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According to Meredith, “happily ever afters” are a bunch of malarkey. Then she starts having nightmares about Derek dying, because God forbid things could actually be good in her life for, like, a minute. She spends the entire episode going back and forth, waffling about whether or not she should let Derek move in. It actually drives Christina to tell Meredith to stop whining about Derek, because she can't take it any more. Awesome. I've been waiting five years for someone to tell her to shut up. Then Christina is inexplicably impaled by an icicle. We get a glimpse of future Christina and Meredith still bickering and being co-dependent. After some issues with the bitchy Rose, who stabs him in the hand (she has what Mark calls "delayed rage"), Derek jokingly proposes to Meredith, but says he'll do whatever Meredith wants. Which is moving in together, though it takes two hours and a whole lot of dysfunctional patients in order to convince her of this fact.
Elsewhere at Seattle Grace, the teaching hospital got a bad ranking, which sends the whole place in a tizzy. And their trauma center has been downgraded. Which means they don't get any good cases. But George worries more about his intern exam, and Lexi is more concerned about how George smells. She discovers that her big sis already had sexual relations with George once upon a time and doesn't view this as a huge warning sign. Oh, and it’s snowing.
So Bailey gathers the kids and has them stand outside praying for people to get injured and desperately need their attention. Someone does. It's Bernadette Peters dressed to the nines and driving a limo. In her car is the original limo driver, who went through the window, and is now gushing blood all over Kathy Baker. Mariettte Hartley's the other high-class lady, who has lost her memory. But that's the least of their worries, because their husbands were in another limo that was also crashed because of the freakishly unseasonable black ice. Like MLK, Bailey has a dream that they will get more traumas, even if it means stealing the husbands from another hospital. The arrival of the men stirs up a whole boatload of convoluted relationships between these six people that make a day at Seattle Grace look practically normal. Everyone sees themselves in them in some way or another. Of course. Some things never change.
But along with the husbands comes Dr. Hunk, er, Dr. Hunt. He's an Army surgeon who just got home, was on the scene of the accident and performed a tracheotomy with a ballpoint pen. He's assertive and starts suggesting wild surgeries. The he proves his badassness by stapling his own injured leg shut without anestheisa. Christina is smitten. Can't blame her. He's awesome. Then he is miraculously on-hand after Christina's run-in with an icicle, removes it and then kisses the hell out of her after turning down a job at this nutty establishment. Can't blame him, either.
Neither Hahn nor Callie have ever dabbled with women before. They’re lesbian virgins together. And they are freakin' weirdly adorable. The Chief has clearly been watching too many sports movies and gives the staff a stern pep talk about being better, after he screams at Meredith for sucking. Loving all the Meredith hating going on! Even Izzie yells at her supposed pal for not being able to keep her mouth shut. Though frankly, Izzie really should know better than to tell Meredith any secrets by now. Especially when they involve Alex being a good man. Because Alex doesn't have feelings, and when he thinks that people might think he's gone soft, he starts sleeping around again. Izzie sees him, looks all depressed and then has a random daydream about Denny. Yay, Denny. An Izzie relationship that was good and not totally disgusting or irritating. But maybe Meredith was right. The only people that can live happily ever after are the ones in a fantasy world... or dead. -- Angel Cohn
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Soft piano and a close-up shot of one of Mere's candles usher us into season 5, and she VO's, "We all remember the bedtime stories of our childhoods: the shoe fits Cinderella, the frog turns into a prince, Sleeping Beauty is awakened with a kiss. 'Once upon a time.' 'And then they lived happily ever after.' Fairy tales. The stuff of dreams. The problem is, fairy tales don't come true. It's the other stories. The ones that begin with dark and stormy nights that end in the unspeakable." As time passes, Mere stands alone in the house of candles and one by one they are blown out by the wind. "It's the nightmares that always seem to become reality."
