"ER" (1994) playing "Benny Miles" in episode: "Fortune's Fools"
(episode # 3.13) 1/30/1997

Carter and Benton resume their emotional parry from last week
following Dennis Gant's suicide. Now that Carter's guilt has been
neatly dealt with, he's free to concentrate his attentions, and ours,
on Benton, which suits me because he's the character I'm more
interested in anyway. Peter Benton's emotional state this week is an
example of one of the things I really love about this show and how
the evolution of its characters takes on a life of its own. A quick
summation of Benton's current attitude might determine that Benton
was fine until Dennis committed suicide, and it was that single act
that's caused him to veer these last two weeks. A closer examination
will reveal subtler insights; in fact, the course of Peter's
characterization has been carrying him in this direction for sometime
now, at least as far back as his frustrations as Keaton's student,
possibly farther back into last season and Vucelich territory. "ER"'s
characters don't bounce predictably from event to event like a
pinball; they develop gradually, taking on new influences along the
way. Peter's always wrapped himself in a shell, but it's taken on an
extra layer now that the grandeur of his surgical ambition has taken
hits, professionally with Keaton and personally with Gant. He was
practically catatonic this week. As with the calm before the storm in
Doug Ross's life early this season, I have a hunch we're seeing the
prelude to something ahead for Peter, and I hope it's more than
quietly enrolling in therapy off-camera. I'm not sure to what extent
this will involve the revelation of Carla's pregnancy; if Carla's due
date is months away, then there's still much work to be done in the
meantime. Peter's emotional readiness for something like a baby makes
Doug Ross look like a Father of the Year by comparison. His
unfortunate luck involving sex with Carla carried faint, unpleasant
echoes of his relationship with Jeanie, in which the two
were "careful, but not that careful".

As far as Carter is concerned, there's one thing I really like about
his character right now, and that's that he's finally standing up to
Peter and telling him what-for, even when he's guilt-crazed (last
week) or cheekily self-righteous (this week). Both times, in my
estimation, Carter has been wronged, but whenever he gets verbal, he
causes this strange reaction in me that both applauds him and,
eventually, wishes he'd shut up. Part of the intrigue in this week's
story came from its delicious irony. Not only was Carter's
presentation dilemna seen in its reverse condition earlier this year,
with Peter stuck with the short end, but his entire status of holding
the moral high ground seems humorously cribbed, again in reverse,
from the old bumbling-Carter stories. Now it's Peter who's making
Carter look bad; now it's Carter who's having to push and prod Peter,
for his own sake. His invitation, and acceptance, of Dr. Hicks' offer
this week was the symbolic cherry on top. I admired that display of
sensibility, but as far as Peter, who's looking more alone than ever,
is concerned, I'd also caution Carter to keep his eye on him -- and
not repeat the mistakes he made with Dennis.

Carol's ascension above and beyond the petty squabbles between union
and management seems almost matyrlike -- actually, scratch "almost",
since Carol did in fact make a sacrifice. This story is a couple of
shades safe of being a little too over-the-top for my tastes, for
someone who remembers all the "Saint Mark" jokes from last season,
but being a closet supporter of Carol, who often gets some
paradoxically unshowy attention despite her spotlight role, I'm still
enjoying this story quite a bit. At the end of last year, Carol
spontaneously decided to quit her job as the result of some
injustices she witnessed, and at the time, I thought her walking out
seemed contrived and somehow uncharacteristic. This week's conclusion
was an interesting contrast to that defiant walkout; being well and
truly on the side of justice but forced out nonetheless, Carol's
departure from the hospital was a bit sadder, shoulders sagging a
little lower, with none of last season's angry bravado. Instead,
Carol's anger seems to be channeled into self-defense now, when
attacked by Haleh ("I don't know anymore, Carol") or Mary ("I thought
you were my friend"). Carol's predicament has become interesting
because it's demonstrated how her troubles have been fueled by the
energy of self-reliance and assertiveness she's developed since
ditching Shep, traits which have won her quick battles but seem to be
losing her the war. I also like that both sides have been villainized
in the current conflict; just as management was ready to exploit
Carol's accident for their own position, so is Haleh also quick to
complain about its ramifications in the context of her quarrel with
administration. Best of all, Carol sticks to what I think should be
considered the overriding virtune in this mess: truth. When faced
with problems and pursuers on all sides, and seemingly no one to
trust, Robert Redford's character in Three Days Of The Condor did the
one thing he knew was assured and pure -- he went to a newspaper and
told the facts. The writer in me likes that Carol felt likewise.

