TV Review: ER Episode 12.17

Thursday, March 23, 2006

From NBC: Abby (Maura Tierney) and Kovac (Goran Visnjic) desperately try to keep a 21 year-old girl (Zina Zaflow) brought into the ER with stab wounds to the neck alive while they wait for a surgeon to operate. As the young girl's condition begins to deteriorate, Clemente (John Leguizamo) steps in and decides to try a risky procedure on the girl in order to save her life. Meanwhile, Neela (Parminder Nagra) pulls an all-nighter in preparation for a speech at a surgeon's convention but is disappointed when her speech goes awry. Back at the ER, Ray tries to treat a suicidal man claiming to have swallowed a bottle of pills. Sam (Linda Cardellini) decides to take a part-time job with Elliot (Armand Assante) to help supplement her childcare expenses.

My Rating: 3 out of 4

This episode of ER titled Lost in America was an improvement over last week's episode. I'm trying to figure out if that is due to the fact that Clemente returned to County General this week or not. It is possible. I have found myself enjoying John Leguizamo more often than not, when they focus on his story line that is. The shooting story line in my opinion was nothing but a jumbled mess, but showing him interacting with the staff as a counterpoint did work well for me when he first arrived. This type of story line arrived this week with Clemente's return to the ER, a return that is made obviously clear to be unwelcome. None of the staff really makes an attempt at throwing out the red carpet for him, and he does notice that early on.

The main medical focus of this episode is a woman brought into the ER with a stab to her neck. She needs immediate surgical attention, but this happens to be the week of a huge convention that has taken most of the city's surgical staff away from their hospitals. The staff of County General's ER works to find a surgeon while they keep the woman alive as best as they can, but they don't succeed. Her condition worsens, and Clemente comes in with a risky medical procedure. At first, it appears to work, but she begins to bleed internally. This leads to brain death and once she is removed from the machines, she dies. Clemente is upset with himself for it, but he did try. Luka even commends him on that. As it turns out, her brother in an honor killing for disgracing her family killed the woman.

The other case in the ER at first looks serious, but we can immediately see that it isn't. A man comes in claiming he tried to commit suicide, but when tests are run there are no signs of that happening. Psych sends him home upon seeing him, but the man wants to stay in the hospital. He then tells Ray the reason. He is in love with his best friend's girlfriend, and they are getting married the next day. He's afraid of what he will do if he goes to the wedding.

As for Neela, since she's in her surgical rotation, she is presenting at the convention. In order to prepare for it, she stays up the entire night before. Dubenko is with her and he hands her a beta-blocker. Things look to be going well until the slides on the computer freeze, animal rights protesters jump in the fray and then Neela faints. She recovers, and she makes an admission to Dubenko while they are out drinking. Something is developing between her and Ray. She's still married to Gallant, so this isn't the best of timing. When she returns to their apartment she tells Ray she needs to move out.

In family news, Luka and Abby debate about having their baby baptized. Luka wants to, but Abby doesn't. They debate it, and Abby ends up giving in. In surprising family news, it appears that Morris was busy donating sperm during his college years. Four of his "offspring" come looking for him, and he plays the proud papa. I hope he continues to get to see these four, but it didn't look all that likely. In a continuation of a story line from last week, Sam ends up agreeing to take on the part time job with the blood patient due to some money problems that arise.

All in all this was a better episode than last week's, but not the best of the season. Looks like we might have a Carter appearance next week. He is mentioned in the previews, and it looks like he is going to cause problems for Luka and Abby. The preview for next week really has me interested.