In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
It seems that March Madness applies not only to basketball, but also to the shenanigans at Seattle Grace Hospital, because now it appears that, despite having consumed an entire bottle of booze, Izzie and George DID have sex (more than once!) and now Izzie thinks their hook-up was "God's plan" or something, because it was so very, very right, even though those of us who've been playing along at home have never seen any evidence of sexual chemistry between the two of them ever. After a lot of hangover-induced, guilt-ridden agony from George and squirrelly behavior from Izzie and a very poorly timed visit from Callie's dad, Hector Elizondo, George tells Izzie that he can't tell Callie about their assignation, because it wouldn't be fair to hurt Callie just to ease his conscience. Izzie reluctantly agrees, but does a lot of crying, becauseâ¦she's in love with George? If you say so.
As far as everyone else goes, Cristina overly relates to a man who has to have his foot amputated, which somehow leads to her patching it up with Burke, agreeing to have a wedding. Because he's her metaphorical other foot or something. (I generally enjoy the way this show uses symbolism, but come on.) Meredith's hair looks awesome, and she successfully performs a fancy-schmancy bone-grafting procedure under the guidance of McSteamy, despite some overprotective yada yada from McDreamy, who seems to be having some kind of PTSD in the wake of Meredith's near-death experience. (And they say this show isn't getting soapy.) Meredith's pretty sure her dead mother would be proud of her for this, which is a nice step toward avoiding getting into the kind of emotional state where you let yourself drown. Alex continues to be awesome in general, this week helping Crush choose her new face and admitting to her in the process that his nascent relationship with Addison is "complicated." And everyone else is acting totally batty because they're being interviewed for the Chief position and suspect to a man that Marlowe is going to sweep it out from under them. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously, Meredith nearly died, Crush, well, had her face crushed, Cristina's old lover/professor showed up as candidate #6034 for Chief, Callie and George fought, and George and Izzie got drunk and she gave George a Look for which there has been no possible basis established thus far. Also previously, the lowest grade I ever gave an episode was a B, but this week my disappointment has no bounds.
George is naked in bed asleep, and then we see Izzie, awake, naked, and panicked in the same bed. She very slowly gets out, trying not to wake Seattle Grace's newest manwhore. Meredith voices-over, "Surgeons always have a plan. Where to cut, where to clamp, where to stitch." George jumps, but doesn't wake. "But, even with the best plans, complications can arise. Things can go wrong. And suddenly, you're caught with your pants down." As her pants aren't just down but gone, Izzie grabs a robe and then gapes at George and what they've just done with her hand over her mouth.
Izzie apparently makes it to the kitchen where Mere and Cristina walk in, find her guzzling water, and remark that she and George were really "going at it." Izzie chokes, but as this is TV, of course they don't mean It-it, and clarify that they mean the drinking and the laughing. Apparently it also included George singing "SexyBack" at 3 AM, which Cristina didn't want to hear but of this entire sordid situation it's the one thing I personally would have liked to have seen. When Izzie quietly says they should have banged on the wall, Cristina remarks to Mere, "It's like living in a youth hostel," and she's not wrong. I hope her overnight bag is padlocked to the bed frame. Mere is just glad they made up, and then thinks to make sure that they did make up. Before they can answer, Alex walks in wearing pajama pants and his ubiquitous black tank top looking ten kinds of yummy, remarking that George is puking in his bathroom. Izzie badly covers that he needed to stay over because he was too drunk to drive. "Like, heavy machinery drunk." Ah, so like the time a roommate and fellow recapper whose name might start with H and end with N called another fellow recapper after a party to tell her voicemail that she should not be allowed to operate heavy machinery. Why do we do that? It's on pill bottles, not on liquor bottles, but it's the go-to. Of course, I'm just following this train of thought to avoid thinking about what really happened between George and Izzie, but I'm going to have to face it soon enough, so back to the episode at hand.
Alex wants to know why Cristina is there at the Home for Wayward Interns, and Meredith announces that she's hiding from Burke. But Cristina announces that she's got a new plan. It's the ostrich equivalent of a plan -- since Burke doesn't want her to get married to appease him, they just won't get married, and they'll go back to the way things were before. In life, this always works out really well. She even has a catchy name for the plan: "Be kind, rewind." Izzie decides to bolt for work but runs into George in the hallway, who looks very convincingly and realistically hung over. He asks her what happened and if he called Callie before he passed out, and she stares at him incredulously and only answers the second question with a no. All he remembers is the drinking, and then he thinks to ask Izzie where she slept that night. Ignorance is bliss.
