Episode Report Card Lauren S: C+ | 2 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Breaking Up Is(n't) Hard to Do
By Lauren S | Season 3 | Episode 25 | Aired on 05.16.2007
Adele and Richard are still alone in her room, and she tells him she's fine and he should go. He disregards all of it and orders her to drink her water and take her pills. Though she thinks he has people he's dying to boss around out in the hospital, he happily yet sternly tells her that he's got plenty of bossing he can do right there. After a quiet moment, she tells him to go ahead and ask about the father. But he only tells her it's not his place. At that moment, the "my wife is pregnant with another man's child" silence is broken by both Meredith and Patricia, Richard's assistant. Meredith comes in with a wheelchair and a big smile to take Adele to her room, and Patricia asks Richard what he wants to do about the Chief announcements. Adele's face reads, "Of course!" but she insists that he go. Once alone with Meredith, she launches into possibly the sweetest yet most uncomfortable introduction ever, saying that they met when Meredith was a girl, and that Richard used to flirt with her mother. "I didn't want to see that, so I watched you a lot." She says that Meredith turned out well, and then sincerely says that she's sorry about Meredith's mother. Meredith's face has fallen as she pushes the chair, and she says she's sorry about her mother too. Adele continues that it was no one's fault. They got married young and believed in happily ever after, but "Maybe there is no happily ever after." Meredith just looks resigned. Hear that? It's the sound of a relationship falling apart, because everyone seems to think it's doomed, because Meredith isn't acting right after having possibly the worst year of her life.
Mama and Cristina are together, and Mama breathes, "It's stunning." The camera pans to show Cristina with her hair in giant rollers, wearing a, yes, stunning but rather severe diamond choker. It certainly brings to mind a collar image. After establishing that it really is supposed to be that tight, Cristina very delicately says it's beautiful, but maybe not her. All trace of outspoken Cristina is gone. Mama tells her that five generations of Burke women have worn this on their wedding days, and that it's what will make Cristina a Burke. Cristina repeats the words, and I do genuinely think she had never thought of it in those terms before . Mama then tells Cristina that she's not selfish like Mama originally thought, but that she's "given way" to Burke's ideas and been flexible about what's important to him. I wonder what her own marriage is like if she seems to think it's right and romantic to completely lose your personality for another person. But Mama moves on gracefully to ask Cristina what she was planning to do about her eyebrows for the wedding. Cristina stammers out, "N-n-nothing?" with her hand to her face. Clearly they should be dyed to match the flowers. I feel like old Cristina would have thought of that comeback, too.