CBS medical drama “Code Black” wraps the first half of its freshman season Wednesday night (10 p.m./Ch. 2) with a cliffhanger: a multi-car pileup that tests the physical and emotional mettle of the emergency room doctors at LA’s Angels Memorial Hospital.
“It’s a juxtaposition of what’s going on in the hospital and at a massive pileup on a foggy stretch of highway,” says series star Marcia Gay Harden, who plays hard-charging (yet sensitive) Dr. Leanne Rorish. “Dr. Hudson [series co-star Raza Jaffrey] and I have to teach the residents about ‘black tagging’ — literally putting a [black] tag on a person the doctors think is beyond saving. We have to make assessments — very difficult moral assessments — and when we get to the [accident scene] I’m off in a tent and not overseeing the residents and mayhem ensues. A husband holds a gun to one of the residents and says, ‘Don’t you black-tag my wife’ and someone else is stuck in a cement truck. It’s a high-drama situation.”
“Code Black’s” main calling card has been its portrayal of life in the country’s busiest emergency room. The series is based on LA County General Hospital, considered the birthplace of ER medicine and the subject of series co-executive producer Ryan McGarry’s 2013 documentary (also called “Code Black”). The show’s graphic portrayal of ER procedures — up-close-and-very-personal shots of exposed organs and horrific wounds — is likely the most blood and gore ever seen on a network drama. Harden says real-life ER doctors are watching — and, sometimes, criticizing.
“They tweet to us, like ‘MGH, please put the stethoscope in the proper direction,’ ” she says. “We have medical people on the set and we were given [medical] glossaries. I have to know exactly what I’m saying.”