Mere bursts into the ER where Cristina and the Chief have been watching worriedly through a window while the Long Beep of Death sounds. Mere demands to know what happened and Christina tells her that "he" tried to avoid an accident in front of him on the road but couldn't, and as Mere shrieks to know how he is, Cristina tells her she has to be strong. Mere runs to the window and begins screaming; behind the glass, a bloody Derek is lying on the table while Bailey and Sloane do their best to try and save him. Bailey heaves a sigh and we can read her lips as she gives the time of death. Meredith understandably freaks out, screaming his name and pounding on the window. However, this being the internet age where any big casting decision makes news -- and Patrick Dempsey leaving the show would certainly be big news -- it's not surprising that Meredith wakes up from a start from her nightmare and runs down the hallway back to work. Her VO concludes, "The person that invented the phrase 'happily ever after' should have his ass kicked so hard."
After a shot of the hospital from outside so that we can see it is snowing, Meredith runs up and joins the others gathered around Bailey at a computer. They're waiting for some sort of results and continue to pester her to "hit the refresh button." Mere and Der sweetly say hi to each other over Cristina's head while she rolls her eyes at them. They're guessing at what the results could show, and while we still don't know exactly what it is, they talk about Hopkins and Mayo both possibly ending up ranked ahead of them. Let's thank Hahn, who exposits that they're waiting to see where they rank as a teaching hospital, and they all assume they'll be somewhere in the top three. In one of the biggest nods to reality this show has ever made, it turns out that Seattle Grace is now ranked #12.
The Chief is in an uproar about it -- clearly he has not watched the last couple of seasons of the show. George trails after him, apparently still his intern. In fact I'll just jump in right now and point out that this episode seems to take place not long after the season 4 finale, but because TV is magical they do reference the fact that it's now fall in Seattle. George wants to know what it means that they've also been downgraded from a Level 1 to a Level 2 trauma center. The Chief silences him with a glare.
George runs off to the locker room and tells Lexie that with all that is going on he can't ask the Chief when he'll be re-taking his intern exam and that this could mean it gets sprung on him with only an hour's notice. Lexie assures him he'll be ready while quizzing him with The Cards. She doesn't notice his answer because she's busy breathing in a whiff of him with her eyes closed dreamily. I could be wrong, but I figure that after working all day in a hospital everyone is going to just smell of Eau de Antiseptic. He wonders what's up and she covers badly by noting the falling snow outside and calling it a fairy tale. George corrects her that snow in the fall is just a sign of global warming, or maybe the apocalypse, which could also mean that he's going to fail his test. After he leaves, Lexie tells the door, "I adore you, by the way." You know, just in case we hadn't picked up on that yet.
She runs up to join the other interns following behind Cristina and Mere, and Cristina cuts off Lexie's apology by telling her there's no talking unless it's medical. Mere of course then tells Cristina she keeps having the death dream about Derek, and after dismissing her interns with a flick of her wrist, Cristina announces that only losers do their residencies at the number 12 teaching hospital, and she's not a loser. Mere starts babbling about how clearly this means she's afraid, but Cristina cuts her off to remind everyone she has a PhD in biochem, which makes her a double doctor, and double doctors shouldn't be doing their residencies at #12 hospitals. Mere says this means she has to face her fear and announces that she's going to have Derek move in with her; Cristina rolls her eyes at the babble and then muses about leaving for a program at the Cleveland Clinic. Mere says they are still top 12, which is "pretty good" but Cristina wants "great." Mere uses that as an invite to go back to her favorite topic, herself, and says that is why she's going to ask Derek to move in with her. I don't follow the logic. Mere keeps babbling about how much she's messed things up and of course somehow needs to mention sleeping with George, which horrifies Lexie who has been walking behind them. Cristina still won't allow any non-medical talk so Lexie can't get the details. Mere asks Cristina if she thinks asking Derek to move in is the right thing, but Cristina is saved by their pagers simultaneously beeping. Lexie tries to ask Cristina about the sex in a medical manner but of course only gets a Look for her efforts.
Mark and Derek also talk about the "humiliating" twelfth ranking and Sloane protests that Derek is the best neurosurgeon in the country, NAY, the world. He then asks for a compliment back and Derek tells him he's the best plastic surgeon at Seattle Grace. Heh. Rose comes up to drop off a chart and when Derek says hi to her, she says hi to Mark and leaves. Derek tells him that she took the breakup so well at the beginning, but now has gotten weird, which doubly sucks because she's going to be working in Derek's OR. Mark explains that Rose has "delayed rage." Now that she's had time to really think about it, she's super pissed. In a weird way, he's actually making sense. He explains that now Derek has to break up with her -- while he's already done the personal break up he now has to break up with her professionally. He wishes his friend luck and walks off.
