Dress for Success

Season finale time around Angels of Mercy hospital, and we've got a few questions:

Will Dr. Ben (Blair Underpants) Turner stick with Dr. Lilian (Vivica A. Fox) Price, despite her ability to roll her eyes at life-threatening velocities?

Will Ron Harris perform one final act of dapper suavitude -- one so stunning that he explodes into a massive white light of pure smoothness and becomes part of the cosmos?

Will Dr. Geoffrey Weiss leave the Beastie Boys to pursue a solo career?

Let's find out.

Previously on City of Cancellation -- er, I mean, "Angels": Hospital director Ed' O Malley, who resembles a full-grown Mickey Rooney with a moptop, got his face kicked in by thugs. He allowed only Dr. Turner treat him and then made a fuss about wanting to leave the hospital. Dr. Williams noticed that even though O'Malley got beat up and bloodied, his clothes were spotless. Dr. Vivian Price struck a deal with Ed O'Malley, and in the middle of a parking lot, he made an odd request: He asked for one of her shoes. "When you make a deal with the devil, you have to deal with the devil," he hissed, deliciously. She gave up her shoe and, with that, we end the Previouslys. Yeah, I know. Some weird crap is going down and a puffy pastry man named Ed O'Malley is behind it all.

The episode opens at night as Dr. Turner pulls into the driveway of a nice little estate. He is led upstairs by the big, mustachioed bodyguard who was O'Guarding O'Malley last week. The bodyguard, much more talkative this time, says he was supposed to pick up O'Malley, but the man won't come out of his bedroom. He also mentions that his doughy boss has been taking the pain medication Turner prescribed. And he hasn't been taking it in a responsible way, either. At the door, we hear "Cry Me a River" drifting out. Turner and the bodyguard knock on the door, asking O'Malley to respond. He doesn't. The bodyguard backs up and kicks the door open. (Turner, I should mention, is wearing a spiffy brown leather jacket. The bodyguard is wearing a big suit and shaggy hair. From behind, as they burst in, they look like they're starring in Yet Another 48 Hours.) The bedroom is a mess. Turner goes toward the music, opens the door to a second room and sees to the right a bunch of pills and a single brown pump -- the same one Dr. Price gave over a while back. Turner doesn't watch the previews before the episode, so he hasn't made the connection yet. Inside there are racks of women's shoes. Then lying there, crumpled, in a hideous frock-like blue dress and a blue and green scarf, is Ed O'Malley, done up in blotchy makeup and the same lipstick that Diane Ladd wore in Wild At Heart. Turner tells the bodyguard to call an ambulance and suggests that they get the man out of the dress. The bodyguard shuffles off, embarrassed. Turner tries to wake up O'Malley by holding up the man's head, but his hand sinks into a pile of skin and Turner doesn't have time to knead it into a firm loaf. We cut to the opening credits as O'Malley's head flops to the left, perhaps looking for some sort of reassurance that this was the right artistic acting choice. Sadly, he doesn't find it.

Memo to CBS: I will watch Falcone if: (a) somebody pays me; (b) you don't run it every night and make me miss seven episodes before I even know it exists; (c) the entire cast makes a guest appearance on The Sopranos; and (d) you somehow manage to make me forget that the movie Donnie Brasco ever existed.

We open on the L.A. skyline at night as the neon Angels of Mercy sign glows fictitiously. Dr. Jackson is in his leather jacket, carrying a backpack and getting ready to go home. He's accosted by Dr. Weiss and Dr. Williams, who want to bring him back to help out on some car crash victims. His surgery rotation is supposed to start tomorrow, but he figures he'll get a head start.

