Random question, but I’m rewatching some ER season 7 episodes right now, and I noticed that Cleo seems standoff-ish with Carter. Do we ever get a reason why she’s so short with him? Is it something having to do with a patient conflict, or is it something else?
Thank you!!
Ooooooooh, okay, so you wouldn't have known this but the "Cleo Hates Carter" subplot is one of my favourite things, and while it's established really subtly in the show, it's dropped randomly and never explored.
But it's so RIPE for exploration.
So, basically, within the context of the show we know two key things -- arguably three -- that put Cleo at odds with Carter.
1. Eddie Bernero
The diabetic kid. Prior to his attack, Carter and Cleo both saw a young kid whom Carter diagnosed with diabetes. However, due to the dad's job situation, they were, at the time, uninsured. And if the kid were to be diagnosed with diabetes prior to the dad's insurance being activated by his new job -- which he expressed was imminent -- then Eddie's diabetes would be considered a Prior Condition, and therefore not subject to the benefits of his dad's insurance.
ie. If Carter makes that diagnosis, the family will not be able to afford to treat Eddie anyway, and will not be able to get insurance that will cover it without insane premiums.
SO
Carter falsifies the chart.
On the condition, of course, that the dad come back AS SOON as his insurance is activated, and that they closely monitor Eddie's food and lifestyle in the meantime. He made it extremely clear that Eddie's life was at risk.
Because Cleo was also seeing this patient, she was aware of the symptoms of diabetes but not aware that Carter chose to lie.
Then Carter got stabbed.
And obviously, a lot of things slipped his mind.
When Eddie came back, he was in a diabetic coma, his dad had NOT watched his diet or lifestyle as promised, and Cleo, who knew that this kid had diabetes, was surprised to discover that there was no official diagnosis logged.
And she accurately surmised that Carter lied, falsified the chart, and told the dad that that was what he was doing. Essentially. Basically, he was explicit enough that the dad later threatens to blame Carter, knowing that he's got him over a barrel.
So Cleo confronts Carter, calling him out for medical malpractice (because it is), and for endangering the child's life (because he did), and for putting her in an awkward position where she chose to lie for him instead of throwing him under the bus.
And technically -- TECHNICALLY -- Cleo is absolutely right for this. Carter did all the things that she's calling him out for.
However, I'm a Carter apologist, lalala, and so, I'm sympathetic to his side of things. Which is this:
a) he's coming back from almost dying. He shouldn't be at work. As Cleo is chewing him out through the halls of the ER, he is walking along beside her, clearly barely keeping up with the conversation, never mind the pace. He's limping. This man is still visibly injured.
b) he's in his downward drug addiction spiral era. He's got a lot going on. I wouldn't expect him to remember this kid. Or prioritise him. And yeah, again. He should not be working.
c) most relevantly, Carter's decision, while technically absolutely illegal, and wildly reckless, was one made because of a system where the alternative to diagnosis was equally likely to be death, or at least destitution. He chose to prioritise the kid's future health, taking a risk that his current status would remain stable.
It's illegal. Yes. It is.
But that kid was fucked either way. Either he gets diagnosed, and his family go bankrupt attempting to get him insulin, potentially entirely unable to acquire it and therefore killing him anyway.
OR
They risk a couple months -- if that, because Carter was told it would only be a few weeks iirc -- to ensure that this kid will have safe and stable access to his lifelong requirement of a lifesaving drug.
Was his decision wrong? Yes.
But I'd argue his decision was compassionate. And Carter's compassion is always the thing that gets him in trouble.
And personally, if I were sick, I'd want a compassionate doctor.
BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!
2. Cleo vs. Privilege
Cleo is exceptionally conscious of her race, of her mixed heritage, of her place in the world, and of how that world perceives her.
We see this topic come up as a point of conversation and more importantly, conflict, between her and Peter.
Peter, who is Black, and not mixed, takes his identity for granted to some degree. Whether or not we feel Cleo's criticism of him in this arena is fair or warranted doesn't really matter, because she makes the critique regardless.
The two of them fight about it before Thanksgiving, with Cleo walking away from him after it. And it comes up again at various points, most relevantly in regards to Benton's admission to medical school. He finds out that he was an AA acceptance. And he tells Cleo.
How does this figure to Carter?
Well, he's a rich, white boy.
He's working while obviously impaired.
He's given compassionate consideration, not just by his colleagues who go out of their way to support him, to protect him, to get him to rehab, and to bring him back, but also by the hospital as an institution.
It's easy to see how Cleo would be acutely aware of the privileges he enjoys, and she wouldn't be wrong to connect it to race. And Carter, as part of that privilege, gets to remain unconscious to it.