The Chief stands on the bridge and stares out the window at an absolutely gorgeous expanse of snowy mountains. Hahn walks up to him and interrupts his reverie by asking him for a list of ways she can improve as a teacher. He tells her, "Not right now," and she gets ticked, reminding him of what he said, and the #12, and she doesn't like that... but he cuts her off by repeating, "Not right now." He walks away and she follows him, protesting about how she needs her list, so he turns on her, points out that it is snowing, and proceeds to explain how black ice forms and is invisible to drivers. He then reminds her that this would normally fill the ER but as a Level 1 trauma center Mercy West is going to get everyone and Seattle Grace is only going to get their castoffs. He shouts at her that this pisses him off, and so he really means, "Not right now." This finally gets through to her and she turns to leave. As she goes she runs into Callie and they each pretend to be busy with something and walk away from each other.
Bailey, Mere, Alex and Izzie are waiting outside for traumas that aren't coming -- Izzie is shivering so Alex finds a blanket and puts it around her shoulders. The residents all remind her that no one is coming but she asserts that they are Seattle Grace! And she's the best, and they are her residents so they must be the best (well...) and so they'll wait outside as a matter of pride. Cristina asks what they're doing but Bailey insists that someone will come and Mere clarifies with her that basically they are waiting for someone to be close by and so badly injured that they have to come to Seattle Grace and not Mercy West. Bailey agrees but when Izzie asks if she and God are really cool with it, Bailey deflates, "Damn, I forgot about God." She starts to usher them in when lo and behold, a smashed up limousine come screeching up the door. A bloodied Bernadette Peters in an evening gown gets out of the driver's seat and in a state of shock tells them that she drove the limo ten icy blocks. Another woman gets out and, disoriented, asks what happened as she sees blood all over her dress. Izzie calls for an ambulance but Bernadette tells them that they aren't the patients, it's a guy named Billy. He was the ambulance driver and he flew through the windshield. She opens the door to show a third woman in a gown holding a very bloodied man spurting blood out of his abdomen. Oh, Grey's, I might have actually missed you a little bit.
Bailey runs in holding a pad on Billy's stomach when the Chief totally steals him from her and runs him into an exam room, leaving Bailey behind, frustrated. Izzie, Mere, and Callie are working on the three women, and it appears that one of them (the one who isn't Bernadette Peters or Kathy Baker) has some sort of head trauma as she keeps asking what's going on. Callie is pretty impressed to learn that the woman extracted Billy from the windshield themselves when the ambulance didn't arrive. The ladies are trying to call their husbands but can't get a hold of them. They were on their way to a ball -- the Fire and Ice Ball, because why go for subtlety? -- but took different limos because the husbands like to break out the cigars in the limo. Sarabeth (Bernadette) turns out to just have a bruised arm, not a broken one. When George comes at her to fix the cut on her face, she informs him that only a plastic surgeon will be touching her face. The one with the memory problems, Betty, then asks what's going on again much to the concern of her friends.
Hahn runs into Callie in the hall and the two act really awkward and make excuses about being soooo busy lately. Seriously, it seems they picked this up like, the day after last season's finale and just ignored the complete change of season. They both go and ask Bailey if there's anything else and she explains that there is nothing, and that she's charting because she gave up the clinic and the Chief stole her trauma case. The two other women seem even more at a loss for a response than they were with each other, so Callie takes off as Bailey hands Hahn Billy's x-rays to review. She notes that it's a hemopericardium and after a moment, proudly launches into a textbook definition of what that means. (And yet, it still involves a whole bunch of words I don't know and I don't really get it. Don't worry, it's not going to matter soon.) (Sorry, Billy.) Bailey tells Hahn to quit trying to teach her as Mark walks up and asks if they want to know how he teaches. They don't, but he answers, "Like a guru." I definitely missed Mark. "I gently guide them along the path to truth and wisdom." Lexie runs up to George and starts to stammer that she heard "something" earlier, but he cuts her off to ask Sloane to help Sarabeth. Illustrating his guru-like ways, he asks George if he's a, "Special Moron from the Isle of Complete and Utter Morons?" Clearly even Hahn recognizes this as bad teaching and when that's the case, you know you're atrocious. Everyone leaves but not before Lexie can declare, "He's an ass." And the grass is green. Did you just catch on to that?
