S05:E16 - La Famiglia

Alex (Erica Durance) has to put her concern for the newlyunemployed Charlie (Michael Shanks) aside as the chance to perform a revolutionary cancer surgery to save a kindly Italian grandmother’s life arises. Alex, Dawn (Michelle Nolden), Cassie (Kim Shaw) and Dana (Wendy Crewson) band together for the surgery, and are led by Dr. Jeremy Bishop (Peter Mooney), who makes a surprise return to the hospital. While they are performing this radical and controversial surgery, Charlie tries to help the distressed spirit of the grandmother, despite a language barrier, and ends up helping carve a path to heal her large Italian family. Cassie is called away from the surgery by her former patient Jake Bugle (James Preston Rogers), who it turns out has been her secret admirer, and has a very different idea of the nature of their relationship than the reality. Jake holds Dr. Billy Scott (Greg Calderone) hostage and threatens both Billy and Cassie with a knife, and when Billy tries to stop him, ends up stabbing Jake with his own weapon, requiring emergency surgery. Amidst all this, there is another disaster in the hospital when Falak (Soma Bhatia) – the young woman who birthed the spina bifida baby – has second thoughts about allowing Shahir (Huse Madhavji) and Jonathan (Christopher Jacot) to adopt the baby and abducts the child from the NICU, causing a hospital-wide search. Shahir finds her in a supply closet and decides not to go through with the adoption. Once the day subsides and Alex and Charlie get home, Alex proposes to Charlie on their way back to happily ever after.