asks if Skeet is close to his father; Skeet, the orphan, just says he isn't, so Raina thinks they're kindred spirits. "Even if I won the Nobel Prize, I'd still be his little girl," she says, and so, since Dr. Bauer would never hear it from her, she wants Skeet to talk to him, especially since he's so much more "nice and approachable" than Keel. Skeet hems and haws, and she offers to pay him, and he says he'll do it but he doesn't need to be paid for it. And Raina looks all smiley goo-goo at him.
Back at Miracles HQ, Skeet has filled Keel in on the patient providing the cure. "This is interesting," says Keel. Skeet suggests that maybe the patient is a "sympathetic conduit" for the doctor, and Keel seems to like this theory -- the idea of the doctor broadcasting his desires, and the patient picking up on them and broadcasting those wishes into the void. "I don't believe it," says Evelyn, and Skeet starts to argue, but what she can't believe is that Skeet didn't get Raina's phone number, forcing Skeet to protest that he's not doing it to "date" her. Meanwhile, Keel has made his way over to some sort of ship's wheel, like, what is that doing there, and he says, "Tricky thing, broadcasting wishes into the void." It's also tricky to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that's right on time. ["How is it?" -- Sars] It's tricky. ["Tricky?" -- Sars] Tricky. ["Trickaaaay!" -- Sars] "Why?" says Evelyn, and Keel says they can mirror our own worst impulses and reflect them right back on us, sort of a "be careful what you wish for" kind of thing. But Evelyn is pointing out that any breakthrough in the disease would be a good thing; ergo, whatever force is behind it is good as well. "Right?" she says, but Keel shoots that down. "Perhaps not. If it's a dark energy, it won't appear so at first blush," he says. "The devil always comes in wondrous guises," concurs Skeet. With a close-up for maximum effect.
Over at the clinic, the doctor is explaining the new treatment to the interns, who are all very kiss-assy impressed. This scene looks like nothing so much as those stupid cough syrup commercials where a med student coughs and the others seize the opportunity to diagnose the patient and prescribe Dimetapp or some such, while you're yelling, "It's just a cold, for God's sake!" at the television. And Skeet is eavesdropping and taking notes, and you'd think they'd be concerned about the stranger writing stuff down while the doctor describes a revolutionary new treatment. And Dr. Bauer is pronouncing "idea" as "idee-er." And one of the students is impressed with the treatment: "I would have thought of it…in like twenty years or so," like, SHUT UP ASS-KISSING INTERN, and then Dr. Bauer wants to set up a double-blind, and then Julia the Nurse wheels up Sher-Wood and Dr. Bauer is all, what are you doing? And she says Dr. Bauer told her to bring Sher-Wood to the lab. "I don't believe I did," he says, and she says she just got his email. Dr. Bauer looks really creeped out; he says it's time for rounds so she should take Sher-Wood back to his room. And then Sher-Wood's blue light comes on and he says, "Dr. Bauer is a great man. His treatment is working for me already." And then another ass-kissy intern says, "Dust your tux off, boss, Nobel Prize, here we come!" and somebody really needs to kick that guy in the nuts for being excited about a prize instead of a patient being cured. And Sher-Wood says, "Way to go, Dr. Bauer." Commercials.
Later, Sher-Wood is being wheeled down a hallway, checking out Skeet, who's standing there taking notes still. Skeet flags down Dr. Bauer, who has the same freaked-out look for pretty much the rest of the episode. Skeet introduces himself, saying he works with Alva Keel, and can I point out that "Alva Keel" sounds like some sort of marine vegetation? And Skeet makes the mistake of reminding Dr. Bauer that Keel was the guy asking all the questions at the symposium last night, so of course Dr. Bauer gets annoyed and tries to stomp off. Skeet says if there's anything going on that doesn't make any sense, they might be able to help, but Dr. Bauer just says, "I have real work to do." Heh.
