S03.E02: Better Angels

[thewhiteowl]

A self proclaimed psychic is treated while envisioning the staff singing and dancing. Willis and Rox are endangered during a rescue of a congressman and family.

[Efzee]

I can't believe what they did to Hozier's song. It was just... terrible.

[Ohwell]

That was bad.  That's all I got.  I'm surprised this show was even renewed.

[thewhiteowl]

Well, it was less depressing than last week. 

[Xantar]

I actually really like it when TV shows give the actors a chance to sing and dance, but this is the wrong show to do a musical episode. It's just the exact wrong tone.

Also, I'm going to cheer when somebody smashes that stupid camera.

[Kelda Feegle]

When a medical show opens with singing and dancing the first response I have is TUMOUR. I wasn't expecting it to be in the abdomen so there's a twist I guess. 

Can't student doctor film when he's off shift?

Wondering if we should start a pool on who hits him or the camera first... 

[Netfoot]

18 minutes ago, Xantar said:

I actually really like it when TV shows give the actors a chance to sing and dance,

Ugh!  When that happens, I tend to feel vomitous.  Thank goodness for Fast Forward.

21 minutes ago, Xantar said:

Also, I'm going to cheer when somebody smashes that stupid camera.

I'm hoping for the proctological insertion of said optical instrumentation!

[kaygeeret]

Haven't been able to watch much of this season, but did see this one.

Gosh, it really wasn't very good was it?

A symptom of the problem is Rob Lowe - not the actor, as I do like him - but his character.  JUst wildly unbelievable, plus I very much liked the two leads from last year and they seem to be very marginalized this year.

Strange episode and I will not be rushing back.

[preeya]

Not great, but an improvement from last week.  The camera guy has got to go. I hope we don't have to put up with his schitck every week.

[starri]

What the hell did I just watch?

Also, where the hell is Angels geographically that it's that far from the greenscreen of downtown LA?

[Dowel Jones]

I completely agreed with Willis's partner.  He blew it on that call.  Besides putting himself in danger, he had no way of contacting her about the situation.  She would be forced to wait without word and then tell the FD when they got there that he was down the hill somewhere.  Plus, he ruined any electronics that he had on him.  I had to laugh at the hospital scene when the guy from the other car, covered in blood, hugs Willis right there in the ER.  Showertime!

I guess we were all supposed to go "Ooooohh" when the psychic lady dropped the brother bomb on Willis.  So what?  She could have overheard something.

Jesse is still rockin' it as Mama.  He pulled no punches with Mrs. Unfaithful Congressman.  Coffee indeed.

The doctor did not do an adequate job at all of telling ballet patient just how dangerous an aortic aneurysm is.  The fact that he wanted to go back to dance because, "it's everything" shows that he either didn't get it or he had one huge martyr complex.  AA's will kill you.  In minutes.  And nothing short of surgery will cure it.

[starri]

Depending on how morbidly interested you are in the episode, CBS All Access (which I may be the only subscriber here) has a second video of the episode where Michael Seitzman, MGH, and Emily Tyra do a commentary track.  Among other tidbits, our obnoxious documentarian Dr Avila is an homage to Ryan McGarry, the director of the original Code Black documentary, who actually did carry around a camera during his residency at LA County Hospital.

I assume he was slightly more personable than his fictional counterpart.

Edited May 4, 2018 by starri

[needschocolate]

So many things confused me about the congressman and his mistress/student/aide/intern/staff person and his wife

- Dr. Lowe goes through a window of a submerged car to rescue the woman whose head is still above water - how is her head still above water?

- Was the congressman or the woman driving the car? I thought, based on the bruise left by the seatbelt that the congressman was a passenger in the car -  are we supposed to think he made her drive the car into the water or was it just a "happy accident" (happy because it gave him a way to get rid of her.

- Did I miss a part where they explained that he took off the bracelet and  that wife was the woman's teacher? Mama talks to the woman and mentions something about the wife being her teacher.  Then Mama goes to the wife and asks who was supposed to get rid of the bracelet.  But I don't remember them ever mentioning the bracelet before then.

We also had to watch the part where Mama talks about coffee twice to understand that he was telling the wife to leave the congressman. 

I don't know if I should be paying more attention to this show or less attention - am I missing crucial information or should I be suspending disbelief? 

[Efzee]

12 minutes ago, needschocolate said:

So many things confused me about the congressman and his mistress/student/aide/intern/staff person and his wife

- Dr. Lowe goes through a window of a submerged car to rescue the woman whose head is still above water - how is her head still above water?

