By Omar G
8:55 PM. Monday night. Omar's house.
The doorbell rings. Omar answers it.
Omar: Hi. Can I help you?
Enya: Oh, hello. I was just in the neighborhood. May I come in?
Omar: Who are you?
Enya: I'm Irish New Age pop singer Enya. You know, "Orinco Flow," "Sail Away"?
Omar: [starts to slam door shut]
Enya: Wait! I wanted to watch Third Watch with you! I hear it's really good this week!
Omar: Wha--...Why? Who, with the how?
Enya: I'm a big fan of the show. I'd really like to watch it with you.
Omar: [long silence] Just don't touch me, okay? My cat will attack.
Enya: Deal.
Previously on Why Enya is in My House, I Have No Idea: Bobby's mom informed him that his old teenage flame, Gina, was looking for him. Turns out she needed Bobby to help her with Paulie, her brother and Bobby's best friend. Paulie's a junkie and he needed help. Paulie (Kirk Acevedo from Oz) ended up stealing from Bobby's mom to buy drugs.
The episode begins with the last five minutes from last week's episode. Recycle footage, much? ["Maybe the TW producers originally assembled this as a two-hour episode for sweeps, but NBC wouldn't bump anything to give them the extra hour and they had to pad this one out?" -- Wing Chun] You can check out the last recap for the blow-by-blow, but basically Bobby busts in on Paulie's junkie hole. He confronts him about the theft at his mom's house. Paulie denies it. Bobby grabs the drugs and throws them in the toilet. Paulie, clearly perturbed by the taking of his smack, shoots Bobby in the chest. With a gun. He pulls the gun on Kim before running away. Kim comes to Bobby, trying to revive him, but as her voice fades, it looks like Bobby is slipping away.
Enya: Ohh hoooo, Boooooobbbeeeee...
Omar: Okay, now, you're gonna have to shut it. Right now. Do you always carry a harp around with you?
Enya: I'll put it away.
The episode begins more properly with a blackout. We light up on Bobby, in his paramedic's uniform, calling out to the darkness. "Hello? Is anybody there?" Enya starts to answer, but I give her a dirty look first. We hear warped voices -- Doc and Kim, it sounds like -- reading off Bobby's stats. Bobby is suddenly standing in a boxing ring, lit in tones of sepia. He calls out that he needs to go and that they need him "up there." Is he in hell already? We tried to warn you about sleeping with Kim, Bobby. "I'm a paramedic!" he cries. Then, we get a close up of his face tilting and turning into red flashing lights. Oh, hello, Satan, my old friend.
We cut to an overhead view of Bobby, his chest looking like a blood pond, his eyes wide open, being wheeled on a stretcher through the hospital. Doc, Carlos, and Kim are pushing him in with a bunch of nurses. "Bobby, you stay with me," Kim says, upside down. Bobby is alive enough to look at her wearily and move his eyes around. Doc and Carlos look extremely shaken. Bobby is wheeled into an exam room (we get a recurring shot of a stretcher wheel, like it was a stray caster on a shopping cart) and is transferred from the stretcher. His chest is a hairy, bloody mess. Kim looks around like Little Kim Lost. A nurse exchanges a look with her. Doc exchanges a look with her. Kim has officially opened a Foreign Look Currency Exchange in the ER. Close-up on Bobby's face. He is starting to shake. His eyes are open, and as they say, the lights are on, but no one's home. Flashback to sad music and Young Bobby. Young Bobby is running up some stone stairs outside while Young Paulie is egging him on, calling him from the top. Bobby climbs and climbs, smiling. Back in the ER, Bobby is crashing. He grabs a doctor's hand and clings to it as everybody, including Kim, tells him to let the hand go. Bobby is clinging for dear life. Except the "dear" is the doctor and "life" includes sitting to Kim every day. Perhaps it's best just to give up the ghost. "We got you, we got you, we got you," someone says as Bobby lets go. Carlos is suddenly shown turning around and leaving the room. Kim gets a close-up. She looks completely shattered. Doc watches Carlos leave and looks sad, running a sleeve past his nose. A chest tube is inserted into Bobby's chest. Doc comes over to Kim and leads her out. She walks away with him, dazed. She keeps looking back over her shoulder. One more close-up on Bobby's face. His eyes are closed. His body is convulsing.
