Dissecting Grey's Anatomy: Doggone Dog's Gone Edition
So here's our theory on the matter: The powers that be over at Seattle Grace headquarters have been gliding through these past couple post-holiday episodes as quickly and with as little effort or creative output as possible in order to gear up for the All Important Super Bowl Show, made even more All Important by the recent addition of our very own Seahawks. And lest you place Seattlest in a similar category (one of gliding through recent weeks with minimal exertion, that is, not one of being All Important, cause we're not and we are), then think again. And behold, this week's recap.
This week, the whole of the Seattle Grace crew has come down with a terrible affliction, namely pantsonfireitis. (Sound it out, come on...got it? Good.) Meredith's patented book-ending voice-over, alarmingly less irritating by the week, tells us that as doctors, they're trained to be skeptical and that every patient is deemed a liar until proven otherwise. Nice to know. She waxes on about honesty being the best policy and lying being bad and then further ponders that lying is simply a necessity since the truth is just too dang painful. Aw. Sounds like someone's still hankering for a little McDreamy lovin'.
The episode kicks off with Meredith and (Golden Globe winning!) Cristina avoiding their respective l'amours, McDreamy and Burke. Meredith has taken to calling Derek by his oh-so-cutesy nickname once more, sounding alarm bells for her bestest bud that she's not yet over him. Hmmm...shocking turn of events. Yep, never would have seen that one coming. Cristina, meanwhile, has told Burke she would move in with him, which she technically has aside from the fact that she's keeping her old apartment. Just in case.
Contrivance once again rears its ugly yet plot-advancing head and pairs Meredith with Burke and Cristina with McDreamy for the daily rounds. Cristina and the swoon-worthy doc attend to a shaggy-haired guitarist (ahh, the many facets of TV characters from Seattle) who has severed three of his best strumming fingers. McDreamy tells him that the only way the digits will successfully reattach, instead of, say, turn completely black and fall off again, is if he quits smoking. He says he doesn't smoke. Cristina says his nicotine-stained half-fingers say he does. Touche.
Unfortunately, McDreamy tells her to stop deflating her patients' dreams of whole-handedness and apologize for telling the rocker that she doesn't believe he can quit. So she puts her own sassy spin on things and instead gives the guy a ciggy. You know, just so he can have his last one in peace. And what do you suppose happens next? That's right, kiddies, McDreamy spots the duo puffing away and relegates Cristina to the back of the surgery. Once he realizes that Cristina actually inspired the patient, he apologizes. But not until the duo have it out in a series of shouting matches about whether or not McDreamy has been leading Meredith on with his heart-melting, knee-knocking ways. He says he was just being nice, and that there's a difference between being friendly and being flirty. Uh...there is? Cristina tells him to be careful.
McDreamy, meanwhile, has been sticking the needle to Meredith, and no, not in any metaphorically dirty sense. He's doing blood work on her to assist her experimental drug-therapied mama. How friendly of him.
Meredith, along with Burke, is assigned to a manically peppy newlywed heart patient, which the dour doe-eyed intern believes to be chemically induced. Cause, you know, no one is that happy all the time. The lady's hubby tends to agree, though Burke does not. After a mini recitation of how all patients are liars, Meredith talks Burke into ordering a tox screening. It comes back negative. Meredith ain't happy with that, so she orders another, more extensive one, with the slight alteration of a forged Burke signature. Way to be the moral compass of a show.
Meredith's flirtation with felony comes back once again negative on the drugs, though it does show that the woman has a lung tumor which, among other seemingly unrelated symptoms, increases serotonin levels. So the gal ain't that perky after all. Meredith thanks Burke for not calling her out on the forgery, and Burke dismisses it, saying it's he who should thank her for talking bestest gal pal Cristina into moving in with him. Gee, Mere, you shouldn't have.
Izzy and Alex are once again paired up with a female competitive eating champion from Japan who's come to reclaim her title at the, uh, Bite of Seattle. Yes. The Bite of Seattle, the most prestigious of all championship titles. Anyway, the petite wonder has a bad case of the hiccups, not her first, but thanks to a shady translator (her own), she leaves the hospital without permission and goes on to compete. Of course, she comes back just hours later with a bleeding and torn esophagus and a career-ending injury.
Alex is about to unleash a pounding the likes of which have never been seen, only to be stopped by Izzie. Alex, you see, has received his exam results, though he ain't too keen on opening it. Izzie says he only wants to beat up the dude in order to get kicked out of the hospital so he can leave on his own terms without finding out if he actually failed. So he asks her to open the letter, and surprise surprise, he ain't going anywhere. He passed.
Prior to the patient's recovery, though, we get to see one of the funniest scenes for quite some time. Cristina, Alex and George, spurred on by their new patient, decide to hold a competitive eating match of their own, going hot dog a hot dog during their lunch break. Badass Cristina wins, flaunts it ("You wanna be me, but you can't be me!") and subsequently blows her top.
Nazi, likewise, isn't doing so well. After a series of contractions, Mrs. McDreamy diagnoses her as going into pre-term labor and orders her to bed rest. That's out of the hospital. But always the fighter, she warns the interns prior to her departure that she still has eyes and ears in the hospital and they better not try anything in her absence.
And as for Georgie-boy...oh, Georgie-boy. He and Izzie offer an ultimatum to Meredith: Either Kujo goes or he goes. Always sensitive to the needs and emotions of others, Meredith hesitates before answering and Georgie pledges his departure from the house. He's assigned a 78-year-old, former song-and-dance-lady patient who refers to him as "Irish" and refuses to leave the hospital until her room is ready at her daughter's house. Knowing flattery will get her everywhere, she's quick to mention that Irish's eyes are, well, smiling, and his swagger? Well, his swagger he needs to work on.
George confesses that his roomie has chosen a dog over him and she tells him to stand his ground. That with his eyes and hands and assorted manly body parts, that must be one hell of a dog, and women are stupid and he should fight for what he wants. When he gets up to leave, she tells the newly-confident George, "Now that's a swagger."
So after admitting the old bird to a variety of different departments for made-up illnesses solely designed to prolong her stay at the hospital, he confronts Meredith. Tells her that he's always been there to hold her hand, he buys her tampons, that he deserves respect and to be thought of as more than a dog. He says that yeah, her life has admittedly been fairly crappy, and she can choose to be selfish, but he can't choose a dog over him. You go Georgie!
Unfortunately, before going all balls to the wall on Meredith, Georgie learns that his patient does not have a room waiting for her, that she simply wants to stay at the hospital to avoid going back to the nursing home. Because she knows she's elderly, but she's not old. Awww...come on, Georgie, don't you want a surrogate grandma? Oh, bother.
And the dog from hell? He finds a new home with the McDreamys. A favor, the good doctor adds, that is friendly, not flirty. Yeah, right. Not according to scenes from next week's episode.
The Chief, meanwhile, is busy with problems of his own. Thanks to his team's surgical arrogance, the overworked nurses are going on strike...in 10 days. Ten days? Sounds like a Very Special All Important episode plot to us.
