This week on Grey’s Anatomy: following Meredith’s revelation that the Chief was back on the sauce, Derek starts huffing and puffing and blowing his rep down. Meredith gets annoyed as she watches McDreamy act like a McAss (her words, not mine), blathering on about his Duty to the Hospital and other such boohockey. She firmly “calls Post-It”, reminding him that she confided in him as a husband, not as a doctor. Derek smiles his McSmile, all thoughts of Duties to the Hospital gone, and kisses her goodbye before heading off to what he assures her will be a tittle-tattle free day at work.
Meredith also promises to keep her lips sealed after receiving word that Izzie will be coming back to town, and goes to warn Alex only to find him in bed with her sister. Lexie and Alex look suitably abashed as Mer sits them down and tells them that they are naughty kids but she won’t tell Izzie. Just as Izzie pops up with a suitcase and asks chirpily: “Tell me what?”
Not really a dramatic enough moment to cue the title cards with, but it does that anyway.
At the hospital (where we get a rare scene with Nurse Tyler, yay!) Alex and Cristina are put on the case of an opera singer, whose actor I think I know from Seinfeld or something. His condition just so happens to mirror his doctor’s life – don’t you miss the days when it was fun and obvious, rather than depressing and subtle? I do. This guy learns that he has lung cancer and is adamant that he can’t lose his lung, as singing is his whole life – forgetting to mention his cute little geek boyfriend, who is standing, um sweetheart, like RIGHT HERE. Teddy is in charge of Cristina on this case, and boy does this make them uncomfortable.
Moving on, we switchto some Calzona action: the lady doctors are getting hot and heavy in the on-call room when Arizona notices Callie has pox – chicken pox, she clarifies, in case you were wondering if there’s been a smallpox breakout. Well, this is Seattle Grace, which has so far hosted the flesh-eating virus and the plague, so I was kind of half-expecting that to be the case. Ari is horrified and shoves Callie in a secure ward with pox-immune Lexie as her doctor.
Bailey meets Derek on the walkway and they talk about how the Chief isn’t himself: he didn’t even come down to watch Bailey’s Rockstar Surgery With a Fancy Name, causing her to moan, “He’s gone. He’s been gone a long time.” They both sigh, brooding over their situation: crewing a sinking ship in stormy waters, with the captain soused at the wheel.
We get some brief comic relief as Lexie tends to that poxy Callie, who’s in itchy agony and tries to order Lexie to take off her anti-scratch ‘gaze paws’, but Lexie will not, under Arizona’s orders. Little Grey tries to show her that she feels her pain by blurting out about her er, indescrepency with Alex, even though she loves Mark. Callie: “I have pox between my butt cheeks. Your pain doesn’t begin to compare to mine!” Lexie warns her that she’ll scar. Callie: “Scars are hot! Scars are badass! Scars are … poetic!” Which is the most eloquent plea to be allowed to scratch your own arse that I’ve ever heard. Callie looks likes she wants to leap across the room and strangle Lexie with her gauze paws but settles for throwing her out.
Meredith’s Gang. They now appear to be eating lunch in the morgue. Nothing darker and twistier than using an open ribcage as a nacho dish. Izzie comes in meekly to join them, since she’s in for a pep scan anyway. Which annoys me, because she butts into their Poignant Convo – job vs. love – and starts to go into full Bambi-eyed speech about how love is more important because it’s what you go home to, whereas a job is what you come home from. This from the chick who, a month ago, told her husband that all that mattered to her was her job. Alex tells her coldly that love comes and goes, surgery doesn’t. Pagers conveniently go off, and Izzie has a full ten seconds to reflectively feel sorry for herself before Meredith and Avery whoop that they’ve done something successful and probably gross to their open corpse. Pass me the salsa dip, will you?
Derek and Hunt bump into each other and have a little heart-to-heart, cutely referring to their other halves as the Twisted Sisters. Hee. Derek kinda-sorta tells him about the Chief situation, and Hunt, who has war on the brain tells him no-one goes into battle to win a Purple Heart: he’s got to do what’s right, even if Meredith will sever his goolies and use them as earrings as a result.
Derek’s solution is to burst into the Chief’s office with a brown paper bag and pour him a glass of scotch. He scathingly tells him he won’t want to, but oh he’ll drink it, and leaves. Uh-huh. Patrick Dempsey’s ‘self-righteous’ acting doesn’t impress me much. But the good news is, it looks like the Chief is finally being wrested from office.
Mark pops in to see Poxy Callie and gets into bed with her and sensually rubs her itchy body better, causing moans of pleasure and satisfaction that would make Arizona feel inadequate. Did I mention I just love Mark and Callie together? What, only every other review? Well, I’ll say it again.
The Gay Opera Geeks get a lucky break as they get to be symbolic of Alex and Izzie’s relationship as well! The non-singer half tells Alex he finds it hard to put up with someone who jerks him around so much. Alex goes off to do some thinking. When Izzie bursts in later to announce that she is cancer freem he’s like, All right! Whoop! Now go celebrate with someone who deserves your bullshit, plz. Izzie looks stunned: she dies in her husband’s arms, wakes up, tells him he’s ruined her life, and walks out on him leaving only a note, and he doesn’t want to be with her any more? How can this be??
Meredith still refuses to talk to the board about the Chief’s drinking, even though he is scheduled to scrub in on a seven-hour surgery in which she will be performing things beyond her trained level. Instead, Bailey takes over and Meredith leaves the OR in a sulk. Teachers are much more fun when they’re drunk and letting you do dangerous things you’re not qualified for. Feeling like the ten-year-old whose mommy won’t let her have the car keys, she stalks outside and meets Derek (everybody’s bumping into Derek today; I have reason to believe he hides around corners and jumps out when he sees someone coming so that he can say dark and meaningful things). He tells her that if he becomes Chief, he will make sure Izzie is rehired. Mer’s Unswerving Loyalty flies out the window and she practically dances over to Izzie to tell her to stay. But, given recent events, Izzie’s not keen on staying and packs her bags. Is Katherine Heigl still in this show, or not?
Back to the Owen/Cristina/Teddy drama: Cristina tells Teddy that, like the opera singer, she chooses her gift over her love and she will give up Hunt if it means she gets to keep her heart-surgeon gift. Teddy looks bizarrely touched that she’s being compared to a fat guy’s lung. Which, FYI, she managed to save by repeating Bailey’s trick where she washes out his organs in liquid chemo. Later, Teddy drunkenly tells Hunt about what Cristina said. Hunt goes round to Yang’s apartment, where she is hitting the bottle, evidently struggling to put the concept of “I love you and I’m sorry I offered to trade you like a really sweet Pokémon card” into words. He gives her one of those violently passionate kisses that make some viewers go “aww” and others go “aghh!”, and tells her she doesn’t get to just barter him away. He’s a love-over-work kinda guy too.
And, in Calzona’s backup story, Ari reveals that she only pretended not to be immune to chickenpox as an excuse not to see Callie all itchy and scratchy and oozing pus, and keep her sexy in her mind. But, she weakens and takes over Mark’s place in the bed anyway. Aww. Please don’t split those two up, they make my heart smile.
Oh, and Mark and Lexie are totally not talking ’cause of Alex, even though Mark slept with Addison in LA, so I’m like Huh, How does that work out? and MerDer are annoyed that each dealt with the Chief situation in such a way as to achieve their own ends – flashy surgery and flashy job – so we’ll see if they haven’t killed each other next week.
Til then!