Richard and Colin walk in to the hospital together, making chitchat. Colin's interview is that afternoon, and it turns out the binder under his arm holds a 10-year-plan that he whipped up for the hospital. Richard's face drops at the idea of him suggesting some "tweaks" in how things work.
George is still rocking the dark, sunken eyes of a hangover and is leaning over the sink when Callie walks in dressed like a perfect lady in a dress and pearls. He starts to talk, but she cuts him off to inform him that today they are the very picture of a perfect married couple since her dad is in town to meet her husband. Izzie happens to walk in right then and awkwards about before leaving them to their "married stuff." For having consumed half of that bottle of liquor, her hair looks perfect, straight, shiny, and awesome in a smooth ponytail, and overall she looks about a billion times better than George. If I were ever to go to work after a night out like that (which I have never, ever done, Mom, and I don't even know what alcohol or boys taste like) I couldn't pull it together like that and would be more on the George scale of things. Once Izzie leaves, Callie has yet another reason to be mad at George, which this time is his telling his friend about their fight. There's no real time for her to dwell on that now, however, as she decides to make lunch at Joe's instead of the cafeteria, "So maybe he won't be able to tell that stink's coming from you." George tries to reassure her that parents love him but he's not terribly convincing in this state and she just orders him to the shower.
Cristina brings Burke a coffee, since that's what they do. He's not interested, though, saying it's what they used to do. He goes on with, "So unless you have something else to say to me... " which perfectly illustrates why I hate the relationship between these two. It's always a power struggle, rather than just an actual relationship where they actually talk about issues rather than goading each other. He leaves but the way I see it, now she's got a nice big coffee for herself. I think she's really the winner. She sees Colin and bolts, which he notices, but instead of running after her (this time) he wishes the attendings good luck in their interviews. He leaves, and Richard comes up and tells them that Colin's got a 10-year-plan, not sounding happy about it, and also still referring to Seattle Grace as "his" hospital. I still refuse to believe that he's actually going to end up leaving.
Mark and the interns are in with Crush, and he's showing her some computer-generated faces. One is what she probably looked like before the accident and how they can reconstruct her bones, and then there are a couple of different options as well, in case she was looking for a little spruce-up. She's silent, and Mark seems to be upset that she doesn't like the face choices, but I think it's more that she's in the position of having to choose a new face that's the problematic thing. She asks how it works, and Alex hesitates to tell her, but she assures him she can take it, and so he explains that they'll make an incision along her hairline and literally pull her face back to work on the bones. He earns an annoyed glance from Addison for not cushioning it just a little bit, and a tear runs down Crush's cheek. Mark assures her that once she heals, no one will be able to tell she had it done and by way of explanation tells her, "I'm that good." Addison agrees, "He is. It's annoying." She is there because she'll monitor the baby throughout the surgery, which leaves Crush with only one task -- to choose a face for herself in the generous window of a couple of hours.
Bailey leads the pack of interns down the hall like a bunch of hung-over and depressed ducklings, and they run into the Chief. She announces that Crush is getting a new face, which pleases him. He then turns serious and quiet and asks Meredith how she's doing. She cuts him off at Kid Gloves Pass and assures him she's fine and working is the best thing. As he remarks, "Like mother, like daughter, huh?" Mark observes thoughtfully and speaks up, asking Meredith what she knows about "reconstructing the orbital floor." When she answers correctly about using bone from the patient's skull, he announces that she'll be assisting with the surgery.
Callie grabs the remaining interns, saying she needs to talk to them. Izzie freaks out and then babbles on with relief when Callie clarifies that she needs to talk to all of them, and not just the impeccably follicled one, with a classic Callie "You're a freakjob" look on her face. Her patient has a super rare disease, FOP (I'll stick to the initials -- there are far too many syllables to fit into one mere recap) which is a condition that turns tissue into bone. She tells them to try to learn and not stare, giving a second annoyed/perplexed glance to Izzie before leading them in.
