Summary: Gallant and Neela are in bed together, and he’s just presented her with an idea that she thinks is ridiculous. He thinks it’s the best idea he’s ever had. They discuss it more while she’s getting ready for work (they shower together) and ride the El train. She notes that their families will be surprised. Gallant tells her that they’ll get over it, and they’ll have a great story to tell their grandchildren. He asks if Neela loves him and she says she does. That settles it for him: They’re getting married today. Neela tells him to slow down, but it’s just so she can ask if she’ll get a bouquet.
At County, Morris passes a drunk school crossing guard named Glenda on to Abby. He’s disturbed by the thought of her putting kids at risk. He spots Weaver talking to Luka and Clemente in a trauma room and asks Frank if he knows what that’s about. Pratt teases that they’re talking about Morris. Frank and Sam guess that Weaver’s telling the guys to stop fighting. Ray knows Luka and Clemente are both up for the job of chief of the ER.
K.J. is still volunteering in the ER. I am still bored by him. Weaver ends her meeting and tells the staff that she’s working today, but they should run cases by Luka or Clemente before coming to her. They’ll run the board together. The guys are overly polite to each other, which is almost as annoying as when they fight all the time over stupid things.
I guess Eve hired Haleh back, because she’s helping Abby tend to Glenda before Chuny sends her to tend to someone else. Luka comes in to chat with Abby, telling her that Weaver just wanted to meet with him and Clemente to tell them how charming they are. Abby laughs at that, so Luka asks if she doesn’t think he’s charming. When you’re happy and flirty like this, how could anyone not? He tells her Weaver wants him and Clemente to be more agreeable. Abby’s skeptical that they can pull that off.
Gallant and Neela have spread the news about their impromptu marriage to their co-workers. Though Frank is, of course, one of those guys who thinks marriage is a prison, Morris is jealous that Gallant has already found the person he’s going to share his life with. Clemente teases him for his romanticism. Jerry offers to officiate, since he’s an ordained Universal Life minister.
Neela asks Abby to be her maid of honor. Abby would normally say no because she doesn’t want to wear an ugly dress, but in this case she’s going to say no because Neela’s lost her mind. Neela says she and Gallant want to be together. His tour’s over, and he hopes to be able to finish his medical training in the States. Abby isn’t sure Neela knows Gallant well enough to make this kind of commitment. Neela insists she does, but Abby notes that they haven’t lived together and learned little details that married couples know about each other. She backs off when Neela asks her to just be happy and supportive.
Dubenko tells Pratt that according to a security guard, K.J. stole a digital camera. Pratt promises to talk to him. Gallant and Neela talk wedding venues while she starts to tend to a new patient. He tells her Jerry’s going to officiate. Luka and Clemente both weigh in on Abby’s decision to give Glenda platelets, since she’s having some bleeding issues. Surprisingly, the guys are on the same page about it. Ray tells Abby that they’ve been doing that all morning, as if they’re in “some sort of competitive agreeing contest.”
Pratt confronts K.J. about the camera, but he denies that he took it. Pratt tells him that surveillance footage proves he did. Plus, he disappeared while running an errand. K.J. can explain that – he was flirting with another volunteer – but insists he didn’t take the camera. Pratt’s upset that after he went out on a limb for K.J., K.J. would do something like this. His father, Darnell, is on the way to get him.
Chuny, Malik, and Dubenko discuss Neela and Gallant’s wedding venue options while they work on a patient with Neela. They bug her to register somewhere for gifts. Gallant winds up booking the hospital chapel without conferring with Neela, who would like to make some choices about her own wedding. Dubenko interrupts to remind Gallant that he shouldn’t see his bride on their wedding day. Also, he wants Neela to scrub in for an operation. Gallant thinks Neela’s pushing back because she has cold feet.
Abby examines a sick five-year-old boy named Stewy. He hasn’t been immunized because his mother and pediatrician don’t believe in vaccines. Mrs. Kenig also doesn’t want him to have a chest x-ray, even though Abby thinks he has pneumonia. She wants Abby to skip the radiation and just prescribe antibiotics. Abby decides not to fight with her and hold off on the x-ray unless Stewy gets worse.
Darnell believes K.J.’s claims that he didn’t steal the camera, and he wants to talk to Dubenko and the security guard who told him K.J. was the thief. Pratt notes that no one’s going to press charges, but Darnell insists. Glenda’s a little more coherent but is having trouble with her muscles. She also doesn’t know who Abby is. Jerry tells Weaver that a search committee meeting has been moved up. Clemente and Luka exchange a glance.
