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So there's that saying that a show's first few episodes need to keep repeating the pilot in order to establish the show for new viewers. Boy, is that ever true here. Once again, Tommy -- who we'll be calling "Plastics" for as long as Dr. Cole does, which right now appears to be forever -- learns a valuable lesson about arrogance, about needing to be a better communicator, and about how the primitive jungle people need you to humor them a LOT before they'll let you bypass their idiot superstitions and treat a girl for her epilepsy rather than the demons that are entering her body through her scar. Plastics manages to earn Cole's respect by using his plastics skills to lessen the scar. HA HA, party's over, jungle demons! Mina once again learns that her brilliance is not enough (and that she should probably have brought some Rosetta Stone CDs for the trip to the jungle). She gets paired up with Dr. Ryan Clark (nee Twilight Cab-Stealer) on a house call to save a native boy's sister. But it's the boy who's in worse shape, and when he dies, Mina fails the compassion test by bolting without comforting the sister, which does not please Dr. Clark one bit. Basically, Mina and Plastics both learn that practicing medicine in the jungle means taking the community seriously and engaging it.
Meanwhile, Lily once again learns that freaky shit happens to people out in the jungle. Like the animal researcher who's being crushed to death by an anaconda. Lily, Ben, and Zee head out to save him, only it turns out the snake's vise grip is all that's holding the guy's broken body together. So they try to gurney him back to the clinic with the snake still attached (good idea?), only the snake escapes, leaving Snake-Bait to bleed out. Because the OTHER lesson Lily has to learn is that people come to the jungle primarily to advance their own personal love stories, so she shouldn't have tried to shush ol' Snake-Bait when he was trying to propose to his girlfriend, because then at least she'd have known about the engagement ring in his pocket that ends up slicing into his femoral artery.
The emergency surgery is successful (thanks to some Mina heroics), and Snake-Bait's eventual successful proposal inspires Zee to plant one on Dr. Cole. Speaking of health professionals in the throes of jungle love, Zee tells Ben not to string Dr. Clark along this time, and Clark tells Ben she's noticed the way he's looking at Lily (i.e. the way she used to look at him). Probably best for Clark she doesn't see Ben come upon Lily while she's showering naked under the waterfall, then.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously, three young punk doctors with vague-to-specific emotional damage were recruited to a remote jungle clinic despite their severe lack of language skills and were subsequently subjected to about nine thousand pronouncements about how medicine (and LIFE!) is different in the jungle.
This week begins with Lily -- though since this is a Shonda Rhimes show where everyone refers to each other like they're playing intramural flag football, I suppose it's instructive to know that her last name is "Brenner" -- getting a 5AM wakeup call from a hollering rooster somewhere, then turning her head to find a mean-looking spider on the pillow adjacent to her. At, like, eye level. She bolts and heads for the shower, where Tommy ("Fuller," but we'll be calling him "Plastics" upon decree of Dr. Cole) is giggling it up with the Bavarian chippie he brought home from the cantina last night. Lily meekly suggests that Plastics is violating the shower schedule she posted (because, again, we're in Shondaland, so there must be some kind of domestic haggling over girl-boy-girl living arrangements). Plastics, unflagging in his dopey Matt-Saracen-with-a-boner grin, is like, "Cool, let's talk later!"
Lily then heads off to grouse about this turn of events to Mina ("Menard," though we all know it's really "Streep"), who is scrubbing her face in the sink and complaining that even though Plastics's the whore, they're the ones having to bathe like hookers. Lily gets distracted by Mina's chicken -- the one she was given last week by that old lady who never breathed before -- but Mina's all matter of fact about how yup, that's her chicken now. Though she's named it "Dinner," which is either cool Mina-type irony or it bodes ill for the little thing's future. Anyway, Lily's slightly uncomfortable with her morning routine being fucked up by sex showers and free-range chicken pets -- she admits that she doesn't do great with change. Mina notes that the fact that she brought her cell phone with her kind of backs that statement up. "Does it even work out here?" she asks. Lily explains that there are some things on it that she doesn't want to get rid of, including a text message that she reads every morning. Mina takes a look: "Smile. Don't kill anyone." (Pause for audience to applaud episode title.) Lily thinks it's sound advice for a doctor. (Yeah, but is it sound advice for a doctor In The Jungle?) Mina notes it's not bad advice for new roommates either.
