Meg Thalken Movies

Carter's (Noah Wyle) ongoing personal problems -- including unauthorized injections of pain medication -- culminate in a tense confrontation with the ER staff. Elsewhere, Benton (Eriq La Salle) and Kovac (Goran Visnjic) are helicopter-dropped into a deadly shooting incident at a school, where they are forced into a tough decision as to which shooting victim should be treated first. This final episode of ER's sixth season culminates in a cliffhanger involving a plane flight to Atlanta and two of the aforementioned characters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

With this episode, recurring character "Dr. Dave" Malucci (Erik Palladino) becomes a regular. Elsewhere, John Cullum returns as Greene's (Anthony Edwards) cantankerous father, who arrives in Chicago from San Diego -- and promptly gets lost. As Kovac (Goran Visnjic) and Weaver (Laura Innes) try to save the life of a rape victim, Corday (Alex Kingston) puts her career on the line as she tends to the rapist. Lucy (Kellie Martin) has reasons to be reluctant to release the leader of a choir that has been injured in a bus accident. Finch (Michael Michele) tests teenager Chad Kottmeier (Emile Hirsch) for possible drug abuse. And before exiting the ER, the benighted Gabe Lawrence (Alan Alda) rises to the challenge of an extremely problematic medical emergency. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this family drama, a white Southerner discovers that his family history isn't what he thought it was -- with the fact that he's half-black only one of his many surprises. Earl Pilcher, Jr. (Robert Duvall) runs a gas station in Arkansas; he's a typical middle-aged Southern man who likes his pickup truck and loves his momma. Shortly after his mother's death, he receives some very unexpected news; she wasn't really his mother after all. It seems that years ago, Earl Sr. (James N. Harrell) raped the family's African-American maid, Willie Mae, who nine months later died while giving birth to Earl Jr. To avoid further scandal, Mrs. Pilcher simply raised Earl Jr. as her own. While the family has kept the matter a secret all these years, Earl Jr. has a half-brother living in Chicago, and it was his mother's wish that the two should some day meet and become friends. Earl travels to Chicago and tracks down Ray Murdock (James Earl Jones), a veteran police officer and Willie Mae's other son. Earl Jr. quickly learns that Ray has little interest in getting to know him better; he knows all the facts behind the matter, and he's always blamed Earl for the death of his mother. However, Earl Jr. isn't used to life in a big city up north, and after he's mugged and carjacked, Ray grudgingly takes in his half-brother, letting him stay in the home he shares with his son Virgil (Michael Beach) and Aunt T. (Irma P. Hall), who raised Ray as a boy. A Family Thing was written by Billy Bob Thornton shortly before his breakthrough as writer, director, and star of Sling Blade. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Evil spirits follow a young girl from the suburbs to the city in the second follow-up to the blockbuster horror film Poltergeist. Carol Anne Freeling (Heather O'Rourke) is now 12 years old and living with Patricia and Bruce Gardner (Nancy Allen and Tom Skerritt), her aunt and uncle, in a high-rise apartment building in downtown Chicago. Carol Anne attends a school for gifted children, where the staff psychologist Dr. Seaton (Richard Fine) attributes her past troubles with noisy ghosts to mass delusions and hypnotic suggestions. However, Carol Anne isn't so sure that the explanation is that simple, especially since she still sees threatening apparitions in the mirrors of her apartment. Particularly troubling is the ghost of the wicked Reverend Kane (Nathan Davis), who is eager for Carol Anne to join him and his followers in the unknown world on the other side of the light. Sadly, Heather O'Rourke died due to surgical complications resulting from an intestinal blockage several months before Poltergeist III was released. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide