Episode Report Card Joe R: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Heroin Chic
By Joe R | Season 1 | Episode 6 | Aired on 02.16.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The clinic got robbed overnight, which means no pain meds, no antibiotics and very few supplies are on hand to treat the day's patients. Which means it's leaves and bugs to the rescue! Also stolen? Dr. Ben's good mood, as he's positively bitchy to all and sundry.
The major patient of the week is a simple appendectomy, which becomes significantly more complicated once you introduce the possibility of surgery without anesthesia. Cole makes the bold suggestion that he head out into the jungle to score some heroin in order to sedate the guy. Dr. Ben's all "Absolutely not!" and is kind of a huge dick to Cole about his drug past. Ultimately, though, a good idea is a good idea, and taking Mina into the jungle to buy heroin is a good idea. She ends up bartering her services as a doctor for one of the dealer's OD'ing friends, and it ends up working like a charm in surgery. Only too bad that Cole -- who's having a terrible, no good, very bad day -- palmed some of the hard stuff and looks very tempted to use it.
Plastics runs into two college bros who happen to belong to his fraternity. One bro ends up having viral meningitis, and without meds, Plastics appeals to Papa Cheech for some jungle medicine. It actually works, and Papa also gives plastics a pointer or two for how to deal with Alma's disapproving dad.
Clark gets a patient with a swollen eye, which turns out to have been caused by a bite from a parasite-carrying bug. Clark and Cole trek out into the jungle, where Clark stamps out the offending insects and tries to explain to the girl's mom (Scrubs' Judy Reyes!) that if left untreated, the parasite will cause her daughter's heart to fail in 20 years. She cites her own sister as an example of what happens when the parasite goes unchecked. Later on, Cole's like, "Nice story, but you don't have a sister." So, yes, Clark's heart is in the process of failing, only she doesn't want Dr. Ben to find out, him having gone through enough with his wife and all. (Speaking of whom, new test results for the wife come in, they're not good, and Ben seems to have resolved to pull the plug. We'll see.)
So ultimately, a new shipment of drugs comes in, and the appendix guy and the parasite girl (and her sister) get loaded into the helicopter for some big-city medical treatment. Which makes it all the more horrifying when Ben and Clark watch the chopper sputter and crash, setting us up for next week.
Oh, and Lily and Mateo totally do it underneath a waterfall, and it is HOT.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously: Dr. Ben's wife was in a coma but her trust fund was not. Zee dumped Cole. Dr. Clark clearly had some sort of deadly ailment that she was hiding from everybody. Lily pulled a sexy bullet out of the sexy abdomen of sexy Mateo, then covered for him when the police came looking.
Currently, Plastics and Alma are making revolting kissy-faces at each other after an all-night game of checkers, which may be both literal and euphemism. Meanwhile, Lily and Mina are trekking to work and talking about how Mateo has been MIA since skipping out of the hospital. Lily insists that she's only concerned for him medically. Mina is dubious. Back with Plastics, his makeout session with Alma is interrupted by the arrival of her scowling dad, who looks like someone who would've tag-teamed with Captain Lou Albano back in the day. Alma tried to talk him down, in Spanish, so all Plastics can make out is "Americano." Alma kind of runs away and leaves Plastics alone with her dad. Then he runs away, which is smart.
At the clinic, Cole scowls at the late-arriving Gringo Brigade as he tries to deal with a patient with acute appendicitis. The man's a local but his wife is an American transplant -- they run the local lodge. Looks like they're going to have to operate, and Cole hauls the doctors out to go retrieve the usual pain meds. Out in the hall, Cole growls at them some more about being late and getting asses in gear and such. Once they're far enough behind Cole that it's safe, Plastics jokes that clearly someone isn't getting any. Lily and Mina tease Plastics about that clearly not being the case with him, but they're interrupted by Cole coming across broken glass in the hall. They all look into the pharmacy to find it completely ransacked. "No pain meds," Lily mutters, gobsmacked. "No antibiotics," Mina adds. Why that Grinch even stole the last can of Who hash! Plastics is darkly amused that they even stole the tongue depressors. Cole -- his mood decidedly not improved by this development -- grunts, "They took everything," followed by the promo-friendly, "We've been robbed, people!" TITLE CARD!
After making inventories across the clinic, the doctors re-convene to see what they have. It's not much, and Cole gets off the phone and says the chopper's busy with a bush crash so they won't be able to get them supplies until tonight. Dr. Ben is PISSED. He goes on kind of a blame carousel, noting that Cole was on duty last night (he says he was out front, these guys came in through the back), that Zee was supposed to lock the doors (she says the locks were cut off, so "don't start with me"), and finally he glares at Lily and says they could've used police protection last night. Zee explains that the cops aren't patrolling for them like they used to since they "harbored a fugitive." Lily sticks up for herself and says this is no one's fault. Cole agrees with her, so Ben's like, "Well, here we are regardless. Good luck treating your patients today," then leaves in a huff. Charming! Cole and Zee powwow over what's gotten into him, and they agree that the last time he got this way was when "Abby" (a.k.a. the wife) went comatose. Zee then resolves to see what botanicals she's got that could substitute for the meds, but Cole stops her for a moment with a hand on her hand. He says he misses her in his bed, to which she awkwardly tells him that she's got some herbs that can help him sleep. The open the doors on the clinic.