Ok, so in the last episode, we were introduced to the characters, Charlie went into his Coma and discovered he was having an ‘Out of body’ experience. Joel is a past love of Alex, who was about to get married to Charlie and he is now working at the hospital, Alex whilst doing her job is looking after Charlie’s needs at the same time. So let us all delve into episode two titled Contact.
We start with the sound of a Guitar playing and a long shot of Charlie still in his Tux standing in the middle of the hall and looking rather thoughtful, we then move and see Alex asleep at his bedside watching over him, she is wearing green scrubs and a green cardigan that matches, she gets up, looking perfect (I never look like that in the morning) and kisses him on the cheek. She says Good morning to him and walks out of the room; he watches her and says good morning as well (so sweet).
Ok another good entrance by Joel Goran as he is Jogging, he has a sleeveless hoody and music on, (kinda got lost in that thought). Fresh from jogging he makes his way down the stairs and heads for coffee. Maggie and Gavin are in the line and Maggie is showing pictures of cats with bread around their head to Gavin (weird) and notices Joel cut in for his coffee, she immediately barks up making a scene of how he cut in front of everyone, his response “I didn’t know there was a line!” after he walks away Maggie asks Gavin if he notices that she has a crush on Joel, asking if she was shy and giddy (well No, my dear you were rude!) Gavin mentions how she was and she shrugs it off saying I don’t know how I act.
Charlie is standing and looking at the sign saying he’s the MotherF*$%@!g chief of surgery, he then mentions he is now two guys, one is in a coma and the other is invisible, Alex is standing and fiddling with his lines, when Melinda walks in, mentions she could have a Cot, Alex says she is accustomed to being square in the chair. One of the Nurse’s Jackson Wade tells Alex that the OR desk needs her and she starts to leave the room, Melinda tells her to let people be nice, Alex replies with don’t do that if I cry I won’t stop (I know that feeling sometimes when you start you just don’t know when to stop). Alex is walking to the OR and Joel catches up with her (You will notice he is no longer sporting curtains, he now has a nice up to date hair do, for those of you who watch the Vampire Diaries this happens also, so you can see he was doing both shows around the same time). Joel lets Alex Know Dr Kinney is looking for her, she then takes his coffee and notices Dr Kinney is in the OR she is taking over for Charlie for the short-term. As Alex enters the OR after letting Joel Know how Charlie is doing, she mentions his ‘Nice’ haircut, which gets a thank you and a Lovely smile. Alex finds that Reycraft is doing her surgery as she was late and Dana throws in the line ‘you maybe chief surgical resident, but I’m not your boyfriend’ right in her face and tells her to get back to her rounds, to make her smile in walks Victor Reis one of the male nurses, he mentions that she threw a clamp at him once and that some nurses talk about her having some male anatomy (You’ll love Victor and who you find out later in the series he is dating).
Joel walks in and talks to Dr Zachery Miller, they have a patient to see (Zach is another to watch for he can make you smile with his awkwardness and when you listen about his back story you really warm to him). Joel is an orthopaedic surgeon which is the bones and this woman has had a nasty bike accident, I do mean Nasty and she is refusing pain meds, as he talks to her they discover not only her leg is bad but also her shoulder is hurting her, he calls for a general surgeon to see her and for her to be put on antibiotics.
Alex has a young boy as a patient, his mum is on the phone asking for things to be brought along and a paediatrician is checking the boys vitals, he has been in a few times and no one knows what is wrong he just wants to draw at the moment and not lengthen his arm for the blood pressure cuff, he is not sitting still and when asked by the paediatrician to focus he grabs her arm and bites her. She is not pleased and after the mum says he is not normally like that she moans and groans, signs some charts and goes home. Gavin happens to question the fact she is mean and a paediatrician, Alex comes back with that he is sane and a shrink, Gavin goes on to mention the long list of things he is scared of including Milk Shakes and his foods touching as well as the little nugget of wisdom about wanting to be better with woman.
