'90s Flashback

Summary: Carol starts out her morning by getting on an El train. Judging by the size of her stomach, it’s been a few months since “Getting to Know You.” A guy on the train recommends that she sit, then asks a 20-something guy to give up his seat. Carol says she’s fine standing, and the guy won’t give up his seat anyway. After she’s off the El, Carol almost walks in front of a couple of rollerbladers. One of them falls and gets a little scraped up.

Carol heads to a coffee shop, where the guy who wouldn’t give up his seat is first in line. (There are a lot of unnamed characters in this episode. We’ll call this guy Rudy, because he’s rude.) An older woman in front of Carol chats with her about her pregnancy, then asks to touch her stomach. Carol declines, tired of everyone wanting to touch her. The woman (we’ll call her Dorothy; she just looks like a Dorothy) is like, “Well, I asked nicely, didn’t I?” Yeah, step away, Ms. Entitled.

Instead of just making herself warm milk at home, Carol orders it at the counter. The kid behind her (Pip, because he’s a pipsqueak) says that’s nasty. He’s getting a vanilla latte. He’s, like, ten, by the way. They bicker a little. A girl’s balloon pops and Carol jumps. The girl, Michelle, demands another balloon, even though she had two. Carol is probably regretting getting pregnant at this point. One thing she won’t regret: leaving the coffee shop when she does, because seconds later, a pickup truck drives right through the front of it.

Carol hitches a ride to County in an ambulance transporting the rollerblader who fell. Rudy is also brought in, and when Benton doesn’t treat him quickly enough for his liking, he demands to speak to a manager. He recognizes Carol, whom Mark tells him is the manager. Heh. Blood loss finally makes Rudy shut up.

Weaver takes charge of the mass trauma as Randi asks when the new doctor, Kovac, is coming in. A guy with a migraine asks to be seen, but Weaver doesn’t consider him a priority. Once they’ve made sure Benton has a handle on Rudy, Carol and Mark go check on Michelle’s mother, Mrs. Kinney. She doesn’t know where Michelle is. Randi brings in a doctor named Charles Cameron who was supposed to have coffee with Elizabeth. He agrees to wait while Elizabeth works. She tells Mark she has an interview at another hospital. She’d like to save the cardiothoracic fellowship at County as a last resort.

Anspaugh has to leave Carter alone with a patient so he can take a phone call. Haleh and Chuny tell Carter that there’s a rumor that Anspaugh is quitting as chief of staff and going back to surgery. He’s tired of all the administrative stuff involved with the chief position. The guy with the migraine (Wade, after the actor playing him, because I can only be so creative today) yells for help again. I’d think that yelling would make his migraine worse, yes? Weaver asks Randi to kill him.

Carol asks if Michelle has come in. Lily says a couple more patients are on their way, even though Weaver declared County closed to more traumas. Randi tells her that Romano overruled her. Weaver tries to overoverrule him. Mark and Elizabeth work on Mrs. Kinney, who has injuries to her heart and lungs that can’t be fixed surgically. Elizabeth decides to put her on bypass. Romano stops by and recognizes Cameron, who doesn’t reveal while he’s in town.

Benton wants to take Rudy to surgery, but Romano tells him to make sure Rudy doesn’t have a clot first. Benton just loves being second-guessed in front of his colleagues. A very, very handsome man comes to the hospital and spots Michelle sitting in the back of an ambulance. He introduces himself as Luka. (Get it out of your system now: HE LIVES ON THE SECOND FLOOR. HE LIVES UPSTAIRS FROM YOU. YES, HE THINKS YOU’VE SEEN HIM BEFORE.) Michelle doesn’t want to get out, so Luka asks if he can sit with her.

Weaver helps Lucy treat a woman’s dislocated shoulder while agreeing to be her mentor. Wade continues yelling about needing help. If he’s that desperate and impatient, why doesn’t he go to another hospital? Lucy wants to focus on emergency medicine for her final year of med school, and she’d appreciate having someone to go to with questions. Weaver understands, since that helped her a lot when she was a student. Carter asks Weaver about the rumors about Anspaugh quitting as chief. Lucy has heard a worse rumor: Romano will be the new chief.

Weaver runs to Mark to ask for a chat when he has time. Right now, he and Elizabeth are starting Mrs. Kinney on bypass, which does what Elizabeth wanted it to. Mark tells Weaver that Anspaugh would have said something to him if he were leaving the chief position. Suddenly the fire alarm goes off. Everyone starts moving patients in case it’s not a drill or false alarm.

