Dedicated viewers of ER may remember that back in January of this year, Dr. Kerry Weaver’s lesbian partner Sandy Lopez (the firefighter who had once declared she never wanted to have a child) gave birth to their artificially-inseminated baby boy, Henry. The lesbian mommy storyline had finally come to ER.

Since then, the baby and the firefighter have disappeared from the show (not unexpected given the lackadaisical way the producers of ER have handled the relationship between Weaver and Lopez), but things took a dramatic turn for the worse during last Thursday night’s episode “Where There’s Smoke,” Sandy Lopez suffered fatal injuries due to a fire she was fighting and died on an ER operating table, leaving Weaver as the sole parent of their baby. Then Lopez’s parents swoop in and essentially kidnap baby Henry in a fit of homophobia, claiming that the baby is Sandy’s alone and that Weaver has no right to parent the child.

Before we all groan at this ripped-from-the-headlines circa mid-1990s stereotypical storyline, let’s take a moment to look at the way Sandy’s death was handled--which, up until the homophobic kidnapping of baby Henry, was actually a sensitive and touchingly written storyline.

We first see Kerry and Sandy as they are both preparing to leave for work, and they are affectionately flirting with one another just as Sandy’s mother arrives to babysit for the day. In an A+ example of heavy-handed foreshadowing, Weaver comments that Sandy’s parents think that they are “perverts,” and Sandy tells wailing baby Henry that they’ll be back later (cue the ominous music).

About fifteen minutes into the episode, however, a bunch of firefighters begin arriving in ambulances at the ER, victims of a warehouse fire. It is only a matter of moments before one of the doctors recognizes that one of the victims is none other than Sandy Lopez, and Dr. Weaver is quickly summoned. When it becomes clear that Sandy needs surgery, Dr. Weaver asks to sit in on the procedure, saying simply, “Please, she’s my wife.”

After blinking back the possibility of a few tears at this touching statement, I suddenly wanted to know, hey, when did they get married? Apparently their wedding—on the steps of San Francisco’s City Hall or in a traditional lesbian commitment ceremony involving self-written vows—never made it to the air. You’d think Dr. Weaver would have at least taken time off from the ER to go on her honeymoon.

After watching her coworkers valiantly trying to resuscitate Sandy Lopez, Kerry herself tells them to stop, knowing that it’s no use—Sandy’s dead. Suddenly all the doctors vanish, leaving Kerry alone with Sandy, except for Dr. Elizabeth Corday, who despite having worked at the ER since season four (this is season ten), had to ask Kerry how long she and Sandy had been together (“three years”). Speaking in a low, broken tone of voice, Kerry says to her, “We wanted more….Once Henry was here she said ‘I can do this. Eight more and we’ve got a team.’ Sandy had a big family. I only had her and Henry. What am I supposed to do next?”

Meanwhile in the waiting room, Sandy’s family is waiting for Kerry to tell them whether their daughter survived the surgery. Although before going into the operating room Kerry told them that she would let them know the minute there was news, instead Kerry sits in the darkened OR alone. Perhaps they were annoyed at her for not bringing them the news of their daughter’s death and left, because the next time we see them is when Kerry appears on the doorstep of Sandy’s brother’s house, asking to pick up Henry (remember, he was being looked after by Sandy’s mom at the beginning of the episode).

But Sandy’s brother doesn’t let her in and won’t tell her where Henry is, saying “We’re his blood relatives.” Kerry grows increasingly bewildered and upset, demanding, “Where is my son?” Stony-faced, Sandy’s brother insists, “Sandy’s son.”

We are left with the image of the front door slammed in Kerry’s face, confused and frightened and devastated by the loss of both her wife and, unexpectedly, the only physical reminder she has of her—their son.

If the dramatics seem a bit over-the-top, well, they are. After all, ER is a soap opera set in a hospital. It is unfortunate that the producers of ER decided they needed to kill off their lesbian firefighter, but people do die on ER all the time, and at least Sandy had what we might call a heroic death. Laura Innes plays the part of bereaved spouse eloquently, and it is hard to not feel for her character’s loss. Even though Sandy and Kerry seemed like a particularly unlikely couple from the beginning, it is clear from this scene that Kerry truly loved her stereotypical firefighter lesbian wife.

But the sudden introduction of Sandy’s homophobic family, who insists on taking Kerry and Sandy’s baby away from Kerry, is more than unfortunate and cliched—it’s the final nail in the coffin of ER's lesbian storyline.

The lesbian storyline on ER is now going to be reduced to "the child custody storyline." The writers will drag it out through the rest of the season so that Kerry Weaver becomes defined by it, and the little screen time that's devoted to the personal aspects of her character will be about this, all the way through to the cliff-hanger season finale, which still won't provide any resolution.

A storyline about a child custody battle involving a lesbian parent is not inherently bad, and in fact has the potential for a lot of groundbreaking writing that could deeply engage with issues of homophobia around gay parenting. But this is ER, where lesbian storylines go to die: there was little to no consistent follow-through in exploring Dr. Weaver’s relationship with Sandy once she came out, for example, and even though Sandy had insisted in Season 9 that carrying a baby herself was “not even an option,” the next time we saw them as a couple was in Season 10, on the occasion of the birth of baby Henry—to Sandy. Obviously, there must have been some discussion between the two of them about who would carry the baby, and apparently Sandy changed her mind, but none of that made it to the screen or was even referenced in conversation. Why should the custody-battle storyline get any better follow-through?

And since ER is a show about a hospital and the work that goes on in an emergency room, not a court room, it seems pretty certain that Kerry’s custody battle will not be given the thoughtful attention it deserves, even if it gets the screen time. The result is that heterosexual viewers will be left with an unbalanced and simplistic view of what goes on in a custody battle involving gay parents, and lesbian viewers will be bored and insulted by yet another cliched custody-battle storyline that allows the writers to avoid dealing with the lesbian character's personal life.

And as for next season? If Kerry returns to the ER, the only personal storyline we're likely to see around her is as a mother, or grieving mom/widow. But I wouldn't be surprised if left the ER permanently before next season to be a full-time mom or out of depression at losing her partner and her kid. The writers probably won't bother to deal with that, either; we'll only find out when Carter and Abby casually mention it conversation in the first episode of next season ("Yeah, I can't believe Kerry's gone, either").

Either way, it spells the end of the lesbian storyline on ER--and no doubt the end of the line for many of the show's frustrated lesbian viewers, as well.