Alex now walks into the room Charlie is currently occupying and stops outside the door, there is a blonde woman sitting at his side, She walks up to the desk and Melinda says ‘is that who I think it is?’ and Alex says yes its Charlie’s Ex-wife (a Doctor no less and her name is Dawn Bell, the words Uh and Oh spring to mind and yes she is a one to watch out for), Charlie’s watching and says that this is what he loves about Alex the fact she will face things head on. Alex walks in and Dawn says she is devastated and they both exchange and awkward looking hug, Alex starts changing his IV bags over and suction his phlegm when Dawn mentions that is what nurses are for, Alex replies with ‘it makes me feel closer to him, Dawn actually gets hurt by that (something tells me she still loves him). Dawn next asks if Charlie has been started on something called Coma Arousal Therapy (yeah that sounds weird and by all means you’ll think it is), Alex replies to this with the fact they are doing everything possible for Charlie, Dawn starts to explain coma arousal therapy, saying it’s about exposing the patient to extreme physical stimuli (yeah its sounding even weirder now), smells, touch and also on an intimate level, Alex is not keen on the idea and Dawn says they are doing everything they KNOW how to do and not trying other options to help, she seems really passionate about this as well and says Alex should try EVERYTHING cos she would.
Maggie turns up and is Joel’s surgical consult, she starts going on about his god complex all because he cut inline for coffee, he just smiles and gets her to go see the patient, they diagnose that she has a ruptured spleen and that the shoulder pain is a symptom of this, they explain that they need to set her leg as it’s still broken and she still refuses pain medication, which means it’s going to hurt a lot, and by the screams she lets out it does, they explain that she needs surgery to remove the spleen and her husband says she can’t have surgery as her religion forbids blood transfusions, so that means a lifesaving surgery is off the table.
Alex walks down the stairs and meets up with the young boy she has as a patient as he has been discharged and is now going home, she talks to him to see if the paediatrician said that he had anything and he suddenly gets worse, he has a hard time breathing, he says he feels dizzy as he collapses on the floor, she checks his vitals calls for a crash team and shouts Code blue, the camera widens as you see people rushing in and she has started chest compressions, we next see Alex kneeling on a trolley as they wheel him into the emergency room. Zach notices that they already saw the kid and Alex says he was discharged, they start attaching the leads to him and we see Charlie watching at the side, they are charging the panels and getting ready to shock, he turns his head to the side and see’s Charlie, he asks if he can see him and then when people move out-of-the-way the kid is standing next to Charlie (I tear up at this, as you really think the worst). After the kid is shocked twice Charlie notices that he is standing beside him, between the 3rd and 4th shock the kid is no longer beside Charlie and after the 4th shock they get a rhythm back again.
Back to our cycle patient, she is having an ultra sound to look at her spleen and Maggie needs to consult with Joel, she is trying to explain that the woman needs surgery and her husband asks about clotting agents to stop the bleeding, Maggie explains that she is bleeding so much that they will not help. Charlie is reading a magazine over someone’s shoulder, they shut it and he mentions that he wasn’t done reading, not that the man can hear him, Charlie now hears music, he speaks out loud asking if anyone else can hear that and then heads of in search of where the music is coming from, he walks around the hospital looking in rooms and through windows.
Zach and Alex are discussing Kal the young boy and as Alex leaves, Zach says he is praying for Charlie and her, (this is a little insight to him, that he has strong religious ties) after which Alex walks up to see Charlie, you can hear the beat of some music playing as she enters the room and see’s Dawn massaging Charlie’s chest, (Alex is calmer than I would be). Alex asks Dawn what she is doing and Dawn says she is playing his favourite song, they start talking but we can’t hear what they are saying as the music gets loud and we see Charlie; all he can hear is the music and not what is going on around him. Dawn states that coma arousal therapy needs to be started within 72 hours of the injury or it won’t work, so she has taken it upon herself to start it. Alex asks if Shahir knows about this, Dawns says she doesn’t need to ask a neurosurgeon about playing music, this is when Alex shows she is annoyed as she takes the head phones off Charlie and asks nicely (compared to me very nicely) to stop touching Charlie. Dawn returns that with, ‘somebody has to’, she sees Alex do the nurse type stuff but she is not doing anything as a wife, Alex replies with I’m his fiancé (that’s not the reply the EX is looking for Alex), Dawn takes the head phones and leaves, not before mentioning 72 hours and that the Charlie she knew would rather die (remember this for later on in the series, this is how dawn would have known Charlie).
