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It's the Medicine Crüe's first 48 hours on the job and boy, is it a doozy. We meet all the cast we'll eventually come to know and love. There's Meredith Grey, who banged her boss's boss while hammered the night before her first day at work; George O'Malley, who has been in love with Meredith since the second he met her and therefore acts like a stuttering tool with a heart of gold for much of the episode (a shade of things to come, perhaps?); Izzie Stevens, the model with a penchant for caring too much for her patients; Cristina Yang, the cold and calculating bitch whom we all secretly adore and who manages to come up with the best lines of the episode; Dr. Preston Burke, a brilliant and arrogant surgeon who likes to torture his first-years; Alex Karev, a smarmy but not-entirely-unattractive asshole who can't possibly be this big of a dick; and, finally, Dr. Derek Shepherd, a.k.a. "Dr. McDreamy," the aforementioned drunken victim of Meredith's wily tequila-fueled charms. Oh, and how could I forget the best character of the bunch: Dr. Miranda Bailey, a curmudgeonly, snotty, bossy, hilarious piece of work who manages to make us laugh even while we're jotting down all her best insults.
And so it begins, people. And so it begins. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Welcome to the Summer Edition of Grey's Anatomy, where the interns are hot and the surgery's hotter. Grab your scalpels and low self-esteem and let's begin, shall we?
We start with an all-too-familiar device: The Meredith "Ms. Moanypants" Grey Voice-over. In this, her very first VO, Meredith is talking about "The Game" and how you either have what it takes to play or you don't. As the opening shot blends from a pair of naked female legs to surgeons performing a surgery, one can only assume that "The Game" refers to surgery and not hot naked sex. Or maybe it refers to both. Maybe it's one of those tricky voice-overs that actually means two things at the same time. I hope not. Because that would mean I'd have to think more and if I have to think more, I have to drink more, and I only have enough vodka for one episode.
Mere goes on to say that her mother was one of the best at The Game but Mere herself? Well, she's kinda screwed. And she means that literally instead of figuratively, seeing as the shot we see is of a bleary-eyed Meredith waking up naked on a sofa. She reaches down and removes a blanket from the naked back of a man and HEY THERE, WAIT A MINUTE. Is that Patrick Dempsey's naked ass I just glimpsed? Well, color me happy that I had the foresight to purchase season one of this show on DVD for reasons other than recapping! Hm. Pause. Rewind. Replay. Pause.
Ahem. Excuse me. Moving on.
So Mere grabs the blanket or shawl or whatever and wraps it around herself and then chucks a pillow down to cover the terrifying nakedness of Patrick Dempsey's ass. The cushion jolts him awake, and it's clear that the love they were making the night before was primarily fueled by grain alcohol because he looks like three bushels of shit in a Radio Flyer wagon. Patrick Dempsey and his naked ass of nakedness slowly get up as Mere creeps past, moaning about how this entire situation is embarrassing on so many levels. He wants her to join him back down on the ground and finish what they started, but Mere only likes having sex when she's hammered, so that scenario is out of the question. She tells him he has to go and he ignores her and says, "So...you live here?" No, Hotpants O'Stupid. She's house-sitting, and the owners are going to be home any second so put your damn boxer briefs on and get the fuck out!
Mere hems and haws about the house, although I don't really know why, and finally reveals that she just moved to town two weeks ago, and the house is her mother's, and she's going to sell it. Patrick Dempsey finally puts his pants on and apologizes to Mere for her having to sell the house. Mere's all, what're you sorry for? Patrick Dempsey thinks Mere's mother is dead, and Mere's all, no! Not dead! Just...living in her own private Idaho in a home somewhere. Then Mere requests that they not do the "thing." He's like, the "thing?" She's like, you know, the thing where we talk to each other and tell our stories? We had sex that I barely remember, okay? Could you just... put your shirt on OUTSIDE THE HOUSE and call it a day?
Patrick Dempsey's like -- oh, never mind. It's McDreamy, okay? It's Derek "McDreamy" "McHottie" "McDoMe" Shepherd and we all know it. I don't know why I'm pretending like y'all haven't seen every last episode of this show three dozen times. So McDreamy is blinking at Mere sexily, and she just tells him that she's going to take a shower, and when she comes back down, he won't be here. Isn't that right, What'syername? Meredith looks at him blankly and McDreamy realizes with a hint of sadness that she doesn't even remember his name, and...what did you expect, McDreamy? You met her at a BAR after she'd had her regular happy hour trough of tequila! Hell, I'm lucky if I remember MY OWN name after two of my favorite Molotov Cocktails. Cut the girl some slack. He reminds her that his name is Derek, and Mere reminds him that her name is Meredith, and they shake hands and grin loopily at each other, and he flings himself over the sofa and they're two seconds away from going at it again, but Mere skitters off to the shower to wash that man right outta her orifices.
Later that morning, Mere drives herself to her first day on the job. Seattle glimmers in the distance. Once she makes it to the hospital, she's late for the Chief's introductory "You Shall All Sucketh" speech, but he's so busy hanging out on his soapbox, he doesn't notice her tardiness. As he rambles on about how eight of them will switch to an easier specialty, five will crack under the pressure, and two will be asked to leave, the interns all size each other up. "How well you play," says the Chief, referring to The Game, "is up to you." "Like I said," says Mere's VO, "I'm screwed."
We're not treated to the Alcohol/Surgery/Cocktail Dress/High Heels/Sex on a Gurney credits in this pilot episode, so we go right from Mere's "I'm screwed" statement to the Medicine Crüe locker room where all the interns are getting called for their resident assignments. Mere comments that there are only six women out of twenty interns. Standing to her is Cristina "Bitchybritches" Yang. She quips that one of them is a model, which totally isn't going to help with the "respect thing." Cristina will later eat these words when she's doing Burke in a supply closet. Mere asks who Cristina got assigned to and she says she got Bailey and Mere affirms that she got Bailey, whom she refers to as "the Nazi," as well. And here's where George "Mufflelips" O'Malley enters into the conversation without invitation.
He's all, "YOUGOTBAILEYTOOMETOODAMNFUNNYCOINCIDENCE! HII'MGEORGE. ILOVEYOU. IMEANILOVEYOURHAIR. IMEANILOVEYOU. DAMMIT!" He blabbles that he's George O'Malley and that they met at the mixer, and Cristina and Meredith are like, who the fuck is this guy? And they share a look that's like, no, seriously, who the fuck is this guy and why did WE get stuck with him on our team? George steps on his tongue some more when he tells Meredith that, at the mixer, she had on a black dress with a slit up the side and strappy sandals. The girls look at him strangely, and he suddenly realizes that what he's just said makes him appear to be gay. No, George. It makes you sound like a stalker. If you had said she was wearing a Nikolaki black dress and black strappy Jimmy Choos, you would've appeared gay.
As George tries to dig himself out of the gay hole (hee!), Cristina and Meredith ignore him, and, once their names are called, they all run off to meet Bailey. Once they see her, everyone is surprised that she is A) a woman, B) not a short little man dressed in khakis sporting a weird square moustache and a swastika on his arm. Izzie "Nosy Parker" Stevens practically skips down the hall and declares that perhaps Bailey is deemed "the Nazi" due to professional jealousy and maybe she's just really, really nice and likes pink puppies and parasols! "Lemme guess," says Cristina, "you're the model." Izzie shoots her a look and then chirpingly introduces herself to Dr. Miranda "Move It People!" Bailey, and Bailey just glares at her and then launches into the speech that will make me adore her forever and ever.
"I have five rules," she sneers. "Memorize them. Rule number one: don't bother sucking up. I already hate you. That's not gonna change. Trauma protocol, phone list, pagers, nurses will page you. You will answer every page at a run. A RUN! That's rule number two." Bailey walks off and the interns scramble to grab their protocols, lists and pagers. "Your first shift starts now," Bailey continues, "and lasts 48 hours. You're interns, grunts, nobodies; bottom of the surgical food chain. You run labs, write orders, work every second night until you drop, and don't complain." The interns follow Bailey across the Bridge of Sighs and Whispers as a floating title informs us that this is Hour One of a forty-eight hour day.
Bailey takes her kids to the on-call room and tells them that the attendings hog it all the time and that they should sleep when they can, where they can. Which brings her to rule number three: Don't wake her unless their patient is actually dying. Rule number four, of course, is that the dying patient better not be dead when she gets there. Meredith tentatively raises her hand and brings up that Bailey mentioned five rules, not four. Bailey's beeper goes off and she said, "Rule number five: when I move, you move." They all traipse off after her as she runs toward the ER.
Bailey and the Fab Four meet a landing helicopter that contains one Katie Bryce, a young girl with seizures. Once in the hospital room, the interns muck about with poor Katie as Bailey barks orders at them. She finally stops seizing and Dr. Preston "I am Preston Burke, dammit!" Burke enters the room and tells Bailey that they need to "shotgun" Katie. That's rather harsh, don't you think? The girl's just having seizures, after all; no need to shoot the poor thing. Oh, silly me. "Shotgun" refers to giving a patient the full battery of tests that a hospital can give: CT, CBC, chem-7, tox screen, hibbity-jibbity, blue point oysters, whocka-whocka, Cuba Libra.
Bailey orders Cristina to be on labs and George to be on patient work-ups. Meredith gets the unenviable task of taking Katie to get a CT scan. "She's your responsibility now," snaps Bailey. "Wh-what about me?" asks Izzie. Bailey glances at her. "Honey? You get to do rectal exams." Hee. Bailey meant what she said about sucking up. As the delightful strains of Jem play across the soundtrack, we glimpse Izzie slathering her fingers with KY, Cristina sneaking a peak at a surgery and Bailey discovering Cristina sneaking the peak. Bailey throws open the door and demands to know what Cristina's doing there and she just says that Katie's labs came out fine and she thought Bailey would want to know. Bailey's like, uh-huh. Thanks. Fuck off. Before Bailey can shut the door in her face, Cristina mentions the rumor she heard about the attending on-call letting an intern perform a procedure during the first shift. Bailey stares at her. "I'm just...saying...it's what I heard," says Cristina. "Get away. Now!" snaps Bailey. Hee.
George is performing his patient work-ups. He informs a man who's due for heart surgery that Dr. Burke is the best and that, once the procedure is over, the man can have all the bacon-flavored soy products he can handle. It's clear that George has a way with patients, even if this "way" miraculously disappears whenever he's around winsome interns with limp blonde hair. Speaking of Meredith, she's rolling poor Katie through hall after hall, searching for the CT scan room. "You're lost," declares Katie snottily. Forget what I said about "poor." Katie goes on to say that she's missing her pageant and that this is a fate worse than death. "Hello!" she snots. "You are SO lost. What are you, new?" Why, yes she is, Snotty Bryce. In fact, she's so new, that she doesn't know WHAT to do with this syringe of cyanide she has in her hand, nor does she remember how not to kill someone by sticking it into their vein! Now shut up and have another seizure before she gives you something to REALLY complain about.
We check in with Izzie as she informs a rather incredulous patient that she's just going to, gulp, insert her fingers into his, erm, rectum. Gah. As Izzie looks heavenward in order to avoid looking at the hairy butthole before her, we switch to George who is attempting to find a vein on the heart patient's arm. I have to say that when I went into the hospital for my second endoscopy this past April, I had a student nurse attempt to put the IV into my right hand. It hurt from the moment she did it, and within two days, I had three separate nodules on my hand that hurt like hell, were yellow and bruised, and didn't go away for over a month. I still have two of them near my wrist bone. I call them Binky and Louie and they sing me to sleep at night. All I'm saying is, now I understand why some people won't let a student nurse or an intern anywhere NEAR their veins before a procedure. I know they have to learn somehow, I'd just rather it weren't on ME.
Burke shoves George out of the way, and George says, "Bet you missed a lot when you were first starting out." Burke just turns and scoffs at him. Heh. I have a feeling Burke missed approximately NOTHING when he was starting out. He just smiles and says, "You and I are gonna have SO much fun together." Hee. We switch back to Mere and the Great Big Mouth of Nothingness as Katie reveals that she twisted her ankle in her rhythmic gymnastics rehearsal when she tripped over her ribbon. But, even then, she didn't get stuck with someone as clueless as Meredith, and that was a NURSE. Meredith shoves her in a broom closet and goes off to get drunk and sleep with some more of her superiors. Or she just keeps rolling along in search of the CT scan room.
Cafeteria. Hour Seven. The Medicine Crüe are attempting to sneak in a bite of lunch. Well, everyone but Izzie. She can't eat on account of the hairy butthole visions dancing in her head. She states that Bailey hates her, and George one ups her by saying that she only has residents hating her; he has ATTENDINGS hating him. Apropos of nothing, Cristina pipes up that Meredith's "inbred" and that her mother is Ellis Grey. Izzie's stunned. George has no idea who they're talking about. Apparently, Meredith's mom invented the "Grey Method," whatever that is. Cristina and Izzie continue to crow over Dr. Mom as George defends his lack of knowledge of her. Cristina says that she'd not only kill to be Ellis Grey's daughter, she'd kill to be Ellis Grey. Frankly, Cristina would kill to be a sponge holder in a liposuction procedure at this point. I mean, really.
Mere walks up at that moment, and everyone kind of shuts up about her mom. "Katie Bryce is a pain in the ass," says Mere, sitting down in a huff. "If I hadn't taken the Hippocratic Oath, I'd Kevorkian her with my bare hands." Heh. It's a testament to the far-reaching tendrils of Dr. Kevorkian that Word's spell check doesn't even blink at that name. "Izzie" it has a problem with, but "Kevorkian"? Not so much. Everyone kind of stares at Meredith as if she's a bad little demon with a tail coming out of her ass, and Burke walks up to break the awkward silence with his announcement that the intern has been chosen to perform the rumored first shift procedure. And that intern is none other than...George O'Malley. He's scrubbing in for an appendectomy that afternoon. Burke leaves and George shudders, "Did...he say me?" Everyone wisely ignores him.
