Episode Report Card Lauren S: B | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Decisions, Decisions
By Lauren S | Season 5 | Episode 23 | Aired on 05.14.2009
Swender and Derek are once again arguing about Izzie's treatment in front of her. Given the results, Swender isn't totally crazy about trying out this surgery, but Derek argues that it was the worst scenario and has nothing to do with the actual surgery. His argument is that not operating is as risky as operating. This all is really helping Izzie, especially as it's taking place right in front of her. She asks Alex and again he throws it back to her, so the doctors leave them, but Alex follows Derek out. Meredith then shuts the door, turns to her friend, and announces... "You are not having the surgery."
Alex then asks Derek the question that we all saw on ABC about 47 times or so in the promo. He tells Derek to talk to him like a friend rather than a doctor, and tell him what to do. When Derek tells him that he can't, Alex pulls out the big guns and asks what Derek would do if it was Meredith. Would he choose having a few months with her knowing she was going to die and watching her in pain, or would he choose to spend his life with someone who was no longer actually Meredith? Alex calls Izzie the one good thing that has happened to him, although I would argue that Meredith was a good thing, and this job was a good thing... but it makes this scene all the heavier like that. Derek tells him that he would ask Mere to have the surgery.
Meredith, meanwhile, is convincing Izzie to do just the opposite by telling her about how Izzie couldn't remember anything including who anyone was or even how to speak. Izzie is confused, because... no one told her this until now? That seems like a rather glaring omission of Important Information. Izzie then asks again what she should do, so Meredith tells her about Allison's success with the IL2 and then announces, "you're not having this surgery."
So then Izzie goes to talk to Allison herself about it. Of course Allison's vote is to not do the surgery, but Izzie points out how bad her hallucinations have gotten -- she's having conversations with dead people (well, dead person) and right now sees birds flying around Allison's head. We get a bit of Allison's backstory: she rowed crew in college and occasionally forgot her sunscreen, because life was great and it wouldn't matter, of course until it did and she had a ton of surgeries. She gave up figuring she would die but the IL2 worked, and now no tumor anymore. Show of hands: how many people thought at this point that Allison's storyline was going to end well? Yeah, that's what I thought.