January 11, 2022
ER 10.5, Out of Africa: In Transition
Oh, Henry. If only you were a real wizard and could have used magic to stop what’s about to happen
Summary: Luka is on an El train, on his way to his first shift back at County after his ordeal in the Congo and recovering from malaria. Life in Chicago is a lot different from where he just was – no El trains, loud music, or people worrying about stocks in Kisangani or Matenda. Luka smiles at a poster advertising a stage production of The Lion King.
The ER is crazy, but at least most of the crazy is now contained to the triage area. “New furniture, same patients,” Chuny tells Luka. As soon as he steps out of the triage area, Frank tells him to call Weaver. Luka meets Morris (ick, sorry about him, Luka), then takes his time before having to check in with Weaver. Frank comments that everyone’s wild because it’s Halloween. Yeah, because normally, it’s really calm there.
A woman named Mrs. Martin bangs on the triage window until Luka opens the door for her. Her baby, Adam, fell out of a shopping cart, and Mrs. Martin isn’t sure if he hit his head. Her older son, Henry, who’s about 11, says he did hit his head, but he didn’t cry. Luka decides he should be examined ASAP. Me, realizing which episode this is: “Oh, no. Ohhhhhhhh, no.”
A woman named Sam Taggart arrives, looking for Abby. Frank tells her Abby’s off today, so she should come back tomorrow. Down the hall, an angry patient starts trashing an exam room he was locked inside until he could calm down. A security guard wants to pepper spray him, but Pratt notes that the spray will affect other people. He tells Chuny to give the guy some Haldol instead.
Pratt and Coop grab a mattress they can use to hold the guy down while Morris injects him. The holding-down part goes fine, but Morris hesitates to use the Haldol. Wandering down the hall, Sam grabs the syringe and does the job for him. Romano arrives and hopes Sam works there. Fortunately, she does – she’s a nurse.
Sometime later, Sam takes a turn as triage nurse, managing to calmly handle all the impatient patients (…heh), including one who calls her “little girl.” Romano asks what today’s excuse is for the waiting area being “a stinking, overpopulated cesspool of humanity.” Sam suggests it’s the health care system. He tells her that if she wants, she can stab a staff member in the neck, which will make all the patients head somewhere else. Sam asks Morris to examine someone, but he finds an excuse to do something else, as he constantly does.
Romano asks Frank which doctor he should be angry with today. Frank tells him Luka is back, and Romano calls him Colonel Kurtz. Susan admires Romano’s new arm, and he offers to give her a demonstration of what it can do. Susan smoothly says he’ll have to buy her a drink first. I get the feeling Susan has never let sexual harassment get to her in her life.
Luka works with Neela but dismisses Morris when he offers his help. Luka tells Mrs. Martin that they’ll get a CT of Adam’s head and then wait until he wakes up. Neela asks if she can draw Adam’s blood, but Morris says it’s not a good case for a student. He assures Mrs. Martin that while Neela’s a student, Morris himself is a doctor. Yeah, that doesn’t mean you want him around your baby, ma’am.
Back at the admit desk, Romano is showing off how his arm works. Pratt calls him Robo-Doc. Romano tells Pratt to do his job. They bicker about Pratt making doctors in other departments mad, but Pratt doesn’t let it get to him. Romano continues doing demonstrations, but he squeezes a vial of something too hard and it breaks. Susan quips that he shouldn’t use that arm to do a rectal exam.
Adam is having trouble breathing, so Morris decides they should intubate him. Neela thinks they should get Luka. Luka’s on the phone with Weaver, who’s annoyed that she’s had to wait to talk to him, like, he’s working, Kerry. Chill. Chuny pulls him back into the trauma room in time to stop Morris from intubating Adam. Susan checks in, but Luka has everything under control. He tells Morris why intubation would have been a bad idea, teaching him while also chastising him for moving too fast.
In the hallway, Mrs. Martin tells Susan that she was in a rush because she forgot to buy hot dogs for Henry’s school’s barbecue, and she must not have strapped Adam into the cart right. Susan sends Henry to get his mother a drink so she can talk to Mrs. Martin alone. Mrs. Martin admits that she’s been taking Zoloft, and maybe she’s having a bad reaction to it. She and her husband are going through a divorce, and he’s trying to take away their kids.
Susan reluctantly asks if Mrs. Martin has been drinking. Mrs. Martin says no, but Susan can smell alcohol on her. She asks Mrs. Martin to take a blood alcohol test to prove her claim that she’s not drunk. When Mrs. Martin asks if Susan can make her take it, Susan says that’s not a good reply. Mrs. Martin begs not to take the test, saying she just made a mistake.
Susan leaves to examine a man named Ben whose neighbor called an ambulance when he didn’t answer his door. He’s a little imbalanced and his heart isn’t stable. He may have taken too much of his heart medicine. Luka joins Gallant to tend to a man with a knee injury. Gallant wants him to get an x-ray, but Luka determines that he doesn’t need one. He explains to Susan that without x-rays in the Congo, he learned different ways to diagnose.
Susan tells him that she thinks Mrs. Martin has been drinking, so they should call a social worker. Since Adam needs to be admitted overnight, Luka advises her to let another department handle the family so they can continue seeing patients. Susan notes that they’ll fall through the cracks. Luka wants to avoid a “bureaucratic mess,” but Susan doesn’t want the family to come back after another incident. Luka gives in.
Neela presents a patient to Luka, brushing off the patient’s comment that she speaks English “good” with, “Better than you, in fact.” I think Susan is rubbing off on her. As they’re talking, Romano asks if Pratt is in a trauma room with Susan. Neela tells him it’s Gallant, and Romano says he always gets Gallant and Pratt confused. “Must be the goatee,” he says. Sure. We believe you. Luka tells Neela she can discharge her patient; he can come back if his labs are abnormal, but there’s no point in him waiting around. Romano comments that he should send everyone to the Congo to learn how to work more efficiently.
He takes Pratt to a patient he needs to be discharged, but Pratt wants to wait for a surgical consult. Romano says he’ll do it, but Pratt would prefer someone who still has surgical privileges. Abby arrives wearing a white lab coat and says she’s the surgical consult. She’s gone back to med school and has started her surgical rotation. That explains the loan she wanted her ex to co-sign – she needed tuition money. “You waited three-and-a-half hours…for Abby?” Romano asks Pratt. Abby smiles to herself.
After the consult, Abby tells Susan that this seemed like the right time to go back to med school. She only has a year left anyway. As soon as she paid her tuition, she was put right back into rotation. Thanks to Elizabeth’s familiarity with Abby, she’s already being trusted to do consults. Abby will still take some nursing shifts for the money, so she’s going to be pretty stressed and tired. Susan teaches her a mnemonic, then happily tells Sam that Abby’s there from the OR when she needs a consult.
Luka admires how Abby looks in her coat as she tries to shift from nurse responsibilities to doctor responsibilities in a trauma setting. Romano calls Elizabeth for her so she can determine whether the patient needs surgery. Then he interrupts to tell Elizabeth that the patient will be going up to the OR, and Abby didn’t need to ask her first.
He tells her to do something nurse-like, but Sam says she’ll do it. Romano calls her “Miss Haldol” and tells her he finds mute girls covered in blood sexy, so she should keep her head down and her mouth shut. “You sound just like a guy I used to date,” Sam replies. “He’s dead.” Luka steps in, offering to show Abby how to do a procedure. Romano tells him to skip the mentoring, then gives Abby another nurse instruction. She struggles to keep her cool but manages to ignore him and keep doing her job.
Susan tells Mrs. Martin that Adam’s CT looks promising, but they still have to wait until he wakes up to know for sure that he’s okay. She warns that a social worker is coming to talk to Mrs. Martin. Mrs. Martin says that never helps, indicating that there have been other incidents. She insists that nothing was every that major.
Romano keeps overseeing Luka’s patient until he finally announces it’s time to stop working on him and take him to surgery. Fortunately, Frank calls Romano away, leaving the others in peace. Luka then leaves to talk to Weaver, like, talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire. Abby’s the highest-ranking person in the trauma room now. Sam blows off Neela for knowing less than her, which is the opposite of how it usually is, with med students embarrassing themselves by thinking they know more than nurses.
Weaver wants Luka to commit to working 36 hours a week. While they’re talking, a woman named Athena is hoping to be seen next, and Morris is still slacking. Luka offers to do six 12-hour shifts a week, which would actually be a break from his seven 18-hour shifts in the Congo. Also, he needs the money. Weaver asks for a month’s notice the next time Luka wants to leave town for a long stretch. He gives her double that, saying he’ll be going back to the Congo in two months. He doesn’t know how long he’ll be gone. Weaver approves the arrangement.
