Same reaction here when Luka let the kid be scanned for fun: Aaarrgh!
Weaver is still on the series; she just wasn’t in this episode. Same for Carter. Is he supposed to come back from Africa so Luka can go there again as he said he would?
I don’t know about Carter’s timetable in re: Africa, but I’ve read that Noah Wyle asked for time off to spend with his family. I had no idea that he’s be taking months off, with it only being the second season since he took over as lead. I’m wondering what’s up with that.
Okay, firstly, my daughter and I both diligently watched for an appearance by seriousart’s green Christmas card, but did not see it! 
Maybe we missed it, or maybe it ended up on the cutting room floor, or maybe it will be on another episode–let’s hope!
Sheerah, I must admit that your idea about Bob Newhart’s character having seriously injured/killed the puppy disturbed me. I too had wondered where the puppy was but hadn’t considered that until I read your post. Gah! I don’t think it’s ever going to be answered on the show either.
Luka is seriously pissing me off. And we got to see yet another patient barf on a staffer–someone -please- give TPTB a clue about this crap! Double GAH! A preforated appendix is a very bad thing, though, and that patient wouldn’t be in such trouble if it hadn’t been for Luka, imo.
I’m a Linda Cardellini (Sam) fan and am enjoying her on the show, though the relationship with her kid is a strange one. Yeah, I think Luka is going to show up at Sam’s house for Thanksgiving too.
Hope that Abby and Neela will be able to help each other–I’m liking Neela’s character, but she is lacking in the area of interacting with patients.
Can’t think of anything else at this time–probably lack of caffeine intake on my part. 
I also think that Luka is going to be turning up at Sam’s house for Thanksgiving.
The story-line that shook me up this episode hasn’t been mentioned yet – the one with the young inmate. I watched the show with my 17 year old and it was a quite wrenching for both of us. His final line (-sniff-), “At least I know now it won’t last forever,” damn near did me in, and it moved the heck out of Nick, too. I grabbed Nick and gave him a big hug – at 17 he’s not so receptive to hugs as he used to be. He spoke the obligitory, “Jeez, cut it out, Ma,” but he did hug me back. Sad stuff, with good performances from all concerned. The actor playing the young man was particularly good, I thought.
Noah Wyle and Laura Innes are both expected to be in only 10 episodes (each) this season. Both have infant children (Noah and his wife Tracey just had a son, Laura and her husband adopted a baby girl from China) and they want to spend more time with the kids. They’ve got the clout to make that happen with the powers that be.
Not only did the story of the prisoner kill me because of his attitude when he learned of his AIDS diagnosis, but because of that little moment of redemption, when Everybody’s Favorite Pig shook his hand, without a bit of hesitation. In that brief second, I was reminded that Romano does occasionally slip and show some humanity, and wow, here was one that didn’t even involve his latent crush on Elizabeth!
Speaking of Elizabeth, it’s sad to me that it is so hard to differentiate, these days, between everyday Elizabeth and “righteously indignant Elizabeth who is taking a negligent staff member down for a screw-up that negatively affected a patient.” All the reason in the world that Elizabeth needed to be angry was because that patient could’ve gone into sepsis, there are now a whole new set of possible complications that could befall him, the wholesituation was a big medical mess – not to mention the possibility of a lawsuit – and she had to throw in the thing about not having dinner with Ella?! Why are they turning her into a shrieking harpy shrew with no judgment and no rapport with anyone around her except the sleazeball man she shouldn’t have been screwing? What happened to the newly widowed Elizabeth, immersed in her work but trying to cultivate friendships with Susan at the very least?
One more week of Sam’s brat roaming around the hospital will send me around the bend. I turned to Mr. TeaElle after this show and said, with my patented Smirk Of Evil, “Do you think maybe the helicopter might land on the brat?” He said “No, but maybe he’ll eat a box of Jerry’s donuts and go into irreversible whatever from all the sugar.”
I hate to wish death on the boy, when really it’s his mother’s fault, but what an unnecessary intrusion upon the show! We’ve had kids before on the show, Rachel & Ella Green and Reese Benton and Kate & um, The Other One Hathaway-Ross, and even when the actions of their parents were wrapped around those kids, they serve to further plot and drama, not just distract and annoy. I’m over the Brat. Unfortunately, I agree that we’re going to have to deal with Brat and Luka’s Family Thanksgiving Shindig. Where’s that retching smiley when we need it most?
Oh, Bob and the Puppy – I rewatched the scene (thank you TiVo!) and you can see – if you watch in slow motion – that he’s sliced his fingertip while trying to cut the peppers. That’s the source of the frustration, that even though slicing something seems intuitive, he can’t even cut a pepper anymore without hurting himself. Hence the tantrum. Can’t say I blamed him, but no, there’s evidence that the puppy was hurt. That’d suck. ER has been cruel, but never that cruel!
Oh, that’s a relief.
I don’t know why that bothered me so much, especially since the puppy isn’t much of a re-occurring character or anything:) but thinking that’s how the pooch met his demise and served as the catalyst for Newhart’s death really got under my skin.
I’ve asked everyone who watches the show if they thought that could’ve happened, and no one has even considered the possibility. Guess that makes me Super Morbid!!!
