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Just because there's some kind of annual festival going on doesn't mean that the jungle has given up looking for ways to kill people. Exhibit A is a young pregnant couple who crashed on a mountain road. As the expectant mom is rushed to the clinic for an emergency C-section, her husband is injured in a mudslide, but not so badly that he can't give Plastics some unsolicited life advice.
And as if a C-section on the patio isn't already bad enough, a partygoer manages to not only electrocute himself but knock out all the power in the village, including at the clinic. Also, the expectant father remains stranded out in the wilderness with Plastics, Clark, a broken leg and a bashed-in lung while the mother gives birth to a badly jaundiced baby and almost bleeds out herself. They both need Daddy's blood, but he didn't survive the night, forcing Plastics and Clark to drag his body back for a transfusion from his corpse. And then the new mom doesn't want the blood anyway. Of course this is all secondary to how Lily blames Ben for lying to the patient about her husband's condition, unable to pick up on the redolent waves of tragic backstory rolling visibly off of him.
As for the electrocution victim, Mina's so distracted by figuring out why he wasn't killed that she ignores his sob story about losing the love of his life. Too bad we can't. And then in the end Mina helps them get together anyway. Dammit, Mina!
Plastics manages to succeed where Lily failed and convinces the new mom to take dead dad's blood, so now everyone can go back to the party. Otis and Zee seem to be properly dating, Plastics uses his one word of Spanish to try not to flirt with a bartender, and Clark informs Lily that Ben lost his wife and kid. And, thanks to half a bottle of whiskey, consciousness. Oh, heal thyselves already, people.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Looks like there's some party planning going on. Stalls have sprung up around the Cantina, busloads of revelers are arriving, extra tables and chairs are being put up, and colored lights are being strung up over the plaza. All signs of impending fun, which means they look totally out of place at the beginning of an episode of Off the Map. One of the stalls is selling candy, and Otis and his sweet tooth are standing impatiently in line, clearly jonesing. Ben visits him in line to tweak him for it a bit, and Otis says he's eight months clean, so he's doing what it takes. Eight months without candy? That's rough, man. Also not true, because we saw him sucking on a candy stick on his way to go patch things up with Papa last week. Anyway, Otis is curious about the reason for the upcoming festival, so Ben explains that it's about drinking. No patron saint of something, Otis wonders, obviously on the colonialist assumption that everyone down here is Catholic? "Drinking," Ben insists.
A non-specific festival for a non-specific location; sounds right to me. Presumably this is an annual thing. Remember how Dr. Fleischmann on Northern Exposure experienced a new annual event in Cicely every week for six years? Not that I think this show is in any danger of that. Ben goes on to remark on all the recent rain, although he slept through the storm last night. Otis asks if Clark did as well. "I wouldn't know," Ben grumps, and asks about Zee. Otis says maybe this festival is about the patron saint of Mind Your Own Business. Both Ben and I know what he means, but having grown up Catholic I can tell him that we don't have one of those. Suddenly one of the guys hanging lights is knocked off the ladder in a shower of electric sparks, but he's okay. Although tragedy was only narrowly averted, because Otis nearly lost his spot in the candy line.
Back at the clinic -- right outside it, actually -- Zee is giving the n00bs a little seminar on some of the handier local plants. Ben happens along and uses the occasion to flirt with Lily a bit, and then Plastics calls out a friendly (and toolish) "'Sup?" to Clark, who's walking by just as he's nibbling on a fresh leaf that Zee just handed him. It's for erectile dysfunction, so of course Tommy spits it out, assuring everyone he doesn't need that. No shit, Coat Rack. A bored Mina turns to Lily and whispers, "Can you ask your boyfriend where all the sick people are?" After the obligatory denial that Ben's her boyfriend, she says he told her the clinic is usually fairly dead during the three-day festival. That sounds like a pretty shitty festival, actually. Zee briefly calls their attention back to another plant, but then immediately loses Lily when she recognizes the plant from Ben's book, which she read twice. Banter between Lily and Ben continues until Otis charges past, announcing there's been a car crash up in the mountains. The relief of Mina and Plastics is visible, if morally reprehensible. Ben taps Plastics and Lily to come along and mentions that Clark will be joining them as well, leaving Mina to stand there looking completely dissed. But at least she's not bored any more.
Up at the accident site, Plastics has just gotten off the radio with HQ and informs Roberto that the rescue team is en route, battling the muddy roads that were somehow not an obstacle at all for the doctors. I guess they all came and went on Ben's motorcycle. Plastics also updates Roberto on Sydney's need for a C-section. Roberto looks ready to Hulk right out of there, busted leg and all, when Clark comes out of the bush with a small tree trunk on her shoulder. "Wait, did you just cut a tree down with a machete?" Plastics boggles. "What tree? It's a lever," she says modestly. Plastics rolls a small boulder into place to use as a fulcrum and begins to take his shirt off until Clark mocks him (for the shirt removal, not what was under it, which got a whole screen-filling close-up). Plastics levers the tree up and Clark drags Roberto out from under it, and while they're happily getting ready to splint his broken leg, he suddenly coughs up a mouthful of blood. Wow, that leg must be broken worse than they thought -- bad enough to have caused a pulmonary hemorrhage. "Get suction," Clark orders Plastics. They brought suction?
They seem to have made good use of the commercial break to stabilize Roberto, although something obviously hit him in the chest on his way down the hill. Not that we could tell at the time, it was so cheaply shot. Plastics explains how Roberto's lungs are bleeding, and Clark says they need to get him on oxygen at the clinic. Good plan. If only there were a clinic here. While she goes off to call the rescue team, Roberto remarks to Plastics, "You like her." Plastics doesn't deny it, and adds, "I like a lot of girls." Roberto figures Plastics is getting mad tail down here in the South American nation of "Down Here," and Plastics doesn't deny that either. Like he would. Roberto says he used to be like that, but then he realized how meaningless it all was. Plastics doesn't seem unmoved (although maybe that's because of the music on the soundtrack) as Roberto goes on about how Sydney "saved" him. "And I never even saw her coming." Plastics makes a gross comment, to which Roberto mildly objects, but Roberto's the one who is shut up by a coughing fit. Which is totally unfair.
Otis finds Zee while she's busy in the supply room and says, "Um, question:" and then kisses her. When he allows her to breathe, she points out, "Okay, English is not my first language but I'm sure that was statement." He's looking for someone's hangover worse for some poorly explained reason that has to do with the festival. Speaking of which, she'd like to go and dance, but he's not down with that. "Parties full of debauchery and drinking aren't exactly the best environment for me," he says, probably because those kinds of parties also have too much candy, and tells her to go ahead. "I'm not the jealous type," he says. Off she goes to surgery, and presumably Otis is going to go sit on the porch for a while, eating candy and waiting for someone to happen along who needs him to be wise.
Sunset and then moonrise, and then it's time for Sydney's surgery, now that it's nice and dark outside. Not sure what they've been waiting for, given that the contractions were already three minutes apart way back when they found her in the jungle. Zee, Lily, and Ben are scrubbed in as Sydney babbles about how Roberto was supposed to talk her through this whole process. Lily volunteers to do that for her, which Ben quietly questions. Lily says she thinks it will help. "Your patient, your call," he says in a way that suggests that a year from now, Lily's going to be the one on the table with a bulging belly.
A masked Charlie catches up with Mina at the festival, calling her "Blondie." "Ugh, you're sounding like [Plastics] now, "she says, which thrills Charlie. "Not a compliment," she clarifies. She complains to him about how she'd rather be working, but is on a time out. "A doctor time-out," Charlie laughs, like that's funny enough to be an episode title or something. Just then some dorky local carrying a bouquet of flowers and wearing a highly regrettable polyester cowboy shirt crashes into them, pausing to wave an apology. Mina's more worried about the pork sandwiches being cooked, and when Charlie says he ate one, she snarks, "Well, you just had a brain cyst on a bun, Chuck." Chuck bounces, which is the opposite of what you should do when you find yourself with a surly person who says funny things.
Just then there's another electrical mishap, because apparently all the jury-rigged wiring isn't quite up to code. Sparks fly, a cable falls into a puddle, and the dude with the flowers steps on it, sending him flying flat on his back with CGI smoke curling from his chest where the front of his shirt got incinerated. Told you it was regrettable. "Time in!" Mina says happily as the whole festival goes dark. Yay, horrible injury!
At the clinic, Ben is just making the first incision into Sydney when the lights go out there, too. The ensuing panic among the doctors doesn't do much for Sydney's fragile peace of mind, but at least she can't see the panicked looks on their faces.
Back from the ads, Otis is trying to fix the clinic's generator by flashlight and getting nowhere when Mina comes rushing out of the bush calling for help. "Lord, grant me the serenity," Otis says before joining them, "Serenity" being some kind of South American candy bar, I assume. Charlie's helping Mina and a couple of other guys push the electrocution victim on a commandeered taco cart while Mina gives Otis the bullet: "High-powered DC current entering the leg and exiting the chest." Plus his shirt caught fire and he's got third-degree burns on his chest, and he's on a stretcher filled with taco meat. Charlie also has a bullet, which is that Sparky keeps saying he lost something. Nobody cares.
The OR is lit up with candles and lanterns, which is apparently all they need to proceed with the operation. And despite being half-slit open, Sydney is fine, because we always seem to see just the first few seconds of a medical crisis and then come back after it's dealt with and everything is more or less under control. Sydney asks after Roberto, like, specifically, where is the dude already? Ben has to tell her that the rescue team never made it to Roberto. Sydney starts freaking out, which is not conducive to operating. Lily offers to get Roberto on the radio as a way to help calm Sydney down enough to proceed. Doesn't Zee have any general anesthesia plants?
Mina and Otis have Sparky in the clinic, and his worst problem is that the burned skin on his chest is constricting his lungs and preventing him from breathing. So they need to cut it open like they did Miguel on ER that time. Otis tries to dismiss Charlie, who refuses to leave, because of how he wants to be a doctor before he can drive. "Face the wall and don't peek," Otis insists. He coaches Mina on the incisions they'll make and assures Charlie that Sparky's nerve endings are so fried he won't feel a thing. Mina's wondering why Sparky is even still alive given how much juice he got hit by, and Otis advises, "Instead of wondering why it didn't kill him, let's make sure it doesn't, okay?" They start slicing into the burnt lasagna that is Sparky's chest while Charlie holds Sparky's hand and continues translating his unending litany of loss. Could they slice him just enough to get him the air he needs to live but not the air he needs to talk?
Out in the dark, Clark is trying to keep Plastics calm, even though Roberto's getting worse and Clark got word that the rescue truck went off the road. There's no rescue team, is there? It's just something Ben and Clark made up to tell the newbies, like Santa Claus. Like, is anyone concerned about whether any of the rescue workers are injured? Of course not, all the doctors are now spoken for. But back to Roberto, of whom Plastics frets, "He's gonna pass out soon. We're gonna have to bag him." But first they have to walk all the way across the clearing to get back to where he is. Plastics tells Roberto that he's about to take a little nap. "But that's okay, because we're gonna breathe for you, and when you wake up you're gonna be at the clinic with your wife and your son." Roberto says the kid's name will be Max, even though he prefers Diego. "Since I'm missing the whole thing, I guess the woman should probably get her way." I'd also add that giving a kid who was born in a jungle a name like Diego is a little on the nose, even if there's never a little sister named Dora. With a few more wheezes, Roberto obligingly checks out. "There it is," Clark says, and they get busy intubating him, which can't be easy in the dark. Ever visualize an airway by moonlight? Me either. While Plastics is busy with that, Clark has to answer the sat-phone call from Ben and tell him that Roberto's not going to be talking to Sydney any time soon. "It doesn't look good." After a quick glance back toward the Operating Patio, Ben asks if Roberto had any last words, and Clark tells him he said the kid gets to be named Max. Good thing Robert's the talkative type. Good for Sydney, that is, not for us.