Mrs. Martin talks to Susan and a social worker, Ken, about how Henry burned his hand two months ago while he was home alone. Mrs. Martin explains that she had a job interview and was only gone an hour. But no one picked Henry up from school one day, and a teacher had to take him home. Mrs. Martin says her husband dropped the ball.
Ken tells her that based on this pattern and Susan’s suspicions about Mrs. Martin’s drinking, Adam and Henry will be removed from Mrs. Martin’s home and sent to live with their father full-time until she can get herself together. Ken says the case will probably be resolved within six months. Mrs. Martin tells him and Susan that she had breakfast with her lawyer, and he ordered her a Bloody Mary. He told her everything would be okay.
Neela hangs out with Henry, who carries a drumstick around with him as kind of a magic wand. Not that he really believes in magic. Mrs. Martin comes in to say goodbye just as the boys’ father arrives. Henry tells him what happened, and Susan and Neela tells him that Adam’s awake and showing signs of a good prognosis. Mr. Martin tells his ex that she’s free to screw up her own life, but not their children’s. Mrs. Martin says it was an accident – she was upset. Mr. Martin points out that nothing is ever her fault. She storms out.
Elizabeth is upstairs, operating with Dorset, when the reason they’ll never make it as a couple (and the reason this is his last episode) comes out via a nurse relaying a phone message: He’s married. Abby’s there, and we know she knows Elizabeth and Dorset have been dating, so that’s some gossip she can share with Susan later.
Back in the ER, Susan checks in with Ben, who has vision problems thanks to macular degeneration. She busts him for overdosing on his heart medication and asks if he’s suicidal. He’s 71 and going blind – he doesn’t think suicidal thoughts are abnormal. Susan wants him to talk to a psychiatrist, and he determines that if he volunteers to do so, she won’t keep him there involuntarily (basically, do this or I’ll make you). She tells him he’ll only be there a few hours, but if she has him put on a psych hold, he’ll be there for days. Kind of an easy choice, huh?
Mrs. Martin could also use a psychiatrist, but instead, she’s being left alone while Mr. Martin and Henry stay with Adam. Henry goes looking for his mother to let her know his brother’s waking up. She leaves the ER, passing Susan and Luka in the ambulance bay and telling them she forgot something in her car. That something is a bottle wrapped in brown paper.
Morris and Coop come back from a break, Morris complaining that he hates County. Yeah, well, County hates you, too. Go away. They pass Mrs. Martin’s car, where she’s locking the doors. Instead of a bottle of alcohol, the brown paper holds a bottle of lighter fluid. She pours it on herself and then lights a match. Henry runs out into the ambulance bay just in time to see his mother lighting herself on fire. And now you know why I said “oh, no” when I realized which episode this was.
Luka races to the car as Susan tells a nurse to take Henry back inside. Luka breaks a window with a gurney, and Susan grabs a blanket from an ambulance so he can open the car door without burning himself. Mrs. Martin is still alive and able to get out of the car, but she’s completely on fire. Luka and Coop smother the flames with the blanket until Susan puts them out with a fire extinguisher. Morris, as usual, does nothing.
They get Mrs. Martin to a trauma room, but she looks really bad. Like, super-bad. Horrific. Catastrophic. Hold on, let me grab a thesaurus. Horrendous. Okay, you get it. Luka tells her they need to put a tube down her throat, so she won’t be able to talk. When she asks how long she’ll be intubated, he doesn’t answer. She guesses she’s going to die. Luka asks if she wants to be intubated, and she says she wants to talk to Henry first.
Morris is, as usual, completely useless, and even throws up while Luka, Susan, and Sam are doing their jobs. Coop determines that Mrs. Martin only has a 10 percent chance of survival. Even then, she’ll probably get an infection and die from that. Coop thinks she deserves the right to refuse care, but Susan says that since she’s suicidal, she doesn’t get a say.
Dorset slams the nurse who outed him as married, like, she’s not the one who’s having an affair. Don’t be a child. He tries to talk to Elizabeth, starting off with the excuse that his wife is currently in Boston. That doesn’t help, and neither does the news that she’s still in med school. Elizabeth asks if he hid pictures of his wife when he had her over. He asks if Elizabeth is going to call her and rat him out.
She goes to the lounge, looking for coffee, and Abby offers her a cup. She tries to strike up a conversation about their patient, indicating that she’s not going to say anything about Elizabeth and Dorset. Elizabeth can’t believe she worried that she was dating too soon after Mark’s death when the real problem was the person she was dating. Abby brainstorms names to call Dorset, finally cracking Elizabeth up when she suggests “wanker.” Elizabeth says she knew he was a bad guy. Abby tells her there’s no shame in that.
Luka, Susan, and Sam keep working on Mrs. Martin, deciding not to intubate her until she’s seen her kids. Luka offers to talk to Mr. Martin, but Susan says she’ll do it. She’s distressed about the whole situation and doesn’t like the thought of Henry seeing his mother like this. Luka thinks he could also be traumatized by never seeing her again. He tells Susan that she was right to look out for the kids. Susan can’t agree with her own actions, since things are turning out like this.
She goes to talk to Mr. Martin, who’s shocked that his wife would do something like this. He says that Mrs. Martin told Henry to lie – they went to buy beer, not hot dogs. Susan assures Mr. Martin that Adam will be okay, so at least there’s some good news. He regrets filing for custody instead of just grabbing the kids and running.
Susan tells him that Mrs. Martin wants to see Henry. She gets that Mr. Martin is angry, but his ex is going to die, and he needs to decide what’s best for the kids in the long run, even if that means seeing their horrendously burned mother so she can say goodbye. Henry speaks up, saying he doesn’t want to see her. Susan assures him that they won’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to.
At the admit desk, Sam, Coop, and Morris discuss Mrs. Martin’s actions. Morris and Coop think she’s nuts for doing what she did, but Sam gets how the threat of losing your children could make you crazy. Pratt flirts with her, so it’s a good thing Chen isn’t in this episode. Morris’ shift is over, but he doesn’t want to leave and be branded a wuss. Pratt tells him it’s too late for that.
Romano proves that he can still do some stuff with his prosthetic arm, though Pratt wants to make the stitches he just gave someone a little cleaner. Ben asks to talk to Susan, since he’s still waiting for his psych consult. We get a shot from his point of view, which shows that things are blurry in his periphery, and the middle of his visual field is just one big blob. He decides to discharge himself.
Athena finally gets to see a doctor when she’s brought back in by paramedics. Morris doesn’t want to admit to not seeing her hours ago for what he thought was a hangover and cut on her head. She waited 11 hours and left without being seen. It turns out she has a massive head injury and is now critical. Morris, to his credit, steps up to try to fix his mistake, but he’s not great at being a doctor, so Luka takes over.
Susan and Neela bring Adam into Mrs. Martin’s trauma room so she can see him for probably the last time. Good thing he’s a baby and will never remember this. Neela tells Mrs. Martin that he’s going to be fine. Mrs. Martin asks about Henry, then guesses he’s not going to come see her. She decides it’s better that way. She asks Neela to help her write her older son a letter. She asks him to try to forget what happened and just remember that his mother loved him.
Morris does all he can for Athena, but Luka decides they can’t save her. Just a five-minute exam would have picked up that she had a brain bleed, and they could have gotten her to the OR. Luka tells Morris that Athena had nowhere else to go. “If we can’t find a way to take care of people like her, nobody will,” he says.
Morris flees the ER as a patient in the hallway yells for help. He comes back and wheels the patient’s gurney out to the ambulance bay. Coop follows, and Morris announces that he’s quitting. Coop says they didn’t come this far for Morris to just walk away. Morris replies that he only got this far because Coop carried him. Pratt comes outside and tells Coop to let Morris go. Coop thinks Pratt is just testing Morris, but he’s not. Pratt tells Coop that not everyone is cut out to be a doctor.
Susan tries to call Ben, and when he doesn’t answer, she calls the police to report a possible suicide. Some paramedics are leaving after bringing in a patient, so she asks them for a ride to Ben’s house. He’s there, completely fine – he probably didn’t answer the phone because he’s listening to loud music while painting some miniatures.
Outside the hospital, Abby and Elizabeth chat with Sam, who tells them working at County is different from her last few jobs, but nothing she can’t handle. Here, she gets more pauses in the action. She confirms that Abby’s “in transition” between nurse and doctor, and says it’s a good place to be. Abby and Elizabeth invite her to get something to eat with them, but Sam’s shift isn’t over, and she’s waiting for her “guy.” That would be her son, Alex, not a boyfriend or husband. Alex is about ten and really annoying.
Inside, Luka pulls a Mark, mobilizing Neela, Coop, and Gallant to help him clear out the waiting area. He promises that by 10:00, everyone will have been seen. At Ben’s, he tells Susan he kept his promise to wait to see a psychiatrist, but no one ever showed up. He used to make architectural models, but he had to stop when his vision started worsening. Now he makes miniatures as a hobby. Susan offers to arrange help for Ben around the house, but he doesn’t seem interested. She makes him promise not to kill himself in the next 72 hours. “But Monday would be okay?” he replies. He promises to stay alive.
