(S14E07) "All this wasted energy is seriously inflating my carbon footprint!"-- Archie Morris

Welcome to Green Week on NBC. If you watched the whole NBC lineup tonight, you have noticed that they all have to work in some kind of environmental theme. My name is Jen, and I'll be our cruise director this evening, because Rich Keller is off saving polar bears in the Antarctic.

The ER is experiencing a heat wave and brownouts, which brings everyone to the ER with heatstroke and stupid injuries as they try to fix their air conditioning at home.

Punctuating everyone's irritability is the fact that Dupree has gotten two folk singers to volunteer to provide music to the ER. She says she is doing it to make Gates happy because he wanted to brighten up the ER. They really aren't terrible as performers (stop throwing popcorn at your computer screen-- you are hurting yourself more than you are hurting me), but they are just so damn obnoxious that we all agree with Abby when she says, "Kill them or kill me. I don't care which." It was an annoying storyline too, but I am not going to ER-bash tonight, especially when it feels weird to comment on episodes when the writers are out on the picket lines these days. I just want to say: Even though it feels like ER has recycled every storyline there is twice, I am still tuning in, so I really can't talk, eh?

All of this is just inching us closer and closer to Dupree and Gates getting it on. It's so funny that we watch them flirt for weeks, and then Abby and Moretti... But I am getting ahead of myself.

Some very funny moments with Morris tonight. I have to admit, when Archie Morris was first introduced as a character and was blowing off cases to go outside and get high, I never though he was going to last. I thought he would be off the show in five episodes or less. It still blows me away that years later, Morris is still around... and that I like him so much. Scott Grimes has such perfect comedic timing that I laughed out loud twice when he walked into the truck door while yelling to Harold about being aware of his surroundings and peripheral vision.

I kept laughing when they brought him in on a stretcher and he was worried about wasting resources. Way to go Green, ER. Some of the shows I review irritate the hell out of me when they insert comic relief because they tend to do it badly. ER desperately needs these comedic moments, and apart from the folk singers, it was well played in this episode.

Of course, poor Archie has failed his boards, which doesn't really come as a huge surprise. Pratt tells him he can continue working, but I wonder what this means for Morris longterm: I hope is not yet another cast member jumping ship.

Speaking of cast members jumping ship, Abby is pissing off the attendings right and left by perpetually doing her own thing: She rescinds some of Moretti's standing orders, and then on a gut feeling, refuses to let the colicky baby go home without more tests. One question here: If the baby's pediatrician did a scope test and everything was normal, then how was an enlarged heart not detected?

Most doctors (in my anecdotal experience, but I haven't run a clinical trial or anything) can tell that a newborn has something as simple as a heart murmur just by listening to the heart with a stethoscope, and yet none of them heard the fluid in that baby's lungs? We saw Abby listening to the baby, but there was also folk music in the background, which might have made it difficult to get a good reading. That is just another reason that was a stupid storyline: Wouldn't happen. It would be a liability, and they would just get in the way.

The storyline about the old people wasn't quite memorable-- some nice snappy lines when Javier is trying to get the TV and Grumpy Old Men to work. And it was a nice moment when the nursing home man tells Morris that he is a pretty okay doctor just when Morris really needs to hear it. Despite failing his boards, Morris is a pretty okay doctor. It's shocking, I know.

I don't know whether Sam will have a longterm relationship with Ethan, but I hope so. He's hot, and, as Abby put it, "He's very sincere." It would be nice for Sam to have a chance to find out what she likes.

Of course, Abby is on a collision course with her resurgent alcoholism. She comes to the bar smashed, and you have to admit, she is a fun drunk. I can't believe that the ever-perceptive Neela doesn't know right away that Abby is drunk, but Neela is rather distracted by the fact that Lucien wants to disembowel Harold for being a snot-nosed little know-it-all. I loved the exchange after Morris yells, "I saw what you did to my car!"
"Is he mad at me?" Harold asked.
"No," Neela answered, pointing at Lucien, "he is."

Even though I wish Dupree and Gates would just get a room already, I have to admit that I thought her tattoo was very cool. What a cool symbol with the labyrinth, the inner journey of the soul, and how easy it is to get lost. A pool-playing, beer-swilling, tattooed chaplain is something everybody needs, I think. I am being perfectly serious. She seems to be very nonjudgmental, loving, and compassionate. Except with Gates.

I can't say I didn't see Abby's tumble with Moretti coming: We all did. Nobody does out of control like Maura Tierney, booking out of the apartment, growling at the babysitter to get out, and then telling the airport agent that there is a distinction between calling her a bitch and saying that she is being bitchy.

I just feel so badly that the lifeline she is clinging to to make everything better is Luka. Abby is a strong, intelligent woman, capable of saving everyone but herself. Maybe she needs to get Dupree's tattoo on her forearm to remind her to rely on herself. It was bad enough when Abby was simply self-destructive in the past, but tearing around drunk in the middle of the night with Joe is very bad. Very bad indeed.

Do you think they'll be able to get Sally Field to take a break from Brothers and Sisters to come help her out? I'm beating a dead horse here in all of my reviews, but it will probably take a long time to sort everything out due to the WGA strike. Kudos to Maura Tierney, John Stamos, Parminder Nagra, Scott Grimes, Mekhi Phifer, Linda Cardellini, and the rest of the ER actors who were reportedly to have gotten out there and picketed with their writers. Good show, folks. Good show.