Dissecting Grey's Anatomy: You Dropped a Bomb on Me, Baby Edition
Note to programming execs: Surprises are generally more surprising when they aren't teased within an inch of their life in the week prior to said surprise. Exhibit A: The bombshell info Izzie drops on us halfway through this week's episode that we just Did. Not. See. Coming. Just when we had written off these pre-Super Bowl episodes as a month of filler, you snap back to it and rock us like a hurricane. Nicely done.
Hey Meredith—got some words of wisdom for us? Of course you do. This week's lesson is all about the importance of crossing lines. How there are certain lines we shouldn't cross even though we want to and how through personal dares or just plain boneheadedness we end up crossing them anyway. And speaking of lines (and lazy transitions)...
Well, what do you know, the interns are facing one of their own. A line that is. Those nurses who were threatening to strike? They've struck. And they're picketing the entrance of Seattle Grace. Cristina takes her lumps and powers through the mob, only to be covered in fruit and assorted rotting vegetables. Izzie goes for it, too, but not without a parting shot at Olivia to "enjoy the syphilis." Georgie-boy, though? He won't cross. He's a union man, begotten of union parents with union ties and union morals. He won't cross. But he is named the patron saint of the nurses.
Meredith, meanwhile, goes to visit Mama Grey in the nursing home and walks in to see Chief Webber already there. One of the workers tells her that he visits multiple times a week and that Grey the Elder can't help but light up in her presence. Hmmm. Suspicious. When she finally gets to work she roams the halls in order to avoid the peppy perky annoyingly cute lets-heal-through-love Nazi replacement (come on, Nazi, pop that baby out and get back here!). Whilst wandering, she hears an old lady crying for her husband and not being able to breathe, so she intubates the woman in order to stabilize her. Bad move. Apparently the old woman was DNR—do not resuscitate—and her fellow senior friends are none too pleased.
The woman's daughter shows up and confirms her ailing mama's DNR status which means that Meredith has to kill her patient. Chief offers to take care of it for her, but Meredith is snippy over his surprise presence with her own mother and does the job herself. And then runs into a closet and cries. McDreamy follows her in and comforts her, and she wails that she doesn't want to die alone. They almost kiss, but apparently our screams of bloody murder at the television stop them. Later Meredith tells Chief she knows what's up, but that he can keep visiting her mama.
Cristina and Alex are paired up with Sydney, the uber-perky resident, to treat a newlywed woman who has a flesh-eating virus destroying her leg. The lady is a real outdoorswoman and so Dr. Peppy says she's gonna try and cut out all of the virus to save her leg. During surgery, Cristina thinks Dr. Pep has gone off and is going to kill the patient when she should just amputate the leg. Alex is no help, quelle surprise, as he's too busy sucking up to the new doc and tormenting Cristina's negative sensibilities. So she leaves the O.R. and seeks out boytoy Burke, who does his girl a solid and busts into the surgery. He asks what the doc's procedure is in a none-too-subtle, I'm undermining you, sort of way. She goes off and rips Burke a new one, telling him she knows what she's doing and Cristina's just a little bone saw happy. Um, Cristina? You got served. Burke forces her to apologize.
Izzie, meanwhile, is busy with Addison and McDreamy, tending to a pregnant trailer-livin' Chehalis high schooler whose babe has some sort of tumor growth that needs removing. The girl's momma heads back down south to start her shift at the diner and asks Izzie to watch over her daughter. The girl says she's scared and Izzie says maybe the girl should consider giving the baby up for adoption so she could finish school. And then Izzie asks if the girl can keep a secret and breaks out with this bombshell: She hands the patient a photo of a young two-headed gal and says, "This is my daughter."
Wha? Bam! That's how you pull off that sort of surprise, peeps. Turns out, Izzie got pregnant in high school too. Lived in a trailer. Wanted a better life for her daughter, so she gave her up, finished school, and is now a doc. Obviously. And that there's more than one way to be a good mother. The gal's name is Hannah, but Izzie calls her Sarah. And she likes pigs. Aww. Izzie says she's a good mother, just not a mom.
Well, sweet and news worthy as that information was, the gal's mother comes back and berates Izzie for telling her kid to give up the baby. Izzie says that's not what she said, but that doesn't mean it's not the right thing to do. Booyah. The surgery is a success and the girl never definitively says what her decision is, but all signs point to adoption.
Ah, Georgie. When he's not sneaking into the hospital to give nurse's notes to the non-union-friendly docs, he's sparking bar fights at Joe's (Joe!)(Additional parenthetical note: Seattlest's otherwise eagle eye has failed us of late as we didn't realize until last night that Joe was at one time someone's Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance, a show we, uh, never watched, not even for the finale episode in which that snobby blonde totally got what she deserved in front of her friends and family and America, and long live schadenfraude!). Anyway, Georgie-boy sics the nurses on the docs, nearly causes Cristina to throw down while also turning on Alex, and then quickly undermines his fleeting assertiveness by running after the gals who are, as he so gingerly screams it, his ride.
Georgie also gets our second favorite line of the night (cause really, it's hard to beat "Enjoy your syphilis, Olivia." Really, that's a gem). At home, he's playing his gameboy in bed when both Izzie and Meredith plop down beside him. After establishing that both gals had a hellish workday that they don't want to talk about, George, without looking up from his videogame, oh so casually poses the question: "So, anybody wanna have sex?" Oh, Georgie.
Well, ladies and gents, the strike is over. Chief is giving up his new state of the art multimillion dollar surgical digs to pay for the nurse raise. And just in time too. Next week's Very Important Super Bowl Episode looks like it might be a whopper.
Hey Meredith, any last words? Like we need to ask. Apparently crossing lines isn't all bad, so long as you know there's something familiar on the other side.