Burke runs into Bailey near a nurse's station, and she chastises him for picking O'Malley, especially since George barely made the cut to get into the program in the first place. Burke declares that O'Malley is his guy. Bailey says that every year, Burke's "guy" suffers more than any other intern. "Terrorize one, and the others fall into line," says Burke, walking off. "I get it!" says Bailey, trailing along after him. "I respect it! But George O'Malley is a puppy!" Hee. He sure is. A puppy with a wounded paw and an inferiority complex.
Katie's parents show up in her room and Mere informs them that Katie's (thankfully) sedated for the CT scan, so she's a little groggy. The parents start asking questions like, is their daughter going to be alright, is she going to need an operation, what kind of operation, etc. Meredith starts to answer, but then stops, thinking she'd better find someone more qualified to give them the answers they're seeking. She scrambles out of the room and runs to get Bailey. She tells her that the parents have questions so should she answer them or go get Burke? Bailey distractedly tells her that Burke is off the case and that Katie's new doctor is the dude standing across the way, a Doctor...lemme see here...ah, yes. Doctor Shepherd. Gulp.
Meredith looks across the room and sees none other than Derek "If you want my body, and you think I'm sexy, come on sugar let me know" Shepherd, her drunken paramour from the night before. Derek looks down at his chart, looks up, looks down, snaps back up when he realizes it's her, and, before she can escape, he's across the room and down the hall faster than you can say "Don't shit where you eat." He grabs her and pulls her into a stairwell. Meredith looks around for other people and sharply addresses him as "Dr. Shepherd." Derek's all, "Dr. Shepherd? This morning it was Derek." Meredith thinks they should act like it never happened. "Like what never happened?" he says with a slightly sexy smile. "You sleeping with me last night or you throwing me out this morning? Because both are fond memories I'd like to hold onto." Heh.
Meredith's pissed. She wants no memories. No memories at all. "This can't happen," she says. "You know that, right?" "You took advantage of me," he smiles. "I was drunk and good-looking and you took advantage." Meredith's laughing in spite of herself. "Okay, I was the one who was drunk and you are not that good-looking." Oh, yes he is. He's all, okay, maybe I'm not that good-looking now (yes you are), but last night? Last night I was hot! I had on my red shirt; the one that makes me look like I don't have a wife living in New York! "You took advantage!" he says again. "Want to take advantage again? Friday night?" "No," says Meredith, clearly meaning "yes." "You're an attending," she continues, "and I'm an intern. STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT." "Like what?" he asks. "Like you've seen me naked!" He tosses that trademark grin at her and looks like he's about to kiss her and she stops him with a, "Dr. Shepherd! This is inappropriate!" It sure as hell is. DO IT ANYWAY. She walks off in a huff and he sighs adorably at her retreating back.
We move to the OR where George is reciting "How to Remove an Appendix in Twenty Moves or Less" to himself over in the corner. The rest of the interns are perched up in the peanut gallery, taking bets on whether or not George is going to fail miserably or succeed fabulously. The bets seem to be hedging toward the former, not the latter. The only person on George's side seems to be Meredith, who thinks that George possibly has the goods to actually perform an appendectomy without passing out. Meredith also believes in the Easter Bunny and men who aren't afraid of commitment. Mere says, "That's one of us down there. The first one of us. Where's your loyalty?" The rest of the oh-so-jaded interns just eat their Snickers bars and laugh silently at Molly McRoseColoredGlasses over there. "Seventy-five says he can't even ID the appendix," says Cristina. "I'll take that action," says Izzie. Heh.
Burke enters the room and tells George to get this surgery started. George holds out his hand and asks for a scalpel, which the nurse hands to him. Everyone in the peanut gallery erupts into applause. Hee. Yes, it's funny to us watching it, but I certainly hope the person having their appendix removed isn't having an out-of-body experience right now. Burke gives the interns the sign to knock it off, and they simmer down. Cristina looks at Burke and says under her breath, "That Burke is trouble." Cristina will later eat these words when Burke demands to know whether they're just sleeping together or if it's something more. George continues with his procedure and manages to get the appendix out rather easily. Then Burke tells him to invert the stump into the secum. I have no idea what this means, but it doesn't matter because George fucks it up and rips the secum and the cavity's filling with stool. Ew. I hate when that happens. George panics as Burke starts throwing questions at him. The patient's blood pressure starts to drop and George just...freezes. Burke finally steps in, telling George, "Get out of the way, you pansy-ass idiot!" George steps away and looks up at the gallery. "He's a 007," says Alex. "Yep, total 007," agrees another intern. "What's '007' mean?" asks Izzie. "License to kill," explains Meredith.
