B.A.

"The Student"



Cast: Noah Wyle, Laura Innes, Alex Kingston, Goran Visnjic, Maura Tierney, Paul McCrane, Ming-Na , Sherry Stringfield, Sharif Atkins, Mekhi Phifer, Linda Cardellini.
Director(s): Paul McCrane.
Producer(s): John Wells, Michael Crichton, Neal Baer, Jack Orman.

Original Airdate: April 1, 2004.

birdseye

Finally a new episode, it's been a while. I noticed that Paul McCrane directed tonights episode. I don't remember him directing any other episodes, but it's nice to see him still involved with the show

Tafellappen

Does this mean that Paul McCrane's going to act in it too?

B.A.

Tafellappen - I didn't even notice Paul McCrane in that cast list.

And, No - he wasn't in tonight's show, which was quite good by the way.

I missed a few seconds at the end during the conversation between Gallant and Carter. Did Carter allude to the fact that Gallant's career may now be FUBAR? I wasn't sure what was said when they were talking about the late patient's paperwork other than it was already up in legal.

Patman

I was confused by the whole exchange between Gallant and Carter.

I don't know if Gallant will face charges for falsifying the patient's chart or not. It appears that way if the hospital legal department wants to divest itself from some of its liability by cutting Gallant loose. And of course, Gallant was clouded by his feelings for Neelah and she's just as conflicted because she was attracted to Gallant, but now, they are in a total quagmire, with little hope in terms of romance given the way things unfolded, even with the best intentions (along the lines of no good deed goes unpunished).

Patman

BTW, the sight gag of having all those catholic school girls track down the flasher and beat the crap out of him with their tennis rackets was the highlight of the episode.

B.A.

That was hilarious, especially after hearing the one girl, who was getting her foot/ankle treated, tell Kovac and Sam what happened.

And I have to say that Chuck rules.

MrX

meh

I didn't get what Carter was talking about with Gallant at the end either.

Chuck beating the crap the perv was great

Hopefully Sam's son has a "fishing accident"

Kal-El

Missed the beginning, but got into it just as it got good. I like it. Despite myself, I really like this new ER cast. Save for The Son of Sam of course. I wonder how they'll handle this storyline. At least maybe we'll get more Gallant. I liked his and Neela's exchange at the end. And is it me, or did he look a whole lot like Benton in this episode especially towards the end with that sullen demeanor and the goatee?

Buck Turgidson

I think Carter's remark to Gallant had more to do with his percieved shortcomings as a doctor (on Gallant's part and possibly on the hosptial's) than the legal problem.

We've established in the past that the hospital will pass the hit along to it's insurance provider in most of these cases and unless it's truly gross malpractive (Doctor Dave, for example), you're not going to lose your license or anything, just get sent to the proverbial corner.

Carter just has to eat the fact that Gallant forged the paperwork (Susan did the same thing earlier this year, but the patient lived, so no problem, apparently.)

And yes, Chuck is The Man.

Timmio

I thought it was rather odd of Weaver to come down on Neela so hard for not checking the med charts first when, afterall, she already did the exact same thing to the mayor's gay lover in an earlier 'sode. Remember when she gave the guy Penecillin and it killed him. She totally swept that under the rug, never told anyone. Now, it's as if it never happened... hmm I smell a hypocrite

Timmio

Gasspasser

Yeah thats what I thought too. It wouldnt suprise me if this is how they are going to get rid of gallant.

redskull47

Like everyone else, I was also confused by the Carter/Galant thing at the end--to me it sounded like Galant was getting sacked, but I couldn't tell for sure. But if you watched the "Next Week's All-New ER" promo at the end, Galant was clearly visible in several scenes, so apparantly he's just being reprimanded, not fired.

B.A.

Weaver has been a hypocrite since her character came on the show. She reprimands people for something "bad" one minute, then the next minute she is doing something "bad" or unethical herself. I don't even want to get started on all of the bullshit she has done over the years.

Patman

Weaver is all about situational ethics. She'll tow the line until it impacts her own ambition or welfare.

B.A.

Exactly what I was trying to say.

Patman

BTW, here's a recap for those who missed it:

Romano returns! Well, actually it's really Paul McCrane who directed this episode.

Highlights:

1. Susan gets hit on by a creepy dude who likes hitting on pregnant women (it would seem) at a nearby pub after her shift and being picked up by Chuck. Chuck sees what the creep to doing to Susan and punches him out. Later they bring the creepy guy into the ER for treatment and Chuck gets into it with the guy again and they flair around while another patient enjoys the sprawling fight on the floor of their room. Susan finally lets the creepy guy snuggle next to her belly so he can derive some weird form of pleasure from it, and mouths to Chuck through the window that "he owes her big time" for putting up with it in order to get the guy to not press charges on Chuck for assualt.

2. Luka and Sam try to come up with ideas for her son's birthday. After a lot of standard suggestions (clowns, paintball, etc), Luke pulls into the ER driveway with a big ol' winnebago for a weekend getaway on some lodge/camp/lake. Sam is duly impressed.