Back in the OP, Ben claims they merely lost the signal. He admits that Roberto's "not the happiest camper in the world...but he did say you could name the baby Max." That cheers up Sydney quite a bit, and she's looking forward to meeting Max. "So everything's...?" Lily whispers to Ben. He says everything's fine, like he's going to say anything else in front of the patient. He adds, "Let's do this," which unfortunately he forgot to tell Lily actually means "We're going to need a body bag."
Slow motion montage-style scene of the baby being extracted from the mother in candlelight, and the cord being cut with all due ceremony. Not only is the baby is not only atypically large for any newborn not on TV, but holding him up to the nearest lantern reveals that he's also as orange as a Simpsons character. In this roomful of highly trained and resourceful doctors, Sydney's the first to notice, and Zee rushes the kid out to start an umbilical line. Ben explains to Sydney that Max has jaundice bad enough to maybe need a transfusion. I guess UV lights aren't an option given the blackout. My kid came out jaundiced and spent his first couple of days under black lights, which combined with his pacifier and shirtlessness made him look like the world's smallest raver. Ben starts to leave Lily to take over, but she's only in her first sentence of reassurances when Sydney's eyes cross, roll back in her head, and finally close. Yeah, I know how she feels. Oh, she's not just tired of this show, she's actually bleeding out, giving the show another chance to use that nifty "unset raspberry Jell-O flooding a bunch of fake guts" effect they used on Michael McKean back in the premiere. Unfortunately, without any electricity to run suction, all they can do is mop the blood out with pads. Gross, but I guess it's better than using straws.
Otis and Mina have Sparky stabilized, and Charlie's assisting with the wrap-up. Mina still wonders why Sparky isn't "fried chicken" and announces she's going to do a differential, like she's suddenly on that popular South American medical drama, Casa. Otis all but accuses her of shocking him so she could come back to work, and the lights come up while she's still making an annoyed face at him. Sparky starts yammering again, and Charlie translates that the wants to go back to the festival to look for the love of his life. Mina tells him to relax, and is annoyed when Charlie asks him, "¿Que paso?" In English, Sparky says he's seen this girl at the festival every year, wearing a blue dress, then lapses back to Spanish to compare himself to Peter Parker with no spider powers. What a catch he must be. Mina attributes this talk to Sparky's fever and low heart rate, but Charlie's still getting Sparky's romantic history. Which he translates for an uninterested Mina: Sparky finally talked to the girl last year, and they fell in love after talking about comic books for hours. Then he lost her in the crowd when he went to get a her drink. Worst of all, he never got her name. Mina finally engages with the romantic tale with the following poetic observation: "Pff, that was dumb." Mina is my favorite. She heads off to do some actual medical work while Charlie informs Sparky that she doesn't have a single romantic bone in her body. Well, look who's the doctor all of a sudden.
Ben and Lily have Sydney all sponged out, which I guess is almost as good as actually stopping the bleeding, but Zee comes in to report that Max isn't doing so well and is in need of a transfusion. And Sydney's not only ruled out as a donor, she needs a transfusion herself. Lily hits on the idea of taking blood from Roberto, which is a great idea except for how he's stranded miles away in the wilderness and isn't exactly Mr. Health either.
In fact, as Plastics and Clark have now determined, he's brain-dead. Plastics mutters, "Time of death, 23:30," like Clark's his nurse who's going to go do the paperwork now or something. Just then the radio rings, and Ben is pretty bummed to hear Roberto esta muerto. But after learning that this just happened, he orders them to keep Roberto's heart beating and get him back to the clinic. "Don't wait for the truck. You carry him if you have to." I knew there was no truck. Clark protests that it's miles away, and wonders why they're bothering. "His wife and kid, they need his blood," Ben says shortly .Clark hangs up and tells Plastics to get back to bagging, while back at the clinic, Ben turns around to find Lily standing behind him, looking betrayed and pissed. There's plant to fix that.
