No ER thread?? Fine, I'll do it: ER: 12/11 (Spoilers)

Cafe Society
1

Is nobody doing an ER thread with regularity? (I appeal to a mod to close this if they find one…I couldn’t).

Anybody?
Anybody?
Bueller?

OK, so I’ll give my hand a go at this:

Last night, we got to see Christmas as celebrated in Chicago (briefly) and The Congo.

The biggest bomb of the episode was Carter getting his g/f-of-the-week pregnant! :eek: I figure they’ll come back to Chicago and end up staying. I wonder how this is going to bounce off Abby!

Of interesting note was the “Puld Fiction” style editing and Carter’s non-chalant reaction to Dr. Romano’s death.

Well, I can’t write a summary to save my life, so come on folks, let’s hear it… whatcha got? You like? You no like? What’s going to happen next?

2

How the heck did Romano die? I saw it on the show last night, but had no idea Rocket went to the great triage room in the sky.

3

Ooh, it was quite dramatic. You know he got his arm chopped off by a helicopter, don’t you?

Well, just a few weeks ago there was a helicopter crash on the helipad on the roof of the Hospital. After sputtering and slamming into the building, the flaming chopper fell and crashed to the street below. Romano was outside getting some fresh air when it came crashing down. It landed on him. His body wasn’t found for at least a day.

Elizabeth tried to organize a memorial, but nobody showed up. (Just 2 med students who mistook the reception as a conference of some sort and stole a few cookies off the sign-in table.)

Everybody’s reaction was about on par with Carter’s… “Oh, Romano died…what’s for dinner?”

4

I saw Thandie Newton’s name in the opening credits and I kept looking for her and looking and looking. She looks way different with her hair pulled back. (That was Thandie Newton, wasn’t it? Makemba? Carter’s new love?)

Anyway, I can see them all returning to the US for the baby’s birth, but Makemba will return to the Congo and continue her work, probably leaving the baby with Carter. It would be just too soap-opera-ish to have something happen to her or the baby, wouldn’t it?

I didn’t like the discussion among the workers at the club. Maybe it would have been more realistic if they hadn’t been so animated. They should have come to terms by now with the fact that most of the world doesn’t give a tinker’s damn about AIDS in Africa.

But the show (I think) pointed out what happens when you start to think about the huge problems they’re dealing with – it’s mind boggling. Where do you start? How can people go on against the apathy of the rest of the world? What keeps them from throwing up their hands in despair and going home?

As for the rest of the show, when is Mekhi’s character going to look past those crutches? I’ll bet he won’t let her go a third time.

5

I’m sick to death of St. John Carter’s African adventure (even though it has only been shown in about two or three episodes). Glad it looks like the next we see him he’ll be back at the hospital.

6

When is Carter going to give all his Grandma’s (The Foundations?) money to his new GFs project?

7

Umm, hello??

It’s been too soap-opera-ish for about four seasons now…

But this season is the first where it just gets to be unbearable. I know it’s hard after 10 years to think of something original to happen in an emergency room, but if I wanted to watch a show about a medical clinic in Africa, I’d find a show entitled “Rwanda Clinic,” or something.

8

Oh, thank god, I thought I was alone in hating the Africa plot line. It was ok for one episode, but…

Am I the only one who thought (when they showed her at the end of the other episode) that the woman Carter knocked up was the Canadian nurse from the finale/premiere? Guess I wasn’t paying attention before.

The best thing I can say for the episode is " Yay! A Doper-designed Christmas card!"

9

I was under the impression that Noah Wyle had already announced that this was his last year on the show. If so, I doubt they’ll come back to Chicago and rejoin the cast.

I’m thinking this is going to be dragged out, maybe with an appearance back in Chicago, but they’ll end up outside the sphere of the show living happily ever after – just like Doug and Carol. Hell, maybe with Doug and Carol.

As for the Romano factor – idunno … it seems weird. Like there’s something else in the works that just isn’t clear right now. It’s just too weird how everybody is reacting, even though pretty much every one hated him. I’m thinking there’s going to be some sort of “Romano did something when he was still alive that was incredibly self-sacrificing that all will find out about and go Aw!’” angle.

