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Picking up just after where the last episode left off, Lexie is feverishly trying to stop Nick's bleeding, which eventually she sort of does, at least enough to have him grab the phone and get help. Unfortunately he keeps bleeding on and off again, and after a moment where they think everything is fine, he begins again and has a stroke. Despite the doctors' efforts in surgery, he dies. Ray the paramedic is fortunately luckier, and after some rather kick-ass treatment on Meredith's part, they get him stable enough to get him out of the ambulance and into surgery. The Chief tells her she did an awesome job even though she admits afterward that she was scared, and some pep talking of sorts makes her realize that being scared might mean she really wants to make things work with Derek…it made sense at the time, I promise. She goes and tells Derek, scared but happy, that she doesn't want him seeing other people, only to be met with his not-so-happy face. You see, Rose managed to use her three semesters of computer science to fix the ultra-amazing brain-operating machine, with just a little bit of help at the end from Derek, and after having a moment, they tentatively make out in the scrub room. So once again, Meredith is going to have her happiness and confidence dashed.
Alex gets busted when -- DUH, finally! -- Mark happens to look up to see what Alex is staring at in the gallery and recognizes Ava. As if this weren't bad enough, when Mark has to run out of surgery to help Nick, the patient bursts something and nearly dies. When Alex is at home with Ava later, she wants to talk about how bad his day was (including that he's now suspended for a week for sneaking her in to the gallery), but he gets angry that she's showing up while she's still married. And after yelling at her that he's sleeping with Lexie and that Ava's not there to talk, they get down to the sex. Whatever turns you on, I guess.
In another surgery rife with complications, Bailey has one setback after another with Mr. White Power, making her later and later to meet Tucker. She keeps sending George as a go-between and he has to relay some really awful things from one spouse to another, including Tucker saying that it's all over. But a tiny bit of good comes of all of it when Bailey closes up at the end of surgery and manages to sew the patient up so that one cannot recognize his fetching swastika anymore. While she's recovering afterward, Cristina comes up and tells her how angry she is that Bailey used Cristina for the color of her skin, especially at the expense of her working with Hahn, and Bailey is left to just sigh. Instead, Izzie works with Hahn, who berates her for being too caring a person, leaving Izzie to get reamed by the wife later for not bringing her the promised updates while her husband was in surgery. Hahn, however, later realizes that she might need to be a bit more caring, and after saving her patient so that he can be with his kids, she sucks up her pride and invites Callie and Mark to drinks.
At the very end of the day, Cristina comes across a dejected Lexie and sincerely tells her that she was brave and did a great job with Nick. Lexie is still despondent, though, and finally admits that she has literally no one right now. So Cristina decides to bring her home and after a few uncomfortable moments, Meredith accepts this and the three of them bond with dancing and tequila, eventually joined by George and Izzie so that aw, most of the gang is back together again. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Over some tense guitar music, there's a montage of the ambulance crash and Meredith and Cristina's dancing while Mere revisits the theme she started last week: "At the end of the day, the experience of practicing medicine bears little resemblance to the dream." Alex is down to his tank top, making out with Ava. Because her priorities are clearly out of whack, she keeps stopping their making out to ask him if he's okay, and does not seem to be grasping the "even if I'm not, I don't want to talk about it with you" that he's conveying by brushing her off and kissing her again. Instead she reminds him about how intense and awful the day was, and asks, "How can you be okay after a day like that?" But he doesn't answer, so we're left to wonder just how awful it was as Meredith reminds us, "We go into medicine to save lives."
Cristina and Lexie are in an empty exam room, each wearing scrubs, and Cristina tells Lexie sincerely that she did a good job today. "What you did was not easy, it was brave." But it seems to not be comforting Lexie, who stares silently down at the bed as if she's numb.
Mere's voice continues, "We go into medicine because we want to do good." Mark is sitting silently, somewhat like Lexie, and as the camera pans, we see Callie sitting nearby on the couch, sighing, she takes off her scrub cap. They both illustrate everything but what Meredith mentions: "We go into medicine for the rush. For the high. For the ride." Mark starts rubbing his forehead as Meredith finishes, "But what we remember most days are the losses."
"What we lay awake at night replaying is the pain we caused." Izzie's lying on her bed, looking sad, and George leans over her, resting his chin on her arm, watching her.