Cut to opening credits. Enya sits back, wiping tears from her eyes. She's humming something, and this time I let her. Besides, it's time to go get a beer from the fridge.
Omar: Hey, uh, Enya, is it? Want something to drink?
Enya: Perhaps a chateau bordeax with some brie?
Omar: Budweiser it is.
Back from commercial, Kim is now watching through the glass. The doctor says there's major vessel damage and they'll have to take Bobby to the OR. The nurse says he's "Bradying down." Does that mean he's wearing bellbottoms and living with two brothers and three sisters? Wing, I've never recapped ER; what on Earth is she talking about? ["Pfft. Like I know. I usually gloss over all that medical junk." -- Wing Chun] Carlos is watching too, looking intense. Doc is watching, head cocked, looking like a zombie. "Mmmm, brains," he muses. As we get a shot of Bobby's face, oxygen gear on him, he suddenly flashes back to his childhood running-up-stairs days. We instantly flash back to the present as the doctor tries to shock him back to life. "Clear!" he announces. Kim closes her eyes and looks away. The doctor whips out the thoracotomy tray. Kim flatly says that they're going to open his chest. "Come on, you don't wanna see this," Zombie Doc tells her. Kim doesn't budge. The doctor is doing chest compressions on Bobby and orders the rib spreader. Damn, damn, damn. Enya looks away, humming something reassuring to herself under her breath. The doctor pulls out a wicked tube and shoves it into a huge, flat, gaping hole in Bobby's side. It's like it's a pita and the doctor is trying to stuff it with feta cheese and grilled chicken. We pull back for a wide angle of the entire room. A doctor gets up and straddles Bobby on the table (wait a minute, that's no doctor! Hee hee) as the gang watches. Bobby is carted out of there as Kim, Doc, and Carlos stand, stunned. What follows is a truly magnificent shot of the cleared-out exam room. Blood on the floor. Shoes, scrubs. A woman comes in with a mop and starts cleaning it out. Kim, Carlos, and Zombie Doc watch as the woman runs a mop across a blood puddle.
We pan across an operating room that looks to be surrounded by total darkness. Okay, am I the only one who can see some bad in that? Hey, Ed Bernero wrote this episode! What's up, Ed? We pan over Bobby and around to above his head. Two huge tubes that look like they're from The Matrix are putting airy goodness into his mouth. We go into The Mind of Bobby. Young Bobby and Young Paulie are playing around in autumn. Young Paulie shoves Young Bobby and then runs off laughing.
We cut to nighttime as Adult Paulie is running. He is breathing hard, clearly struggling. He pulls the gun he shot Bobby with out of his pocket. He reaches the edge of a rocky embankment and pitches the gun into the water. Then he runs back with the New York skyline in the background.
Cut to a shot of the skanky, bloody bathroom where Bobby was shot. Sully and Ty are on the scene, along with a lady investigator with whom I'm not familiar. Sully says he didn't know Bobby well. Ty says he once puked in Bobby's car. Sully tells the investigator that the guy who shot Bobby is probably looking to score some drugs. Wait, I thought Paulie grabbed the drugs out of the toilet (they were sealed) and made off with them. Why would he need more right now? Sigh...Continuity, thy name ain't Third Watch. Suddenly, Gina appears, struggling with some cops standing guard. She tells them it's her brother's apartment and tries to get through. "What'd he do now?" she asks. She sees the blood and calls after him. Gina tells everybody that her brother wouldn't hurt anyone. Sully gives her the news about how he shot a paramedic. "Bobby?" she asks. Sully is curious about how she knows Bobby. Gina tells Sully that she was just bringing some food over because her brother's sick. "No, he's a junkie," Sully says roughly. Gina gets more explanation and tells them that it's her fault. She starts crying.
At the hospital, Bobby's mom is rushing in. She asks for her son, "Roberto." She's told he's upstairs, fourth floor. She rushes over to the elevators.
