By Omar G
Look, I don't like this any more than you do. An entire episode devoted to King Doofus, Carlos Nieto? I would rather empty a can of True Value Hardware paint into my anus. I would rather watch rabid cheetahs destroy my Sopranos DVD set. I'd rather set fire to one of my toes. Nevertheless, we're stuck with this one, because Bobby just died, and the Third Watch writers have our sympathy and our curiosity. So, I tell you what. I've got a nice bottle of Don Julio tequila here. Why don't you grab something similar, pull up a shot glass, and we'll get through this together?
Ready? (Gulp.) So am I.
Previously on Good God, How Am I Gonna Get Through This One?: Bobby died, and Kim wailed about it on the street to her mother. Firefighter Lombardo punched Jimmy in the face for having sex with his girlfriend Linda during the Jimmy/Brooke engagement party. Oops. Carlos whined to Doc about when one of the guys got shot and everybody came together like a family. Carlos didn't feel like he's part of that family, but that has more to do with the fact that he's an ass. To quote Livia Soprano, "Oh, poor you." At a bowling alley, Carlos got dissed by a teenager he's hitting on. Later on, Kim told Carlos she admired him, and he got all big-headed about it. (Actually, now that I think of it, either Carlos's ears are growing at an alarmingly Will Smith-esque rate, or his head is shrinking. I'll go with the ear-growth theory. That way I can call Carlos the "Not-So-Fresh Prince of No-Where.")
The episode begins proper (or as proper as an episode featuring Carlos can begin) with an artsy crane stop-and-go shot of a bad accident scene. The camera zooms, then slows on Yokas, who is thinking about the drunk guy who probably caused the accident. We hear her thoughts as she tells us she can smell the liquor on the guy. "If I had two minutes alone with him..." she mutters in voice-over, but she totally doesn't mean it in a sexual way. We then go to Jimmy, who opens up a car hood and thinks, "We got here just in time. Another couple of seconds and..." Could Jimmy's thoughts be any more boring? Jeez. He's just eye candy, ladies. Nothin' but eye candy and empty calories. Sully's on the Camera 'o Character Development. He's upset that people are standing around and watching the accident like it's a movie. Then it's Doc, who spouts off the medical stats of some guy lying on the ground. His inner life has all the vitality of a chemistry textbook.
Our dear Carlos is . And instead of thinking about the scene at hand -- where he's helping someone on the ground -- he's instead looking at an attractive girl who bears a striking resemblance to Maya Rudolph, formerly of City of Angels. ["She's on Saturday Night Live now." -- Wing Chun] "That girl is hot," Carlos thinks. "Would you look at her ass?" Fine, if you insist. She's wearing leather pants and leaning over talking to someone. Carlos muses that if Jennifer Lopez and Janet Jackson had a love child, "it'd be that chick." Such a mystery is the mind of modern man. Carlos is suddenly upset, because he thinks Doc is showing off by saving a guy's life. Carlos starts trying to get Doc's attention by making medical small talk to impress the woman. Doc's not impressed. The great foreshadowing Bird of Lame swoops in to declare this scene, "Awwk! Stupid!"
Luckily, the scene's over. At the hospital, Carlos and Doc are standing at a nurse's station. Carlos is leaning in, all intense, focusing his gaze on the pretty nurse before him. He says she's "girl--door kinda hot." Then he says the woman would be the love child of Helen Hunt and Mary Tyler Moore ("when she was still hot") and that nice, sweet women are hot. Right now, a fire hydrant in a Wonderbra would be hot to Carlos. Carlos muses that he should throw this young lass some attention. He winks crudely. The nurse asks him whether there's something wrong, because he got all squinty-eyed and may have a headache. "No, I'm good," Carlos says, and then is impressed that she was concerned he might have a headache. Carlos is happy to rent a condo on Planet Deluded.