"The ills we couldn't cure." And in a miraculous moment four seasons in the making, Meredith walks up to Derek and without a stutter or a flinch tells him, "I don't want you to date other people. It may not be enough for you, but I'm trying here." He turns around and regards her seriously as she lightens up a bit and adds, "I don't want you to date anybody but me!" He gives her a tiny half smile but he seems sad, and oh boy howdy will we see why later.
"The lives we ruined, or failed to save." The Chief is in the bay, looking stricken as the cleanup from the accident finishes up and a tow truck takes one of the mangled ambulances ("ambulance"?) away. "At the end of the day the reality is nothing like we hope. The reality is that the end of the day, more often than not, turned inside out and upside down." As the camera pans around the Chief, the scene changes back to one of disarray, right where we left off with Meredith inside trying to help Ray. She cuts his shirt off while, in his room inside, blood continues to squirt comically out of Nick's neck. The situation itself isn't funny at all, but the squirt-gun-like spurts of blood are just so ludicrous, even if in real life that's what would happen. Fortunately, I don't have any experience in such matters, so I stick by my "funny" opinion.
Lexie screams at him to hold still while she gets her hands on his neck to hold it as best she can. While she stands there in her now red coat, he observes, "Holy crap, my artery blew." If ever an award was deserved for obvious statements, it's going to that one for sure. Lexie agrees, and he admits that he didn't really think that was going to happen. "I mean, I thought it was something that the doctors say might happen because they have to, but I didn't think that it would really happen." She agrees. And while in theory that's true, since you always have to hear the worst-case scenario, a doctor trying to scare a patient doesn't usually bring in the entire surgical staff to be on alert for your case if there isn't a little bit of truth to the potential scenario. They hang out just breathing for a moment, because why get help when you can share a moment covered in blood?
Rose lets Derek and the gang know that the technician for the Brain-Saving Machine is in Spokane, which he explains, for those of us not familiar with Northwest American geography, is five hours away. He asks Rose if she told him he's stuck with a scope in someone's brain and she answers, "Yes. The tech is still in Spokane." It's good to see that someone recognizes that no matter how wavy and thick his hair, Derek can't actually bend space and time. (Yet.) She asks if he can pull out the scope and just do a full craniotomy, but he says he can't, and has the intern to him explain that pulling out the scope without navigation could damage the brain tissue. Which, if Rose has been on 38 of Derek's surgeries, she should have been able to figure out on her own. He also adds that leaving the probe in could cause swelling, and Derek congratulates the intern and asks his name. On a reflex he introduces himself as "Two" and then remembers he has a real name, Steve. Derek sends him to make an announcement that they need a computer tech to the whole hospital.
As he trots off, Rose offers that she had three semesters of computer science in college and might be able to fix it. The only technician for this super-specialized, delicate piece of machinery might be on the other side of the state, but thank God for basic computer knowledge, because that will totally substitute easily. She offers to try and look at it; = Derek evenly replies that he'd feel better about that if her voice weren't shaking. She tells him, "My voice shakes when I'm nervous, I'm an imperfect person, but it doesn't mean I can't fix the computer." He asks her what school she went to and when she tells him it was Santa Cruz, he points out that it's a party school. I'd like to point out that even if she wasn't a partier, given her age she probably went there when they didn't actually give out grades, so all we would know is that she presumably passed her computer science classes, and nothing more specific. But to be fair, my sister went there and has gone leaps and bounds further with her education than I did with mine, so I'll lay off being a smart-ass in her honor and assume that those three semesters Rose took were of the most advanced and phenomenal computer science class in the country so that she can fix the Brain-Saving Machine. Derek takes a quick poll to see if anyone else in the room can beat it, and since no one can, he tells her to give it a shot.
Outside, the Chief is looking at the ultrasound image while Meredith holds the sensor to Ray's abdomen. Through clenched teeth he manages to tell her she's doing a good job, and she heartily agrees. This Meredith is such a welcome change from sobby depressed Meredith! Ray then asks Meredith if she can close Stan's eyes, since he is still eerily staring up at Meredith's body as she leans over him to get to Ray. She does, and apologizes sincerely. Just then, the Chief sees what he's looking for and confirms that the pericardium is full of blood, which makes Ray a bit panicky. Richard shouts out some instructions and sends for a pericardiocentesis kit, but talks about how Ray's anatomy is all messed up since he's upside down. Inside, Ray seems just about as happy as you can imagine to hear that.
