Combat Hospital ep. 6, "Inner Truth" - Recap

Welcome to Kandahar. Bikini tops are standard-issue.

Who knew there were so many bikini models in Kandahar? Clearly there are plenty. Perhaps the Australians' beach party expertise extends to flying in a bunch of Yvonne Strahovskis because they are ubiquitous in these establishing shots. Really, it seems the only non-bikini-model in the bunch is the poor bitch who drew the short straw and has to stand off to the side in full armour with a big-ass gun. (I mean, I'm assuming she's a lady based on the very small bit of face I can see under all that business.)

Rebecca and Unpleasantness are apparently now BFFs, or "buhfuffs", as it were, and shamelessly objectifying the wealth of Croc Dundees all around them (even though Pederson claims her ex-husband "spoiled her appetite"... FOR MEN, I TAKE IT?). "Why do they call it 'Fraternization'? Why not 'Sorrrrorit..zation'?" says Beck the burgeoning feminist, and raises a finger to point out her type (by-the-by, her "type" fits the "daddy issues" thing to a friggin' capital T), and then Simon strides right through the path of her point and she's like drrrrrrr.

Conversation switches to Bobby (to whom Simon now refers as "Puppydog") and Rebecca immediately switches to spiteful, using such language as "needle decompression thing" (trivializing), "'Saving Lives'" (as though saving lives was for nerds), and "If you ask me, I think he's getting a little full of himself." And then it's awk-wooooooord.

And then someone trots by reporting a phone call for Simon, which sends him running in the opposite direction (ooh, suspicious) and giving Rebecca opportunity to comment, "He does have a great ass for a selfish arrogant neurosurgeon." And then she continues whining about how she's not competitive, not in the least, to the "defensive much" point, and then her beeper goes and half the beach party peaces, but not before asking Pederson to "keep the dust off that [burger] for me, will you?" HAHAHAHA not happening.

You know, I understand WHY people never eat their damn food on TV - because it's either fake or has been sitting out for several years or is actually disgusting (case in point: once when I was working as an extra I had to sit in front of a no-bullshit lettuce sandwich), and it's a nightmare for editors and script supervisors, but this show is the worst I've seen. She will never eat that burger, nor will anyone ever eat anything, and it's so annoying.

Silly title card and awesome theme music over a bird's-eye shot of several doctors fleeing the beach party.

A guy who clearly has something against acting lessons (this will become apparent later) is shirtless on a stretcher, panting, and screaming such things as "This hurts!" and "Where's Flax? I need Flax!" It's a whole team that's been brought in. They clear out a stretcher to reveal way too much blood on the floor - who's mopping!? One of the other soldiers is taking up the "Where's Flax" chant and then just before they both get whisked away like Antipasto, in comes a suspiciously fake-blond guy hauling a good-looking and bewildered dude by his upper arm - "Hey guys! I got him!"

And then he plants Flax by the bedside of each of the injured in turn, at which point they rub his head like he's some sort of reliquary. It's really sad to watch. Royal exposits that he is the unit's lucky charm ("We here at Combat Hospital are team players - we rotate the role of Mr. Obvious") and then grabs Flax's sleeve and drags him away. Oh, Royal! Not you too! I thought you were Perfect!

A very hot lady in big armour introduces herself to Pederson as Ariel - or should I say, re-introduces herself, since Pederson totally knows her. And then she watches that fake-blond guy drag Flax around a bit more with a look of definite consternation on her face.

In the OR, conversation turns to gossip about Simon's suspicious phone call. Suzie thinks he got a girl pregnant. That middle-eastern surgeon from before is now Russian apparently, judging by his screwball accent, and he is pretty sure that Simon's running from a million-dollar gambling debt. Suzie points out that he spends a fucking shit-ton on rugs, so he's clearly not hurting for money (because who's ever heard of people spending money they don't have?). As for me, I have my own opinion as to the nature of Simon's crime:

SIMONY!

Good lord, it felt good to type that again. Anyway, Rebecca suddenly realizes that the bullet cut a swath through the guy's body without hitting anything important. In Suzie's opinion, this means Flax is a Felix Felicis of the "real deal" variety. Rebecca rolls her eyes around the world. And I'm starting to suspect that Suzie's a bad actor.

Psych sesh! A soldier is catharsizing, and Pederson's actually being kind of helpful. Ariel's in tears, and after some prompting, she divulges her... guilt? Or something, about freezing up for a moment after the chopper lands. And then her beeper goes and she scrams.

