A married couple comes in with the woman going into labour with twins, and John Carter (Noah Wyle) and Simon Brenner (David Lyons) handle the delivery.
Mark Greene's daughter Rachel (Hallee Hirsh) is visiting the hospital as a prospective medical student and is interviewing for a spot in the teaching program.
Carter opens his clinic for the underprivileged, with Peter Benton (Eriq La Salle) and his son Reese (Matthew Watkins), Kerry Weaver (Laura Innes) and Susan Lewis (Sherry Stringfield) among the guests.
After the event, he has an awkward reunion with Joshua's mother, Kem (Thandie Newton), who is briefly in town; although she is happy to see Carter, she rebuffs his efforts to re-connect with her there, but does agree possibly to call him the next morning, giving hope to a potential reconciliation.
Marjorie Manning (Beverly Polcyn), a previous elderly multiple sclerosis patient suffering sepsis and pulmonary edema, comes in with her husband, (Ernest Borgnine).
Before Marjorie dies, her daughter arrives, and confides in Samantha Taggart (Linda Cardellini) that her mother was an incredibly difficult person who picked fights with and alienated everyone in her life, but she loved her mom anyway and was inspired by how her father was saint-like in putting up with her miserable behaviour.
Later on, while they are walking back towards the ER, Sam surprises Tony by taking his hand in hers, symbolizing that she has gotten over her previous anger at him, and he smiles and locks his fingers with hers.
A young bride and her new mother-in-law (Marilu Henner) come in, in separate ambulances, with minor injuries sustained in a drunken brawl at their wedding reception and continue arguing all the way into the treatment rooms.
As Morris continues to triage patients, the original theme music plays and the point of view pulls back, revealing the entire hospital for the first and only time.
Like that first episode, it took place over the course of 24 hours, featured a dizzying number of cases — some comical, and some that were dead serious — and showed the life of the ER through eyes both inexperienced ... and jaded.
[1] That theme music also played as the camera pulled out and faded at the end of the last scene of the episode, which showed the entire exterior of County General Hospital for the only time in the history of the series, except in high tone and fully in 1080i HD.
But Thursday's episode also proved that NBC's ER called it quits at just the right time, because TV series — unlike medical institutions — should never go on forever.
"[7] Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly said he "liked the fact that the surprises were small but effective," while Alan Sepinwall of the Star-Ledger stated, "It wasn't an all-time great finale, but it did what it set out to do."
In The Baltimore Sun, David Zurawik said, "I especially liked the final scene with the ER team suiting up and standing ready to respond in the courtyard to the arriving fleet of emergency vehicles loaded with victims of an industrial explosion.