Four Days

This week's episode is the third in an ongoing series focusing on individual characters. We had Sully and his buried alive fears, Faith and her aborted pregnancy, and now this week we'll look at Doc and his issues with racism in New York law enforcement and EMS (could there be any, ya think?). For this recap, we pulled some strings and managed to bring in a guest: Johnnie Cochran will be sitting in on the recap with me. Mr. Cochran was able to catch a flight to Austin and come to my duplex to comment on the content of the show as it aired.

Omar: Thanks for being here, Mr. Cochran.
Johnnie Cochran: If that cat scratches, bites, urinates, sheds, looks at me the wrong way, sits on my chest and steals the life from me, or otherwise causes me any physical or emotional distress, I will see to it that your twenty years' worth of recap money is routed directly to my firm. Are we clear?
Omar: Cosa, go to your room.
Cosa: The Hell did I do?

The episode begins with a few previouslys: Doc helping out a gangsta teenager and telling him that he'd better straighten up or they'll be taking him to the morgue. Doc in bed with the scintillating (and vaguely Rosie Perez-ish) Dr. Morales and talking about how he'd make a great father. Morales, who is totally in love, seems to agree. Doc and Carlos argue over helping kids who are shooting up everybody else. Then, in a weird segue, we go into clips of tonight's episode. It's like previouslys from the future. Doc getting held back by police from treating some shot-up suspects; Doc talking to Morales about whether police might have executed some people. Doc yelling at Ty for no real good reason that we can see right now. Doc trying to tackle Bosco (yay!). Doc arguing with Morales, and an out-of-uniform Doc getting thrown on the hood of his car by police. Didn't I see this same scenario last season on City of Angels? I guess I was the only one.

The episode begins in full with a fuzzy black-and-white memory of a young boy (we'll call him "L'il Doc") coming into a room where somebody, presumably his dad, is lying on the couch, sick. Mom comes in and looks worried. She is calling 911. We're left with L'il Doc looking alarmed at the body in front of him.

The screen goes to snow and then comes up on Doc with the heading "MONDAY." He's wearing headphones and sweats, jogging down the street. He's got quite the funky theme song. It's no Shaft, but it still conveys the "sex machine with all the chicks/shut yo mouth" vibe. Doc is interrupted when he spots two kids, one African-American, the other Opie-American, fighting. Doc breaks it up and says, "Hey, you kids are friends!" as he grabs them by the shirts. He gets them to shake hands and then they walk off, properly shamed. Doc is greeted by a bit of applause from the bagel shop owner, who for no real reason was standing outside to witness the near-tussle. Doc enters the bagel shop and says hello to two cops sitting and having a snack. He talks about the fight with them and then does a gentle mocking by telling the cops that he's actually paying for his food. Ah, the good-natured ribbing. He mocks their ability to walk with those huge bellies. They mock-threaten to come hunt him down and beat him up. Oh, the underlying racial tension is too much to bear.

Johnnie Cochran: Watch it.
Omar: Sorry.

So, anyway, we're at the scene of a horrible crime. Doc and Carlos get their stuff as Ty greets them. There's been a shooting. Doc walks by a window with a huge bullet hole shot through it. We get whooshing camera moves as they enter the scene. Lots of bloody people. It looks like a diner or small restaurant. People are lying in pools of their own blood. Glimpses, flashes of dead or near-dying people. Sully pops his head up to call Doc over, saying he's got one that's still alive. Doc rushes over. Doc looks down at a young, very attractive black woman who is alive, but whose head is surrounded by blood on the floor. She looks up pleadingly, breathing shallow breaths. She looks like she was shot in the upper right shoulder. We cut to a woman trying to get inside the restaurant, calling out, "Tanya!" We'll guess this is the mother. Doc looks concerned, but doesn't seem to be doing much of anything. He just looks down. Cut immediately to the Third Watch theme song. I can hear Cosa hopping up and down in the room.

Why must the Gods show me previews that make me actually want to see Charlie's Angels? It's not fair, I tell you. And that Destiny's Child song just adds insult to injury. How did they know I own their CD?

