By Omar G
Everyone back after that week off? Good. Guess what? Doc has a dark, dark secret. I mean, dark, man. Like if this secret were to see the light of day, it would suck all available light sources within a six-mile radius. This dark secret, so dark, so profoundly without pigmentation and bright hues, is just...okay, sorry, sorry. I'm getting way ahead of myself. But, damn Doc, how did you go so long living with this terrible, black-as-a-black-hole secret for so long? How did you cover up the hole in your soul? Doc, so angelic, so wholesome, so...All right, I went and did it again. But, wow. Doc, you are a man of mystery and your dark secret only makes you that much more compelling and mysterious. Sort of.
Previously on Doc-based episodes of Third Watch: Doc broke a bunch of rules to help a gang member. He got into big trouble. Doc had words with Ty about being black and not being outraged on all the injustices around them. (Ty, for the record, said he didn't want to be lectured.) Doc and his main squeeze Dr. Morales got stopped by the police and then Doc got lectured by Morales about his savior-wannabe tendencies. He yelled back.
The episode opens with Doc in a yellow karate outfit on loan from the set of Kung Fu. He is looking all serene, very Tai Chi, as the words "il jang" spring up by way of introducing the segment. "Il jang" must mean "cheap set," because this looks like a monstrously fake dojo. "Heaven" then appears, by way of translation. Man, if this is Heaven, you need to book my ass to Hell and make it one-way. Doc starts doing these lame poses and punches as woodwind and drum machine combine to make a messy, psuedo-crap piece of music that could best be described as "Casio Mysticism." Doc punches. He kicks. He poses. For a minute, I think he's playing a Sega arcade dancing game. He brings his fists to the center...lowers them...and releases. Oh, I know what this is. He's performing Ti-Cheeze.
thing, Doc is back in the real world where it really is air that he is breathing. Going on the theme of Heaven and Hell, Doc is transported from his heavenly martial arts scene to being stuck in the ambulance with Carlos ("my other brain is a Pinto") the paramedic. Carlos has just spilled coffee all over himself and admonishes Doc to slow down. "We're on a Code 3 run," Doc explains. Carlos is mad because he spilled coffee on his notes for genetics class. Doc expresses skepticism that learning about fruit flies can make you a better doctor. Yeah, screw all that biology, chemistry, anatomy, and genetics junk, Carlos. Doctors only need to know how to go, "Mmm hmmmm..." and write unintelligibly. They arrive at a scene where the fire trucks have already arrived. Carlos refers to them as "The Bucket Boys," and Doc bitches that the firefighters arrived first to beef up their activity reports. This is all. Very. Fascinating. Yawn.
Doc gets out of the ambulance and is greeted by Alex Taylor, she of the former sexual-harassment history and now Bobby's lawsuit-waiting-to-happen. Jimmy, he of the big pecs, big grin and cheating penis, is also there. Alex explains that they were in the neighborhood on a false alarm. Doc brushes them away and says he and "WonderBrainBoy" Carlos can take it from here. In fact, Doc is pretty flippant about it.
Going up the stairs, Doc bitches even more that the reason The Bucket Boys arrive first is so they can say they're first on the scene and beef up their budgets to get more expensive toys. Doc knocks on a door where people inside are arguing in Spanish. He goes on about how the firefighters have five times the budget that EMS does. You know, first he goes on and on about how much real estate agents make and now he's going on about firefighter budgets. Why don't you just quit your job and become an accountant already, Doc? Carlos counters by saying that if he's in a fire, he wants the biggest, baddest toys his tax money can buy. Inside, the arguing is growing more heated. Doc gets fed up and yells "immigration!" in Spanish (trust me: It doesn't sound all that different). The fighting escalates even more and suddenly we're outside and a guy is thrown or jumped out of a window where he flops onto a canopy and then onto the street below. He lands on some Christmas trees. Jimmy calls Doc on the radio and says that "some guy just jumped out of the window."