Rudy crashes, so Benton enlists Carter to help him as he does the procedure he was supposed to do in the OR. Mark and Weaver try to get everyone to evacuate calmly. Benton and Carter keep working on Rudy, more concerned with saving him than possibly getting burned up in a fire. It’s a good decision, since there’s no fire – Wade pulled the alarm to get some attention. I’m sure the sound really helps his migraine. Randi decks him.

As Chuny goes around telling everyone they don’t have to evacuate, Luka carries Michelle out of the ambulance. Carter and Benton start moving Rudy out of the ER to take him up to surgery. The gurney hits a cart, dislodging an oxygen tank, which starts spinning around. The oxygen acts like rocket fuel, sending the tank flying through the ER until it lodges in a door. Luka carries Michelle into the ER and asks if she’s ever been to the circus. When she says no, he replies, “You have now.”

Sometime later, the alarm has stopped blaring and Wade is finally being treated. Mark wants him charged with inciting a riot. Luka, who’s the new doctor Randi was asking about earlier, offers to tend to Michelle’s minor injuries. Weaver says the new pediatric resident, Cleo, will take care of her, but Cleo isn’t on yet. Luka reports that Michelle wants to see her mother. Mark says it’s not a good idea.

Weaver takes Lucy to tend to one last patient found in the rubble of the coffee shop. Cleo arrives, having jogged to work (it’s only four miles). Luka takes Michelle to see her mother, explaining how all the machines and tubes are helping her. His calm manner makes her calm as well. Carol assures her that Mrs. Kinney will be awake soon.

Benton and Romano operate on Rudy together, Romano commenting that Benton hasn’t yet said he was right about him needing surgery. Romano tries to find out if Cameron is there to interview Elizabeth for a job. “Do all our conversations have to revolve around Elizabeth?” Benton asks. Romano says that maybe they don’t need to have any further conversations at all.

The last trauma victim is too injured to save, so Mark pulls Weaver away to report what he’s heard about the rumors: Anspaugh is leaving as chief, and Romano may take over for him. Weaver knows he’s not right for the job. Luka stitches up Pip, who doesn’t get the concept of a moonlighting doctor. Luka manages to stay patient as Pip asks a bunch of questions. Finally, Pip gets that Luka is like a substitute teacher. He asks what kind of accent Luka has. “Thick,” Luka replies. (For the record, he’s Croatian.)

Paramedics bring in a baby named Carlos, whose mother was found unconscious. Jeanie takes care of the mother, who has AIDS, while Cleo tends to Carlos. He may have pneumonia. Jeanie asks if Cleo wants to test him for AIDS, but she can’t without the mother’s permission or a court order. Cleo can’t believe that a woman with AIDS would have a baby without any kind of support. Jeanie keeps quiet, then asks Haleh to add an HIV test to Carlos’ lab orders.

Carol checks in on Luka, recognizing Pip. Carol needs some stitches for a cut on her arm, so Luka does the honors. She comments that he took Michelle in to see her mother even though Mark and Weaver said he shouldn’t. Luka thinks they’re still trying to determine if he’s a good doctor. He’s worked at County a couple of times, but only enough for the others to start calling him by his first name. He hopes his suturing on Carol’s arm will make her happy enough to call him Luka.

He continues that he took Michelle to see her mother because he doesn’t believe children should be kept in the dark – it makes them more scared. Carol says he sounds like he has a lot of experience with that kind of thing. When her stitches are done, Weaver asks her to talk to the children of the last victim and let them see their mother’s body. Carol’s not familiar with the patient, and she realizes when they walk into the trauma room that it’s Dorothy.

Lydia and Connie ask Mark if he’s going to fight Romano’s possible promotion to chief of staff. He assures them that he and Weaver are meeting with Anspaugh to tell him what they think. Elizabeth is back from her interview with Cameron but doesn’t know how it went. Carol asks Mark how their relationship is going. He makes it sound like it’s casual, so Carol asks if she’ll have to beg for information. Mark says they’ve both backed off a little.

A woman named Elaine comes in with some pain after a fender-bender. Carter recognizes her as his cousin’s ex-wife. Chuny looks on as Carter examines her hand and they supposedly display sexual tension. Carter and Elaine reminisce about her wedding to his cousin, not mentioning that Carter was probably a preteen at the time. Also, she was married to his cousin. He’s hot for his cousin’s ex.

A social worker named Robert comes to see Carlos, who will need to go into foster care, since his mother may not make it. It’ll be hard to find him a foster family; he’s Latino and may have HIV, two strikes against him for couples who want healthy white babies. Those couples are really missing out because this baby is super-cute.

