Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen – As the seventh episode of Five Days At Memorial begins, Arthur ‘Butch’ Schafer (Michael Gaston) and Virginia Rider (Molly Hager) visit Carrie Everett at home. After Carrie (Lanette Ware) talks about Emmett briefly, she says he was taken from her. Virginia asks if Emmett said anything about what was going on at LifeCare. Carrie couldn’t reach him Wednesday or Thursday. Before that, he said things were a little crazy but he wasn’t dwelling on it. He didn’t want to worry her. Carrie says he was a fighter so it doesn’t make sense. After the intro, the detectives arrive at Memorial with a search warrant 33 days after Katrina. Once they begin looking through the hospital, Butch talks about the smell of death and how you can never get used to it. Although there wasn’t supposed to be food or water, they find canned goods and bottled water. Moments later, they learn that the pharmacy is locked but they’re about to gain entry.
Virginia finds three prescriptions for morphine with all three being signed by Anna Pou. Another officer finds a bag full of empty vials on the seventh floor like Nakamaru had described. Outside, Virginia says they’ve got four witnesses all confirming the same story that Pou came up to the seventh floor to end the lives of patients. They’ve also found syringes, drug vials, and Pou’s name on the prescriptions. Two witnesses claim Pou told them that lethal injection was her intention. Butch is still having a tough time believing the staff volunteered to work at the hospital only to kill their patients. He says they need to prove that Pou and the two nurses injected the patients with the intention to kill them. They need an eyewitness who saw them do it. Dr. Anna Pou (Vera Farmiga) goes to work where she checks on Mrs. Allen. Later that night, she enjoys the patient’s secret recipe with Vince (Jonathan Cake). As they talk about Anna’s new job, she admits she is still worried.
Vince wishes they knew what they were doing and whether they are investigating her. Anna confesses she feels like she is about to be railroaded because everything went to heck and someone has to take the blame. Vince can’t see that happen since she is so respected. He insists God is good and the truth will prevail. Butch talks to Virginia about Frank Minyard who is the city coroner after he got elected. He is a gynecologist by training. They meet Frank (John Diehl) who is now working out of a funeral home because of the flood. Once they sit down, Frank admits they have a big problem since he is unable to tell them whether murder occurred. He explains that the bodies are useless after decomposing in the heat for a week. They can’t even get a decent blood sample. Virginia believes drugs can leave traces in other tissues. Although she talked to two pathologists, Frank reminds her that they haven’t seen these bodies.
Butch pushes him to test the samples since it is coming from the attorney general. Frank eventually agrees to get a federal disaster mortuary team out there to take the samples and send them to the lab. As they leave, Virginia complains that Franks shouldn’t be deciding what gets tested and what doesn’t. Butch tells her that the medical community is a tight-knit group around here so they’re not going to stand around and let this happen to one of their fellow doctors. Later, Butch sits down with Linda (Beth Malone) and tries to give her the sketchpad back since it might inspire her to start some new paintings. Linda admits she isn’t feeling up to it. When Butch goes inside to prepare dinner, he gets a call from Virginia who says someone from Memorial wants to talk to them. They meet with Bryant King (Cornelius Smith Jr.) the following day. He tells them he was watching videos of the mortuary workers pulling bodies out of Memorial and couldn’t believe how many bodies there were.
On Wednesday, he pronounced a patient dead due to natural causes. When they carried her down to the chapel, she was the sixth patient in the room. Nobody else died on his 2nd-floor area before he left the hospital on Thursday. He was counting in his head so he knew the total number dead in the hospital at that point. On Thursday, it was 20 or 21. He couldn’t believe it when he heard there were 45 bodies. Bryant thinks something else was going on. He was speaking to Kathleen Fournier who said they were talking about how they’re not going to get everyone out of the hospital. They were talking about how the patients are suffering and how they must find a way to end that suffering. Kathleen doesn’t think they were talking about providing the patients comfort. She goes on to say Ewing and Anna were talking about ending patient suffering. She heard Anna say that she doesn’t have a problem with that. Bryant was thinking that it wasn’t normal and it wasn’t what they were paid to do.
Since he was one of the only black doctors and was hired recently, he was afraid of the people in the hospital. The stories about New Orleans being under the control of looters were really about black folks. He saw this on the ER ramp when some of the people were turned away. There was only so much he could do and he was worried they could’ve removed him. He is a person who speaks his mind and always knows when to shut his mouth. He quietly let people know what was going on by sending some text messages to his best friend and others. He told them about the evil entities at the hospital wanting to euthanize patients. Butch asks if he saw anything directly related to that. A guy came up to him on the last day he was there. The guy asked if he wanted to join them in a prayer before he saw Anna with a handful of 10cc syringes with the pink needle. He did not see Anna inject any of the patients. He told himself he shouldn’t be there because it wasn’t a normal situation. Bryant tells the detectives how he left in a boat and make it back to his house.
Butch asks if he has talked to anyone else about this. Dr. Horace Baltz (Robert Pine) and a friend watch Bryant’s interview on television. Although Horace sympathizes with his concern, he thinks he is going to destroy the reputation of every doctor that’s ever worked at that hospital. It isn’t something you should air in the court of public opinion. Susan Mulderick (Cherry Jones) listens as the report says the doctor who held the syringes spoke with the media on several occasions. She said everyone at the hospital felt abandoned and they did everything possible to save those patients. Anna watches the report as well. Next, Butch and Virginia meet with Gina Isbell (Tammy Isbell) who was the nursing director for LifeCare. She is asked why the three medical professionals from Memorial came to her floor on Thursday. When asked about the charts, Gina insists they kept them up for as long as they could, but it was impossible to keep track of everything.
