Seeking treatment at Oceanside this week: a teenage girl with a suspicious arm fracture, a childless couple who turn out to be perfectly fertile, and a local hospital chief of staff who's suffering from insomnia. That's right, we'll be making no side trips to St. Ambrose, because St. Ambrose's only doctor-with-a-name is coming to us! Charlotte, who hasn't slept in days, asks Sam to check her out, but when he offers drugs and she refuses (hinting at a shady past), he turns her over to Pete the quack. Pete tries a number of holistic remedies, and Charlotte, still awake, hangs out and snarks on the Oceanside doctors, which I enjoy much more than they do. Violet finally steps in and discovers Charlotte's deep-seated intimacy issues, and Pete uses this information, plus an icky poultice, to get Char to admit her mother was emotionally withholding. Then she finally gets the sleep a busy chief of staff needs. Speaking of scarred daughters, Cooper treats Tess, the girl with the banged-up arms, whose mom has MS and is a patient of Sam's. Tess's long history of injuries leads Cooper to suspect abuse, so he calls the authorities on Mom, over Sam's protests. Even after admitting it's true, Tess still doesn't want to be taken away, but Coop testifies at her hearing, telling her no kid should have to deal with abuse, and Mom loses custody. Along the way, Dell reveals that he too was abused as a child, but he'll have to wait till he gets his own spin-off to tell the rest of that story. Naomi asks Addison to join her in treating Angie and Ray, who want to get pregnant. Except what Angie really wants is for the docs to tell Ray he's infertile. This is because she has a family history of a progressive, degenerative neurological disease, and she doesn't want to have a child knowing she might get sick and die young (not to mention pass on the gene). Naomi and Addy won't lie to Ray, and Angie decides to get tested; when she learns she does have the gene, she leaves Ray rather than tell him. But Addison's great wisdom convinces her to live the life she has left, and she and Ray decide they want to have a baby in spite of everything. Dispensing this wisdom -- and sending Naomi off on a date -- inspires Addison to go after what she wants. Trouble is, she's sure she wants a man she'll have a future with, but she can't seem to see past Pete. So he flirts, she flirts, she tells him she wants marriage and he says he doesn't...and at the very end of the episode, she initiates a makeout session that continues until unlucky Sam happens upon them, at which point she decides she doesn't just want to "have fun" with Pete and flounces away, leaving him frustrated. Theirs isn't the only potential coupling that took a step forward this week: Dell told Naomi that all his hard work is really for her, and Violet fussed over Cooper, all while defensively insisting she doesn't want kids. Oh, and Charlotte commented on Pete's "good hands." But I must say, I like her better when she's tossing off insults.
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Fashion show! Fashion show! Fashion show at Addison's! Naomi's modeling a dress that she hopes is "sexy but not slutty; smart but not boring." Addison thinks she's landed closer to "PTA mom bake sale." While Addy pulls a few alternative outfits for Naomi (from her own wardrobe? Or did Nai bring over a bunch?), she digs for details about the guy. But Naomi doesn't care much about details. A guy asked her out on a date, her first since college, and so she loves him. "I love him," she repeats, with slightly crazed sincerity. The doorbell rings, and Addison goes to stall Mr. Date. Instead she finds Pete, brandishing a bottle of wine as he invites her next door to play poker with him, Sam, and Cooper. "You're a little bit drunk," she notes. "And you too could be a little bit drunk," he replies. I think I like Pete better this way. On the other hand, hanging out with tipsy Cooper doesn't sound like a good evening. So I'm not sure what I'd do in this situation. Addison observes that Pete is "flirty," and tells him to go away, but he has another idea: he could come in, and they could "get to know one another outside of work." Nudge-nudge, know what I mean. "You're attracted to me. You admitted it," he says, for any new viewers who might have missed all the fruitless, charmless flirting that led up to this moment. Addison knows it's time to initiate the step backward that follows every step forward in their non-romance, so she says she's not attracted to Pete anymore and shuts the door. "You're attracted to me right now!" he calls from the stoop. Addison stands there for a moment, looking intrigued and annoyed. Then she reopens the door, regards Pete sexily for a second, snatches the wine from his hands, and shuts the door in his smug face. Ha! Naomi -- now in a sexier (but not sluttier) dress -- comes down the stairs and says, "What'd you do with my date?" Would that it had been your date, Naomi. Instead, Addison tells her, "It was my date. My unsuitable, flirty, drunk...oh-so-attractive date." Yes, but the key word here is "unsuitable."
Morning! Dell's running from room to room at Oceanside, setting the thermostat and distributing papers and cleaning up trash (the last of which is mostly in Cooper's office, of course). Naomi and Sam step off the elevator, and Dell goes into personal-assistant mode: he arranged for Naomi's coffee to be extra-caffeinated, in preparation for her "packed day"; he has her files ready for her; and he solved a stumper in her crossword puzzle. Sam watches all this with his usual sexy befuddlement, but says nothing.
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