Geiger's bravado is put to the test when hospital counsel Alan Birch is shot by street thugs. Meanwhile, Grad agonizes over not being able to help Alan and Watters regrets his recent harsh words with the lawyer.

Geiger second-guess Austin's choice of a non-surgical treatment for a heart patient. Grad gets a surprise visit from an old beau. Hancock asks for Camille's help in coordinating a new home health care program.

A violent storm on Halloween night knocks out the hospital's power immediately following the arrival of several auto-accident victims. Nyland and Atkisson briefly renew their romance. A new doctor shows up for duty, and is immediately put to work delivering a baby.

Watters blames Birch for their poor showing after they're ambushed by a state senator during televised health-care hearings. Sutton operates on a pregnant woman's unborn child. Laurie remarries and asks Geiger to attend the ceremony, which will be presided over by ""Evita Peron.""

Kate is stricken when she realizes that her negligence due to exhaustion caused the death of a young woman during surgery, and considers assuaging her guilt by informing the woman's parents of her error; Billy and Danny decide to help a teenager running a unlicensed clinic for indigent patients; Judge Aldrich retires from the bench and comes to work at the hospital as Alan's replacement; Camille's drug seeking behaviors continue; Diane has second thoughts about her research project when she realizes that she's become attached to the orangutan that she's successfully infected with AIDS.

The ER looks like the only game in town as avery disturbed family one by one injures each other during a therapy session. Geiger and his fellow clowns return to cheer up children injured in a bus accident, with a musical pantomine of ""The Emperor's New Clothes.""

Diane helps her friend Allison harvest sperm from Allison's comatose husband before his life support is turned off; Aaron realizes that the reconciliation with Camille isn't working, and they agree to go through with their divorce; Billy takes Danny to task over his medical mistreatment of a mentally unstable woman; Jeffrey and Kate manage to put aside their differences over her cost cutting proposal for the hospital long enough to save the life of a young pre-med student; Alicia is christened.

Dennis struggles over whether he should listen to his gut, or to Jeffrey's advice, in treating a man who doesn't speak English; Aaron is upset when Alan gives Camille advice about their property settlement; after Billy recommends amputation to a man with a gangrenous leg, Diane offers the use of maggots as an alternative treatment, but the patient has a great deal of difficulty in overcoming the ""ick"" factor of Diane's suggestion; Phillip seriously injures his opponent in a charity boxing match; Aaron and Camille sign the papers that finalize their divorce.

Billy arrives home just in time to save his dog Gordie from the fire that's engulfed his apartment, and ends up rooming with a reluctant Danny until he can find a new place to live; when a teething Alicia keeps her father up at nights, an exhausted Alan is thrilled when Diane offers to help out; when a racist teenager on the transplant list refuses the heart of a murdered black teenager, the hospital offers it to another candidate, but the boy's mother sues to have the heart transplanted into her son; Alan decides to get back into the social swing by asking Diane out on a date; Kate's inattention to pre-op labs results in the post-op death of the transplant patient; Danny overcomes his dislike of Gordie long enough to notice that he's critically ill, and by acting quickly, saves the dog's life.

A friend of Kronk's seeks his advice about a health problem she thinks resulted from her sex-change operation. Austin treats an impressionable teenage boy with a heart condition and a crush on her. Dr. Konstadt, off her medication, acts injudiciously when Shutt seeks permission from a reluctant board to perform surgery on Eric.

Tommy places a bid to buy out the hospital with the intention of firing Kate as soon as the deal goes through; as Valerie continues her affair with Danny, Jack lets Danny know that he's aware of their relationship; Elizabeth is readmitted after Andy beats her again, and Andy takes his revenge when Dennis attempts to help his sister escape the cycle of spousal abuse; a mysterious biohazard accompanies a patient admitted to the E.R., and immediately begins to fell the staff; after Kate pleads the hospital's case, Jack agrees to counter Tommy's offer, but only if Phillip fires Danny; Kate and Tommy threaten to expose each other's secrets; after Diane's work for the last two years is called into question and her grant money is suspended, she decides to go to Africa to do research with a colleague; Tommy courts Aaron's support; feeling under-appreciated and ill-respected, Camille resigns; realizing that Tommy will stop at nothing to destroy her, a desperate Kate flees with their daughter an

Watters steps in and asks Geiger to take on Austin's transplant patient as she struggles with her ex husband for custody of their daughter. Sutton brings a brain-dead woman into the hospital to deliver her baby.

Hancock's practice and his freedom are threatened when he saves the life of a hemorrhaging pregnant woman by aborting her fetus, which stirs up strong emotions when the woman denounces his actions. Kronk recoils at first from treating a drag queen with AIDS. Another new lawyer faces a baptism of fire as hospital legal counsel.

Dr. Watters befriends a 12-year-old girl when she's admitted with an apparently self-inflected wound to her transplanted kidney. Austin has another rough day, with the shakes during a surgery and a message from her ex-husband that he might be moving to Boston and taking their daughter with him. Diane finds out about Billy's previous relationship with Kate.

Dr. Nyland pulls a switch with Dr. Kronk in order to avoid a charity function, but they have to face the consequences over somecmisunderstandings. Misunderstanding fills Aaron's life when his father barges into the hospital with a patient who is also his fiancee. Geiger finally understands that he may be causing more ripples than he thought.

Shutt finds himself revitalized by a frustrated MS patient who refuses to quietly accept that Aaron can't help him. Dr. Sutton comes up with a way to exorcise Geiger's spirit from the hospital. Watters finds solace with a special visitor.

Aaron is baffled when a seizure lands Camille in the ER. Nyland's holiday vacation plans are suddenly sidetracked by a delivery of supplies to Ricky's makeshift clinic with a Santa'-clad Hancock. A promising teen athlete fears that an operation could cost him the chance to play major league baseball. Grad meets a sweet but shy veterinarian.

Aaron proceeds with Eric Dipretto's psychosurgery while Austin campaigns for the position of chief of surgery and Bix continues to lose control. Kronk is determined to perform a controversial intestinal bypass on Nyland's former boss and good friend, a restauranteur who just wants to enjoy a good meal again.

Judge Aldrich's tenure as Alan's replacement is cut short by illness; Amy, an old friend of Danny's from medical school, joins the nursing staff and clashes with Camille over the care of a terminally ill patient; Kate and Billy hook up, but decide that they won't repeat the experience after they clash professionally during experimental laser surgery on an elderly cardiac patient; Amy rebuffs Danny's advances.

A heart-transplant patient returns to the hospital with chest pains and emotional and personality changes that challenge the notion of what really is exchanged in a transplant. Shutt is approached by a direct, self-confident psychiatrist who insists he perform psychosurgery on a 12-year-old boy with an obsessive-compulsive disorder that severely limits the life he can lead.

Sutton's mind rells as wives two and three ask him for a very great personal and professional favor and wife one chacks in for a serious medical problem. Kate anxiously awaits news of who will be appointed as the new head of surgery. Dr. Shutt performs delicate surgery on a wealthy quadriplegic who cannot be anesthetized, and whose beautiful fiance attracts Nyland's attention.

Kate loses her control and her compassion when her father is admitted with an operable surgical condition but refuses it on religious grounds. Geiger turns up again at the hospital, this time as part of a clown troop there to entertain the patients. Sutton delivers a baby with ambigous genitalia whose parents are equally ambigious about they feel about their offspring.

Grad and Kronk reluctantly team up to counsel an inexperienced couple on sexual techniques. Dr. Sutton finds himself unnerved by a sexually precocious young woman at Dr. Hancock's clinic. Aaron tries befriending a resident, but finds himself misinterpretted.