Cristina's pissed that their only patients are women in ball gowns, but Mere admires them for both trying to save Billy's life and also for being happy after being with their husbands for years. She thinks if they can do it, she can do it. Cristina opens her mouth and seems about to finally say something to Mere about her relationship but she's cut off by Derek wondering who paged him. Mere tells him both Bailey and Izzie, and advises to see Bailey first since she has the limo driver. That out of the way, she asks Derek if he wants to move in, and he says yes. With over an hour and a half left of this premiere, who wants to bet it won't really be that easy? Derek asks if she's ready and she tells him, "I'm leaning into the fear to get a happy ending." He doesn't know what it means, but he'll take it. They turn the corner to hear the Chief swear and declare Billy dead. He stomps out while having almost a little passive-aggressive tantrum, telling Mere to cancel the OR they booked.
Cristina's hanging over the desk when Bailey tells her, "I have a dream, Yang. That one day a trauma will come through those doors, I have a dream." Cristina breathes, "I share that dream." Bailey seems to be on the phone eavesdropping on dispatch to see what traumas they aren't getting, and densely talks about three men being taken to Mercy West. It takes the double doctor to realize that these might be the three missing husbands. Mark is in with Sarabeth working on her face while her friend Anna holds her hand, just like when Sarabeth had one of her kids. These two are clearly so close, I'm sure there isn't some terrible secret that might somehow drive a wedge between them later. Cristina and Bailey run in and say they have found the husbands, and casually tell the ladies that they could insist that the men be brought to Seattle Grace instead of Mercy West, which is what they do.
Out in the bay, Richard runs out to ask if Bailey poached traumas from M.W. She tells him she has no idea what he's talking about, and he congratulates her on a job well done. He runs to the first ambulance, where a patient is wheeled out as a man in a camo Army uniform blows into something in his neck. (He is played by Journeyman himself, Kevin McKidd.) Turns out the guy did a tracheotomy with a pen. Richard repeats this incredulously but in between blowing into the pen, the soldier replies, "So?" Cristina watches on with apparent admiration. She has a Paris Hilton moment and exclaims to herself that a pen trache is, "hot," before following them all into the hospital -- noticing at the same time that the soldier has a big bloody rip in one leg of his pants.
Cristina is in an exam room with Derek, Hahn, and another of the male patients, Vincent. Betty wanders in and recognizes her husband, horrified. Izzie gently promises to update her on his condition as she leads her out of the room. The docs determine that he's got a skull fracture and no breath sounds in either half of his chest, so he's going right to the OR. Cristina asks if she can scrub in and to everyone's surprise, Hahn says yes. They're interrupted by a scream, "He has a pen in his throat!" That is certainly going to get everyone's attention.
Anna rushes in to Pen's room -- his name is Michael. George restrains her as she exclaims over the pen and then Mere joins in to help as she screams that they need to be careful as he's been under an incredible amount of stress lately. Mere tells her, "We're going to take you to your husband, he's around the corner," as strangely enough, she calls after Michael, "Sweetheart, I'm here!" The Chief, confused, asks, "This is not her husband?" George tells him it's not, as Sarabeth bursts in through another door and yells Michael's name. George adds, "It's her husband!" An unexpected wedge between the longtime girlfriends! How unexpected!
Richard is everywhere today, now in with Michael as Sloane exclaims over the pen. Army is putting ice on his own leg as he says that a pen was all he had on him and dude, he washed it in fresh snow first. Alex is in as much awe as Christina was and says it's awesome. Army then questions their methods and Mark growls to have him taken away. They're going to do a CT on his belly, and then Sloane needs to operate as it looks like his trachea is crushed. Bailey gives him Grey and Mark asks, "The good Grey?" Bailey replies, "The intern Grey." She may not be the good Grey, but aside from George she's the only intern that appears to get assigned to a doctor around here. Maybe that is related just a little bit to the current #12. The Chief also gives him George, much to Mark's non-delight.
