Introduced in season one as a fun-loving man, the alcoholic Louie was an ER “frequent flyer,” a term used to describe patients with four or more visits per year. (Per a 2021 report by the Center For Health Information And Analysis, frequent flyers account for almost 10 percent of ER visits.) Louie’s regular presence led to a natural kinship with those who looked after him in the ER. Episode six, written by Wyle, spends time on how all of them cope with his loss in a high-pressure environment. While previewing season two for The A.V. Club, creator R. Scott Gemmill noted that Louie’s death is meant to be “a reminder of the fragility of life and how we take things for granted.” Like most medical dramas, patient storylines often mirror what doctors are experiencing in their personal lives. In this case, Louie and Langdon feel intrinsically tied together.
The two began their Fourth Of July with Langdon apologizing to Louie for stealing his pills (as it was revealed in season one). In response, he shrugged off the severity of the situation, not taking Langdon’s desire to make amends seriously. With his patient now gone, Langdon reflects on his own battle with addiction. Ball tells The A.V. Club that Louie represents a “cautionary tale” for his character, forcing Langdon to think about how different his path could be if he hadn’t been caught by Dr. Santos (Isa Briones) and spent the last 10 months in rehab, all while his wife and kid waited for him at home. “We might learn over time that, regardless of how he feels about it, Santos likely saved his life, or he could’ve been in the same position as Louie someday,” he says. His emotions likely get compounded by the reveal that Louie was once married, but his pregnant wife’s death in a car crash led him spiral down a dangerous path.
Before everyone gathers to bid Louie goodbye, though, Dana (Katherine LaNasa) educates her mentee, nursing-school grad Emma (Laëtitia Hollard), about cleaning up and preparing a dead body for visitation. The process, one not often shown on medical dramas, is depicted with tenderness and efficiency. A visibly teary-eyed LaNasa recounts to The A.V. Club why she felt a certain responsibility while filming this scene. “One of the nurses at the L.A. County Hospital, on the day I was shadowing her, was treating their frequent flyer, who was near his death,” she says, noting that she saw how that patient was a big part of the nurses’ lives. “I found it really moving that day, and I wanted to bring that feeling of community to the episode.”
In its final minutes, “12:00 P.M.” sees Robby, Langdon, Dana, Perlah, and a few others huddle in a viewing room to pay their respects and trade favorite memories of Louie. Gerran Howell, who plays Dr. Dennis Whitaker, tells The A.V. Club that their goal was to convey that even for an ER, which sees death on a daily basis, losing someone like Louie can shake things up. “Even for my character, who hasn’t been around in this ER for as long [as Robby, Langdon, and Dana], Louie felt like a constant.” Early in season two, Whitaker treated Louie alongside medical students Joy (Irene Choi) and Ogilvie (Lucas Iverson). But he wasn’t around when Louie coded, and his absence during this critical time affects Whitaker deeply, according to Howell. “It’s devastating, and hopefully, it’ll be interesting for everyone to see how Whitaker deals with it afterward. He puts up a wall, for better or for worse.”
Saloni Gajjar is The A.V. Club‘s TV critic.
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