Zee is tending to her garden when Dr. Cole shows up with sno cones from the new shaved ice cart (and once again endearingly greeting her as "Loca"). Clearly, he's here to try to seduce her with cool ice and sugar water -- he says he was looking for her last night to take a walk out to the ocean. She sweetly brushes him off -- and clearly this isn't the first time -- saying that they work together and it wouldn't be a good idea. "So?" Cole asks, incredulous. "We're not going to get fired! There's no HR department In The Jungle." (Okay, but there is a shaved ice cart. It's not quite the dark side of the moon.) He notes that she keeps calling him "Lindo," which he says means "hot" (she clarifies that it's more "cute," like a puppy), but she tells him she's not budging. "Come on," he coaxes, "you know you want a piece of this imperialist American ass." Ugh. Almost. Almost one cute scene right up 'til the end there.
The Three Amigos trek off through the jungle as Plastics enthuses about the cruise ships that every day deposit fresh potential conquests -- he's thinking about chronicling this period in his life. You guys, here's the thing: Plastics is written as a total ass but I can't look at Zach Gilford and hate him. That's good casting. I think this is how women must feel about Alex Karev. Maybe they appreciate "mean and damaged" more than "boyish and kind of a tool"? Whatever, the sociology term paper can wait. Mina suggests Plastics invest in some robes so his night train of floozies can at least cover up. She's in the middle of complaining about being invaded by naked strangers when all three come upon a naked stranger "showering" below a small waterfall. Hey! It's Twilight Cab-Stealer! She introduces herself as Dr. Ryan Clark (Plastics, smitten: "Your hand is so wet!") and reminds Lily of meeting her, with the cab and all. Lily notes that it seemed that she was quitting. "Keep trying to," Clark notes with a smile. "How can you quit this?" Mina asks if this is her normal morning routine, and Clark enthuses about "God's shower" in a way that doesn't make me hate her, so kudos!
Later, Lily, walking with Mina, says she could never be that naked publicly. As they approach the Clinica, Dr. Ben and Zee come bounding out with news of a distress call from a woman at the river whose partner was bit by a snake. To the jeeps! Zee takes a moment to chastise Clark for ditching her yesterday, and on a full moon no less. Clark apologizes, and doesn't look like there's any real animosity here; Zee can't be too angry at her. Dr. Ben asks the Three Amigos which of them don't like snakes. Mina and Plastics are both like, "Love snakes! Let's do this!" but since Lily raised her hand, Ben takes her along with him and Zee, on the rationale that you can't be a jungle doctor and be afraid of snakes, so it's time for some immersion therapy. Mina and Plastics are not pleased at all to be stuck on clinic duty.
Jungle. Dr. Ben and Zee are waiting on the other side of a rickety rope bridge (it's a show about the jungle -- there has to be a rickety rope bridge) for Lily, who is nervous and taking tentative steps. While they wait, Zee takes the moment to talk to Ben about "our favorite redhead" and basically says that they need her to stay on as a doctor, so maybe he should keep it professional with her and quit giving her reasons to leave in a huff. Meanwhile, Lily, from the bridge, talks about the two kinds of anti-venom they have and what if one doesn't work (Zee: "We try the other one?"), and generally shows herself to be an over-planner. Ben smugly tells her that having a plan is a crutch, and that In The Jungle, you don't know what's gonna get thrown at you, so you have to wing it. Are we catching the themes as they fly hard and fast at our faces? After the bridge, they're met by the babbling girlfriend who leads them to her beloved snake-bait boyfriend, all the while yammering on about how it's her fault because while Snake Bait was trying to photograph the creature (they're wildlife photographers, see), she was inundating him with questions about where their relationship is going. Because, again: Shondaland. Where medical crises always come at romantic crossroads. When Yappy GF finally leads the doctors into the clearing by the riverbed, they see this isn't quite a simple snake bite. Ben says to forget the anti-venom, since the anaconda currently wrapped around poor Snake-Bair isn't poisonous; it'll just squeeze him to death. TITLE CARD!
