Dissecting Grey's Anatomy: Death Becomes Them Edition

Unfortunately, it appears as though the good docs at Seattle Grace have all lapsed on their statue-rubbing, sidewalk crack-stepping ways, and all four biggies—Nazi, Addison, Burke and McDreamy—all lose patients on the operating table. Four surgeries, four fatalities—and the day has just begun! Unfortunately, word on the street is that hospital deaths always come in sevens, so the race is on to find out who the remaining three patients are to bite it.

Addison, meanwhile, is on death duty damage control, bringing her own NYC brand of superstitious juju to our fine shores, offering up cups of cocoa to the offending (read: murderous) docs. She even jujus Meredith, just to get in the spirit of things, and hopes to become friends by proxy. By proxy of them both having slept with her husband, presumably.

Seattle Grace surgeons are busy canceling all their surgeries, so sure are they of the seven death rule. Not our good docs, though. They soldier on.

A slew of crazies account for the patients this week, with Cristina's wacko leading the pack. She's assigned to care for a man with severe OCD who was hit by a car cause he was busy counting the flashes on a streetlight or some such nonsense. Needless to say, his personality doesn't suit Cristina, which comes as no surprise to him. He tells Burke's type A ladylove that it's the people whose personality are closest to his that take the biggest issue with him. Unfortunately, he's one of the unlucky seven.

Cristina spends the rest of her day trying to get Georgie-boy kicked out of her humble abode by telling Burke she won't return his lucky scrub cap—his superstition—until he gives Bambi the boot. He refuses and instead enlists O'Malley to steal the cap back for him. Hilarity ensues—okay, not so much hilarity as a series of annoyances put Cristina's way—with George ransacking her locker and frisking her in the ladies room—an incident unfortunately witnessed by the spicy nurse whose name we've yet to learn. But the one who's been macking on Georgie. Unfortunately, our ladykiller also refers to the nurse as "ma'am" during the encounter, thus ensuring, per Cristina, she will never sleep with him. Hmmm...somehow we beg to differ.

Cristina eventually hands the cap back over to Burke—no thanks to George—after a run-in with Izzie. The blond trailer park dweller threatens to kick her pampered Beverly Hills ass lest she continue to withhold the lucky charm. Because Burke, after all, is due to operate on Denny. Her Denny. The poor man's Robert Downey Jr./Javier Bardem.

Izzie and Alex have been tending to the heart patient all day, and not surprisingly, Alex's fragile male ego protects itself the only way he sees fit—by telling Denny he's going to die during surgery. Nice. Rivals even Cristina's bedside manner with that gem.

Izzie of course catches wind of the not-so-friendly but fairly realistic disclosure and rips Alex a new one, dumping him by telling him he's not only not good enough for her, but that he's not good enough for any woman. And that even on his very best day, the "corpse" that's Denny is two times the man he'll ever be. Burke overhears their ex-lovers quarrel and orders them both out of his O.R. He doesn't need that negative energy interfering with his juju.

And just so we don't keep you in suspense any longer, Denny is the lucky one. He lives, and apparently, part of his recovery plan is a big fat kiss from Izzie. Love is in the air.

Meredith, meanwhile, is assigned to deal with a borderline stalker who initially claims she was struck by lightning. Come to find out, she was actually struck by a wayward branch while climbing a tree in her ex-boyfriend's backyard which was struck by lightning. So ya know. She was only slightly off.

She needs to get an operation as her spleen is bleeding something fierce, but refuses, claiming her horoscope for that day was not partial to surgery. She keeps saying she shoulda stayed in bed all morning, and quite frankly, she really really annoyed us. We're glad she died before making it into surgery.

Some new revelations did come this episode in the form of Chief's past—at least, we think they're new revelations. His sponsor shows up in need of a liver transplant. His AA sponsor. Chief's an alcoholic? Go figure. We also learn that the cause of his alcoholism was Meredith's mama, Grey the Elder. Their affair drove him to it, apparently. And now he's in an emotional affair with her. Not a good situation. He performs the surgery on her, though, and she makes it out alright.

Meanwhile, a hurt Alex takes his bruised ego out on O'Malley and in front of the whole crew to boot. Completely unprompted, except perhaps by more of George's pouting over Meredith, he tells O'Malley that he is a sad excuse for a man and that if it wouldn't get him kicked out of the program, he would smash his head into the wall. Yeow.

Thanks to this display, Cristina tells Burke he doesn't have to kick Georgie out after all. At least, not today. George, though, takes it in stride, seeking out the nurse who again rebuffs his advances since he failed to call her when he said he would. And what does our George do? He steps up. Calls her right then, despite the fact that she's ten feet away from him, and cutely asks her out again. She says yes.

Meredith caps off the episode by saying that superstition lies in the space between what we can and can't control. That no one wants to pass up a chance for a little good luck. That we rely on superstitions because we're smart enough to know that we don't have all the answers and that life works in mysterious ways. That, and you don't diss the juju, regardless of where it comes from.