Abby tells Luka that something’s wrong with Glenda and she should have another CT scan. Clemente steps in, saying that she’s a drunk, so of course her mental state isn’t stable. Luka starts to tell him off, then remembers that Weaver is nearby. Luka has to go tend to someone else, so Clemente makes the final decision: Abby should just keep observing Glenda and wait to do anything else. Abby ignores him and tells Haleh to arrange another scan for Glenda.
Pratt runs into Gallant at the mini-mart, moping because he doesn’t think the wedding’s going to happen. Maybe they moved too fast. He was going to propose to Neela a while ago, so it’s not like this is out of the blue for him. He knew guys in Iraq who got married right before they went overseas. They ended up going home with major injuries and in pain, but they were most worried about the burden they would be placing on their wives. Gallant decided that if he made it through his tour, he’d marry Neela.
Abby sees on Glenda’s second scan that something’s wrong. She tells the tech to call a code team. Luka and Clemente respond, and Abby tells them that Glenda has a brain bleed. Her decision to scan Glenda again instead of wait and observe saved her. Dubenko walks Neela through surgery, staying calm and teaching even as the patient declines. Gallant uses the intercom outside the room to tell her that when he was away, thinking about her let him escape to a calmer place. Maybe they’re moving too fast and maybe he didn’t propose the right way, but he wants to be with her. He asks her again to marry him.
Weaver joins Ray and Sam to treat a patient named Harry who fell through some ice. Gallant’s looking for Jerry, and Frank hopes it’s not because he’s calling things off. He already got a temp to cover the desk. Awww, Frank wants to go to the wedding! Neela arrives and promises that it’s happening. They just need to go get stuff like their marriage license and rings.
Weaver brushes Morris aside in the trauma room and lets Ray take over running things. Morris questions one of her treatment decisions, but Weaver hears him out and lets him try something different. Pratt, Darnell, and Dubenko question the security guard who accused K.J., and it turns out he didn’t actually witness anything. He also hasn’t looked at any surveillance footage. The guard makes excuses for how long it’ll take to get the footage, but Darnell will wait however long he has to, especially if he can prove his son is innocent.
Morris’ treatment will take a while to work, but Harry’s friend wants to stick around. He tells the staff that they played hockey together as kids, and Harry once pulled him out when he fell through the ice. Today, the friend couldn’t repay the favor. (To be fair, they’re 70 now.) He feels horrible about it. Harry’s heart stops just then.
Stewy has to stay in the hospital overnight, and his sister, Patricia, is annoyed to be called away from basketball practice. Sorry your brother’s serious illness is keeping you from bouncing and throwing around a ball, kid. Morris questions one of Weaver’s treatments again, knowing from some 1980s study that another medication is better here. Morris has been studying?? Again, Weaver defers to him.
Abby interrupts Luka and Clemente while they’re bickering over…eh, whatever, and presents Stewy’s case to them. She tells them her plan and asks if they concur. No, she is not asking for input, No, she is not asking for other ideas. This is a yes-or-no question. They say yes, so she heads off to do stuff she was most likely going to do no matter what they said.
Dubenko tells Pratt and Darnell that the chief of security met with the guard who accused K.J. and got him to admit that there’s no surveillance footage of K.J. stealing the camera, and no one has been named a suspect. Darnell guesses that the guard just pointed the finger at K.J. because he’s Black. Dubenko says it was “unconscionable” and the guard will be fired. He tells Darnell that K.J.’s been doing great in his role and apologizes on behalf of the hospital. Darnell wants him to say that to K.J., too.
Once everything’s sorted out, Pratt laments to Darnell and K.J. that it always seems to come down to race. No matter how good a job or how much money they have, white people don’t care. K.J. doesn’t want to keep volunteering there, but Darnell and Pratt won’t let him go. Pratt’s going to make sure that K.J. works harder than all the other volunteers. K.J. doesn’t see the point, since, as they just said, people will always be looking over his shoulder no matter what he does. Darnell tells him to get used to it. All he can do is live his life and try his best. Pratt adds that he has to stay in the game; otherwise, the other side wins.
Frank and Jerry’s substitute, Maureen, is a young, talkative woman Frank would definitely hate. Clemente, however, is interested in her. Abby passes patients on to Luka so she can go get ready for the wedding. He praises her for her plan for Stewy’s treatment and jokes that, as she thought before, he’s not great at being agreeable. Abby’s like, “You and Clemente sucked at getting along today, so was I wrong?”