Rebecca and that Orthopedic surgeon - who goes by Max - end up at that scrub sink again, which means some sort of slap-fight's about to break out. In this case, Max is real psyched about how smoothly his open-compound-fracture surgery went, and pops another "L" word that Beck has a problem with: "Luck". She's not a big fan of the concept. He incorrectly guesses that her patient died.

Marks terrifyingly pops up in the background (or has he been there this whole time???) to wax poetic about appeasing Fortuna. "The Roman goddess of Fortune and Luck?" Rebecca wikis. This show really thinks we're a pack of retards. "Please don't tell me you think she's real, sir." Obviously Marks does, and he finds her lack of faith disturbing. And he's another believer in the Power of Flax, and then this happens:

Marks: I'm feeling miiiighty Fortunate today.

Buzzed Head Guy: Sir! New scanner just arrived! For real this time!

Marks: BRAVO GRAHAM!

Buzzed Head Guy: Bravo to you too, sir.

Remorseful about bouncing on the psych sesh, Ariel asks Pederson out for dinner at the D-Fac. Pederson sputters but finally agrees.

Flax and Fake Blond are watching Bobby patch up their comrade. But then Flax gets bored and starts poking at the ultrasound machine. And Fake Blond literally goes "Flax! What have I told you?" Which is strange, but then Bobby says "It's cool, he can touch it," which is no doubt stranger. And then, with Asperger-like precision, Flax rattles of the issue number and page of a comic book in which someone did something with an ultrasound and "Enough, Flax."

Rebecca, icily: I thought he was your lucky charm.

Fake Blond, actual: He is, Ma'am, but he's a bit of a freak.

Then Flax exposits his little only-surviving-victim-of-car-crash-that-killed-his-whole-family backstory - he was three, and he went through a windshield and landed in a bush. Poor guy - I guess Hogwarts passed on him, then, because clearly they never sent Hagrid to set him straight. Bobby pulls rank and sends them all to the mess hall, and Beck tries to drag him back to the beach party but Bobby ignores her and starts keener-ing to Marks about his needle decompression thing. Rebecca rolls her eyes and stomps away. Bobby asks for a secretary, basically, and Marks and Royal agree to loan out Suzie (who has a Masters in Public Health) for two or three hours.

Beck continues her stomp until she's flopped over on Pederson's couch and spilling about how it's not her fault she's competitive, she's just better than everyone. And Pederson just laughs at her, because what else are you going to do, which makes Beck laugh, and then Pederson has more important things to do and can't meet her for dinner later so Beck whispers a Sapphic-sounding "You know, you never have time for me anymore." Not that I'm going to assign any actual homoeroticism to Beck because she's the protagonist on a network show and I'm a realistic person.

Beck finds Flax staring at his recovering bad-actor friend and he gets all jittery and "Don't tell Sarge!"

Beck: Sweetie, is everything... all right? At home? 

Flax: DON'T TELL DADDY I MEAN SARGE.

Beck: ...Tell him what?

Flax: Nuthin'nuthin'nuthin'thinkaboutnuthin'.

Beck: Everyone's tried thinkin' about nuthin' around me. Sooner or later you have to think of somethin'.

Flax: I'LL BE GOOD I SWEAR!

Beck: ...Jesus.

Then Flax is back into Asperger's mode with his "Ooh, look at my laid up injured friend just like in that issue of Snow Patrol where the guy's laying there just laying there and then they transplant his organs into other people and they all gain superpowers and become the Snow Patrol and just forget the world!" GRIN. "Is that what's happening here!? :)" Which alarms Rebecca, but only slightly since the chances of Flax actually trying to harvest the organs himself have risen to about 40%, and there's no real cause for alarm until it hits 60%.

And then she tells him "We don't do that here."

And upon hearing those words, Flax staggers around and collapses. Don't say "coincidence". There are no coincidences on Felix Felicis.

Bobby and Suzie have a little tête-à-tête in that fucked up conference room. Apparently the nurses have known all along the problems associated with needle decompression because here's my latest theory: nurses are to medical dramas as folksy black characters are to shitty movies set in the South.

('Magical Negro' rage tangent commencing: And it's not even limited to shitty outdated movies! Did you see Secretariat? Of course you didn't, I'm even shocked that I did, but did you know Nelsan Ellis is in it? DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY DID TO HIM? It makes me ILL.)

Hm, that went there fast.

Flax is apparently suffering from the after effects of the failed Avada Kedavra performed on him when he was three. They whisk him off to surgery, with awful Sarge jogging along behind him asking what Flax did this time. 