Bailey and Cristina are done with their surgery, and as they go to scrub out Bailey talks about needing to meet Tucker. After a moment she realizes Cristina is glaring at her, and when she asks what's up, Cristina begins to yell about being taken off Hahn's service. But she's interrupted by George jumping in to say that something is wrong. Bailey clearly hopes that she can ignore it, but George calls for her again, so she gives him a task. She asks him to go out and convince Tucker to wait for her, adding that he's not going to want to, so George have to do it nicely and say "Please." As George leaves, she calls that she won't be long.
In the other OR, Hahn is showing Izzie how Jacob's sternum is all cleaned out, which means they're almost done. Mark asks if she doesn't want to stay and watch him work, but Hahn just shuts him down, telling him how offensive he is. He tries to play innocent -- not his strong suit -- but she calls him on it and asks if he gets away with this behavior because of his looks. She's hit a nerve, but explains, "I'm saying, if you were homely you would have lost your job a long time ago." If he were homely, clearly he wouldn't have been hired by Seattle Grace, the Prettiest Hospital of the Northwest, in the first place. He glares at her as a nurse calls out that Hahn is needed in the ambulance bay.
Lexie's still holding on to Nick's neck and asks if he can reach his call button. Unfortunately, when he moves, blood tends to squirt back out between her fingers, so she stops him and asks if he can reach the phone instead. He manages to do so and is able to put it to her ear, and when a nurse picks up, a terrified Lexie stutters that she needs Sloane paged and decides that she's calling this a code blue. Nick puts the phone down but then panics a bit about the fact that a code blue means he's dead. Lexie explains, "I figure we can use all the help we can get." Tyler the scrub nurse (thank you, knowledgeable readers, for telling me his name!) leads a crew in and they get to work immediately.
Bailey's still working on Shane when a pager goes off, and she calls out that she doesn't care who or what it is while Cristina shoots daggers at her over her surgical mask. The nurse tells them it's actually a 911 page for Cristina from Lexie, just as another nurse pokes her head in to the room to tell her that Lexie called a code blue that wasn't a code blue. Cristina is confused, and Bailey tells her to go find out what's up. This surprises Cristina, who after all she's been through thinks Bailey needs her, but Bailey happily tells her that she's fine and adds, "Go kick some intern butt." It seems that from the midst of her own troubles, she can't see that Cristina's rage is taking on a life of its own, and Cristina stomps out of the room.
While the team works around Nick, Lexie's still hanging out holding on to his artery, and he asks her how she's doing. He calls her Dr. Grey but she tells him to call her Lexie. I do think that by the time your fingers are in a guy's neck, you're definitely on a first-name basis. She asks how he's doing and he admits, "I'm kind of freaked out if I'm being honest. Mostly because you look like Carrie at the prom." He's not wrong, and she tells him that they're hanging more blood to give him. Tyler tells her that he's having a hard time finding a vein because they're flaccid. Nick would probably blush if he had the blood left to do it, but still gets bashful and tells him that's not a nice thing to say. Tyler then sticks him and he screams, causing more blood to start squirting just as Cristina comes in. Lexie says that her hand slipped and Nick begs her not to let it happen again. She explains that she called Sloane, and asks about taking Nick to an OR, but Cristina grimly tells her that there isn't one available, just as more blood squirts through her fingers for emphasis. Lexie very calmly tells Tyler (oh, so now they use his name for the first time all season?) to get more blood, and Cristina runs to get Mark. Lexie starts to panic but Cristina orders, "You can do this. You're doing this!"
Well, will wonders never cease? Mark is actually instructing Alex and showing him something in Jacob's chest, but notices that Alex is only watching the gallery. Mark looks up, sees Ava, and calls out, "That's my face!" There's a moment of confusion before he adds, "Up there in the gallery, I built that face!" Seriously, even if you're a rule-breaker who likes to live on the edge, this whole plan was immensely stupid, and I'm glad that they're finally busted, considering everyone in that hospital should recognize Ava. She seems to realize something is up, and goes from watching Alex with a sappy grin to trying to hide her face. Mark tells Alex that he's busted, but he's saved for the moment by Cristina coming in to announce that Nick's artery blew. Mark tells Alex to finish up by irrigating and packing the wound. Callie seems nervous, but Mark says everything is fine and that he's bringing Nick down, since this OR will be free in just a few moments. He orders them to finish up quick while Alex stares back up at Ava some more.