Anna goes to see her husband and seems genuinely concerned, though not quite as emotional as she was about her best friend's husband. He tells her that they hit a patch of ice and flipped over, and then admits he can't feel his legs.
Cristina finds the Chief now in the hall and tells him that Hahn needs him to look at her crushed patient. He says he's on his way but notes first that Army -- Major Owen Hunt -- is bleeding. Hunt explains that his car was behind the men's at the intersection and he was cut on impact. The Chief adds his name to Hunt's list of admirers as he asks Hunt if he triaged the men. Hunt explains that he's a trauma surgeon who just got home on leave from Iraq. As he talks to Richard, he keeps repeatedly looking over at Cristina. Richard orders Cristina to take care of Hunt's leg; she pulls him aside to remind him she's going into surgery but he just tells her she can do that afterward. She then turns to see Hunt march away, "to check on [his] patients." Cristina runs after him protesting that he's the patient.
In the CT scan room, Izzie is doing a scan of Betty. Betty asks what's going on and where she is, and Izzie explains, not for the first time, that she's been in an accident. Alex comes in and Izzie explains that Betty's memory seems to reset every 30 seconds. He remarks that it might not be so bad, like hitting a personal "refresh" button. Okay seriously, THERE IS NO REFRESH BUTTON. There's a series of keystrokes, or there is clicking on an icon, but there is no freaking dedicated refresh button on a keyboard! I tried to hold that in for the sake of story at the beginning of the episode, but no more. Izzie asks him gently how he's doing, and he says she keeps asking and he keeps telling her he's fine. She tells him that she often thinks Denny will be around the corner and it's been a while since Denny died, but Alex just points out that Rebecca didn't die. He assures her he's good, but genuinely thanks her for asking. Betty then asks where she is, and Alex clicks on the microphone and tells her she's in a spaceship, going to the moon. Betty seems to ponder this when Izzie cuts in with her usual answer, and Alex heads out to answer a page.
Derek looks at Vincent's films -- he has a depressed skull fracture and while Derek could lift the skull fragments, there's no telling how much damage has been done. Hahn then reports that he also might have an aortic tear and has tons of blood in his abdomen. Richard insists angrily that they're saving him while Hahn yells, "He's circling the drain!" and Derek comments that he has other patients more likely to be helped. Richard just yells back that they are saving him and then slams out of the room while they exchange a Look.
Mere is sitting in the waiting room with Anna, who admits that she's the lowest of the low, cheating on her own husband with her best friend's husband. She explains that she ran into him in the mall, and they had lunch, and then another lunch, and now it's eight months later. She then tells Mere that when you marry and have kids you think, "that you'll always feel that kind of love." She insists she does love Phil but says that, "Little pieces of you get chipped away by another person. And you shave little pieces of yourself away so that you'll fit together, and then one day you look up, and you don't even know who you are." She then excuses herself to go back to her husband, giving Mere an opportunity to reflect on how this totally means she and Derek can never survive because in this Grey's Anatomy world no couple can be happy and make things work EVER. Seriously, there's drama for the sake of TV and then there's five years worth of showing every single relationship depicted getting destroyed in some generally horrible way. For a show that wants to be a little bit real, at least in terms of feelings and shades of grey (no pun intended), they really offer a hideously bleak view of the world.
Vincent is in surgery and Richard, Hahn and Derek are all surrounded by their supporting cast as they work away. Derek calls their attention to a monitor to show what he's doing, but changes his mind as to what instrument he needs. Hahn pesters him to know why he did that, since she's observing his teaching style, and his simple answer is that he just changed his mind. to him, Rose snorts. He asks if there is a problem and she tells him not at all, he just changed his mind, and the others all exchange glances over their surgical masks. This is just a guess, but maybe it's the gross unprofessionalism of the entire staff that contributed to their downgraded ranking? Callie comes in to tell him about Phil's condition and to ask if he can help decompress his spine. Derek tells her he's just now finished and leaves in a huff, with a pointed look at Rose who has the grace to look ashamed. Hahn then asks if he's considered a good teacher and earns a glare from Richard.
