Dammit. If I sounded really bitchy above I didn’t mean to. Someone just kind of pissed me off over e-mail and my tone extended over here. Sorry, Survey.
I know no one knows about the pot (although a couple of weeks ago someone asked him if he’d been smoking pot) - but even beyond that, don’t these people manage to compare notes on the med students (or whatever he’s supposed to be)? If so, you think they’d figure out that he always manages to be where the action isn’t.
And my line about drug testing is simply because I’ve had to be drug tested to work as an internal auditor - I’d hope that hospitals generally had a policy that required testing of employees before employment. But maybe if he’s a med student he doesn’t technically count as an employee and is exempt from such a requirement…
“Leonard Betts”. Hey, don’t look at me like there’s something odd about knowing all the episodes’ names…
And I don’t know if I’d call that an amputation since that sort of implies a normal person could live without the part that got cut off in the accident.
“You’ve got something I need.”
Speaking of, some while ago she began looking for her biological mother. Did she ever find her or did they just drop that plotline?
Did Romano ever mention any family? I’ve only been watching the show for a couple of years. His character would have to be loaded and what he did with his money might be interesting. (I do remember that he spoke sign to Benton’s son which would imply he had a deaf relative as I don’t think he’d learn it for humanitarian reasons.)
Romano only has his dogs. Oh, and I think his mother’s still around.
I really hope Chuck is gonna be okay. Maybe I’m the only one, but I LIKE him.
Anyone want to enlighten me on Romano’s past history with helicopters? Was that a flashback he saw in the elevator or a premonition?
I don’t get to see the show very often, so I often miss stuff.
Totally caught me off-guard. Usually the promos can’t resist hinting that somebody’s going to be offed.
He lost his arm in a freak helicoptor rotor blade accident.
It was a flashback - he lost his arm in a run in with a helicopter blade last season( season before last?). It was reattached, but that didn’t take and ended up being amputated.
If there’s any further history with helicopters and Romano, I don’t know what it is.
There was one small scene in an episode:
Weaver is in the doctor’s lounge (where the lockers are) and makes a call. Gets the right person on the line and says:
(Periphrasing badly) “Did you give an infant daughter up for adoption at Such-in-such in 19XX?.. <pause> Oh, I’m very, very sorry. I promise I will not disturb you again.”
She looks a little mortified/heartbroken and then hangs up.
That’s it. If you went for a potty break, you’d have missed it.
Presumably she found a birth mother who was upset by the attempt at contacting her.
I thought Romano deserved a slightly more dignified send-off than getting smooshed flat and leaving nothing more than a black smear on the pavement. Even flinging himself off a bridge would have been a better ending for him (and logical considering Romano’s downward spiral after losing his arm).
My prediction is that Pot-Smoking Idiot will be off the hook now that the only person to see him smoking it was Romano, and will continue to smoke pot on the job and will screw up in a major way (killing or maiming a patient) as a result of being high (or sneaking off to get high). He will then suffer massive guilt over a three-episode arc and then will probably throw himself in front of a subway train (a past plotline that has yet to be repeated).
Unforunatley, that sort of accident isn’t entirely freakish. Why do you think they call 'em “choppers”? (Well, OK, that’s not reason, but --)
Why the helicopter crashed - I presume the wavering windsock just prior to all hell breaking loose was to tell us the winds were shifting. Well, it was better than that chopper crash/emergency landing with Doc Greene a couple of seasons ago, which I thought was very contrived.
Anyhow, could a sudden weird windshift throw a helicoptor out of control and make it crash? Yes. But it’s really weird to have that happen out of a clear blue sky. In advance of thunderstorm… particularly if they’re trying to beat the weather… yeah, that would be more plausible to me.
Lansing, Illinois had a chopper crash this year somewhat reminiscent of the one in the ER episode - it was from the wind, but a new chopper tipped over during engine shut down and yes, there were pieces flying all over, imbedding themselves into buildings and cars and flying across a nearby road where work crews doing a repaving job wound up diving into the drainage ditch to find cover. Fortunately, no one injured.
I do have the quibble that the chopper burst into flames before impact. Aircraft do not (usually) spontaneously combust but hey, it’s TV, you can’t expect too much reality.
Where did everybody go? When a chopper takes off, you are well advised to be either inside the machine or well out of the range of the rotors (just ask Romano why - oh wait, nevermind…) To me, the answer is obvious - Chuck and all those other folks trotted clear, and thus were out of sight of Neela and the Impaled Nurse. They might have taken a stairway down, since the elevator was going to be full of gurney.