Maggie walks into the operating theatre whilst Joel is operating, they have a conversation about their bike patient, Maggie can’t stand the fact that they’re doing nothing just because they refuse a blood transplant, Joel tries to explain there is nothing that they can, they don’t have a choice, after a bit of a conversation, he explains that whilst in Mexico he encountered patients who refused certain treatments on religious grounds and this is when Maggie gets a little nasty, saying he went to med school in Mexico ‘Figures’ he replies with he went to med school at Harvard and she again replies with ‘figures’ ( I find Maggie to be self-centred at times, she wants things to go her way and if she can’t fix it she gets all huffy about it).
Alex is trying to let Kal’s parents know they need to operate, his belly is distended and she needs to make sure it’s not a bowel obstruction; she explains that the tests came out with nothing visible, and his parents seem to be bombarding her with questions as parents do but in between arguing with each other. Kal shouts at his parents to stop fighting and then his heart rate drops, Alex has to try to help him and because his parents are so heated they don’t want to leave and are getting in the way, victor has to man handle them out of the room. Queue slow depressing girl singing to piano music, slow motion running towards Kal, Alex doing CPR and others helping her, it slowly moves to Kal trying to talk to his parents as they watch the CPR from outside the room, he doesn’t realise they can’t see him and that’s when Charlie starts to talk to him, explains Kal was ‘kinda dead’ there for a moment, Kal says ‘Cool’ that he doesn’t think he is dead yet as he isn’t scared, so Charlie takes him for a walk and a chat. He explains what is happening and that he is in a coma, and explains what a coma is to Kal, he explains that the dead people move on to somewhere and he doesn’t know where, Kal freaks as he doesn’t want to go he wants to see his parents again, Charlie has to calm him down, he talks a little and then does the weird thing of saying ‘you wanna see a dead body?’ Kal says ok and Charlie has a very enthusiastic ‘COOL!’ Charlie asks Kal what his symptoms are, Kal starts to list Stomach aches, diarrhoea and Charlie asks how he feels, he says mad, he even bit his doctor, Charlie responds with good for you! (see I love his humour) he gets down to the fact his parents are getting a divorce and they argue over him, Charlie tries to let him know it’s not over him, but Kal says they were happy until he got sick. Charlie insists that it’s not his fault his parents are getting a divorce and he should never think that and then he notices that Kal is flushing (one side of his face goes bright red like he has been in the sun too long) Charlie now knows what’s wrong with him. Alex gets his pulse back and he opens his eyes, Victor notices the flushing and Alex now knows what is wrong with him.
Maggie and Joel are walking in a fast manner to their patient, Maggie is describing how bad it is for her now and they are going to her to see if there is anything they could do, as they get there she is trying to get up, she is breathing weird and seems extremely distressed and her husband is trying to calm her, Joel wants her to lay down and raise the legs and give her saline solution as that is all they can do at the moment, Joel and Maggie seem pretty agitated that they can’t do anything to help, she starts making weird noises to her husband as she is panicking, her husband shouts at them to do something, Joel replies ‘it’s up to you’, he explains that she has lost so much blood that there is not enough to go back to the heart, the husband asks if she is dying and Joel replies with ‘Yes she is’, the husband kneels down kisses her hand and runs a hand over her head, he then stands up and is making the hardest decision of his life, his religion or his wife, he then tells Joel to do what is needed, Joel jumps into action getting the blood for the transfusion, and ordering people about making sure the husband signs a consent form and then they are away to the OR.
Alex is now talking to Kal’s parents about the fact he has Cancer, it’s in a Tumour and it is the reason he is flushing and has mood swings, the Tumour is dumping hormones into his system that is making him unwell, his parents are asking if it is their fault, both showing worry and starting to blame themselves instead of each other now, Alex lets them it’s not their fault and that he is in the right place and now that they need to go to the OR waiting room and she will see them soon.
