Recap / ERS 1 E 13 Luck Of The Draw

Season 1, Episode 13:

Luck of The Draw

You seem to forget that a patient died, Susan. Your patient. It could have happened to any one of us, but it happened to you.

Susan and Mark both drive their vehicles into County as another day begins. As they get out of their vehicles, Susan tells him that she took the day off because of what happened with the Mr. Vennerbeck case — Kayson claims she misdiagnosed his symptoms and was incompetent, and that Morgenstern wants to see her. While Mark points out that Morgenstern knows she did the right thing and that Kayson is "just trying to cover his ass," Susan is beside herself with concern.

Elsewhere, Benton meets Jing-Mei (Deb) Chen, a third-year student who is beginning her internship at County. Benton introduces her to Carter, then pawns her off on his protege, telling him to take Deb around on a tour of the hospital and to show her the ropes because he's busy with surgeries.

The staff get to work on several cases, with Lydia and Carol working on a homeless man with chest pains, and Doug diagnosing a child whose finger is infected — and the child's niece, who propositions him while Mark is in the room gathering supplies. To Mark's surprise, Doug refuses the invitation. Elsewhere, Carol privately explains that she's having concerns about whether she wants to spend the rest of her life with Tag, but her attention is diverted when she accidentally stabs herself with a syringe that was hidden in the homeless man's shoe, prompting a shocked reaction from Lydia. Carol eventually gets a booster shot and tells Lydia that she's been stabbed several times with syringes in the past.

While Mark deals with an immigrant who attempted to smuggle drugs across the border (via swallowing them) and was arrested by customs agents who brought him to the ER to expel the narcotics, Doug and Carol work on a child named Ben who is said by his father to have had pneumonia in the past, and is now in respiratory distress. While Doug is able to stabilize Ben, his father, Mr. Gaither, grimaces upon seeing his son is still alive...

Morgenstern brings Susan into his office and tells her that, despite his attempt to talk Kayson down, the latter wants to bring disciplinary charges against her. Susan rightly points out that she attempted to bring her concerns up to Kayson, who wouldn't listen to her, but Morgenstern tells her the specifics aren't important — it's her lack of assertiveness that's the problem. He tells her that while he's willing to help her get past the subsequent inquiry that will be held by the hospital's medical board regarding her conduct, she'll need to shape up, or else, look for a different field of medicine.

While Carter teaches Deb how to do an... exam on a patient, Doug talks with Mr. Gaither, who tells him that Ben was hit by a car and suffered neurological problems as a result. Mr. Gaither is annoyed at the delay treating Ben, and tells the staff he has to leave for a job interview. Before leaving, however, Mr. Gaither asks if Doug has a son — to which he points out that he does; an eight-year old, and is implied to have never met him. Soon after, Doug is pleased to see Ben wake up, but is then shocked when Wendy passes along a letter indicating that Mr. Gaither has signed a "do-not-resuscitate" order for his son. Elsewhere, Benton is scrubbing in with Morgenstern on a surgery when he receives a call. Despite wanting to stay for the surgery, Morgenstern tells him to handle the situation with his family first - "It's your mother."

Susan is handling a call regarding a patient file for a pregnant woman when she notices that Mark has co-signed all of the charts instead of only her. Realizing something is amiss, she confronts him afterwards, and he points out that Morgenstern asked him to because of the lawsuit. He then reveals that he was responsible for telling Morgenstern that she tends to back down when confronted by strong personalities like Benton and Kayson, and justifies it by saying that he keeps tabs on every resident doctor in the hospital, regardless. Susan leaves in anger after insulting him.

Elsewhere in the city, Benton meets up with Walt and they briefly talk about the former's plan to hire a neighbor across the street to look in on his mother (Mae) going awry. When Benton tries to put the blame on Walt for not doing enough to support Mae, Walt pointedly tells him that he's carried Benton's family for the last six years, and that the only person Peter cares for is himself. Benton is left aback as Walt goes off to look in another direction, but locates Mae soon after at a nearby skating rink. Benton sits with her and asks why she left their home, and she is initially confused and relates memories from the past. Suddenly, in a moment of clarity, Mae tells Benton that his father is dead, and tearfully tells him she doesn't want to go into a retirement home. He promises to look after her...

