CBS's Code Black climbs to new heights with "Vertigo." All that I can say after seeing this episode is...OMG. It's hard to believe that Season 2 of CBS' Code Black nears its ending so shortly, but at least it's using its final few episodes to go big or go home. "Vertigo" puts yet another unique challenge in front of the staff and populates itself with some welcome familiar faces.
"Vertigo" kicks off as Campbell sends Willis to the site of a construction accident and Savetti decides to tag along to help save two brothers who are pinned under equipment forty stories in the air at opposite ends. It's a tough ask...especially for Mario, who's just completed back-to-back shifts at Angels Memorial, but if anybody can make the impossible happen, it's these guys.
That leaves Leanne and company short-handed at the hospital again as they treat an assortment of patients. They include a colleague's wife Judith Blackwell (Roxanne Hart). Her daughter Lily is played by Susie Abromeit.
Meanwhile, Angus and Elliot help a high school teacher (John Billingsley) and two of his students who were exposed to pepper spray. The accusations start flying fast and furious as to who's responsible, and then the teacher's condition worsens.
Up in the air, one of the brothers loses consciousness and there is an increased need to get him off the crane. Right then, Willis makes the drastic decision to amputate the man's arm. This doesn't go over well with Savetti, who starts to freak out at the worst possible time and then falls off the crane himself. It only lasts just a few minutes but that's enough to give us all a legitimate scare to go with the real cringing that comes with seeing an arm being sawn off.
Leanne looks at Judith's X-rays and sees a spiral fracture that never quite healed; she suspects domestic abuse. Naturally, Judith continues to insist that nothing's wrong, even as Noa confronts her with her history of being in a half-dozen different emergency rooms. And obviously, Judith's husband does not take kindly to Leanne wanting to dig deeper into her situation. But Leanne Rorish doesn't care whether he likes it or not.
Lily is less defensive, telling the doctors that her father is "so controlling, you have no idea." But before she can actually get into details, Dad is there to tell her to stop talking and she leaves, with Leanne and Noa wondering what she was going to say. They take their suspicions to Campbell, who doesn't want to pull the trigger too soon, especially since he let the orthopedist operate on his own daughter. But the latter interrupts their meeting to tell them that Dr. Blackwell has had a stroke. Maybe it was karma? Or maybe someone hit him instead?
If you've noticed we haven't mentioned Jesse, he's here to once again stand in as a father figure, this time for the one student who's having remorse over being responsible for the pepper spray prank. "You're a nurse, not a shrink," she snarks at him but Jesse has taken enough sass from residents, doctors, and other patients. He tells Emily to decide who she wants to be.
Willis and Savetti get back to the hospital, where Savetti is still out of it, so Willis orders him to step away from their patients. Mario walks off to brood as Lily returns and wonders what happened to either of her parents. In reality, they're upstairs because Campbell has footage from the hospital's security cameras of Lily being the abuser. "You don't understand," Judith insists. "She doesn't mean to hurt us." But she's being hauled off screaming by officers in the hallway.
Morning comes and the two brothers begin their recovery, physically and emotionally, with a little nudge from Willis. It doesn't matter that one of them is now missing a limb. "We can work this out together," the other one says, which makes up on the cosmic scoreboard for the downer that is the elder abuse storyline.
It's time to circle back to the high school storyline, where the teacher and the student have a chat of their own. Emily denies that she knows who broke out the pepper spray but that's an obvious bluff, and her teacher surprises her by demonstrating that he understands more about her than she believes. That olive branch is enough to get her to confess her guilt. "You made a mistake. We all do," he replies and quotes her book report on Great Expectations. Medicine and Charles Dickens references - this is a full-service show.
While Angus realizes to his horror that he's not going out for coffee with Dr. Pruitt (from "Exodus") but on a hike and he is not a hiker, Willis gives career advice to Savetti. "You're so close to being great," he says. "Just try to be less stupid." That's a T-shirt saying if there ever was one.