Callie and Derek look at the films and he comments that they need to go in and relieve the pressure. Phil interjects that this kind of injury usually means that someone won't walk again. He assures an upset Anna that it's okay, but she begs them to do something. Out of nowhere, Hunt announces that they should freeze him. Everyone in the room just gapes at him. Out in the hall, Derek demands to know who he is and Cristina answers, "Army sergeant badass did something crazy with a pen on a guy's throat." Derek tells Hunt not to give his patient false hope while Hunt snipes that Derek should stay up on his research, and Callie adds that another hospital made a football player walk again using "therapeutic hypothermia." Derek, his manhood questioned, proves he did his research by saying that patient was 20 years old and an athlete, and his patient is not in such prime condition to go through that procedure and Derek would like him to live. He orders Callie to book an OR and to tell Anna and Phil that the procedure isn't an option. Cristina then pulls him away to close up his leg.
Sarabeth is with Bailey, looking at Michael's films. Bailey explains to her how the pen in his throat actually saved his life, and then tells her that he'll need surgery to fix the laceration to his windpipe. She also shows the bruising on the kidney and a problem with his liver. Alex hands over some paperwork to Bailey and confused, asks Alex if it's correct. It turns out that their insurance is going to expire at midnight that night, but Bailey assures her that they'll care for her and Michael and calmly asks if she has another insurance card so that they can call and clear it all up. Sarabeth can only stutter that her husband takes care of that stuff.
Cristina is working away at Hunt's leg -- well, really part of his ass, too -- but when she gets up to get something, he grabs the stapler and begins stapling the wound shut. She points out he's not numbed, which is probably why he's grunting each time he staples, but he just gives his favorite response, "So?" He goes as far as he can and then when the angle is too much, asks a very amused Cristina if she can finish for him. She can barely contain her glee. They have a moment when she stands up but are interrupted when Callie comes in with a question for Hunt. Cristina heads off to surgery, and Callie asks him to tell her about the freezing procedure he mentioned.
Currently Phil is on Derek's operating table. Derek looks at Betty's CT results and notes the subdural hematoma, which is the cause of her memory loss, and says he'll work on her as soon as he's done with Phil. He comments that it's a busy OR, and Rose asks if this isn't his thing -- "Juggling more than one person at a time?" I should stop being so surprised that people are allowed to keep their jobs when acting this way all the time. Far from ashamed, she just gives him a little, "What?" eyebrow raise when he looks at her.
Cristina, Mere and Izzie all discuss the patients and their surgeries, which of course means Mere has to report that Anna is married to Phil and sleeping with Michael. She then asks if that's what happens, "You're married forty years and then you become a big fat lying cheater?" She wonders what the point is, then, and of course goes back to talking about Derek, wondering if she made a mistake, blah blah SNORE. Cristina, praise her fed-up heart, turns and offers to pay Mere $100 if she'll change the subject. Wouldn't we all? Izzie says it's about the man, and that Derek is a good man, which is the last straw for Cristina, who flees. Iz then cites George as another example of a good man, thinks, notes that Sloane is not, but then happily reports that Alex has turned into a good man. She assures Mere that they aren't doing anything, but says that it's nice that they're friends and that he's changed and is opening up. Mere asks if Izzie moved in and married Alex, would she in forty years feel dead inside and cheat? Maybe they can just muzzle her. Mere walks away and Izzie speaks for all of us with a simple, "Wow."
Cristina heads into surgery and Richard starts talking again about the ranking, sure it's a clerical error that he'll fix with a few phone calls. He and Mere should just talk to each other -- they can each ignore the other one while they each also get to prattle on and on and on ad nauseum about a single subject. Hahn announces her observations about different teaching styles, telling them Derek thinks out loud, Bailey is blunt and doesn't overteach and Sloane berates and humiliates people. Richard tells her to learn about teaching from her students, and then asks, "Yang?" To the horror of both of them, Hahn prompts her and Cristina stutters that she learns best by the Socratic Method -- being asked a lot of questions. Hahn, of course, laughs this off as ridiculously basic, but Cristina replies that some people don't do that and instead just tell you what to do. Hahn freaks out and demands to know if that's what Cristina thinks she does, but they're saved by their patient crashing. After a commercial break, Richard notices a tear and asks Cristina if she knows a particular stitch. She does, so he has her get to it.