Luka does fast rounds with Coop, Neela, and Gallant’s patients, and though Romano thinks they’re a little crazy, he can’t argue with the results. Luka may be back in Chicago, but he’s brought his Congo experiences back with them and is proving that you don’t need expensive tests and supplies to practice medicine.
Thoughts: Ben is played by TV legend Bob Newhart, who got an Emmy nomination for this role. Ken is played by Daniel Dae Kim.
I find Sam pretty annoying in her early days, but after that I warm up to her, and eventually kind of like her. My feelings for Linda Cardellini never change, though – I love her.
I like how Susan handles checking in with Luka. As soon as she’s sure he has his trauma case under control, she deals with the family. It’s like she’s letting Luka know she trusts him to handle things and is ready to be back at work without actually saying it.
January 4, 2022
ER 10.4, Shifts Happen: Being Greg Pratt
Dear writers, we do not need any more Pratt-centric episodes, thank you for your time
Summary: Pratt gets ready for work and rushes to buy a newspaper before the guy who sells them closes up. Even though it’s sunny out and seems like it’s the morning, due to Pratt’s activities (like showering and making eggs), it’s actually 6:28 p.m. Elizabeth calls her nanny from Dorset’s bed so she can say good night to Ella. The nanny thinks she’s still at work. Elizabeth obviously feels guilty for missing time with her daughter, but Dorset tells her she’s allowed to have some downtime. Elizabeth just feels weird sneaking out of her house for sex. It is fun, though. They decide to have some more of that fun before heading to work.
Abby’s almost done with her shift and is passing off her patients to some nurse we don’t know. “Have we met?” Pratt asks the nurse. “No,” she replies bluntly before walking away. Ha! Abby tells Pratt that there are a bunch of new nurses on duty, all recent graduates. Frank: racist remark. Shut up, Frank. Coop: dumb remark. Shut up, Coop. Gallant pops in to be neither racist nor dumb, but also to offer nothing of substance. Come back, Gallant! Save me from these buffoons! Jerry invites Coop to a Cubs game. At least someone likes that guy.
Pratt hasn’t even been on shift for a minute when he gets summoned by Malik, then Neela, then two med students, Andy and Lester. Lester would have asked Coop for help, but he saw Pratt first. He also could have turned to Morris, but he’s treating a patient. Susan realizes he’s been treating that patient for a long time, since she’s pretty. She tells him to work harder to clear the board. Pratt lets Coop know that picking up Morris’ slack isn’t helping him.
Weaver is also annoyed about the slow pace in the ER, and since she’s decided to work there once a month to keep up her skills, she’s going to try to whip the place into shape. Susan says she kind of misses “Little Stumpy.” Abby’s supposed to be leaving, but Pratt enlists her to help him with an angry patient named Mathers. He’s been sent over from another hospital, supposedly because County can provide him with care the other place couldn’t, but he thinks it’s because he doesn’t have insurance and now he’s a welfare case. Pratt tells him he’ll get the best care possible for his broken leg.
After dismissing a woman who’s begging for help delivering her baby – a baby she’s been pregnant with for seven years – Pratt tells the med students that they have 12 hours to clear the board. In the process, they’ll show the doctors on the day shift how it’s done. I’m sure they’ll take notes and try to be better doctors because of your inspiration, Pratt.
Romano is finally getting a prosthetic arm that doesn’t have a hook for a hand. He hasn’t had all the training he needs to operate it, but he demands that the prosthetist – who definitely doesn’t get paid enough to deal with him – give it to him now. Mathers continues complaining as Pratt and Abby tend to him (though Pratt is mostly focusing on teaching the med students). He tells Neela to put in a central line, since Mathers is a former IV drug user and they’re having trouble inserting an IV in his veins. Mathers objects because Neela’s so young. Pratt quips that she’s almost 16.
He tells Lester to arrange for surgery for Mathers no more than three hours from now. He starts to head out, but Abby notes that Neela needs to be supervised. Pratt asks Gallant to do that, then goes to use the bathroom. Before he can get there, he stops to help Chen deal with a difficult patient, since the new nurse working with her isn’t being helpful. Chen guesses that Pratt’s already interested in the new nurse. He thought the two of them were fine, because Pratt has no idea how to read a woman, let alone Chen.
Weaver stalls Pratt from his trip to the bathroom by quizzing him about his patients. One of them, Betsy, is appreciative because Pratt helped get her a consult. Coop admires Pratt’s style, and Pratt tells him to get his own. Back in Mathers’ trauma room, Neela’s having some trouble with the central line, and Mathers is unhappy again. Chen takes over, ignoring Mathers when he makes a racist comment. After she leaves, Neela asks Gallant and Abby if Chen hates her. Neela isn’t interested in Pratt, and she wonders if she should tell Chen that. Abby says to let it go, since Pratt and Chen broke up.
Neela chooses not to listen to Abby, never a good idea. She tells Chen that Pratt is a flirt, but Neela didn’t do anything to spark his interest. She apologizes if she did anything to make the situation worse, and she hopes Chen won’t punish her for Pratt’s interest. Chen acts like she’s horrified that she would be accused of singling out a med student just because her boyfriend has a crush. She makes a show of checking Neela’s name tag, as if she’s forgotten her name, then says she’s hard on all the med students, especially the women. Neela should worry more about her skills and less about Pratt.
Betsy’s still in the ER, so Pratt offers to find out what’s taking so long with her consult. Andy presents a patient to him, a guy named Ed who suddenly found himself unable to speak while he was fighting with his wife. She thinks he was just being dramatic. Susan offers to stick around after her shift, since it’s busy and there’s only one attending in the ER, but Pratt lets her go.
Paramedics bring in an elderly woman named Ms. Crawford who’s having breathing problems. Her preteen granddaughter, Erika, is with her. Jerry has sneaked a peek at a loan application Abby’s trying to submit via fax, and he tells her that she’ll never get any money with her low credit score. Thanks for your help, Jerry.
Weaver, Neela, and Coop tend to Ms. Crawford, and Erika objects when they start removing her clothes. She exclaims that her grandmother has a DNR, but Erika doesn’t know what that means. Neela thinks it must be true, since Erika wouldn’t know the term if her family hadn’t discussed it. But without paperwork, Coop says they have to keep treating Ms. Crawford. Weaver tells Neela to find a way to contact Erika’s mother.
Pratt examines Ed while he and his wife keep bickering. Gallant pulls him away to pass off some patients who are supposed to be Morris’. He’s disappeared, and Gallant was supposed to leave a while ago, so he can’t keep looking for him. Ed’s wife tells Pratt that Ed has gone silent again. She thinks he’s messing with her. Pratt tells a nurse named Severa to get him a psych consult. “Yes, doctor,” she replies.
Lester tells Pratt that he has a patient who was bitten by a rat. He’s helpfully brought it with him in case they need to test it for rabies. This is the last straw for one of the new nurses, who didn’t go to nursing school for this sort of thing. Pratt finally makes it to the bathroom, where he catches Morris on the phone with someone, asking how to treat his patients. Pratt yells at him for being a second-year resident who should know how to do his job.
Abby goes to Luka’s for a late dinner, at Gillian’s invitation. It’s 10:00, but Gillian offers her leftovers. She’s on her way home to Montreal, so she and Luka have a long goodbye kiss right in front of Abby. Luka reveals that Gillian has a boyfriend. OH, LUKA. He tells Abby it’s complicated. Oh, you think? Back at County, Elizabeth is in a bad mood because Pratt called her for an unnecessary consult. Also, because she’s not still in bed with Dorset. Pratt gives instructions to Severa, who again replies, “Yes, doctor,” making him wonder if she speaks English. She says she does.
The board is down to 30 patients, but there are still 50 in the waiting area, so it’s not technically an accomplishment. Pratt tries to talk Frank into going to get him some food. Ed asks Pratt for an update on his condition, and Pratt notes that he’s talking again. Ed says it comes and goes. Pratt sends him back to his room so he won’t miss his consult with a “special doctor.”
Betsy finally gets her consult, but the doctor, Hampton, is annoyed because Betsy comes in three times a month for demerol. Pratt insists that she has a real illness and needs medication and to be admitted. Hampton can put a note in her chart if she wants, and she can take the heat for not admitting Betsy, but she needs to take responsibility for her patient. Hampton won’t, so Pratt reluctantly tells Lester to discharge Betsy.
Abby and Luka go for a walk, talking about his time in the Congo. He misses being in a place that let him get out of his own head. He appreciated the downtime there more. Abby mentions Carter, insisting she’s fine without him. She’s even on the way to being happy. She’s started to make some decisions about her life, but she doesn’t want to give any details in case she jinxes it. She gets a page asking her to work another shift, and though Luka encourages her to pretend she didn’t see it, she says she needs the money.