Maggie is scrubbing in whilst Joel is leaning (one nice sight there) against the side, she says that he did not seem surprised when the husband changed his mind and that he conveniently had the right blood type to hand when he did, as well as having the OR on standby. She keeps staring at him and he gets a little uncomfortable, she can’t decide if he is insane or a genius (I vote Genius) he is standing there with a medical iPad under his chin whilst she goes on, he explains that he wasn’t sure and had a feeling and didn’t tell her as it is a teaching hospital, she needed to learn this the hard way, she then mentions that she is sickened by his actions but a little turned on, he gets a little embarrassed and says he thinks she has a crush on him, she says she doesn’t have a crush, but she would DO him (the look on his face is amazingly priceless) as he watches her go into the OR and decides to watch her at work.
Alex walks into Shahir’s office asking if they are doing all they can for Charlie (so dawn has affected her thought process) he says they are and she starts to list the things she thinks could help, Shahir answers with the fact he has already tried that. She sits down on his sofa and then mentions Coma Arousal Therapy, he replies by shaking his head and saying it a flaky thing, Alex then says Transcranial magnetic stimulation, he replies with that it’s ridiculous and asks who has been talking to her about this subject. Alex takes a breath and replies Charlie’s ex and he says Dawn Bell is a cardiologist and this is Nuero, Alex then asks why he isn’t waking up. Shahir sits back and starts by saying that Coma’s are mysterious and this is coming from someone with an intricate knowledge of the brain. He stands up and says he needs a Mocha-chino (random but it all part of his personality) they walk along the hall and he says that she should be careful of Dawn, he explains that she is not married to Charlie but Alex should really be his legal decision maker in case things drag out.
Maggie and Reycraft are operating, Joel is standing back and watching, they take out the spleen and Reycraft asks for suction, Maggie turns to Joel and looks at him seductively and says ‘that’s what she said’, he smiles (yes I can see him smile through a surgical mask) and shakes his head at her flirtation. We are now in another OR with Kal, Alex is trying to get the Tumour, Kal takes a turn for the worse and his heart rate drops, they start CPR and he is now up in the gallery with Charlie watching, Charlie asks him to send a message to Alex, to tell her he saw him and that he loves her, Kal says he will, but then Kal walks off whilst they are doing CPR and for a moment you don’t know what happens, then his stats come back up and he back with them (YES).
Alex walks into a messy Office that has Dana Kinney in it, Dana asks how the kids operation went and Alex says really well, Alex steps in and asks if they are going to have a problem, Dana says she wasn’t aware of a problem, Alex goes into it saying, she didn’t get the chief surgical resident job because of Charlie, but because she works hard and is good at what she does, Dana’s reply is short ‘Yeah Sure’ they talk a little more and Alex leaves, she heads to Kal who is drawing, well trying as he is hooked up so has restrictions on what he can do, he has drawn himself on the operating Table and a guy in a tux standing near him, he is unsure of what he has drawn, Charlie is standing watching this little exchange, this helps us see Kal doesn’t remember anything from his time in Charlie land. She starts to walk away and has a thought and asks if she can keep the picture as she thinks it could be Charlie.
Maggie is now leading Joel into an empty room, they are kissing and he keeps saying it’s a bad idea, she starts to strip in front of him and he after a breath of strength he does the same. Alex is sitting by Charlie and Melinda chucks her a snack, they discuss ghosts as she explains the picture, she shows Melinda the picture and Melinda says that Charlie isn’t a ghost as he isn’t dead, she gets a little upset and decides to play a song from her phone, one she thinks is his favourite song or close, we flash back to them in a car and they are lost trying to find somewhere they are headed and Charlie chucks the directions away and they stop, listening to the song he says ‘I Love You’ and that he said it first, she then says it back and they share a look before they kiss, in a car in the middle of nowhere, holding hands, we go back to present and the song is playing and she is holding his hand. Whilst the music slow and relaxing plays we look over a montage of the people in the hospital, Kal and his parents, the cyclist and her husband, Joel and Maggie kissing and then back to Alex and Charlie, he talks about contact as we move over these scenes and when we get back to Alex his hand jolts, the contact makes it spasm a couple of times and he is watching at the pure joy in Alex’s face as she sees some sign of life.
So that is episode 2 Contact and the contact at the end of the episode is what we see and what we will remember. We have met a few more characters, seen how different doctors react in different situations and learnt a little more about what Charlie can see or do in the world he is now in, including the fact that anything that happens to coma Charlie affects invisible Charlie. I hope you have enjoyed this recap and I would like to thank you and please stay tuned for more.