Two orderlies lift a woman onto the bed who is frozen as if sitting in a chair. Props to the actress who was able to hold perfectly still in all of her scenes, moving only her lips and eyes. Her daughter (played by Elisabeth Moss, best known as Zoey on The West Wing) is in the room and snottily announces that the interns need to stay back, and that her mother still has movement in her face and fingertips. She exposits for the rest of us that any extra pressure or bump can cause more bone growth. Her mother argues that it's just a stomach bug, but the daughter won't hear it, explaining she was vomiting blood and taking painkillers like she was Anna Nicole Smith. (Too soon for that joke? Oh well.) She snots on about her having new growths as a result of clumsy interns, and Callie and the mom exchange a glance before Callie begins to gently examine her. She orders a CT because the vomiting blood is the pressing issue for now. She then notices the dollhouse occupying a table in the room and asks if they made it. The daughter, Nina, chirpily gives her mother the credit though she denies it, and forges on about how much it helps. "Plus it makes her happy! And relaxed!" This girl is about as relaxed as napalm. Callie manages to fake a smile for her.
Outside, Izzie tries to get out of working with the newlyweds by asking to be assigned to the clinic. Of course, Cristina assumes it's because there's something even better than this once-in-a-lifetime genetic disease and wants to go as well. Bailey sends them both (kindly explaining to the viewers that there are fewer surgeries than usual that day because of the Chief interviews) and assigns Dr. George O'Malley to Dr. Callie O'Malley and Alex to help Crush. Callie, for some reason, doesn't want someone working on a patient (Mrs. Rogerson -- phew, she has a name!) when they are still literally sweating alcohol so she asks for a second intern. And isn't it just so unexpected and hilarious that Bailey calls after Izzie to help them out. She slogs back, and with the first burst of energy we've seen from him all day, George gives her a thumbs up.
The clinic seems to be functioning at full speed now, and Cristina is with a patient complaining of pain in his foot who is just asking for painkillers and a discharge. Does that ever really work for anyone? I've never seen it in real life, and never even in the magical world of television, yet people still try it out. You've got to work on your shtick, sir. I actually thought this was going to be another addicted-to-pain-meds story, but things take a different turn when Cristina tells him to remove his shoe so she can examine his foot. There's a lot of back and forth with him talking about all the work he has to do that day as well as her noting that he's got diabetes. She finally gets him to remove his shoe and sock to reveal a giant sore covering his entire heel, and she announces that he's not going to work at all today.
Alex and Meredith are both in Crush's room; she's holding printouts of her three possible faces. She's understandably frustrated, because she wants to recognize one of them, but she doesn't. She wants to make sure she picks the right one, not least of which so that if someone shows up looking for her they will recognize the person they are looking for. Alex agrees that picking the wrong one would suck but points out that the alternative of the mashed-potato look she has going on right now is not what she'd want to stick with.
Derek gazes at a studying Mere, and when she asks if he should be preparing for his interview, he argues that he is. He's preparing by smelling her (awesome-looking) hair. It's a good follicle day for all of the Seattle Grace ladies. They have some cute flirting as he tells her, "If Cristina would sleep in her own bed I wouldn't have to hover at work." The nice thing about them, though, is that he doesn't seem threatened by it, and I appreciate that he at least seems to get the relationship between the two women. After some more flirting, he asks, "How bad is it today?" and she answers that it's a seven, maybe a six. It's endearing to see that's how he's keeping an eye out on her. She happily tells him that what's going to make things better is the bone harvest she's doing. The "endearing" part of him makes a hasty exit as he gets all uppity that Sloane is going to let her do the procedure. She either doesn't see or ignores his change in tone and happily tells him, "Which makes me very cool in the eyes of my dead mother, by the way." He leaves to let her study, and she jokes around, but on his way out he looks worried.