Inside the ER, Turner and Price greet each other with mutual "hey"s. She asks him about the house call he made to O'Malley's. She found out from sleek lover man Ron Harris, who asked her to do damage control with the press. Turner suggest that it wasn't an accidental OD. Price is surprised; why would a man who owns one of her shoes want to kill himself? A couple -- LaShonda and Reon -- who've been involved in a jeep crash are brought in. LaShonda seems okay except for some chest pain from the seatbelt. But Reon is in a big, yellow shoulder rig that makes him look like he's about to fight the mother monster from the end of Aliens. LaShonda starts screaming when he's brought in. He yells back, "It's okay, baby!" We find out that Reon was thrown from the jeep and he can't feel anything below his chest. Dr. Jackson looks on with interest. Dr. Turner takes Reon's hand and asks if he can feel it. Reon says all he can feel is some pain in his neck. Turner orders some steroid protocol from neurosurgery while Reon thinks, "Can I have some, too?" Turner tells him he may have suffered some trauma to the spinal cord. Jackson whips out of a pair of scissors and starts running them up and down Reon's feet. Turner takes him aside. "Are you trying to poke a hole in this man's foot?" he asks. Jackson says that this guy is Reon King, who plays for USC and has a rushing record. Just then Price walks up to tell them that the press is already calling. Turner tells her to pass on the bare minimum of info (we in the press thank you, Dr. Turner). She walks away as quickly as she came. Turner says he'll meet Jackson in the OR. "And Arthur," he says walking away, "welcome to surgery." Yeah, if the show gets cancelled, it'll be a one-week rotation.

In the CAT Scan area, Jackson, Turner and a few others are watching. Except for the spinal injury, Reon isn't too bad off. The girlfriend has already been discharged with some bumps and bruises. The image comes up on the computer and Reon's spine looks like part of a wishbone, post-wish. It's a complete spinal separation. My cat and I involuntarily wince. "I guess he's not going pro," Dr. Jackson says sadly. Turner sighs, rubs his eyes to show even deeper sadness, and says he's going to go talk to the family. Some other doctor asks the woman operating the computer to enlarge the image and give him more resolution. Then put it in Photoshop and put a nice Monet blur filter on it.

In Reon's room, the parents and LaShonda are gathered around. Reon looks completely unhurt except for his crippling injury. I guess when he was thrown from the jeep, he landed directly on his spinal cord, leaving his face, arms and legs unscathed. Turner gives it to him straight: He tells the young man he suffered a bad neck injury. "So I'm gonna be down for a while, huh?" Reon asks. Well, if you define "a while" as fifty to sixty years, sure....The mother asks when he'll play football again. "Yeah, he's going pro," Dad says. Turner keeps his eyes on Reon. "Reon, I want you to prepare yourself for very bad news." He tells him that his spinal cord was severed. LaShonda looks away in pain. Turner tells him he's paralyzed. The parents ask in disbelief if he'll get his feeling back. Dr. Turner says it's very unlikely. "No, no, he's going to play ball again," his father says. Well, if you define "ball" as something other than a sport where you have to stand up, sure....Reon's mother seems to get angry and says that Turner is not the only doctor in town, as if a rival school put Turner up to this diagnosis. The father tries to bargain with God. He says they had one son who was shot dead and another in jail. Reon was their only hope. So he can't be paralyzed. Understand? "Now, Reon is going to play football," the father says angrily. God comes down and says, "Well, if you define 'play football' as something he could do as an activity in Heaven after he dies, sure...." The mother suddenly turns on LaShonda and yells at her: "What happened girl? How did this happen?" LaShonda recoils. Reon explains that he'd been drinking and asked LaShonda to drive. The mother yells again, asking why LaShonda didn't put a seatbelt on Reon if he was drunk. Turner calms them down. Reon takes center stage and asks if there's a one in a million chance he'll play again. Turner says he doesn't want to take his hope away, but it's not likely. "Like this show getting renewed," Turner adds, "this show could be around for a long time." Well, if you define "long time" as another 40 minutes, well....Reon gives a little speech about making it this far and not giving up. "What the step, Doc?" he asks. Tomorrow is surgery to stabilize the spine. Then it's a long rehabilitation. Turner gets up to leave and we fade to black on Reon's anguished face.