We come back to L'il Doc opening the door to paramedics. You can tell this was in the '70s because the African-American paramedic has a bushy 'fro while the white one has a bushy John Holmes moustache. Tinkly-spooky music is playing. They're treating the man on the couch. The black paramedic looks to L'il Doc and gives him a little nod and wink. L'il Doc smiles weakly.

We come back to Doc straddling the restaurant shooting victim's chest as he is giving her CPR. Carlos and Morales help wheel her into the ER on the stretcher. Tanya Adams, as she is identified, is a bloody mess. They swap her to a table and start working on her. Doc looks on, unwilling to leave. Carlos finally has to pull Doc away. Wait, Doc has treated people before, right? Some who have almost died? Why is he so frazzled all of a sudden?

"Hey brother-man," a man says to Doc in the waiting room. The man, an older gent named Harry, comes up and complains to Doc that he still hasn't been attended to. Doc tells the man that they're busy, what with women bleeding to death from gunshot wounds. Harry raises his voice because he's bleeding from a small cut. "Don't bleedin' mean a damn thing in this piss-ass hospital?" Piss-ass? That's a new one. Doc tiredly tells the man that he always sticks up for Harry, gives him "play" and shows him respect. Now, he's asking for the same. Like a silver bullet, it works. The man calms down, sits, and obeys Doc. Doc, it appears, is part Jedi. Carlos comes in and as they're leaving, Carlos says, "Hey, Harry, remember, forty, pinkie up." Snide, much? Tanya Adams' mother comes in. "They have her in a trauma room," Doc tells her. "What does that mean?" she yells impatiently. Um, my guess is it means she's in the trauma room. She yells for someone to help her. Doc looks worn out and the episode just started.

Newscast: A newscaster named Hayley Friend (who is actually Nancy O' Dell from Access Hollywood) is reporting from the scene of the shootings. She reports that five people are "dead or wounded." Doc watches at the station as some other guy sits on a couch to him. Hayley talks about a woman who was killed, a schoolteacher whom Carlos had treated. She was DOA. "What about Tanya?" Doc asks. "She doesn't rate a mention?" Wait, I thought she was still alive. Don't dead people get priority? The unidentified guy sitting to Doc says, "I thought they said four others." Doc responds, "As long as they said 'others.'" As they go to the main room, Carlos comments on how hot the reporter his. Kim and Bobby enter. They're talking about the schoolteacher. "A white woman teaching in this neighborhood? She should have stayed out in the 'burbs," Kim says. Whoah! This will be the first of many dumb Kim remarks for this episode. Doc asks about the shooters. They're identified as mid-twenties and black. Nothing more specific. Carlos says he wouldn't want to be a mid-twenties black guy in the neighborhood today. "True that," Kim says. Doc gives her a look. "What?" she asks. "I watch television." Oh, I see. This is the episode where Kim is a dumbass. Er, the latest episode where Kim is a dumbass. Doc looks pensive.

Omar: So, Johnnie, what do you think?
Johnnie Cochran: Huh? Wuzzat? wiping sleep from eyes] Oh, well, you have the issue of inappropriate remarks in the workplace. Paramedics distributing unequal care to citizens based on race. Blood that does not match blood found on the scene of the restaurant. I see Doc as the victim here. He is privy to seeing things as they truly are as opposed to how they are presented to the public. He is a hero. An American hero. I don't think there's a person shown so far that wouldn't lose a lawsuit brought on by Doc if he was my client.
Omar: Want some Cheetos-brand cheese puffs? They're fresh.
Johnnie Cochran: I will gladly accept your offer.

