Edwards brings back 'ER's' heart

The docs at Chicago's County General Hospital must be injecting themselves with steriods. For 15 years, the staff of "ER" has worked 20-hour shifts, jam-packed with life-or-death operations and screaming matches with bone-headed administrators, then clocked out looking as if they could dance the night away at some Rush Street nightclub or, in the case of one particularly energetic physician, prowl the streets in a mask and cape.

The exception: Mark Greene.

For eight years, Anthony Edwards' character walked through the ward as if he had just been run over by a gurney, his hairline thinning on a weekly basis, his gaunt body begging for a monthlong nap. He's the only "ER" cast member who looked as if he belonged in scrubs rather than Armani, and when he departed in 2002, he took the show's heart with him.

The beat is back, if only temporarily, as the actor makes a guest appearance tonight in the series' 15th and final season, just a week after the passing of the show's creator, Michael Crichton.

Longtime fans may be confused by the return, since Greene died of a brain tumor, but the episode relies heavily on flashbacks to a day in which Greene tended to a dying boy while coming to terms with his own mortality.

Those who know that his character's chemotherapy sessions will be fruitless will have a hard time watching Edwards choke on his words, rub his head and struggle to focus on his work. They'll also have a hard time denying that it's a bravura performance.

Edwards has neither the charisma nor the good looks to be a genuine movie star, but on the small screen, where intimacy is everything, he's a gift that's sorely missed.

His work here will remind you of the 1995 episode "Love's Labours Lost," in which Greene makes a tragic misdiagnosis, and his 2002 finale, when he succumbs to his tumor on a Hawaiian beach. Both focus almost wholly on Edwards and it's no coincidence that they remain the series' finest hours.

Nostalgia runs deep in tonight's episode as several other past favorites pop up in cameos. I wouldn't dare reveal who, although I will provide one hint: Greene is not the only one returning from the dead.

But tonight's other primary performer is the show's newest cast member, Angela Bassett, who plays Cate Banfield, the latest ER chief. It is her child who is dying in the flashbacks. Bassett responds not so much by grieving, but by glaring. The Oscar-nominated actress has a gift in her silent stare -- one that says: Don't mess with me. I once played Tina Turner.

Watching such a stoic actress go up against such a twitchy one as Edwards makes for appointment television. If only it could continue.

njustin@startribune.com • 612-673-7431