We jump right back to the jungle, though, where I should mention that Snake-Bair is being played by Adam Campbell, who I remember incredibly fondly from that ridiculous summer mystery show Harper's Island. Yappy GF notes that when she saw the snake coiling, she shoved their tripod in between it and her man, which Ben says likely saved his life. Snake-Bait, who is pained but conscious, calls her his "good luck charm." The doctors puzzle over how to proceed, since it'd take a dozen of them to break the snake's grip. Lily suggests sedating it, and Zee thinks a big ol' dose of ketamine would do the trick. (That's what she said? ...To her gay raver pal?) Ben compliments Lily on the quick thinking.
A young man carrying crudely-made wind chimes scrambles up to the clinic and approaches Mina with a "por favor." Mina, not speaking any Spanish, thinks he's trying to sell his trinkets, but she hears "inferma," which she knows means "sick." Dr. Clark soon shows up and tells Mina he's offering the chimes as payment since he has no money. "His sister is home, very sick with fever and cough," Clark translates. He asks for "agua," which Mina does understand, and she defensively tells Clark she's got it from here.
Plastics, meanwhile, is trying to convince Dr. Cole that he deserves another chance, after last week's unfortunate "leave the family to die of TB" incident. He stresses that he's a good doctor -- a great doctor -- if Cole would just give him a chance. Cole instead hands him a sheet of directions for digging a latrine, for a new community that recently cropped up nearby. Cole says it'll help stop the cycle of disease, because it'll mean they won't be contaminating their drinking water, but honestly? Someone else could dig a latrine. This is a punishment. But no matter how many times Plastics says,"I'm a DOC-TOR!" like he's trying to get past a bouncer at a club, Cole's not budging.
Cole then comes upon Mina packing up for her first house call. Because she's Mina, she's packing up haz-mat masks and otherwise preparing for some exotic strain of infectious disease ("maybe the first South American outbreak of SARS!"). Cole grabs the standard house-call kit, with a BP cuff, IV line, and antibiotics. That's all. "If you find yourself in a hot zone," he snarks, "call me. I'll let you wear the funny hat." He also tells her to take Dr. Clark with her, since he's had it with newbies going out into the field solo.
Jungle. Lily's preparing to inject the sedative, which Snake-Bait is eagerly awaiting, since he's really starting to hurt, especially around his waist. Ben moves to examine his hip, but when he touches it, Snake-Bait screams out in pain. Ben yells out for Lily to hold off on the sedative. It looks like Snake-Bait's pelvis is totally shattered but the snake is the only thing holding him together. He needs the snake to stay alive. And thus ends the origin story of the famous comic book supervillain The Serpent Girdle. Looks like they're going to have to transport Snake-Bait with the Anaconda.
After the break, Dr. Ben tries to explain to Snake-Bait and Yappy GF that releasing the snake's pressure could cause S-B to bleed out and die. S-B, though, is kind of panicky at the thought of having to keep the snake around him for a jungle trek. So the four of them hoist up Snake-Bait and Friend on the gurney and begin walking. (Which...I am dubious that three women and Ben could carry both a man and a huge-ass anaconda, but whatevs.)
Mina, Clark, and Wind Chimes are taking a riverboat down to Chimes's village. Clark is chatting him up, in Spanish, and she sees that Mina is off making notes in isolation. Clark tells her that "Bruno" and his sister grew up in an artists' colony in Venezuela; as you can imagine, this doesn't really rouse Mina's interest. Clark somewhat subtly suggests that with Mina speaking no Spanish, it's easiest to learn by trying to speak a little every day. She also volunteers that her parents were missionaries and asks about Mina's upbringing, at which Mina cuts her off: While she'd be happy to chit-chat about her "crap language skills and WASPy ubringing after hours" (which...kinda doubt that's true), when she's on the job, she works alone. Clark smiles and is all, "Okay, then."