3. Luka's main patient case was about a father finding out that his son has sickle cell anemia, but the father does not, so it's pretty obvious that his son isn't biologically his son, and he acknowledges that he and his wife were separate near the time of conception. Both Luka and the father keep this secret to themselves as the father will claim that he also has the gene for sickle cell anemia (to explain the situation to his wife).

4. Frank shows up to pick up his checks and to admit that he misses the ER. Aw....

5. Neela takes a break outside the ER with Gallant, and she talks about how she doesn't think she's cut out for medicine given her recent rotations. Gallant tries to assuage her fears about medicine. Some minor romantic undertones are present.

6. Carter discusses Neela with the higher-ups (like Weaver) w/r/t the match program (when hospitals make offers to med school candidates they want to retain), the consensus is that she's strong on the medical knowledge, but lacking in decision making and assertiveness. Carter has confidence in Neela, and tells her to be more assertive in her decisions. Of course this results in Neela pulling some hasty decisions that impacts her and Gallant, who was the one supervising her on her shift. Neela didn't do the due diligence in getting a meds history on a patient, and she administered demerol to the patient and it caused a reaction with the new current meds the patient was on, which resulted in complications, and Gallant tried to take the fall for Neela.

As the patient's complication gets worse, Weaver has to deal with the legal issues, and is confronted with 3 different stories by Carter, Neela and Gallant (Abby was there in a nurse capacity). Neela tells Carter what she knows of the situation. Neela also tells Gallant that she told Carter, which produces a lot of anxiety on Gallant's part. Whatever hint of a romantic connection between them is all but on hold as this situation quickly escalated into something that will be reviewed and careers will be impacted. Both Neela and Gallant are emotionally crushed by this situation.

Gallant keeps trying to cover things up on the med chart for the patient. This wasn't the thing to do as Carter confronts Gallant at the end of his shift. It got a little confusing as to what Gallant's fate is because Carter told Gallant that he (Gallant) should have told him about the lack of patient history workup and administering meds without utilizing a nurse to push the meds. Then Carters tells him that falsifying a med chart is a felony and that the chart has already made its way into the legal department. Gallant's sort of screwed by this point. I'm guessing he'll get reprimanded and punishment doled out in some form or another, but Neela's career will remain on track for now. (It's one of those bittersweet "No good deed goes unpunished" situations).

7. Corday has become somewhat promiscuous by dating and jumping the 2 men she's been seeing (the doctor, and the guy who picks up Ella from school/daycare). Abby keeps her opinion of Corday to herself, but it's readily apparent.

8. In a lighter moment, a catholic school girl has some injuries treated, and they came from when she beat up a flasher who was flashing her and her schoolmates at school. The flasher shows up at the ER with injuries consistent with the injuries that the schoolgirl inflicted on someone (including a tennis racket welt on the face). The flasher sees the girl who hit him, and decides to try and sneak out of the ER, but another schoolgirl, waiting in the wait room with her classmates and a nun, spots the flasher. The next thing you see is the flasher sneaking out of the ER ambulance entrance and all the schoolgirls come running after him, and they trip him up and proceed to beat him up with their tennis rackets. It was a funny gag in light of the rest of the episode.

birdseye

I thought this was a great episode. That perv that kept trying to feel Susan's belly was strange, even more so when she let him lie with his head against her belly to avoid charges being filed. It was also weird to see Frank acting so nice toward everybody.

Add me to the list of those confused by Carter and Gallant at the end. It seemed like Carter didn't really care much about the consequences of what happened. He just wanted to make sure that Gallant knew what he did was wrong and that changing the chart would be worse (and a felony). I read a preview for next weeks episode that says

mikehunt

they should have killed Weaver and not Romano
good seeing Steven Culp again

Cusm

I said this when the episode first ran. Romano was the new JR Ewing, you loved to hate him. Weaver is just a bitch that everyone hates, I hate to see her get any screen time, she is just a very uninteresting, IMO, character that just annoys me completely.

Josh H

I think Carter was just telling him how stupid that was, as falsifying charts is a felony. I imagine they'll all just say that's what happened (that he did give the order) and he'll just get disciplined like he said earlier in the episode.

Kal-El

I'm just tired of them using the phrase "The E.R. has never worked harder". I thought they already "never worked harder" when Mark got mugged in the bathroom and when Carter and Lucy got stabbed? Not to mention countless other times when a whole family is involved in a trauma or a little kid's life is on the line.

RoQuEr

I think a lot of the final conversation was in reference to when pratt and gallant got cocky and split open some guys chest on their own, and ultimately killed him. That, and that Gallant didn't think falsifying the chart was a big deal, till Carter told him it was a felony.

Buck Turgidson

Just to recap: I like Weaver, I find her consistently interesting and I'm glad that chopper landed on Romano. I watched the rerun and giggled with glee all through the commercial, again.

davidh777

That was my impression too, that Carter was saying that if he hadn't gone along with the lie, Gallant would have been screwed.