George shuffles out to greet Tucker and do his unpleasant duty. Tucker guesses that Bailey sent him to say she can't make lunch, but George corrects him that Bailey just will be a bit late. "She's in surgery." Tucker counters, "Always is." George is taken a bit aback and adds, "Yeah, she's taking a little longer --" but Tucker cuts him off to say, "Always does," and then he heaves an angry sigh. George resorts to semi-dignified begging, telling Tucker about Bailey's bad day and her surgery, and asks him to stay, adding that Bailey told him to say "please." He adds, "Which as you know is not a word she uses that frequently." Tucker smiles, half sincere, half annoyed, and agrees, but then adds, "But tell Miranda I said don't keep me waiting long. PLEASE." George hightails it back to the OR to relay the message like a good little errand boy.
Izzie has followed Hahn out to the ambulance bay, and on the way she notices Jacob's wife and kids in the waiting room. She asks if it's okay for her to give them an update and meet Hahn in the ambulance bay, but Hahn bites her head off for the very notion. She marches off and Izzie chases her down, surprised that she doesn't want to keep the family informed. Hahn just counters that Izzie is thinking like a social worker, and that if she wanted to be that instead of a surgeon, it would have been a lot less school. She informs Izzie nastily that a surgeon will update the family when the crisis has passed. After a beat, Izzie apologizes and follows her out the door. Much as it pains me, I'm with Izzie on this one. The impression I've always gotten is that you wait for the crisis with that patient to pass, but you don't just move on to the without even bothering to tell the family what's going on. Something about that seems horribly negligent and makes me uneasy. Of course, the uneasiness is probably also from my agreeing with Izzie.
Rose is working away on the computer when Steve comes back and reports that no one responded to the announcement. Of course they didn't, Steve -- how on earth can always-been-around Rose grow to be loved by viewers and follicularly blessed doctors alike if she doesn't turn out to be awesome in every way? She's having a bit of trouble reconnecting wires, though, because her hands aren't steady. Thank goodness for her, Derek's got the steady hands covered. He asks Steve if he also has a steady hand and Steve exuberantly declares, "Yes sir!" Derek tells him, "Good, it better be or you're gonna kill my patient," as he hands over the probes for Steve to hold so that he can go be a God on the computer.
George heads back to the ER and reports that Tucker is waiting, provided Bailey is out soon. Naturally, at that moment another complication arises, so she sends George back out to ask Tucker to wait even longer. George protests that he just scrubbed in, but Bailey's having none of it and orders him out. After he leaves, she turns and glares at an unconscious Shane and mutters, "A person can only rise so high. Now I'm rising above, but there's a ceiling, and I'm about to hit it." As if he heard her and wants to be an even worse human being than he already is, another alarm goes off to signify yet another complication.
In the outdoor OR, Hahn is looking at the ultrasound while Richard explains that they're going to start, but since Ray's upside down, the blood isn't pooled at the bottom of his heart. Hahn jumps in to say that they should still use the somethingorother instead of the thisandthat. Richard leans in to make sure Meredith heard, and after she confirms it, she asks Ray how he's doing. Outside, Hahn leans in to say be careful because she could nick an artery. Izzie then guesses that she could cause a rupture, and Hahn rogers that and lists a number of other things that could go horribly wrong. "Basically there's about six different ways she could kill him." While most TV shows pretend that standing two feet away from someone, or standing around a corner, means they can't hear what someone else is saying, this time we're actually seeing something realistic. Ray pulls off his oxygen mask to ask, terrified, if they're talking about him. Meredith tells him not to listen and then turns around and orders, "Dr. Hahn, shut up." Hahn looks shocked but then yells inside, full of false cheer, that Ray's going to be fine. She then turns and quietly tells Izzie to get an 18-gauge needle, "before this man's heart explodes in his chest."
Alex is finishing up the last of the surgery, and Callie asks how he's doing. His nose itches, which she says is the anxiety since he knows he can't scratch it. But it turns out his anxiety was warranted, as some blood then squirts out of Jacob's chest onto Alex. I like to think that, while filming this episode, the special effects team was running around having the equivalent of a water fight with all their squirty-blood contraptions, because they clearly have a lot of them on hand. Callie and Alex go into crisis mode; she asks what he did, but he claims nothing. Upstairs, Ava jumps up at the commotion and Alex looks up at her yet again. Man, no wonder this guy's chest exploded -- it probably was craving Alex's attention after all the time he spent staring after his lovah instead of at the incision.