Would some engineer please create a Touched By an Angel Chip (TBAA-Chip) so I don't have to watch Roma Downey's V-Chip commercial anymore?

Morning at the hospital. An Asian doctor with a heavy accent, Dr. Lu, says, comically, "Holy cow. That's one ugly ass boil." The boil in question is resting on the otherwise smooth ass of Ron Harris, Magnificent Bastard. Ron is bent over on an exam chair. "Hot as hell too," the doctor adds, "you could cook a pancake on that sucker!" I could elaborate and joke around here, but I think the scene plays brilliantly as a comedic duet on its own. Let's just enjoy it. The doctor says they'll have to drain it in the OR. "No, no, no, no!" Harris yells, getting up. Luckily, we don't get a patented Bochco Butt Shot here. The doctor says that Harris will be much happier with an anaesthetic in the OR. The doctor takes the thermometer from Harris' mouth. "101, Ron. We could strike oil down there!" Oh goodness, I've got tears rolling down my cheeks. Harris, visibly flustered beneath that suave exterior, says this has to be a very quiet procedure: one male anesthesiologist, two male nurses. That's it. Dr. Lu says he'll make all the arrangements. "Nobody but us ever gonna know it happened." Harris walks out, ironically, to go be a boil on the ass of society.

Dr. Turner walks in to Ed O'Malley's private room where he is eating out of what look like brown dog food bowls. O'Malley wonders aloud how the hospital ever got three stars in the Michelin guide. He asks Turner to close the door so they can talk, then close the curtain. O'Malley still has some red scratches on his visage from when he was attacked by thugs. O'Malley says "Barney" the bodyguard should never have called Turner. He hopes Turner will forget about the cross-dressing (as if that won't be emblazoned in Turner's memory on his deathbed) and now he just wants to be released. Turner says he can't release O'Malley: "I released you once against my better judgment and I won't do it again." Turner says that O'Malley has to see a psychiatrist because he's a danger to himself. Dr. Turner says that the mixture of drugs and alcohol could have killed him. O'Malley says that Turner is making a professional and personal error. And he says it maliciously, with salt poured on for good measure. Turner says he'll just have to live with that. Turner calls over the bodyguard to tell him that O'Malley is to see the psychiatrist. If O'Malley leaves before that, Turner will do nothing to keep the events of the night before from going public. Way to grab him by the pantyhosed cojones, Turner! "I am warning you, Doctor," O'Malley hisses. Then he exhales menacingly. Nuthin' but nose.

Harris's office, which today is known as The Ass Palace. Ron is bent over his desk, looking pained. He calls in Dr. Price. As she enters, he sits down, carefully, finally resting his padded butt on the padded chair and leaning way to the left. He asks about O'Malley, the press and all that, but what he's really thinking about is his wish that his ass were as smooth and molded and unaffected by boils as the one possessed by Dr. Williams. They talk about Reon. "Terrible tragedy, terrible," Ron says distractedly. But what he's thinking is, "That my ass should be affected by a boil when it is otherwise so smooth and round and cool to the touch is the true tragedy in this drama." He dismisses her, but Price says they had a meeting scheduled. "Are you okay, Ron?" she asks. "Yes, yes," he answers, limping over to the other side of his desk. She brings up Nurse Peeler, who needs a raise. Harris get mad, his bald pate glistening with sweat. He says it won't happen this year. "item," he barks. Price says Nurse Peeler also wants to take eight medical students to Palm Springs for a training session. Harris tries to sit down on the edge of a table, then gets up quickly. You know, if there's this much comic gold to be mined, you should spotlight Ron Harris' ass every week. Price again asks if he's okay. He sits down then gets right back up, his ass-boil reaching a volcanic temperature. Harris turns the trip down too and earns a sour look from Price as she exits.