Nightshift

Written by Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer
Directed by Becky Martin

DiDi's previously quiet graveyard shift quickly unravels after Antoine delivers a new patient. A vacationing elderly Swede, Ingrid Larsen, who was originally admitted for sunstroke, is now being kept so that doctors can perform a bypass in the next few days. Ingrid protests loudly in Swedish, disturbing other patients on the floor.

Having lost her fellow graveyarder, Marguerite, to family drama at home, DiDi is forced to go it alone. Things go from bad to worse when DiDi returns to Sissy Bowler's room -- where the patient was speaking with her only moments before -- to discover that she's bleeding out. She calls Dr. Stickley, but he's too drunk to be helpful.

Jenna and her drunken husband Richard arrive at the ward in the midst of an argument. Jenna is angry that he kept alluding to her overgrown pubic hair in front of Dr. Rabinowitz, the esteemed physician she's hoping to take a job with in Cleveland. As she prepares to fix Richard's ingrown toenail, DiDi spots her and asks her to look in on Sissy Bowler.

Meanwhile, an agency nurse finally arrives to help out DiDi. Unfortunately, the temp turns out to be Dawn, who's been moonlighting with an agency to make extra money. She's come from a date with Patsy and is extremely drunk and upset. Amid all the chaos, DiDi is forced to talk Dawn off the ledge, get her to be quiet, and stay put. Dawn worries that she'll wind up like the women in the ward who have no husbands or children. "I just do not want to eat dinner by myself forever!" she sobs.

Despite being 87 years old, Ingrid goes to the rehab room and performs gymnastic moves on the bars. Jenna is astounded by the performance and assures Ingrid that she'll make her a famous research subject "more famous than Sabina Spielrein." Despite the late hour, she rushes off to call Dr. Rabinowitz and tell him "patient zero of Nordic fitness" has fallen into her lap.

Dawn leaves Patsy a voicemail to tell him that she'd really like to have his baby, even though she knows he's "gay or bi or whatever." Patsy arrives at the ward a short while later and catches Dawn in the waiting area, unzipping the pants of a coworker named Kevin. Patsy flips out and storms off, prompting Dawn to chase after him. The two scream at each other through the ward.

Ingrid's son, Edvin, arrives at 4 a.m. with a Swedish attaché. He's come to remove his mother despite Jenna's desperate protests. The doctor tells him that his mother is supposed to have surgery in a few days, and Edvin loses it. "We don't want your surgery! I want to take her home where surgery's $50, not $300,000! I hate your shitty medical system, and I can't afford it!" Jenna is forced to watch her latest research opportunity walk out the door.

At the end of her rope, DiDi orders Dawn and Patsy to shut up and go home. Their spat ends when Dawn loses her balance and falls backward into the recently installed fountain.

While preparring to leave, Jenna tells DiDi that they must be the only two sober people in the world at the moment. They share a brief moment of camaraderie when each woman admits to not drinking because of an alcoholic parent.

At the end of her shift, DiDi wakes Dawn who's passed out in one of the hospital beds. Worried, Dawn searches for assurance that DiDi will be back, despite the chaos of the night. DiDi promises that she's "not going anywhere."