Lexie asks for yet more gauze, and Nick understandably seems pretty worried about the amount that he's bleeding. She assures him that they're also putting blood back in, but he wonders if it's at the same rate; he's feeling queasy and weak. He asks nervously if he should call his family, but just then, she realizes that the bleeding has stopped. Mark sweeps in and asks Nick if he's okay, and Nick asks if he looks okay. It's a pretty great moment, since his entire left side is solidly coated in blood. Sloane confirms that the bleeding has stopped, but Cristina's very technical-sounding reason why also includes the caveat that it could start again. Mark assures them it won't, he'll fix it, and in unison Lexie and Nick inform him that there's no OR. But as he did a few moments ago when he left his surgery, he assures them that there will be, and orders the girls to bring him down. Nick turns to Lexie and declares, "I'm in love with you now. I've forgotten entirely about my ex." She puts a bandage on his neck and smiles, shaking her head. And though I'd love to say she's being ridiculous, he's actually quite charming and cute and I don't blame her for the smile.
Outside, Hahn gets a page and has to run before she can make some more disheartening remarks as Meredith tries to save Ray. Richard yells after her, but she just orders Izzie to page a cardiac fellow and book an OR to be ready the second Ray is free. Huh, so I guess it turns out that there really is more than just one doctor for each particular type of emergency, in case two patients have the gall to suffer simultaneous cardiac/neurological/gynecological emergencies. Who knew? Izzie looks to the Chief desperately, confused, and he nods that she should go take care of all that now.
George heads back out once again to talk to Tucker, and when he reaches Tucker there's a moment of unhappy silence from both of them. Tucker finally states angrily, "Why am I not surprised." George professes flatly that he's very sorry, but Tucker is done, and gets his things together to leave. George pleads with him a bit and Tucker finally agrees to stay longer but announces, "Fine, I'll wait. But you tell her I'm tired. Tired of her choosing everything over me and our marriage. You tell her this is the last time, I'm finished. And you tell her the only reason I'm staying here is to tell her that myself." Never once does it seem to occur to him that giving a subordinate that message might be inappropriate, but that seems to show that gross inappropriateness isn't just a staff problem -- clearly, it's something in the building that takes over people once they get inside.
Sloane heads back into the OR to find chaos, and demands to know what Alex did. When Alex answers, Sloane yells some more and asks if he was showing off for his girlfriend. Callie jumps in to save Alex from the beating and says one of the heart grafts blew. Just then Hahn comes to join the party, and they explain what happened. Sloane tells Alex to keep quiet and suction while they work, and Alex again looks up to see Ava run out of the gallery, clearly upset.
In the other OR, George walks back in holding a mask to his face and tells Bailey that Tucker is waiting. She's glad to hear it, but gets nervous when she realizes George is still standing there. He leans toward her and very quietly lets her know, "He said something about you choosing everything over your marriage." Suddenly things are a bit uncomfortable, but he has her go on, and he tells her he thinks that's it. She demands to know if he thinks or if he knows that's it, and George spits out that Tucker said this was the last time and that he's finished. Bailey's struck dumb, but only for a moment, and then she begins to demand answers from George. A nurse glances over as Bailey makes sure that George relayed that she couldn't leave the surgery or a man would die. Finally she tells George that he needs to go back and tell Tucker that she took a vow to save lives and that he took a vow for better or for worse. "You tell him that it's his job, as a husband, to understand that." On the verge of angry tears, she adds that she's standing by her vow and holding Tucker to his; above her a monitor shows Shane's tattoo as if it is mocking her. She adds that Tucker should consider that one day he might need surgery, "and he may not get a surgeon who's not as married to her vows as I am. You tell him that." It's sad to see her fighting so hard and trying to keep her dignity so desperately in front of George and the rest of the staff in the OR. George is also desperate, but his desperation is to not be a part of this terribly personal argument anymore. He leans in and begs to do charts instead, but she snaps at him, "Go!" and he scurries out.