Undeterred, Skeet wanders freely through the hospital, I guess, and finds Sher-Wood's room. He waits until Julia leaves, then looks inside. Sher-Wood stares at him. Skeet goes in, glances at some private medical document, and says, "Mr. Nichols?" and "Sher-Wood?" and gets no response, and then he LAUGHS and says, "Do you know things?" and still no answer. So Skeet apologizes and leaves. As soon as he closes the door, Sher-Wood's little blue light comes on and he says "some things," like, nice reaction time, Sher-Wood.
It's raining, and Skeet's driving, endangering the lives of his fellow motorists by yakking on the cell phone to Keel and Evelyn, who seem to never go home. Skeet explains that there was definitely a "Lourdes take up thy bed and walk" kind of breakthrough, and if he could stick with one religious reference at a time, that'd be nice. He says he tried to talk to the doctor and the patient and got nothing, but he thought he could smell tar in Sher-Wood's room. Evelyn's all "whuzzah?" and Keel grabs for a book and says that "it might be the presence of a 'merry prankster' entity -- or something worse," and then Skeet's hanging up because he has to run an errand. Evelyn asks if he's going to ask Raina out, and he just says, "Goodbye, Evelyn," and hangs up and drives to the Bauer household. He sits in the driveway and watches for a few moments, with Dr. Bauer working in one room and Raina puttering around in a room on the other side of the house, just in case we've forgotten that there's a "gulf" between them. So Raina wanders around and listens to Bauer blather on about how he doesn't fully comprehend just how Sher-Wood is providing this information, and he rambles about moral and ethical ramifications.
The phone rings. It's Sher-Wood! He took out life insurance! Good for you, son. Well, I'm kidding. He just says, "Hi, Dr. Bauer." And Dr. Bauer's all, "Sher-Wood?" and Sher-Wood says, "Whatcha doin'?" and that computer voice saying that cracked me up. And Sher-Wood just called to say he loves Dr. Bauer, and that he's a great man who hasn't done anything wrong; then he tells Dr. Bauer to close his door so they can talk, and Bauer closes the door, and Raina's eyes well up and she wanders away.
And I don't know that "stalking" would necessarily be considered an "errand," but there's Skeet, staring out the car window still. And Raina taps on the passenger side window, and he rolls it down, and she laughingly asks if he's stalking her, and he says "no," that he's just parked alone in front of her house at night. And she holds up two cups of decidedly non-steaming coffee and asks if he wants some, so he says yes and she gets in the car. "Here's hoping you're wicked shy and not a serial killer," she says, like, thank you for throwing in the "wicked" to remind everyone that we're in Boston. And Skeet takes the coffee and says it's good, and she says it's the only thing she knows how to cook, like, IT'S JUST COFFEE, YOU NIMRODS, and he asks if it's a "decaf with three sugars," which it is, and Skeet wonders how she knew what he drinks, and she says he seemed to her like he's "half easygoing and half big jolt," like, WHAT IS THIS DIALOGUE, and then Raina looks through Skeet's stalker-cam at the house and asks if that's what they look like to him: "Father and absentee daughter at opposite ends of the childhood home?" Skeet's all, I didn't really get that, maybe you could hammer home the "father/daughter rift" theme a little harder time. And he says he knows a thing or two about absentee parents, and she laughs and says that Skeet tries to help people and that's one of the things she finds attractive about him (and Skeet says, jokingly but seriously, "There's other things?"), but even though she and her father love each other, there will always be an unbridgeable gulf between them, only she pronounces it "goolf" for some reason. "And I've accepted that," she says. "Okay," says Skeet. "Can we drive?" she says, and Skeet reacts like she just took her top off.
