Patman

"Impulse Control"

Many criss-crossing cases in tonight's episode.

J.K. Simmons and Marin Hinkle turn in fine guest-starring performances. Simmons played a man who just bought a Hummer (impulse buy), and has a heart attack and blacks up and drives over another vehicle with a family inside. Hinkle played the mother who has to watch her son suffer a broken neck and die, and her husband also dies from internal injuries. Simmons finds out that the collision with the other car is what jarred his heart back to life, ironically enough. This tears him up inside (why he lives while others died). Morris is the biggest idiot doctor wannabe ever on ER. His lack of sensitivity to the mother's need to know what happened to her family makes her super-agitated and she became very adamant about finding out what happened to her family. Too bad Sam didn't just let Morris choke to death on fries.

Because of a lawsuit from the Romano era (hostile work environment), Larry from "Three's Company" shows up (with a easily to discern set of hair plugs) to observe the ER and how it works and to interview the personnel. He gets to see quite a bit of "violence" commited by the staff on visitors and patients, but he doesn't understand the context of such actions.

Susan is moving steadily through her pregnancy. Frank asks her if she's going to get married, or if she's going to give birth to a bastard. hehe.

Sam puts the whammy on a gang-banger scumbag college boy who knocks up his "girlfriend" who is still in high school. Of course, the scumbag will probably sue the hospital. Sam gets reprimanded for her actions, and Sam offers to leave because she can find work elsewhere, but Weaver knows that Sam has a history of this at other hospitals she's worked at in the past.

Sam and Abby share their own experiences with facing abortion, Sam froze the first time, and it was too late the second visit, so she had Alex. Abby alludes to recalling what was on the wall of the clinic's walls for her visit.

Carter spends his day showing off Chicago to Kimba, tries his best to convince her to stay and live in Chicago with her, but in the end, she goes, but will come back. As Carter walks out of the airport terminal, he decides he has to make one more plea, and whips out the old credit card and buys a first class ticket to Tokyo for $9000 just to get in the boarding terminal area.

Abby makes a catch of T.B. on a worker that comes in for a bruised knee. The worker is an illegal alien and that was used to make him go into T.B. recovery program. Of course, Pratt gets the credit for the T.B. catch via completing a patient's history per Weaver's mandate. Abby's resigned to that outcome of her own investigative work into the worker's medical history.

Carter finally makes it to work, Weaver sees him in the locker/lounge as she goes off-shift, they talk about Kimba's dedication to her patients in Africa, and then Weaver shows Carter new baby pictures of her and Sandy's child.

The girl with the scumbag boyfriend shows up at the end of Sam's shift to talk to her, perhaps about her options, but we don't know how that conversation goes.

Sam and Kovach get busy after a stressful day in the ER.

MrX

I thought it was a pretty good episode. It would have been better if they left the Carter stuff out.

Sam decking the boyfriend
Sam saving Morris from choking

Susan seems to be joing Elizabeth on the sidelines this season. She hasn't had a whole lot of screen time in the last few episodes.

Buck Turgidson

Morris is too much of a broad cartoon. They need to kill him or make him at least a little bit human.

At least "Larry" wasn't a crackhead tonight

Linda Cardellini looks really nice with her hair spread out behind her on a pillow.

kvrdave

oh man, I am in tears with this stupid episode. Hate to see the little kid hurt and asking for "mommy"

stupid show.

Need to up my testosterone.

clarkkent

I liked this episode but I can't really put my finger on it. Something about the emotions from and between the staff. I loved Linda kicking that guys ass. I was yelling for her to go after the other one.

El Scorcho

There's something about Sam. I think she's hella f'n hot.

mikehunt

I knew that voice was familiar, but I couldn't place it

MrX

That's who I thought it was at first too but was unsure because it didn't really look like him.

He's busy all of the sudden, he was on NYPD Blue earlier this week too.

Tarnower

I found it interesting how the writers made the Hummer driver into such a buffoon. Looks like certain environmental groups have influence over how they want the hummer controversy portrayed. I'm surprised they didn't have the family car run over by the hummer and then rear-ended by an SUV. I don't own either, but I think folks have a right to if they want them. And they shouldn't be getting so much s**t from environmental groups. I don't want to start a whole new argument here, but I find it interesting that the pollution levels are much lower than they were two decades ago, yet that news is virtually never reported. While I personally find owning and driving a hummer very unnecessary, I do not think those that do should be persecuted by the left and the media as selfish, unsensitive monsters. I lost a bit of respect for the show's writers from last night's episode. I found it a bit too politically slanted in this instance.