As Doc is organizing in the back of the ambulance, Hayley Friend (oh, that she were a friend) pops her head in to chat. She is indeed comely and perky in a young Mary Hart-but-sexier kind of way. Doc, who is wearing a little undershirt, immediately says, "No comment." Hayley hangs around and chats idly about the scene and throws out journalistic platitudes. "Gotta get the story out..." she says, "people gotta know what's going on." Hayley reveals that she knows Doc was the paramedic on duty at the shooting. She says she knows it's hard to see stuff like that. Then she flirtatiously asks how long he's been a paramedic. Fifteen years is the answer. She says that with that kind of experience, he must have some great stories to tell. Hayley says she does feature stuff on the weekends. Carlos rears his big head into the scene and says they have a "Code 3," which he translates to mean "lights and sirens." Hayley, who looks like she would be impressed by an automated lollipop spinner, is not impressed here. Carlos lays on the pseudo-charm. He says he was the one who actually worked on the schoolteacher. He'd like to talk, and he won't be around tomorrow because he's got a med school test. Doc looks bemused. Hayley nods and smiles and mentions that she's covering the teacher's candlelight vigil. Carlos says, "Yeah, we'll hook up," and gives her the little finger-gun gesture. Hayley turns back to Doc once Carlos is gone and hands him her card. Doc doesn't take it. He comes out and says that there were four other victims and only the teacher was mentioned. "We'll try to do better," Hayley says, with no further clarification.

At the hospital, Doc is in plainclothes waiting for Morales. He's looking up at the TV where Hayley is reporting. "Candlelight vigil," he says. Someone standing to them points out that the teacher was voted teacher of the year three years in a row. "Yeah, well maybe if Tanya Adams was voted Tasty Grill employee of the year for three years, someone would remember her name," Doc says spitefully. Wait, what?

Johnnie Cochran: If she didn't win Tasty Grill employee of the year, you can be assured there would be legal ramifications.
Omar: ...? Johnnie Cochran: Well, there would.

Morales and Doc are walking outside. Doc notices black, beaten men being brought in by police. Morales says that it seems like criminals are having to pass through the ER more and more. Out of nowhere, Doc says, "Five people are shot, three people are dead. I'll save my tears for Tanya Adams." Look, Doc, I know Tanya was cute, but damn! Can you be a little less fixated? A medical examiner truck rolls by, and Doc looks at it pensively. Does everything bother you now, Doc? We go to commercial.

Can I just say that that Mazda "Zoom Zoom" kid scares me? He might as well be saying, "I see dead engines..."

Now it's "TUESDAY." Doc is jogging again. Except on his headphones, he's listening to Martin Luther King, Jr. He stops to watch young black men get shoved into police cars. He is pensive, but you know, I'm starting to think that's a Doc trait that will never go away.

We see protesters, and cops pushing them back. Bosco greets Doc and bitches that the people are getting better police coverage than the Upper East Side. Doc asks if he should look at the security tape of the shooting to identify suspects he might know from the neighborhood. Bosco says the suspects aren't recognizable. Just two guys. Doc wanders up to the ambulance to find Kim with her hair loose and a tight white shirt on, looking like she's about to film a shampoo commercial. ["She must have the urge to Herbal." -- Sars] She says she's taking over for Carlos as he takes his test. "Hope you remember everything I taught you," Doc says. Kim says she's learned a few tricks of her own (like the one about constantly sleeping with your ex-husband who happens to be engaged to another woman. That one's not even in the handbook). She offers to buy Doc a cup of coffee. He keeps walking. It's Doc's world. We're all just squirrels trying to get a nut.

Doc is changing into uniform, and in his pocket he finds Tanya's nametag from the restaurant. He looks at it. How, you may ask? Pensively. Very pensively. Kim interrupts as Doc flashes back to Tanya's bloody encounter with him. Kim says they think the cops found the suspects and they need assistance. They go.

In the ambulance, Doc asks about Jimmy. He's fine, Kim says, but pushing himself too hard to recover. They talk about the teacher. Doc says, "She gave her life ordering a cheeseburger." Kim notes that it's a pretty cold thing to say. Doc doesn't care. It's his world now. That teacher was just a field mouse trying to get a piece of cheese. Doc goes on a tirade about how they're making too big a deal out of the teacher. Kim says there's no mention of race in the newspaper. Kim gives Doc a blank look. Kim, don't worry. It's his world.