Over to Plastics, who has recruited Charlie the Boy Sage to help him with the latrine. And to help better announce his presence as the douche American, Plastics has decided to don mirrored sunglasses and pop his collar. Good lord. So apparently Plastics and Charlie have a deal where Charlie will teach him Spanish while Plastics will let Charlie apprentice him on his medical excursions. If and when he ever actually gets to do them. Plastics spots some kids playing on the other side of a shallow stream, and one girl in a soccer jersey, sitting alone. She's got kind of a poorly-healed gash on her chin, but otherwise she looks like a normal young girl. But when Plastics asks for a translation for "Wanna build a bathroom," Charlie averts his eyes and looks away from the girl, nervous. Plastics needles Charlie for being a terrible Spanish teacher, and when he turns back, he sees the girl having a seizure and then falling into the stream. Plastics runs into the stream to save her, but when he yells for the other children to help him, they run away. Even Charlie won't venture towards the stream. Plastics is dumbfounded, but he keeps trying to save the girl by himself.
Mina's examining Bruno's sister and assesses that she's got pneumonia and is in pretty dire circumstances. Bruno doesn't understand but senses that is bad and begins to cry, so Clark tells him something in Spanish that calms him. She then reminds Mina that the girl is Bruno's only family. Mina predictably blows right past this and says they need to break up the mucus in her lungs or she'll essentially drown in them. "Wish I had a steam tent," Mina muses. Clark gabs her arm: "Ask, and you shall receive." Which is either clichéd writing or Clark's third religion-tinted remark in two episodes. Developing...
Plastics has gotten Scarface back to the Clinic, where she's sleeping while he and Charlie watch. She wakes up, and Plastics tries to communicate to her through loud talking and hand gestures (timeless!). Charlie pipes up that her name is Sofia, then straight-up runs away. Um...don't come back? Sofia then reveals that she speaks English, and that the seizures began when she was three, but she's awfully eager to get the hell out of the clinic. Plastics tries to slow her down long enough to explain that she has epilepsy, but she's in luck, because he can help her control it with western medicine. Hooray! She notes that him being the doctor only means he thinks he's smart but he really doesn't know much of anything. Plastics -- who is kind of engaging her in an actual fight (calling her "smartass," et cetera), which is immature but at least not condescending -- says if she wants to be able to play soccer with her friends again, she should listen to him. "I don't have friends," she says as she rounds on him. "I'm a loser." He points to her jersey and asks, "Why, because you're a Brazil fan?" Ah, doctor banter. See, he's got some things right. He likes Argentina! She likes Brazil! He says she has epilepsy! She says she'll have to confront her shaman! But I'm getting ahead of myself ...
Back off-site, Clark is finishing up rigging a makeshift steam tent, using an old family trick of mine where you boil a pot of water and hang a sheet as a tent. Clark says she learned this when she was in Kenya, which gets Mina muttering about how often Clark talks about the cool shit she did. But give her this: it's working, as they can already hear the girl's cough is sounding much better. Mina calls to Bruno that his sister is out of the woods, and he responds with a thud as he falls to the floor. The doctors both race to him, and Mina's flabbergasted as she says she can barely find a pulse.
After the break, Plastics is explaining to Sofia's mom (translated through Sofia) about how the pills he's giving her will help her with her epilepsy. Mom seems unsure, and then Sofia greets "Papa," who is played by Cheech Marin, who doesn't exude island vibes in the slightest and who is giving maybe 30% at any given time. So there's that. Plastics explains -- in a half-douchey, half-giddily enthusiastic manner that I am sorry, I found adorable -- that "Medicine? Bueno! A better life for your daughter, so she won't be such a loser!" At this, he winks at Sofia. In fact, he winked a couple of times in there. But oh! Stupid Gringo didn't realize that when she said "Papa," she didn't mean "actual father," she meant "honorary title for the medicine man of our village." I might take the time to make a joke about Cheech and the kinds of "medicine" he might prefer, but right now, the man doesn't look like he's ever smoked a joint in his life, as smoking a joint might cause him to make a facial expression. Mom asks Papa if Sofia should take the pills, which causes Plastics to bristle, particularly when Sofia tells him that Papa is chalking her seizures up for "demons" that enter her body through her scar. Plastics, to his credit, even tries to be like, "No offense, but it's just a scar," but Papa gets all, "I've been treating this family for decades." Tommy's like, "With your scare tactics and fairy tales?" He invites Papa to grab a medical journal and join the rest of us in the modern world. At this snippiness, Sofia and her mother get up to leave with Papa. Plastics scrambles and begs them -- begs Charlie to make them -- understand. Charlie again skulks away, leaving Plastics to hurl insults like "abuse" (and some Spanish curse words Charlie taught him) at Papa. He's lost them now.