At the station, Carlos is studying at the dinner table while Doc and Jimmy talk about ideas for supper. Carlos complains -- in his now familiar and incredibly grating inner monologue -- that he's tired of hearing the constant non-conversation of his fellow employees. There is one tiny funny moment when Carlos wiggles his eyes and thinks, "Duy." "Duy" is funny no matter who says, it most of the time. Carlos speculates on whether his co-workers have a life, or whether they lock themselves in oxygen chambers at night. He gets interrupted in mid-stupidity by a question he didn't hear. He answers, "No," and when the others ask whether he was listening, he goes on a little tirade about how he's studying and doesn't have time for their stupid conversation. Turns out they were talking about their recently deceased buddy Bobby. Oops. A call suddenly comes in, distracting everyone from his huge faux pas. "Saved by the bell," Doc says, as they all walk off.
Pour shot. Gulp. Repeat.
Deep breath. Okay, that wasn't so bad, right? We made it all the way the opening credits. We're cool, right? Oh, man, who am I kidding? This is gonna suck. I've put my cat, Cosa, in protective custody, because to keep her in the house while this episode is on might constitute animal cruelty.
Back from commercials, and some fire trucks are rolling down the street, sirens blaring. Holy crap, this episode guest-stars Eric Bogosian! Maybe he'll turn this into a one-man episode, playing all the parts, including Carlos. One can only hope. Oh, damn. It's actually Carlos and Doc arriving at the scene, where a huge RV is teetering on the edge of a bridge. I thought this only happened in wacky sitcoms and bad road movies. Sully and Ty tell the others that an elderly couple was driving along when their RV slipped on some ice, and all of a sudden they're a physics mystery. Bravo, Third Watch. You've yet again managed to trick the forces of reality. Sully asks Jimmy whether there's any way they can stabilize the RV. "Well, I could have sex with someone," he responds, then corrects himself: "We can get some lines on it." Cocaine? No, just steel cables. Carlos bravely says he'll stay outside and coordinate, to save weight. Wuss. Doc overrules that, and tells Carlos to bring his Will Smith ears with him.
Carlos and Doc enter the RV through a convenient waist-level hatchway. An elderly couple is wedged inside, among a bunch of scattered mismarked butterfly ballots and copies of Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation. Clearly, this is a big mess. Carlos slips, and the whole RV tips a bit, causing the elderly woman to scream. Things calm down just a bit. Doc asks whether the man is okay, and he's honest enough to say he's "not real good." Doc carefully crosses over to them, seeing through a panel below that it's a long way down to the street. The RV groans as movement inside makes it teeter. Outside, Jimmy watches as a single steel cable just isn't helping too damned much. Inside, Doc sees that the old man is pinned. He needs his leg freed, but they can't pull him out. Carlos tries to lift the man, but he just screams in pain and completely fails to reconfigure his body structure to accommodate this. Oh, now the writers of the show obey the laws of physics. Carlos uses all of his training to deduce that something needs to be done, here. Doc calls Jimmy on his radio and explains the situation. Jimmy advises the two to get the hell out of Dodge. "She's too unstable," Jimmy says, but I don't know if he's talking about the RV or someone he just slept with. Doc goes back to the sweet old couple and tells them that he and Carlos are going to have to come back once the RV is stabilized. He tells the woman, "We need to get you out of here." In classic TV elderly person style, she says she's not leaving. "Are you nuts?"Carlos spits at her. Doc tries more diplomatically, but the woman tells the husband that she married him and she's not walking out on him now. The sweet tinkly "old person death wish" music plays. Carlos looks disgusted. Doc says that they'll be back. Yeah. Right. And physics is a real science. Just as Doc gets out, the RV tips some more, violating a few more laws -- but hey, who's counting at this point? Cables snap. The couple inside is shown holding each other tightly, their hair blowing in the lack of wind. More tipping. More snapped cables. Doc yells, "Come on! Come on!" like he's challenging the RV to a fight. RV tips. Sweet shot of the couple embracing. Then the damned thing flips over and lands on its top, crushing itself completely. Everybody looks stunned, even the physicists watching in outrage at home.
