Hi friends, welcome to TV Tuesday. Today I’m back with season eleven of ER.

Season 11 jumps right in to where we left off last season… the shutout on the highway. Chen gets shot, and they end up in the river.

The boy that they were giving a ride ends up dying, Chen is going to be okay, and Pratt is touch a go for a while. He’s walking around until he isn’t and has to be rushed into surgery.

Weaver is still fighting custody for her son… in which she finally gets custody. I’m so glad that it ended happily. I hate that her late spouse’s parents were like “we just wanted to see Henry” yeah okay, if you just wanted to see him you would have agreed to this settlement ages ago… not try and keep Weaver from her son.

Abby is finally a doctor… or well doing her internship which is really exciting. New students have started, but we haven’t really met them yet.

Then there’s Sam… she’s run off and it’s her son Alex who gets ahold of Kovač… and Kovač just drops everything and drives out… this is the second time that he’s missed work/or left work in the middle of a shift to what, bring her back? They have a weird relationship.

Carter is having a rough time. They scatter the ashes of their dead son, but now his girlfriend is going back to Africa. All he wants to do is marry her and have her stay with him… but she needs time, which I get and Carter being Carter knows he has to give it to her. He’s truly a good guy.

Now he’s having trouble sleeping because she left and all he can think about is what could have been.

I feel bad for Abby, the nurses are hazing her, or well that’s how it feels. They’re freezing her out and even some of the doctors are too. All she wants is the respect she had as a nurse, but it’s like that’s out the window and she has to start from the bottom.

Well, it doesn’t help she helps snuggle a girl out of the country.

Damn, Kovač just lays it on Sam that he wants her to stay and that he wants to have a baby with her and he’ll wait for her because he’s tried of running from what he wants… and we all know he’s been running from it.

Neela is back because she still doesn’t know what she wants to do. Her parents don’t understand, her coworkers don’t understand, I don’t think she understands either, what she wants. Maybe she’ll figure it out.

Well, she’s out trying to find a part time job… but she has no experience in retail or a coffee shop. I don’t get how that is going to help her. She does get a job at a mini mart, she’s really having a crisis.

So what, Kovač is a soccer dad now to Alex? He’s really trying to be with Sam… but even Alex goes I already have a dad.

We have a new doctor Dr. Bon Jovi they’re calling him, Dr. Ray Barnett and he’s this punk rock guy who thinks he knows everything… why do they have hire people like this? I do have to say that Pratt is growing on me. He’s not as erratic as he was.

I thought we were going to lose Lewis, instead she’s got a promotion and is back at work after having a baby. Turns out motherhood isn’t her favourite thing, but her husband is totally taking fatherhood, like he’s the mom and it’s really cute to watch.

I’m also starting to wonder about Elizabeth… I wonder how long she’s going to be around. She does an illegal surgery and she believes she was saving a life but obviously the board doesn’t see it that way. They aren’t going to fire her or take her license away, but a much lesser job and this really opens her eyes. So she is going to leave and go back to England. As much as her story arc hasn’t really gone anywhere in the past few seasons since Mark passed, I’m going to miss Elizabeth.

We have ones episode that the entire episode Sam, Abby, Kovač and Pratt work on. It has got to be the slowest episode of ER, but not in a bad way. The episode really broke down the art of a man dying. Obviously it was an extreme case where the man was an alcoholic and who killed a man, but it really forced the viewer to watch and it was really interesting to see the characters interact with him and how it played to their character arcs. It was also something different, as this show is so fast paced it was good to just slow down for a moment.

Barnett even mentions that they were with a patient for close to 45 minutes, which is the running length of an episode, but it just felt so much longer.

What I’m noticing is that Ray is a flake. He says he’ll do all these things and then just craps out, ugh. Really? I’m glad Neela gave him shit for leaving… he left because he had a gig. What a loser.

Chen is having such a hard time with her father, I feel so bad for her. She has to try and take care of him at night and work during the day, that’s rough. Well, it gets to be too much that she quits her job, but watching her with her father is so heartbreaking because he wants to die, but she doesn’t want to kill him, nor does she want him to suffer. It’s such a hard thing to try to figure out the right thing to do. I can see this being controversial as in the end she decides to euthanize him. I’m glad Pratt was there for her.

The doctor who replaced Elizabeth is an interesting character. She’s so into modern medicine and he’s very into Abby’s habits, it’s really strange.

So I’m not digging this new relationship Carter is in. Like I know they’re just friends, but I can’t tell who has more feelings. Did he she kiss her? After she gives him a Christmas present? Meh.

So Kovač and Sam have moved in together and now her son Alex is brining porn magazines to school (that belong to Kovač) so now he has to have the talk. I love how Kovač is like you can talk to me, Alex is just like sure.

Uhm, who is this new doctor who has joined the ER? Jake I think his name is and he totally has a thing for Abby haha.

Does Neela have a crush Barnett? HA! I was right… and now she’s moving in with him?! Oh this is going to end interestingly.

Okay, wait how does she all of a sudden go from Barnett to Kovač? She’s got a crush on him now and Sam is out for blood, UGH.