Mark discovers that the patient who swallowed drugs via sealed condoms is now having heart problems due to one of the condoms bursting inside him. Retrieving the crash cart as Deb looks at it quizzically, Mark, Carter and Haleh get to work stabilizing the man's condition. Unfortunately, Deb unintentionally shocks Carter with the defibrilator when she goes to pass them to Mark, causing Carter to fall into a cart and hit his head. Luckily, Carter isn't injured by the fall or the shock, and Mark stabilizes the patient.

A child is wheeled in with a gunshot wound after being shot in a drive-by shooting, and Mark and Susan work to remove the bullet, which is still inside the child. Midway through the procedure, Dr. Kayson arrives and monitors the situation, causing Susan to lose her composure during the surgery. She is unable to locate the bullet and asks Mark to find it — and luckily, he is able to do so. When Kayson leaves, she becomes distraught and cries by herself in the staff washroom, and despite Carol asking what's wrong, she wipes her eyes and storms off...

Doug helps move Ben up to the Intensive Care Unit, and admits to Wendy while doing so that he's never met his own son. Soon after, Mr. Gaither arrives and asks where Ben is. When Doug tells him about the move and how the staff are aware of the DNR order, Gaither admits that he has been offered a job in Detroit and that "things would be a lot easier if Ben was dead". He then reveals that he's put his life on hold for two years to take care of Ben 24 hours a day, and tearfully admits to him that he just can't do it anymore. Doug is left at a loss for how to respond as Gaither breaks down at the front desk.

As evening looms, Carter wakes up from his concussion and Haleh and Deb play a joke on him, while a boxer is wheeled in with injuries from a fight and Carol places him beside Mr. Desmond in one of the exam rooms. Mark also apologizes to Susan for his comments to Morgenstern about her, and tells her she shouldn't blame herself for what happened with Kayson earlier in the day.

The staff head out to a nearby restaurant to close out the night, with Doug, Carol, Benton, Haleh, Malik, Chen, Carter, Wendy and Lydia in attendance along with others. Carol, concerned over the comments Mr. Desmond made towards her earlier in the day, tells them she's set a date in mid-May for the marriage, and Doug leads them in a toast to her having a healthy marriage, kids and a bright future...

Outside the restaurant, Susan sits in her car, still feeling like an outsider as she watches the staff chatting and smiling, before she drives off into the night...

Tropes:

• The Alleged Car: Compared to the rest of the staff (including Susan, who drives around in a blue VW Volkswagon Bug), Mark is shown driving up to the hospital in a visibly-rusting station wagon that putters into the parking garage at County.
• All Women Are Lustful:
  • Discussed by Lydia and Carol, the latter of whom claims that her ice fishing escapade at the cottage with Tag is the "only thing I'm willing to tell you about". Later, after she needs to get shots due to being stabbed with an unsanitized needle, Wendy tells her that she won't be able to have unprotected sex for six months, prompting a sigh from Carol.
  • The aunt of the girl Doug treats in the opening propositions him with "tickets to a basketball game", but Doug politely refuses. Mark later remarks on Doug's commitment to Linda, reasoning that their relationship must really be serious if he turned down such a beautiful woman.
  • Also invoked by Linda (again), who Doug comments about their phone conversations:
  Doug: The longest phone call she makes involves her saying, "Get over here!"
• Ass Shove: Invoked by Mark, who asks Carter to teach Deb by showing her how to perform the procedure. This then becomes a Brick Joke at the end of the episode when Haleh plays a practical joke on Carter after he wakes up by claiming that Chen did a rectal on him as well because "she needs the practice".
  Patient: (from behind a screen, as Deb is examining him) Ay, Santa Maria!
  Carter: (to Chen) Did you use a lubricant?
  Chen: (Beat) Was I supposed to?
• Book Ends: The episode begins and ends with Susan in her car, with her mood no better at the end than when she started her day.
• Brick Joke: A prize boxer who suffered injuries during a flight is wheeled in next to Mr. Desmond, the patient who constantly tempts fate by goading them into attacking them. Several scenes after they are placed beside each other, the staff are getting ready to leave for an outing at the bar when Desmond gets punched out into the hallway by the boxer.
• Butt-Monkey: Carter gets a moment of this, being shocked with a defibrilator (by Chen) and left on the floor for several moments as Mark and the other nurses work to stabilize a patient.
• Chick Magnet: Discussed, as part of Doug's O.O.C. Is Serious Business moment. A beautiful young woman practically throws herself at him, inviting him to a basketball game — and he politely refuses. Mark is amazed that Linda's influence has rubbed off on him.
• Damned by Faint Praise:
  • Mr. Desmond tells Carol that she's high up on his "index" of irritable people he's met, as she has one of the lowest response times between provocation and assaulting someone.
    Mr. Desmond: PAI. Provocation to Assault Index. God, you're good.
  • Morgenstern also does this to Benton:
    Morgenstern: That's what I like about you, Peter. Naked ambition tempered by arrogance.
• Dead Guy on Display: Carter is shown sleeping in the same operating room as a corpse, covered with a bloodstain on it.
• Deadpan Snarker: After Chen shocks Carter:
  Mark: [to Haleh] What was that set on?
  Haleh: 200.
  Mark: He should be okay. [to Chen] Thank you.
• Dirty Coward: Kayson attempts to pawn the blame on the Vennerbeck case onto Susan, claiming that she was too indecisive making a decision — and refusing to explain to Morgenstern that he instigated the issue, by making himself too busy to answer Susan's concerns and downplaying Vennerbeck's symptoms, even when he was told about it.
• The Ditherer:
  • Carol admits to Lydia that she's unsure if she wants to commit the rest of her life to Tag, setting up a course of action that will play out through the rest of the season.
  • Morgenstern also claims this of Susan, saying she doesn't have enough assertiveness to justify her opinion and lets others make the call, even if it turns out to be the wrong one.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • When Chen first introduces herself to both Carter and Benton, she calls herself "Deb", and it is made clear that she wants people to identify her by this name. Later in Season 6, when Deb reappears, she expresses annoyance with anyone (besides Carter and Susan, who she has familiarity with) calling her Deb, insisting instead that they call her "Jing-Mei" or "Chen".
  • Once again, Doug mentions that he has a son — and this time, says a bit more about him (that he's eight years old, and doesn't know his name). This will be the last time Doug ever brings it up, as future episodes (and seasons) will have him unequivocally state that he never had any children.
• Foreshadowing: Doug leads a toast to Carol, wishing her a happy marriage and "many kids" for the future. Several seasons on, both these predictions come true — just not in the way either of them expected.
• Hidden Depths: Mark is shown to have a working (if slightly dodgy) knowledge of casual Spanish, as he is able to convey the course of medical action for Jorge.
  Customs Agent: Where did you learn to speak Spanish?
  Mark: ....here.
• Hypocrite: Morgenstern roughly dismisses Susan's attempt to defend herself over the Vennerbeck case, claiming that she isn't asserting herself enough. When he points out that she was involved in a similar incident with Benton regarding a patient in the past, Susan rightly points out that she was also correct in that instance (making her concerns over the patient known). The fact that both of these incidents dealt with hyper-driven jerks in the hospital is lost on Morgenstern, who tells her to shape up or risk finding a new field of medicine.
  • Similarly, Mark chastises Susan for her lack of assertiveness, a problem he himself demonstrated by never once speaking to her about this (and as Chief Resident, that's gross negligence on his part) and would continue to display throughout his time on the show (albeit in his personal relationships, not professional, though the results are almost as bad).