At the station, everybody's moping. Except Carlos, who says in a voice-over that it's no big deal, and that everyone should just lighten up. He thinks (in patented Carlos Self-Absorbo-sound) that his co-workers don't know how to deal with tragedy. Like the way he obsessively cleaned the blood out of the ambulance and zoned out last week as Bobby was dying. Carlos decides that it's his personal mission to cheer everybody up. God help us. He asks if anybody wants some pizza. "I'm buyin'," he adds, charitably. Doc asks whether it looks like anybody wants pizza. (Quick guess: "No.") Suddenly, the grizzled, wizened, chapped (and did I mention grizzled?) captain comes in and tells Carlos and Doc that they're done for the day.
Suddenly, Doc and Carlos are at the hospital, and Carlos expositions enough to let us know they're in for some stress debriefing. Of course, Carlos is way above all this and thinks it's just a big crock. He's wearing a Size 0 leather jacket (our man Carlos looks like he's lost some weight, as if he's trying to take Erik Estrada's place in O-Town). Doc explains that the department wants to know that they can handle stress. Carlos busts out with the fact that it's sad and all, but that the RV couple was old and the woman wanted to go with the man anyway. Carlos says (spot-on, I might add) that this is TV-movie-of-the-week sad; all that's missing is the bulimic and the cancer kid. Would you believe TV Drama of the Week, Carlos? Doc is, of course, shocked by Carlos's callousness, because unlike calluses you get from playing a guitar, Doc hasn't yet developed his Carlos Conversational Calluses yet. Doc marvels at how insensitive Carlos's remarks are, but is reminded by a scorekeeping Carlos that Doc was laughing at a guy recently who had drilled a hole through his nads. Can you really say "nads" on TV? Guess so. The Closed Captioning, however, reveals that the word was supposed to be "nuts." Way to go Inside the Actor's Studio for that word improv, Carlos.
Just then, a woman with tousled black hair, glasses, pale skin, and very red lips walks in, holding a manila folder. She says she's their counselor. Her name is Jeneca Farabee. (First "Tatiana," now "Jeneca"? What, are the writers having Eastern European fantasies all of a sudden? Are they smoking from David E. Kelley's stash?) Suddenly, some vampy music plays and Carlos's interior monologue informs us, "Oh my God. This chick is hot!" While I agree with Carlos, I can't say this isn't badly timed. Everything goes in slow motion, causing the Counselor Goth to look as if she's trying to catch flies with her mouth as she's talking. Carlos thinks that this woman looks like the love child of Liz Hurley and that one European chick that was in that Bond movie (I'm gonna guess Famke Janssen, and I concur on this one). Carlos suddenly imagines himself doing the nasty with the woman on top of him in bed. And we get to see it in three quick flashes. Nice. Now anyone with any biological link to me has been rendered blind. Carlos tries to introduce himself suavely, and take control by saying he was thinking that Counselor Goth and he should talk first (even though she's trying to get information about Doc). Carlos steps forward and gets his groove on. (Or rather, his baby step-groove.) Carlos says he's got a lot of stress and that he needs de-briefing. "A lot of de-briefing," he says, thinking about his Fruit-'O-the-Looms.
In the woman's office, which is dimly lit like some sort of fantasy therapist brothel, Carlos spouts off stuff about how hard it is to lose a patient. The vampy music continues to play as Carlos makes an ass out of himself. "I believe the children are our future," he says at one point, "teach them well and they will lead the way." Then he talks about how hard it is to save lives and be sensitive while Counselor Goth looks bored. I giggle when Carlos says "sensitively," but pronounces it wrong. Time passes, as the wall clock reveals. "Am I a hero? Sure I am," he says. The music finally stops as the Counselor ends the session. She says that Carlos is sensitive and committed and perfectly suited to his work. Then she leaves, looking for Doc. Carlos follows the Counselor to the hospital kitchen (why is she letting him?) after she walks right past Doc. Carlos says that he'd like to see her again. She says he's got no problems, and then reveals TV Writer/Pubescent Boy Fantasy #323: She's actually not into sensitive guys because she deals with them all day at work, and she just wants a brute to throw her around the bed at night. She hates sensitive fellows. Yeah. Fucking. Right. Carlos backpedals and reveals that he's actually a lout and a jerk and she should totally get with him. He says he lied the whole time. "That is so low," she purrs, walking over to him. So implausible. So bad. So lazy. But enough about the teleplay. Counselor Goth (now Counselor Horny) asks Carlos whether it's wrong to like someone because they don't give a damn about anything. "I don't know," Carlos says, "and I don't care."