What makes this more difficult for Cleo, I would venture to suggest, is Peter's relationship with Carter.
Peter, who experiences all and more (in some ways) of the racism Cleo comes up against, has this MASSIVE BLIND SPOT for the person who best represents the type of person the system favours. In acting to support Carter beyond the bounds of professionalism, or reason, or logic, or law, Peter is actively participating in this system. I think that hypocrisy -- at least as Cleo sees it -- would be really difficult for her to swallow.
Because...
3. Cleo Knows Peter Loves Carter
Now, I'm not gonna say it's something as simple as jealousy, but I do think we can, as an audience, read something like that into it.
And more importantly, Peter's love for Carter impacts how much time and energy and interest Peter has for Cleo.
This first comes up the night Carter is stabbed.
Cleo is forced to do a thoracotomy because multiple times her direct request to Peter for assistance is ignored, dismissed, or otherwise pushed aside in his desperation to be with Carter.
Even when Carter is out of the woods, Peter actively puts Cleo's patient's life in danger because he wants to close with Anspaugh. To the point that Cleo is forced to intervene, and Peter, in response, lashes out at Cleo.
She knows that his anger is not about her doing an unnecessary procedure. And we know she knows, because the last words she manages to get out to Peter are "I'm sorry Carter is hurt --"
Before Peter completely shuts her out.
And then, when she comes to tell him that Lucy has died, Peter's first priority, ahead of anything, is still Carter.
And fine, maybe that's okay when the crisis is at its climax.
But when Carter's in the hospital, Peter is ALWAYS there. And again, we know that this takes time away from Cleo because we see them on a date.
And on that date, all that Peter talks about...is Carter.
To the point that Cleo suggests they skip a show and go to a cafe, since clearly, all Peter really wants to do is tell her about Carter.
Now, I'm not saying this is jealousy per se, because she does seem quite happy to allow Peter to wax poetic about his boy. BUT I do think she resents Carter for how Peter so willingly compromises his integrity to attend to him.
Peter literally almost let that patient die. Peter has outside responsibilities. Cleo thinks Peter has an incredible future as a surgeon -- ironically, she is as ambitious for his career as he was...before he met Carter.
But the softening of Peter that began with Carter as his med-student, and then became obvious and intentional with the birth and raising of his son, of Reese, is emphasised in Cleo's frustration with Peter's willing and (to her mind, and possibly fairly observed) unexamined or uncritical prioritising of certain other people in a way that undermines, compromises, or else distracts him from his own trajectory.
I think Cleo thinks Carter's a bit of a bad influence. She doesn't see how they came together, she doesn't understand how they were, or how they work. She doesn't grasp the depth of feeling between them. All she sees is a rich kid getting away with rich kid actions, and her boyfriend compromising himself to support it.
Chapters: 1/3
Fandom: ER (TV 1994)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Cleo Finch/Peter Benton/John Carter, Peter Benton/Cleo Finch, Peter Benton/John Carter, Cleo Finch/John Carter
Characters: Cleo Finch, Peter Benton, John Carter (ER TV 1994)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Polyamory, Pining, Found Family (arguably), Light Angst, Fluff and Smut
Summary:
It's 2009, and Peter has run into John Carter entirely by accident - annoying, yet clearly innocent. What is less innocent is the frequency with which Carter subsequently appears in Cleo's life, and the expression on his face whenever he looks at Peter.
Fine, she thinks. But I am watching you.
There's a version of this story where Cleo leaves. She assesses the situation early, sees exactly how it's gonna go, and bows out.
This is another version: the one where everyone gets to stay.
We don’t get all that much information about Cleo Finch, but I feel like we do get roughly enough to understand her in some respects, anyway.
Like, I think we get the outline of how she might have felt as a child even if it is never outright stated, y’know?
She clearly has a chip on her shoulder about being half-white. It’s very specific that her issue is not with with being half-Black. She objects to the racism she experiences as a result, but it’s very blatant that she has no shame or insecurity about being Black— she has issues with her proximity to whiteness, and implies she’s generally uncomfortable around non-Black people specifically.
She only ever mentions her mother and shows discomfort about the lack of Black people in the hospital. She makes a few comments suggesting she has strong opinions on parents she sees as unprepared for raising children with atypical problems, or who don’t pay enough attention to how their child is actually feeling.
Her speciality in paediatrics in itself, and the way she instantly switches from her usual stoic expression to a sweet smile whenever she talks to a child also feels… I mean, it feels related, if nothing else.