Marks: Even if he lives, he's going home.

Sarge: NO! He's our lucky charm!

Marks: ...You are terrible.

That middle eastern surgeon, in his stupid new Russian accent: You are getting sleepy... very sleepy...

Flax: DONATE MY ORGANS LIKE THE COMIC BOOK.

Marks: Well, we can't, but you're not going to die. For sure. I promise.

Flax: Ok. Now I'm dead.

Pederson and Ariel plunk down with their terrible-looking food in her office. Pederson seems a little uncomfortable, which is wise, because--

Ariel: I AM TOTALLY GAY FOR YOU AND I KNOW YOU FEEL THE SAME.

Pederson: Aha, eheh, um...

I mean, she actually doesn't stammer or laugh awkwardly, she's very professional and understanding and explaining the concept of "transference". She also, very subtly, attempts to impress upon her just how crazy it makes you sound when you use "You smiled at me that one time" as proof of someone else's affections. Ariel's not budging, because she's clearly psycho, so Pederson tells her plainly that things just moved from Awkward to Hella Inappropriate and asks her to GTFO. Which Ariel does, after stealing one of Pederson's gross-looking chicken nuggets.

That which is bursting out of Flax looks a bit like a platter of smoked meat. But Marks is still way too fucking optimistic. And then he just up and gives Fortuna his bank card number with this next nugget:

Marks: You know whenever I've encountered people who aren't believers, I've found out that it's because Fortune has turned her back on them at one time. Is that true with you, Rebecca?

Well, I mean, that right there is a great reason to not believe in Fortune, right? And I mean "not believe in" in the same sense as "I believe in you, Timmy!" but the opposite. Not "I don't believe you exist," but "I don't believe I owe you a damn thing, least of all my endorsement." Here's the thing that I've always had trouble with regarding deities or any sentient controlling force: I don't understand why Belief always must go hand-in-hand with Worship. Most people on this rock believe in a God, whatever its name, and thus they put on silly hats and sing his praises once or more a week, but clearly if God exists, God is a dick. I don't see why it's blasphemy to think that. "Blasphemy" is a human construct, anyway. A lot of effort and resources goes into mopping up after God's horrible deeds and acts. And if God chooses to throw you in front of a bus for thinking that, it'll just prove your point, giving you justification if nothing else.

Rebecca jumps on Pederson's bed back in the barracks, catching her in the act of smiling at a picture of her daughter. "We love to surf," she says, and it is at this point that I'm retiring the nickname "Unpleasantness" because babies are (as has been previously established) my kryptonite. Pederson tries and fails to become interested in Rebecca's sunburn. Rebecca realizes that Pederson doesn't have time to be girlfriends at this point and offers her services as a counter-shrink, which rings a little hollow given how emotive and problem-spewing Rebecca usually is. She flops into bed still wearing her combat boots, which is the one thing I do not tolerate. And I tolerate way too much already. And then her beeper rings. Harhar.

"He's in pain, do something!" whines the terrible actor. They swing Flax through the scanner and Simon walks in. His thought process goes something like this:

"So he has a lung clot, here are some quick ways to deal with that. Waiiit, you didn't need to call me in for this, so what is it? Did you just want to see me cuz you lurrrve me, or is it that you don't want to call Puppydog? Which is it, Beck? Huh?"

Beck: Neither, actually, I called you in because we might have a neuro situation on our hands, thou dick.

Simon: Even though I'm a "selfish arrogant neurosurgeon with a great ARSE."

And thus the deal is sealed.

"I like your tats," says Suzie in total deadpan without looking up from her writing, not even at his (stupid) tats. Suzie's weird. "I got 'em in prison," says Bobby in a way wherein it doesn't really sound like he's joking. He explains this totally granola tattoo to her with the philosophical conclusion being "If you're true to yourself, you'll always have success," which doesn't really work, if "yourself" is a total stoner, unless being the best stoner you can be counts as "success", in which case, puff away, my boy.

Rebecca asks Royal how Flax's "PTPTT" is doing, which cannot be a real anagram. It sounds like a clapping game or a baby's first words. She then throws her Fortuna crisis over to Royal - as though the guy that plans out his whole day based on Bobby's "Q-word" jinx is going to be totally skeptical and level-headed about luck. Then he walks her through Why We Can't Do Organ Transplants, which basically amounts to "We are in freaking Kandahar." (WHERE'S VANS?)