I do have the quibble that the chopper burst into flames before impact. Aircraft do not (usually) spontaneously combust but hey, it’s TV, you can’t expect too much reality.
Before which impact? The rotor strike on the roof or falling into the ambulance bay?
I wasn’t recording the episode last night, so I can’t look at it again, but while the pre-landing flames were probably 99% dramatic license, once the rotor strikes something, all bets are off, and there’s no telling what’s happening mechanically to the helicopter. Rotor fragments may have hit fuel tank or fuel lines, chunks of shattered transmission may be pinging around doing the same, the pilot broke the collective off in trying to regain control and threw it in panicked disgust (hey, at least this wasn’t a Robinson!) and the thing sparked a fire… (I’ve seen helicopters where the pilot literally bent the controls in a last-ditch effort to land safely in an emergency.)
:smack: Gads! It was not from the wind, but a newschannel chopper that turned over …
I am soooooo much in need of a weekend…
I gave up watching ER last year. The only thing I even cared about on the show was the possibility of a Rocket/Lizzy pairing. Rocket was a complex personality…such a bastard, but with a human side that he was terrified of anyone finding out.
Now I don’t even have that.
See above comment about needing a weekend.
OK - I meant the roof-top rotorstrike.
While it is true that once the rotor starts to disintegrate all bets are off, I get a little tired of EVERY aircraft crash on TV and in the movies generating big gouts of flame at the first sign of trouble.
The accident that happened in Lansing that I mentioned - no fire. Not much helicoptor, left, either, by the time it was done but no fire. Fire is a possibility, not a certainty. Although I would expect a helicoptor pancaking into a parking lot to catch fire (fuel tank will probably rupture and spray, and something wet is going to hit something hot in that case), a rotorstrike alone won’t necessarally do it. Even puncturing or breaching a gas tank doesn’t guarantee fire - the fuel has to hit something hot (like a fuel line spraying a hot engine cylinder) or get sparked (wires shorting if they’re sheared or ripped, for instance). When rotors break the bulk tends to fly out and away Sure, you get richocets but what really are the odds of hitting something vital? The one in ER was in full flame even before it finished sliding off the roof.
Yeah, you’re right - in a panic people do bend the controls. They do that on airplanes and boats and cars, too. But explain to me how bending a glorified joystick is going to directly cause a gas tank explosion. I have a friend who survived an engine failure in a helicoptor - sure, a LOT of things got bent, including some of his ribs, but no fire, no explosion, and both men walked away from the wreck. They were limping, and niether wants to take that ride again, but my point is that choppers don’t automatically explode or burst into flame at the first sign of trouble.
So, tell me - wouldn’t it be WORSE, on a certain level, to have a non-flaming helicoptor distintegrating, sliding off the roof with a nice close-in shot of a couple of the occupants trying to open a door, their faces locked in screams as they go over the edge and remain alive and concious until the final impact?
Although there’s no denying all those lovely flames will boost the ratings during sweeps. Looks almost pretty.
Then again, it’s a little like comparing about-to-be-squished Romano to Wile E. Coyote. Quibbles, really. Sit back and enjoy the show. Look at all the pretty lights and shiny objects.
Did anyone else catch the elevator music when Romano was going up?
Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’.
The sadistic little brat inside of me likes that one.
Yeah, I caught that and kind of snickered.
And you’re not the only one who likes Chuck, Guinastasia. Romano’s death was far too cartoony to have any impact on me (plus I was spoiled for that part), but the whole Chuck saga had me on a roller coaster. First I was happy he wasn’t dead, then upset that he collapsed, then happy again that they saved him. I hope he sticks around.
Poor Romano though. I think I’ll actually miss the bastard, even if no one on the show does.
Jesus, Broom, you’re one sick puppy.
But there’s work for you in Hollywood.
I thought Chuny was the nurse in the elevator and was pissed that they stabbed her in the back, and it really looked like her on the gurney…but there she was giggling with the other nurses at the end of the episode. I did a double-take, but who knows, some people are really fast healers.
Neela knows about the pot. Remember, the old man comes up yelling, “The doctor stole my medicine!” and describes Dr. Dork to her.
Plus, I don’t think Dr. Dork was high, he didn’t really stuff the joint and there wasn’t much gone of it when Romano busted him. His sitting there in the middle of the chaos and triage was just more of him really not giving a shit about everyone else, although I’m surprised he kept sitting there even after his shift was over and they hadn’t seen Romano for something like six hours.
The Free Fallin’ “joke” was a groaner, but it reminded me of the old Paul Simon SNL skit where Simon goes to hell and it consists of being trapped in an elevator listening to Simon & Garfunkel muzak.