So they go driving, and she says the car doesn't "seem" like Skeet, and Skeet explains that it's Keel's since his got hit by a train, and whereas you'd think most people would be interested in that story, Raina just steers the conversation back over to herself and how everybody thought she was crazy to take her practice to California, since all people do out there is drive around, and they flirt some more, and we learn that Skeet's been on the job with Keel for weeks now, and you're starting to hope they'll get to the point soon. And Raina calls his work "frickin' weird" and says that if he's going to poke around in the "dark corners," he should balance it out a little. Skeet says he's hoping to find some light, like, shut up, Skeet. "Maybe you're not looking hard enough," says Raina. You shut up too, Raina. She suggests he pull over, and he apologizes because I guess he thinks he offended her or something. "You want me to take you home?" he says, and she says, "I want you to pull over so you can kiss me." And Skeet stares at her and swerves across a couple of lanes, like, how horny is Skeet anyway? But after he safely gets to the other side, his cell phone rings. It's Dr. Bauer, and Raina mouths, "I'm not here," which is a pretty good line when you consider how this episode ends. And Skeet says he wants to help and can be there in fifteen minutes. He hangs up and says Dr. Bauer wants to show him something. He offers to drop her off somewhere, but she says she'll grab a cab, and thanks him for doing this. "Oh, and rain check on the other?" she says, as she gets out of the car. Skeet's all, sweeeeeet.
At the clinic, Dr. Bauer greets Skeet at the main desk and thanks him for coming, and they walk off, and the cameras were left rolling so we get this really long shot of Julia just sitting there, like, "Cut!" They walk down the hall, and Dr. Bauer reminds Skeet about what he said about helping out if things weren't making sense. And something is happening, and Dr. Bauer's only "credible hypothesis" is that he's "losing his mind," which is the fiftieth such allusion he's made to that. And they enter Sher-Wood's room, and Dr. Bauer asks him if he somehow called Dr. Bauer's house and asked him to bring Skeet to the clinic. Sher-Wood doesn't say anything. "I thought he gave me your number," says Dr. Bauer to Skeet, who says Keel's got a lot of experience in this area, so he'll go get him. But Sher-Wood's little blue light goes on. "Skeet, I wouldn't do that if I were you," he says all HAL 9000. Zoom in on The Skeet Face, and fade to black.
Now Sher-Wood's saying, "We don't want Keel in on this, do we? Three's a party, four's a crowd." And Sher-Wood says Skeet must know that Keel doesn't fully trust him, otherwise he'd tell Skeet a lot more. "Layers within layers, that one," says Sher-Wood. The doctor has no idea what this is all about, and Sher-Wood says, "Just chatting with my friend Paul." Skeet wants to know how Sher-Wood knows his name, and Sher-Wood says, "It's on everybody's lips where I come from," and just laughs when Skeet asks where that is. "Speaking of, Tommy says hello," says Sher-Wood. I really don't think we need a Tommy flashback every episode, do we? "He died saving your skin, and you let him," says Sher-Wood. "A little boy. Nice." Heh! Skeet leans forward and yells some Latin at Sher-Wood, who closes his eyes. Dr. Bauer's all, dude! Was that an exorcism? And Skeet tells him to pray, but Dr. Bauer just stares. "And it worked!" he says. And Sher-Wood's light comes back on and he opens his eyes. "Well, no. Nice try, Skeet. I just don't swing that way."
Over at Miracles HQ, the rain is leaking through the roof, which isn't as bad as it sounds since at least we learn what Evelyn's job is; it's to collect the water in pots and pans. And Keel is doing his best to speak French on the telephone and is thanking another "doctor" for his help and promising him a picture, leading him to go digging through cluttered drawers, and we start to wonder just what kind of two-bit operation this is anyway. He tells Evelyn that the entity may actually be a "das unte [something]" and I didn't quite catch it, but it sounded German, and Keel says it's like the merry prankster, only it's far more malevolent and very deadly and is always looking for ways to "get in," and Evelyn's all "into us?" and you have to think Evelyn's used to guys trying to get into her. Keel explains that if Sher-Wood had paranormal abilities before, he'd just be more vulnerable to the entity. And Evelyn's wondering if the entity wants to destroy its host, and Keel's all, naw, the host is just its ticket in. It wants to destroy humanity. Evelyn's all, d'oh! Keel explains that the demon is very seductive and uses your deepest, darkest fears against you, so it would be targeting Dr. Bauer and his work. Evelyn's all, "Wouldn't it go after Skeet too?" and Keel says, "Damn skippy! We'd best be keepin' Skeet away from Sher-Wood!" and you can make Keel frantically rummage through drawers as much as you want, but you can't disguise the fact that this is a boring exposition scene. And finally Keel yanks out a Polaroid camera, since this demon gives off an electrical charge because it messes with phones and computers, and the aura is invisible to the naked eye but shows up on film. God, is this scene over yet? Evelyn asks how they get rid of it. Keel says it's tricky. ["Tricky?" -- Sars] They have to kill the host.