Ariel has charmed Marks with much discussion about Bikes and the crotch-blisters that arise as a result. It would seem that Marks is easy to figure out: the man likes bikes. Pederson is trying to act impressed but even if Ariel wasn't psycho, I'm thinking it would still be hard to get real pumped over her ability to fix Marks' bike chain. And then Pederson is like MUST RUN WOMEN ARE WAITING and Marks is like Oh, Ariel's coming with you! Bike! Pederson's like fuuuuu

Rebecca stomps over to Sergeant Bottleblond to give him a terse status report. Sarge has at this point realized that everyone in this hospital views him as a crotch-blister for the lancing, so he jumps in with a whiny explanation about how he's not mean, Flax is just super klutzy and mildly retarded. So, you know, is he going to make it? "I hope so," says Rebecca as judgmentally as possible, and who could blame her.

Simon strolls lackadaisically over to an eating Rebecca to casually inform her that Flax is blowing chunks and one of his pupils is dilated. Thank you, show, for not showing us that. He'll survive the necessary surgery, "if his luck's holding up.' I think we've established at this point that the Felix has worn the hell off and then some.

Oh look, foreign stuff! There's dudes bartering, there's a lady in a burka grocery shopping, there's kids in track pants playing soccer, there's Abu stealing an apple, there's a palace guard chasing him down with a Scimitar. There's Grace Pederson and her weird little stalker Ariel, there's Samizay in her awesome The Reader trench, and it's a full house today! Ariel and Samizay know each other and we can add Samizay to the list of people who think super highly of her.

Simon's barely one hole deep into Flaxy's skull when some dude pops in announcing another phone call for him. Simon screams, "I know who's calling! Tell him I'm in Jamaica!" And then, after he leaves, somewhat desperately, "I wish these patients would just... pay." OoooOOOooh.

Suzie's compiled everything into a pie chart with this wholly unnecessary animation and sound effect. It's very stupid-looking, but Bobby's eyes pop open and he goes "Oh my god, I was right!" Then he makes a huge egotistical deal about how his name is going to be on a report. Suzie laughs at him and they shake hands very awkwardly.

It seems that Grace Pederson is not as shitty at physical medicine as she makes out to be - that was all just part of her passive-agressive ruse to keep poor Beck awake on that terrible first day. Then Ariel walks in with a gimpy goat.  Pederson's about to rightly get her panties in a twist but then the orange-beburka'd lady who comes with the goat is weeping and clearly in need of medical attention. Grace begrudgingly concedes, and when the poor girl lifts off her burka her face is an absolute worst-case scenario.

What pisses me off is that all of Samizay's Pashto/Dari dialogue is dubbed over in a way that is super obvious and makes me want to break things. You know how all of Aunt Beru's dialogue was dubbed over and it's super obvious and infuriating? Imagine if it were still that obvious except the voiceover was speaking Huttese. It's like watching The Room.

Later at the scrub sink (I feel like that location should be capitalized at this point - Scrub Sink), Simon continues acting evasive and shut-down and really pitifully terrified. It's sad.

Goat's fixed! The poor abused lady (Audrey? I think that's her name) is happy, but still just the poster girl for domestic abuse. Ariel's like HERE IS MY PLAN TO SAVE HER LIFE AND YOURS TOO, PROBABLY. LOVE ME.

When Bobby asks about Flax's condition, Simon is not hopeful. Beck goes "Simon is being Mr. Optimist today," which, I mean, speak for yourself, bitch.

Bobby: Listen to me a bit now! I have accomplished good things today that are legitimately impressive!

Beck, verbatim: Um... that's... great, Bobby. Yeah. That's good.

Simon immediately says the words "You tappin' that?" whilst staring in Suzie's direction. Bobby's like pshaw. Then he heads over to Beck's table but Suzie sweetly coos "Hey, I saved you a spot!" At an empty table, dear? Well done fending off the Vandal hordes that were gunning for it. And Bobby awkwardly asks how her pizza is. In case you were wondering, Simon's buns are soggy. Not those buns. Rebecca takes umbrage at his foul mood - again with the hypocrisy! And their beepers go.

Terrible actor: FLAX! Is he ok, doc!?

He's brain dead. So, to answer your question: kind of?

Royal's about to yank the ventilator out of Flax's unlucky throat when the light over Rebecca's head goes DING! Why not fly brain-dead soldiers out to some German hospital and do the transplants there?

Landstuhl is what it's called. German is a fun language. Go watch Wednesday's Daily Show if you don't believe me.

I'm very surprised that the nearest NATO hospital is in Germany. Turkey? Greece? India? No? Fine, then.