In the case of Jeanie Boulet and Greg Fischer, the writers threw a
curve at me by casting their situation not in an episode-long series
of dialogue maneuvering, but in a classically "ER"-ish ethics dilemna
that resonates with Jeanie's HIV-positive character in particular.
With brain turned off, I too bought the hook of the Pattersons' case -
- if he's got syphillis, he must have caught it from someone, right?
Perhaps clouded by her personal issues, Jeanie apparently didn't even
stop to consider that the wife, whose "right to know" she ardently
defended, might be responsible and that it just might be the
husband's rights that should be regarded. Obscured by personal
motivations of both doctors, this twist was skillfully pulled off.
Although the Pattersons' situation thematically connected to Jeanie's
own, with its implications of secrets among spouses and the morality
of transmitted disease, there wasn't much actual physical mileage on
Jeanie's actual relationship with Greg, unless you're willing to
count a few backwards miles. Jeanie's always been quick to make up
her mind, especially on emotional matters, and I think she'd do well
to cool down a little and let Greg really try to apologize -- to see
if he's really contrite and can cast his reaction to her revelation
last week in a fitting context. On Greg's side, I was interested to
hear Jeanie accuse him of arrogance, which I think she was dead-on
about. Funny how it came across last week as charm.

Doug's relationship with a young boy who needs a strong father figure
to make him whole seemed like a time warp to the show's first season.
Are we back in a condition where Doug can believably assume such a
role? Maybe I missed it, but Doug's interaction with Benny, while
laudable and heartwarming, hinted little of the baggage that Doug has
acquired since his golden times with Diane and Jake Leeds. I know
that the writers are letting a large part of Doug's healing, such as
his aforementioned therapy, take place off-camera, which I'm of mixed
feelings about, but even with that in mind, this story didn't do much
for me. I think part of that is because there wasn't even a brief
reference made to either Charlie or Doug's deepening relationship
with Carol in it. Instead, it was just Doug being kind and perceptive
with a little boy, and that song wasn't played so long ago that I'm
still not a little weary of hearing it.

The prospective intern tour story was great, not only because it
showed Mark as a master health care practitioner *and* teacher (a
role that, despite his many chats with Carter, we tend to gloss
over), but because it also served as a reminder of how Kerry Weaver,
as great as she is and with as much heart as she's showed this year,
still needs some clue-retrieval work when it comes to instilling
others with her love of medicine. Kerry's paradox is that she's
almost single-mindedly ambitious with an eye towards academia, but
that ambition is so narrowly channeled that I think she forgets why
people actually sign up to be doctors. Like other attendings we've
seen, Kerry maintains a torrid affair, sometimes love and sometimes
lust, with the minutae and trivia of medicine and medical
administration. On his tour, Mark cut through all that to the heart
of the matter. He knows why being a doctor, and specifically being an
ER doctor, is important, and in the most elegant way possible,
distilled and showed it to his charges. Anspaugh's approval at the
end came as another ironic vindication for Mark, and a surprise for
me, actually; I thought Mark's chances for tenure were dead in the
water after his forced treatment of Shelly Risse two weeks ago.

And speaking of two weeks ago, Mark's relationship with Chuny comes
to a graceful end, and I think this was timed just about exactly
perfect. Best of all was Mark's subtle, crinkled-nose reaction to
Chuny's gentle bringdown; he'd practiced this speech to deliver to
her, but he's just a little disappointed that she'd say something
equally as insincere. Well, that's probably a little harsh, but it's
funny because a friend of mine had this exact same thing happen to
him a few weeks ago. Like Mark, he's already seeing someone else, so
all is well. :-) And as far as that someone else goes, I don't know
if Heather Morgan will appear as a recurring character -- or even
whether or not she'll show up next week -- but I liked what we saw of
her. Mark seems to have all the luck since his breakup with Jenn;
remember last year when women were seemingly hitting on him left and
right? Fortunately for him, I don't think Mark has to have someone
figuratively come in and hit him on the head with a hammer anymore
(even though that's more or less what Heather did... sigh, why don't
I meet anyone like that?). The bit with the med students nudging
their reluctant mentor towards romance, ethics be damned, was also
sublimely amusing.