Nothing bleeds like a head wound.

E.R. cranked up the ick-factor last night, perhaps to make up for the last two episodes, which were relatively bloodless.

Scalp Me!The gratuitous moment of the night involved a man, writhing in agony, who had some sort of accident with fire or chemicals or something. (That’s the sort of detail that whizzes by on the show. Catch it or don’t, they don’t care.) He was bleeding all over, with the worst haircut you’ve ever seen. Yes, his skull was showing.

If that wasn’t enough, one of the doctors mentioned getting him up to surgery so they could sew his scalp back on. With that, he lifted a large hairy mass from its bucket at the end of the table. Ladies and gentlemen, we have gross-out.

All this, of course, had nothing to do with any of the storylines. We never heard anything about this guy again.

Honorable mention: another running gag involved a plumbing problem which dripped raw sewage on patients occasionally throughout the episode. They never got this particular problem solved. It seemed to be written in just to tick off Dr. Lewis and freak out the audience.