George and Izzie are preparing Mrs. Rogerson for her CT scan, and he tells her to stay still. It's a sensitive instruction for a woman literally turning to stone. She dryly agrees, and he shamefully apologizes. I appreciate that he turns off the microphone before he begins to moan about how he's never going to touch booze again, and that the writers didn't go for the cheap and predictable, patient-hears-the-whole-thing humor. There are enough cheap clichés already present in this episode, so it's nice to see a small example of where one is left alone. Izzie sighs at his dramatics and just goes on and on, amazed that he doesn't remember the night before. George breaks into her lamenting and assures her that whatever he said or did, he's sure he didn't mean it since he was drunk. Izzie only responds to tell him, "George, I promise you, you meant it. You meant it a lot, you meant it more than once... " Ew. It's not that I have any sort of problem with sex, or one night stands, or anything like that. But this means that George has now slept with more women in the hospital than any other of them men on whom we know stats. George. George, who we love, who is finding himself and growing a spine and becoming a better surgeon, etc., etc., etc., is now so pathetic that he can't not sleep with every female he knows. It's a disservice to the character. Izzie and George are interrupted when they see her scan. To my untrained eye, it kind of looks like big blobs inside a skull. How's that for technical? Whatever it is seems to be is bad, and George says to page Callie.
Colin finds Cristina and jokes that he's planning an expansion to the hospital so she'll have more places to hide from him. She tries to deny it, but he just laughs and then needles her about the wedding and her not wanting to talk about the big day. She tells him to leave, to which he says, "If he's rushing you, you should tell him. When you marry, you want to be ready. He should understand that." She thinks and turns back. He's not wrong and at least it got the wheels turning in her head, but for all his claiming to care about her, he doesn't seem to respect her or her wishes at all.
Addison is practicing the beginning of her speech in front of the mirror, practicing at what precise moment she should pull off her sexy glasses and leave them breathless. Mark catches her and advises her not to wear them at all since she'll fiddle with them, but I think it's really because he knows the sexy will be too much and she'll win the position hands down before he can even get in the room. They banter about her weaknesses -- she has none, he has one for "evil redheads." She assures him he has more, such as being a manwhore. Although he better look out, as George is nipping at his heels for the title. He claims that he was, not is, a manwhore. Manwhore or not, she advises him to come up with a 10-year-plan since he was absent for the big reveal before, and he seems surprised to get this curveball hours before the interview.
Mrs. Rogerson is back in her room and Callie gets to deliver the happy news that she is bleeding internally, probably from all of her medication. Before she can offer any options, Nina jumps in to remind them her mother can't have surgery. Callie, though, cuts her off to explain that Burke could insert a small line and embolize her, which would still be risky, but at least it would be minimally invasive. Mrs. R asks what would happen if she refused the surgery, given that she's 41 and doesn't expect to live past 45 anyway. It's so very helpful when people can ask questions that help explain details of their conditions. Refusing isn't a great choice, as she'd die within 1 to 2 days. She seems to be possibly open to this option, but Nina won't hear of it and stoically asserts that the surgery will work.
Mark finds Derek in a conference room. I guess he thinks that the bit of bonding they did over Meredith's crisis has made them friendly, and he observes, "Burke is using PowerPoint. He's got a PowerPoint presentation for the board, which is cool if it's like, 1998. There's no swag, is there? We're not allowed to give gifts." He's both not wrong and, frankly, creative if a little bit dastardly. I think it's why I find him so hot even at his manwhore best. Derek's not going to play along, though, and demands to know why Mark asked Meredith to do the surgery. Mark tries to say it's because it's a teaching hospital and he's teaching her, but he's got a bit too much on the record about his hating both interns and teaching to be believable, and Derek calls him out on trying to impress the Chief. He maintains that Mark's setting Meredith up, "and she can't fail right now." Mark, rightly, wants Mere to decide what she can and can't do. Derek's dumbstruck by the logic and instead resorts to the time-honored fallback of threatening his former friend. "I will hurt you if this goes wrong for her."
Izzie leaves Mrs. R's room and finds Addy outside, looking through the window at the dollhouse. When she asks about it, Izzie announces. "I had sex last night. With the wrong person. But the thing is, it didn't feel wrong, at the time. It felt like something was falling into place. So what do I do?" Teaching hospital, indeed. Addy looks around to see if maybe she's on candid camera, then takes off her glasses, clears her throat, and asks, "What am I, the go-to person for adultery?" I can't quite figure out if she guessed who it was that Izzie had sex with or if she just means the sex-with-the-wrong-person in general. If it's the former, it's just another reason she's so awesome. Izzie tells her that's not it and again pleads for guidance, but the answer isn't what she wanted. "You stop. That's what you do." Izzie counters, "Are you sure? I mean, how do you know that it didn't feel so right because it's God's plan?" Addy dryly observes, "God wants you to be an adulterer." Izzie tosses back, "God got a virgin pregnant by magic; God is not playing by the rules." Be that as it may, let's take a second here. Deep breath.