When we come back from a whole commercial break of them staring at each other, Lily asks/states, "He's dead." Relieved to be talking about medicine instead of what a big lying liar he turned out to be, Ben agrees that it was respiratory failure but the blood can be kept fresh. Lily realizes that Ben knew about Roberto's chest injury even before the surgery, and they Sorkin back though the clinic to his office while she hurls accusations at him. "I told her what she needed to hear to get through surgery," he says. I still don't see why he couldn't have instead told her, "Here's your general anesthesia. Catch you later." Lily demands, "What do we tell her now? 'I'm sorry but your husband's dead and you and your baby both need his blood to survive?'" They both stand there looking miserable for a while, but Ben says that at least it's good that it happened this way, whatever the hell that means. Lily has a similar question, and he says, "The guy's brain-dead, all right? There's no gray area here, there's no hooking him up to a machine and hoping he recovers. She can move on with her life. Put it away." Huh, it's almost like he knows someone who's in the opposite situation, isn't it? He starts to head off to inform Sydney, but Lily, disgusted, insists on being the one to do it. "My patient, my call," she says, roughly pushing past him. Careful, he might take the patient back if you don't watch the attitude, Missy.
Plastics is dragging Roberto's corpse on a stretcher down the "road" that's actually just a narrow dirt lane cut through the bush, complaining the whole way. Working the ventilation bag, Clark reassures him that it's almost dawn (meaning that they've been going for quite a few hours since Roberto's 11:30 TOD) and there are only about ten miles left. Oh, is that all? At least they're probably going downhill. A car comes roaring around the bend, way too fast for the conditions, and they dive into the bush, bringing their dead guy along with them so he doesn't get killed again. Then Clark jumps out in front of the headlights, planting her feet and getting the car to stop just in time. Plastics looks even more relieved than Clark, because for a second there it looked like he was going to have two corpses to drag down the mountain.
Morning, and the spectacular scenery that goes with it. At the clinic, Charlie is telling Sparky about his own romantic problems while Mina busies herself with actually tending to the patient. Charlie says this girl who's "smart, beautiful, nice to everyone" probably doesn't even know his name. Sparky advises Charlie to tell her, but Mina wants Charlie to record Sparky's enlarged spleen on the chart. Suddenly Sparky crashes, but a quick dose of atropine brings him back quickly. "What the hell's going on with this guy?" Mina wonders. She starts narrating symptoms and possible causes to herself, and Charlie points out that Sparky hangs out by the river looking for the girl on the water taxis, because that's not creepy or anything. Mina shuts him down, thinking Charlie's still hung up on the love story, but Charlie protests that there are more mosquitoes by the river to spread disease. I'm expecting Mina to bust out a full-on epiphany-face, but she just sort of gazes around and leaves Charlie to hold Sparky's spleen in place.
Sydney wakes up looking distinctly gray after what was at least a long night's sleep, with Lily sitting by her bedside. Lily tells her that both Sydney and Max need a transfusion. Ben lurks in the doorway as Sydney asks after Roberto. Lily takes a long, clinical time telling her without telling her that Roberto is dead, but his heart's still beating to keep his blood fresh and juicy. She makes Sydney actually ask if Roberto's dead, and finally says yes. But back to the more immediate subject of his blood. While Sydney takes this in, (the news, not Roberto's blood), Lily notices Ben in the doorway, and pointedly says she promised Sydney she'd tell her everything. "I didn't, but now I am. You and your baby, you both will die without this transfusion." So Sydney flatly says "Save the baby then. Let me die." Whoa, nice parenting, lady. Lily protests, but Sydney screams at her to get out so loudly that even Ben leaves too.
