"Code Blue" is an episode of JAG that first aired on April 4, 1997. Directed by Tony Wharmby. Written by R. Scott Gemmill.
Lt. Commander Harmon Rabb and Major MacKenzie are jogging on a trail near a road when a car comes out of nowhere and almost runs Mac over. Fortunately, Rabb pulls her out of the way, but he winds up rolling over the car and falling on the asphalt. Mac takes him to the hospital.
Other patients at the hospital include a first-time mother (Lela Ivey) almost due; a Navy vet, Walter Hume (George Wallace), getting a hip replacement; and an Israeli VIP, Semadar Barruch (Vladimir Skomarovsky), waiting for a heart transplant.
Hamas terrorists take over the hospital and intercept the donor heart. Rabb goes after the terrorists and Mac goes to the operating room where Barruch is being prepared for the transplant.
Rabb takes the terrorists out one by one. Unfortunately, the lead terrorist unwittingly shoots the donor heart, rendering it useless. Mac says she got permission from the mother of one of the terrorists to use his heart, she appreciates the irony of an Israeli with a Palestinian heart.
Tropes
- "Die Hard" on an X: The X is a hospital in Washington, D.C. A few Shout Outs and a pun ensues, along with hilarity.
- Improvised Weapon: After he runs out of bullets, Rabb uses a defibrillator to send an electrical shock to the lead terrorist. Shortly before that, he gives himself a new call sign: Zapper.
- I've Never Seen Anything Like This Before: An obstetrician on the phone tells Rabb to check and see how far a pregnant woman's dilated. When Rabb hesitates, she snaps that it's nothing he hasn't seen before. He looks, then stands up with a very shocked expression on his face that he can honestly say he's never seen that before.
- Last-Minute Baby Naming: The pregnant woman was expecting a girl, and had picked out a girl's name, but the baby's actually a boy. The mother names the boy Harmon Walter after Harmon Rabb, Jr. and Walter Hume. Apparently no one thought about giving the pregnant woman a name.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Rabb electrocutes the terrorist leader with a defibrillator, only for the spasms to cause the terrorist to fire his submachine gun wildly and put three bullets in the cooler holding the donor heart.
- Reality Has No Subtitles: The terrorists holding the hostages in the cafeteria only speak Farsi when giving commands to them and Mac is the only one who understands them, though she doesn't translate as much as respond when they start threatening one of the doctors who wants to help a elderly patient.Doctor: What does "Stay where you are or I'll pistol-whip you" sound like in Farsi?Mac: Repeats the statement in FarsiDoctor: It sounded just like that.
- Screaming Birth: For a first-time mother who's in the same hospital. Which is a very big problem for Rabb when he's trying to avoid being caught by the terrorists.
- Troll: Walter (a retired Chief Petty Officer) completely screws with the terrorist who bursts into his room looking for Rabb by saying that Rabb's a Navy SEAL who'll "snap your skinny chicken neck" just like that, because Walter taught him everything he knows. When the shaken terrorist asks who he is, he says "Admiral Walter Hume, United States Navy Covert Operations".
- Truth in Television: A doctor can read an ultrasound wrong, and make mistakes like say the baby's a girl rather than a boy. However, such a mistake is likelier to occur early in the pregnancy rather than later. Though in this episode it could be that neither the mother nor the doctor saw any need for a later ultrasound. Though of course the writer doesn't seem to have fleshed out this particular character's backstory too much.
