Turk and JD are herding old people to their new rooms, since the geriatric wing is being remodeled. Really? A geriatric wing? I don't exactly expect true-to-life medicine from this show, but I've never seen a hospital with an entire wing just for oldsters. Anyway, Turk wishes for a way to move things along, and JD fantasizes about a chain of old people boogeying down the hallway to "Love Train".
Kelso compliments Ted on his ugly plaid jacket, rubbing his hands all over it. Kelso doesn't really like it; the bathroom was just out of paper towels. JD and Turk deliver the oldsters to their new rooms, and the oldsters immediately sneak out and start roaming the halls. I probably won't mention it again, but just assume that every scene features some old people wandering around.
Since Elliott told the board Kelso's real age, now he's being forced to retire. Elliott whines that this is worse than when the female staffers were told they weren't allowed to wear open-toed shoes. Kelso's standing there, so she modifies that it's way, way worse. Kelso says he just wanted to end his career on his own terms. Carla thinks they need to help Kelso keep his job, and makes JD and Turk promise to help.
But first, JD and Turk need to play a game called "Poke the Bear." Cox has a patient he's been treating for years, and he can't figure out the problem. That patient has just returned. So JD and Turk stand near Cox and loudly discuss how they feel like jackasses when they can't figure out what's wrong with a patient. Cox turns and glares at them, about to attack, and JD manages to stop the attack at the last minute. JD and Turk celebrate with a hug, and JD comments, "You smell like an athlete!" Ted watches sadly, and says that he needs a black friend too. Turk agrees that it would make him cooler. JD wonders why Ted is so sad, since you'd think he'd be psyched that Kelso is being forced out. Turns out Ted didn't know, so he celebrates by running around the hospital naked, screaming, "I'm free!" He ends up getting hit by Janitor's van. It's gross. It involves a mouthful of blood and a squishing sound. Enough said.
Kelso sits on a bench outside the hospital, and calls an intern over to talk to him. Or orders an intern over to talk to him. The intern is grossed out by the puddle of Ted's blood nearby. Me too, intern. Me too. Anyway, Kelso starts reminiscing about his time at the hospital.
But instead of hearing that, we get to see Elliott putting twenty-three stitches in Ted's tongue. Carla warns Ted that he's not allowed to talk. Elliott muses that Kelso is like her grandfather: "Pervy, demeaning, and an eensy bit racist, but you crave his love anyway, because he smells like peppermint." Carla thinks everyone thee respects Kelso. Ted tries to disagree, but he's not allowed to talk.
Carla and Elliott go to talk to Jordan, since she's a board member. Jordan doesn't care, but she advises them to show up at the board meeting tonight with a crowd and the board will cave. Janitor agrees to help, because he thinks that he's the top dog. Carla asks if he's ever heard of delusions of grandeur and he responds, "I believe I coined that term. Look, I'm a simple, unassuming janitor who can control people's actions with his mind." Janitor tries to prove his powers unsuccessfully in front of Carla, but he does get an old lady to fall when he's alone.
Cox's patient hands him a urine sample. Cox goes back to the giant stack of files he has on the patient, which he's bundled with a bungee cord. He hands one end to JD, and then walks away, releasing the cord and snapping JD in the face. JD offers to help with the patient. Cox snarks that he needs the help because he wants time to read US Weekly and find out which celebrity is bringing back the fedora: "It's Johnny Depp by the way." JD is annoyed that Turk isn't focusing on the conversation at hand, which means that JD bears the brunt of all of Cox's insults. Cox tosses JD the urine sample and tells him to take it to the lab.
Outside, Turk puts on a fedora. Dude, no one looks good in a fedora. Unless you're in 1948.
Meanwhile, Kelso is still reminiscing about his days as an intern. It involves a creepy story about cadavers and murderous interns. The intern is concerned about the oldsters wandering about the parking lot, but Kelso isn't worried.
Elliott walks up and calls Cox "Slick" while asking him to accompany them to the board meeting. Carla says that Elliott thinks calling a guy Slick will get him to agree to anything, and Elliott adds that it also works on lesbians. Cox says that he hates Kelso and wishes he would die, so he's not interested in their plan. JD walks by and Cox asks him about the urine test (while calling him Hermione). JD doesn't want to admit that he misplaced the sample. Cox hooks his bungee cord to Turk's leg, but when he lets go, it snaps JD. See what they did there? How JD was complaining that he always takes the brunt of the insults?
Kelso reminisces about the first patient he killed -- a nineteen-year-old girl. Well, this is cheery. She had an undetected ectopic pregnancy and Kelso didn't catch it, so she bled to death. He adds that sometimes he looks at the hospital and sees the faces of all the patients he's lost. He pauses meaningfully and then scares the intern, chuckles, and admits that he does see their faces.