At the hospital, this non-plot is summed up by Carlos saying, "How was I supposed to know the guy was going to jump?" He asks Doc to grab some Christmas cookies from the nurses' stash. A nurse at the desk asks Doc if Carlos has been stealing their cookies. This is about as interesting as watching paint dry on the wall of an insurance convention that's in recess due to a bout of mass narcolepsy. Come on, people, let's pick up the pace! Yokas makes a brief, but spectacular appearance to liven up the episode by bitching about -- what else? -- Bosco, who is chatting up a sports agent they arrested. She walks off, and my last hope that this might be a great episode is shot to hell. The nurse threatens Doc, saying she'll cut off Carlos's hand and feed it to the tropical fish if he steals any more cookies. The Third Watch writers were really on to something when they came up with the "stolen-cookie subplot." That's Emmy material, guys.
Doc is walking down the street and he is stopped by a woman who will spend the rest of the episode wearing no makeup, but it's okay because she's super actress Khandi Alexander (Newsradio, The Corner) and she doesn't need it. "Monte?" She calls after him. "Monte Parker?" Hee hee. Doc is "Monte." He recognizes her as a woman named Beverly. She says she's around the hospital because her father has colon cancer. That's funny because I get an assy itch whenever one of these single-character episodes focuses on Doc. She's been living in Detroit but is back in town to help out. "So you're a paramedic?" she asks. He says he has been for fifteen years. "I've been meaning to call," Beverly says. For, what, fifteen years? She asks if she can call him now. Doc says he'll call her. Oh, the brush-off. Yeah. You go, Doc. Beat those women back with a stick. Doc walks off right into the arms of stupidity as Carlos asks about the woman. "Woman I knew back in high school," Doc says. Carlos asks -- and these quote marks mean I'm quoting here -- "Did you get some of that back in the day?" Sigh...I want so desperately for Carlos to demonstrate that he has half a brain. But, alas...
Opening credits. Amy Carlson has been added on, I see. Good for her.
Based on those Radio Shack commercials, I maintain that Teri Hatcher is shriveling before our very eyes.
Another Ti-Cheeze sequence. "Yoot jang" means "water." Or rather, "Go get a glass of water from the fridge while this dumb sequence is going on. Doc yells this time. "Eeyuh!" I completely fail to get goosebumps. Fists. Center. Release. Yack.
In the ambulance, Carlos is continuing to question Doc about Beverly. He asks if there's a Little Doc running around. Doc implies that there isn't, and says that he hasn't seen Beverly since the two of them graduated from high school. Carlos starts babbling nonsense about how awkward it can be to run into an old girlfriend because you know what they look like naked. And the boyfriend they have now knows that you know what they know that you know about...you know what? It's not even worth it. To summarize: Shut up, Carlos.
Carlos and Doc arrive at an apartment where smoke is coming out of a stove. A mentally handicapped woman explains that she was trying to cook a turkey, but the fire had gone out and when she lit a match, it went "boom." Okay, first of all, a gas oven? Doc helps the woman, Darla, and makes sure she's okay. Her husband, Charlie, who is also mentally handicapped, announces, "I'm hungry!" Doc asks if anyone comes to help them out. Alex, Warrior Firefighter, horns in on the conversation. Doc tells Darla that he's going to take her to the hospital. Darla, who feels fine, says she hates hospitals and doctors. She argues that she doesn't want to go. Doc tries to entice her by offering Darla and Charlie a ride in the ambulance. Oh, please. Darla says she needs to make Charlie something to eat. Darla starts to yell and Alex butts in on Doc's business saying the woman only has minor burns. Carlos says, "Maybe she should stick to take-out." Alex laughs. Doc gets righteous and says that it isn't funny. He talks to them both outside. "These two people can't take care of themselves," he says. Alex argues. "Don't you have a fire to put out or something?" he retorts. Low blow, Doc. Alex asks Carlos what Doc's problem is and Carlos replies, "That's Monte Parker saving the world one patient at a time."
thing -- Carlos and Doc are walking through a university hall. It's weird to see Carlos in school because, well, he has no class. Thanks, Fat Albert -- I knew that joke would come in handy someday. Doc complains about how young all the students look. Carlos shows Doc his fruit flies. They are sterile or etherized or something. As they're talking, a woman comes up and sweetly says, "Hi Carlos." She's not a bimbo, so Carlos abruptly and rudely holds up a hand and says, "I can't talk right now." She goes away. The last vestige of a soul within Carlos also flits away. "Put my virgins down," Carlos tells Doc, randomly. The instructor walks in, calling Carlos, "the bus driver" and Carlos starts whining to him about needing more time for his project. The teacher is reluctant, but gives in to the sheer power of nagging that is Carlos. Doc takes a call on the radio. Turns out Carlos has bad test scores. Imagine the shift in mindset I'm having over my surprise in absorbing this information.