Hour Nineteen. The Medicine Crüe is hanging out in the Hallway of Commiseration as George whines that everyone's calling him 007. "No one's calling you 007," says Mere and Izzie together, totally unconvincingly. George whines some more about someone in an elevator whispering "007" and how he knew it was about him, and Cristina leaps off her gurney and says, "How many times do we have to go through this? Five? Ten? Gimme a number or else I'm gonna hit you." Hee. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love her. She walks off as George continues to moan. Cristina visits the vending machines as she says that 007 is a state of mind. "This says the girl who graduated first in her class at Stanford," bleeds George. Good God, man. So now her graduation stats somehow effect you? Shut up, you pissy-pants.
Mere's beeper goes off for a 911 for Katie Bryce, so she runs out of the room. "Maybe I shoulda gone into geriatrics," muffles George. "No one minds when you kill an old person." Uh, the old person's FAMILY might disagree with you, General Whiney-Face. "Surgery is hot," says Cristina. "It's the Marines. It's macho. It's hostile. It's hardcore. Geriatrics is for freaks who live with their mothers and never have sex." George looks down at the floor. "I have gotta get my own place." Hee. Or you could just move in with Meredith and never have sex while pining after the one woman in the world who couldn't care less about you. Just a thought.
Mere slams through the hall toward Katie's room, only when she gets there, she's not greeted by Katie's dead body. Katie's alive and well and wondering why it took so damn long for Meredith to get there. Katie, I'm not going to tell you again. Go into a seizure immediately, or I shall be forced to make you eat your medical chart. "Wait, there's nothing wrong with you?" gasps Mere. "I'm bored," says Katie. She then starts yammering about the pageant and how she wants to see it on the TV but the hospital doesn't get the channel it's on, and she wants Mere to call someone about this terrible inconvenience. Mere starts to lecture her on how this is a hospital and not a Celebrity Cruise and that she should go to sleep and stop bothering everyone. "But I can't sleep," says Katie. "My head's all full." "That's called 'thinking'," snaps Mere. "Go with it." She leaves, and Katie's already-full head starts to fill some more with that stuff that makes you have seizures.
Meanwhile, Bailey's passed out on a gurney, and Izzie's standing motionless in the hallway, just staring at her. A male nurse watches this and finally asks Izzie if she needs something. Izzie needs to start a central line on a patient, but she doesn't know how to. "I've never done one," says Izzie. "Well, you know what that means!" says the nurse cheerfully as he shoots a glance at the sleeping Bailey. Heh. Izzie sucks it up and moves over to wake Bailey. Needless to say, Bailey is not pleased with the waking up thing. Izzie turns to walk away, but she comes back and clears her throat and Bailey and her hilarious bed head finally sit up and say, "WHAT IS IT?" thing we know, Bailey's performing the central line on the patient and glaring at Izzie. "time you wake me, he better be so close to dead there's a tag on his toe."
Down in the OR, Alex "Is that the syphilis that's burning, or are you just happy to see me?" Karev is giving lip to a nurse. He's telling her to give a patient antibiotics and she's questioning his diagnosis. "Well, I don't know," he snots at her. "I'm only an intern. Here's an idea: why don't you spend four years in med school and then let me know if it's the right diagnosis?" Ouch. If I were that nurse, I'd be spiking his juiceboxes with rat poison. He snaps that the patient is short of breath and has a fever and this means that she's got pneumonia, so the nurse should start the antibiotics. He walks over to Meredith and says, "God, I hate nurses." Alex introduces himself and says he's with one of the other residents. Meredith ignores his introduction and just says that the patient may not have pneumonia; she could be splinting or have a pulmonary embolus. "Like I said," says Alex, "I hate nurses." Meredith's incredibly insulted. "What'd you just say? Did you just call me a nurse?" "Well, if the white cap fits..." he retorts. Okay, A) he knows she's an intern, so this insult just makes him look stupid and B) nurses rock, so as an insult, it's relatively lame. Shut up, Karev.
Mere's beeper saves her from having to kick Karev's ass, and she saunters off to go check in on Katie again, some more. She's pretty much over Katie's shit, however, so she doesn't even bother to run, as Bailey's rule instructed she should. George walks up, and Alex asks if Mere is seeing anybody. George doesn't know, but he hopes he'll be first in line when she starts auditioning boyfriends! Alex declares that Mere is hot, which I don't see and never have, quite frankly, and George says that they're friends. They're buds. They're tight. They hang. Why just this morning-- "Dude," sneers Alex. "Just stop talking." Hee. Thank you, Alex. I recant my request for you to shut up. Carry on.