Abby returns to County, and Weaver surprises her by trying to make small talk. She even says Abby’s one of the best nurses in the ER, and she hopes Romano’s changes don’t drive her away. Neela comes by asking for paper and crayons for Erika (who’s too old for that, but whatever), and Weaver tells her to focus on patients, not babysitting.
Pratt channels Mark a little to make some quick decisions and discharge some patients. Morris is still slacking, so Pratt takes over his treatment of a kid named Damian who swallowed a quarter. (Can I just say that this kid is too old to be swallowing coins? Because he’s too old to be swallowing coins. Is there even one writer on this show who understands children?) Morris thinks the coin will just pass through Damian’s system, but Pratt wants them to remove it with an endoscope. This will mean a little revenge on Hampton, the gastrointestinal specialist on call.
Paramedics bring in some car accident victims, and with a shortage of trauma rooms, Pratt takes one to Ms. Crawford’s and makes Neela move her somewhere else. Mathers is yelling again, but everyone’s trying to ignore him. Morris and Coop tend to one of the car accident victims (Morris makes Coop do his rectal exam) while Pratt treats another, a teen who’s in really bad shape. Morris leaves the room instead of offering to help.
A nurse tells Pratt that psych won’t see Ed until he has a head CT. Pratt doesn’t think he needs one; he’s just upset because his wife is leaving him. Jerry then tells Pratt that Hampton won’t see Damian until the morning. She’s also going to complain to Romano tomorrow. Oh, and she thinks Pratt is…a word that normally isn’t allowed on network TV. Thanks for letting that one go, censors! Randi wants to liven up the night shift with disco music. Abby tells her it’s too loud. This is Randi’s last episode, by the way, so enjoy her five seconds of screentime.
Abby and Elizabeth end up in the elevator with their patients at the same time, and Dorset tries to sneak in for some time with Elizabeth before he realizes she’s not alone. Abby asks if the two of them ever got together. “Who?” Elizabeth asks dumbly. Then she admits they’re dating. Abby’s happy, but Elizabeth thinks she’s covering for her opinion that Elizabeth is dating too soon after Mark’s death. Neela treats Mathers, though she’s not supposed to be doing what she’s doing without a resident’s supervision. Weaver stops her, and Neela rats out Morris for not doing his job.
Ed’s CT is clear, so he can go see psych now. He objects to needing a psych consult, especially since it’ll just make his wife even more convinced that he’s crazy. Weaver gives Pratt more work to do, which means he has even less time to listen to Ed say he doesn’t need psychiatric help. He asks for medication to get him through the night. Pratt tells Severa to give Ed two milligrams of Obecalp, then discharge him. She’s confused about the medication, but after Pratt asks if she knows what it is, she says, “Yes, doctor.”
Neela goes to check on Erika, who asks what DNR means. Neela explains that it means someone doesn’t want to be kept alive by machines. She offers to take Erika to a room where she can get some sleep, but Erika wants to stay with her grandmother, who has said she sleeps better with Erika near her. After Neela lets her into the bed, Pratt ruins the nice moment by telling her to get back to work. Neela comments that it’s hard to figure out where you should be spending your time. Pratt doesn’t care – he wants the board cleared.
Lester tells her that Pratt is tough but is good at his job. He asks if she knows what Obecalp is, since he hasn’t been able to find any. Weaver overhears and tells him it’s placebo spelled backwards. She calls Pratt out for giving Ed saline, which seems to have calmed him down. It’s a violation of medical ethics, and he could sue. Pratt tells Severa to cancel the “Obecalp,” but she says she never gave it to him.
Damian’s parents are impatient about how long it’s taking for his endoscopy. Pratt doesn’t think it’ll be a problem for him to wait until the morning, since he’s stable. But the family’s been there for 14 hours, and Damian’s having trouble breathing – why can’t this emergency room handle this emergency? Speaking of emergencies, Weaver helps Abby with a patient she sent to get a CT even though he wasn’t completely stable, which means he should have had a doctor with him. Weaver beats herself up for taking the risk.
Andy excitedly tells Coop that Pratt is trying a special trick to remove the quarter in Damian’s throat. Pratt calmly does the same move I think Dorset did a few episodes ago, acting like he does this all the time. Abby winds up serving as the triage nurse again as Pratt warns her that bars are about to close, which means they’re going to get an influx of patients. He dances with Randi for a little while until a patient yells at them for blasting music while he’s trying to sleep.
Abby takes over triage from Malik, first talking to a patient who complains of a toothache he’s apparently had for a year. Maybe he should be friends with the woman who’s been pregnant for seven years. Damian’s dad brings him back in, since he was feeling nauseous in the parking lot, and asks Abby to have Pratt see him just in case. Instead, Damian gets an express ticket to the OR when he coughs up blood. I guess Pratt’s trick wasn’t as successful as he thought.
Elizabeth blasts Pratt for doing his procedure in the ER, but Pratt thinks the real problem is that the quarter was in Damian’s throat long enough to cause major complications. She tells him he’s lucky the family was just leaving the hospital when this happened. If they’d already been back home, Damian wouldn’t have made it back for treatment in time. As Pratt’s leaving the surgical floor, he runs into Weaver, who still feels guilty for not keeping a better eye on her patient.
Pratt heads back to the ER, where Ed has just collapsed. Coop determines that he has a carotid tear, which caused a clot in his neck. He doesn’t look good. Abby ends her turn as triage nurse early so she can make a phone call in Ms. Crawford’s room. She asks her credit card company if she can get a cash advance. She ends the call when she realizes that Ms. Crawford has died. She tells Neela that she’ll need to wake Erika and move her somewhere else so they can give Ms. Crawford’s bed to another patient.
Pratt checks on Mathers, who’s finally stopped complaining about everything. Pratt realizes he’s just been scared about losing his leg. He promises they’ll get Mathers into surgery really soon, even though that’s what he’s been hearing for hours now. Pratt tells Weaver to have Coop cover for him, then storms into an OR where an orthopedic surgeon is taking his sweet time in an operation. Pratt offers to assist so someone can go to the ER and take care of Mathers. Meanwhile, Neela carries Erika, who’s still asleep, to another room.
It’s morning when Abby shows up at her ex-husband’s house. Richard is now remarried and has a baby. No one in the home seems particularly happy, so Abby may have dodged a bullet. She asks Richard to co-sign a loan with her. She reminds him that she never asked him for alimony or any kind of spousal support, so he kind of owes her. Back at County, Romano yells at Pratt about all the stunts he pulled the night before. Pratt probably won’t take it personally, since Romano never liked him.
Pratt passes everyone off to Susan, then leaves along with Coop. Gallant praises Coop for making Ed’s diagnosis. Pratt gets no praise for everything he did for his patients overnight. Coop says he’s going to the gym before he goes home to get some sleep. Pratt declines to tag along, and instead goes home alone, the only person who cares how much he did during his shift.
Thoughts: Rossif Sutherland, who plays Lester, is Donald Sutherland’s son/Kiefer Sutherland’s brother.
Maybe I need a hobby but for years I haven’t been able to get over how Elizabeth puts on her bra at Dorset’s place. Obviously the normal way wouldn’t work on TV because you would see too much, but no one puts on a bra that has a clasp in the back by putting on the cups first.
Gillian schmillian – Luka doesn’t look at her the way he looks at Abby. I think he wants to get back together. Unfortunately, he’s about to get distracted by someone else.
December 28, 2021
ER 10.3, Dear Abby: The Breakup Heard ‘Round the Hospital
Guess who!
Summary: Abby is giving a tour to a group of new second-year residents, giving both them and us a glimpse of the new “cage,” the triage area. There’s now a desk where an admit nurse will speak to each patient, start a chart, and determine whether the patient needs to be seen immediately instead of sitting in the waiting room. The new residents will be joining Pratt, who will definitely not look down on them for being clueless newbies who don’t know their way around County as well as he does.
Police officers drag out an angry patient who tells Susan he’s going to come back for her. She sighs and tells him to bring her a latte when he does. Abby finishes the tour and asks if the residents have any questions. One, Archie Morris, asks why the patient board is see-through. Abby says it’s so they can see through it. Frank hopes he never needs treatment at County.
Abby’s eager for Luka to arrive at County after being flown out of the Congo. Connie and Lydia complain to her that Romano has scheduled them for fewer shifts than usual. Senior nurses’ hours are being cut so he can bring in travel nurses, who cost less money. Connie urges Abby to talk to him. Then Yosh tells her that she lost the nurses’ lottery and has to be the admit nurse for a few hours. Abby says there’s no statistically possible way she can lose the lottery every time. Abby, you’re the head nurse. Stop the lottery and make a schedule.