Okay.
WHAT THE HELL? You're trying to feed us the idea that this might somehow be right? I love this show. I love everything about this show. I've defended this show because it does such an incredibly good job portraying people with layers, in situations that are lifelike and full of grey areas. The characters all have good and bad to them, and can be aggravating, annoying, judgmental... anything. But I love them, and I love the show because that's how life is, too. If you've lived at all, you get this. And I get that sometimes best friends of the opposite sex (or same, if that's how you roll) really do ultimately belong together, and that romantic relationships should also be based on friendship, and that sometimes people don't see what's right in front of them. But be that as it may, that has not been the situation with George and Izzie. They have been established as best friends and confidantes, they have had their ups and downs, but never, ever in the three seasons of this show has there been one whiff on either side of romantic leanings towards each other. Never. This storyline seems like a cheap stunt to create some drama, and I'm completely offended by it. I don't like the tension between Alex and Addison either, and I'm against their potential pairing. However, I believe it. It's been written and acted for me to believe, whether I like it or not, that something between the two of them could be possible. And it's never been that way with George and Izzie so I am completely angry at the character assassination of the two of them. I think this was a ridiculous stunt and was the first time I was disappointed in the show for doing something just for the sake of shock value and not because it was an organic turn of events for the characters.
Phew, I'll get off my soapbox now. But just know, Grey's, that you're suddenly on some serious probation.
Cristina's clinic patient, Mr. Kendry, is on the phone getting some work done from his hospital bed. She draws the curtain and cuts him off, announcing unceremoniously that they are going to have to amputate his foot. Her bedside manner is impeccable. He can't believe it, but she clinically explains that if they don't, the infection in his bone will spread to his blood and kill him. She adds a perfunctory "sorry" at the end of her sentence. He wonders, "How can you be so... " then decides to focus his attention on the appendage he's about to lose and declares he's not going through with it. Cristina then takes the approach that every patient loves, and tells him that if he'd come in sooner, this could have been avoided. Really, Cristina, your bluntness aside, just let that go for now. He just begs her, saying he'll do anything she says if it means he can keep his foot.
Meredith is practicing her bone harvesting skills on a dummy head. Derek comes in to get her feedback on an idea for his interview and she tells him, "I'm trying to be supportive but this graft is really tricky," trying to get him to leave her to it. His response is to tell her hopefully, "You don't have to do it. I talked to Mark, and... " And... way to go, buddy. She's aghast, believing he thinks she can't do it, and he counters with some charges against Mark, that he's doing it to impress the Chief. "If it goes well, he gets the credit. If it goes poorly, he gets the save." She thinks that this has become all about Derek beating Mark again, and won't hear it when he argues that he's only trying to protect her. She orders, "You don't need to. Close the door on your way out." His protecting techniques, while full of good intentions, appear to be a little bit like closing the barn doors once the horse is out, what with the drowning and all.
Mark seeks out Bailey, asking if he can help her carry anything, which she correctly interprets as his needing something from her. He wants her ideas on what she would change, which she correctly interprets as his wanting ideas for a 10-year-plan to present to the board. In true Bailey fashion, she smacks him down. "I have patients in need of medical attention right now. This guy here, is about to have one less appendage. I don't have a 10-year plan for him. I have a right now plan for him. Cut off his foot to save his life. So you need to get out of my way, right now, so I can do my job." "Right now?" he asks. "Right now," she repeats.