Derek finishes his wiring, and he and Rose look up. Steve is doing a great job holding still, but that's the only good news; the monitor is still black. Rose yells at Derek to stop looking at her like she killed his patient and says she did her best. He evenly tells her she didn't and they argue a bit, her voice still shaking. He then tells her to calm down and breathe, and after a moment she leans toward him and reaches toward his pants...and presses the power button on the computer. It's either actually the monitor's on/off button or the Brain-Saving Machine is also the fastest-booting computer in the world, since immediately the image comes back up. They have a good laugh about her forgetting to hit the restart button and the OR staff bursts into applause. Derek declares, "Santa Cruz is not just a party school!", much to the delight of banana slugs everywhere, and goes back to his surgery.
While Nick is readied for transport, he tells Lexie he didn't plan to die this way, and she protests that he's not going to die. But that was his point -- that he thinks people have a feeling that they're going to die, and he didn't have it. So he can't die, right? Oh, Nick, did you ever think that voicing that out loud might have been a jinx? Lexie tries to smile at him, but just then he mumbles that he doesn't feel well, and blood starts to soak the bandage on his neck once again. Cristina jumps to examine him and determines that he probably had a stroke, and orders that they get him to the OR immediately. Lexie starts to crumble but Cristina orders, "You can't cry, Lexie, this isn't over. You can't cry." Lexie tries to compose herself and they wheel the bed out of the room, leaving a giant pool of blood on the floor behind them.
It feels like it's been all day already, but Meredith is still outside preparing to do the procedure on Ray. Richard calls instructions to her and she feels around until she gets to the right spot. He hands her the needle, and Ray notes warily that it's a big one. She apologizes as Richard calls more instructions. But just as she's ready, Ray panics. He keeps stopping her right before she's about to stick him, and he asks Meredith to tell Sarah he's sorry he couldn't save Ray. Meredith, also borrowing from the Big Book of Accident Clichés, replies, "Tell her yourself." Ray stops her again as she's about to plunge in the needle, and she pleads with him that they're running out of time. Richard yells in to ask what's going on, and Ray cries that he's trying not to be scared since he doesn't want to die scared. Richard tells him firmly that it's good to be scared. "It means you still have something to lose." Ray asks Meredith if she's scared and she admits, "All the time," with the tone of one who has had a Great Realization. Ray then tells her that he's ready, but says to just do it and not count down, so she plunges the needle right in and he begins to shake.
Hahn is working on Jacob and beating herself up, repeatedly calling herself stupid as she does her work. Mark notes that it's fascinating: "You're as unkind to yourself as you are to everyone else." Callie calls his name reprovingly, but Hahn doesn't have time to respond because Cristina comes in to say that Nick's artery blew again and he had a stroke. Mark asks where they have him and Cristina opens the door to show that he's right there, along with a very worried Lexie, since he told them to bring Nick down. He orders Cristina to get him to a sterile procedure room and Callie, done with her own work, asks what he needs. He calls for an anesthesiologist, nurse, and equipment and she runs off to take care of it. Still working on Jacob, Hahn begins another mantra: "This man has four children. He has four children." The Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day!
Mere's got the needle in Ray's chest, but she calls that she thinks it's in too far. Richard yells instructions as Ray panics, but after a moment, she gets the right spot and blood starts to drain into the syringe. Ray weakly but happily says he feels good and can breathe, so Meredith gets out of the ambulance so that the firefighters can get to work freeing him from the wreckage. Richard notices that she's bleeding and could use a couple of stitches, and he cleans the wound as he compliments her for staying calm and focused in a stressful situation. She admits, "I was scared." But he commends her: "You did it anyway. Like I said, impressive." Behind them, the firemen get Ray out and into the hospital.
Izzie is yelling at a nurse trying to get an OR, and after they argue a bit, Jacob's wife sees her and asks how her husband is doing. Izzie stutters, "I believe he's still in surgery, but I don't know." Her delivery makes a bad situation even worse as Mrs. Jacob repeats that Izzie said she'd bring updates. Izzie tries to tell her that she was going to go check on him, but Mrs. Jacob is horrified and yells at her about how she's got terrified children afraid their dad is going to die. "Did you just have lousy instructors who didn't teach you how to be a good doctor? Or just really bad parents who didn't teach you how to be a decent human being?" We know the answer is the former, since Hahn kept her from her updates, and we can rest easy knowing that Izzie really is a good person deep down. The nurse comes back and tells her an OR is clearing out, and the wife leaves to go ask the nurse how her husband is. As Izzie walks away, one of the kids holds a teddy bear and makes an accusing, but also sad and doe-eyed, face at Izzie just to prove how horribly she acted and how she broke the heart of a tiny innocent child. For shame!
