Dr. Brian McKenzie, the chief of psychiatry at Riverview Hospital in Oakland, deals with patients while trying to juggle his own problems.
McKenzie looks for what triggered a sudden change in a teenage accident victim, and gives his chief resident the duty of cutting a staffer to meet their budget.
McKenzie meets his son's new girlfriend, whose volatility leads to her becoming a patient. Meanwhile, the ward gets a new administrator and a patient whose spectacles appear to give him X-ray vision.
A man takes the ER staff hostage to get compensation for his wife's death there. But Horner is convinced it's a full-scale invasion of the hospital.
A cop tells McKenzie he's having visions of shooting his partner; Horner rejects his brother who's come to take him home; Niles becomes enamored of Mary.
A new patient admits to McKenzie that he killed a man; Jesse is charged with malpractice; Zuchetti is no help to Niles in connecting with Mary.
Niles suspects the rebellion of a politician's son stems from a dysfunctional homelife; McKenzie's ""sure-thing"" at the track has him liquidating his assets; a Polish bus driver develops a French accent after an accident.
McKenzie suspects a genetic illness when his nephew, a priest, confesses that God has spoken to him; staffers discover that a patient is an esteemed painter.