Her day is about to get better when Frank points out that Luka has arrived (along with Gillian). Before Abby can go greet him, Pratt and Neela ask for her help. Abby’s able to hand a patient off to Susan and almost catch up to Luka as he’s wheeled to an elevator. She’s just seconds too late to get to him before he’s taken upstairs.
Romano goes to the hospital’s prosthetist to get his new prosthetic arm, but he’s annoyed that it’s not the one he thought he was getting. His insurance won’t cover the one he wants. Also, this one has a hook, so no matter how annoying Romano is, he’s definitely right here. Back in the ER, Abby’s stuck at the triage desk, dealing with people who are angry about having to wait, kids who won’t behave, and general weirdos. Eventually she examines a teenager named Elle who’s sick enough to get seen immediately.
Susan asks Abby how Luka is. She has no idea, since she hasn’t had time to go see him. She also hasn’t had time to talk to Romano about the nurses’ schedules. Frank tells Abby he popped in to say hi to Luka, then chastises her for not visiting him yet. Abby calls upstairs to check on Luka, but Gillian has come back to the ER and tells her that he’s doing well enough to want a meatball sub. She recognizes Abby’s name because Carter talked about her in the Congo. She hands over the letter Carter asked her to give Abby. Abby starts reading, her face falling.
Romano crashes a meeting in Weaver’s office to throw a tantrum about his inferior prosthetic arm. Even though he’s yelling, he makes a good point that he should get better insurance coverage from the hospital where he lost the arm in the first place. Weaver calmly tells him to leave, so Romano leaves a long scratch in a table on his way out.
Abby is finishing the letter outside the hospital when the other nurses all walk by, announcing that they’re staging a walkout. Abby can’t deal with them and the letter and her job all at once, so she dismisses the nurses, crumples up the letter, throws it on the ground, and goes back inside. Frank complains about her littering and picks up the letter.
Pratt runs into one of the residents, Coop, who’s using his asthma inhaler. This is the only interesting thing about this character. Don’t get too attached. Pratt tells him that he and the other residents need to start picking up the pace. Coop’s been doing fine, and he makes excuses for Morris and the other resident whose name there’s no point in remembering because this is the only episode she’s in.
Pratt checks on Neela, who’s chanting a prayer while stitching up a patient. Pratt doesn’t think the patient requires a prayer since he’s not dying. Neela says it was a private prayer. Chen’s my-boyfriend-is-talking-to-someone-else-with-breasts radar goes off and she sends Neela on an errand. She reminds Pratt of their dinner plans that night.
Coop joins a trauma Susan and Morris are working on, instead of helping Pratt clear the board. Malik brings in Elle’s scans, which show that she’s experiencing heart failure. Abby counts down the remaining seconds of her turn as triage nurse and ditches her current patient. Frank, who’s holding her letter behind his back, tells her all the nurses left, so there’s no one to relieve her at the triage desk. Except we just saw Malik, so…
Romano tells Frank that everyone who signed the nurses’ petition and left for the walkout needs to be in the lounge in five minutes or they’ll be fired. Abby lies that they’re on a break, not staging a walkout. Also, she thinks Romano can’t fire nurses, but he says he can if they walk off the job. Abby runs off to get her co-workers as Frank admires Romano’s hook, saying it suits him.
Before Abby can find the nurses, a car pulls into the ambulance bay and a teen with a gunshot wound gets out, asking for help. The car he was in just drives off. Get better friends, Bobby. He starts declining quickly, and Pratt and Abby try to stabilize him in a trauma room. Abby thinks they need to open his chest, and she starts prepping him even though Pratt says it’s too early to make that decision. When Susan joins them, Abby and Pratt gripe about each other, and Susan sides with Pratt, believing Abby was too quick to jump to an invasive procedure.
Romano lends a hand (…sorry) in the ER, examining a girl who can’t take her eyes off of his prosthetic. He hands her off to Morris. Elizabeth comes down to help with Bobby, who’s still not stable. Abby suggests her idea again, then snaps at med students who are in her way. Elizabeth finally opens Bobby’s chest. Frank has started passing Abby’s letter around to other staff, so they know she’s been dumped. “Fun” fact: Carter uses the word “unfettered” in it. Shut up, Carter. Romano grumbles about the nurses, whom Jerry jokes are hiring a hit man.
Coop completely fails to read the room and introduces himself to Romano like they’re going to be close colleagues. Romano tells him to go up to the roof to meet a patient being brought in by helicopter. He should wave his arms and stand in the middle of the landing pad. Coop notes that Romano used to be a surgeon (though Romano still considers himself one), then asks if he has a scalpel attachment for his prosthetic. Instead of screaming at Coop, Romano calmly gives him some stern warnings. Coop talks back. Dude, I know he’s a jerk, but he’s still your superior. Romano yells for Coop to stay out of his face.
Elizabeth has run out of ways to try to save Bobby. Abby tries to get her to keep working, since he’s young and was doing well enough earlier to walk into the ER. Elizabeth doesn’t think he can be saved, and she declares his time of death. Neela and Coop treat a patient who fell while sanding the hull of a boat. He’s brought a cloud of fiberglass dust with him, which sets off Coop’s asthma.
A cardiologist tells Susan that Elle has pulmonary hypertension. I don’t know what that is, but it’s not good. Pratt tells Abby that six nurses were fired, which means there are only four left on their shift. He apologizes for not opening Bobby’s chest sooner, but Abby isn’t sure it would have made a difference. He tells her that he thinks “it’s Carter’s loss.” Abby doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Neela and Morris treat Coop, who’s not having any luck with asthma treatments. Neela accidentally gives him too much medication, thanks to a miscommunication from Morris. It messes with Coop’s heart rate, so Abby runs over to shock him back into rhythm. She congratulates Morris and Neela for saving their first resident.
Abby asks Malik to cover for her for a few minutes so she can go see Luka. Malik is just as busy as she is, and he can’t spare the time. He tells her he’s sorry about her and Carter. Abby asks how he knows about their breakup. He points the finger at Jerry. Abby’s been waiting for substitute nurses, but only one has arrived, an elderly woman named Edna. Even she knows about Abby and Carter’s breakup.
Abby asks Susan if she’s heard about the letter, but it sounds like Susan’s been too busy for gossip. She tells Abby that Elle’s diagnosis means she probably won’t live past the age of 21. Her parents don’t want her to know until after she has a test to confirm her condition, but the results won’t be in for three days. Abby thinks that’s ridiculous – Elle already knows something’s wrong. Susan tells her they have to honor the parents’ wishes.
A teacher has brought in some students to visit a classmate, and they’re lost, so Abby offers to take them to the children’s ward. The teacher asks if any of the students want to be nurses. Nope, they all want to be doctors. I know it’s supposed to be a blow to nurses, but who can be upset that these kids are aiming high? Good for you, kids! Just start saving your allowance now – med school is expensive.
Weaver blasts Romano for interrupting her meeting and for firing six nurses. Abby walks up with the kids as they’re bickering with each other. Weaver warns Romano not to fire anyone else. Romano calls her a b&^$%, either not noticing or caring that there are young kids around. Weaver says that she’s Romano’s boss, and as long as she is, he’s HER b&^$%. Abby hides a smile at that, and Romano rewards her with a gross procedure. She hands the kids off to Jerry, who’s carrying a bunch of blood bags. The kids all scream. Well, kids, you won’t be able to do that when you’re doctors.
Abby checks on Elle, who’s confused about why a cardiologist examined her since she thought her problem was with her lungs. Abby carefully says the heart and lungs are connected, so Susan was probably just being thorough by calling in a cardiologist. Elle asks if everything’s okay; her parents are acting weird. Abby avoids the question and tries not to give anything away.
Pratt meets Chen for dinner, surprised that her parents are also there. She ran into them downtown and they invited themselves along. Cue some awkward silence. Neela goes to Susan, having been told by cardiology that she should listen to a patient for a murmur. That patient is Elle, and now she knows something’s wrong with her heart. Oops! Susan pulls Neela out of the room to talk about the case, stopping when she catches Morris stealing an unconscious patient’s meal. Then it gets worse – that patient had an abdominal aortic aneurysm and is at risk of bleeding out.
Elizabeth returns to help Susan and Malik try to save the patient. Elizabeth tells Malik to page Dorset and tell him that Elizabeth needs him “badly.” Susan smirks. Abby tends to Elle, who’s distressed because no one will tell her what’s wrong with her. Just as Abby’s about to tell her, Susan bursts in and drags Abby out. Abby complains that they’re teaching Elle not to trust them when she needs them the most. Susan chastises her for going rogue more than once today. Abby’s trying to make calls that nurses aren’t allowed to make.