Izzie sits down in the cafeteria with Cristina, Alex, Meredith, and Meredith's plaster skull on which she's still practicing. Iz comes right out and asks Meredith about blackouts. Meredith assures her that she's okay but is quickly corrected that this time it's not about her, and Izzie needs to know more about her tequila days. Alex jumps in to explain, "The stuff you don't remember is usually the stuff you don't want to remember," looking kind of sly and delighted at the idea of her not wanting to remember something. And seriously, have none of them figured out what happened yet? Because none of this has been exactly subtle. Oh wait, except that they wouldn't expect it either, just like NO ONE in the entire television viewing world would, so they remain blissfully unaware for now. Cristina changes the subject to ask if they have any suggestions that might save her patient's foot. She continues that he was neglectful and made a couple of bad calls, "Does that mean he has no hope? Does that mean he can't have a do-over?" Izzie starts to nod emphatically, and Mere has to explain to Alex, the one still in the dark, that now they're talking about Burke. Izzie tells Cristina, "You need to fix it. Because it seems like you guys have a pretty good thing and pretty good things are rare and hard to come by. And the really screwed up, complicated things seem to be everywhere." Again ignoring the big neon sign on Izzie's forehead screaming that she slept with George, Cristina just asserts that she'll get everything back to the way it was, and leaves. Once she's gone, Izzie asks if Crush picked her new face, musing about how cool it would be to do that and start over. I guess so, if you ignore the amnesia, the mysterious pregnancy, and the hospital bills.
On cue, Alex walks into Crush's room and asks her how she's doing. Understandably, she's freaking out since she can't decide on a face. Alex thinks for a moment, then pulls up a chair. He proceeds to make up stories for each of the three faces. Maggie married her high school sweetheart, has kids, and bakes banana cream pies. (His favorite flavor.) Elizabeth went to Northwestern and met her husband at a political rally; she's angry and fired up but means well. The third face is named Ava, and he seems to get a little hot and bothered thinking about her. And of course Ava is fun, confident, a bit neurotic, but has been through a lot and is stronger for it, blah blah blah girlpowercakes. She doesn't choose one yet, but we all know what's coming, right?
Since everyone else is at lunch, that must mean it's time for George to meet his father-in-law. They are at Joe's, and George is doing a very mangled job of trying to impress him by talking about how great Callie is. He babbles and trips over his words enough for Mr. Torres to observe, "He talks a lot." Callie tries to cheerfully defend George's verbal diarrhea as being normal, but her dad only goes on to say that she's destroyed her mother. He then asks if she is pregnant, which they both vehemently deny, and Callie pleads that George is not like the other guys she's dated. George adds, "Clean as a whistle. And a mathlete!" That, or he said, "And immaculate!" but I'm going with the former because it's awesome and made me laugh out loud when I was otherwise annoyed all hour. And also because I have a dad who would lay out his Civil War sword collection on the table before a date came to pick me up, so I know from scary protective fathers. When he mentions Callie's money, George assures him that he didn't know about that when they married, which Mr. Torres says is a good thing since then George won't mind the house, car, and other provisions being in Callie's name. He wants his daughter to be taken care of and also has a post-nup agreement with him to protect her. In the confusion of his announcement and laying out the agreement, George in a flash remembers the night before. He gets a few different flashbacks of it being hot, happy, and involving a lot of smiling and gazing from both he and Izzie. Out loud, he declares, "No!" and then clarifies that he won't let Mr. Torres pay for anything. He apologizes bolts for the door. Callie, rather than being upset, smiles to herself at his cajones. If only she knew.
George approaches Izzie in the hallway, and she knows that he has remembered. He walks to the linen closet, and she follows him in. Inside, they can't even speak. He's clearly torn up and angry and slams a storage cart while she holds her head in her hands. They finally stare at each other, and she puts her hand on his cheek. He takes her hand, then after a moment puts it down, and then slams out of the room. She stays and cries.
Izzie seems to have collected herself and enters Mrs. R's room, complimenting Mrs. R and her daughter on the dollhouse. Mrs. R holds a chair as Nina glues it together, and you do see that the two of them enjoy their time together, despite the tension about her condition. Izzie needs to draw blood, and Nina gives her very precise instructions about how to do it and which vein to use. Izzie, though, ends up knocking against the table and spilling some instruments, and Nina goes ballistic. She declares that Izzie's too clumsy to work on her mother and goes to find a nurse. Once she's gone, Izzie and Mrs. R wait uncomfortably. Mrs. R says sadly, "She's not even a person anymore." She goes on to explain she knows she's going to die and she just wants to talk to her daughter, but Nina won't let her. Izzie nods in understanding.