It’s probably not a stretch to assume her mother wasn’t great at considering that Cleo was still, well… Black. It’s easy to imagine Cleo feeling frustrated that her mother didn’t understand and didn’t take her issues or concerns seriously enough.
Maybe even making Cleo feel irrational or paranoid whenever she did try to vent, or complain, or look for reassurance or comfort…
I don’t know. The image I have of Cleo’s mother is of a white woman who looked at her obviously mixed daughter and said things like “not everyone is racist, honey, they’re just kids saying stuff to get under your skin, you’re being too sensitive,” even if Cleo had just come home from school crying because kids had been sticking things in her hair and calling her slurs.
Cleo often feels very defensive, and what we know about her really does not suggest to me that she had a childhood where her emotions and concerns were particularly validated or supported.
remember in 6x04 "sins of the fathers" when they briefly let both cleo and malucci have plots that allowed us to learn more about their personalities before they just make malucci permanently annoying and gave cleo next to no other character information. remember what could have been
i really don't care for cleo finch, and it's frustrating me because i usually like to give a character a good deal of slack and try to understand how they tick, but like. i just don't GET her. she's jealous of elizabeth and weirdly controlling, she keeps going behind people for unnecessary shit
i'm guessing it's to do with this competitive streak she has - i often don't care for sport people because i don't like that sort of attitude to life - but it makes sense when she's playing ball or jogging or whatever
it makes less sense when it's just random shit
i find carla to be unreasonable, but i understand WHY she's like that - she's protective of reese and she's frankly territorial, and a lot of that has to do with what she feels is peter unreasonably trying to control her life via their son. i don't like that attitude, i wish she could like
meaningfully prioritise reese's health and happiness more than fixating on the potential threat of peter influencing her decisions, but i do understand why she has the attitude she has and the anxieties she has, and why she's often so unwavering in defending her autonomy
she's a Black woman who owns and runs her own business, she was a single mother before meeting roger even though her and peter shared custody, and peter messed her around for a LONG time, getting intimate with her enough to provide care but not to give her love, and her insecurity makes sense
i definitely think in S6 and S7 that there's an issue with how Carla and now Cleo are being presented as like... inherently unreasonable, but the vulnerability to Carla's position is imo quite obvious even though we don't see her friendships or emotional openness with other characters on screen
but Carla doesn't work in the hospital. she's not friendly or intimate with any of the other characters, bc she's not a nurse or a doctor.
and sure, yes, it's potentially in-character for Cleo to not have many personal relationships with other doctors barring Peter bc of how competitive she is
esp bc like, based on her choices in social life that we see, as well as her comment about the lack of Black faces amongst the med students, it's implied that she prefers to socialise with other Black people, and esp given her competitive streak, it makes sense she doesn't want to be vulnerable
with all these white coworkers - the men who she feels anxious are ignoring her expertise or straight-up going over her head to make stupid fucking decisions whilst being given all this slack to do the same again (with doug; DEFINITELY with carter being an addict), and the women who like
she obviously feels jealous of elizabeth, esp when peter has dated her in the past and she struggles with them still being friendly with one another, and i definitely think that's probably made worse by the fact that elizabeth is a white woman as well as another surgeon
then like... carol was Not pleasant to her bc of carol's issues with Black women and esp Black women's authority over hers; she doesn't feel especially friendly with any of the residents; and bc of her own sense of superiority as a doctor, i don't think she'd ever stoop to socialising with nurses
but in that case like... bring in some kind of friend or something? someone to humanize her? we literally only see her at the hospital being Angry at everybody and everything, and often not even making especially good medical calls whilst trying to control the board, and then like
at peter's place
i don't REALLY understand why the two of them are together - obviously jackie implies that she's not serious even though it's pretty clear she wants and expects a lot of commitment from peter, but other than that they just don't seem to LIKE each other
and idk i'm just frustrated at the lack of positive qualities in her beyond like, the basic "good with kids" of a paediatric specialist and being good at running or sports or whatever the fuck
a few seasons ago the show was doing much more interesting stuff around race and racial dynamics
and now Peter's main personal dynamics are between two iterations of an Angry Black Woman, neither of whom are given much grace or complexity within the show, and it's just frustrating to see when i WANT to see the complexity and the interpersonal dynamics explored to their fullest
also, i enjoyed the way peter told cleo that he loves her. he tells her that he doesn't truly invest in people and doesn't do the work, but for her, he wants to
it's such a simple way into his head, and also that's the same way he describes feeling betrayed when carter rejects surgery in s4. he doesn't give his time to anyone, but he gave it to carter, and that stings the most