Thankfully we don't have to see George relaying all of the vow talk to Tucker, but we do see his appalled reaction. George looks at the floor and mumbles that if Tucker waited, they could have this conversation with each other since things can get lost in translation, and clearly this is very important. But that's Tucker's last straw and he barks, "It's clearly not very important. My marriage is falling apart and she sends you to save it." He starts to go but George grabs him, calm and talking like an adult, and tells her she's literally saving a life and will be there soon. Tucker says she'll always be there soon and adds, "You ask her, when exactly is 'soon' gonna come?" Relieving the tension of the scene a bit is the fact that George comes up approximately to Tucker's elbow, and the difference is striking. But we all know that height came in handy while he was playing on the California University basketball team.
Meredith walks down a dim hospital hallway where Sarah, Stan's wife, is leaning against a wall. Sarah grabs her as she walks by and confirms that she's the person who came and got her that morning, and then asks Mere to tell Ray she's sorry she can't stay. Meredith, dragging from exhaustion, tells her that Ray wanted to tell Sarah the same thing in case he didn't make it, and the idea that he might not make it clearly shocks Sarah. Meredith replies, "I hope he makes it. But you won't be here, so..." Even on repeated viewings, I haven't been able to quite decide if she's being matter-of-fact or condescending. Sarah seems to think the latter, and demands to know how she's supposed to hang around after what has happened, knowing her husband's body is somewhere in the building. Meredith just tells her that if Ray does survive, he'll wake up with no one there, and Sarah will be at home with no one. "I think it's better to have someone. Even if it hurts. Even if it's the most painful thing you have to do. Even if it's the most painful thing you've ever had to do, I think it's better to have someone." These two are either really good at crying on command, or they have a lot of drops in their eyes for the entire scene.
Bailey looks down at Shane's tattoo, clearly nearly done with his surgery. She comments that the skin looks jagged, and asks George if he thinks the same. She muses that if it is jagged, she'll have to redo the incision to line it up, and then his tattoo might be unrecognizable. George then agrees that it does look jagged, and in a tiny voice Bailey replies, "I thought so too." After a moment she asks if Tucker left, and George tells her he did.
In Ray's surgery, the alarms are beeping like crazy and the Chief and Izzie work urgently. Mere watches from the scrub room as Richard begs Ray to fight. Hahn is doing begging of her own, telling Jacob over and over that he will not die while Alex watches. In Derek's OR, Rose watches with worried giant eyes as Derek begs Mary not to die. And finally, Mark asks the same of Nick, while Lexie looks on and begs him to please live. Her only answer is the single note as he flatlines.
Night has finally fallen, and the Chief is checking on Ray when Meredith brings in Sarah. Sarah is clearly nervous and notes that he looks bad. Richard admits that his heart and lungs were both hurt, but that he's young and should recover. Sarah goes up to him slowly as Mere watches, and there are many more sets of teary eyes, mine included. Sarah starts to cry and says Ray's name, at which he opens his eyes. She takes his hand and tells him, "I'm here." It's like they're setting up a new love born of tragedy already.
Shane is awake, and he stares dumbly at his tattoo as George explains what happened in surgery but tells him he'll have a full recovery. The tattoo now looks more like a very angled letter "S," with just two arms instead of four. He grumbles menacingly that it won't be a full recovery, and growls that Bailey did it on purpose. George just continues to dress his wound and tells Shane that he doesn't understand, and asks about Shane having a black partner. Shane says he does, asking worriedly how she is, and George just asks if they're friends. Shane tells him he's not the devil: "I'm just a guy with a belief system." He tells George that Mary's nice and that they save lives together. "That's a good time." But he says he'd have a problem with it if Mary wanted to marry his brother, and so would lots of people. He adds defensively, "I'm not that much different than most of the people that you know." I think it's to say that actually, most of the people I know wouldn't ever have a belief system that involves genocide and stark hatred. I have been sitting here, trying to put into words how inconceivable and offensive this all is, but it's beyond me. George does a much better job, so I'll leave it to him. He muses that Bailey just saved Shane's life. "A black woman saved your life at a great personal cost, so maybe time you're looking at your tattoo and you're thinking how much better all us white guys are than everyone else, you think about that." He puts a bandage on over the incision and adds, "Because between you and me, if I'd been alone in that OR, you'd probably be dead right now." Shane looks both confused and appalled at the idea, like it never occurred to him that a white guy might not be the best person for every job. George adds calmly, "And since we're sharing belief systems, I believe if you were dead? The world would be a better place." And with his quiet voice and a little stutter, he just proved himself to be more of a man than this asshole could ever dream to be.
