Dissecting Grey's Anatomy: Carpe Diem Edition
It's a rare and precious thing when two giants can come together onscreen for a beautiful, culminating moment. Such couples captivate their audience like few before: Brad and Angelina, B1 and B2, and now, ladies and gentleman, McDreamy and ferryboats. Yes, folks. Man and myth, face to face! See, Virginia? They do exist.
Oh, how ye location gods have shined on us today! First, there were random piers, then actual ferryboats. (When did the islands start developing McDreamy-friendly trailer parks?) Now downtown bus stops? And omigod, postcard spot du jour Kerry Park! The crew really went all out on that day they must have spent in Seattle. (Actually, we kid because we love. Those fleeting moments of our cityscape mark some of the high points of Seattlest's week. And no, we don't want your pity.)
Meredith has foregone the typical, jamming-of-show-theme-down-viewers'-throats spiel and instead decided it's storytime at Seattle Grace. Wheee! Just like in kindergarten. So listen up, kids. Meredith never liked Romeo & Juliet. At least not in the eighth grade. Thought Shakespeare's leading lady was nothing more than an idiot, falling for the one guy she can't have and blaming fate for her decision. See what she did there? She gave us a theme after all!
So the classics-hating Meredith starts out the day with a big ole' zit on her forehead. How to nonchalantly cover it up? Hmm…pull down those thick, lush bangs? Nope. Apply a little concealer? That's a negative. Oh, we know! Draw even more attention to it by applying a bright red Hello Kitty that takes up half your forehead? Yeah, we should've guessed that one first.
In between fielding questions on what happened to her face, Meredith is assigned to work with an elderly woman admitted to the hospital. She needs to have her gall bladder removed. During surgery, Nazi and Meredith discover evidence of super advanced gall bladder cancer and tell her sweet old husband they can do more surgeries, but regardless she may only have 4-6 months to live. He's devastated but doesn't want his wife to know since she's so happy. Meredith obliges until Nazi smacks some sense into her and she realizes she must disclose her patient's health to, um, her patient. She does, and the wife asks that her husband not find out. That he couldn't handle it. So Meredith selflessly—will wonders never cease—tells the woman that her husband has no idea. So bittersweet.
George's storyline, meanwhile, is going to the birds. (You want punny, we'll give you punny.) No, really. He's about to eat a bagel when a pigeon craps on it. As he throws the bread down and walks away, he barely misses a falling man. Guy turns out to be a window washer and despite a five-story fall has nary a scratch on him. His only injury is a broken leg. Miraculous for such an incident. So miraculous, in fact, that we practically witness Georgie boy being born again. Carpe diems all around! Mucho discussion on fate and George waxing on about how lucky, um, George is. He wants the fall guy to be equally as excited about his brush with death until he realizes the washer didn't fall, he jumped. So that explains the not-being-so-excited-about-seizing-any-days thing. Go figure.
The washer confides in George that on his way down all he thought about was this girl, Daisy, who, coincidence of coincidences, just so happens to work in that very hospital. Well, now! What are the odds? George sets off to find her, and it's not quite the happy ending we were hoping for. She wants nothing to do with him and says he should've come looking for her 10 years ago. George sets off back to the man and tells him before he goes into surgery that he looked for his chick but apparently she's on vacation. The guy thanks Georgie for looking and then promptly dies. Right there on the table before even going into surgery. Did not see that one coming. Neither did George.
Nazi has been offered quite the prestigious fellowship by Chief Webber. He wants to know if she's made her decision and she weirdly says not yet and runs away. Well, well, well, what have we here? Secret in Nazi-land? And how. When he later accuses her of being wooed by other hospitals and therefore acting gifted and ungrateful, she finally tells Chief the reason for her hesitation: She's pregnant! Nazi's pregnant! And, uh, she's not happy about it. She rants about timing and stupid men and trying for seven years and then getting preggers right before her fellowship. And then Chief feels bad. And then we feel good.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave when the McDreamys team up for a plotline. Their NY friends are in town but it's not a friendly visit. The wife is so distraught that her mother recently passed away from ovarian cancer that she decides to get genetic testing to find out if she's a carrier of the gene. She is. So she decides to preempt the whole possibility-of-getting-cancer thing and get a hysterectomy and, AND, a mastectomy. Overreaction much? Her husband thinks so. So does McDreamy (who's opinion is quickly shut down by the missus). So does Izzy. Big time. But Addison and Alex? Yeah. They're pretty much okay with it.
Izzy has understandable issues because they're basically castrating this woman. They're taking away everything about her that makes a woman and nobody's batting an eyelash, but they would never do the same thing to a man. Alex says he would get castrated if it would save his life, and besides, she can always take hormones and get implants. Uh-oh Alex. Wrong thing to say. After much fighting, he finally corners Izzy in the locker room and tells her, yeah, he likes her rack but it wouldn't be the end of the world if she lost 'em cause what he really likes is her. And then she smacks him. And then she kisses him. Uh-huh. Alex looked just as confused. But Izzy walked away smiling.
The husband, meanwhile gets drunk and issues the world's worst pre-op toast. "To bull and to crap." We likey. Do you think this guy rents himself out for family functions, too? He'd probably kill at a wedding. NY wifey worries that this may cause irreparable damage to her marriage seeing as how she didn't really consult her husband about it and how they've been trying for kids. Well, yeah. Sort of hard to get pregnant without ovaries or a uterus. The McDreamys counsel their buds and say if they could work it out, so can their friends. And hubby shows up to support his wife at her surgery. Well, we should hope so.
Cristina and Burke get ready to have their first real date. And to see each other outside of the hospital for the first time. After trying on a series of dresses, Cristina sees no need to worry, saying she looks hot in scrubs. She can do hot in her sleep. There's some awkward, car-door-holding going on, and lots of silence at dinner. Well, aside from the fundamental, wow-these-guys-are-polar-opposites arguments of red vs. white wine (Seattlest goes for the latter each time) and steak vs. lobster (tough call…particularly when Burke doesn't eat red meat and Cristina is a carnivore in every sense of the word). Just when it appears the date is unsalvageable, someone faints and another calls out "Is there a doctor in the house?" Wow. We thought that line only cropped up in bad 80s sitcoms and Steve Martin movies. Both jump up and fight to help the guy. They bring him to the hospital and operate on his aorta and all is well.
Burke starts to apologize to Cristina that they never got to finish their extremely awkward date, but she interrupts him and claims it was the best date she's ever been on. And Burke looks pleased as punch.
Meanwhile, Meredith and McDreamy have been bumping into each other in crowded elevators all day. And finally, they find themselves in one alone. Both facing forward, Meredith can't take it anymore and blurts out that she misses him. McDreamy moves close behind her and starts, uh, smelling her hair. And more general pained, almost-caressing of that nature. But he tells her that he can't and leaves her alone in the elevator.
Wait, what's this? Oh, yeah. Back to Romeo & Juliet. Meredith tells us that maybe they were fated to be together but their time passed. And that if they knew they were doomed from the start, maybe it would be okay. That you can take fate into your own hands. That love is about choices. But that sometimes, even when you put down the poison dagger, and despite the best choices and decisions, fate wins out anyway. If only, Meredith. If only.