Morris’ treatment for Harry worked and he’s stable now. Weaver leaves the trauma room without giving Morris any feedback. Ray tells him he did a great job. Weaver takes a moment in the hallway to think about how out of practice she is. Stewy’s heart rate is dropping, and Luka and Clemente work together to stabilize him. He’s finally had his chest x-ray, which indicates that he has PCP pneumonia. Luka delicately asks Mrs. Kenig if they can test him for HIV.
Since Mrs. Kenig is anti-vaccine, it’s not that surprising that she has wild theories about HIV and AIDS. She thinks they were invented by biotech so they can charge a bunch of money for tests while patients are actually dying from the effects of things like pollution and toxins. Vaccines are a conveniently easy fix. Mrs. Kenig has talked to 50 doctors since being diagnosed with HIV, and they all say that it causes AIDS. Might as well keep spending money in case that 51st has a different answer, huh?
Clemente slams on the brakes since she buried the lead: She has HIV. He calls her nuts for not believing that it leads to AIDS. She was diagnosed 14 years ago and has never been sick. That means she didn’t take AZT while she was pregnant, so Stewy probably contracted HIV from her. Mrs. Kenig notes that since AZT suppresses the immune system, it could also cause AIDS.
Clemente says he loves conspiracies, too, but drug companies know what they’re talking about, as do doctors. Mrs. Kenig has jeopardized her son’s life to prove a crazy theory. Luka sends Clemente away as he rants that Mrs. Kenig is selfish and put her son at risk. Stewy’s never been tested for HIV, and Sam asks about Patricia. The poor girl has been in the room the whole time, and now she’s crying. Aww, I’m sorry about what I said before about basketball. You should have stayed at practice.
Abby rushes back to the hospital after going home to get dressed up, but she realizes as she arrives at the chapel that there’s a funeral going on. Haleh runs out with an armful of flowers and tells her there was a change in venue. Did Haleh just steal flowers from a funeral?? To be fair, the flowers are pretty cheery, so maybe she’s doing the mourners a favor by taking them away.
Luka and Sam discuss Stewy, whose mother won’t let them test him for HIV or give him medication for it. They wonder how people can get like she is. Sam goes back into Stewy’s room and tells Mrs. Kenig that when Alex was five, they thought he had meningitis. She didn’t want the doctors to give him a spinal tap; she didn’t want anything to hurt her child. But in this case, Stewy is already hurting. Mrs. Kenig is entitled to her beliefs, but if she doesn’t do something, no one will be able to help him. He only has her.
Abby and Haleh go through the kitchen of the new wedding venue, where Abby smirks at a sheet cake wishing the bride and groom good luck. Hey, at least their names are spelled correctly. They’re at a place called Baby Joon’s, which happens to have been Malik’s recommendation. Gallant and Neela come in together, he wearing his dress blues and she in a white sari. There’s no music, so the guests hum the wedding march.
Sam was able to get Mrs. Kenig to let them help Stewy, but she wouldn’t budge on having Patricia tested. Luka chastises Clemente for how he acted, then reveals that he’s been picked as the new ER chief. Clemente says he withdrew his name and hoped Luka would get the job. Luka’s on his way to the wedding reception but Clemente decides to skip it and try to hook up with Maureen.
The reception is lively, with limbo and Barry Manilow songs. Abby wonders if she’ll have to start calling Luka “chief.” She thinks it’s a cute title for a guy. They toast to discretion and maturity, since they’re old enough now not to have to show off their love the way youngins like Neela and Gallant do.
Morris and Weaver drink together, and she says she should have told him earlier that she really respects how he handled Harry’s treatment. She’s out of practice and is going to spend more time in the ER. Morris passes out in the middle of the conversation and she yells him awake. The bride and groom say goodbye to their guests and head off for their wedding night, which will only last until Neela’s 7 a.m. shift the next morning. She tosses the bouquet and Chuny catches it.
Luka drives Abby home, trying to remember the words to “Copacabana.” She advises him to keep his day job. The sexual tension in the car with them is thick, and before she can even finish inviting him inside, he makes out with her. Neela and Gallant run to catch a train, exactly the way every newlywed couple wants to end their wedding day. They’re not the only ones who will be having sex tonight – Abby and Luka are about to, too. “Do you really think we should be doing his?” she asks. “I do,” he replies.
Thoughts: I looked up the Universal Life denomination – anyone can become ordained but not every state considers marriages those ministers perform valid. Jerry would be better off getting ordained on the Internet.
Parents, please don’t name your children Stewy.
Darnell might be a less-than-ideal father, what with getting so drunk that he can’t show up for K.J., but I love how hard he fights for his son.
I have no words for how adorable Luka is singing “Copacabana.”
'90s Flashback 
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