Mere sees a commotion outside Katie's room and she picks up the pace. A nurse questions why it took her so long to get there. Because she's sick of Katie's shit, dude, that's why. Another nurse says that Katie's having grand mal seizures and asks how Mere wants to proceed. Mere's totally stunned. "Dr. Grey!" the nurse says. "Dr. Grey, you need to tell us what you want to do! Dr. Grey!" Mere's lost to the world. Finally, she wakes up and grabs Katie's chart. After confirming that the drug she's on is not working and that both Bailey and Shepherd have been paged, Mere orders the nurses to load Katie with Phenobarbital. This causes no change in Katie's seizures and Mere again asks if Shepherd's been paged. The nurses are getting frustrated with Mere's lack of wherewithal.
While Mere's daydreaming of Shepherd arriving and saving her ass, Katie starts to flatline. Code blue. The nurses leap into action and roll over the crash cart. Mere grabs the paddles and is about to put them on Katie when a wise nurse stops her so she can put that jelly stuff on them first. What? I'm no doctor. It's that jelly stuff. Whatever. Mere puts the paddles on Katie's chest and hollers "Clear!" but nothing happens. She does it again. Nothing. She orders the nurse to charge to 360, but still nothing happens. It's been sixty seconds. A nurse tells Mere that at sixty seconds, she's supposed to admin another drug. Mere ignores him and tries the paddles again and, miraculously, Katie gets a pulse. Saved by the paddles, eh, Meredith?
Shepherd careens in and asks what the hell is going on. Mere informs him of the seizure and heart stopping stuff. Derek's pissed and says that Mere was supposed to be monitoring Katie. Mere says she checked on her and she was fine. "I got her," snaps Derek. "Just...just go." Damn. So much for the "taking advantage" idea, huh? Meredith slinks off and runs into Bailey in the hall. Bailey bitches at her for not paging her immediately when she got the 911, and Meredith ignores her and walks out into the rain as Cristina follows. Meredith vomits to a tree, then walks past Cristina and says, "You tell anyone, ever..." Cristina just watches her go back inside.
Bridge of Sighs and Whispers. Hour Twenty-Four. Derek's standing by himself, looking out over the adoring masses below. Minutes later, he's talking to Katie's parents about the seizures. The parents have a lot of questions. Unfortunately, Derek doesn't have any answers. The father demands another doctor; one who knows what he's doing. "You get me someone else, better than you," he says. Oof. Derek assures him that he's working hard on Katie's case, and the father says that if he was actually working hard, he'd have some goddamn answers.
Elsewhere in the hospital, Burke is talking to the heart patient about the simple heart procedure he's about to undergo. George walks up, looking like an idiot. The wife asks if she should worry and Burke responds that he's very good at what he does. Of course, it's surgery, and there are some risks, but still, he's in good hands. Burke tells the patient that he'll see him in the OR that afternoon and leaves. The heart patient quips at George about leaving him in the OR alone with Burke, and George jokingly responds that he'll be outside the OR the whole time. George seriously tells them that Burke is very good and that he'll see them after the surgery. "He'll be fine, right?" asks the wife nervously. "He's going to sail through it," says George, moving away. He sees her expression and comes back. "You have nothing to worry about, I promise." Oooh. Never make promises you can't keep, Georgie Pordgie.
Random Conference Room of Medical Interns. Cristina's suturing a banana in an effort to wake up her brain. George snickers at this. "What're you laughing at, 007?" she quips at him. Hee. George looks wounded. "I'm sorry," she says insincerely. "I get mean when I'm tired." Then you must be tired all the damn time, Cristina. Shepherd enters and says that he's going to do something rare for a surgeon. He's going to ask interns for help. Katie Bryce is a mystery; she doesn't respond to her meds, her labs are clean, her scans are clear. But she's having grand mal seizures with no visible cause. Shepherd needs the interns to play detective and find out why Katie's having seizures. Their incentive to figure this out? Whoever arrives at the answer first gets to ride the operation with Shepherd. An intern scrubbing in to assist on an advanced procedure is quite a coup. The clock is ticking.
Later that day, Mere's hanging out by a nurse's station, looking at Katie's chart. Karev walks up and tersely asks a nurse if she paged him. She did. That pneumonia patient from before is still short of breath. He irritatedly sighs that the nurse needs to give the antibiotics time to work. The nurse says the antibiotics should have worked by now. Karev just ignores her and says that he has a chance to scrub in on a procedure on a patient who wasn't alive during the Civil War. "Don't page me again," he orders her and walks off. That nurse is SO going to get the cafeteria staff to mix stool samples into his mashed potatoes.
Mere walks off, and Cristina joins her, saying that she wants in on the Shepherd surgery, so does Mere wanna team up with her and work together on the case? Mere says she'll work with her, but she doesn't want in on the surgery because she doesn't want to spend any more time with Shepherd than necessary. Cristina thinks she's nuts, and why doesn't Mere want to spend time with Shepherd? Mere ignores the question and they get to work on the case.
