ER 5.1, Day for Knight: Lucy Is the New Carter, and the Old Carter Is Kind of Awful

November 5, 2019

ER 5.1, Day for Knight: Lucy Is the New Carter, and the Old Carter Is Kind of Awful

I make that face at Julie Bowen sometimes, too

Summary: Third-year med student Lucy Knight is on her way to her first day of work at County when she comes across a man lying on the sidewalk. Someone in the small crowd gathered around him says he may have slipped. Lucy’s wearing a white coat, so someone thinks she’s a doctor, but she quickly proves that she doesn’t know enough about medicine to pass for one yet. Fortunately, Mark and Carol arrive, having been summoned by another witness, and take the man to the hospital.

Lucy goes with them as Carol and Mark do exposition letting us know that Jen is out of town for a few weeks, so Rachel’s staying with Mark. Mark thinks Lucy is the patient’s family member and asks her to leave the trauma room. Lucy says she was just passing by and tried to help at the scene. The patient remarks that she didn’t help much. Way to be grateful for the kindness of strangers, sir. Lucy explains that she’s a third-year student and will be starting her ER rotation today. Mark and Carol send her out of the trauma room anyway.

In the waiting area, Lucy runs into a classmate, Bernard, who’s doing an audio tour of the hospital. She asks him to help her practice drawing blood later, but he doesn’t think they’ll be doing procedures on their first day. Benton rushes a patient in with some paramedics and Lucy gets her first glimpse of the blood and gore that come with this rotation. She meets some of the nurses, who are planning a surprise birthday party for Jerry in the lounge.

At the admit desk, Rachel helps Lucy find a new coat before being sent off to soccer camp. Mark gives Lucy an overview of ER procedures, telling her she’ll be assigned to a resident later. He introduces her to Carter, who’s taking a nap since he’s lost sleep after moving into a dorm as an RA. He’s also grown a hideous beard that he’ll keep for way too long. Lucy sees Benton’s patient again, but this time, he’s dying.

Next, Lucy meets Doyle, then Doug, who somehow still has a job. Elizabeth arrives wearing red cowboy boots she got while interviewing for a job in Denver. Mark turns Lucy loose to help out in the ER, but first she wanders back into the trauma room where Benton’s patient is being pronounced dead. After everyone else leaves, the patient’s phone starts ringing. Lucy answers it and tells the caller she’ll take a message.

Later, Lucy takes the audio tour, which sends her to the men’s bathroom instead of the admit desk. Bernard tells her he couldn’t get it right, either. Doyle has already claimed Bernard as her own and is working him hard. Lucy asks Weaver if she’ll be assigning the students to residents, since she’s the ER chief. Weaver says she’s (still) acting chief. Doug interrupts to tell Weaver about a procedure he’s going to do on a child. This is the only reason he’s still employed there – he has to have Weaver babysit him.

Jerry hangs up a banner for his own birthday, sure that his co-workers are going to throw him a surprise party. (He found the cake; they hide it in the same place every year.) Lucy invites herself to team up with Carter, using a Palm Pilot-type computer to look up a diagnosis. Carter clearly looks down on that sort of thing. Mark warns her not to show up the residents by solving cases they’re struggling with.

Carter examines his patient, Mr. Zwicki, who thinks he’s just fatigued from a renovation project he’s working on. Lucy tries to help out with questions, but Carter doesn’t appreciate the assistance. She tells him she’s willing to do her fair share of her job. Carter sends her off to take a patient’s history on her own. Her patient is fine with that, since God put them in each other’s paths, so clearly it’s meant to be.

Lucy tries to go over Mr. Zwicki’s lab results with Carter, who’s trying to jump in on a trauma with Weaver. Weaver sends him off to do some teaching. Lucy knows her stuff, and Carter lets her tag along as he tells Mr. Zwicki he needs to be admitted for a few days for more tests. He may have cancer. Mr. Zwicki resists staying, so Carter says they’ll go to the waiting area to talk to his wife first. He tells Lucy that sometimes this trick helps; he’s pretty sure Mrs. Zwicki will talk her husband into staying.

Carter ditches Lucy to go back to the trauma with Weaver, so Lucy tells Mrs. Zwicki that her husband could be seriously sick. She doesn’t translate her medical talk, so Mrs. Zwicki doesn’t talk her husband into staying. Carter catches them leaving and tries to change their minds. Mr. Zwicki promises to talk to his regular doctor if his condition doesn’t improve. Carter blasts Lucy for not using normal English to explain things to the Zwickis. When he complains to Mark, Mark points out that Lucy shouldn’t have been given that task in the first place. Carter denies that he assigned her to do it.

Mark takes pity on Lucy and takes her up to the roof to get a patient named Emil who’s coming in on a helicopter after a fall. She’s unable to get her protective gown on, and she has to chase it in the wind. The others leave the roof without her, locking her up there alone. When she gets to the ER, Carol is sympathetic, having also been locked up on the roof once. Mark jokes that he thought Lucy had decided to leave on the helicopter. He has Lucy walk him through Emil’s examination, which shows that he has a serious head injury.