Outside at night, Carlos, Bobby and Kim are walking together for no reason other than to have an inane conversation about holiday shopping. Bobby and Kim seem to think it's funny that people shop at outlets and that Bobby's mom clips coupons. Hey, I clip coupons! Carlos pipes in that the outlets have good prices on irregular items. Kim makes fun of him. All of a sudden, Carlos and I are united in our hatred of Kim. Doc walks up behind them and Carlos points out that Beverly has just pulled up in her car. He gives Doc the old "Nudge Nudge, Wink Wink" and tells him not to do anything he wouldn't do. What exactly, Carlos, would that be? Setting fire to a school while reading the Bible, maybe?
Beverly suspects, correctly, that Doc was never going to call her. Doc again says he'll call and that he'll look for her number. Liar. Beverly asks if Doc likes being a paramedic. She says that the record producer thing didn't work out, then. Doc wanted to be a record producer? Named Monte Parker? Man, this just keeps getting better and better. Doc apologizes for being rude earlier, to make up for being rude again now. He says it was a shock seeing Beverly again. "You ever think about him?" Beverly asks, mysteriously. Doc says no. Beverly says she thinks about him every day and that she wants to go see his mother and tell her the truth. Now she's just playing the Pronoun Game. "It's been over twenty years," Doc says. "I've got a boy the same age as K.C.," Beverly says. Okay, now him has a name. Beverly goes on, sadly, saying that she's been divorced, drinks too much and can't keep a job. Are you turned on yet, Doc? She looks as if she's about to cry, and says that he, K.C., is in her head. I raise my wine glass to Khandi Alexander's fine acting. Doc, you get the backwash. Doc gets mad suddenly when Beverly asks if he'll come with her. "No," he says simply. "No." And then he walks off, leaving Beverly behind to cry.
I thought maybe I was seeing some sort of Bizarro World representation of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but instead it's just Doc doing more Ti-Cheeze. This time, it's "sa jang," or "thunder," as in "This episode makes my head ache like Thunder." Doc does some exaggerated poses and suddenly looks like Elvis in a yellow jumpsuit. Kick, punch, kick, kick, pose, parry, dodge, thrust. And release.
Middle of the night. The very lovely Dr. Morales rises from bed to find Doc sitting alone in the living room. He can't sleep. "It's three in the morning, babe," she says. Outside, it's started to snow. Do you think Doc cares? He's too busy Ti-Cheezeing his inner demons. Morales asks if Doc is okay. He says there's stuff going on at work. He doesn't want to talk about it. Morales kisses him on the shoulder, then hugs him.
On a city street, Doc is standing around, looking like the world's mopiest stalker. He is staking out a building across the street. An elderly woman steps outside and Doc finds some stairs to a lower level where he can hide. He rattles a trashcan accidentally as the woman walks by. A man emerges from a door nearby and asks Doc, "Can I help you?" You see, Doc? Stalkers never prosper. "Wrong place," Doc mutters, and walks back up to the street level.
At the station, Alex tells Doc that Carlos called in sick. Kim asks Alex if she likes a sweater she picked up for her mother from a catalog. Kim says it's guaranteed delivery if you order before Dec. 23. Yeah, great, we get it. Everybody has to do holiday shopping. Bobby makes a brief appearance, asking Alex if they're still on for Saturday. She says yes while Kim gives them a funny look. Yes, fine, we give up, Kim. You can have every man in the world. We're all yours. Do with us what you will. Just stop with the goofy looks already. They receive a call and Alex comments, "Drunk bellyache." Doc snaps, "If you don't want to work EMS, then don't." Hey, I thought Alex and Doc were friends from way back in the day. Alex smiles and says that today's run should be fun.
