Summary: Carter is about to work his first shift back at County in years. He takes a deep breath, as if he needs extra strength, and bandages the arm where he received dialysis. Brenner brings Neela breakfast in bed, something she has fond memories of as a child. She asks him about his childhood, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. He tries to get her naked to change the subject. She asks why every conversation with him ends in sex. I don’t see you complaining, Neela.
Banfield and Russell are at an information session at an adoption agency. They overhear another couple talking about the $10,000 cost of adoption. At County, two people come in after being pulled out of the lake because their GPS told them to turn when they shouldn’t have. Wow, geniuses.
Banfield learns that the adoption fees for children of color are lower than for white kids, which disgusts her. She chastises the couple discussing money earlier, thinking they’re not serious about adopting, since they’re not taking the money issue seriously. (For the record, that couple is also Black.) Russell decides that they should leave before anything gets heated. The husband says that he feels bad for the child who ends up with Banfield. Russell punches him in the face.
The lake couple, Tildie and Burt, don’t seem to think that they should take any responsibility for driving into the water. Their GPS must be broken. Sam’s on the phone with someone from her mother’s nursing facility, who’s telling her that her mother is acting strange after arriving in Chicago. Sam decides to go over and see her after her shift. Gates is kind to her about it, because God forbid we go a single episode without the two of them interacting.
Carter tries to discharge a couple of patients, but Frank, Gates, and Banfield tell him that the procedures have changed. I guess after spending so much time in Africa, he’s not used to doing so much paperwork. Also, maybe tell him stuff like that ahead of time? Sam announces that some victims of an explosion at an apartment building are on their way in. Banfield gives Carter the okay to sit out of mass trauma, since he’s probably out of practice, but Carter thinks he’s up for the challenge.
Brenner is in the ICU, where Lucy’s visiting the still-heartless Joanie. She’s been on bypass for a week, and Lucy’s worried that she won’t survive long enough to get a new heart. She asks Brenner if she can play hooky from school, but he says no. He asks about her foster family, who she has mixed feelings about. The mom is nice, but the dad is childish and sometimes walks around without clothes on. Brenner is obviously not going to let that keep happening.
The explosion victims start arriving, including Norman. Once again, he was a good Samaritan – he ran into his neighbor’s apartment, where the explosion occurred, to save some kids. Banfield assigns Carter and Gates to work on him together. Gates calls Carter “Johnny,” which, no, cut that out. Also, he outranks you. Don’t get cute.
Tildie and Burt tell Morris and Chuny that people should trust technology more. Morris thinks they should try being more free-spirited. Question authority! Act out! Hildie admits that they didn’t vote in the 2008 election because they were afraid of change. Morris urges her to loosen up by cutting off a mattress tag. After a long pause, Hildie does. Morris suggests that the couple go wild by cutting off more tags.
Norman compares himself to Spider-Man – since the ambulance explosion, he’s been able to feel other people’s distress. He sees it as a gift he’s supposed to use for good. Strangely, he doesn’t get hurt when he jumps into action. Gates updates Carter on some new medications and procedures used since he last worked in the ER. When Banfield asks how Carter’s doing, Gates says he’s good but a little rusty.
The oldest kid from the family in the explosion, a teen named James, tells Morris that his mother hooked up a gas grill to heat the apartment, since their heat was turned off. (He told her not to.) As he checks on his younger siblings, Brenner tries to get in touch with Lucy’s foster father, Stan. The kids’ mother, Annie, is having trouble breathing. Banfield and Carter realize at about the same time that the family has carbon monoxide poisoning. She again gives him the chance to sit out the trauma, but he says he’s fine.
Norman’s record of rescuing people without getting hurt ends when he realizes that he can’t feel his legs. He’s sure they’ll get better, though. Neela wants to take him to surgery, but Carter thinks he should spend some time in a hyperbaric chamber first, in case his low oxygen levels are causing problems with his brain. Neela challenges that, and Carter calls her out on thinking that surgeons are superior to other doctors. Instead of arguing, she calls Dubenko.
An elevator isn’t working, which is definitely something you want in a hospital where you’re being treated. Sam runs down a bunch of stairs to get some films to the ER. Just then, Kelly comes in with their mother, Mary, who wasn’t allowed to be admitted to her nursing facility until she’d seen a doctor. She has end-stage emphysema and isn’t fully conscious, so she doesn’t notice that Sam is there.
Dubenko determines that Annie and Norman both aren’t stable enough for hyperbaric treatment. He doesn’t get why Carter won’t accept that. Banfield does – he’s used to working in the field, relying on his gut instead of technology. Dubenko backs down, to Neela’s surprise. He thinks it’s good that they have Carter’s view on things, since surgeons can be biased.
Neela complains to Brenner, who’s only half-listening, since he’s thinking about Lucy. Lucy tells him that she doesn’t feel comfortable living with her foster family. When her foster mother, Elaine, comes to pick her up for school, Brenner addresses what Lucy said about Stan. Elaine just thinks he’s weird. They have two kids, plus three foster kids, and he’s great with them, so other than the fact that he’s too lazy to get a job after being laid off, she has no problems with him.
Mary has pneumonia, but Gates thinks they can treat her and have her in her facility in a few hours. Sam admits that she doesn’t know what to say to her mother, who she hasn’t seen in years. Well, really, she doesn’t know what to say other than “you were a terrible mom” and “why did you have to come to Chicago?” Mary wakes up confused, but Sam doesn’t realize how out of it she is until Mary doesn’t recognize her.