Roberto's body is now in the clinic, and Ben and Zee draw a big old tankard of blood out of him, and then turn and inject it into the orange baby's umbilical line. While everyone else (including Clark and Plastics) watches from outside the room, Lily leaves. Everyone watches her go, and by the time they look back at Max, he's a nice, healthy brown color. That's some fast-acting blood Roberto had in him.
Mina visits Sparky (whose actual name, belatedly, turns out to be Jorge), and she says she has great news: he has malaria! One wonders what her version of bad news would be. She goes on to say that he has a unique strain called vivax, which gives some people a low heart rate. So low, in Sparky's case, that the electrical jolt spared him by hitting him between heartbeats. This strikes my layman's ears as total crap, but no more than half the other shit that goes on in this clinic. The disease also gives people enlarged spleens that could have exploded, but didn't, making Jorge double-lucky. "Forget the blue dress, this is your money story." Yes, it should certainly keep him warm at night. Charlie gets all offended on Sparky's behalf that Mina thinks he's lucky. "He's 22 years old. He's had three broken arms, four broken toes, yesterday he missed finding the love of his life because he got electrocuted, and today he has malaria? He is not lucky!" Maybe he'd feel luckier if he'd learn how to walk without crashing into everything. Also, poor Mina has it all backward. This kind of show is supposed to have doctors making their patients' medical challenges all about their own personal problems, but here she is making a patient's personal problems all about her medical challenges. She backs down and promises to fix Sparky. "Just promise me that at the party you're gonna get the chick's name." Sure, but then he'll just drop it and break it, the clumsy idiot.
Lily watches Sydney pout in her bed, looking a little better. As Lily explains to Plastics, they've given her some iron but she's still refusing the transfusion. Plastics, still muddy from the road, goes up to her and introduces himself like this is the first time they've met. "I remember," Sydney says. "You said that you'd bring him back to me." Sure, bring that up. Lily tries to pull Plastics away, but he insists, "I did," because it's not like he made any promises about Roberto's condition when he brought him back. Dick. Lily again tries to pull him away, but Plastics is off on another one of his emotional yet totally unearned rants, this one about how much Roberto loved her, which is so moving because Plastics doesn't care about anything. "I am so sorry that he is never gong to get to meet his son because he was so psyched to be a dad, but what he's doing right now for Max? That is being a dad." And I bet Max will be the only kid at his school whose father died in childbirth. Seeing that he's getting through, Plastics leans in closer and says Roberto said that Sydney saved him. "Let him save you." Tearing up, Sydney says she doesn't know how to live without him. Didn't she used to, before she met him? I'm sure it's just like riding a bike. Lily quietly calls on her own tragic backstory and says, "You just...do." And if the mudslide damaged the iPod in such a way that it's now permanently stuck on "Don't Fear the Reaper," so much the better.
Cut to Lily turning on the blood flow into Sydney's arm while the new mother holds her baby. Plastics only gets to stand over Roberto's corpse with the breathing tube still sticking out of its mouth. He covers it up, and Sydney happily holds Max, who has gone from orange to brown to pink. Congratulations, it's a chameleon!
Working on charts, Lily is distracted by Charlie coming up and grinning at her. "You know my name, right?" "Yeah, Charlie," Lily says readily. He says he was just checking, but he leaves pretty happy. Ew, he was talking about her?
At the end of the day, Mina's on her way out when she's pulled up short by Otis intoning, "Vivax malaria," from his habitual spot on the porch. "Finally found your infectious disease." And it only took her three episodes. Also, five seconds of research has informed me that vivax malaria is so "unique" that in the last decade there were more than five million cases of it in Brazil alone, making it by far the most common variant of a tragically common disease. Way to bag that rare bird there, Mina. Sucking on his candy stick, Otis adds that she dealt with the situation ike an addict. He remarks about how she got all stir-crazy in just a few hours of idleness. "Your mind starts spinning, palms get sweaty, skin starts itching." She says she just likes to work, but Otis says it's not work but penance. "What was his name? The kid you misdiagnosed back in the States?" Because they all did their homework on the newbies, remember? "We all got one," he reminds her when she's slow to answer. "Eric," she says, barely moving her lips. Otis stands up and volunteers, "PFC Marcus O'Grady. I was a medic when I started using and uh..." while Mina looks at him in shock, wondering exactly how much candy this guy goes through, he says, "The work doesn't help. Doesn't make you forget." To his retreating back, she asks, "So what does?" After some thought, Otis leads her off the porch, but to where? "To that stupid party," he says. "Even the damned deserve a night off." Mina doesn't say, "Damned? Who said I was damned? Now I'm even more bummed." But at least she'll still have teeth in a year.