At a bar, Doc is checking out a belligerent drunk guy who may or may not be having a heart attack. People around say the man was bitching about pain. Now the guy is saying he's just got gas. Doc tries to talk the man into going to the hospital. "What I need to do is take a dump," the man says, which doesn't come close to rivaling "nobody pees on the Diva" as a catchphrase, but hey, it may catch on someday.
Outside, Alex and Doc have a philosophical argument on the merits of deciding not to help someone when they refuse treatment. Doc is pro-treatment. Alex thinks they should just leave those people alone. Now you tell me, which one is a paramedic again? Another call -- auto versus pedestrian. They head that way.
In class, Carlos is wearing a goofy sweater combo and for some reason, he looks a lot like Lou Diamond Phillips in La Bamba. His fruit flies are getting loose. He curses while the annoyingly uptight and nerdy teacher comes up and says that "Mendel must be spinning in his grave right now." Why don't you go spin, teacher, but be sure to sit on it first. The teacher threatens to flunk Carlos and then he smacks his palms together, killing a fruit fly. "That might have been one of my virgins!" Carlos exclaims. Memo to teacher: slapping virgins is not cool. The teacher says that with or without the virgin, Carlos is "boned," a euphemism for "screwed." Only "boned" sounds dirtier. Carlos complains that he's not going to get into medical school. The teacher tells Carlos that, damn right, he's not going to get into med school: "Haven't you heard? Affirmative action's dead." Ouch. Carlos looks defeated. He sits down, sighing. Then he turns and sees the girl from before and gets an evil glint in his eye. "Hey, Janet," he says, spinning around. "Jane," she corrects. Oh dear.
Alex and Doc are unloading the bus. She says Jimmy and Brooke told her they had a great time honeymooning in the Virgin Islands. "Ironic place for them to honeymoon, don't you think?" she asks. She's the one who was trying to keep Jimmy's infidelity a secret before, now she's talking about it like it was on NPR's All Things Considered. "Virgin Islands?" she tries again. "I get it," Doc mutters. They come over to help some kids who were holding on behind a car while on their skateboards, Michael J. Fox-style. Ty is there to tell them it's called "skitching," but he refers to it as very stupid. A boy on the ground is moaning as people are gathered around trying to lift a car under which he's pinned. Doc helps the guy as we get all kinds of angles of the agony. They pull out the boy and his leg looks bad. "What the hell were you thinking?" Alex yells, because the pain isn't bad enough. Sully is around to offer his wisdom. He says the boy is fifteen: he wasn't thinking.
At Ye Olde Thirde Watche Pub and Grille, the cops are sharing stories of stupid things they did as teens. Bosco shares his story of playing chicken with the trains. "Congratulations Bosco," Yokas says, "You overcame your instinct for survival by the sheer force of your stupidity." Tee hee. Bobby says he climbed the suspension cables on the Brooklyn Bridge. Ty used to elevator surf. Yokas is scared, saying she's afraid of her kids growing up and doing stupid stuff like that. Kim says her kid already does he. He jumped off the fridge and needs four stitches. It's called negligence, Kim. I can find you a dictionary to look it up. Sully gets asked if he did anything crazy as a young Sully. Sully doesn't want to share. Doc gets asked and Kim makes fun of him for being such a saint. Doc gets up and makes a snarky comment about the Peace Corps and lepers and whatnot and asks for a tuna sandwich. If you're going to be all dramatic, it doesn't help to put a tuna sandwich order at the end of it, Doc.
Doc in the bathroom. Oh, great. He's going all somber. He looks at himself in the mirror and looks positively haunted. Haley Joel Osment comes out of a stall and tells Doc to lighten up.