Speaking of the devil (get it? Heh), Sher-Wood is berating Dr. Bauer for getting mixed up with Skeet, whose cell phone goes off, like, thanks for turning off your cell phone in the hospital, Skeet! Sher-Wood tells him to answer it, so he opens it up, and the caller ID says, "YOUR MOTHER," which was pretty hilarious, and after about five minutes, Skeet drops the phone and Sher-Wood scolds him for not wanting to talk to his own mother. Skeet wants to get out of there and makes for the door, but Sher-Wood actually scoots over there first and blocks the door. Sher-Wood tells the poor befuddled doctor that Skeet doesn't actually exist, that he's just a projection of the doctor's own doubts and fears brought on by exhaustion, overwork, and "those little pills you've been gobbling for the past three months." Skeet, naturally, protests, and pushes Sher-Wood to the other side of the room. "Oh, sure. Shove a cripple," Sher-Wood bleeps. Hee! Skeet tries to hustle Dr. Bauer out of there, but Sher-Wood warns him that if he leaves, he'll be ruined and will never have the answers. And then he tells Skeet to tell Dr. Bauer about his daughter. "What about her?" says an agitated Dr. Bauer. "Man has a right to know if you're seeing his daughter," says Sher-Wood. "You're what?" yells the doctor. He goes NUTS. Skeet tries to explain that Raina came to him for help. Sher-Wood giggles, and Skeet turns towards him, giving Dr. Bauer the opportunity to knock Skeet out with a fire extinguisher. "It's all right, doc. You did the right thing," says Sher-Wood, who adds that the doctor will have all the answers if he does what Sher-Wood says. "The key is in the dosage. The real benefits occur at ten milligrams." He tells Dr. Bauer to give everyone on the ward ten milligrams, and then give himself ten milligrams as well. "Will you do that for me, doctor?" Since we need a cliffhanger to go into commercials with right now, it's a good bet the addled doctor says yes.
Skeet's on the floor. Dr. Bauer's nowhere to be found. And Sher-Wood's twirling around in his chair, singing to himself, while his screen fills up with "doo do doo, doo do doo." At the door, Julia's trying to prevent Evelyn and Keel from busting in all dramatically. But she fails, and Skeet magically wakes up and asks how they knew where he was. Raina called and said you were in trouble, Evelyn tells him, which begs the question: how did Raina know? And Skeet asks where Dr. Bauer is, since Skeet thinks he's going to hurt the other patients and then himself. "You were supposed to be out cold," complains Sher-Wood. Julia, who seems to be taking this remarkably in stride, goes over to the computer and looks at the data before Sher-Wood transforms it into a smiley-face. "Did someone tell Dr. Bauer to overdose the patients?" she says. "Wasn't me," says Sher-Wood. "Ten milligrams will kill them!" she says, and everyone goes out the door except Keel, who closes the door and whips out the camera. Sher-Wood whines about it not being his good side as Keel snaps the photo.
Meanwhile, everyone goes careening through the hospital to the hilarious strains of jaunty polka music. Well, not really.
Back in Sher-Wood's room, Keel's looking at a photograph of Sher-Wood with a funky red aura around him, and Sher-Wood says, "You caught me." Keel jams a chair under the doorknob, and Sher-Wood calls it "kinky" that Keel's locking them in. Okay, this guy is rapidly getting on my nerves.
More frantic searching for Dr. Bauer.