The festival is back in full swing for its second night. Mina peels off of Otis when they come upon Zee, sitting at a table with a couple of dudes. She's surprised to see him, and he says, "Come on, Loca, show me what you got." He means dancing-wise, pervs. On their way to the outdoor dance floor, they pass the table with the rookies, where Plastics is reenacting for Lily and Mina the car-stopping feat that Clark performed the night, knocking over Clark's beer for her in the process. "This is officially the Festival of Ryan's Giant Balls, "he toasts. It's as good as anything else.
Otis and Zee dance together, with her pretty much leading. That seems wise.
Charlie meets up with Mina, confirming that the pork is cooked. Just then they spot a woman in a blue dress, conspicuously scanning the crowd. Mina leads a skeptical Charlie over there to ask if she knows Jorge. But she didn't get his name either, so Mina tells Charlie if she's waiting for her Peter Parker. "Yeah, I know, just do it." Charlie does, although he doesn't bother to translate the name of Spiderman's alter ego as "Pedro Valet." The girl in the blue dress happily jumps off the bar stool so Mina can tell her to go find Sparky at the clinic. She tells Charlie to add, "Tell her he's a real superhero. He escaped death twice." Charlie dutifully translates, and off Charlie's grin, Mina modestly shrugs, "See, I listen to some stuff." Wow, when that girl shows up at the clinic, Sparky is going to be so amped.
Charlie's alone at the bar, contemplating his empty beer bottle and empty lifestyle when a pretty local in a sundress comes up to him and says, "Hola." Plastics says he's trying to be good, like, a) Roberto wasn't making a deathbed wish, and b) don't flatter yourself, nobody asked you. When she ends up going around behind the bar, he says, "I'm sorry, I thought you were trying to hit on me," he says, which is not the kind of explanation that makes him look better. Fortunately she doesn't speak any English, and even after three weeks in Down Here he hasn't learned any of what he calls "eSPANol" beyond "hola." So they say that to each other several times waaaay beyond where it's anything like cute, not that it was to begin with.
So that leaves just Clark and Lily at the kids' table. Clark asks how Keeton was with the patient. "He was...not who I thought he was," Lily says, and Clark nods like she knows what that means. Or maybe she just knows better than Lily. Clark informs her, "He lost his wife and kid a few years back. The accident last night hit pretty close to home so...go easy." With that, she leaves Lily alone. That girl can clear a room, all right, even when the room is outside.
"Green Gloves" by The National plays as Clark heads back to the darkened clinic. Proceeding to Ben's office, she finds him crashed out on his cot, with a third of a bottle of whiskey standing on the floor to his bed. Lightweight. Clark covers him with a blanket, then stretches out to him in her big scarf and tiny short-shorts, an outfit that tells me that the climate of Down Here must be even more unpredictable than I thought. She spoons him from behind, and in his sleep, Ben takes her hand and says, "Abby." So much for Clark's sweet moment. The last we see is an overhead view of the two of them through the slow-moving blades of the ceiling fan, looking like Martin Sheen at the beginning of Apocalypse Now if he had an imaginary girlfriend who was a shockingly impractical dresser.
And going by the preview for week's episode, we'll be "learning" more about this Abby person, if we didn't already guess. Which we did.
M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter, or just e-mail him at M.Giant[at]gmail.com.