• Idiot Ball:
  • While Mark does point out (rightly) afterwards that Kayson shouldn't have been in the exam room with them while treating the gunshot victim, it's highly unlikely that two opposing parties facing a medical inquiry and a lawsuit would still be working together directly on anything in the hospital. Even worse, Kayson's involvement at the scene (glowering at Susan during her attempt to find the bullet) made a bad situation even worse.
  • Deb Chen, a first-year student on her first day on the job, is allowed to play with sensitive equipment, including a crash cart, with no supervision whatsoever. As such, she ends up shocking and knocking out Carter with defib paddles — which causes very little reaction from the staff, even Mark, who is otherwise completely dismissive of what happened.
• It's All About Me: Benton has this attitude about his mother's disappearance, claiming he was too busy with work in the ER to keep tabs on her 24/7. Notably, Walt calls him out on this attitude.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Susan rails at Mark for not disclosing his conversation with Morgenstern — until he rightly points out that as Chief Resident, it's his job to keep tabs on all other residents, and given how the hospital is facing a lawsuit and an inquiry over the Vennerbeck case, he has no choice but to comply with the directive to co-sign her charts.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • Benton's attempt to have a neighbor check in on his mother backfires immediately when the latter goes missing and it takes two hours for the neighbor to alert someone.
  • Mr. Desmond is shown to have been repeatedly beaten — by his own choice — because of his work as a sociologist. When he points out that Carol can't commit to her marriage to Tag, she douses his arm in peroxide, stinging him severely in the process.
• Meat Versus Veggies: Invoked in the ending scene at the diner — Malik tries to offer Benton a burger, but he refuses, sidles up to the counter and tries to order an assortment of fruit/vegetable dishes (to no avail).
• Mood Whiplash: Briefly in the opening, as Kayson walks by and cheerfully greets Mark after Susan has just gone on at length about how Kayson has accused her of misdiagnosing Mr. Vennerbeck.
• Naïve Newcomer: Jing-Mei (Deb) Chen, who joins the staff as a new medical student, and acts as an impromptu rival for Carter.
• Offing the Offspring: Mr. Gaither's treatment of Ben is functionally this — he signs off on a do-not-resuscitate order for his son and is content to let him die, reasoning that he has sacrificed so much trying to keep him alive, and has so little to show for it, that letting Ben die would be a Mercy Kill and would help him start a new life. When confronted with this information, Doug has no response, realizing that he's also guilty of not knowing his own child's name.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Doug's faithfulness to Linda is brought up by Mark, who is amazed that Doug turned down "almost-guaranteed sex" with another beautiful woman.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Walt delivers an epic putdown of Benton when the latter calls him a "high-school dropout".
  Walt: Who pays the damn mortgage? Who pays the bills?
  Benton: You don't get anything out of it? Huh? How many high-school dropouts get a $100,000 business dropped in their lap?
  Walt: High-school dropout... I cared for your family for six years. I carried your family for six years. I carried your mother, your sister, the house and the station for six years. The only one that Peter is responsible for is Peter.
• Running Gag: The show once again brings up that third-year students have no idea how to run an IV, as evidenced with Chen's tutelage under Benton.
• Spotting the Thread: Mr. Desmond, the Jerkass patient who makes a living as a sociologist who deliberately goads people into attacking him, accurately points out that Carol doesn't want to commit to her marriage to Tag because she thinks she's too good for him, and her inability to set a date for the marriage is evidence that she's indecisive about her feelings.
• Swapped Roles: This episode marks a turning point for both Doug and Carol's view of each other — he has decided to be faithful to Linda (even turning down a woman who comes on to him), while Carol (who announces the date for her marriage with Tag) finds herself becoming more and more concerned with whether she actually wants to go through with it...
• Tempting Fate: Mr. Desmond is a self-professed "sociologist" who repeatedly goes around goading people on with abrasive and inflammatory statements, then writes down how long it takes before they assault him. This gets him into trouble not only with Carol, but also gets him knocked out by a boxer in one of the final scenes of the episode.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Mr. Gaither initially appears to have aspects of this, being completely dismissive of Doug and his treatment of Ben, whose injuries are so bad that they require intensive care. It isn't until Gaither tearfully admits that he's spent the last two years providing 24/7 treatment for Ben, and has nothing to show for it (even losing potential job opportunities and savings in the process) that he's decided to sign a DNR order for his son.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Susan calls out Mark for co-signing her charts because he doesn't trust her ability to make good decisions in light of the Vennerbeck case... then Mark points out that Morgenstern asked him to, and that he keeps tabs on every resident within the hospital anyway.

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