In an almost (even more) girlish voice, Sarabeth tells her mute husband that she called the insurance and the credit card companies and found out that everything had been cancelled. Anna rounds the corner and sadly watches as Sarabeth begs to have Michael let her know what to do. Lexie apologizes that they need to take him to surgery and they wheel him away. Outside, Sarabeth runs into Alex and asks if there is someone she can call and admits in a tiny voice that she doesn't handle the money and doesn't know who to call. Alex sincerely tells her he'll talk to billing on her behalf.
Outside it's snowing the fakest, fakity, fake-snow in Snowtown. Inside, George is poking away at Michael trying to get a line into his neck. Lexie encourages him and Sloane disgustedly calls her his little cheerleader and takes over the task. He sends George to see if the OR is ready and when he's gone, Lexie says he unnecessarily mean to George and he could be nicer, especially with George getting ready to re-take his exam. Based on the way he was jabbing that tube into the poor guy's neck, I wonder if this is really the right time? But I digress. Sloane wants to know why, as an intern, she's even talking to him. Just because her half-sister is dating Sloane's best friend doesn't make them anything. He then points out that she likes George, and there's a whole lot of, "Do not!" "Do too!" going on. She finally tells him to shut up, which he points out she can't do since he's her attending. He lays out his deal: she confesses her love to George and he'll be nicer to George. She just tells him to shut up again and he grins as she leaves.
In the hall, Alex asks Mere if she knows anything about health insurance so that he can help out a patient. Mere, finally talking about something that isn't Derek, notes that Izzie was right about the, "softer side of Alex." His hackles immediately go up and in a surprisingly aware moment, she realizes right away that she just caused a big problem. He demands to know what Izzie said about him and gets furious that she'd talk about him at all (clearly assuming she told Mere all of the details about his teary night). Mere tries to convince him that both she and Izzie meant nothing by the things they said, but it's far too late and you can almost physically see him morph into Old Alex by the time he storms off.
Vincent is in a bad way, and Cristina is baffled as to why her stitches keep tearing. Richard shoves her aside and takes over as Cristina protests that she's done this stitch a ton of times, and Hahn relishes pointing out that she's done the stitch a bunch of times on hearts. She launches into all of the ways that Cristina was doing this stitch wrong on the bowel and nastily points out that Cristina would know this if she weren't allowed so many hours in cardiothorasics. But is that Cristina's fault? And also, if Hahn could see that she was doing everything wrong, why didn't she try to talk her through it, or at least help? Way to drop the whole "wanting to teach" thing the second it mattered. She glares at Richard pointedly so at least she holds him responsible for the hours thing too, but it's a weird scene made weirder by what doesn't come afterward, which is any sort of reprimand or at least a question about why Hahn didn't help at all.
In a less action-packed but no less hostile OR, Mark notes that Michael's vocal cords are crushed beyond repair. When George pipes up, Sloane gives him a ton of shit for speaking out of turn. Lexie says his name warningly and he loudly asks her if she has anything to say to anyone in the room. He calls her a coward, so she tells him to shut up, shocking George in the process. On cue, however, Michael starts to crash so they have to start focusing on the actual surgery at hand. In another OR, Vincent is doing way worse than Michael, and Cristina looks on, horrified. At the same time, Derek works urgently on Phil, while Michael's monitors continue to beep ominously.
In a much quieter room, Sarabeth holding Betty's hand, calmly telling her what happened when Betty asks the question once again. Anna walks in, sadly watching her friends, and Sarabeth sadly assures them with false strength that they're all going to be okay.
Derek and Mark come in simultaneously to talk to the women. Derek delivers the news that Phil is still paralyzed, and Sarabeth grasps her friend's hand, which of course Mere notices in a slightly judgy way. Anna then tries to sound neutral as she asks about Michael, and Mark has to deliver the second blow of the day, that he won't speak again. Anna takes Sarabeth in her arms as they both start to cry but try to hold it in. Derek tells them he's ready for Betty when they are done, and as he leaves Richard walks in to tell them about Vincent. Betty again asks what happened and Richard tells them Vincent is stable but critical. He then introduces them to Cristina and pointedly tells them that she will be personally responsible for making sure Vincent lives through the night. Cristina, mollified, promises she'll keep Betty posted but Betty has reset once again and asks what she's being kept posted about and what happened. Izzie quietly explains, and Cristina tries to absorb the news.
