ER – Two more faces from the past

by Richard Keller

er_trip

As the finale of ER draws ever closer, more and more faces from the past are popping up at County General. Some of the bigger names of the series, like Noah Wyle and that George Clooney guy, will be appearing a little closer towards the end. Until then, some of secondary, yet important, characters are taking their final walks around the hallways.

This week we were treated to two more appearances, with one of them familiar to viewers who have watched the show from the beginning. William H. Macy, who played Dr. William Morgenstern during the first four years of ER, returned to the series in the form of a proxy for an old friend admitted to the emergency room. The old friend turned out to be one Oliver Kostin, a gentleman instrumental in pushing the emergency room of County into the modern age of medicine forty years ago.

Unfortunately, Kostin was in the last stages of very serious dementia. While sad, it was actually a fortunate happenstance for the viewer as we got to see how the ER looked back in 1968. I always wished to have either a flashback or a dream that placed the current (ever-changing) ER personnel in a different time in history. So, it was interesting to see these scenes of the past, brief as they were. And, while short, you could certainly tell that the ER was a much different place to be in 1968 then in 2008.

I may be wrong, but I remember reading a spoiler somewhere mentioning Kostin’s character and that he would be part of the series finale. Honestly, if you took out the Sam-Kelly plot and forgot that Carter, Ross and Hathaway are returning, this episode of ER could have been the show’s finale. It featured an important death, a look into the past, and appearances by a majority of the main cast (except Banfield). Plus, it had that pull-away long shot that signifies a show may be ending but it’s business as usual in their universe once it goes off the air.

Sure, it wasn’t a poignant as the loss of a character like Mark Greene or Greg Pratt, but there was a definite sense of sadness in Kostin’s death. That, as well as a passing of the torch from one generation of ER staff for another, with Dr. Morgenstern being the bridge between the two. While I’m a fan of not closing every single story in a series finale, I can only hope that the 2-hour ending has some measure of significance as this episode had. If not, well, consider this the farewell episode for ER.