Flash to Bobby sitting in one corner of a boxing ring. Another man is at the opposite end. The man tells Bobby he looks good. "Go to hell," Bobby tells him. Aren't they already there? The man says Bobby looks like his mother. "Don't talk about her," Bobby warns the man. The man says that Bobby's mother was a beautiful woman. "Is a beautiful woman." Then Bobby warns the man -- a middle-aged-looking black man -- not to talk about his mother.
Flash back to the hospital and the woman in question. Kim greets the tiny woman and hugs her. She asks Kim if Bobby's going to be all right. Kim nods, not very convincingly. She asks what happened. Kim tells her that Paulie shot Bobby. "Ay, dios mio," Mama Caffey says, sitting down heavily. Carlos and Doc look on.
Yokas and Bosco are heading up some stairs in a dingy apartment building. Yokas asks how many crack houses they plan to hit. "All of 'em," Bosco answers, all Terminator-like. Bosco kicks a door in and waves his gun around, telling people not to move. Don't worry -- everybody's too drugged out to move. He calls them "fags," because he's been listening to Eminem, and finds some drugs lying around. "Please man, I need that," one guys says. Bosco tells the guy they're looking for someone and need help as Yokas plays along.
Cut to Paulie on the street in a hooded sweatshirt. A guy in a suit taking out the garbage spots him. "What are you looking at?" Paulie asks the guy, menacingly. Innocent Business Man goes back inside. Paulie goes to the door of a guy who doesn't seem to want to be disturbed. Paulie asks him for some drugs. "You come to my house?" the pimp-looking tough guy tells him. Paulie says he just needs some replacement stuff until his current stash dries. Ahhh. I see, now. The guy pulls out a gun and aims it at Paulie's chest. "You havin' trouble hearing me?" he asks. Paulie apologizes and leaves. "Never come to my house again," the guy -- who looks like a strung-out Michael Douglas -- tells him. "You know if the Greeks are out?" Paulie asks. Drug Man closes the door.
We come back to Bobby, lying on the table. We blur out to commercial.
Enya: I think --
Omar: Shut up, Enya.
Dream Bobby in the boxing ring. He's pacing. The man asks about Bobby's last name, Caffey. Bobby says that his mother remarried when he was sixteen. To an English man. He died because the paramedics took twenty-five minutes to get there because they came with police backup. "Why did you take his name?" the man asks. "Because it wasn't yours," Bobby answers. Dis.
At the hospital, Bobby's mom is telling Kim that he's a good boy. She says she always thought Bobby's brother Matty would end up in a situation like this, not Bobby. "Is it bad that it's taking so long?" she asks. Kim says no. Mama asks if there's a chapel and if there are candles. Kim says she'll come find her if anything happens. Kim still looks lost.
At the station, Alex is staring at the phone. She picks it up and puts it back down. "Who's that?" Jimmy asks. Alex says she's just making sure it's working. Lame. Alex is putting up that tough-girl front again with Jimmy. It's annoying as all-get-out. Jimmy suggests maybe she should ask if she can leave and go to the hospital. "I'm fine," she says, answering she'd just go crazy there, too. "Come on, Bobby," she says to the phone.
In the boxing ring, Bobby asks if Papa Was a Rolling Stone is there to apologize. "I'm not sorry," Papa says. "I had to be happy. I had to live." Bobby accuses him of abandoning them. "I just wanted a life of my own," Papa says. How dumb is that? Papa asks whether Bobby ever fought after that day. Flash to Young Bobby training with Papa.
Cut to Bosco and Yokas arriving at "Dollar Bill"'s house. It's the neighborhood where Paulie was looking for drugs earlier. "Get away from my door!" yells the guy inside. Yokas says they heard he had a visitor. "I'm gonna kill that little son of a bitch," Dollar Bill laughs. He says that Paulie is looking for the Greeks. Bosco gives the guy bad news: Narcotics plans to sweep his place in the morning. The guy says he keeps no drugs at home. But still. It sucks.
The thing we see is Paulie approaching a bunch of druggies who look like extras from a Heart video. He asks everybody for drugs, and they shun him, like Heart would shun all those extras. They walk away and he gets nothing. Except maybe a worthless autograph from one of the Wilson sisters. He shuffles off.