Although Butch thinks he can imagine what they went through, Gina suggests otherwise. She wants to know why it took so long for someone to come help them get the patients out. She asks where the government was. Gina thinks that is why they lost so many patients. She tells them to leave the people who stayed and worked through the storm alone. They’re told to let those people be the heroes that they were. Gina confesses that she can’t sleep and has nightmares where she sees the faces of her patients. She feels guilty about picking the staff to work there during the hurricane. She doesn’t like that they’re coming from a place of comfort and trying to find out what was right and what was wrong. Anna goes to Walker’s office because he wants to see her. Walker (Tom Irwin) admits they’ve had to think about things because of the news coverage around her. They want her to consider taking a pause from performing surgery. Later, she tells Vince about the decision and how she won’t be performing surgeries for a while.
They believe people in the restaurant are talking about Anna. Laura and Henry approach them seconds later. They support Anna and have been praying for her. Virginia tells Butch that Pou is one of 11 children. Her brother Fredrick is a federal drug fugitive and an all-star on the DEA’s most-wanted list. Butch has the toxicology results after they tested the tissue samples in 18 of the dead patients from Memorial. Nine of them tested positive for morphine. Seven of those nine also tested positive for midazolam or Versed. That is the same combination Ken Nakamura said he gave to Pou. Butch believes the defense will go after the condition of the bodies and how the evidence isn’t reliable. He wants to work with some top pathologists to find out how to counter that. Richard Simmons tells Anna that they’re going to have to start preparing her defense because the attorney general’s office is focusing its investigation on her. They’re going to rally every medical professional in the city behind her or there won’t be a single doctor in the city during the next hurricane.
He wants to start by taking Anna and the two nurses back to Memorial so they can walk him through everything that happened on that last day. At a restaurant, Virginia and Butch talk about Memorial not getting consent to euthanize the patients. He doesn’t talk to Linda about it because he doesn’t want the secrets being passed on to others. It wasn’t just their daughter since Linda also lost her father and cousin in the last five months. He is giving her time to grieve in her own way. As for Virginia, she admits things aren’t going great with Kevin right now. Carrie Everett approaches Virginia to ask what they’re doing about Emmett. Virginia promises they’re making progress. Carrie thinks there are many powerful people who want this whole thing to just go away. Virginia won’t let that happen. Carrie gives her the only picture of Emmett that she has left after the flooding. Virginia insists Emmett is the poster child for their case. Carrie is adamant that nobody has the right to play God and end a life.
Ken Nakamura is brought to Memorial so he can verify the remaining stockpile of drugs in the pharmacy. Once he checks it, he said the morphine, Versed, and Ativan are all missing. He shows them the records for the last people who signed out medications. The signature of the last person belongs to Anna Pou. Lori Budo (Sarah Allen), Anna, and Cheri Landry (Sharron Matthews) walk through the hospital with the attorney who wants to know how they helped people. While he is shown the helipad, Ken and the detectives go to the chapel. They’re surprised when they see Anna and the others nearby. Richard introduces himself before they continue on their way. He tells Anna to forget them and focus on what they’re doing. Mike Murphy gets in touch with Butch. He says their physical medicine director Kristy Johnson wants to come talk to him again. When Anna runs into Walker at the grocery store, she tells him she wants to get back to work. He admits that isn’t going to happen yet.
She continues pushing until Walker agrees to see what he can do. Butch and Virginia consult with Dr. Baden who believes the evidence suggests homicide. He would categorize all the nine cases he received as homicides. Kristy meets with them and says she went with Dr. Pou to the entrance of Emmett’s room. Anna said she planned to give him something. In a flashback, she says she is going to tell him she’ll give him something to help with his dizziness. She goes in and closes the door. In the present, Kristy insists Emmett was the only one. She took Pou and the two nurses to other patients and was with them when they injected the patients. Kristy personally witnessed Dr. Pou inject some patients including Wilda McManus. She heard Anna say she had to give her three doses. Later, Butch tells Virginia that he just briefed the attorney general and he wants to make the arrests. He says they’re about to poke the bear and Anna will get special treatment because she is part of the medical community.
Anna is arrested and told she’ll have a chance to call other doctors who can look after her patients. Virginia watches as she changes her clothes. She reads her rights to her. After Anna signs some paperwork, she is taken away in a police car.
Five Days At Memorial Review
Five Days At Memorial has told an interesting and sometimes gripping story that has somewhat fizzled out near the end. Unfortunately, the investigation scenes can’t match the intensity of the scenes in the hospital immediately after Katrina. Due to this, it probably would’ve been a good idea to slim down the season to five or six episodes. Nothing important would’ve been missed but it would’ve got to the point much sooner.
Some of the performances could be better. In particular, the accents are difficult to take at times. It is obvious they’re being overemphasized when that isn’t necessary. That can easily bring the action to a screeching halt at times. After the first five episodes, viewers will likely be intrigued to find out what happens though, especially if they haven’t researched the actual events.
Despite the last two episodes not being as good as the others, Five Days at Memorial is still worth the time. It’ll be interesting to see how the show handles the finale and the allegations. This episode scores a 6.5 out of 10. Recaps of Five Days at Memorial can be found on Reel Mockery here. Learn how to support our work at this link.
