Dissecting Grey's Anatomy: House of Pain Edition

Is it just us or is Grey's Anatomy turning more into Yang & O'Malley's Anatomy? Or even McDreamy & Nazi's Anatomy? Or really, Anyone Except Grey's Anatomy. Yeah, we know. Those names, catchy though they may be, don't happen to have the handy synergy of a medical guide named after them, but still. Don't kid yourself, viewers. Those docs are carrying the show.

This week's theme is pain management. How you can anesthetize it, ignore it, heck, even push right on through it. Hey! Cristina's back on duty! That's our little overachieving recovery patient! And what's this? Alex is acting like a jerk? Well, we never! Though failing our medical exams and subsequently questioning our entire professional future might put us in a bad mood, too. We're just saying. Also, it's raining in Seattle! Where do the writers come up with this stuff? Golden. All golden.

So the episode starts off with the interns and their ringleader, Nazi, all gathered round a patient who suffers from physically debilitating stress. And the only thing that can lower his heart rate is 24-hour Spice channel. Baum-chicka-baum-baum. No, seriously. And no, that can't be your excuse, too. The boys and girls are relegated to the hallway for their unprofessional gawking and Cristina gets stuck with porn man. Unfortunately, all that rain at the beginning of the show was not solely intended to mock the drenched inhabitants of Seatown, but rather to set up this nice little twist: power outage at Seattle Grace. But who's to blame? Maintenance for not maintaining? Accounting for not taking account? Miss Scarlett in the library with the lead pipe? Ah, Chief Webber for being too cheap to order a back-up generator! So Cristina has no choice but to…wait for it, wait for it…talk dirty to porn man. Oh, the horror! Oh, the—wait a minute. Oh, the hilarity! Against her will and perhaps better judgment, she sleazes it up, waxing on about three dirty, saucy, naughty, bad, showering nurses. Did we mention they were naughty? Cause they were. And then the power comes back on and all is well.

McDreamy, meanwhile, requests that Meredith make the rounds with him that day. And the awkwardness continues. Meredith's trying to snag McDreamy, McDreamy's hiding from the missus and Nazi refuses to make his decision for him. The nerve! And in the midst of all that, Meredith and the object of her obsession have to find a shaman to help a patient find one of her missing souls before her religious father will allow them to perform limb-saving surgery on her. So they helicopter in a man whose religious garb would not look out of place in the church's Liberace collection. He finds her soul in record time, and McDreamy and Meredith are able to save the gal from paralysis. McDreamy also manages to get in a little shove it speech to Meredith. She says she loves him and squeaks at him to love her, choose her. He lays the smack down, says it ain't that easy, and for the love of god and all that is holy, is he not entitled to one moment of painful doubt and hesitation, and my lord, woman, a little freaking understanding to break up the only family he's known for the past 11 years!?! Phew. Seattlest got a little worked up over that scene. If you can't tell, Seattlest's disdain for Daughter Grey is growing by the episode.

Mama Grey, meanwhile, clears up any confusion wrought by last week's Webber kiss. Turns out they did have an affair once upon a time, Mama Grey did leave her husband Thatch to be with him, and Webber did not extend the same courtesy back. He stuck it out with his missus and Grey the Elder hightailed it over to Boston. And that's a wrap for her. She's released from Seattle Grace.