The episode starts off where Orion in the Sky ended, as Mark heads out of the ER and comes back home. While spending time with Elizabeth he decides he wants to write a list of things he plans on doing before he dies. The primary goal of that list is to "Fix Rachel" his daughter. So he decides to take her with him on a journey to Hawaii. However in Hawaii Rachel seems to care less about spending time with her dad, and more interested in taking drugs. It suddenly becomes clear how different Mark and Rachel are and how bad he feels for not spending time with her. Eventually though they start to get along and Mark tells Rachel about his childhood living on a naval base, he shows her how to drive and how to surf. But it still seems as though Rachel could careless and Greene angrily yells at her telling her "That nobody cares" before going into a seizure. Soon Elizabeth and Ella arrive and the cavalry spends what little time they have together. The sad moments are probably seeing Greene's state deteriorate as he tries to sing "Somewhere over the Rainbow" to his little daughter Ella. Soon Greene becomes confined to laying in his bed with an patch covering up his eye so he can sleep. Barely able to move, Greene's time finally seems to be over and his reaction can best be summarized when he swears "Shit" at the top of his lungs unable to get out of bed. Which is pretty sad as it is. After telling Elizabeth to write his will, Greene goes back to his bed preparing for his imminent death. However due to her-step mom Elizabeth's persistence, Rachel spends the last few moments of her father's life. As he dies, Greene tells his daughter how much she loved balloons as a kid and how she would always let it go, and tells her not to cry for him. Which she promises she won't do. After the Father-daughter bond is finally brought together, and Greene's final lines in the series are, "Be Generous...Always" as he is about to die. Soon his daughter puts on a headset to "Somewhere over the Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole....as the song plays Mark Greene starts to see the images of an empty ER with nobody in it except him and the images of Elizabeth and Ella along with Rachel. And finally the last shot of Greene occurs as he stares at Rachel and her friend, as he finally lightens up a smile...Immediately after wards Elizabeth comes in and feels Greene's dead pulse. Probably the hardest moment of the episode was witnessing the funeral with the entire cast of ER including Benton and Cleo as the stand depressed and bewildered by Greene's death. The ending of the episode is Rachel getting out of the car carrying Elizabeth, Ella and Mark's first wife Jen. After Rachel gets out she grabs a balloon from a random house and throws it in the air...As the balloon floats in the sky it begins to hit you as the violins play that Greene is dead...Which makes watching the episode depressing to begin with, but definitely one of the Greatest ER episodes ever.
Review of On the Beach
