Happy New Year, Anatomy fans!
We return to the ever dark and emotionally tomultuous corridors of Seattle Grace to catch up with Meredith & co. Previously on Grey’s Anatomy: Sloan found out that he was both a father and a grandfather-to-be. Meredith discovered the Chief catching up with his old friend Vodka, but promised him she wouldn’t blab to Derek. Reed revealed that she was hot for Alex, as if that came as any surprise. And Teddy made a cringeworthy declaration of love to Owen.
This week, Meredith ponders: “When did you realize you’d become a doctor?” Cristina did 30 seconds into the episode, when Cardio Goddess With A Shiny Bow On Top, aka Teddy Altman, revealed that she was to do her first solo valve replacement surgery. Cristina is practically dancing for joy, until she discovers that her patient is extremely pernickety and changes her mind continuously about the type of valve she wants, pig or cow. Teddy enjoys herself immensely, being able to simultaneously teach and dangle the thing Yang yearns for most above her head while she suffers for it. However, Cristina triumphs by getting the Pernickety Patient to choose her valve by shouting the first word that jumps into her head: pig or cow? Pig it is, and Cristina gets to work in the OR, mananging to overcome a serious complication on her own while Teddy sits in the corner, reading Atlantic Monthly and scratching her butt, her evil grin discernible even under her surgical mask. Hunt is horrified, but as Teddy points out later, didn’t Cristina learn to cope under pressure? Sure she did, says Owen, but that wasn’t her only motive, was it?
It wasn’t, and realizing she is never going to win Hunt’s glowering, traumatized affections, Desert Storm Barbie packs her Malibu Pink suitcase and about-faces. Hearing her brand shiny new mentor is taking off, Cristina panics and chases her, catching up with Teddy as she clears the front doors of the hospital and literally begs her stay, offering her anything. It’s both moving and humiliating to watch. Teddy hysterically demands Owen, and Cristina babbles: “Pig!” I mean: “Have him!”
Whooops. We’ll see how that one smooths over next week.
Our secondary storyline concerns the now unofficially available Alex, and his starry-eyed frenemy Reed, who asks to scrub in on his surgery in exchange for “drinks … and then, you know.” Wink wink, nod nod, censor censor. Alex seems all up for a bit of wink, nod, censor, but Meredith and Charlie are less impressed. Charlie because Reed, like the rest of us, always forgets he exists, and Meredith because Reed is whoring herself out to a married man. Cue stern headshakes, but thankfully no speeches. Alex in the end rebuffs Reed outside the Linen Closet of Hygienic Hanky-Panky, telling her is she wants sex, ask for sex. And he walks off amid cheers of ‘Alex has finally grown up and would never cheat on Izzie!’
Not so. (Thanks for the spoilers, Shonda.) But we’ll get back to that shortly.
Sloan Sloan has her daddy Mark wrapped around her little finger, and Lexie is not happy. Which is understandable, since, come on, who wants to be a 25-year-old grandma? Still, at Mark’s request, she performs Sloan Jr’s five-month ultrasound, and sees that there are complications with the foetus. His amniotic bands are cutting off the circulation in his legs. Mark makes a swift and dramatic exit from the exam room, declaring into the cell phone: “Get me Addison Montgomery!”
Hurray, Addison! screamed the fangirl within me. And, OK, Addison’s visit was brief – cut open Sloan, discovered a second complication and was ordered by Mark to close her up and avoid the risk of her bleeding out, all within a total running time of five minutes – but she was still oh so effortlessly awesome. She gently tells Mark that when he prevented her cutting into Sloan further, even though the risk was only 5%, he became a father. So Mark goes to see Sloan and tells her that they will be doing guest spots on this week’s Private Practice, here on ABC. And aw, they become parents together.
Mark allows Sloan to live with him and raise the baby. I’m hoping she’ll politely decline sometime after the baby is born and get an apartment of her own, but we’ll see. The main problem now is that Mark didn’t really discuss this generous offer with Lexie, and she’s not liking this. Sloan Sr tells her not to make him choose between the two women in his life, and Lexie realizes sadly that that means he’ll choose his daughter. She kisses him goodbye and goes to pack her bags.
Alex finds her in his old bedroom at Meredith’s house, Seattle’s fanciest homeless shelter, and tries to kick her out into Izzie’s old room, since he’s moving in too. The trailer does not make for a pimpin’ bachelor pad. Lexie lies on the bed with a bottle of beer and tells him to take a running jump. And he sits on the bed next to her and joins in her relationship-mourning. And we can all see it coming from a mile away, but it’s still juicy when it happens and they lean in for a kiss. Dun dun DUN. Alexie Part II? Well, we’ll see what Izzie and Mark have to say about that when they return next week.
Meanwhile, back at the hospital, Derek’s decided to play matchmaker to the newly single Bailey. (The slogan for this hospital should be ‘Seattle Grace: Where Love Comes to Die’.) He tries not-so-subtly to hook her up with a dorky-looking fellow from radiology, who asks her if she’d like to examine her patient’s X-rays over lunch. And darling Bailey hits him with a hilarious rundown of her life at present: she spends her spare time cleaning up her traumatized three-year-old’s* urine, she now sleeps diagonally in the bed, doesn’t shave her legs and is grouchy all the time. Hee. The guy decides maybe she could just have the X-rays now. Meanwhile, Derek has kindly relieved her of her patient so that she can spend time with Dr Rowan Atkinson, and her patient is none other than the guy who turned yellow a few weeks back after the sozzled Chief cut his bile duct in surgery (but shh!). Derek, confused as to why Bailey is giving this man weekly check-ups following a routine surgery, gets his deerstalker hat on and sets out to determine what’s going on here. Bailey unconvincingly tries to cover up by claiming she has a thing for this man, and his sexy yellow complexion, and Derek looks to Meredith for some more feasible answers. Mer hesitates, but as Florence and the Machine swells and the episode reaches its closing seconds, she admits that our dear old Chief has fallen back into the arms of sweet Lady Liquor. And cut.
* Tuck can’t really be three years old, can he? I just watched the S2 episode in which he was born, which in Grey’s Time was only two years ago or less. Bad continuity, writers!