Mina and Clark are working on Bruno, Mina bemoaning the fact that he was hiding how sick he was. "He wanted us to concentrate on his sister," Clark surmises. He's too far gone -- bacteria's in his bloodstream now, and he's in organ failure. The sister looks out from her steam tent and begs the doctors to help, but Mina says there's nothing they can do. Bruno's head flops to the side, dead. Mina gets up and leaves Clark to tell the sister that her brother is dead. She breaks down in screaming sobs while Mina fights back tears in determined isolation on the porch.
Jungle. The gurney gang are wading across the river with Snake-Bait -- the rope bridge not being all that conducive to their arrangement. S-B starts woozily ticking off information to Yappy; PIN information and cash he's got stashed in odd places. He's got one more thing to tell her, but Lily stops him. She says he can't get in the mindset of "last conversations," it's not helpful. This is advice she's bringing from her ER job -- just focus on the task at hand, getting maudlin helps no one. But S-B seems adamant about the one more thing, and he reaches across his body for something, and when he does, he pitches himself off the stretcher. The snake uncoils and swims away, but Bait is not in a whole lotta distress. Blood stains the water as Ben makes the redundant claim that he's bleeding out; they've gotta get him to the clinic fast.
Back from the break, they get Snake-Bait to the shore, where Dr. Ben cuts the fabric from the stretcher loose and fashions a tourniquet around S-B's waist. Lily also sees that the snake left a pretty nasty but mark on her arm -- not poisonous but still grody. Ben wraps that up as well, and they're on their way.
Mina's still lingering outside the hut as Clark emerges, talking sadly about how the girl just keeps on saying that her brother was the only thing she had in the world. Mina deflects the emotional appeal like she's got a plastic dome around her, instead asking how they're supposed to get in touch with a coroner or a funeral home or someone to come pick up the body. At this, Clark loses it on Mina, and while there's actually some rich dramatic soil to be dug into here (with Mina clearly coping with her surroundings by detaching while Clark has clearly become inextricably emotionally bound to them), this is also sadly exactly the kind of show to have one character say to another, "You think you have it all figured out? You don't!" So Clark says that very thing to Mina, saying that the part of her job that she neglected was being of any damn bit of comfort to her patient. Mina starts to defend herself by saying she doesn't know Spanish, but Clark cuts her off: while it would have been nice for her to have learned ONE WORD of the language before she showed up, her bigger sin is that she just doesn't care. She says In The Jungle, they're the coroner, the funeral home, and the grave-diggers. So she's going to go prepare the body for burial. Mina just stands there, feeling like an asshole.
Cole is marching through the jungle, haranguing Plastics for the mess he's made of the whole Papa situation. Plastics defends himself, saying it's not his fault that this gourd-shaking heebie-jeebie peddler has such a hold on the community. Cole says it was Plastics's attitude that was the problem -- he didn't listen to Papa and disrespected him. Then Cole tells some dumb story about how he used to have migraines until Papa diagnosed him as having two jaguars fighting in his head, made him inhale some herbs, and damned if he wasn't cured. So...are we humoring the witch doctor or does he know what he's doing. Cole attempts to sum up the show's feelings on tribal healers thusly: The doctors at the clinic can't treat the locals unless it looks like they're working alongside Papa, not against him. So humoring the man is pragmatic. Which...is fine. But I kind of feel Plastics when he's all, "It's epilepsy. We kind of can't go halfsies on treatment options. They arrive at Papa's hut, and despite Plastics being willing to make things right, Cole enters and leaves Plastics out in the cold. Or, more accurately, the disgustingly humid.