I thought so, too. He was great in that part.
I don’t think Newhart hurt the puppy–if it was that, they could not have resisted showing us the puppy. I bet Susan will end up adopting him.
Did anybody else get the feeling Luka didn’t actually run a CBC on the appendicitis guy? I didn’t catch everything, but Lizzie was giving him down the road about some kind of test, and then he was telling her that the guy had a perfectly normal white-cell count, but he’d forgotten to put it in the chart. I kind of got the feeling that he’d “forgotten” to do the damn test, myself. I’m thinking the guy’s gonna die, and during February or May sweeps there’ll be a lawsuit. That, or Luka will cheap-ass somebody else to death.
Either way, he’s about one missed diagnosis from Elizabeth stuffing a weedeater up his ass and pulling the cord.
Did anyone else catch that bit about Sam’s kid having been in DKA “lots of times this year”? That sounds like some piss-poor diabetes management, especially for a nurse. And don’t even get me started on Dr. Resource Conservation wasting hospital resources on someone who is neither sick nor a patient, while his actual patients go begging for needed tests.
I have no problem seeing Romano doing a rape kit one handed, since you don’t exactly need both hands in there anyway. What I didn’t understand was how Susan got it into the tampon machine. Aren’t those things locked?
To the best of my recollection, other than the attempt to date Corday, Ramano’s sex drive has never been brought up on the show. His personal life consists of his dogs (Hansel and Gretel), his mom (who gets lavish gifts on mother’s day) and the occasional pretty but non-speaking date seen when he’s been pulled out of a social engagement.
His attempts to dominate people have never been sexual. Maybe the show has a new writer? Or maybe an old writer wants us not to miss Ramano when he leaves.
Jordan in Real Genius was played by Michelle Meyrink.
Meth-mom was played by Betsy Brandt.
All I know is that I’m really diggin’ Linda Cardellini. shivers
Ok I’m a bit behind the curve here, Romano’s leaving?
Man I’m getting sick of this! All the most interesting Characters either leave or die. Its’ screwing up the show.
For example, carter is a great guy, but he’s the Head screw up. Having him be the one people look to is a bit like the blind leading the blind and mentally retarded.
Mark Green might have had a string of really screwy relationships with woman (like the time he got busted two timing in the ER, or his failed relationship with that hot Latina nurse who’s name I can never remember) but he was grounded and stable, and that’s why people went to him. Carter still doesn’t know who he is. As early as last season he was still struggling with his issues with being a rich kid, and issue from season one.
This is not to say that I don’t think he could become the rock for the rest of the ER’s quivering tower of Jell-O to lean on, but I think he’s got a ways to go. Being over in Africa could be just the thing; it would allow the writers to shift his personality drastically toward being more stable in a very compressed time period.
This is really needed, NO ONE in that cast is even close to being a stable individual, more so the usual. It’s like the maniacs are running the asylum over there.
And on the note of quality of care, it seems to me that there are no less then 3 doctors who are giving substandard care. Pratt, that idiot who walked out 2 weeks ago, and now Luka. All for different reasons. What’s up with that? After watching damn near every episode (thank you TNT) I’ve come to think of county as a place I’d like to go if I got hurt; a place with a competent caring staff. Now, their competency is in question, and I now Luka is acting as if he doesn’t give a rats ass. Luka has been on a downward spiral since he broke up with Abby. And now that I think about it, since he killed that guy he’s been getting more and more self destructive, kinda sad really. It would be great if the writers brought that up again as it would go a long way to explain his nuttyness. Ok, I think I’ve said too much and I will now stand down off my soapbox carry on good sirs and madams.
Get the feeling?? I don’t think they could have made the fact that he was lying through his teeth much more obvious.
Ok, if you don’t want a serious spoiler, then don’t read this, MonkeyMule
I’ve seen spoilers (in boxes) in previous threads here that indicate that Romano will die in the next episode. Apparently someting was posted on Television Without Pity.
I thought that’s what Susan went to go do at the end of the show: go get the puppy?
I was thinking this too. Maybe they are making him so annoying so we will feel guilty when he dies ? I also wondered if his x-ray would get confused with a “real patients” and foul things up as well.
And it was pretty hypocritical of Sam to bitch at Luka when the kid told him he had been in DKA quite a bit.
The “latino nurse” is Chuny. She’s one of my favorite characters-Chuny kicks serious ass.
And Carol’s girls were Tess and Kate. I remember the first one because that was the name of our little kitten who died.
Thanks for the name Guinastasia. Chuny is Latina however, the ending “a” in spanish denotes Female. Lsura same it aint so!! He’s my favorite charactor!
About the x-ray thing. Remember when Abby accused the father of hitting the baby after he left the ER because the first x-ray revealed no skull fracture? Then remember Samanthas kid getting his head x-rayed by Luka? I bet that kids x-ray got switched by accident with Samanthas kids x-ray and the accused child abuser really didn’t hit his child. And I wonder if Sam will see the x-ray of her child and think he has a fractured skull.
I mentioned to a friend of mine that I thought that someone will look at the x-ray of Samantha’s kid and they’ll discover that the kid has some brain disease.