Trauma – Back from a flatline

by Ivey West

It’s going to be incredibly difficult to make it through an entire post about 'Trauma' without making eighteen different brought back from the brink of death analogies....

I’ve got to be honest with you. It’s going to be incredibly difficult to make it through an entire post about Trauma without making eighteen different brought back from the brink of death analogies, but for you, fair readers, I will make a very concerted effort. I’m sure you don’t want to read every bad pun I came up with, and trust me, they are myriad, so I leave you with only the post title.

Trauma is back, though, and back with a bang … er … well, a crash. The new and improved version of the show is supposed to see less of a budget for the big stunts, but I guess you can always drive a Jeep off of a bridge and make it work.

Where Trauma has always shined, and never gotten its due credit for, isn’t necessarily the action pieces, but the interesting character work. I’ve waxed rhapsodic time and time again about the great dynamic that is Rabbit and Nancy, but it’s not just them. The teaser saw the six medics, pilots, and EMTs complete a long shift, start to relax as a team, before collectively coming back for more. The interplay was great, as they made their decision without even speaking.

We’re going to see more of Rabbit in the next part of this season, and I think that’s a good thing. He’s one of the more interesting characters to come to our television screens this season (The other is The Deep End’s Rowdy Keiser, but you aren’t watching that, either), and taking a deeper look into his … what’s the technical term … jacked up psyche, is going to be fun for us to watch. Nancy somehow grounds him, but I think he’s going to go a bit further down the hole before he gets better (Get it? Rabbit hole? I promised no death puns, but not rabbit jokes).

Notes & Quotes:

So Billy Riggins (the bank robber played by Friday Night Lights’ Derek Phillips) has continued the life of crime?
Alias’ Carl Lumbly played the FBI guy (Wonder if his name was Agent Johnson?) that I have a feeling we’ll be seeing again after his run in with Rabbit.
So if the Captain asked Boone to cover the desk, why did he go out on the hostage call?
Then Boone totally gets thrown under the bus having to handle Rabbit? (Though, he did a damn fine job of it)
Nice to finally see that Nancy has a flaw.
Glad they paid Scottie Thompson guest star money to walk through two scenes.

Photo Credit: NBC