Suddenly, Carlos and Counselor Goth are lying on their backs, side by side, in bed. "How was that?" Counselor Spent asks. "That was great," says Carlos. "How was I?" she asks. "You were great. How was I?" Carlos asks. "Terrific," she says. "That's great," Carlos says. Right. Got it. You know, I think I liked it better when I had to watch somebody die for a whole hour. "If you don't want to call me after this, you don't have to," she says. Wait, is that TV Writer/Pubescent Boy Fantasy #433 or #458? I always get those two confused "God, she's perfect," Carlos says in a voice-over. We go to commercial, about three minutes too late to save my sanity.
Speaking of stupid and offensive, Mentos has a new commercial, set in India. I'd advise you avert your eyes.
At the station house, Lombardo is being bored by Carlos's recounting of his sexual exploits with Counselor Insatiable. He says it might have been four times he got his freak on in the sack, but probably more. Lombardo looks as if he'd rather have Jimmy go at it with his girlfriend again than listen to this crap. "Why don't you just whip out some pictures?" Lombardo asks. "Here!" Carlos responds. Lordy. In his interior monologue, Carlos takes pity on poor Lombardo for envying him. Never mind that Lombardo has a girlfriend who would make the plastic in Carlos's underpants melt. As he walks by looking all smug, Carlos is stopped by Doc, who advises him to give the sexcapade stories a rest. Hey, Doc has a pretty hot girlfriend, too. I guess Carlos is just happy he finally joined the club. Doc tells him that it's been five or six days, and they've all gotten a "blow-by-blow (pardon the expression)" of the events that transpired with Counselor Altoids. "Don't be a player hater," Carlos says simply, and I laugh out loud because, damn, that was actually funny. Jimmy comes down the stairs carrying a box full of Bobby's personal effects. He says he's going to deliver them to Bobby's mom and asks whether anyone wants to come. Everybody volunteers except Carlos, who asks what time because he has a test. Just then, the grizzled, rough, yet fair captain comes in with Carlos and Doc's evaluations. "It's like a love note from my girl," Carlos gushes. Then he reads it.
Suddenly, Carlos is at the hospital, chasing after Counselor Cleavage, who gave him a bad evaluation, calling him insensitive and saying he may be emotionally unsuited for his job. She quotes back some mean stuff he said about the old people. He says he was lying. "So which is it? Are you a liar or an emotionally bankrupt human?" she asks. "Which is worse?" he answers. Carlos freaks out, because this becomes a part of his record. She gets in the elevator and says that all he has to do is go through sensitivity training. "And to think I almost called you again," Carlos says.
Outside the station, Jimmy is stopped on the street by Lombardo, who is standing to a fire truck. Lombardo tells him that his girl, Linda, is pregnant. "Oh God," Jimmy says, in an amusing way. Instead of punching him in the mouth like a real person, Lombardo assures him that the baby isn't Jimmy's. Lombardo just wants Jimmy to know that Lombardo's going to be a father, and he wanted to tell his best friend. Lombardo and Linda are getting back together, and now he's happy. So, what, Jimmy is forgiven? Now that's a big old crock.
As they're helping an elderly person to the ambulance, Doc and Carlos discuss Counselor Dis. Doc thinks it's hilarious and highly ironic. Carlos is just annoyed. "The irony I see; the humor I'm missing," Carlos says. He adds that he's worried he'll look bad when he comes up for review, and he wants to keep his job until he becomes a doctor. "What if they give me another evaluation and they find out I'm cold, emotionless, and aloof?" Carlos asks. Doc says he wouldn't say that about Carlos. Oops, busted: turns out that's what Doc said about Carlos the second day they worked together.