Hospital. Kim is standing around when Gina bursts out of the elevator asking if Bobby's all right. "The hell are you doing here?" Kim asks her. "You don't belong here." Gina asks again about Bobby. Kim gives her a long look, gives another look to Ty and Sully, who are standing nearby, and walks off. Kim is in Silent But Deadly mode.
Doc and Carlos are giving blood. Doc says the boss said they can stay as long as they want to. Carlos says he needs to go get coffee. Huh?
In the hallway, a huge ass is skirting the top of the screen. Turns out it's Sully, approaching Kim, who is sitting alone. Sully sits to her. It's Kim's big acting scene, but she doesn't say much. Sully says that Bobby always seemed like a nice guy who always helped people. Kim agrees. "He's a nice guy," she says, as if scorning him. "If he dies on that table, what did being a nice guy get him?" Probably a better show. D'oh, did I say that out loud? Kim walks away, probably to bitch at her agent for not ensuring she'd get more juicy scenes in this episode.
Young Bobby's boxing match. Sad, tinkly music plays. Bobby's dad is there and Bobby gets the snuff beat out of him. "Can't let him beat you," Dad's voice keeps saying. Bobby, of course, hits the mat like a sack of wet Bobby. His mouthpiece flies out. Dad puts his head down. We hear the sound of Adult Bobby flatlining.
Bobby on the operating table. His heart is exposed. We pan to the heart monitor. Flat. Commercials approaching.
Enya: Oooohhhh....Oooh, Caaaaaffeeeeeeey.
Omar: We're not sure he's dead yet.
Enya: Oh. Sorry.
Yokas at a public phone. She hangs up and tells Bosco that there's still no word. "It's gonna be morning soon," she says. "Let's go," Bosco says. "Where?" Yokas asks. "It's New York," Bosco says. "There's always another spot."
Doc approaches Carlos in the hospital kitchen. Doc says he looked for Carlos at the coffee machines. "You need money for those." Doc puts money in the hospital collection tin. Cheap-ass Carlos. "I was gonna do that," Carlos says, "I meant change." Yeah, change this, ya cheap ass. "Any word?" he asks. "It'll be a while," Doc says, "he's strong." "He's got a hole in his heart," Carlos says, flatly. "Remember when Jerry got shot?" Carlos asks. Hey, how about remember when Doc got shot? Like, just a few short weeks ago? And there was no recovery period? Hey, Ed Bernero. Do you remember that? Because we all do, and this totally bites. Doc shouldn't even be able to stand. Carlos talks about how everybody pulled together as a family when Jerry got shot, but I've tuned it out because I'm just appalled at how quickly everybody forgot Doc getting shot. Even, it seems, Doc himself. So, blah blah blah, Carlos lonely tragi-cakes. Carlos feels envious that he's not part of the "family" after a year. Hasn't he been around longer than a year? Oh, I forgot. We're in a No-Logic Zone.
Paulie in daylight is still trying to score heroin. People are still avoiding him. One guy tells him, "You hands-off, baby. Cops been hasslin' us all night." He advises Paulie to turn himself in. "Bounce, baby, bounce," the guy tells him when Paulie persists. Just as he walks off, the drug dealer flags down Yokas and Bosco in their squad car and points Paulie out. Chase begins.
At the hospital, Sully and Ty are questioning Gina. She says that Paulie might be in Franklin Park because he used to run there when he was a kid. Nobody laughs at this idea at all. (Except me.) On the radio, they hear about the pursuit. Gina stops Sully to tell him not to hurt Paulie. "He's sick," she says sadly. This time, Sully doesn't yell at her. Kim gives her a dirty look. "I'm so sorry," Gina moans. She tells Kim how sweet Paulie was and how he protected his family. "I love Bobby. I've always loved Bobby," Gina says, as she starts to cry some more. Kim says nothing.
Hot pursuit. Sully and Ty get the word from Bosco and Yokas. They give chase, too, toward the park.
In the chapel, Kim joins Bobby's mom, who is praying. Still no word on Bobby. A nurse comes in and says the doctor is ready to see them.
