Grey’s Anatomy

Since there was no new Grey’s last night, I’m going to post my original recap of this episode from TV Bender.

McGuilt, Dark and twisty, Soonish

I’m so glad to have my McFriends at Seattle Grace back. I’m going to be very confused for the next few Sundays, but hopefully I’ll get used to the Thursday thing soon. First of all, let me just honestly say, this wasn’t my favorite episode ever. That being said, know that I am as diehard of a fan as they come, and I still loved it, just not my favorite. I’ll get into why in a paragraph or ten.

First off, the panties ended up with Addison. Of course they did. That was the most obvious thing to do. I have to say, Addison has grown on me from the days of “Derek have you ever considered that even if I am an adulterous bitch, I still may be the love of your life?�? I actually felt sorry for her. Alex and Addison worked to save an abandon baby’s life and Addison’s monologues were the perfect way to express her rage and hurt over Derek’s betrayal. I like her and Alex together, and hmm…. wonder about those possibilities. Will McSteamy come back again to take her away? Or will Alex help her mend that broken heart? Who knows, maybe even the Chief will comfort her (we know that much is true from the hyped “How To Save A Life�? video, but to what degree remains to be seen). Addison’s flashback was heart wrenching all the way around. She desperately tried to explain away her cheating and watched as Derek hurled her clothes out in the pouring rain and pushed her outside, too. Give it up for Kate Walsh, folks – girl can act. At least Derek didn’t leave her outside, and he chose to leave instead.

Speaking of the Chief — let me just ask something here – he is the Chief of Surgery, right? Well, if so, then, really it isn’t HIS hospital. There are administrators and such that can take care of a quarantine situation so he can talk to his wife. But he doesn’t want to do that and it looks as though Adele has had enough. I hope Richard doesn’t handle the disintegration of his marriage by hitting the bottle. Maybe he will turn to an old friend, Addison, to help him through it. Hmm… I keep saying that, don’t I? I don’t know, but it’s just on my mind.

So the quarantine – Derek and George find themselves quarantined because of potential exposure to the plague. The plague? Seriously? I love George. I actually think it should be called O’Malley’s Anatomy – the heart of this show beats with and/or Izzie. George was the first to go in and try to talk to Izzie and you have to love him for that. When quarantined, George asked Derek if he ever told Meredith he loved her. He didn’t. George said he told Meredith he loved her but now Callie said it to him and he wasn’t sure. Maybe he could love her “soonish.�? Derek counseled George to not wait until it was too late to say he loves Callie, even if he wasn’t sure and it was just “soonish.�? As George pondered this we got to see him flashback to meeting Meredith for the first time. Bless his heart. Meredith is his McDreamy and Callie is his George. Ok, I know that’s ridiculous, but you get it. Meanwhile we flash back to Derek first meeting Meredith. That one was cute, and was there to help Derek realize what he had to do.

Christina got the confession out of Meredith and prodded her by repeating Derek’s question of what does this mean? Christina’s flashback was interesting – she went up to Burke and gushed about how great of a surgeon he was. I thought this seemed a bit out of character for her. Didn’t she give a speech about not being a kiss ass in the first episode or two? Anyway, and Burke was with another woman. Wonder what happened to her? Poor Burke, he spent the day alone, wondering where Christina was, but what a sweet little scene between the two of them at the end.

Meredith – “dark and twisty inside�? Meredith – sigh. Like I said at the end of last season, I want Derek and Meredith together, but having them sleep together when Derek was back with Addison was crappy. I know real life is messy and complicated and that’s what they are trying to get across in the show, but having Derek return adultery with adultery was just ugly. Derek showed up and told Meredith he was in love with her, he made a mistake in going back to Addison and that the decision was hers. Meanwhile, earlier in the day, Finn, with his plans and all, told Meredith his hat was in the ring too. He knew what had happened, but still wanted her. So what will she do? The decision is either going to be McDreamy outright, or the classic cliché of “I choose me.�? And then in November sweeps she’ll choose McDreamy. (I know I sound a bit cynical, but we’ll get to that in a minute.)

Let me say here that Bailey was awesome in this episode. And so was guest star Steve Harris (I miss the original The Practice). She cried as she told him she would have done something if she could, and she wishes that she could get yesterday back so she could stop things from happening. She was feeling the McGuilt. I can’t even remember, but where was she in that long period of time that her interns were working on Denny? By the time she entered the room, the whole plan was in motion. Would he have survived if she had of intervened sooner – before the wire was cut? McGuilt and McHeartbreak all around as she told Denny’s body she was sorry.

Izzie. Poor Izzie in her pretty pink Prom dress, lying on the bathroom floor, wondering how she got there, completely stuck in a moment she couldn’t get out of. She flashed back to the mixer when Alex told her she wouldn’t make it a year as a surgeon. She cried and mourned and tried to sort it all out with George, Christina and Meredith. And Meredith was the one that finally got her up off the floor. What is she going to do? That’s the question I want answered the most. (Because like I said above, the McDreamy decision ’06, we all know how that one will go).

So my problem with the episode was that they tried to do too much. There was too much going on with the flashbacks, current story of the 4 teenagers and the baby, the quarantine, Bailey and Omar, Meredith’s decision, Izzie greiveing, George trying to figure out if he loves Callie, the Jewish word for the mourning that Christina did which also meant Callie cooked, Finn dropping by to visit, the Chief’s wife dumping him and Izzie mourning, etc. It was too much to take in. I love that Grey’s has a complex story line and that all of the characters are intertwined. But this episode was almost overbearing. Just when the viewer would start to connect with Addison in her flashback, it would jarringly go to Izzie on the bathroom floor and just as you started to hurt for her, you would be with George and McDreamy and want to laugh that George thought he had the plague. Don’t get me wrong, the mix of comedy and drama is one of Grey’s hallmarks and I don’t want that to change. But in the season opener, I would have liked to zero in on a few core things and save the flashbacks for another time. They slowed the current action and having all of that crammed in that episode left me a bit McDizzy with no time to really feel any emotion. Maybe that was intentional.

Talk to me – what did you think?