Saving Hope

On the way to their wedding, Dr. Alex Reid and Dr. Charlie Harris’ cab is T-boned. The driver of the other car’s lung collapses, and Charlie springs into action - showing why he is the Chief of Surgery at Hope Zion hospital - inflating the lung on site. He saves the woman, but something is wrong with Charlie. He loses consciousness and is rushed to Hope Zee with Alex at his side. As his friends at the hospital treat him, Charlie realizes that he is looking at his own body. Stuck between life and death, he watches as he is rolled into the ICU. All Alex can do is wait and hope that Charlie wakes up, while maintaining her duties as Chief Surgical Resident. Alex’s worst day ever is further complicated by the arrival of Hope Zee’s new orthopedic surgeon – and Alex’s ex-boyfriend – Joel Goran. Joel, in his way, attempts to be supportive and meanwhile takes on all of Charlie’s patients; including a young war hero scheduled for an arm amputation, who Joel thinks has ulterior motives for refusing limb sparing surgery. Alex, in the midst of treating a young pregnant woman, tries to keep it together as, unbeknownst to her, her comatose fiancé stands by her side, desperate to let her know that he’s still there.

Alex has taken to sleeping in Charlie’s ICU room, and her devotion to her comatose fiancé causes interim Chief of Surgery, Dr. Dana Kinney, to challenge Alex on her ability to be a doctor while keeping a bedside vigil at the same time. Alex’s day doesn’t get any better when Charlie’s ex-wife, Dr. Dawn Bell, arrives to check in on him. It’s the last thing Alex needs to hear, but Dawn questions if Alex is truly doing everything she can to help Charlie wake from his coma. Meanwhile, Alex is tasked with diagnosing a young boy whose symptoms and behavioural changes just aren’t adding up. The boy finds himself with Charlie in the spirit realm while Alex attempts to bring him back from the brink of death. Can Charlie diagnose the kid himself, on the spirit-side? Joel and Maggie have no trouble diagnosing their patient; but when she refuses a blood transfusion based on religious beliefs, Maggie - who is developing a crush on Joel - cannot believe they aren’t going to do anything to try and change her mind. With emotions running high and lives hanging in the balance, Alex could use a dose of hope – which she gets when she receives a sign that Charlie is still there in his body.

Alex is riding high after Charlie’s hand moved. She’s convinced: he is coming back. As she begins to mull taking time off to spend with her recovering fiancé, she is tasked with diagnosing a patient who already has several surgeries under his belt. His mysterious symptoms do not seem to connect, but is Alex’s head in the game or the clouds? Then a roof collapse brings two brothers into the ER in critical condition – one of them beyond saving. The brother joins Charlie on the other side of the divide where the two of them try to determine what is keeping him from moving on. The surviving brother’s leg has been crushed and if there’s any hope of him regaining function, Joel must perform a rare surgery that flies in the face of Kinney’s policy to avoid high-risk and litigation at all costs.

After finding out that Charlie’s condition hasn’t improved, Alex is growing concerned about his chances of recovery. Her worries are exacerbated when she detects a crackling in Charlie’s chest. Does he have pneumonia? To keep her mind active, an already exhausted Alex takes an overnight shift in the ER. Hoping for a peaceful “treat ‘em and street ‘em” kind of night, the ER instead turns into a hotbed of activity when a hockey superstar comes in with injured ribs from a street fight, and soon after a young man stabbed in a nightclub is rushed in by ambulance. The stabbing victim falls into a coma and meets Charlie. While Charlie tries to prepare the kid for a long stay on the spirit side, he impresses Charlie by willing himself to wake up and return to his body. When he ultimately falls unconscious again, he tells Charlie about his plans for revenge. Meanwhile, Alex suspects the hockey player has a concussion, but when she mentions the dreaded “C word” he heads for the exit – only to be stopped by gunshots going off in the ER; friends of the stabbing victim getting payback. With the hospital in lockdown, Alex can pursue her diagnosis.

When Alex falls asleep during a big case presentation, a suddenly sympathetic Kinney orders Alex to go home and get some rest. While the surgeons of Hope Zee prepare for a high profile hand replantation, Joel realizes that Kinney is giving Alex’s rival surgeon, Tom Reycraft, a tryout for Alex’s position. Joel visits Alex to break the news, and together they march into the surgery, ready to prove to Kinney that Alex is still Hope Zee’s top resident. Back in the ICU, Charlie stares at his comatose body when an elderly coma patient is rolled in. Appearing before Charlie is his spirit, who looks the same as he did the day he fell into his coma, 27 years earlier. He attempts to show Charlie what a treat it is to be trapped on the spirit side – while also trying to convince him that the living will eventually forget him. Elsewhere in the hospital, Maggie is called in to drain the abscess of a homeless man who had been beaten up by a pack of teenagers. While treating him, Maggie begins to suspect his symptoms are being overlooked, and she is faced with trying to convince the other senior doctors that he might be dying.

It has been six weeks since Charlie’s accident, and Alex suddenly realizes: she’s late. Before she can bring herself to take a pregnancy test, Alex is paged to the ER where a man has been brought in by ambulance with rebar sticking out of his chest. Complicating matters is the man’s strange case of memory loss – and stranger yet, he is smiling when he should be screaming in pain. Among his belongings, Alex finds a ticket stub for a hypnotist show. Is it possible he could be hypnotized? When nothing seems to break the trance, Alex’s last resort is to call the hypnotist who put him under: “The Great Randall.” But when the hypnosis is finally lifted, the patient’s pain intensifies – but not from the chest wound. Elsewhere in the hospital, after having “the talk” with Joel, Maggie consults a young woman with a neck injury who claims her mother pushed her down the stairs – but her bizarre behaviour prompts Maggie to call Gavin for a psych consult. Meanwhile, as Charlie deals with the news that his fiancée may be pregnant, he crosses paths with the hypnotist and cannot believe it: The Great Randall can see him.