Brenner meets up with Stan, addressing Lucy’s discomfort with him. He’s diplomatic at first, then asks straight out if Stan is crossing a line with Lucy. Stan insists that he and Elaine love all their foster kids. He doesn’t appreciate Brenner accusing him of anything. Brenner grabs him, about to get violent, which makes Stan think something’s wrong with him. He clarifies that Lucy saw him getting out of the shower in a towel one day when she got home early. He wouldn’t do anything inappropriate with children. Brenner realizes that he’s the one who crossed the line, and he leaves.
Claudia’s been experiencing some hazing at work and doesn’t want to say for sure that it’s connected to the fact that she ratted out her colleagues for police brutality. She tells Morris that she’ll deal with things herself this time. That said, she likes that he worries about her. She introduces him to her new partner, who doesn’t seem at all impressed with Morris. That’s probably because he knows that Morris stirred up issues and doesn’t want to have anything to do with him.
Hildie encourages Burt to live a little by crossing the street before the light says they can. He promptly gets hit by a moped. Good thing they’re right outside the hospital! Tildie’s just happy that he did something risky and exciting. Morris tries to explain that cutting off mattress tags was a metaphor for taking more chances. I don’t think these people understand metaphors, Morris. They drove into a lake because their GPS told them to! They’re not that bright!
Sam and Kelly discuss Mary, who Kelly’s basically dropping off and running from. She acknowledges that they’re probably doing more for Mary than she deserves. Carter offers to help Banfield and Gates with Annie, who keeps declining every time they try to take her to the OR. Carter wants to open her up in her trauma room to control her internal bleeding. He has James hold her hand and pretend they’re at the beach, a place Annie really likes.
Neela checks on Norman in his hyperbaric chamber. She and Dubenko bicker over whether they were right to let Carter make the decision here. Turns out they were, because Norman’s paralysis is fading. Annie didn’t survive, unfortunately, but Gates praises Carter for doing something gutsy to try to save her. That doesn’t make Carter feel any better, but he perks up when Sam tells him that Norman is improving.
He goes to see Norman as a neurosurgeon explains that the explosion likely forced air from his lungs into his bloodstream, causing an embolism that lodged in his spinal cord. The hyperbaric chamber shrank it, and Norman can now come out. He’s even more sure than before that he’s indestructible. Banfield has to ruin his day by telling him that Annie died.
She wants Norman to focus on the fact that he saved her kids and not the part where, you know, they don’t have a mother anymore. Norman says that he feels like he’s been under a magic spell for the past year. This is the end of “the era where everything works out.” Banfield notices that Carter’s arm is bleeding, but he’s heading off in an elevator before she can say anything.
Russell comes in, wanting someone to take a look at the hand he hurt when he punched that guy. Morris tells Tildie and Burt to ignore what he said earlier and keep following the rules. Gates asks how things are going between Morris and Claudia. Morris is happy and is looking for a way to step things up. Frank suggests the supposedly romantic gesture he just made for his wife: He bought them adjoining burial sites. Hmm, I think I’d rather have flowers.
Morris is a little nervous because he can’t tell how Claudia feels about him. Banfield says that she usually likes to stay out of people’s personal business – even though her colleagues talk about that a LOT – but she’ll offer Morris some advice she recently heard: “Sometimes you just gotta cut the mattress tag.” Frank pushes for the burial plots again.
Banfield finds Carter washing blood out of his shirt in a suture room. He tells her it’s from the shunt where he receives dialysis. That dialysis is due to the loss of function in one kidney after “an incident here.” Some condition he picked up in Africa ruined the other one. He basically ignored it for a while, but eventually couldn’t do it anymore. The real reason he came back to the U.S. was to get on the list for a kidney transplant. He knows that Banfield is a match, and he admits that he wanted to meet her so he could try to convince her to donate. No, no, he’s just kidding. Banfield tries to pretend she didn’t just have a minor heart attack.
Neela and Dubenko scrub in for surgery together, trying to act like they didn’t fight earlier. He says that they bicker because she’s one of the few people at County he considers a worthy opponent. He thinks she’ll be offered an attending position there. Neela tells him that she withdrew her application – she’s leaving County.
Banfield apologizes to Russell for the way she acted at the adoption agency. Russell notes that he wasn’t exactly on his best behavior, either. She wonders if it’s a sign that they’re going down the wrong path. Russell admits that it seems harder than he thought it would be to become a father again, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t proceed. They should sit with the idea for a while and then reevaluate things.
Brenner shows up at Neela’s drunk and looking for sex. She tells him about her horrible day and how Dubenko wouldn’t back her up on something she was sure she was right about. Brenner urges her to let it go. He tries again to turn things romantic, but she gets fed up with him for always acting like that. She wants him to open up about himself. Brenner angrily says that he had a horrible day, too, but he doesn’t have the “neurotic urge” to come dump everything on her. The phone rings, but Neela decides not to answer so they can keep talking. Brenner storms out, so Neela picks up. It’s Ray, who I’m sure Brenner loves calling his girlfriend all the time.
Back at County, Carter chats with Sam about how hard it is to see your parents age. She tells him it’s nice to have him back. Mary’s still confused, and she apparently thinks she’s being held there because someone wants information from her. She says she doesn’t know if she can trust Sam. Sam replies that she understands. Mary sang to her as a child to help her sleep, so Sam starts humming “Hush, Little Baby.” Mary starts singing along, then hugs Sam and says she wishes she had a daughter like her.
Carter leaves, saying goodbye to Chuny, who says it’s like he never left. He looks back at the hospital, seeming torn about what’s changed and what’s stayed the same.
Thoughts: Tildie is played by Judy Greer, who was on Arrested Development with Tony Hale (Norman).
Idea: A spin-off where Banfield and Russell adopt all of Annie’s kids. No, wait – a spin-off where Norman adopts all of Annie’s kids.
Banfield may not have been amused that Carter was going to pretend to ask her for a kidney, but I was. He should try that on Frank next.
'90s Flashback 
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