10

:stuck_out_tongue: My husband thought the same thing. He thinks it’s going to turn out that he was as loaded as Carter is, and left it all to the one person who turned up to his funeral (like the UL).

11

The show has been extraordinarily unsentimental about departed characters, dead or otherwise. Given the difference between Mark Greene and Robert Romano’s respective impact on the people of ER, and how little we’ve heard about Mark Greene since his ukelele-backed death on the beach, I doubt we’re going to get some St. Romano storyline in the future.

From reading the boards at TelevisionWithoutPity, I am apparently the only one who hasn’t hated the Africa storyline. There have been times when it has been excessively preachy, but overall I think it has (or has had the capacity to have) made people more aware of just how severe the situation is there, and more awareness is never a bad thing. (Now, if it could just be followed up with action…)

I do want to see them back in the ER, which should be happening in upcoming weeks, and I do look forward to a few more classic ER twists, which should also be forthcoming. (I feel it in my bones.)

Noah Wyle’s contract ends at the end of this season, but last I’ve read he’s not made a decision about returning. The show is renewed through next season, so if the producers are willing to give him time off as they’ve done this year, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s willing to come back for what may be the last hurrah of the show. The producers are being very flexible with their stars, giving Wyle, Alex Kingston, Ming-Na, Laura Innes and soon, Goran Visnjic multiple weeks off in order to be with their families. The only reason any of them have for moving on is the desire to stretch into other roles (which prompted Anthony Edwards’s departure) and I hope that Wyle can quell that just a bit longer. The full growth of John Truman Carter hasn’t been accomplished yet!

Some spoilage of future episodes, for those who dig that kind of thing:

[spoiler]Kem does travel to Chicago with Carter, and Abby doesn’t take the news of her pregnancy very well and whines to Luka about it. Wah, wah, wah. You jilted him, babe, quitcherbitchen.

Luka’s planning to return to Africa “in January” and tells Kerry that he’s going to resign. Kerry actually treats him nicely. Whether or not he’ll actually go remains to be seen, especially since, despite either’s best intentions, he’s getting closer to…

Nurse Sam, who is about to have a major problem with her hellion child. And she’s going to make a really big, bad stupid mistake about what to do with the boy. He needs a strong male role model. Enter Dr. Kovac? He could fulfill some of mama’s needs too, methinks.

And finally, thankfully, there’s a 2 or 3 episode story arc coming for Kerry… and Sandy. About time![/spoiler]

12

I’ve liked the Africa storylines, too.
I loved the one from the beginning of this year when Carter went back to find Luka, thinking he was dead, only to find out he had been spared because they thought he was a priest.
That one scene with Luka, half-crazy from his fever, praying on his knees, and the soldiers suddenly seeing the crucifix around his neck, and the young mother of the girl he had helped saying he was a priest…well, I admit I teared up.

I was spoiled for that plotline (that Luka wasn’t really dead), but I want to stay spoiler-free for the rest, so I’m not reading your spoiler box.
I do like it better when they’re in the ER, and it isn’t so soap-opera-y. I hate when they all hook up with each other. I wish they (the writers) would just give the characters SOs outside of the hospital.

I can see where they’re headed with Luka and Sam and her bratty kid. Too bad the helicopter couldn’t have fallen on him. :wink:

I hope Susan and whats-his-name (the flight nurse; I can never remember his name) stay together. I think they’re cute together.

I’m guessing Carter and Makemba will come back and have their baby and then (since Noah Wylie’s contract is up), they’ll take all the Carter Family Money and head off back to Africa and use it all to build Grandma Carter AIDS clinics all over Africa.

Major nitpick: It annoys me that they changed Pratt’s sister from having cerebral palsy (as was specifically mentioned in last year’s “Secrets & Lies”) to now having MS. Do they think we don’t remember stuff like that?

13

Oh yes-especially as Barber’s Adagio for Strings played.

I too like Susan and Chuck. I hope he sticks around. When he was almost dead in the helicoptor accident, I was biting my knuckles waiting to see if he’d be all right.