Back at the Clinica, Mina joins Plastics on the steps for some moping. Plastics bemoans the fact that he's now 0-for-2 with Cole, who now hates him. Mina assures him that it takes at least three tries before someone makes up their mind about you. Plastics, because he is Plastics, turns a leering glance over to Mina and then elbows her in the arm all, "Ehh?" Not with HER, she assures him. "I snap judge." Plastics then gets a bolt of an idea and books off into the jungle, yelling something about the bathroom and how he doesn't want to blow his last chance with Cole.
Seconds after Plastics is gone, the jeep pulls up with Snake-Bait and his team of wranglers. Mina and the other doctors scramble to get S-B out of the jeep. Cut to the ER, where Ben, Lily, and Zee are joined by Mina, Clark, and Cole as they all work hurriedly. Snake-Bait stirs a bit, and Ben says they're just about to put him under, so they can operate. As the doctors prepare to cut the tourniquet, Cole notices a bloody patch that wasn't there a minute ago. Lily cuts away the fabric only to be greeted by the squirting blood of a femoral bleed. What cut into his leg like this? "It's in my pocket," Snake-Bait woozily slurs. Of course now, it's embedded centimeter deep into his leg: a diamond ring, which he had in his pocket, ready to propose to Yappy. Have I mentioned we're in Shondaland? Everybody looks at the ring for a billion hours instead of the leg that is, no exaggeration, gushing blood.
After the break, Ben is clarifying that the ring only went into his leg when they tourniqueted with the canvas, not when the snake wrapped around him. Which makes this all Lily's fault, because she wouldn't let him finish when he was trying to talk back in the river. Ben, to his credit, isn't the one making this dumb argument, she is. "I was wrong," she tells S-B (and Ben, and us). "It was protocol, but this isn't the ER, this is the jungle. And anything you want to say to the one you love, you say it." Oh, brother. So they bring Yappy in and hold off on the surgery until they bring Yappy in and he proposes to her. And not just a quick "Willyoumarryme?" but, like, an extended, talky lead-up to how he wants the rest of their lives to be date night. Not a single doctor objects to this, not even Mina. Finally, Yappy accepts the proposal, they haul her outta there, and the surgery can begin.
Plastics is back building the latrine when Charlie approaches him. Plastics gives him some well-deserved shit for bailing on him today, and Charlie delivers the news that Cole sweet-talked Papa into giving Sofia the pills as part of a healing ceremony. Plastics is all "Whatever, at least she won't have epilepsy anymore," but Charlie says it won't matter, she'll still have the scar. Plastics laughs at Charlie and his dumb demon-fear, until he has an idea. He once again bolts into the jungle, until he reaches Papa at his herb garden. Still waiting for Cheech to make an expression. I'm sure it'll happen! Papa hands Plastics a bag of herbs to start -- for his head injury, which Cole mentioned resulted from Plastics being dropped on his pretty plastic head a bunch of times as a child. Plastics laughs it off, then says he's come here to ask Papa's permission to treat Sofia and her "demon issue." Papa scoffs at young doctors like Plastics who think they have all the answers. Blah blah, "You've been at this three years, I've been at this 300." Blah blah, "the jungle is the best pharmacy in the world." He says a doctor can't treat successfully if his patient doesn't believe in the cure. Sofia wouldn't have taken the pills because "she doesn't believe in you." Plastics: "Not a lot of people do." Oh my GOD.
Surgery. They're closing up Snake-Bait's leg wound, and they're stable enough that Dr. Ben suggests Lily go re-dress her snake bite that's started to bleed through. She says she wants to see her patient through surgery, though, and at that moment, Snake-Bait goes into cardiac arrest. The doctors scramble and chatter as to the cause (toxins from the muscle damage that were kept bound up until now, of course)!. He's got no pulse! Commercial!
After the break, it's decided that they need to inject some calcium into Snake-Bait's heart. But without a central line, they'll have to perform a tricky direct injection. Cole's about to do it when Mina steps up. "I've done about a million," she monotones in that way I love, "I'm really good at sticking people, at my hospital they called me The Sadist." She pulls it off with aplomb, the calcium is injected, and after Clark gives Snake-Bait one quick shock with the paddles, his heart is beating, his pulse is strong, and they're out of the woods.