The last thing in the world I ever wanted to see: Carlos gets out of bed with no shirt on. Jiminy Christmas! He was in bed with the student he'd formerly dissed. You are a real piece of work, Carlos. And by "work" I mean "crappy minimum-wage job." Carlos quietly gets up in the near-dark and starts looking through the girl's book bag for her homework. He's certainly Grinchy. Doc tries to put on his pants while holding the assignment in his teeth. We almost get a terrifying crotch shot, but then it's Carlos looking in the mirror and suddenly filling up with self-disgust. Why would he need that when we can all be disgusted enough for him? Carlos looks down at the assignment and breathes heavily. After this, commercials are a blessing.
More Ti-Cheeze. Those Third Watch writers really know how to beat a motif into the ground, don't they? This time it's "pal jang" or "earth," as in, "What on earth does this have to do with the rest of the show?" Doc stretches, clenches his fist. I take a tiny nap.
Doc is up early and Morales groggily asks him what time he got home. Doc says he got a few hours of sleep. She asks if he wants her to prescribe something for sleep. Can she do that? She also asks who Beverly Saunders is because she called last night. Whoops. Doc says it's an old friend, and says it suspiciously. Morales seems a little jealous, which is just delicious. Doc says it was a long time ago while Morales keeps questioning him. He gets her up to speed but doesn't say anything about the deep dark secret. Morales kisses Doc and goes to take a shower.
Doc, in regular clothes, arrives at an old dilapidated cement playground while weird, funky music plays. He walks onto a big, nasty abandoned area and looks sullen while the camera circles around him. Uh, okay.
At the hospital, Doc walks in on Beverly and her dad. She says he's not doing very well. "Why'd you call my apartment?" he asks. Beverly says she's going over to K.C.'s mom's house. She wants to know if Doc will come. "Why are you doing this to me?" he asks. They raise their voices. "You can't just come back after twenty years and ruin my life!" Doc yells. Overdramatic, much? Doc menacingly points his walkie talkie at Beverly. Beverly tells him where she's going the day as he walks out.
Big building fire. Doc tells Alex it's the same building where they'd gone to see Darla and Charlie before. "Aw, crap," Alex says. "I guess Darla forgot to order takeout," Doc tells her. Somebody from inside says there are victims in the building. Inside, flashlights, firefighters and paramedics are everywhere. In the kitchen, they find Charlie. He looks pretty dead. "Anybody see a woman?" Doc asks. They find Darla. They pull her out and she's badly burned. Alex starts to intubate. Alex grabs something that Doc asks for out of his hand, pissing him off. He stands back and lets her work. Alex tries to get a pulse, but she's not able. Bobby tells Doc to get in there, but Doc refuses and says he'll come in when the vitals go below 50. Oh man, way to be a dicko, Doc. When Darla goes into fib, Doc finally jumps in. He tells Alex to get off. Again. Then he yells, "I said GET OFF!" She finally goes. Doc uses the paddles and gets a pulse. Alex looks shaken, but not stirred.
In the ambulance, Kim asks what happens. Bobby says that Doc was playing God again. Kim asks if he was promoted to sainthood by the big guy. "Why don't you two shut up?" Doc asks. Kim asks what his problem is. "You were out of line," Bobby tells Doc, very seriously. to the fire truck, Alex is crying. "Happy?" she asks. "You made me cry. That was the point, right?" Doc accuses her of being in it for the adrenaline rush. Alex says that the reason she became a firefighter was because of an incident where a little boy was dying and asked her what he had done that was so wrong. It's very emotional. "What's your point?" Doc asks. "Well, what kind of person would let someone die to prove they were right?" she counters. Touché.
Lego commercials take my mind off all this heaviness.
Good lord, not more Ti-Cheeze. "Sam jang," the name of a guy I went to school with. It means "fire," as in, "Fire the script writer." A beefy guy walks in and interrupts Doc's punching and kicking. Doc tells the guy he's late. "I missed the A. I had to catch the C." Yes, you live in New York, fine. The guy says that yesterday when he was at home, Beverly Saunders came around asking about Doc. Doc is angrily beating up a dummy. The two start to spar. Doc gets his ass royally kicked, which all Third Watch characters do when they fight out of frustration and anger. The guy tries to start a conversation, but Doc cuts him off. The guy beats on Doc every time Doc tries to throw an angry blow. "You're being too aggressive, man," the guy says. "Let's just GO!" Doc yells. The guy knocks Doc down one more time and then calls it off saying that Doc is fighting angry. Doc comes at the guy from behind and it thrown onto some folding chairs. Eye of the Tiger? More like Spleen of the Donkey. The guy tells Doc to check himself and leaves the room. Doc checks himself by grunting and throwing a chair against the wall. Doc falls to the ground and starts crying.