Mark is vague when Emil’s firefighter co-workers check in with him. They’re not sure they did the right thing sending him in on a helicopter, since it wasn’t equipped with medical supplies. Mark says that he probably would have done the same, so they didn’t do anything wrong. He sends Lucy off to do something else while they wait for Emil’s CT results.

The nurses discuss how to present Jerry with his “surprise” cake to make his birthday special. Carter notes that Lucy got a locker, which is pretty lucky, since she’s still a student. Lucy says she heard it belonged to a resident who left the program. That would be Anna, who went back to Philadelphia. Carter is bummed about it, but I don’t think he ever mentions her again, so I guess he’s going to get over it pretty quickly. Lucy apologizes for talking to Mrs. Zwicki without exact orders. Carter doesn’t respond to that, but he does suggest that she try the suture room if she wants a quiet place to study.

Lucy finds the room quiet for a while, but soon Elizabeth and Benton come in, talking about Reese. Benton thinks Reese’s possible hearing problems are due to a recent ear infection. Elizabeth tells him that she didn’t really like the hospital she visited in Denver; she’d rather stay in Colorado. She may get a sponsorship from another doctor. Lucy spies on them through a curtain, unseen as Benton and Elizabeth start making out. She crouch-walks out of the room without them seeing her, but gets caught by Malik.

Lucy goes looking for Carter, who wanted her assistance with a pregnant woman, Mrs. Draper. She’s worried that she’s having a miscarriage, her third. Lucy observes as Carter and Carol gently tend to her. Lucy offers to stay out of the room when Carter comes back later to perform a pelvic exam, but Carter notes that she won’t learn that way.

Mark grabs Lucy to look at Emil’s CT, which shows that his condition can’t be fixed with surgery. They’ll treat him medically for now and wait for his wife. One of the firefighters thanks Mark for talking with him and his co-workers earlier. He thinks Mark must have worked with paramedics in the field before. There’s a position opening up for a medical director for paramedics; they need someone to do ride-alongs and determine procedures. It’s only a few hours a week, but there’s no salary or perks, so therefore, there’s no incentive for Mark to accept.

Bernard takes the audio tour again in an attempt to look busy so Doyle won’t bug him. Doyle is already on to him, though. Lucy goes back to Mrs. Draper, whom Carter determines did have a miscarriage. He asks Lucy to sit with her until an OB-GYN can come see her. Carol looks on from outside the room as Lucy struggles to find something comforting to say to the patient.

Weaver finds Lucy later and, after telling Jerry to call the morgue again about a body that’s been in the ER for a while, checks to see how her first day is going. She sends Lucy to help Doug with a boy who has a gross-sounding throat infection. She thinks he has to have Weaver sign off on his work because she’s an attending and he isn’t. Doug tells her the truth about why he’s on probation. He’s mainly okay with it, though, since Josh is doing well.

Lucy’s next patient is Roxanne, a woman who dropped a weight on her toe at the gym. Jerry offers to help escort her to an exam room, probably because she’s pretty. Mark and Lucy meet Emil’s wife and tell her that they’ll treat him as best they can, but it doesn’t look good. Over the next few days, if there’s no brain activity, she’ll have to decide whether or not to take him off of life support. Lucy takes her to see her husband, hoping that he can hear her.

Carter treats a man who cut his foot while diving in a shipwreck. He tells Lucy to start an IV, who pretends she’s done that before. Carol is nearby and agrees to help her so she doesn’t hurt the patient. Later, Mark tells Lucy how to treat Roxanne’s broken toe and lets her do it herself. Roxanne has been entertaining herself by trying to sell Jerry insurance. He’s already invited her to stay for his “surprise” party.

Carter compliments Lucy on her IV skills while Carol is standing right next to them. Lucy takes the credit. Emil’s wife tells her that she needs to get her kids home, so she’ll come back tomorrow to discuss options for her husband’s care. Weaver yells at Jerry again about the body in the ER, telling him to take it himself since no one has come from the morgue to get it. Only the body has been replaced by Malik, who’s holding Jerry’s cake to surprise him. Everyone sings to him happily, except Lucy, who sadly watches Emil’s wife and kids leave.

Roxanne chats with Carter as Chuny turns on some music. Lucy comments to Bernard that she can’t believe the staff is having a party after a horrible day. He tells her he’s been assigned to Doyle, and Lucy has been assigned to Carter. Bernard thinks she’s lucky. They’re pleased to have made it through the day, though Lucy doesn’t think she helped anyone. Bernard says at least she got to see patients. Lucy leaves the party to go back to Emil’s trauma room. She tells him she knows how much his wife and kids love him, and she wishes this hadn’t happened to him.

Thoughts: As mentioned above, Roxanne is played by Julie Bowen.

Oh, hey, it’s jerky Carter! Awesome! I was wondering when he was going to show up.

If I went to an ER and there was a dead body just lying there in the corner of the room, I would find another hospital. Get it together, County.

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