I have to chime in on the “last night’s episode kicked ass” bandwagon.
The scene with Benton operating on his nephew was intense. To see him–the ultimate professional surgeon–getting shaky and flustered during surgery was heart-wrenching.
Jackie’s wail and clutching at the bloodied Peter…WOW!
Romano–I too love to hate him. I also see how he is more complex than he at first seems.
I’m glad they killed Lucy off. No character development=boring.
Malucci is a prick. But not an interesting prick like Romano. Just an annoying prick who I’ like to see disappear.
I hadn’t seen ER in a months, and I was really impressed with last night’s episode. When Benton comes out of the OR with blood on his shirt and arms and you hear his sister just cry out “No!” – that was heartbreaking. And then when Malucci “apologizes” – “I thought he was just another banger” – I would have hit him, too. And Sally Field was great; I absolutely understood why Abby’s initial reaction would be to say she didn’t know her, out of some desperate, irrational hope that she’d just go away.
And I agree about the promos too – it seems to me that the show is good enough to stand on its own, without the network making every episode sound like an earth-shattering one.
I love ER, and watch it religiously. The melodrama is getting a bit old, though. Next week: the ER explodes! They’ve had no air conditioning in the summer, no heat in the winter, a benzene spill, a leaky roof, I’m pretty sure they’ve had fire and flooding too, and now the thing explodes?
Last night’s episode was indeed brilliant. Khandi Alexander’s rage when her son’s friends came to check on him was one of the finest emotions I’ve seen on TV lately.
I have to agree with JosephFinn: Romano is developing nicely as a character. He’s not at all one-dimensional.
I was actually going to start this thread last night. I sort of fell away from the series last season, after watching almost every episode since it began. Last night I was bored and ER happened to be on. Man, was that one heartbreaking. The second Benton started getting flustered when working on his nephew, I about lost it. When he went out to talk to Jackie, I did lose it.
I didn’t really like the Sally Field storyline, though. Not sure why.
As for Romano, I’m starting to like him. At first, he was just loathsome–then I remembered how when Kerry Weaver was first introduced, she was pretty loathsome too. Now, she’s very well-rounded and interesting. I see Romano going that way, too.
that’s odd - i haven’t watched 5 minutes of ER in years, yet for some reason i stopped on it last night while flipping channels and stayed for the whole episode! it was the moment when they were rushing the dreadlocked black guy in whose hand had been shot off.
there’s got to be a sniglet for the one episode of a show that draws in all the non-usual watchers.
Luka and Abby were walking by the river, and a mugger came up and bashed him over the head with something, and tried to take Abby’s purse. I think Luka was knocked out for a second or two, but he got up and grabbed the guy and started slamming his head into the concrete abutment. Abby had to pull Luka off of him.
He later died in the ER. I think it was two episodes ago. The most-previous episode (last week’s) showed him at the police station. No one knows who the guy is, he has no family, the cop said Luka was lucky, since no one will come forward and file a wrongful death lawsuit, etc, but Luka was deeply affected by the incident.
A sniglet? UsERpers? As in “usurp”, the non-regular viewers skootch us over and take our place on the couch, hog the popcorn and the afghan.
And since they haven’t been watching (like me), you have to bring them up to date, and by the time you’ve done that, the show’s over and you missed most of it.
YES! We need a word for those people. My husband is one…doesn’t watch a show for weeks, and expects me to bring him up-to-date in just a minute or two, while the show is on. He loves to make wild-ass observations and guesses, and it makes me crazy. He did it last night with ER: Him: “Is that Benton’s son?”
Me: “No, it’s his nephew, his son is like 2 or 3. Shut up.”
Him: “And he’s retarded, right?”
Me: “No, he’s deaf. Shut up.”
Him: “Who’s the pregnant chick? Isn’t she going out with Carter?”
Me: “No, she’s not going out with Carter. Shut up.”
Him: "Oh, yeah, he has a crush on Susan, right?
Me: “No, Susan left a couple years ago. Shut up.”
Him: “Why is Mark kissing that girl? I thought Mark was married.”
Me: “Uh, yeah, he got divorced in the 2nd season. He and Elizabeth are engaged. Shut up.”
And on and on…till I just want to throttle him.
SHUT UP AND ASK QUESTIONS AT THE COMMERCIAL!!
I got hooked in last night too! I haven’t watched the show in a long time, mostly because I’m always doing other stuff, but last night…I think I’ll try to watch it next week, too!
About Romano, though…I love to hate the guy, and I agree that his character is definitely developping, but not much seems to have changed since last year when I last watched the show regularly. Perhaps last night was the beginning of something, but I really think something has to happen that will really make his character…expand, I suppose would be an ok word. Know what I mean? People have grown to like the jerk, but now something needs to happen to keep our interest. He needs a huge storyline, IMHO.
