The Mob Doctor: Protect and Serve

Yet again, we start the episode with a flashback to 1987, or thereabouts.  Grace is outside the house, watching her parents fight in the kitchen through the window in front of Nate.  This is the moment Grace learned that choices are hard, for some reason.  Six-year-old Grace decides to run away, but in hindsight, adult Grace says, where she comes from, even if you run away, you never truly leave.

A family of four is rolled into the ER one by one.  They were in a car and were hit by a red SUV, the father mentions to the doctors.  It should be noted that EVERY doctor we've met thus far is working on this family.  They are totally maxed out.  The kids and the father seem pretty chatty, despite the fact that the son has a crushed pelvis.  He doesn't cry or moan, all he says is "I guess I ruined my jersey, huh?"

Grace's patient is the young daughter in the family.  She says she's not hurt, but a second later she feels funny, and two seconds later, she's dead.  Grace tries to save her, but quickly stops because the girl is gone.  Her rival, Olivia wants to perform some procedure, but Grace says there's no use, the girl is dead.  Olivia says they should do it for maximum educational benefit.  Grace says, "I'm not going to rip open a little girl's chest for YOUR benefit."  I guess that's Grace's way of saying she has nothing left to learn.

Grace gets a page, and goes to Constantine.  He has another patient for her.  When she opens the patient's shirt, she sees a bruise shaped like a seat belt, and then notices glass in the cuts on his face.  She puts two and two together, and realizes he's the one who hit the family's car.  Grace goes to Constantine and tells him she will have to call the cops, but Constantine tells her that the guy is a cop.  He's Captain Shaw.

Grace sets out to do MacGuyver whatever medical instruments she can.  She asks for a hose from the vending machine.  She cuts a pretty large gash into his abdomen, and tells him she is going to fill his belly with liquid.  If it comes out clear, he doesn't have internal bleeding, but if it comes out red, they'll need to get him to a hospital.  Grace sets the hose in the sink, and there is blood.  Grace pretends he's fine and sends him on his way.

We can tell Constantine is a mobster with a heart of gold, because he grinds the broken glass into Captain Shaw's face for killing that girl.  If Constantine didn't need him for something, he would be dead.  Meanwhile Grace finds out that Nate is working for Constantine too.

At the hospital, Grace asks Brett how long it would take someone to go south from a slow abdominal bleed, and he estimates 24 hours.  So Captain Shaw should be dead by tomorrow.

At a meeting, Constantine says soon there will be poker machines everywhere.  I am so glad this plot point got it's own story arc, because I didn't really feel it got resolved in the last episode.

Grace and Brett look at the skyline while she tells him how upset she is about losing her patient this morning.  At the same time, Nate is working with Franco.  Franco asks Nate about Brett, and we get to find out about the backstory between Franco and Grace.  They dated while she was in undergrad, and she thought Franco was going to propose to her, but then he had to go to New York and got stuck there for a year.  Nate says Grace thought he left because of her.  Franco says Grace never said anything about it.  Nate says that's because she's a pain in the ass, but Franco says Nate should be more appreciative of what Grace has done for him.  They torch the red SUV Captain Shaw was driving during the accident.

Brett is with the boy, who says his leg doesn't hurt. He talks about playing soccer, so we know right now he's going to lose that leg.  He asks if he's going to have to sit out the rest of the season.  Poor, simple child, can't see the foreshadowing.

Grace's mom stops by the hospital to drop off pastries.  Her family really needs to stop bothering her at work, it is not normal.  Grace pulls her aside and tells her that Nate is working for Constantine, and she needs to tell Nate the truth about their father so Nate doesn't go down the same path.

Nate is hanging out in a car with Constantine.  Constantine reveals how he was arrested.  He was ratted out by a guy named Marcellas Coin who was so jelly of Constantine's power and money.  But Constantine assures Nate, he's going to get it all back.

Brett, Olivia and Dr. White talk about the boy's condition.  Brett says he wants to do whatever he can to try to save the leg, but Dr. White says the procedure Brett suggests is too risky.  The boy could end up dying if they try to save the leg, so Dr. White says they should get the father's permission to amputate.

Grace texts Franco to come over to the hospital.  She tells him she is not ok with covering up for Captain Shaw.  Franco tells her that Constantine and Shaw are planning a raid on a gang that sells drugs in the streets, The Disciples.  When they were kids, the streets were clean, but now things are a mess because Constantine wasn't around to keep everything in order.  But Franco said everything is going back on track since Grace fixed up Shaw.  Grace has a guilty look on her face and says she needs to see Shaw as soon as possible.  Franco says he may not always be around to cover for her.

She starts to roll Shaw into surgery.  Flanigan catches her and asks why he doesn't know about this surgery, seeing as how he is, ya know, the surgeon, and she's a resident.  She's kind of like, it's an emergency bro, and he lets her go to it.

Brett speaks with the father and tells him he has to ask for permission to amputate his son's leg, but P.S. he doesn't WANT permission because he thinks they should save the leg even though it might mean the kid dies.  When Dr. White asks where Brett is, Grace spills that he's in surgery to save the leg.  Dr. White confronts Brett, but Brett insists it was a quality of life issue.  Ok, but no one in America cares about soccer.

The surgery doesn't go exactly according to plan, and Dr. White has to clean up the mess.  Turns out Brett used the wrong stitch to sew up the graft.  That's probably because he isn't an experienced surgeon.

Grace is driving and hears about the raid going down on the radio.  She hears the report that Marcellas Coin was the leader of the disciples, and realizes that Constantine didn't organize the raid to clean up the streets, he did it for revenge on the guy who ratted him out.  She meets with Franco and tells him she's sending a report to the police saying that Captain Shaw's injuries were consistent with the car accident, and she tells him not to lie to her again.

Grace tells Constantine what she's done, and he says she did the right thing.  As they are walking to his car, it explodes.

And at the very end, Franco drives up in the woods to Moretti, who is still alive!!  Franco is working for Moretti and planted the bomb in Constantine's car.

I feel like this was the best episode to date.  Only one medical side plot, and it related to the main plot.  Everything that happened made sense and was kind of important.  I think there's promise for future episodes based on this ending.  What did you all think?

Picture Credit: FOX