Episode Report Card Lauren S: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Alone Again (Naturally)
By Lauren S | Season 7 | Episode 22 | Aired on 05.19.2011
Since Owen didn't actually have any details regarding what happened, Derek tries to get Mere to tell him exactly what she did, alternately begging and demanding that she say it. He thinks that they might be able to fix the situation, but Meredith thinks it will make things worse. She assures Derek that she loves him and she's sorry, but she holds firm and silent.
As you can imagine, Derek doesn't take too well to this, and before they walk in to see Richard, he warns Meredith that now she's about to be treated like a colleague, just like she wanted. I guess Alex did explain a little bit to Owen, because Derek is able to tell Richard that Meredith switched placebos and meds in the trial. He adds that this probably invalidates everything and shoots Meredith an especially angry glare. I actually think he's treating her even more like a wife than a colleague now because the level of his rage seems even higher than it would be if this was just a betrayal by some co-worker. Meredith still refuses to say anything even when Richard basically begs her to deny everything, or at least to tell them that Alex exaggerated the story. Derek's enraged that this will probably invalidate the trial and that the FDA will never let the hospital try another one ever again. Meredith stubbornly tells them to kick her off the trial and for the umpteenth time tries to justify that nothing she did changes any results. Yes, it invalidates everything, but doesn't change the results at all! Richard is beyond that, though, and informs her that it looks like she just lost her job.
Once her flogging is over, Mere finds Alex and informs him -- in front of an audience of all of the other residents -- that they are probably going to fire her, so she hopes he's happy. Alex tries to argue that she won't be fired but Mere cuts him off by ordering him to clear all of his stuff out of the house by the end of the day. When she walks off Cristina turns to Alex and demands to know what he did, but he can't answer because they all get paged at once.
Richard gathers what looks to be the entire hospital staff and lets them know that a 757 went down in Puget Sound, and that there are going to be something like 200 injured passengers. In case that wasn't enough, the hospital is also the crisis center so all of the families will be coming there to find their loved ones. He puts Owen in charge and urges everyone to stay calm. They need all hands on deck, so Meredith's firing appears to be postponed when Bailey chooses her to help discharge whoever they can to make more beds available. Callie is with Owen, April is to set up the ER for triage, Lexie is in charge of the family center in the cafeteria, and Cristina gets the blood bank. Mark is assigned the role of "candy man." No, seriously. It's not quite as sexy as it sounds -- he's in charge of pain meds and sedatives for anyone who needs it. For maximum storytelling drama, Avery is assigned to help him. Once Owen sends everyone on their way Cristina goes to find out what happened with Mere and Owen finally admits that she messed with the Alzheimer's study, which invalidates the results and essentially destroys the entire trial. Cristina is pretty stunned, naturally, but I wonder if that's also because Cristina knows Meredith well enough to assume there must be some really good reason behind what she did. Honestly, everyone should be wondering that given how well they know her; I know what she did is awful and did destroy the whole trial, and I'm not justifying that, but it seems that someone along the way might ask themselves, "Why?"