I watched Romano take leave of his arm in slow-motion on my TiVo over and over again, and it really is quite hilarious when you do it that way. The arm takes flight with an awesome whooshing noise, and the blood splatter on his coat begins a second or two before the arm comes off. Paul McCrane winces a half-second too soon, as well, but that’s okay because he’s probably upset that his character is so stupid as to stand near a helicopter and not pay attention to the spinning lethal blades. Seriously, hasn’t he seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? I think chopping off Romano’s arm was a bad idea, mostly because it required him to get uncharacteristically stupid -- yes, accidents happen, fine, but he was really being stupidly careless here. It feels like a cop-out.

Romano opens his eyes through a pained haze and sees distorted versions of Susan and Luka hovering over his body. “Where’s the arm? Do we have the arm?” Luka shouts. They’re scrambling to find anything that will stop the bleeding or at least stem the tide. Romano’s stump looks robotic -- there’s all these long green wiry things hanging out and I’m sure they’re supposed to be tendons, but they look like circuitry. I keep expecting him to sit up and go, “Number Five is ALIVE.” But just then, Romano’s green, woozy head lolls to the side, and he vomits -- first in a slow pool, then a sea of chunky Campbell’s split-pea soup, which streaks down his cheeks and into his ears. They roll him over and again try to clamp any of the major RoboStump arteries that are gushing blood. On three, Luka tightens the makeshift clamp and a spray of Romano juice hits the shoulder of her lab coat. “Tighter,” Susan winces. “Don’t clamp it,” mutters Romano weakly. I’m wondering if this will be an issue later, but no one ever really explain why they shouldn’t clamp it, so who knows. Romano whimpers that he’s cold and Luka screams for blood, any blood at all. We pull out of the scene on an echo of Luka shouting, “Dr. Romano, what’s your blood type?” We come to rest several feet away on the Arm of Darkness lying like a loaf of meat on the helipad, begging for a veggie garnish and a side of mashed potatoes.