Sensitivity training class. Carlos stares down a group of name tags on a table and mutters, "You've gotta be kidding me." And who should show up to him but Mr. Sensitivity 2001, Bosco. Who didn't see that coming? Carlos asks him what he's doing there. "What, you mean this isn't Jazzercize class?" Who actually still does Jazzercise? Is that even a viable joke anymore? Sigh.... Bosco says that he's there because he had trouble with a "Can." Carlos asks for clarification. "You know, DominiCAN, MexiCAN, one of those south-of-the-border greaseballs." I'd love to elaborate on this, but this week, Carlos is the target of my bile, not Bosco. Carlos tells Bosco he's part Hispanic. "You're one of the good ones," Bosco tells him, generously. Carlos says he's there because he slept with a girl. Yeah, nice oversimplification there, Ear Boy. Suddenly, a guy with a beard -- who turns out to be the great Eric Bogosian (though why he's on this show, I have no idea) -- calls the class to order. Bosco quickly advises Carlos to tell the guy what he wants to hear, rather than be honest. Bosco also mentions that he's been through this training many times. Big surprise.
Lieutenant Lewis, who drones on, tells the group they have a problem, and that this course will teach them to be sensitive. I yawn. Bosco starts to say what the teacher's going to say before he says it. Lewis gets upset -- even more so when Carlos interrupts some more and tells the teacher, "I really shouldn't be here." Oh great, a "rebel in the class" cliché scene. Somebody wake me when it's over. The teacher tells Carlos he may be excused from the class if, in the session, he can demonstrate compassion and make up for rudely interrupting the class. Smells like a trap to me. Oh, that wily Bogosian!
thing, Carlos is at a table at the diner, drinking coffee, writing down a dictionary definition of compassion. He isn't satisfied, and crumpled up the paper, throwing it to the ground As he writes, a young waitress in tight leather pants walks by, picks up the litter, bending over. "Ai, Chihuahua," he thinks. Okay, that's it! This officially sucks. I can't take it! This is awful!
Voice of God: Omar, just recap the damn show, okay? The sooner you do, the sooner we can shut it off, erase the tape, and pretend it never happened.
Omar: You watch Third Watch, too?
God: I have to watch everything. I'm a deity. So quit yer bitchin', okay?
Omar: Sorry, God.
God: S'all right. Get to work.
The waitress gets up and throws the litter on the table. "Hey," Carlos says. I pray. Hard.
In class, Carlos delivers his stirring oratory on "compassion." Except he has none, so it's a little like Martha Stewart writing about dirt biking. His bone-dry essay, containing plenty of Webster's definitions, is met with stone silence from the class. Bogosian, however, has no problem shooting Carlos down. "Well, that was certainly clinical," he begins. Bogosian tells Carlos that compassion is not about book knowledge. "It's not just here," he says pointing to his temple. "It's also here," he says, pointing to his heart. Man, dude, I know SubUrbia didn't do so well at the box office, but is this level of slumming really necessary? Bogosian tells the class that sensitivity training will help when they're evaluated by their superiors. Carlos suddenly realizes that Doc is his supervisor, and hates him. Welcome to Shitsville, Carlos. I'm sure you'll rise to the post of Mayor soon.
Kim and Jimmy. Kim is bringing up the taboo subject: that Bobby died in the last episode. Wow, you mean the whole episode won't be goofy comic relief with Carlos? Kim fidgets with some thread from her white socks. She babbles to Jimmy that it was good for her to come back to work and not take too much time off, concluding, "I'm over it." Yeah, right. Jimmy doesn't believe it, either. Kim changes her tune. Instead of "I'm over it," she says she'll never be over it: "But I'm getting beyond it." Whatever, Kim. You're still annoying. Kim says that she surprises herself with how good she's doing. While digging for some stuff to make tea, Jimmy finds some caffeine pills. He asks Kim about them, but she fidgets some more and just says she's had trouble sleeping and needs the pills to get through the day. Bad news: this portends an extended drug addiction storyline and an all-Kim episode. Good news: that's the last we'll see of her in this episode.