Also, that remark that Linda made to the young gang bang victim about possibly considering terminating her pregnancy. Yet another example of forwarding a political agenda. I found the remark very inappropriate. What kind of message does it send? In my mind, at least, it says to forget about personal responsibility and character. Forget about the unborn child, just as long as you're not inconvenienced with an unwanted pregnancy. At the very least, the remark should have suggested adoption. It should have substitued the phrase "terminating your pregnancy" with "not keeping your baby." I'm not some anti-abortion nutjob, but I found this a bit too politically slanted like the above-mentioned Hummer incident.

I've been a follower of this show since its first season. But if the writers keep up this political agenda of theirs and keep forcing leftist causes in our faces, I fear I will become disenchanted and stop watching. I hope not.

Derrich

You're seeing a lot of stuff that I'm not. Sam talked to the girl because of her own experience. She never said get an abortion, she said to think about it. There was a strong possibility the pregnancy was the result of a gang rape of a 16 year old. And the girl was in such denial that she needed to face all of the facts before making a decision.

I don't see the Hummer plot as political, either. It was a car accident. It wouldn't have been as believable if 2 Civics ran ino each other(but that will probaly happen soon in a 2Fast2Furious homage ep).

D

Patman

I just hope Carter bought a refundable ticket. 9 large? Geez!

tofu

Sam's a badass. That's all I wanted to say.

Josh H

Great episode.

Rogue588

Gotta agree with Derrich.

At no time did I think they portrayed the Hummer driver as a buffoon. In fact, they weren't even angry at him for causing the accident as they were the drunk guy that plowed into a family a couple seasons ago.

As for the abortion stuff, as Derrich said, Sam was merely speaking from her perspective.

MrX

I don't see how they made the hummer drive look like a buffon either. They explained he didn't know what was going on because he had a heart attack while driving and blacked out because of that. He never knew he plowed into the family until Sam told him and reacted by having another heart attack.

If anything they made him a more sympathetic character as the show went on.

They used a hummer becasue it's huge and it's more believable that something that big could cause that type of damage.

El Scorcho

I think Sam was pretty stupid for telling the hummer driver what he had done while he was already in the ER for heart problems. Should have waited until the chaos died down first.

"Hey, your heart's failing. OH BY THE WAY, you killed those people, kthxbye."

Rogue588

Perhaps some of Morris rubbed off on her..

Patman

Well, Sam was clinching onto Morris pretty hard while she was using the Heimlich and the chop to the back on him...

Josh H

Exactly. It's not like the family died from the exhaust fumes from the hummer or something.

Just another case of a conservative being prudish and reading too much into things.

Cusm

The guy pissed her (and me) off when he said tank god for my Hummer, for the 50th time, or else I could be like that schumck in there (pointing to dead father). She had to tell him so he would know that he was the schumck that did all the damage with his precious Hummer.

I do not care that he had a Hummer, but I did not like hearing about it every 2 seconds, it was annoying, especially when he killed 2 and all he could talk about was his car.

Patman

This is an interesting episode because people seem to have different reactions and interpretations to what was shown to them. If you have some predisposition one way or another on hummers or teenage pregnancy options, it definitely colors one's perceptions of the events and the reaction to the scenes.

Tarnower

Exactly. That's kind of what my point was. They could have used a large truck, or even a delivery van. But, no, it had to be a hummer, and it's owner had to be portrayed as self-absorbed and uncaring. I don't care what you all say, the writers of this particular episode had a definite agenda. Hummers are the current whipping posts and politically correct agents of environmental evil. It didn't have to be a hummer. No accident that it was. So many of these extreme leftist groups (and I don't really mean democratic, I mean the extreme left) are just pissed about the choices that many Americans are making (Hummers, Fox News, Atkins Diet that has PETA are up in arms) and they use the media and certain Hollywood outlets (in this case, the writing stafff of an excellent tv show) to help further their agenda. I don't think it's reading too much into the situation. I think it's pretty clear and on the surface.

Rogue588

I didn't think the owner of the Hummer was self-absorbed OR uncaring. Before he realized that he was the cause of the accident, his whole argument/reasoning was that his Hummer was a "safe" car. In fact, when he first came in he said that he was sure there'd be lots of accidents since the roads were icy...

Derrich

Atkins? Oh, you must be talking about Morris choking. I guess if you look hard enough, you can find a conspiracy everywhere.

D

Tarnower

No. I was only referring to the Atkins Diet being something that a lot of Americans are choosing to follow. Nothing to do with last night's "e.r." episode. And it's not a conspiracy. PETA has already been discovered to be behind the allegations of Dr. Atkins being obese at time of his death and the longterm safety of his diet. PETA is appalled because the diet stresses major consumption of animal protein. This was a fairly major story that broke this past Monday or Tuesday.

Besides, I'm a conservative. We don't participate in conspiracies. Only liberals do.