The first episode of the New Year begins with Hanlon revealing to Keith that she has a meeting with Burt Peters (the liposuctioner from previous episodes), and she is slightly concerned, since she has a different work ethic than he and most of the other plastic surgeons at the hospital. She sees a patient coughing and notices a lesion on the woman's neck, which she thinks is probably cancer. She tells the woman, that she wants to check it out, but the woman leaves the hospital without treatment. Now at this point I must say that I'm not positive of the woman's name. It is either Mrs. Vong or Mrs. Bong (every time someone different pronounced it, the name sounded different, at least to me), but for the purpose of this review I will call her Mrs. Bong.
At Hanlon's meeting, Peters, as she expected, condemns her for always performing surgery that yields very little monetary gain for the hospital but that Hanlon thinks is more admirable than the average plastic surgery. Peters suggests that she move to County instead, as CH is a private hospital which should not take cheap cases.
Mrs. Bong's daughter comes in to see Hanlon and tells her that although she thinks that her mother should have treatment at CH, her family, who are refugees from Laos, will not agree, because they believe in natural medicine and they think that Western medicine might kill her mother. When Hanlon consults Phillip, we learn that she worked with Doctors without Borders in Rio. The main piece of advice that he offers to her is that she should dress traditionally to look more appropriate and "safe" to the family. The entire Bong family comes to see Hanlon (who is dressed conservatively), and the father interrogates her, first concerned that she is too young, but then revealing that perhaps her being female might work to his wife's benefit. Although Hanlon thinks that the meeting went very well, the daughter, Jackie, later returns to say that her grandfather will not allow the mother to have her lesion removed, as he believes that since Hanlon is pretty and yet unmarried, she may attract bad luck.
When Mr. Bong comes back in, though, Hanlon compromises with him; they will work together to heal his wife. After a bit more hesitation, Hanlon finally does remove the lesion, but Mr. Bong does not allow her to treat the cancer that has spread to Mrs. Bong's lung because he doesn't want her internal organs to be damaged; this means that Mrs. Bong's life can be sustained for awhile, but that she will eventually die. However, the Bong family accepts this and wants to take her home, which they do.
A patient with many piercings all over his face and ears comes in with bacterial endocarditis, possibly a result of his piercings. Alberghetti, who treats him, wants to take out all of the rings, but the boy, Jason, doesn't want to, because he says that they "protect" him. The piercings have to come out, however, when Aaron performs an angiogram on him. After this, he speaks to Gina and Alberghetti, and reveals that he doesn't understand the interest of piercings. Gina leads him to believe that she may have a piercing in an unusual place. When Alberghetti later goes to check on Jason, whom Aaron says will be fine, she reveals that she has a son his age, and he tells her that his parents are dead. Later, though, Jason's fever is quite high, but one of the women from the Bong family comes into his room, chants over him, and ties a string around his wrist. After this, he looks and is much better.
Meanwhile, Jack is back at work, with a patch on his eye, and currently unable to perform surgery. He learns that the top doctors in their fields, including Gina, Aaron, Alberghetti and Phillip have all been invited to write articles for the new Chicago Hope web site, and is jealous that he has not been asked. Eventually, though, Jack is also asked to write for the page. Burt Peters is advertising an online Brow Lift and Tummy Tuck, which turns out to be on a site similar to, but not the same as the CH one. Peters, as money hungry as ever, plays the market in the middle of an operation, and Hanlon reveals this to Philip, saying that perhaps she shouldn't be working at Chicago Hope because she doesn't think the way Peters does. Phillip tells her that she needs to develop a tougher skin. Phillip does reprimand Peters, however, and threatens not to reveal to his patient that Peters was checking stock quotes during her surgery provided Peters shuts down his web site. Hanlon, however, tells Phillip that she's still leaving, but he tells her that she can transfer departments, to General Surgery, and she agrees to stay on the staff.
Ho-hum. This is what I thought as I watched this episode, particularly when Hanlon threatened to leave the staff. See, that was supposed to be suspenseful and exciting for viewers because they fear that she might actually be leaving. But we know better. Hanlon is behaving just like Kate Austin used to; she feels that the other doctors are attacking her, doesn't want to put up with it anymore, and threatens to leave the hospital. Somehow, though, she is always convinced to stay. I know that I say this in every review, but it's so true; Chicago Hope recycles plots left right and centre, and it's getting old. I can understand when this happens once or twice, but having old plots redone in practically every episode is really going overboard.
There was one part of this episode which I enjoyed, and that involved Jason, and the woman from Laos. I thought it was very nice when Jason's mode of protection was transferred from his piercings to the bracelet that the woman put on him when he was so sick. And I liked the way he interacted with Alberghetti in his scenes; both of them acted quite well, I must say.
Anyway, all in all, a little disappointing for the first new episode in quite awhile, but sometimes that happens. Let's just hope that next week's episode is a bit higher quality.