In the medical library, the girls go over the possible causes of the seizures. They rule out several diagnoses as Cristina tries to get to the bottom of why Mere won't hang out with Shepherd. "Just tell me," says Cristina. "You can't comment, make a face, or react in any way," says Meredith. Cristina puts a blank look on her face. "We had sex," says Meredith. Cristina does her best not to react. "What about an aneurysm?" she asks, returning to the case. Meredith rules that out, along with pregnancy and trauma. "Was he good?" asks Cristina. "I mean...he looks like it'd be good...was it any good?" Hee. Meredith gets up and says they're out of answers. She wants to know what happens if Katie dies. "This is gonna sound really bad," says Cristina, "but I really wanted that surgery." Heh. Cristina says the things that everyone else only thinks. That's why I love her.
Mere says that if Katie dies, her sole reason for human existence will have been attempting to be Miss Teen Whatever. "Do you know what her talent is?" "They have talent?" snits Cristina. "Rhythmic gymnastics," says Mere. They both laugh at this and wonder what the hell rhythmic gymnastics even is. Suddenly, Meredith gets a look on her face. Light dawns on yonder blonde. Cristina asks her what's up and Mere orders her to get up and come with her. They run down a hall and find Shepherd, just as he's about to get on an elevator.
"Dr. Shepherd!" calls Cristina, stopping him. "Katie competes in beauty pageants!" "I know that," says Shepherd, "but we have to save her life anyway." Baddump bump! Thank you! Goodnight, everybody! Dr. Shecky Shepherd will be here all week! Don't forget to tip your waitresses! Cristina runs through Katie's symptoms and clean scans and then says, "There's no medical proof of an aneurysm, but what if she has an aneurysm anyway?" Shepherd doesn't think she has one. Cristina says she twisted her ankle practicing. "She fell," says Meredith. "When she twisted her ankle, she fell." "It was no big deal, not even a bump on the head," says Cristina. Mere and Cristina seem to think that the fall caused an aneurysm. Shepherd thinks the chances of this happening are one in a million, so he lets the doors close on their enthusiasm. They start to walk away, just as the doors open back up and Shepherd gets off and says, "Let's go." "Where?" asks Cristina. "To find out if Katie's one in a million," he responds. They all run off.
Minutes later, they're all standing over the CT scan tech as he runs the computer through Katie's CT scan. She's off in the distance with her head in a tube. Suddenly, something comes up on the screen and Shepherd says, "I'll be damned." There it is. A nice fuzzy little aneurysm right on the screen. "It's a subarachnoid hemorrhage," he says. Katie's bleeding into her brain. Mere and Cristina were right. They walk off with Shepherd as he tells them that Katie could have gone her entire life without anything happening to the aneurysm. However, one tap in the right spot and the thing exploded. He tells them that they did great work and that he'd love to stay and kiss their asses, but he has to go tell Katie's parents that she's having surgery. Cristina reminds Shepherd that he said he'd pick someone to scrub in on the surgery, and he says that of course he remembers. Then he picks Meredith to scrub in, and Cristina shoots her a look with a big fat scarlet letter attached to it.
We check in with George, who's waiting outside the OR where the heart patient is going through his routine procedure. George drinks a juicebox, hovers in the hall, checks the patient again, then turns his back on the entire procedure and generally tries to avoid bringing his bad juju into the OR. Unfortunately, George's juju travels through walls because the heart patient doesn't make it through his routine procedure, and he dies on the table. Even though George promised his wife that everything would be just fine. Burke exits the OR and tells George that the heart was too damaged to survive the bypass. "But...I told his wife...I told Gloria that he would be fine," stutters George. "I promised her that--" "You what?" snaps Burke. "Why are you promising anything? This is my case. Did you hear me promise? The only one who can keep a promise like that is God, and I haven't seen him around here holding a scalpel lately." That's because God is in the bathtub, Burke. "You never promise a patient's family a good outcome!" he says. "You're important enough to make promises to [Mrs. Heart Patient]? You get to be the one to tell her she's a widow."
Hallway of Commiseration. Izzie and Cristina are sitting in silence as Cristina rips the label off a water bottle. Izzie keeps trying to say something, but Cristina keeps cutting her off. She seems to be attempting to come to the defense of Meredith, but Cristina's having none of it. Meredith enters and tells Cristina that she'll tell Shepherd she's changed her mind about the surgery. "You know what? Don't do me any favors," says Cristina. "It's fine. You know, you did a cutthroat thing. Deal with it. Don't come to me for absolution. You wanna be a shark, be a shark." Pot? Kettle calling. Meredith claims she's not being a shark, but Cristina thinks otherwise. "Oh, yes you are. Only it makes you feel bad in your warm, gooey places." No, that's McDreamy, Cristina. "You know what? Screw you," says Cristina, warming to her theme. "I don't get picked for surgeries because I screwed my boss, and I didn't get into med school 'cause I have a famous mother. Some of us have to earn what we get." Ouch. Meredith walks off with tears in her eyes.
