Pitch black. The only inkling I get that we've started up again is the NBC logo. Ah, but then we begin what ends up being one long shot, wherein we pan horizontally across all the characters we see. We begin with Luka moving across the screen while lying in bed and picking up the phone, ostensibly to call me; failing that, a 1-900 number. Evidently no one answered either line (where was I?! Curses!), so as a last resort he calls Sam.

As we hear a buzzing phone, we pan across Alex sleeping in a hotel bed and then Sam appears. She checks her vibrating phone, sees who it is, and tosses it away with difficulty, resisting the urge to shove it in her pants.

As Sam drifts off camera and Luka appears, her voice mail picks up. He hangs up, dejected.

Then we drift in a different direction and are suddenly in Carter and Kem's bedroom. Mercifully, there is nothing happening herein; Kem is sleeping, and Carter is watching her with bloated anxiety, although he might just be fretting about when he'll lose all his water weight. Finally we make a cut, and it's to...I can't even tell. It's so dark in there. It's dark in tall these shots. Why do shows insist upon rejecting lights? I know Noah Wyle has to be lit carefully these days but pitch black isn't the most viewer-friendly option. On several tries, indeed, I was unable to tell what this shot was, and forced my passing roommate to stand up next to the TV and stare until she figured it out. Eventually she recognized a half-packed suitcase. I guess Kem's leaving town, fed up that Chicago has less working electricity than her tent in the Congo.