I don’t require that crossovers make sense, because sometimes that’s not the point, but for myself I like to square Pitt/ER crossovers that bring John Carter’s babyfaced self into Pittsburgh thus:
John Truman Carter III was adopted.
Michael Robinavitch’s mom bounced when he was a kid. She got pregnant again. This time, she abandoned her baby.
Maybe the Carters were expecting a second child and it didn’t live. Maybe the reason was a bit scandalous (what if Carter’s mom’s drinking problem didn’t start with Bobby’s death)? So they quietly adopted a baby and little Johnny T. Carter III never knew.
If we carry ER events forwards into the 2020s, maybe Carter’s parents tell him after his gamma dies. That explains one childhood incident where Bobby was insisting that John was adopted, just to make John cry; it’s one of the few times their mother intervened.
Maybe Bubbe Robinavitch got a postcard telling her that she had another grandson out there, but she didn’t have the funds or resources to follow up.
But one day 23&Me or some other comparable site comes online. People talk about finding far-flung and long-lost relatives through it.
Michael Robinavitch takes the test.
John Carter takes the test.
They find each other.
Now Carter knows he’s Jewish by birth (mazal tov). Now Robby knows he’s not alone in the world. They both get to figure out what family means when you’ve found each other as adults. Their lives have been so different but they both have more in common than they ever expected (ER doctors, bisexual, disastrous dating histories).
And Jack Abbot has to figure out how to manually forget that he knows what Robby looked like as a babyfaced twunklet because he really wants to keep it classy and to not fantasise about fucking the Brothers Robinavitch.
(Meanwhile I like to think that Jack Abbot is a rogue Cody whose identical twin, Andrew, shows up and gets heart eyes for Robby’s baby brother. Because I have the heart of a daytime TV soap writer.)
Because let’s be so for real, John Carter III does not look like a guy whose family tree has always been allowed into country clubs. You can put that boy on a dressage pony but come on. Come on. In what universe does that beautiful nose come with a pure WASP pedigree. He was raised amidst blue blood privilege but something deep in his bones whispered “boychik, you should be a doctor.”