Carlos enters the office of a middle-aged woman who is his Genetics professor. She has a stack of papers in front of her she's presumably been grading. "Where's your raw data?" she asks. Carlos whips out a messy stack of papers and gives it to her. She tells Carlos that his numbers are wrong. "No," he says, and tries to prove his point. "I can't get a D," he says. "I can give you an F," she counters. Carlos yells at her that he has to get into med school. She says that maybe med school's not for him. He yells some more and finished dejectedly with, "This is very important to me." He says please. She doesn't answer.
At the station, the captain asks Doc why Alex doesn't want to do any more shifts with him. Doc gets annoyed that he was called in on his day off. The captain says his door's always open. "You're my best paramedic. I'd hate to lose you," the captain says. Are you done with your tantrums yet, Doc?
Outside on a city street. Doc has come to see K.C.'s mother. "I didn't think you'd come," Beverly says. The sweet older woman Doc was stalking answers her door. She recognizes them and asks if they've had any kids yet.
Inside, she tells them she dug out a bunch of old photos after Beverly called. They tell her that they didn't end up together. The woman expresses disbelief. Doc looks very unhappy to be there. He finds a photo of himself with K.C. on a day they skipped school to go to Coney Island. Doc looks pretty stunned. The mother says that Beverly sounded like she had something she wanted to talk about. Beverly chickens out. "No, not really," she says. She looks to Doc, who twitches and then slowly makes his way out the door. He stutters and says he has to go. "So soon?" the mother says. Beverly follows him out.
Outside, Beverly yells for Doc. "I thought you were gonna tell her!" Doc yells back that it was her idea. Beverly says the woman needs to know the truth. Doc says he won't rob the woman of her peace and her memories after everything he's already taken from her. Uh oh. I see a dark secret ahead. "It wasn't only your fault," she says. "I liked seeing two boys fight over me." Doc accuses her of making him come over, but she says he only came because he wanted to. True enough. "I can't tell her," she says, crying. "I was a coward then and I'm a coward now." She goes back inside to have tea with the woman and look at old pictures. "Maybe that's my penance," she says.
Doc meets up with Carlos later on. "You're right, I'm an idiot," Carlos says. "I got a D in Genetics." Carlos is playing the pity game. Doc says he has to get inside. Carlos tells him about the "dumpy girl" he slept with and how he couldn't go through with stealing her notes when he thought of Doc. "Me?" Doc asks. Carlos says Doc always does the right thing. "Not always," Doc says. Carlos says he felt bad about the girl and wanted to tell someone. "See you tomorrow," he says, and leaves. Saint Doc, what would we do without you?
Inside, Morales is hanging up Christmas decorations. "Ever had a moment that you'd give anything to get back?" Doc asks. Morales says it would be the moment she chose emergency medicine. Doc says he has to tell Morales something. "I killed a boy when I was fifteen," Doc begins. It was his friend. He got into a fight over Beverly. K.C. had come after him with a brick. Doc hit him and K.C. fell back and hit his head. Morales looks afraid and shocked. "When the ambulance came we lied and says he was running and tripped." What, they didn't do an autopsy or anything? Doc begins to cry. "I'd give anything to get that moment back. I go to the DoJang and try to control my temper but it's still there." No matter how many lives he saves, K.C. still stares up at him from the wet concrete. Morales comes over. She hugs Doc tightly. He cries some more.
Last shot: Doc standing on the concrete outside, in the empty lot where K.C. died. The camera pans around. Doc bends down, takes off his glove, and puts his palm on the ground. He looks up at the empty, graffiti-covered lot. Music swells. Episode ends.
Doc...you've got issues. That's all I gotta say.