At the diner, Bosco and Carlos are having lunch. In the Carlos-o-Phone of his inner monologue, we hear him wonder why everybody thinks he's so self-centered. He's interrupted by Bosco asking if he's listening. Oh, sweet irony, thy name is Carlos. Bosco tells Carlos not to feel so bad about the class. As they're talking, a woman in a black skirt walks by, and both of them stop to lean and watch. Then they continue the conversation. Two peas in a pod, these guys are. Bosco complains that he does his job well, but still gets cited for not being a sweetheart to criminals. Yokas, my hero, shows up and sits to Bosco. She mothers him, telling him that he can finish eating, but he'll just want a sandwich later when they go on call. She asks what they're talking about. "Compassion," Carlos answers. "So that was a pretty short conversation," she says. Hee hee. Bosco says that he has feelings, to which Yokas responds that of course he has feelings, they're just buried out in a shallow grave somewhere out in Jersey. Man, she's two for two. Carlos complains that he didn't learn compassion in foster care. Bosco says that he learned from his father to hit women in the gut, not the face. And Yokas learned that a good drunk is a quiet drunk who doesn't disturb the neighbors. Are we done watching Monty Python's Worst Childhood skit? Carlos asks Yokas where she learned to be decent. She's taken aback and says it's an odd way of putting it.
is a montage of Carlos asking people what compassion is. Why don't you just imitate Foreigner and tell people you want to know what love is? Jimmy's answer is that it's caring for others. But fighting fires is just his job. Carlos insults him by implying that if his Jimmy doesn't care about his job, he's just there because baseball didn't work out and he screwed up in life. Jimmy responds by firing up a big buzz saw and aiming it menacingly at Carlos.
, Carlos asks Alex, the female firefighter, why she got into her job. Turns out that she was just getting back at her dad, a multi-generation firefighter who had told her she would never be successful. So for her, it's not about compassion either: it's about spite. Carlos also deduces that she doesn't really care about people trapped in fires: she's just an adrenaline junkie. Interesting theory. "Labels are so misleading," she says, and then talks about how rocky road ice cream isn't really "rocky road." This is not terribly inspired TV writing, I'm afraid to say.
In the ambulance, Carlos tries to start a conversation with Doc about what Doc is reading in the newspaper. Doc gives one-word answers, clearly not in the mood to talk to Little Compassionate Boy Lost. Doc asks what's going on. Carlos complains that he can never have a conversation with Doc. Doc complains that Carlos always squirms whenever they have a long conversation. "Am I really that bad?" Carlos asks. He says he doesn't have good people skills and wants Doc to teach him how to care more. Doc chuckles. "This is not funny to me," Carlos says, and asks Doc to help. "You just used the word 'me' four times in five seconds," Doc says. He points out that Carlos needs to stop thinking of himself and start thinking of other people. He tells Carlos about a volunteer opportunity to clear out abandoned tenements. Carlos says he's down for it, but doesn't want to get up so early. Oh, man, you just know this isn't gonna work.
thing we see is a nasty toilet being thrown out the window of a broken down building. If that isn't a metaphor for this episode, I don't know what is. Doc is having a Miller Time moment with another guy, talking about how great it is to get out your aggressions and use destructive force for positive change. He's interrupted by yelling, and the two destructo-buddies discover Carlos arguing with a homeless man who wants to take the toilet with him. The homeless man, who looks vaguely like a Klingon, is hugging the toilet. Carlos is wielding a ball peen hammer at the poor guy. Doc gets involved and tells Carlos it's fine. Carlos argues that it's their building to clear out, so the toilet is their property. "What a homeless guy gonna do with a toilet?" Carlos asks. Does he really need an answer for that, or is he truly that stupid? Doc yells. Carlos yells. Tempers flare. Doc declares that Carlos is hopeless. He just doesn't give a damn. Oh, and Carlos hit on a volunteer, too. "I'm startin' to think I'm beyond help, too," Carlos says, as Doc is walking away. Suddenly, Carlos is all sad. Tinkly music plays. Doc returns. "Carlos, it's not magic," he says. And he tells Carlos that if he wants to be compassionate, to put himself second. The rest, he says, will take care of itself. Carlos gets a commercial to think about it.