And Rollie pops in for the last few minutes to remind the audience that he's doing just fine before Ariel (Emily Alyn Lind) shows up to kick off the storyline that's going to be in the next episode. This was the cherry on the ice cream sundae, which makes this episode so extraordinary.
"Vertigo" kicks off as Campbell sends Willis to the site of a construction accident and Savetti decides to tag along to help save two brothers who are pinned under equipment forty stories in the air at opposite ends. It's a tough ask...especially for Mario, who's just completed back-to-back shifts at Angels Memorial, but if anybody can make the impossible happen, it's these guys.
That leaves Leanne and company short-handed at the hospital again as they treat an assortment of patients. They include a colleague's wife Judith Blackwell (Roxanne Hart). Her daughter Lily is played by Susie Abromeit.
Meanwhile, Angus and Elliot help a high school teacher (John Billingsley) and two of his students who were exposed to pepper spray. The accusations start flying fast and furious as to who's responsible, and then the teacher's condition worsens.
Up in the air, one of the brothers loses consciousness and there is an increased need to get him off the crane. Right then, Willis makes the drastic decision to amputate the man's arm. This doesn't go over well with Savetti, who starts to freak out at the worst possible time and then falls off the crane himself. It only lasts just a few minutes but that's enough to give us all a legitimate scare to go with the real cringing that comes with seeing an arm being sawn off.
Leanne looks at Judith's X-rays and sees a spiral fracture that never quite healed; she suspects domestic abuse. Naturally, Judith continues to insist that nothing's wrong, even as Noa confronts her with her history of being in a half-dozen different emergency rooms. And obviously, Judith's husband does not take kindly to Leanne wanting to dig deeper into her situation. But Leanne Rorish doesn't care whether he likes it or not.
Lily is less defensive, telling the doctors that her father is "so controlling, you have no idea." But before she can actually get into details, Dad is there to tell her to stop talking and she leaves, with Leanne and Noa wondering what she was going to say. They take their suspicions to Campbell, who doesn't want to pull the trigger too soon, especially since he let the orthopedist operate on his own daughter. But the latter interrupts their meeting to tell them that Dr. Blackwell has had a stroke. Maybe it was karma? Or maybe someone hit him instead?
If you've noticed we haven't mentioned Jesse, he's here to once again stand in as a father figure, this time for the one student who's having remorse over being responsible for the pepper spray prank. "You're a nurse, not a shrink," she snarks at him but Jesse has taken enough sass from residents, doctors, and other patients. He tells Emily to decide who she wants to be.
Willis and Savetti get back to the hospital, where Savetti is still out of it, so Willis orders him to step away from their patients. Mario walks off to brood as Lily returns and wonders what happened to either of her parents. In reality, they're upstairs because Campbell has footage from the hospital's security cameras of Lily being the abuser. "You don't understand," Judith insists. "She doesn't mean to hurt us." But she's being hauled off screaming by officers in the hallway.
Morning comes and the two brothers begin their recovery, physically and emotionally, with a little nudge from Willis. It doesn't matter that one of them is now missing a limb. "We can work this out together," the other one says, which makes up on the cosmic scoreboard for the downer that is the elder abuse storyline.
It's time to circle back to the high school storyline, where the teacher and the student have a chat of their own. Emily denies that she knows who broke out the pepper spray but that's an obvious bluff, and her teacher surprises her by demonstrating that he understands more about her than she believes. That olive branch is enough to get her to confess her guilt. "You made a mistake. We all do," he replies and quotes her book report on Great Expectations. Medicine and Charles Dickens references - this is a full-service show.
While Angus realizes to his horror that he's not going out for coffee with Dr. Pruitt (from "Exodus") but on a hike and he is not a hiker, Willis gives career advice to Savetti. "You're so close to being great," he says. "Just try to be less stupid." That's a T-shirt saying if there ever was one.
And Rollie pops in for the last few minutes to remind the audience that he's doing just fine before Ariel (Emily Alyn Lind) shows up to kick off the storyline that's going to be in the next episode. This was the cherry on the ice cream sundae, which makes this episode so extraordinary.