Dorset joins Elizabeth, Susan, Abby, Coop, and Morris with their patient. Elizabeth is impressed with his charm, but he’s kind of annoying. Susan agrees with me. He quizzes Coop and Morris about something, but they don’t know the answer. Abby does, so Dorset tells the residents, “You two have just been nurse-slapped.” He might get doctor-slapped if he keeps being so nonchalant while Susan’s anxious about the patient. Once things are under control, Dorset takes the patient to surgery, grinning egotistically. Coop and Morris admire his guts.
Gallant shows up for a shift and gets filled in on the latest gossip about Luka and the breakup letter. Romano asks what the letter says, so Jerry starts reading it. Abby grabs it and asks if anyone hasn’t read the letter. “I haven’t,” says a nearby patient. Heh. She blasts Jerry and Frank for looking at her personal mail. Lydia, Connie, and Yosh return with their own letters – they’ve been suspended for 90 days. Abby declares that she hates her job. Walking by, Edna tells her it’ll get better.
Chen’s parents have already ordered something for the table, and they speak Mandarin in front of Pratt until Chen tells them to stop. After asking about Pratt’s family, the Chens say that their daughter is going on a trip with them to China to rediscover her ancestry. Chen says they already talked about this and she’s not going. Her father says it’s hard to know where you’re going if you don’t know where you came from. Pratt asks if that’s a quote from Confucius. Chen’s mother says it’s just common sense.
Back at County, Dorset and Elizabeth flirt while Romano and I both roll our eyes. Elizabeth agrees to an hour-long coffee date. Romano goes to an empty trauma room, takes off his prosthetic, and throws it through a window. This show loves broken glass, huh? I wonder if he thinks his insurance company should cover the cost of that, too.
After dinner, Chen apologizes for surprising Pratt by bringing her parents to dinner. She doesn’t think they hate him; they just want her with someone “more traditional.” In other words, they want her to date a Chinese guy. Pratt says she should tell them to relax, since they’re not getting married or anything. Chen asks what they’re doing, then. Pratt says they’re having fun. He doesn’t think either of them is ready to settle down. That’s the wrong answer, and Chen tells him to find himself a new “bang buddy.” Yeah, I think they call them friends with benefits.
Speaking of sex, that’s what Elizabeth and Dorset are doing in the backseat of a car. Well, good for her, I guess. Abby finally finds time to go see Luka, and the two of them have a friendly reunion. She asks if he read Carter’s letter, and he says no like it would have been crazy for him to even think about it. He thinks Carter just wanted to explain why he was staying in the Congo. Being over there changes you, and Luka thinks Carter found himself. Abby jokes that she didn’t know he was missing. She says the relationship was doomed from the beginning, so it’s good that it’s over.
Luka says it’s weird to be back. Maybe he’s changed, too. Abby says change is good, and she’s looking into some for herself. Gillian joins them, kindly telling Abby that it was nice to finally meet her after hearing so much about her. Abby throws out the letter as she heads back to the ER and goes in to see Elle again, this time to tell her what everyone’s been keeping from her.
Thoughts: Morris is played by Scott Grimes. Coop is played by Glenn Howerton. Bobby is played by Zac Efron.
In the words of Jean-Ralphi from Parks and Recreation, Morris is the wooo-ooooo-oorst.
Carter’s letter is the equivalent of saying, “You can’t fire me – I quit.” Does he think Abby asking for her key back wasn’t the end of the relationship?
I’m surprised Carter thinks Abby’s smart enough to know what “unfettered” means. Or maybe he defines it for her after he uses it in the letter.
November 23, 2021
ER 9.20, Foreign Affairs: Luka Antes Up
No Chase? Sad
Summary: Gordana comes to the ER looking for Luka so she can report that her patient, Ante, is on his way to Chicago, arriving that night. They’ve arranged for him to have surgery at another hospital, but not for two more weeks. His mother sent him early because he’s getting worse. Without the surgery, he won’t survive.
Jack Carter is back in town for Millicent’s funeral, to which he’ll be wearing a red tie, since that’s what his mother liked. Millicent’s lawyer is there to tell Carter that the family foundation’s board has called an emergency meeting. Millicent’s will states that Carter is to become president of the board. Jack is clearly unhappy to be passed over, but he says that’s a good fit. Carter knows he’s lying, and that Millicent gave him the position because she was disappointed in Jack as a son. Hey, Carter, maybe don’t insult your father on the day of his mother’s funeral. He doesn’t want the job, but he also knows he can’t walk away.
Abby gets ready at her apartment, worried that she’s wearing too much lipstick for her boyfriend’s grandmother’s funeral. Eric breaks in, having left his treatment center after getting into a fight with someone over Jell-o. Abby guesses he isn’t taking his medication. He says he is, but not his full dosage. He wants to try a different facility. Abby asks why he didn’t call her and tell her there was a problem. He says he doesn’t know, but I’m guessing it’s because he hates being a grown man who keeps having to turn to his sister for help.
At County, Romano has lowered himself to treat a boy with stomach pain. His mother doesn’t like Romano, and though she speaks Spanish and needs Chuny to translate, I don’t think Romano has any problem catching on. Paramedics bring in a minor league baseball player who passed out during a game. Romano treats him with Luka, who then goes to Weaver to tell her they need to try again to get the powers that be at County to approve Ante’s surgery. He says he’ll arrange everything, including a pro-bono crew. Weaver tells him not to get his hopes up too much, but she’ll work on it.
Luka gets straight to work, asking Jerry to track Ante’s flight while he puts together a surgical team. Romano thinks his baseball player has long QT syndrome, a heart problem. He’s supposed to be done for the day, but he decides to stick around and follow up instead of passing the patient along to Susan.
At the cemetery, Carter introduces one of Millicent’s friends to Jack. She has no idea who Jack is. Ouch. Abby hasn’t arrived yet, even though Carter sent a car for her, so he doesn’t want to start the service yet. Back at County, Romano tells the ball player that treating his condition will require surgery and months of rest before he can go back to playing baseball. The player’s wife objects, knowing no team will want him after that. He’s supposed to get his big break soon. Amazingly, Romano backs down and agrees to treat the player with medication for now. In exchange, he wants box seats if the player makes it to the majors.
Chuck finds a yawning Susan and sings “Wake Up, Little Susie” to her. They’re signing their annulment papers that afternoon. Luka asks him what he’s doing that night. Abby finally makes it to the cemetery, so the service can begin. She’s brought Eric with her and has left him in their limo to watch cartoons and drink. He gets out during the service to pee. As Carter silently begs to wake up from this nightmare, Abby slips away to keep Eric from joining the service. They start bickering, and their voices carry and interrupt the minister. Jack joins the group as Eric knocks over some flowers, then falls into the open grave. Womp womp.
Bact at County, Luka tries to talk Dorset into serving as a support surgeon during Ante’s operation. Dorset has a date with a brunette from radiology, but Luka knows who he’s talking about and warns that he’ll be disappointed. Dorset asks if Elizabeth will also be at the surgery. At the roach coach, Chuck and Susan try to pick a reason for their annulment. He volunteers to take all the blame for their drunken decision to get married. They sign the papers, and after they say a cheerful goodbye, Susan goes back to work.
Luka approaches Elizabeth about Ante’s surgery, offering her anything she wants in return, like babysitting or lawn mowing. She admires him for trying to help Ante, but she thinks he’s acting rashly. Luka says this is Ante’s only chance. Elizabeth asks if Dorset’s participating, and though she claims it’s a problem that he is, she agrees to help.
Back at the cemetery, Abby has drugged Eric to keep him from causing more trouble. She apologizes to Carter for the disruption. She knew she couldn’t leave Eric home alone, and she thought he would stay in the limo. She’ll drop him off at County and then go to the Carters’ house for the reception. Carter doesn’t think she should attend. Abby knows he’s still mad that she prioritized Eric over him, but Eric needs her help. Carter tells her to go help him, then.
Paramedics bring in three members of the Mitchell family – a mom and her kids, Turner and Noelle – who were shot in a drive-by at their house. As Luka’s working on Turner, he gets a call that Ante is doing poorly on his flight. Turner’s stabilizing, so Susan lets Luka go deal with Ante’s case instead. Elizabeth takes over tending to Turner, so Susan goes to help Pratt with Noelle. It turns out she wasn’t shot; Mrs. Mitchell pulled a bookcase down on top of her to protect her when the shooting started, and Noelle now has a spinal injury.
Romano’s at home in his giant, gorgeous kitchen, boiling water. He accidentally catches his reattached arm on fire, but since he has no feeling in that arm, he doesn’t notice until he sees the flames. Weaver attends a committee meeting about Ante’s surgery, but she can’t convince the other doctors present that they should help him. Luka interrupts to complain that they never seem to debate when a rich person needs an artificial heart. They have the ability to save people who don’t have money, but they don’t want to.
Jack finds Carter hiding in an office during the reception, and Carter apologizes for what he said about Millicent being disappointed in Jack as a son. He ducked out of the reception because he didn’t feel like mingling with people he doesn’t know. He’s also embarrassed about what happened with Abby and Eric. Jack assures him that he and Abby shouldn’t feel responsible.