Flash to Young Bobby on the mat. Adult Bobby tries to explain why he lost the bout. "You tried the best you could," Papa tells him. "So why did you leave?" Bobby asks. The morning, apparently, his dad left. Papa backpedals and says it had nothing to do with him. "Nobody knew," Bobby says, "except Paulie."
Paulie the Fugitive is being chased now, but he doesn't know it. He's in an alley and Bosco and Yokas' squad car closes in.
Outside shot of Carlos. Doc approaches. Carlos knows it's selfish to be thinking of himself, but damn! He's Carlos! It would be like a fish breathing air not to be. Doc says that the doctor is going to deliver some news and the mother wants them there. "Us?" Carlos asks. "His family," Doc tells him.
Dramatic chase sequence. Paulie is running up stairs, calling Bobby's name. He's holding his stomach in pain. Bosco chases in slow motion. (Hey, Bosco's growing his hair out.) Paulie sees the spirit of Young Bobby at the top of the cement stairs. He calls out to Bobby again as he's tackled by Bosco. "I'm sorry!" he wails, as spittle runs out of his mouth. "A little late for that," Bosco mutters as he cuffs the junkie. "Cuffs the junkie," by the way, should be a euphemism for something. "Bobby! Bobby!" Paulie cries out, struggling on the ground. Man, Kirk Acevedo is da bomb. He totally nails this scene.
In the boxing ring, Adult Bobby is crying. "I'm sorry I lost," he says. Papa Was a Rolling Stone puts a hand on his shoulder. Papa says he carried a picture of Bobby wherever he went. He says that Bobby was the only good thing he ever did. "I missed you so much," says Bobby. "It wasn't you," Papa tells him. "You hear me? It wasn't you." They're both on the verge of tears. I'd be on the verge of tears, but I'm not giving Enya the satisfaction. They hug.
Flash to the hallway where Mama is going to get the news. The doctor approaches in slow motion, his sneakers slamming on the floor. He says something, but we don't hear any dialogue. This is the second brilliant sequence in the episode (the first being the empty exam room scene). Strangely, the closed captioning reveals the silent dialogue, which is the doctor telling Bobby's mom that Bobby's heart arrested several times and his brain was without oxygen for ten minutes. He's on life support, but it's doing no good. She asks how long he has to stay on that until he wakes up. She asks again when he's going to wake up. Kim takes her aside to explain what's going on. Bobby's mother breaks down, falls on the floor, and wails silently. Carlos approaches the doctor and makes some hand gestures, looking angry. The doctor walks off, apparently disgusted with Carlos. Kim comforts Mama. We pull back slowly, inexorably down the hall from the scene. It's a beautiful, sad shot.
Commercials. I don't know how it happened, but Enya and I are on the futon, hugging and crying softly on each other's shoulders. "En," I whisper, "don't worry. We're gonna get through this." "Aye," she answers. Brave girl, that one.
Boxing ring. Bobby and Papa are standing in a corner, chatting. Bobby complains that he didn't get to do all the things he wanted to do. Papa says he helped people and saved lives. "I don't have kids," Bobby says. Oh, it's all about you, isn't it, Death Boy? Papa says that Bobby already raised a family -- his family. Negligent bastard. Bobby asks if they'll be okay. Papa says that with Bobby as their father (cough, cough), why wouldn't they? "You'll be with me?" Bobby asks. Papa asks if that's what Bobby wants. "I'd like that very much," he answers. Scene whites out.
Bobby is in bed, dead. A priest is over him giving Last Rites. Kim is outside the door in profile, looking like Zombie Doc. Jimmy suddenly appears, mentally calculating how he can turn this into a situation where he gets laid. "Kim?" he asks. She doesn't answer. He says he'll take Joey and have a talk with him. "I'm sorry, Kim," he says. "Me too," she says, quietly, never looking at him.
