Carol is enjoying her secret romance with Doug.  Reese is improving and will get to go home in a week or less.  Carla wants him circumcised, but Peter doesn't.  Anspaugh meets with Kerry.  He tells her that they are in a crisis situation and that her being temporary chief will not be a popularity contest.  She doesn't seem to mind.  She gets his approval to act as the Chief of the ER.  Cynthia Hooper comes in for her first day as desk clerk.  Carol is surprised to see her.  She didn't know that she and Mark were finished interviewing the applicants.  Kerry hands new policies for her to hand out to the staff.  When the nurses shifts are over, they have to clock out immediately.  There will be no more lagging behind while on the clock.  Carla comes down to see Anna.  She wants to know her opinion on the safety and health issues of circumcision.  Anna tells her that it is safe and healthy and just looks nicer.  Carla agrees and wants her to circumcise Reese as soon as possible.  A man is brought in after a motorcycle accident.  Carter starts taking care of him, but Maggie pulls him out to do sutures while she takes care of the patient.  Carter has to do sutures, since his student Henry is nowhere to be found.  Al is brought in with a couple of co-workers after a construction accident.  He is okay, but his blood is all over his co-worker.  Jeanie is concerned, especially after Al tells her that nobody at the job site knows about his HIV status.  Kerry asks Doug about his fellowship and why the ER is having to pay his salary and not the pediatric department.  Carter takes care of a young woman who will not wake up.  Her husband, Steve Toren, is with her and is really worried.  Benton goes to see Reese and he is not there.  He is being circumcised, but Peter is too late.  Mark comes in to take a look at Carter's 27 year old patient who will not wake up.  He tells her husband that they will probably have to put her on a ventilator soon.  Carol takes care of one of the worker's who were brought in with Al.  His name is Casey and he saved them by catching a cable and keeping it from hitting them.  She finds out that he had been smoking marijuana.  Heather Morgan comes back in to see Mark.  She wants him to go to a dinner with her, but he turns her down.  A woman named Glenda brings her husband Ed in after he accidentally shot himself in the leg.  They were on their way to a gun and ammo show.  He has her get all the artillery out of the vehicle for Jerry to watch after.  Carter's patient, Kirsten, had suffered a stroke.  Carter starts to talk to her husband about organ donation and she begins to wake up out of her comma.  Carter runs to get Mark, who is surprised.  She was not expected to ever wake up.  Her husband does not know what to think after this.  It makes it hard for him to trust what Carter and Mark tell him.  Mark takes her to get an MRI.  Al tells Jeanie that he is afraid to tell his co-worker bill that he is HIV positive.  She tells him that he needs to be tested because his scrapes were covered with his blood.  Jerry is handling the artillery and grabs a hold of the grenade launcher.  He points it toward Cynthia and is told not to point it at her.  The woman tells him that it is not loaded and how it is against the law to have it loaded.  Jerry starts playing some more with it and pulls the trigger.  It goes off and blows the front side of the ER off and an Ambulance that was in it's way.  It barely missed Cynthia and another worker.  The woman is arrested and Jerry is questioned by authorities.  Mark checks Cynthia's ears.  She is having ringing in them.  Corday, Anspaugh and Peter are in surgery with the woman's ammo merchant husband.  They are trying to save his leg.  Carol's patient, Laura Quentin, from the previous episode is back.  She is bulimic as she had told Mark that she was.  She is bleeding.  Mark would not admit her, even after Carol had told him how bad she was.  Al tells Bill that he needs to be tested, because he might have caught HIV from him.  Al tells him that Jeanie can test him, but he does not want her to be the one, since she has it also.  After Carter's patient gets her M.R.I., she needs to be rushed in to surgery for an aneurysm repair.  The husband is hesitant to sign the release, but Mark tells him that she will die within hours if she doesn't have the procedure.  Carol finds Doug and Elizabeth Corday in an exam room with a patient.  She thinks that she is coming on to him and she gets jealous and walks out of the exam room.  Haleh goes to Carol and tells her that Kerry has started clocking the nurses out.  Kerry tells Carol that it has to be done because of the money situation.  Mark decides to go to dinner with Heather after all.  Kerry tells Jerry that he needs to plan on using up some of his vacation time.  Carter thinks that Maggie likes Anna and that is why she is giving her the more interesting traumas.  Anna and Carter go to do their laundry together.  Carter has never been to the laundry mat before and has never apparently done his own laundry before.  Carol tells Doug that she does trust him. 

Reviewed by Tony Conner on 10-21-2000