Out in the OR waiting room, Mrs. Heart Patient and her family wait to hear the results of the routine procedure. George walks up and tries to get through his "your husband died due to complications" speech without sobbing. Mrs. Heart Patient doesn't understand. George tells her that her husband died and that he's sorry. He steps forward to hug her, and she just pushes him off with her words. "Thank you," she says, starting to cry. "Please...just go away."
Hour Forty. Shepherd's shaving Katie's head and telling Mere that he promised he'd make her look cool. "Did you choose me for the surgery because I slept with you?" asks Mere. "Yes," says Shepherd. Hee. "I'm kidding." Double hee. Mere wants out of the surgery. "You're Katie's doctor," says Shepherd. "And on your first day, with very little training, you helped save her life. You earned the right to follow her case through to the finish. You shouldn't let the fact that we had sex get in the way of you taking your shot." Meredith seems to consider this.
Later, outside the hospital, George and Meredith, 007 and the boss-fucker respectively, sit on a windowsill and discuss how they wish they wanted to be ski instructors or postal workers instead of doctors. George's parents tell everyone he's a surgeon like he's a superhero or something, and Meredith's mother tried to talk her out of being a doctor, saying she didn't have what it took to make it. "We're gonna survive this, right?" he asks. Meredith doesn't answer him.
Back inside, Meredith watches as the Chief starts grilling Karev about his ancient pneumonia patient. Karev doesn't have any answers. The Chief asks Karev to name the common causes of post-op fever. He can't. The Chief asks the room, and the only person who has the answer is Meredith. "Wind, water, wound, walking, wonder drugs," she says. She goes on to say that it's usually wind or pneumonia, and that pneumonia is easy to assume, especially if you're too busy to do the tests. The Chief shoots Karev a look, and then he asks Meredith what she thinks is wrong with the patient. "The fourth 'W'," she responds. "Walking. I think she's a prime candidate for a pulmonary embolus." The Chief asks for her diagnosis, and she rattles off a lot of words I don't understand. The Chief does, though, and he tells Alex to do exactly as Mere said and then tell his resident that the Chief wants him off this case. Heh. "I'd know you anywhere," says the Chief as he passes Meredith. "You're the spitting image of your mother. Welcome to the game." Nice.
Meredith enters Katie's OR, and Shepherd says that it's a beautiful night to save lives so let's get in there and have some fun! Meredith's voice-over says that she can't think of any one reason why she'd want to be a surgeon, but she can think of a thousand reasons why she should quit. We get a bit of a music/voice-over montage of all the interns as Meredith continues, saying that they make it hard on purpose because there are lives in their hands. "There comes a moment when it's more than just a game," says the voice-over. "And you either take a step forward or turn around and walk away." Shepherd beckons her over, and she takes that step forward and moves to the microscope to work on Katie's aneurysm. "I could quit, but here's the thing," her voice-over continues, "I love the playing field."
Hour Forty-Eight. Cristina flies out of the OR and sees Meredith sitting outside. She compliments her on the surgery and then sits down to her. "We don't have to do that thing where I say something and then you say something," says Cristina, "and then somebody cries and then there's a moment--" "Yuck," says Meredith. "Good," says Cristina. Heh. She tells Meredith to get some sleep because she looks like shit. Hee. She walks off, and then Derek exits the OR. Meredith looks at him lustily. Or maybe she's just squinting. I can't tell. She tells him that the surgery was amazing, and he smiles at her. She goes on to say that you practice and observe and you think you're going to know what it feels like to stand over that table but...it's so much more of a high than she was expecting. He considers her for a moment. "I don't know why anybody does drugs," she says. "Yeah," he says, clearly undressing her with his eyes. "Yeah," she says, clearly enjoying it. "I'll see you around," he says with a smile as he goes off to talk to the parents. "See you around," she says. "See you." Hee.
"So," says Meredith's voice-over, "I made it through my first shift. We all did. The other interns are all good people. You'd like them. I think. I don't know, maybe. I like them." We see Meredith entering a building and talking to a nurse. Then we hear Meredith saying that she's not going to sell the house, that she's going to keep it, and she's talking to a woman who's sitting in front of a window with a blank expression on her face. "Are you the doctor?" the woman asks. "No," says Meredith gently. "I'm not your doctor, but I am a doctor." "What's your name?" asks the woman. "It's me, Mom. Meredith." "All right," says her mother, twisting her watch. "I used to be a doctor, I think." Meredith grabs her hand and says, "You were a doctor, Mom. You were a surgeon."