Pratt chats with Noelle as she’s sent up for surgery. Romano arrives and tells “Denzel” (AKA Gallant) to bring him some antibiotics. Gordana returns, and Luka promises her that no matter what, Ante will be brought to County. Gallant thinks Romano is going to try to humiliate him again, but Romano wants treatment from someone who won’t go blabbing to everyone that he burned himself. The injuries are bad, and Gallant isn’t sure he has the training and skills to treat them. Romano tells him to get Susan instead, since she’s the least annoying of all the ER doctors. Gallant says he needs a surgeon. “I am a surgeon,” Romano reminds him.
Carter shows up looking for Abby, but she hasn’t come in with Eric. Mrs. Mitchell’s oldest child, Curtis, shows up and Susan tells him that his mother and brother are doing okay. Noelle is getting scans to determine whether her paralysis is permanent. Curtis asks his mother if she saw who the shooters were. Mrs. Mitchell realizes he wants their names so he can go after them. She begs him not to do anything.
Romano checks on the ball player, telling his wife that she doesn’t have to explain why they’ve decided not to go for the aggressive treatment. Gallant told Weaver about Romano’s injury, so she examines his arm and tries to encourage him to have a procedure he needs. Romano knows that’ll end with him losing parts of his arm, and he doesn’t want that. She urges him to at least have a consult with plastic surgery.
Abby arrives as Curtis blows up at Susan over his family’s situation. Carter calms him and starts to tend to a cut he got when he took out his anger on an IV stand. He has a gang tattoo, though his mom convinced him to leave the gang. He suspects that they were behind the drive-by because they saw him as an easy target.
Weaver tells Luka that the board won’t approve Ante’s surgery, but they said that if, hypothetically, a hypothetical boy with Ante’s condition showed up hypothetically needing the surgery Ante needs, he would be treated off the record. Pleased, Luka goes to the airport himself to pick up Ante.
Carter tells Curtis that Noelle’s chances of walking again are unknown. Curtis tells his sister that he’s going to sort everything out at home. A couple of his friends arrive to take him off to get revenge. Carter tries to talk them out of it, but Curtis sees himself as a warrior who needs to fight for his family.
Luka and Chuck fly Ante from the airport to County as the boy declines. The rest of Luka’s recruits gather, having been promised various things for donating their time (one guy is getting Cubs tickets). Elizabeth and Dorset are all, “Oh, you’re here? I hadn’t thought about that possibility!” Gordana meets the helicopter on the roof, and Chuck helps her and Luka keep Ante stable on the way to the OR. Elizabeth assures Luka that the surgical team will take it from here.
Chuck and Susan meet up for an official-ish goodbye, though Susan notes that they don’t have to stop seeing each other just because they’re no longer married. Weaver finds Luka watching Ante’s surgery from a gallery and tells him some high-level board members aren’t pleased with what Luka pulled, but they’ll deal with that later. Luka admits that he wanted to be a hero and feel like a doctor again.
Gallant asks Romano how he is as Romano leaves the ER. Romano pretends he doesn’t know what Gallant is talking about. Carter checks on Mrs. Mitchell, keeping quiet about the fact that Curtis left to go kill some people. Elizabeth and Dorset take a walk downtown together, and she reveals that she agreed to do Ante’s surgery without getting anything in return from Luka. Dorset wants to go out with Elizabeth, who’s hesitant to agree to a date. She’s about to accept a ride home when she spots Romano moping by the water.
She asks Dorset for a rain check, then joins Romano, who laments that he was simply making tea when he burned himself. He doesn’t think he’s ever going to regain feeling in his arm. Elizabeth urges him not to do anything that will cause another delay in his recovery. But Romano has decided that his best option is to amputate his arm. Elizabeth reminds him that there’s a possibility for recovery down the line, but Romano doesn’t want to wait. He asks Elizabeth to set up his surgery.
Abby runs into Luka while looking for Carter and congratulates him for his success with Ante’s surgery. He tells her he’s going to the Congo in a couple of days for his work with the Alliance de Medicine Whatever. She hugs him goodbye and tells him to take care of himself. Carter joins Pratt to help him with his new patient, once of Curtis’ friends. Chen offers to take over so Carter and Abby can leave, but Carter has a hard time letting go of this case. He eventually storms out, and Abby follows to try to talk to him. He angrily tells her that he needs some time alone. After she leaves, he cries, and she doesn’t come back to comfort him. BREAK UP ALREADY!
Thoughts: I want a guy who will sing to me when he see me in the hallway. Where’s my Chuck??
Like in the previous episode, it’s hard to pick a side between Abby and Carter. She was right not to leave Eric home alone, but bringing him to the cemetery wasn’t a good idea. She should have take him to County.
It says a lot that Romano asks Gallant to help him, even after Romano’s insulted him in the past. I think it’s partly because he thinks Gallant is good at what he does and partly because he thought Gallant would do whatever Romano wanted.
October 5, 2021
ER 9.13, No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Need Help? Luka and Abby Have Some Guidelines
Do you think Noah Wyle ever felt inadequate next to Goran Visnjic? I mean, how could he not?
Summary: Abby is having what she would probably consider a normal day in the ER, dealing with a boy named Zavery who acts like a monkey. His mom says his psychiatrist thinks he should act out his impulses to pretend he’s an animal. I say let the kid do what he wants, since his life can’t be easy with a name like Zavery. Susan’s patient is a wrestler named Aidan, and she can’t help commenting that his hobby is keeping him in good shape. Susan, don’t hit on your patients!
Luka examines a man named Mr. Carmichael who has just been diagnosed with lung cancer. He wants to file a lawsuit against tobacco companies, but Luka thinks he should take responsibility for giving himself cancer by smoking and focus instead on making his last months meaningful. Mr. Carmichael threatens to add Luka to his lawsuit for covering for Big Tobacco. Luka tells him he won’t live long enough to make it to court. He complains to Weaver that Americans never take responsibility for their behavior.
As paramedics bring in a woman named Brenda, Romano comes looking for Weaver…and kisses her on the lips. The ER has just received $2.4 million in funding, thanks to Alderman Bright. He’s bringing in a camera crew that afternoon for a photo op. Romano tells Weaver to make sure no patients end up in the photos, even though the whole point of the funding is to help those patients.
Leon bangs on the door to his and Pratt’s apartment until Pratt lets him in. A friend of his, Biz, is in the hallway, bleeding from a gunshot wound to his chest. Leon thinks Pratt can take care of him in their apartment, but Pratt says he’ll need to go to the hospital. Biz doesn’t want that, since the police will get involved. Leon admits that they were shoplifting from a liquor store and Biz was shot by a security guard.
The funding has put Romano in a good mood, and when he runs into Gallant in the lounge, he strikes up a conversation about what Gallant’s studying. Romano’s arm is out of the contraption he’s been wearing for weeks, but it’s not back to normal – he drops the mug he’s holding. There goes his good mood.
Luka, Carter, and Abby tend to Brenda, who has an animal trap on her hand. She was demonstrating the cruelty of fur trapping in a college lecture, and I’d say this is a good object lesson. As they’re working, Luka asks Carter if he’s going to Chechnya or the Congo. It turns out Carter has signed on to work with the Alliance de Medicine Internationale, a Doctors Without Borders-type group. This is the first Abby’s hearing about it. Luka’s thrilled for Carter, since he’ll be making a difference in an underserved country.
Romano talks to his surgeon about his arm and what he can do to recover his regular function. The surgeon notes that it’s a miracle that he has his arm attached at all. Abby questions Carter about his decision to go abroad, which he claims he’s talked to her about before (though it sounds like it was more in an “I’d like to do that some day” capacity than an “I’ve signed on for this and need to pick my location” capacity). Meanwhile, Susan borrows a sweater from Chen, since Zavery threw poop at her.
Gallant tells Carter that McNulty is in triage and seems altered. Two cops come in looking for a fellow officer shot during a robbery attempt, but Susan hasn’t heard anything, and Frank didn’t know the shooting victim coming in was a cop. Susan takes Romano to Aidan for a surgical consult; he has an abscess on his butt from steroid usage, and the infection has spread to a very unfortunate place. Susan isn’t sure Romano should be letting a resident do the operation instead of Elizabeth.
As Sutter, the cop who was shot, comes in, Carter and Gallant tend to McNulty. Susan and Abby try to calm Zavery, who hides under his gurney. They get him to come out by saying they’ll have to send him back to the zoo without using the gorilla scope. They use a special light to check for a scratch on his eye, and though there’s no sign of that, the light illuminates something else: a pale stain on the sweater Susan borrowed from Chen.