When we return, Carlos is waiting in line at a convenience store. He sees a guy who doesn't have enough change to pay for his purchase. "I should do something here," Carlos thinks. "But what?" After much soul searching, he gives some change to the guy to help him pay. "You sure?" the guy asks. "Um...yeah?" Carlos declares. Suddenly, Carlos is walking down the street and the song, "Flashdance (What a Feeling)" plays. I have to admit, that's pretty funny. A woman loses her hat in a strong wind and Carlos runs into the street to retrieve it for her. He doesn't even hit on her. Carlos then helps a guy carrying some boxes down the street. And, hey! Look over there! Carlos is helping me write my recap by doing stuff that's easy to gloss over!
Later, in the ambulance, Carlos does his humble job by alerting Doc to all the nice acts he's been committing lately. He says he's been helping people and listening to people. "Now I know why you do it. It feels good. It feels real good," Carlos says. He says this is how people must feel when they go to church. Suddenly they get a call.
Carlos and Doc arrive at a home where a man has been electrocuted trying to fix a light. Oh, by the way, how many Carloses does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Three. One to be a dumb-ass, one to screw in the bulb, and the other to make me regret I was ever born, much less alive to see this show. The electrocuted man has no pulse, and his wife is crying up a storm. Carlos asks her to move out of the way, and Doc is getting impatient. Carlos tries again to move her. She's still crying and carrying on. Carlos finally yells at the woman to shut up and asks if she wants to kill her husband. He completely loses his temper here. The woman whimpers while Doc calls him back. Carlos just failed his compassion test. But, what's this? A possible save? Carlos argues with Doc on a call and turns out to be right by giving the man some shocks to counter the electrocution. The man's pulse returns, so it must have been a good call. Doc seems impressed, at least.
At the hospital, Doc and Carlos look inside the room of the electrocuted man. Doc praises Carlos's instincts. But he's honest: he says it's not about what you do in your job, it's about how you do it. Carlos got results, but he was cruel. Thus endeth the lesson. Plus. the woman gives Carlos a dirty look.
In sensitivity class, Bogosian asks Carlos whether he has anything to say. Carlos says that it's all right there in his evaluation. Carlos takes off his name tag and apologizes for wasting the class's time. "No time is wasted that makes us better people," Bogosian says, but really he's thinking, "The paycheck, the paycheck. I can finance five one-man shows with this crap appearance." Carlos gives a nice speech saying that he saved a guy's life and how that's better than holding hands and singing songs. "I never had a family to teach me, I never learned it when I was getting bumped around in foster care," he says, and explains that he's in his profession because he wants to be, and that, although he doesn't know from compassion, he does have passion for his work. He asks whether the people he's helped would rather have him soft-hearted, or good at his job. Bogosian doesn't argue back. Carlos walks back. Bosco follows.
Out in the hall, Bosco praises Carlos: "You were great in there, man," which is about as nice as Bosco will ever be to anyone. Just as Bosco is elaborating on the finer points of Carlos's speech, he's interrupted. "You believe that crap?" Carlos asks. "I was just shining him on to get a pass," Carlos tells him. Bosco looks stricken for a second, and then catches on and says he didn't buy it for a minute. He walks off, probably to beat up some guys on the street. After Bosco leaves, Carlos looks serious and a little sad. But then a pretty woman walks on by, and although it doesn't make him cry, Carlos can't help but see that she's hot. She's tall, is wearing a short skirt, and has her mouth all puckered up like Renée Zellweger. She turns her head and gives Carlos a look. That's all he needs. "Walkin' on the Sun" by Smash Mouth begins to play. Carlos turns around and follows the woman out of the frame. The episode ends right before I was about to commit hara-kari.
Wow, how did this tequila bottle get so empty? Guess it's just what I needed. So, thanks to God for helping me through the recap, and a pox upon Carlos for killing so many of my brain cells. I curse thee, Carlos. I curse thee.