Derek is supposed to be preparing but instead is moping in a darkened breakroom. Richard comes in and joins the pity party, mad that there's no coffee and that Colin's got a plan. Derek only muses that plans don't matter, and the Chief sees what's going on and calls him on Meredith's near drowning. Derek repeats what we know, that she was like ice when he got to her and that she knew how to swim but had given up. Now, though, he can't let the image go, and he's afraid that the second he leaves her be, she's going to give up again. It gives some insight into his smothering -- it turns out not all of life is a pissing contest between him and Mark. He admits that he could come up with a plan, but that he really has no idea where he will be ten years from now.
Mr. Torres finds George in the hospital and tells him how he respects George for wanting to take care of Callie himself. But he reminds George that she's his little girl, and "you need to promise me that you'll love her and protect her. Because the minute you hurt her... " Callie walks up to them, and her dad seems to know how well this threat would go over with his little girl and just finishes up, "You understand?" George nods, understanding loud and clear that his privates will be ripped from his body and hung from the flagpole, from the sounds of it, if Papa Torres ever finds out about last night's dalliance. He claps a nauseated-looking George on arm happily and says that now Callie's mother can plan the party. Oh, mom-wants-to-plan-the-party shenanigans! But Callie relents with a smile when her dad pleads with her, and then he kisses her goodbye and leaves for the airport. As with all TV out-of-town family visits, he seems to have flown into Seattle for approximately four hours and then is heading home. Once he's gone, Callie giggles and tells George how proud she is for his standing up to her dad. She tries to kiss him and he pulls back, so she launches into an apology. "Listen, about last night, I don't know about you but I'd like to take back about 90% of what I said." He agrees, much to her relief, but then he bolts, and she calls after him that she'll see him in surgery.
Crush is in the OR, and Alex is with her, there to watch out for the baby. He smiles and asks, "So?" She answers, "Call me Ava." I can't do that; she'll always be Crush to me.
Mark and Mere scrub for surgery, and she calls him out on using her to make himself look good. "You're using the memory of my dead mother to win points with the chief. It's despicable. I'm not gonna play." Despite talking tough, she's picked up her mask as if she's about to head in and get to work, so it takes a bit of the threat out of her words. But Mark shoots back that Richard had been looking at her like a beaten puppy, and if she's successful, he'll look at her like a surgeon. He leaves it up to her and heads inside as she gazes through the window.
Cristina is helping escort her patient to the OR for his footectomy, trying to make him feel better by talking about advances in prosthetics, but he's just quiet. She finally adds, "This doesn't mean your life is over." She sees Burke preparing for his interview and tells them she'll meet up with them in the OR and goes to see her maybe-fiancée. Because all this has taught her that Burke is her foot. Or, wait, that a wedding is the foot. Or that she cares about having or not having a foot more than a wedding. Or Burke. The symbolism this hour certainly is clumsy, that's for sure. She approaches Burke and tells him that it was always the original plan for him to be chief, and that he's still that guy. She's thrown for a curve, though, when he tells her that he's not that guy, he's changed and wants to be a better person. "I want to move forward. I'm not interested in going back." He's called in, and she realizes it's wedding or nothing. With an amputated foot. Or something like that.
Montage time! Meredith starts in on her bone harvest while Derek and Richard watch from the gallery, Derek looking grim. In Mrs. R's surgery, things are going badly and the bleeding won't stop. They have to open her up, because even though that will kill her, so will not doing anything. Nina is busying herself with the dollhouse in her mom's hospital room, and as the buzzers seem to indicate a flatline, her hand slips and she drops a tiny window, which shatters on the floor. Cristina works on Mr. Kendry, and when it's over, Bailey scoops up his foot and the other waste and compliments her on a job well done. Also well done is Meredith's procedure, and she and Derek smile at each other through the glass.
Later on, Mark is in his meeting while the other attendings hover in the hallway. Addison has actually resorted to pressing her ear to the door, as Derek marvels at the laughing coming from inside, presuming it must be at Mark and not with Mark. Bailey catches them red-handed and they're properly shamed in her presence. The door opens and Mark comes out, shaking hands and leading the board members on a tour to the clinic. When Richard comes through the door, he's happy, and he explains that they all could learn something from Mark, who presented a Right Now Plan. Bailey starts when he hears this, and Mark has the good grace to let a flicker of guilt into his eyes as he looks at her. But she smiles, appreciating wiles in another doctor and seems secretly pleased, and he smiles back at her. Addison smiles with resignation. Charming is what Mark does, clearly. And in a suit? Hubba-hubba, consider me quite charmed.