Sher-Wood's saying he can give Keel answers, like to the "ritual murders in Geneva" and what's coming . He also offers to let Keel speak to his mother, since he knows he still blames himself for her death. "But after what your father did to her…and you…" only he doesn't finish that sentence. And Keel says he has just one question: does he have a name? "They call me Mr. Friendly," says Sher-Wood. "Mr. Friendly"? This show's too funny. "Goodbye, Mr. Friendly," says Keel with all the menace one can muster in front of an invalid, and he unhooks Sher-Wood's ventilator, much to Mr. Friendly's chagrin.
Frantic searching, yelling. "Dr. Bauer! Dr. Bauer?" Skeet tries a door and finds it locked, but it shouldn't be, according to Julia. So Skeet busts through to find Dr. Bauer taking about five hours to inject himself with a needle. "No!" yells Skeet (unfortunately, not in a long drawn-out slow-motion way). And the tiny Skeet has to wrestle the much larger doctor. And they slam into the wall and actually BREAK THE WALL, which looks like it's made of cardboard. "I have to know!" yells Dr. Bauer.
In Sher-Wood's room, there's all this noise and commotion of people pounding at the door, only when we see the door, there's only one guy tapping half-heartedly at the glass, and then he leaves. And Sher-Wood flatlines, and his eyes close, and the blue light goes out. Keel waits, waving his hand in front of Sher-Wood's face. Then he hooks Sher-Wood back up and the heart monitor starts beeping again. He grabs the camera and takes another picture, which develops in all of five seconds. And he needs to hold the pictures side by side for comparison, because otherwise he might not be able to tell that in one picture Sher-Wood has a bright red aura, and in the other photo he doesn't. And he leans in really close and whispers to Sher-Wood, "It's all right. He's gone."
Dr. Bauer wakes up in a hospital bed to see his daughter. "Raina," he whispers. "You're bathed in white light and hovering above me, almost like an angel!" Except he doesn't. She just tells him he's going to be all right, and that she loves him.
Outside, Skeet's waiting, and asks Raina how he's doing. Better, she says, and thanks Skeet for saving his life. Skeet's all, no prob, he's a great man. And we learn that Dr. Bauer never harmed his patients, just tried to harm himself. And wrapping everything up, Raina also tells Skeet that the new treatment is sound, and the patients are starting to respond. Skeet's all, so how much of all this do I tell your dad? She says, whatever you think he can handle. But Skeet has other concerns. Like his penis. He asks about her going back to California. "You need a ride to the airport or anything?" She says she has that "covered," and says she'll miss him. "California's not that far away," he says, and she smiles, and you're thinking, no, it's just on the other side of the country. She tells him to keep looking for that light and he'll find it. "Can I kiss you?" he says. They start making out RIGHT THERE IN THE HOSPITAL, which is remarkably free of doctors, nurses, other patients, relatives, and equipment. And as she walks off, he asks how she knew to send his people to the clinic. His people? She says the same way she knew what kind of coffee he drinks. "Some things you just know," she says, and waves, and walks around the corner into A VERY BRIGHT LIGHT.
And Skeet visits Dr. Bauer in the hospital. "I believe I owe you a great deal," says the doctor. Paul asks how he's feeling. "Like I finally slept after two years," he says. Skeet asks what he remembers, and Dr. Bauer says he remembers thinking Skeet wasn't real, until he brought up Raina. Skeet asks if all this has brought him closer to his daughter. That's a big 10-4, says Dr. Bauer. "I was lucky to have her for as long as I did," he says. Skeet looks confused. "I only wish I'd told her more often before she got sick. I like to think somehow she knows." Skeet's all, well, I just had my tongue down her throat in the hallway, so would you mind spelling it out for me? It seems Raina died of Sikofsky's two years ago, and the doctor vowed he wouldn't rest until he found a cure. Skeet closes his eyes. He can't believe it. He was so going to score!
I hate to even mention the last scene, it's so cheesy. Skeet's in the graveyard looking at Raina's headstone, which features a picture of her for everyone who hasn't figured it out yet, like Sars. ["I'd figured it out by then, God." -- Sars] And the clouds open up and shine Skeet's little light right on Raina's face. Skeet smiles. And the only way this scene could have been worse would have been if the clouds had coalesced into Raina's face and given Skeet a big ol' thumbs-up.