outsmartabullet

Holy shit, caught an episode that I hadn't seen before. Sam and Luka and the rape victim... We're supposed to like these two characters? That's quite possibly the most fucked up breach of ethics in the entire series.

If we're going to imagine how good or bad someone is at sex I always figured someone as robotic and lacking personality as Cleo had to be dynamite in bed

Nah he's a good distance away!

Re: "Freefall" every time I see 'That Scene' I'm always confused as to how Romano can tell that Morris is smoking weed and not just smoking a cigarette, which presumably is allowed in the ambulance bay.

lmao I read Carter's 'Dear Abby' letter for the first time. It's horrific. Is it canon though?

It is truly awful, hence why the bleach job only lasts two episodes (I think?). I wonder if they're deliberately playing up Malucci's obnoxiousness in advance of 'The Visit' to make you root for Benton even more. This is why The Longer You Stay/Blood Sugar etc never really sat right with me. Weaver got frustrated with Malucci, understandably, but they never outright hated eachother until the writers decided that they did.

The Cromwell arc was one of the times it became really clear to me that the general vibe of the show had changed; that the hospital, the work dynamics and the medical procedures were now clearly playing second fiddle to the Main Characters and their personal demons. Of course that was always a thing, but back when say, Greene was recovering from his beating, it felt like it didn't overshadow entire episodes, that it was still an ensemble drama.

I think from his first appearance on the show he kind of knew he had Alzheimers but was in denial about how bad it had gotten. He's a doctor, he totally knew.

Probably my favourite 'comedy guest patient' of the entire series. Malik and Jerry are hilarious. And his interactions with Weaver are lovely.

I think one thing that was evident in his early episodes was that he was pretty skillful in traumas even for a young resident. This was overshadowed by his obnoxious personality and as time went on they seemed to forget that he liked diving into traumas and put more emphasis on him just wandering around the admit desk making inappropriate comments.

She's definitely not a 'character actor'. She tends to play variations on a similar character. But she has a real presence and an ability to sell very small moments. One of my favourite moments of hers on ER was in Greene's last 'hospital' episode where she just gave him a smile as he was leaving. That's all there was to it! but it was very affecting. I recommend checking out her arc in Rescue Me.

Probably has a kid but I doubt he's a single father or anything, just sends him money and shares parenting responsibilties. That's my take. Also think the main reason the writers threw it in there was to make Kerry look extra cold. It's one thing firing the guy who doesn't seem to take his job seriously but you need to make it have more stakes. I also think it's all bullshit by this point, because 'The Longer You Stay' was the point where the writers embarked on assassinating every character you thought you knew.

Haha yeah he had a couple of these.

I personally wasn't really comparing the two, just because one character was worse doesn't take away from the flaws of the other. Carter's attitude when he left rehab, being rude to the guy leaving, whining to Greene about having to do standard procedure drug tests, semi-relapsing and then not telling Weaver, etc etc It wasn't someone who left rehab with a sense of humility or gratitude or anything like that, he still had a massive chip on his shoulder and felt he was above being an 'addict'. Granted, that scene with Chase seems to be the end of the arc to all intents and purposes? But that seemed a bit unrealistic to me, taking into account his behaviour and attitude throughout the first half of Season 7, that his addiction would never really come up again in a big way story-wise. Just one passive-aggressive interaction with Benton and he sees the light? Hmm. Obviously the writers felt they'd done enough with it.

Abby coming to work drunk: did we see this happening in an episode or is it only something that was referred to retrospectively within the show? If the former, what was the episode? I disagree, Carter's attitude when he left rehab stunk. He didn't regard himself as an addict, which meant he was a relapse waiting to happen. They were right to be strict.

Shirley is awesome. Even Romano seemed to appreciate her

They really ruined this character, she was so self-possessed and confident but by Season 7 she's suddenly overemotional etc.

Listening to the Setting the Tone podcast episode on The Letter. Gotta say, at risk of being cast out of the fandom, I found The Letter pretty cringeworthy at times. The Romano cancer speech is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous, Abby's 'superman' comment (although at least she was drunk), and just generally they lay it on way too thick.

Total garbage, and one of those times where I just thought 'I don't recognise these characters anymore, since when did they act like this'

I remember reading somewhere that a lot of people who worked in ERs felt that Malucci's character was actually pretty realistic and common

Decided to watch the Ray Liotta episode, which I'd never seen. Amused by the fact that Pratt is still acting like a colossal prick - this is Season 11, they must have taken their time with the redemption arc (which, fair play if so)

I really love how Zadro ( I think?) shows up in the last episode.

I think it suited the relationship, it was meant to be awkward, strained, unequal etc. It felt more like she was trying to help Kerry to accept herself more than anything else.

Some of the goof characters in later seasons were far more incompetent than Malucci and eventually got 'redeemed'. He was actually quite talented in some ways - at least in early episodes when they wanted to show these aspects - it was jumping to assumptions and being careless that was his biggest issue. Later characters like Archie were just plain incompetent full stop. One interesting direction I think they could have gone in was have him interacting more with Benton - they had a really interesting dynamic at times, I think Malucci kind of respected him in his own weird way but couldn't help pushing his buttons. Obviously they had that massive dust-up after Peter's nephew is brought in, but a few episodes later they're working well together on patients. I thought it would have been interesting to see that newly-humbled Malucci working with him and maybe learning some things from him. One of the highlights of his arc was seeing him learn from Dr Lawrence.

Malucci was the cowboy who rubbed other doctors up the wrong way. One of the problems with his character I think was: it was too much, too in-your-face, way too obnoxious at first - and then he sort of just got shunted away for a bit of occasional light relief. Badly handled.