Okay, wow so Abby gets kidnapped by these thugs because their brother got shot and they think she can help him. She tries as much as she can with a gun pointed at her and no surgical equipment but in the end he dies. Talk about traumatic experience.

I really like the talk that Weaver and Susan have. Now that Susan has her old job of running the ER, Susan doesn’t know what to do because she doesn’t think anyone takes her seriously. Weaver tells her it’s part of being a woman in charge to know that not everyone is going to like you and to persevere anyways.

Ugh, I can’t stand Kovač sometimes and now that he’s telling everyone to ease up on Sam because she’s going through something… when really he keeps mansplaining why she’s mad… that makes me mad. Why can’t he just leave her alone?!

The attendings have to evaluate the doctors and they all have very low scores. Their communication is horrible and none of them know how to talk to a patient. So now they are all working on that… and man is it going horribly. Neela tells a woman her grandson is dead by accident, Pratt doesn’t say anything to one.

When a family comes in and their daughter’s kidney is failing, her father wants to give his second kidney to her, which is unethical. This upsets the man so much that he shoots himself in the head right in the ambulance bay. Now Carter has to speak to the media about it… but he only makes it worse not better. This situation is going to blow over or cause the hospital a lot of damage.

Wow, this man is willing to leave medical school to be with Abby, just wow.

Weaver finally finds her birth mother, it’s been such a long time coming. Of course everything doesn’t go according to plan. Her mother pretends to be a patient to get her attention, they continue to get together throughout the day. We learn that she’s a church going lover of god who doesn’t believe in gay marriage or that they should even be together so when Weaver actually tells her she’s gay, this starts an all out war between them. Her mother wants to pray the gay out of her, ugh. I don’t know if her mother is ever going to come around, but Weaver says her peace and leaves, which is all you can do. After everything that Weaver has been through, it sucks that she had to go through that with her own mother.

Wendell and Carter are trying to define the relationship and I didn’t think he was still with the other girl… but then I didn’t think he was with Wendell either… I just thought they were friends, but she goes it’s been 3 months and he goes happy 3 month anniversary. Well that is, until Kem calls. Oh Carter.

Interesting episode. So we get a check in on Michael. Last time we saw him he was in his way back to the army. Now he’s been in Iraq a year working the medical field. We get this contrast of his life, with Neela’s life. Neela all of a sudden she’s been missing him a lot, that felt kinda sudden and I wonder why they chose to bring him back, and now.

Is it because Chen has left the show they want a character back? Hmm.

Nah, he gets a very nice send off though. He comes back to Chicago for a day to see the family of a Conrad who passed. Of course he couldn’t not stop by the hospital and to see Neela. They’re cute, too bad it couldn’t last or work out.

It was a very nice episode.

Then Sam’s ex Steve shows up again, I swear this is a different actor from last season, anyways he wants to take Alex to Florida, but both Sam and Kovač know it’s not a good idea at all, especially when he needs money. So now Alex is dead set on hating Kovač for making his dad go away.

So now Carter has a lot of time to himself now that Wendell pretty much broke up with him, he’s now helping to open and fund an outpatient I don’t know if it’s a hospital or clinic, but it’s for the people who fall under the cracks and get left behind.

A patient from Carter’s past is back and it’s giving Carter a lot of thought. The patient’s wife died in his care but he was only a student so it wasn’t really his fault, now that he’s an attending he knows that things are on his shoulders now. Oh how times goes by and how much Carter has grown as a character and a doctor is truly something.

When Sam spends an episode sluggish and forgetful I was surprised when she went to buy a pregnancy test. Apparently it’s negative, but this opens up a can of worms about secrecy in their relationship.

So we know that Susan has applied for tenure, but then we find out that Carter applied too… and well got it. I feel bad for Susan because she really does deserve it, but of course it all comes down to money. Carter is not only a male, but he’s also rich and can throw money at the hospital to make tenure. Weaver did make a good point that Susan only just started to prepare to make tenure in the last year when she should have been trying for the last seven. It still sucks because Carter I think doesn’t really want it.

Case in point, he goes to Paris when he hears that Kem’s mom is in the hospital. Turns out it’s nothing serious, but Kem looks to have moved on. The two don’t really know what to do with each other. It isn’t until he’s ready to go home that he turns around, runs in the rain and says he’ll move to Africa to be with her because he doesn’t want to live without her. Such a moment, definitely pulled at the heartstrings.

Then Morris of all people, gets made chief resident, oh boy. He’s been so wishy washy and only in medicine to prove to his father he can do something with his life, not that he actually likes being a doctor.

What a season finale!

Barnett really needs to think about his future and that happens faster than he’d like. When a party he’s a at had a medical disaster, the floor(s) fall through and loads of people have been crushed Barnett must use his skills to rescue as many as he can, some of them are his friends.

This is what prompts him to sign his contract to continue on with medicine. I thought that was a really well done plot because it opened his eyes like nothing else was going to do.

Then we have Carter. Carter is definitely now leaving the show and they throw him this party. What got me was the get together they have, there are photos from past characters and it’s so sweet. As well, Carter hears the voices of them in his head as he walks out. The prominent one being Mark Green. It was such a lovely send off and as I always say, I’m going to miss him. He’s one of the last characters who’s been on since the beginning.