Benton rushes to a court-ordered mediation session with Carla, the result of a restraining order Benton got preventing Carla and Roger from taking Reese to Germany. His argument is that Reese’s language skills will fall behind if he’s not in the U.S. Carla says she’ll get him a tutor. She notes that Benton doesn’t have room for Reese, so Reese can’t stay with him. Benton says he’s moved in with Jackie to give Reese more of a family. Carla says he would have that with her and Roger, “his black mother and his black stepfather.” Benton thinks she’s mad because he dated Elizabeth.

Carter shows Elaine an x-ray of her hand, and she recites the following ridiculous dialogue: “Not much of a measure of a hand, is it? I mean, of what a hand can do?” Nothing’s broken, so she can leave. She complains that that means she can go to a Carter Family Foundation fundraiser (say that five times fast), since she has no excuse to skip it. Carter tells her he’ll be thinking of her…just in general. At the fundraiser. Not while he’s falling asleep or anything.

Weaver and Mark head to their meeting with Anspaugh, hoping that if enough people object to Romano being made chief, it won’t happen. A bunch of doctors are at the meeting, including Kayson and Deraad. Romano’s also present, which is ridiculous. No one has a good reason not to agree to make Romano chief, especially since no one else wants the job.

Mark is the first to cast a nay vote – Romano’s management style rubs people the wrong way, and his time as acting chief hasn’t gone well. Anspaugh turns to Weaver next, and she shocks Mark by saying that Romano has turned things around and has become a good leader. If he becomes chief, she’ll support him.

After the meeting, Mark confronts Weaver at the Roach Coach, but she defends her decision to back Romano for the job. Anspaugh was clearly going to give it to him, and it was politically smart for her to side with him. Romano will be their boss; he can’t see them both as enemies. Romano has apparently been nearby the whole time, unseen, and he’s happy to get to surprise them. He pulls Weaver away to discuss something.

Jeanie meets Reggie at Doc Magoo’s, and it’s clear from their conversation that they’ve stepped things up and are spending time at each other’s homes. Jeanie talks about Carlos and how sad it is that he’ll have to go into foster care. His HIV test came back positive, but Jeanie can’t disclose that since she wasn’t supposed to order the test. She’d love to take him in, but she doesn’t have a support system, so DCFS will never let her become a foster mother. Reggie says they can solve that problem by getting married. Jeanie thinks he’s joking around, but he’s completely serious.

The nurses applaud Mark in the ER, happy that he at least tried to oppose Romano’s promotion. Weaver asks to talk. Paramedics bring in a pregnant woman after a car accident, and Luka quickly determines that she’s dead, so they need to deliver the baby immediately. He has Carol reach right inside her and hold her stomach open while he extracts the baby. Carter tries to save the mother, but Luka was right, and they declare her dead. The baby, however, is fine.

Jeanie goes back to check on Carlos, who’s doing fine and is still very cute. Kit tells her that his mother has end-stage AIDS. Jeanie tells her to start Carlos on the regular HIV treatment, even though he hasn’t been tested (at least as far as Kit knows). Weaver tells Carter that not only has Romano been made chief of staff, but he’s appointed her chief of the ER. Carter’s happy to hear it. Then he’s not, because Weaver doesn’t think it would look right if he kept living in her house.

Luka returns an unused suture kit to a supply cabinet, not wanting to waste the supplies that would normally be thrown out. He checks to make sure Carol’s okay after what she had to see with the baby and dead mother. She says she feels lucky. She calls him Luka and says that, no matter what Mark and Weaver think, he’s a good doctor.

Carter meets Elaine outside the fundraiser she attended and asks her to get a drink. She’d rather do something else. No details; use your imagination. Lucy asks Weaver if there’s any extra reading she can recommend to her new mentee. Weaver doesn’t want it to look like she favors Lucy over other students, so that arrangement will have to be called off. She suggests that Lucy ask Mark to mentor her instead. Really, that’s a better idea anyway, since Mark is a good teacher.

Chuny tells Weaver that there’s a call for Mark, who’s already left for the night. It’s from David – Mark’s mother has died. Mark is taking his anger at Romano and Weaver out on some baseballs at a batting cage. Elizabeth tracks him down and praises him for trying to stall Romano’s promotion, even though it may hurt Mark’s career. Elizabeth gets in the cage and Mark cheers her on as she hits some balls. If they’d backed off each other before, they’re back on track now.

Thoughts: Elaine is played by Rebecca De Mornay.

Luka is the show’s way of apologizing for not being able to hold on to George Clooney. Show, you are forgiven.

“And then Carter hooks up with his cousin’s ex, who’s 12 years older!” is something that was actually spoken in the writers’ room.

I can’t believe Anspaugh let Romano sit in while everyone was discussing him. Of course they all supported him! They didn’t want to get on his bad side!