Having said last week that the patients in Critical are never conscious, Episode 7 proves me wrong with a patient who is not just awake, but alive and kicking.
As well as ripping out her cannula during the initial examination, she also kicks Justin (John MacMillan) right in his ‘emergency department’. Poor Justin, last week he found he’d been crouching on broken glass in the hospital atrium and this week he’s getting a knee in the groin – at this rate he’s going to end up needing the services of the Critical team himself.
The patient’s unusual degree of consciousness is quickly traced to the drugs coursing round her system – and we’re not talking medication, these are drugs leaking out of the half dozen or so bags she has inside her. When a combination of factors leaves Ramakrishna alone with the patient, her ‘handler’ arrives to knock him out and then, in an effective demonstration of why the surgery should always be left to the experts, proceeds to start cutting the drug bags out of his ‘mule’.
There follows a mad and bloody dash to the operating theatre with Harry (Kimberley Nixon) holding the patient’s insides together under Glen’s direction. The patient survives (as do the remainder of the drug sacks) and Glen takes the time to tell Harry she did well – he’s previously been as encouraging and attentive with young Dr Osgood (whose single-minded delight in fractures is still just a bit disturbing) and one can’t help but wonder whether this particular attention paid to the female juniors on his staff was how things began way back when with him and Fiona.
Ah yes, Fiona. A tremendously calm and competent doctor, beautiful, graceful… but let’s be honest, she’s more changeable than the British weather. After last week’s clear insistence that Glen should absolutely, definitely, unquestionably leave her alone, this week she’s positively glowing around him.
When he’s self-deprecating about his work on the patient, Fiona purrs “I’d say she was lucky to have you here” in reply. And by the end of the episode she’s made her choice. Not yet the choice between current beau Tom and ex Glen; but at least the choice between Trauma team leaders.
Poor Lorraine, by continuing surgery unsupervised she unwittingly gives Clive the ammunition and hence the opportunity to get rid of her. By the end of their short, sharp exchange (“You’ll destroy my career,” she says; “This conversation is over,” he says, “You’re over”) it’s evident that she’s gone again, for good this time… and as Fiona, formerly so determined in her defence of Lorraine, turns away and goes back to Glen and their patient, it couldn’t be more clear where her loyalties now lie.
Well… at least for this week.
Aired at 9pm on Tuesday 7 April 2015 on Sky1.
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