In a less happy setting, Callie, Izzie and George are speaking to Nina after telling her that her mother passed away. Nina berates herself for not bringing her mom in sooner and won't hear anything else from the doctors, especially when Izzie tries to tell her that her mom was ready to go. But Izzie continues. "What she was afraid of, was that you had taken on so much of her disease that you were freezing up too... Messing up, it's what makes a person. It's how we learn. Where we find joy. In the things you don't plan for, the things you never see coming." Thunk. Whoa, what's going on? Oh wait, gosh, sorry, I'm just a little bit disoriented from the ANVIL that just hit me in the head to convince me that George and Izzie's mistake was really, truly Oh So Right.
George and Izzie are finally using their words with each other. She wonders how they're going to tell Callie, but he seems surprised and says they aren't going to. He refuses to hurt her just to clear his conscience, and he can't believe that after all of her support, this is how he repaid her. He tells Izzie this has to be their secret, and she sadly agrees. Her track record with secrets and tact is really sparkling, so I'm sure this will remain something that they deal with alone and which doesn't get out in some big, kooky mix-up very soon. But for the first time in a long time, she seems sincere and sad rather than angry and bitter, so it remains to be seen how all of this will play out.
Meredith starts to wrap things up. "The thing about plans is, they don't take into account the unexpected. So when we're thrown a curveball, whether it's in the OR or in life, we have to improvise." Cristina asks her patient how he's doing; he's understandably depressed since his foot is gone. He asks what he does now, and she instructs him to move forward and try to keep his other foot. A little light bulb goes on over his head, since he clearly forgot until this moment that he had a second foot. So Burke is Cristina's second foot! And Colin was her first? Or her rigid beliefs were her first? I... still don't get it. But I'm sure she'll still cherish her remaining foot. Or whatever.
Mere points out that some people are better at the improvising than others, and in the "better" category we see Alex monitoring Crush. Addison comes in and compliments him on his work and on not complaining about watching a monitor all day. He claims he does what he's told, depending on who is doing the telling. She wishes him a good night filled with magical dreams of what-if in her voice. Crush is awake and perceptive, and asks him what was up. He deflects and asks her how she's doing, but she's persistent about "the redhead." He explains that the redhead is his boss but trails off, and eventually at her prodding just admits that it's complicated and won't answer anything else. For now, at least.
Meredith: "Some of us just have to move on to plan B and make the best of it." Cristina gets home and silently crawls into bed with Burke. He waits for her to talk. She finally says it should be small, with just Meredith, and Derek if he wants, and a Justice of the Peace. No religion. No veil. "I don't want to get married with a mosquito net all over my face." He puts his arms around her, happy that he's convinced his girlfriend that he'll leave her if she doesn't conform to his wishes for how their relationship should be. Aw.
Derek and Meredith also cuddle in bed. She admits he was right about Mark using her mom's memory to win points in the race for Chief. I'm trying not to be distracted by the fact that she appears to be wearing silver leggings, which are an... interesting... loungewear choice. She asks Derek if he knows what's weird. "It's exactly what she would have wanted." They agree that Dead Mommy is proud. That looks so sick in print, but Meredith is really working through her issues, and it's refreshing, and I'm happy to see her grow like this. She asks him how his interview went and he admits not well, as he was distracted. Of course, when she asks he won't say what his distraction is, but she gets it, and flips his question on him. "On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is it?" He answers that it's an eight, but some kissing and some rolling around quickly start to bring the number down. "And sometimes, what we want is exactly what we need.
But sometimes... " Izzie is in her bedroom, manically pulling all of the sheets off her bed and balling them up. George is back with Callie at the hotel, and she reads in bed as he stares at the ceiling. She can still smell his clothes but is joking about it this time, and he apologizes. Then once more, clearly for much more than rank clothing, he mumbles, "Again, I'm so sorry." He stares at the ceiling while Izzie, on her stripped mattress, cries. Meredith: "Sometimes, what we need is a new plan." Yes. A new plan. But if you're the writers of a really well-written television show, you might want to make sure your new plan makes any sense at all before you try to implement it. Just an idea.