Marks gives her an annoyed go-ahead to give her harebrained scheme a shot. Simon's convinced she's doing it to one-up Bobby, which she probably wasn't to start off, but now that he's mentioned it that's totally all she's thinking about.

Speaking of Simon, he's currently on his cell phone in the fucked up conference room screaming at someone to TRANSFER THE MONEY and HE'S AWARE OF THE CONSEQUENCES AND HE DOESN'T CARE.

The show wants us to think he has gambling debts. The reality's probably something like, his brother's dying of elephantiasis and he's being sued by a former patient for cutting out the part of their brain that makes their hair grow. But we'll be waiting for another six-thousand episodes before they hand us that little nugget, won't we?

Grace and Ariel are restocking the shelves and a minor collision sends supplies flying. Grace looks pissed and annoyed, which is only exacerbated when Ariel orchestrates a scenario in which they both reach for the same think and look into each other's eyes and smile, except Ariel's the only one who smiles. Finally Grace has had it up to here and tells her she's "just not available".

Consider my interest piqued. We know she's divorced; has she remarried? Is she actually boning Marks? Is she lying? IS SHE BONING BOBBY? YES?

Rebecca's valiantly fighting a losing battle with a bunch of Germans over the phone. Then she gets hung up on. (Can you blame him?)

Marks muses aloud about where medical technology's going to be five, ten years from now. Which is supposed to be a wink-nudge to the audience, I think, but really all I can think of is HPV vaccines. Royal wants a medical scanner from Star Trek. Marks would "kill" for a lightsaber scalpel. I wonder if the Star Trek/Star Wars debate rages often. I hope to see more of this in the future.

Rebecca pops by with her coffee to scream about how much the world sucks. "Well noted, Major," says Marks. "You tried." She leaves, and everyone in the room looks kind of glum about it.

Flax's unit looks kind of hilarious, like the Loony Toons after a rumble - bandages all over the place, glum expressions. Sergeant Bottleblond is sad about the impossibility of organ donation. They go in to say their goodbyes and Grace comes along to receive the Rebecca Gordon Daily Dump - I Hate Protocol Edition. And how Simon thinks she was only doing it so Marks will stop dumping all over her every week. Grace privately thinks so too. But Beck's intentions were pure, which makes sense, because, in her words, "Yes, he was a little off, but he shouldn't have had to die alone in a hospital!" Which makes it sound like he certainly deserved something less harsh, but harsh nonetheless, which is weird. I mean, she might have been singing a different tune had he broken the ultrasound machine.

Bobby and Suzie plod along the dusty floor and talk about how much time by which they've overshot the "3 to 4 hours" - 21 hours, to be exact. Then Suzie runs off to get some sleep (good riddance) and Bobby strides over to Rebecca. The plane to Landstuhl takes off as they talk and she gets up to go take Flax off the ventilator when Bobby kindly offers to go with her for emotional support. This sets off the best rant on this show yet:

Beck: Why do you do that? You're so damn nice, you're so good, and here I am, jealous, hating you, because you're so frickin' zen, and dude, you're so Mr. I'm such a good guy, and you found something that you're really excited about, and it's all that you talk about, and still, you come and ask me if I want you to come with! I mean what kind of guy does that?

Bobby: You hate me?

Me: I DON'T, COME HOME WITH ME.

Beck: No, no I don't hate you, you're just so damn NICE, and you care so much about your patients, and--

Bobby: YEAH, but mostly... I want people to like me. It's not always the case, but... I try. Look, I figure that if I could help people out, maybe they'd like me.

So Rebecca just laughs, at him, at herself, at how when life is the most complicated you really discover that it's actually way too simple.

Marks intercepts Rebecca to inform her that Flax is on the plane to Landstuhl, on a ventilator. Graham seems to have dug up information on a relative of Flax's stationed in Germany, a certain Chief Foreign Officer Jasper Wong. Long lost cousin on his father's side. Oh, Flax is part Asian, didn't you know that?

"You lied," Rebecca Joe-Wilsons. "I would call it more of a clerical miscommunication than a lie, Ma'am," Graham chokes. Now Rebecca gets to write a report of her own! Take that, Trang!

And then she leaves and Marks is like Wong? Seriously?

Bobby goes trotting up to the Three Amigos to present his report, but Marks sidesteps him to list Flax's organ contributions in detail to Rebecca, leaving Royal and Graham to fawn over Bobby. Hm, it seems as though Col. Marks has a new favourite. DRAMA!