Ambulance. Carlos is scrubbing the bloody floor. He says it's dry and they should have cleaned it before it dried out, making it hard to clean. "Carlos," Doc begins, clearly sensing the psychosis here. Carlos scrubs. "We got him here -- that's the most important thing, right?" Doc offers coffee, but Carlos has had too much. Carlos says he was right earlier: Not many people make it when their chests are cracked open. Doc tries to draw him out. Carlos keeps scrubbing, and mentions his ability for determining when people won't survive. "It's not gonna come up," he says finally. Doc stops him: "Carlos. We'll clean it up later." Carlos snaps out of his little macabre fugue and says, "Uh? Oh. Okay. Okay." Out, out damn spot, and all that. Get thee to a mental ward, Carlos. Doc looks pretty concerned. You know, Carlos finally shows a human side. Who knew?
At the police station, Paulie is being taken in for shooting his best friend. I think you lose the "Best" designation once they die from a wound you inflicted. Spitting up, Paulie asks if Bobby is okay. "No, he's not," Bosco answers as he closes the cell.
Outside the hospital, Kim puts Mama Caffey in a car. She tells the woman that she'll take care of things there. Mama thanks Kim. They do a window hand-connect before she is driven off. Kim starts walking back toward the hospital. She's stopped by her mother, who just drove up. Kim, rodent mouth hanging open, stands a few feet from her, looking side to side, very dazed. "Bobby's gone, Mom," she finally says. Here the floodgates begin. Kim starts to cry, going to her mom and hugging hard. Kim wails. I mean, really, really wails. Big, ugly, choking sobs. Not pretty, ladylike cries. These are Sue From Survivor ugly. Kim moans. She sobs. She breaks down on the street.
Enya:This is from my new album. It's called "Only Time."
Omar: Huh? Hey! What are you doing?
Enya: "Who can say where the road goes / where the day flows / only time"
Omar: No! Foul temptress! I trusted you! I let you in my house! And this is how you repay me? Evil, evil woman! I curse thee! I cast you...to hell, Enya! You suck!
Enya: "And who can say if your love grows / as your heart chose / only time."
Omar: Oh dear lord. Kill me. Kill her. Kill something. I can't do this. Shut her Gaelic trap!
This...song, I guess you could call it, plays over a montage of the cast members. Alex, Jimmy, Carlos, Doc, everybody, caught very still as each of them looks pensive. Doc is caught in the ambulance rear-view mirror. To say the song is schmaltzy in this context is to give the word "schmaltz" an unfair black eye from an abusive husband. Gina is shown in the hospital crying. Yokas, Sully, Bosco, and Ty are changing in the locker room. Ty and Sully exchange a look as Sully gets dressed to leave. Bosco and Yokas exchange a sad, meaningful, long look.
Kim lights a candle. She doesn't look sad or shocked anymore. She is serene because she's doing what she does best: playing with fire. As the Enya "song" (complete with chorus) continues, Kim carries the candle through the hospital, which I'm pretty sure with all the oxygen around is a big no-no. A weird clipping camera effect (or perhaps my nausea is causing it) follows her down the hall. Kim goes outside. She blows out the candle and watches the smoke rise into the sky. The camera cranes up, signifying Bobby's spirit, I guess. The camera continues to pan up as people walk by Kim on the street. I'm wondering if they're going to pull out to a view of the entire Earth and then show some goofy Third Rock From the Sun animation. The camera whites out (or rather, burns out) on the scene.
With the song still playing (Enya, SHUT. UP!) Young Bobby is shown carrying his boxing gear, walking down the street, hand-in-hand with his wayward dad. The stroboscopic camera effect is still in, um, effect, I guess. The walk, walk, walk. The song crescendos. We fade to white.
Enya: Aye. That was a good one. Poor Bobby.
Omar: Get. Your Gaelic ass. Out of my house.
Enya: But I was only --
Omar: NOW! And take your harp with you! And your backup singers!
Backup singers: Awwww...
Omar: Shut up! Go! Gone! Went!
Enya: Trevor. Courtney. Colin. Maeve. Let's go.
Omar: You're lucky I didn't sic my cat on you.
And so ends my visit from Enya. Oh, and Bobby Cannavale on Third Watch.Well, it's been...interesting. Good lucky, Bobby. We'll miss you. Although we would have missed you more had you had more character development. But, ah well. Like losing your dad, it wasn't your fault. Be well. (In hell. Or wherever.)