- Was the congressman or the woman driving the car? I thought, based on the bruise left by the seatbelt that the congressman was a passenger in the car -  are we supposed to think he made her drive the car into the water or was it just a "happy accident" (happy because it gave him a way to get rid of her.

- Did I miss a part where they explained that he took off the bracelet and  that wife was the woman's teacher? Mama talks to the woman and mentions something about the wife being her teacher.  Then Mama goes to the wife and asks who was supposed to get rid of the bracelet.  But I don't remember them ever mentioning the bracelet before then.

We also had to watch the part where Mama talks about coffee twice to understand that he was telling the wife to leave the congressman. 

I don't know if I should be paying more attention to this show or less attention - am I missing crucial information or should I be suspending disbelief? 

As far as I understood it:

1. I think we're supposed to assume the car hadn't completely filled up with water yet, because the windows (and doors) had been closed when it hit the water. Only when the congressman escaped the car through the window did it presumably start filling up. The aide probably had a concussion (airbag maybe? did we see?) and lost consciousness which is why she couldn't get out on her own despite not having drowned yet.

2. The aide was driving. They mentioned the seat belt bruise (right to left) indicating the congressman being the passenger. In the hospital, before the aide regained consciousness, the congressman told the doctors she swerved to avoid hitting a deer, IIRC, and that's why they hit the water. I think this may have also been the scene where the wife told them the aide used to be her student (or maybe the congressman told them in the wife's presence) when they explained why she was "like family" to them.

3. The aide wrote down that the congressman left her to die when she regained consciousness and still had a tube down her throat. She showed this to the two leads. Then, after the tube had been removed (not sure if that was the same scene or not), she told them that the last thing she saw before blacking out was the congressman removing her bracelet, because he intended to leave her to die and didn't want anyone being able to link them romantically (as he'd given her the bracelet).

[needschocolate]

23 minutes ago, Efzee said:

As far as I understood it:

1. I think we're supposed to assume the car hadn't completely filled up with water yet, because the windows (and doors) had been closed when it hit the water. Only when the congressman escaped the car through the window did it presumably start filling up. The aide probably had a concussion (airbag maybe? did we see?) and lost consciousness which is why she couldn't get out on her own despite not having drowned yet.

2. The aide was driving. They mentioned the seat belt bruise (right to left) indicating the congressman being the passenger. In the hospital, before the aide regained consciousness, the congressman told the doctors she swerved to avoid hitting a deer, IIRC, and that's why they hit the water. I think this may have also been the scene where the wife told them the aide used to be her student (or maybe the congressman told them in the wife's presence) when they explained why she was "like family" to them.

3. The aide wrote down that the congressman left her to die when she regained consciousness and still had a tube down her throat. She showed this to the two leads. Then, after the tube had been removed (not sure if that was the same scene or not), she told them that the last thing she saw before blacking out was the congressman removing her bracelet, because he intended to leave her to die and didn't want anyone being able to link them romantically (as he'd given her the bracelet).

Thank you.  

[starri]

I was hoping for a dance outbreak to some indie rock song when I was at work today, but I guess there was no one with a tumor being admitted.

[Raja]

20 hours ago, starri said:

What the hell did I just watch?

Also, where the hell is Angels geographically that it's that far from the greenscreen of downtown LA?

Just look at it like Rampart on Emergency. When the plot called for it to be located near where the real life USC County General was it near there. When it needed near Harbor  UCLA it was there.

[starri]

32 minutes ago, Raja said:

Just look at it like Rampart on Emergency. When the plot called for it to be located near where the real life USC County General was it near there. When it needed near Harbor  UCLA it was there.

I assume it's also bigger on the inside.

[gryphon]

I heart Jesse.  That is all. 

[TV Anonymous]

If a physician has to go out on a ride-along with paramedics, what a waste of resources. An ambulance crew does not work on cases all the time. Much of their time is spent waiting for a call or doing administrative of logistics tasks. A physician in a hospital can work with medicine all the time. Besides, the liability of having someone not trained for rescue is enormous. 

Next, a doctor can take his patients to the roof of the hospital? I did not know that. Should I knew I would ask my doctor (in the 5 minutes that I met him daily) to do that when I was hospitalized. As well, TIL that doctor has access to the roof.

I was interested in the show for its medicine, now it does musical and doctor playing Chicago Fire? On a separate note, does Emily Tyra have dancing background?

[TVForever]

19 minutes ago, TV Anonymous said:

 On a separate note, does Emily Tyra have dancing background?

I believe she does. She played a ballerina in a “limited edition” drama a year or two back. She did dance in the role. It was on Starz or Showtime, I forget which. I can’t remember the name, but I remember it was a really dark drama.