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Carla and Elliott decide that they need to round up support staff as well as medical staff. They ask Ted who the leader of the support staff is, and he points to Janitor, who doesn't want to do it, since they dissed him earlier. But Elliott pleads, and he can't say no. The problem is, they can't get anyone else to join their cause.
JD and Turk track down the urine sample - JD left it on the ledge outside. And it's turned purple. Kelso sees them and spins a tale of two stupid dogs he used to have. The intern thinks he needs to get to work, since his shift started two hours ago. Kelso ignores him and says that so much of medicine just comes down to dumb luck. That's...comforting?
JD Googles purple pee and comes up with a diagnosis of "intermittent porphyria." Throughout the rest of the episode, I'm annoyed because they pronounce porphyria wrong. It's supposed to be por-FEAR-ee-ah and they keep saying it por-fur-EE-ah. And the only reason I know that is because I took a class in college called "Victorian Poetry" (useful!) and we read Robert Browning's poem, "Porphyria's Lover" which is about a dude who strangles his girlfriend (cheery, those Victorians!) and we had this whole class discussion about the disease porphyria and how it's thought to be the origins of the vampire myths since the people affected were sensitive to light and often pale and sweating. Anyway, look it up online if you're interested, but that class was probably fifteen years ago and I still remember it, which is more than I can say for most of what I learned in college, so it's weird that it came up on an episode of a show I weecap, no? Maybe it's just me. It's not common, and JD has diagnosed it.
Carla and Elliott can't figure out why no one wants to save Kelso's job. Janitor explains that everyone knows Cox wants Kelso's job, and everyone is scared of Cox, so they don't want to cross him by trying to keep Kelso. Outside, Kelso muses that in the hospital, once the ball starts rolling, there's not much you can do to stop it.
Kelso is still bitching about how patients don't care, and medical skills don't matter. Meanwhile, Elliott and Carla head to the cafeteria to ask Cox to help them with Kelso's fate again. Cox...wait, you guess it. You ready? Okay, here it is. He says no and insults Elliott. Then he sits down with Turk and JD, who are beatboxing. They gleefully inform Cox about his patient's diagnosis. And pronounce it wrong.
Kelso is up to the year when he was named Chief of Medicine, and how he soon realized that it meant making unpopular decisions and earning the enmity of his employees. Cox comes out to tell Kelso about the porphyria diagnosis. He says it wrong too. Cox wants to fudge the insurance so they can keep the patient in the hospital longer and teach him how to manage his disease. Shouldn't they be sending him to a specialist or something? Is that the hospital's job? Anyway, Cox points out that Kelso's heart is made up of "muffin bits, the souls of little babies, and the Denture Grip [he] swallows every time [he] sucks his teeth to get out the muffin bits and baby souls stuck in there" but wonders why Kelso still cares. Kelso says he's still Chief, and he'll only agree if Cox will publish a paper about it. Cox agrees, and Kelso muses that he knows Cox won't publish a paper.
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Carla, Elliott, JD, Turk, and Jordan convene to discuss how to get Cox on their side. Jordan says that Cox is difficult to convince, unlike Turk, who would probably cave if Carla showed him her boobs. Carla says she only has to show one, and Turk agrees that the left one looks like a sea lion's face. Really? Because that's kind of disturbing. And not that flattering to Carla. JD thinks he might have some traction.
JD tells Cox how he diagnosed the porphyria patient. Cox says that he still won't change his mind about Kelso, so JD offers to show him a sketch of Carla's boob. Cox notes disgustedly that he's drawn an otter.
Kelso tells the intern that it was a shock when the board told him that he had to leave. Kelso finally thinks to ask the intern's name, and it's Boon. So then Kelso spends a few minutes making fun of the name before dismissing him. Boon wonders if his twenty years there will be a nightmare, but Kelso says he'll love it, and the music is all sensitive, so it's kind of sad.
Cox tells his patient about his porphyria diagnosis, and that there's no cure. The patient is actually happy, because now he knows what he's dealing with. JD voiceovers that Cox realized that the enemy you know is better than the enemy you don't.
Jordan, Carla, Elliott, Turk, and Janitor arrive for the board meeting. JD runs up and says there are more people coming. Cue "Love Train"! Cox and some of his fellow doctors walk up and JD is sad that they didn't make a more dramatic entrance.
Kelso walks into the hospital and is greeted by the board and all of the people who attended the meeting. They ask him to stay on. Kelso thanks Elliott and Carla for saving his job, since he just wanted to end things on his own terms. And his own terms are that he's going to tell the head of the board to shove it up his ass. Kelso snatches his portrait off the wall, and sincerely thanks Ted for everything before dancing out the door. Elliott wonders if Kelso even cared about the hospital, and Boon the Intern says that he did. Outside, Kelso takes one last look before driving off into the sunset. Wow, this show is going to be weird without Kelso.
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