Like quite a few of you, I watch the shoe religiously also. It’s my bonding time with my mother. I’m so busy during the week that it’s a relief to just take one hour out to sit there with Mom and watch it.
That episode did kick ass, but I didn’t find too much incredibility in it. Then again, a lot of things on that show set me off the handle…especially when pathetic old people with quivery voices die or there was one episode where these little kids’ parents both died in a car wreck…and when Dr Greene’s dad died I went hysterical.
I’ll have to say “Me, too” to what a lot of people have been saying, like: Man I hate Romano but I love him, yes I went nuts when Benton’s sister wailed.
I think I was affected greatly by Sally Field. WOW. What frightened me was that she acted a lot like me. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t stop crying when I saw that last scene with her. It seemed like a remake of me and my mother (only with me as Sally and Mom as Abby) just a few days ago. :^\
Can someone tell me what happened in the first half of the show? When I tuned in benton was working on his nephew. What happened to him? Why did he hit the other doctor? Thanks.
Malucci had been mouthing off earlier in the show, making jokes about another “banger”. Benton had tried to set him straight, demanding that he respect the patient and that he address him with “‘Yes, Dr. Benton’ and ‘No, Dr. Benton’.” When Malucci said that he thought Jesse was “just another banger”, Benton hit him–and deservedly so.
You won’t find many med students who miss “ER”, although most of them don’t like to admit it. The game is to call the diagnosis before they do. (For instance, when Skinner from “The X-Files” was on last year, I called Huntington’s five minutes before they did. )
I think I’m the one person who hated to see Kellie Martin go. She was often criticized for being a useless hangdog, but that’s what medical students are. I sympathized with her plight–jumping into a system you don’t understand with unclear responsibilities, multiple authorities, and little recognition. Plus, she was hot.
You have to have spent some time around surgeons to have a full appreciation for Romano. Most of the surgeons I’ve worked with have been wonderful, but there’s usually a hint of that pushy, arrogant, my-way-or-the-highway Romano attitude hiding just under the surface. My favorite thing about Romano is that he doesn’t break character even when he’s having a “soft moment”, as he did working with Lucy’s heart patient last year.
My only real pet peeve about “ER” is the Two-Year ER Rotation. Aside from electives, med students will usually do one month in the ER and maybe one month on trauma surgery. Can’t you let them do a medicine rotation, or some outpatient pediatrics, or something? (I know it’s necessary for the show’s structure, but Jeezus.)
I had also gotten away from ER lately, mostly since George Clooney left, but this week has brought me back on board again!
No one has mentioned Carter much in this thread…why is he in AA? Was he ordered to go? Something to do with his stabbing? Carter has always been my favorite character in the show…boy what alot of changes he has been through!
You really did miss a lot! Last season Carter was heavily into self-medication. The whole ER did an intervention and put him on a plane to a Betty Ford type clinic.
I usually watch ER religiously, but I missed the first 3 or 4 episodes this season. So, someone bring me up to date – why did Abby drop out of med school and go back to being a nurse? And what did Benton do that pissed Romano off so much?
I too love the show, but I have a bit of a complaint about this season – too much is happening.
Every episode there has been at least one, and often more, utterly life-changing events. Just this season:
Abbey’s kicked out of med school;
Green & Cordey get engaged;
Cordey commits pretty major malpractice with the surgery last night (the way they did that was way out of character for her);
Luka kills a man;
Benton loses his job AND loses his girlfriend AND loses his nephew; and
Ming Na (whatever her character is now called) get pregnant.
I’m sure I missed some, but my point is that too much is going on too quickly. Benton in particular is starting to seem like Job, or worse yet, Sipowitz (can that guy possibly lose any more loved ones?!). It’s starting to strain belief. I think they should intersperse some old fashioned “rough day at the ER” episodes.
All that being said, the acting of all these life-changing events has been extremely good this season.
Abby’s ex-husband didn’t pay her med school tuition, so she can’t do her hospital rotation this quarter. She was an OB nurse, but Kerry got her tranfered down to the ER, because she thinks Abby will get more practical experience there.
Benton called Social Services (or something like that) when Romano tried to dump an uninsured patient off on another hospital; Romano knew it was Benton and got him fired. He also trashed Benton’s reputation all over town, so Benton can’t find a job.
Abby was kicked out of med school because her ex-husband didn’t pay her tuition (he was supposed to pay based on their divorce agreement). I don’t know what happened between Benton and Romano - I think Benton revealed some information that resulted in Romano and/or the hospital being fined. But I’m not positive about that. It must have happened late last season?
Abby is my favorite - there’s so much depth to her character. I hope the writers continue to focus on her.
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