| "A Boy Falling Out of the Sky" | |
| Season 9, Episode 15 | |
| [[File:|center|]] | |
| Air date | February 13, 2003 |
| Written by | R. Scott Gemmill and Yahlin Chang |
| Directed by | Charles Haid |
| Episode Guide | |
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"A Boy Falling Out of the Sky" is the fifthteenth episode of the ninth season of ER. It first aired on NBC on February 13, 2003. It was written by R. Scott Gemmill & Yahlin Chang and directed by Charles Haid. It has Abby Lockhart reaches a breaking point during the search for her missing brother Eric continues as well as the arrival of her mother Maggie while John Carter tries to help Abby out. Kerry Weaver forces the burnt-out Luka Kovač an ulitimatum about his job.
Plot[]
Abby is at her wits end as her brother Eric is still missing and the arrival of her mother Maggie as Carter tries to find out about the stalled search for Eric. Weaver forces the troubled Luka to return to work as her final deadline.
Weaver also has her purse stolen, but gets the last laugh when the perpetrator shows up in the hospital. Pratt, on the ride along with paramedics, pronounces a derelict dead, but is later discovered alive in the morgue.
NBC Description[]
WILL ABBY LOSE CONTROL OF HER FULL-PLATE OF PROBLEMS? OSCAR WINNER SALLY FIELD, ELI WALLACH AND PATRICK FUGIT ('ALMOST FAMOUS') GUEST-STAR: As Dr. Carter (Noah Wyle) returns from his scuba trip, Abby (Maura Tierney) veers disturbingly close to a breakdown in her attempt to cope with a multitude of problems, Dr. Weaver (Laura Innes) confronts the man who stole her purse and Dr. Pratt (Mekhi Phifer) accompanies paramedics and is later surprised by what happens to a comatose homeless man found on the street.
As Abby awaits word on her missing flyboy brother and deals with her needy mom (Oscar-winning guest star Sally Field), she and Carter try to keep a brain-dead boy alive in order to comfort his grieving parents.
Elsewhere, Dr. Kovac (Goran Visnjic) finally arrives at the hospital in the nick of time to aid an overdosed teen while Dr. Lewis (Sherry Stringfield) helps an elderly man (guest star Eli Wallach, "The Magnificent Seven") whose wife suffers from Alzheimer's and hypothermia.
Lewis is also flattered by her teenaged admirer (guest star Patrick Fugit, "Almost Famous") which doesn't help sugarcoat the grim news for her young cancer patient. Ming-Na also stars.
Synopsis[]
- Abby Lockhart
- John Carter
- Luka Kovač
- Kerry Weaver
- Greg Pratt
- Michael Gallant
- Susan Lewis
- Jing-Mei Chen
Trivia[]
- Despite being credited in the opening credits, Alex Kingston and Paul McCrane do not appear in this episode.
- After Kerry Weaver had been robbed by a purse snatcher, the guy gets hit by a car, only to shortly get up and run away, causing Kerry to shot out to him 'You could be seriously injured! You assho-!' only to have the opening song cutting off the last part of her sentence.
- Abby tells her mother to take the "eastbound track" to get from County General to Midway Airport on the L. The only thing east of downtown Chicago is Lake Michigan. Midway is southwest on the Orange Line. Furthermore, like most metro lines, the direction of L routes is denoted by the names of the last stops on either end of the line, not a cardinal direction - once she knows what line to use, she would simply need to look for the train designated "Midway." Finally, if Maggie is so unfamiliar with the CTA system that she doesn't know how to get to Midway, she would need to be told to use an Orange Line train, since all of the downtown stops serve multiple lines.