Plastics, meanwhile, is finishing up a scar-removal (or scar lessening) procedure that is either defying the laws of space-time or was a hell of a lot more frightening to look at than what we're seeing now, which is Plastics finishing up the sutures on what looks like a drastically reduced scar. Did this require surgery? Did he just pull a flap of skin down over her scar while she sat there in the middle of the clinic? I confess ignorance to this, but it all seems fishy and wrong. Charlie, meanwhile, stands and watches while Plastics tries to impart some medical knowledge. Sofia is overcome with emotion when her mom comes to see her and her new demon-free face. And Papa gives Plastics a nod of encouragement. Which must totally mean a lot to him or whatever. Hey, at least no one gave him a chicken.
What does mean a lot is that Cole was watching over that whole scene, and he manages to begrudgingly admit that he couldn't have performed a scar revision that clean. Plastics begins to thank him for the compliment, but Cole is gone before he can even get halfway through the sentence.
Out by the water tower, Mina and Clark appear to be scrubbing some laundry, and Clark compliments Mina on her good technique. Mina corrects her that it was a great technique, "Because I am a great doctor. Don't make me question that again." Clark says she never said Mina wasn't a great doctor, just not a very good physician. The difference: "A doctor treats. A physician heals." Man, I am going to have SO many comfortable stitched pillows when this season is over.
Lily is busy picking crap out of her snake bites (they leave tiny little teeth IN you??). Ben stops by to help out, and he notices her duct-taped, sad little non-functioning cell phone, still showing that episode-title text message. She says it's her doctor crutch. He repeats it quizzically, so Lily tells him the story behind it. Lily's Story (cont'd): She woke up one morning after a double shift to find her fiancé had eaten all the cereal. She got pissed and made him ride out on his bike to get some more. On his way back, he texted the message to her. Ben proclaims the message "cute" and says he hopes she cut him some slack when he got home. But OBVIOUSLY he didn't get home because OBVIOUSLY he was hit by a bus or a falling jet engine or whatever on the way home, so the text message isn't really an affirmation but rather some kind of perpetual guilt machine. He tells her today's events have proven that she doesn't need a crutch -- she's just fine on her own. Lily looks at the jar of extricated snake teeth in one hand and her phone in the other. She hovers over the trash can...and pitches in the phone. Triumph! A mopey, mopey triumph!
Zee wanders by Snake-Bait and Yappy's room and finds them disgustingly cute and in love. This seems to be inspiration enough to -- when she rounds the corner and finds Cole -- suggest they go take that walk. He suggests a professional walk where they both respect each other's professional space. She grabs his face and kisses it. "You just crossed the line," he says, and she replies, "Ah, screw the line." And a billion show promos were born.
Cantina. Dr. Ben's slamming some shots when Dr. Clark joins him. She doesn't want to talk about how she almost left. She's back, she says, "Doesn't mean I'm back." She also says she noticed the way Ben's looking at Lily. "You can't see it because it's coming off your face," she says. "But I used to get that look all the time." Ben looks confused. This does not count as an emotion, I should note.
The morning, Lily wakes up to her alarm, not the rooster. She turns over in her bed, opens her eyes, and sees no spider on the pillow to her. Which I guess is supposed to be a good thing, symbolizing how she's no longer haunted by her past or whatever. All it makes me think is that that spider is somewhere else. Plotting. Lily heads out to the shower, where Plastics is giggling with either Miss Bavaria 2011 or someone new altogether. So Lily decides to eschew haggling over the shower schedule for a trip to God's Shower, the waterfall.
Predictably, if you've seen the ads or any other movie ever, her towel washes away into the stream ... floating to the shore, and Dr. Ben's feet. He picks it up and wrings it out, all flirty-like. He explains that they're along a main hiking trail right now. How much did he see? Well he's a doctor, silly! He saw it all, but he's playing it cool. In The Jungle, cool guys walk away from naked chicks under waterfalls.