The actual finale was a study in restraint as well as a tribute to the pilot and other landmark episodes of the early seasons as well as the show’s rich history. The first shot was a replica of the pilot, with nurse Lydia waking Dr. Morris in the on-call room, as she’d done with Dr. Mark Green fifteen years earlier. And the storyline of the woman delivering twins, but experiencing fatal complications, was an echo of “Love’s Labors Lost”, the heartbreaking episode I can’t make it through. That got me big time. The story that involved the sublime Ernest Borgnine as a man who couldn’t bear to let his wife, who he’d known for 72 years, go, was absolutely perfect and exemplifies the way ER made viewers sob like babies but still come back for more. This is life, and this will happen to all of us. We can only hope it will be that poetic. It also hearkened back to the storyline Red Buttons did years ago, which featured a very young John Carter.