Pratt comes in with Biz, telling Carter he found him somewhere. Malik mentions that a cop was also shot, and Biz might be the culprit. Pratt realizes that Leon wasn’t completely honest with him about what happened. A cop questions Sutter, who says there were three robbers at the liquor store, but he doesn’t know who shot him. (Also, we never find out if there really were three; we only know about two.) The cop asks Pratt to move away from Biz’s head so Sutter can confirm whether he was there. Pratt ignores him, and since Sutter needs surgery ASAP, it’s not the right time for this.
There’s only one available OR (I guess Aidan’s surgery is already in progress), so Carter, Pratt, and Elizabeth discuss who should go first, Sutter or Biz. A cop protests that Biz shouldn’t be given priority over Sutter. Pratt thinks Biz is stable enough to wait, so he tells Elizabeth that Sutter can go first, even though Carter isn’t sure Biz will stay stable.
Abby treats a teenager named Helen who’s feeling sick and is sure she has something horribly wrong with her, like a tumor. When Susan comes to examine her, Abby asks if she’s going to say anything to Chen about the stain. Susan kind of wants to remain in denial that the stain was semen. Abby’s curious about who that semen came from. Pratt? Frank? Jerry? Susan is half amused, half disgusted.
Romano oversees a resident, Jensen, while he operates on Aidan, but Romano is definitely an “if you want something done right, do it yourself” guy. He takes over one-handed, but it soon becomes clear that he can’t do what he needs to do. In another OR, Elizabeth is joined by a new surgeon, Eddie Dorset. He flirts with her before showing her a procedure that fixes a complication she thought would take a long time to repair. It requires them to touch, and Elizabeth gets a little flustered.
Harkins stops by to finish some paperwork and confirm plans with Gallant that night. Luka tries to talk to her, but she’s not interested. He apologizes and promises that he never meant to hurt her. She says he should have slowed down. Anyway, say goodbye to Harkins, because this is the last time we see her (and possibly the last time she’s even mentioned).
The cops question Pratt about finding Biz in the street and whether he had a gun with him. Pratt says he didn’t hear gunshots or see anyone else around. Abby asks Carter when he plans to go overseas and abandon her in America. Carter’s surprised that she seems so against this – she was supportive when Luka went back to Croatia to work. For some reason, Abby doesn’t want Carter to ditch her and go help people who desperately need medical care.
McNulty is back to his normal self, which means Carter thinks he’s ready for a lecture about not taking care of himself. McNulty says he gave his medication to a patient who couldn’t afford his own. Carter gets summoned to help Pratt with Biz, who’s declining. Leon shows up while they’re working, so Pratt asks Abby to take him to an exam room for a wound check (really so he can be hidden from any cops who might recognize him). They’re unable to save Biz, and Leon is sad to hear the news from Pratt.
Elizabeth joins Romano so she can keep an eye on him and Jensen. She offers to scrub in and make sure the surgeons have done everything right. Luka, Susan, and Abby are tending to a young woman they thought had overdosed on drugs, but her friend reveals that she only overdosed on food. She has bulimia, which Luka doesn’t consider a reasonable eating disorder. It’s not like she’s malnourished because she doesn’t have enough food to feed herself and her kids. He’s furious that the woman wanted to come to the hospital and have her stomach pumped so she doesn’t gain weight.
Pratt catches Carter talking to Leon about Biz, having obviously figured out how this all fits together. Pratt sends Carter away and makes sure Leon didn’t say anything incriminating. He’s mad that Leon didn’t tell him the truth about what happened. If Leon had a gun and was shooting at the police, this is really, really bad. Leon begs Pratt to help him stay out of jail.
Susan asks Abby to talk to Luka about his attitude; he seems depressed. Abby declines, since she’s annoyed that Luka made Carter want to be an “adventure doctor.” Dorset comes to the ER and introduces himself to Elizabeth, then invites her to get coffee. Susan and Abby, standing nearby, fail to convincingly pretend they’re not eavesdropping. Elizabeth turns Dorset down, at least for now, and he says he’ll ask again some other time.
Abby and Susan assure her that she wasn’t rude. Elizabeth admits that she’s gun-shy about dating; plus, it hasn’t been all that long since she lost Mark. Maybe she overreacted to a friendly invitation for a casual cup of coffee. Susan says she thinks Mark would want his widow to get on with her life.
Bright arrives for the photo op and downplays how huge his donation will be for the ER. Weaver hopes County earned it because they’re so important to the community, and not for any other reason, like the fact that she covered up Bright’s syphilis. Bright admits that he might not have chosen them to get the money if he hadn’t been treated there, but he expects that they treat all their patients as well as they treated him.
Abby asks Carter if he wants to work in a foreign country because he’s inspired by the service McNulty provides through his clinic. Abby, it’s time to drop this. Carter says he’s not going right now, and when he does go, it’ll only be for a couple of weeks, so Abby needs to chill. He gives McNulty instructions for taking care of himself, then gives him another check. This time, McNulty accepts it, though he confirms that he won’t have to name the clinic after Carter.
Luka asks Weaver for some time off so he can “sort things out,” but she tells him to do that on his own time. He walks out of the ER anyway. Abby follows him but quickly shifts her attention to a more pressing matter: Eric is there. They go to Doc Magoo’s to catch up, and he admits that he ran away because he was afraid he would end up like their mother, and he didn’t want Abby to see him like that.
Eric is grateful to Abby for trying to help him. He’s worried that he let her down after she tried to protect him for so long. Abby promises that he could never let her down. Eric wishes he was a kid again because Abby was always there to take care of him. He worries about her because no one takes care of her. He feels like he abandoned her after everything she did for him and Maggie.
Eric apologizes, even though Abby says he doesn’t have to, and says he loves her. He’s doing better now, though he knows that might not last. He shows Abby a picture of his new “girlfriend,” a plane he bought. He sold pretty much everything he had to pay for it. He plans to do hunting and fishing charters in Wisconsin.
Susan goes back to Helen, who probably just has a virus. (If you feel like this plot was meaningless, you’re not alone. This is just setting up some stuff for the next episode.) Chen invites Susan to get dinner, though Susan wants to spend the evening alone. She finally addresses the stain on the sweater, which Chen claims was club soda. She’s a little offended that Susan thought she brought a semen-stained sweater to work. But when she’s alone in the lounge, Chen throws out the sweater.
Carter tells Pratt he wants to help him with any kind of trouble he or Leon might be facing. Pratt says he’s fine, but he and Carter both know he’s not. Carter thinks the cops will focus on Biz. If Leon were to disappear for a while, they probably wouldn’t go looking for him. Pratt says he tries to keep Leon out of trouble, but his friends keep pulling him into criminal activities, and Pratt can’t keep an eye on him 24/7. Carter tells him to stop blaming himself. After he leaves, Pratt asks Gallant to do him a favor.
Abby tells Carter that Eric showed up and seems to be doing great. He wants to take Abby to see his plane. Carter makes sure she’s not going to actually ride in the plane. Abby tells him not to go to Chechnya. Elizabeth does Aidan’s post-op examination and tells Romano about a minor complication. For the most part, Aidan will be fine, which means Romano and Jensen got lucky.
Gallant takes Leon to the bus station to send him to stay with Greg’s aunt. Leon is upset that Pratt won’t be coming to say goodbye. He thinks Pratt’s mad at him. Gallant promises he isn’t and insists that Leon get on the bus without talking to Pratt. So that’s it for Leon, too. At least he made things more interesting than Harkins did.
Back at County, Romano goes to the roof to tell Jensen that Aidan will be fine, and Jensen will do better next time. Jensen agrees, because he won’t go into the OR with Romano again. After he leaves, a helicopter flies over, startling Romano. He steps up to the edge of the roof, possibly thinking about jumping. He drops his surgical cap over the ledge instead.
Carter goes to McNulty’s clinic, but it’s closed up and no one’s answering the phone. A cop driving by asks if he needs help, and when Carter says McNulty might be sick, he helps Carter get inside. The whole place is empty. Carter’s confused, since he thought the clinic had been there for years. The cop says it was only open for a few weeks. McNulty could have been a scam artist the whole time, and Carter fell for the scam. Meanwhile, Pratt goes home to his now-quiet apartment, alone with his thoughts.
Thoughts: Fun fact: Heather DeLoach, who plays Helen, was Bee Girl.
Harkins was a waste of Leslie Bibb’s talents and a waste of a character. I guarantee we’ll all forget about her within the next three episodes.
It’s really out of character for Abby to not want Carter to go overseas. She was just saying in the last episode that he should use his privilege to help people. This is an excellent way to do that. And she’s definitely independent enough to be fine without Carter for a few weeks or months. I don’t get it.
I also don’t get Susan always thinking Abby should help Luka with his problems. That’s not Abby’s job. They broke up a long time ago and they both moved on. He’s not her responsibility anymore.
’00s music alert: Coldplay’s “Clocks”
'90s Flashback 