[starri]

30 minutes ago, TV Anonymous said:

If a physician has to go out on a ride-along with paramedics, what a waste of resources. An ambulance crew does not work on cases all the time. Much of their time is spent waiting for a call or doing administrative of logistics tasks. A physician in a hospital can work with medicine all the time. Besides, the liability of having someone not trained for rescue is enormous. 

As a part of residency, emergency room doctors are required to have a certain amount of ride alongs with EMS, including air ambulance if your particular program has its own service.

[TV Anonymous]

17 minutes ago, starri said:

As a part of residency, emergency room doctors are required to have a certain amount of ride alongs with EMS, including air ambulance if your particular program has its own service.

As part of residency indeed. However, Dr. Willis is a senior physician. He is a colonel, FFS. Even in the battlefield a colonel does not go to the field for casualties.

[kaygeeret]

And to assign a trained ER MD to the ambulance is an enormous waste of resources.

The doc is trained to a greater depth than the EMT staff and it makes ZERO sense to use highly trained resources on a task whose job is to stabilize and get the patient to the next level of care.

I want to be very clear that I have nothing but the greatest respect for EMTs.  They fulfill a critical function in an often chaotic and quick moving situation with little time for delay or reflection or consultation.......

BUT, the ER MD at a Level 1 Facility (which this hospital is presented to be) is levels up in responsibility and training and with access to resources that the EMT does not have.

Both are critical, but to pretend that it makes sense to swap the two is foolish.

Caveat...I do believe that it is important for ER MDs, at some point in the training, to make runs with the ambulance.  It is really important to see what the job is and what the problems are.

[starri]

17 hours ago, TV Anonymous said:

As part of residency indeed. However, Dr. Willis is a senior physician. He is a colonel, FFS. Even in the battlefield a colonel does not go to the field for casualties.

As he is fond of pointing out frequently, he works for the military, not Angels.  They don't have any claim on his time.  Yes, it's contrived, but they do attempt to hand wave it.

I'm not arguing it's a good or realistic plot, but they've given (stupid) in-universe logic.

More tidbits from the commentary:

The cast and crew refer to Guthrie as "Doctor Wisdom."

In one of the scenes in this episode, a gurney with an extra on it ran over MGH's foot and broke one of her toes.  Two days later, they filmed the dance sequence.

MGH refers to Leanne's expressions as Active Bitch Face.

Every single extra gets a note card giving them a short vignette of what their particular character's story is.

[Notwisconsin]

On 5/4/2018 at 9:40 AM, needschocolate said:

 - Dr. Lowe goes through a window of a submerged car to rescue the woman whose head is still above water - how is her head still above water?

Well, back in 1969, Mary Jo Kopechne, after Teddy Kennedy drove her off the bridge, died of asphyxiation (NOT drowning) after she ran out of oxygen in the bubble of air in the car. So yeah it can and did happen in real life. You should see Chappiquiddick when it get on pay-per-view,

[needschocolate]

On 5/9/2018 at 5:04 PM, Notwisconsin said:

Well, back in 1969, Mary Jo Kopechne, after Teddy Kennedy drove her off the bridge, died of asphyxiation (NOT drowning) after she ran out of oxygen in the bubble of air in the car. So yeah it can and did happen in real life. You should see Chappiquiddick when it get on pay-per-view,

That would be a horrible way to die. 

Was the window of the car rolled down while it was submerged?  

[secnarf]

26 minutes ago, needschocolate said:

That would be a horrible way to die. 

Was the window of the car rolled down while it was submerged?  

Unsure how Teddy got out or exactly what the orientation of the car was as it submerged - but in general, a rolled down window will prevent an air pocket because then the air is no longer trapped in the car. Having said that, if the front window is open and the car goes in such that the rear of the car is higher up than the front, you could potentially end up with an air pocket at the top (rear) of the car, above the level of the front windows.

[Raja]

On 5/6/2018 at 4:42 AM, TV Anonymous said:

As part of residency indeed. However, Dr. Willis is a senior physician. He is a colonel, FFS. Even in the battlefield a colonel does not go to the field for casualties.

We are being lead to believe that this particular Colonel has been on combat patrols since 2002. It goes along with the civilian crime scene investigators kick in doors and tell police officers to cover the back. Lawyers with no specialty  and PHDs of all science and so on and so on. If this was a police procedural it would be a S.W.A.T. or new Hawaii 5-0 and not a Jack Webb Dragnet 

To the air bubble I know Gage and DeSoto pulled of that rescue on Emergency and am pretty sure some Baywatch lifeguards have also.