Episode Report Card Lauren S: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Shit Hits the Fan
By Lauren S | Season 3 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.22.2006
Welcome to one of the hardest scenes I've ever had to watch, much less watch multiple times. Burke and Cristina are in the on-call room, each talking quietly to themselves. Cristina is pacing and he's sitting in a chair against the wall, each dealing with the information in their own ways. She's relieved George said nothing and is working out how to ensure that he stays quiet. Burke just repeats over and over again that he can't believe it. Cristina finally concludes out loud that this is a good thing, and that no one will ever have to know. It's not a good conclusion, she's in too deep, but this gives everyone a way out and no one gets hurt or killed. Burke, though, explodes with unhappiness. He's gotten his dream the wrong way. Point-blank, he announces, "I had a tremor and I didn't say anything about it. It's unimaginable. It's unethical. Dishonorable. I crossed a line." Cristina jumps to his defense, assuring him that they both crossed a line, and so Burke decides to get angry at someone other than himself. "You dragged me across the line. You made us a team. You told Shepherd I was fine, you said nobody has to know. I was out there on my own. You made us a team." She tells him that she did what he needed, and recounts how he'd cried about having no life without surgery and how he couldn't be Preston Burke. Infuriatingly, he yells, "That was your concern, not mine." He keeps saying that, keeps throwing in her face that she's only in love with Preston Burke, Surgeon, but I think the fact that it's what springs to his mind every time means that he's the one who can't see himself as anything else but Preston Burke, Surgeon. She yells back as much, saying, "No, no, no. YOU put that on me."
He's silent, and she goes on. "When you got shot I walked away, and you cannot let that go. Well I'm sticking now, okay? I'm sticking. You know how tired I am." She sounds like she's fighting a lump in her throat. "Do you know how scared I am every time we go into surgery? But I do it, for you." However misguided, this was Cristina's way of showing him her love -- she's a robot, and driven, and her life is surgery and her career, and so she proved her love for him by risking it all for him, so that he didnât lose his own life and sense of self. Does he see this? No. He yells, "Do you know how scared I am when we go into surgery? I don't have to worry about just my career now, I have to put yours on my back too." Because the simple fact remains, he never had to go along with any of this, but by complying from the beginning, he took it all on himself. She again says that they're a team, desperately, but he stands up and takes his last shot. "There is no team. There is no team. There's only me, once again, making allowances for your emotional shortcoming." Stunned, she throws herself down on the bed and says that they shouldn't say anything else right then. He agrees, and leaves.
It's disgusting to watch and it's nothing but maddening, cowardly behavior on his part. Did she duct-tape your mouth shut? Did she threaten your life? Did she taser you into an operating room? No? Then this is YOUR OWN FAULT, Burke. You can't admit that you were wrong and then try to turn it on Cristina. You both made huge mistakes in this, but it came down to you. You're the attending. You're the one with the career. You're supposed to be the teacher and the role model, and you're the one whose dream it was to become Chief of Surgery. Even on the day she told Derek you were fine and he cleared you for surgery, you could have easily said something then. Anything that happened from that moment on is your fault and your fault alone. Cristina should face reprimands, but you deserve anything that could come from this, and you also definitely don't deserve your girlfriend anymore. She did only what she knew how to do, and you let her, and then depended on her to help you, so you can't then blame her when you realize that this was wrong and decide you don't want to face the consequences of your actions -- or inactions. It's time to be a man, Burke -- you crowed about being more than Preston Burke, and being a good man, but you're anything but that right now.