Last Second Thoughts

Previous ER

my peeps on Television With Pity give their take on Thursday's ER...

Cynthia Nixon guest-stars as Ellie Shore, a thirty-five-year-old mother of three who suffers a stroke. She can think clearly, but can't move the right side of her body, breathe independently, or communicate through speech or writing. It's pretty terrifying, actually. Luka, Sam, and Abby treat her while she's in the ER, and then she has surgery to remove the clot from her brain, which miraculously reverses all of the effects of the stroke. Throughout, we get to hear her thoughts and see things from her perspective, which has been done before on this show and others, but it was still largely affecting. In other news, Dubenko wants Abby to publish a paper, if by "publish a paper," you mean "go on a date with him." Neela treats some siblings with a fishy dad, and it turns out that the oldest brother hired the guy to portray his dad so that the authorities wouldn't find out his secret and split up the family in foster care: his mother died a week ago, and the body is festering in bed. Neela and Ray make this horrifying discovery in person. Susan is trying to choose a new Chief Resident. Malarkey is politicking hard, even though he's the only one who seems to think he's qualified. Luka and Carter want Pratt, but Pratt doesn't want it. Carter and Wendall seem to be getting along well, but she's more into it than he is. She discovers this when he gets a late-night phone call from Kem, which leads to Wendall's stomping out, which leads to a big fight outside in which Carter reveals that he sees Wendall as a fun diversion. So they break up.