Izzie pokes her head into Jacob's room, where Alex is doing charts amid all of Jacob's sleeping children, to make sure he's okay. She's happy to hear he is until Mrs. Jacob walks by and demands to know why she's there, adding that they're fine without her. "Do you mind?" Dejected, Izzie walks off. Once she leaves, Alex looks up to see Ava standing there instead with a meek little smile.
Bailey's looking at the surgical board when Cristina walks up and asks if she's heading home. Bailey admits that it's easier to stay and wait until Tucker is asleep. Cristina then declares that she also rose above that day. Bailey encouragingly agrees that she did while still gazing at the board, but that's not what Cristina was looking for. She tells Bailey that she knows Bailey was rising all day, so she didn't say anything, but now the day is over and she's done with it. Her tone is hard and angry, and Bailey finally turns towards her, confused. Cristina announces that pulling her away from Hahn was an abuse of power, since she was used for the color of her skin. She adds that Bailey compromised the quality of her education because of her color and tells her plainly, "I resent it," and walks off. Bailey opens her mouth but can't find the words, and just drops her head. And while I understand why Bailey did what she did, I understand Cristina's feelings too. It's back, people -- hard situations without a right answer and shades of grey! (Get it, Grey?) This is what this show does best and I'm happy that it's coming back.
Derek and Rose are scrubbing out of their surgery/computer adventure, and Rose tells him admiringly that he saved Mary's life. She sounds like a thirteen-year-old with a crush. But he's not much better, tossing back that he just fixed her brain, while Rose saved her life. He turns to Rose as she dries her hands and the moment we all knew was coming finally arrives -- they slowly get closer and closer until they start to kiss tentatively a few times. Once they stop, she pulls back and stammers, "Okay, thanks! That was...okay." She cuts herself off there; she wasn't saying that kissing GoldenLocks himself was only okay. He points out that her voice is shaking, and she reminds him, "I'm an imperfect person." She leaves, and he looks not terribly happy to realize that right now he's very much an imperfect person too.
Someone is mopping up Nick's blood from the floor as Tyler wraps his body up in plastic. Lexie is sitting to the bed, and asks if his parents are coming. Tyler tells her that they're on a plane, and asks if she's waiting. She says she is, and then stares morosely at the plastic.
Meredith rounds the corner and sees Derek at the nurses' station; after just a beat she walks right up to him and before he can turn around, she tells him that she doesn't want him to date other people, in the scene we saw at the beginning of the hour. Now we know why he looks a bit stricken. She adds that she's scared to want him, but she's here wanting him anyway, and she doesn't want to lose him, et cetera. He turns around and with a sad smile says her name, but she stops him. It seems like she knows he's about to stomp all over her emotional progress, and she tells him not to say anything; she'll leave, and he can say something tomorrow. She asks, "That's progress, right?" He smiles sadly as she turns and practically skips down the hall. That skip makes it seem like maybe she didn't actually guess that he's about to crush her, which will make it all the more wrenching when, yet again, any progress and growing on her part is squashed like a bug. Everyone on this show is allowed to change and grow but Meredith, it seems.
Now to Alex and Ava and the getting busy. She finally asks him, whining a bit, why he won't talk to her, and he angrily demands to know what he should talk about: a guy almost bleeding out on him, or his week's suspension? (I'm relieved we didn't have to see that scene, to be honest. We've seen enough reprimands for stupidity in the workplace already over the years.) He then delivers his biggest blow and calls her Rebecca. She protests that it's "Ava," but he angrily tells her that she's playing dress-up right now, and reminds her about her baby and her husband. He then adds classily about Lexie, "I'm screwing her," while pointing out that Lexie might be a wreck, but she's not married, won't get him suspended, and isn't trying to be someone she's not. Ava protests some more but he just interrupts to demand that she be honest about why she's there, because she'd probably see that it wasn't to talk. She's got tears in her eyes, but apparently he likes tears and whining and she likes cruel anger, because they start to go at it.