Derek finds Rose working on the surgical board and she maturely ignores him completely even as he tells her they need to talk. He tells her she can't behave like that in his OR anymore so she takes a deep breath and admits that she's been acting like this because... she's carrying his child. Derek gapes. But, the most talked-about moment of all the summer commercials turns out to be a big fake-out, as she just wants to make him sweat and bursts out laughing at her little joke. Derek pretends to chuckle along as he tries to breathe again. He tells her he deserves it and can't believe he's talking to her that way; when he calmly tells her she should transfer to a different specialty, she shoots back that he should be the one to do it. Look, I don't like her at all but I admit what he did was totally crappy, and as someone who has been broken up with for an ex, I know it stings like a sonofabitch. But he's trying to be professional while he's performing NEUROSURGERY, for goodness sake. She might try acting like an adult or seriously consider going elsewhere. He says that in simpler terms reminding her he's a neurosurgeon, and she just snipes that he should have remembered that when he repeatedly assured her he was over Meredith. She then stomps off and yells that she isn't going anywhere. Yay for us! Ugh.
While the Chief stews some more, Callie comes up to him and asks about the therapeutic hypothermia. She's done research and shows it to Richard, but has to admit that Derek already weighed in that it's too risky because Phil isn't as fit and he's older. That's the magic word, as Phil isn't much older than Richard, so he jumps on board with the idea. Nothing like doing barely-tested surgery out of pride! Seriously, #12 is looking extremely generous at this point. Callie assures him she can do the procedure and just needs his okay.
George demands to know what Lexie was doing and doesn't believe that telling Mark to shut up is helping him out, like Lexie claims. He then has a horrified moment when he thinks Lexie is sleeping with Mark, and Lexie pauses in her protestations to ask if George is jealous. He's jealous of her telling Mark to shut up, but George admits that Mark was right, and George is the hospital joke. He recounts failing his exam, getting married in Vegas, and cheating on his wife. Lexie starts to try and tell him the real reason Sloane was giving him shit, but George just tells her he can take care of himself, and leads her to heave a lovelorn sigh.
Mere follows Cristina down the stairs while running through the list of Derek's things that she claims not to have room for, including his hair products. Okay, fine: hee! But then she starts griping about how much he talks and chats and talks. Isn't therapy supposed to make you more self aware and maybe keep you from blatant pot/kettle comparisons? Cristina quietly tells her, "Not now," but of course Mere keeps nattering about them moving in, getting married, and her becoming Dr. Mrs. Shepherd. Cristina tries to walk away but Mere just follows and talks about their chatty kids with good hair, and then declares that she'll then start sleeping with Cristina's husband. Once outside, Cristina can't take it any more, turns, and yells at Meredith for all of us. "Shut up! No, just shut up about Derek, shut up about moving in with Derek, shut up about your relationship." Praise the Lord! She then explains to a very baffled Mere (the only one who didn't see this coming) that she has been through this before and will be through it again -- hearing about the relationship, hearing about them breaking up, then hearing about them getting back together. She then cries, "I almost killed a man in surgery today!" But she must realize that even that won't get a response from her best friend, and the only way out of it is to give Mere her opinion first. She announces that Mere and Derek won't work and they shouldn't move in together. Mere tries to interrupt her but Cristina voices the theme of the entire show, really, saying that happily ever after doesn't exist. She then quietly begs Meredith, "to consider the possibility of shutting the hell up!" She keeps cutting off Mere when she tries to speak, and then storms back to the hospital, but slips on some ice. In an actual fairly true-to-life moment between friends, she laughs, Mere says she deserved it, and Cristina asks Mere to help her up. Before she can, however, a loud crack heralds the fall of an icicle from the roof of the building... right into Cristina's abdomen. She starts to hyperventilate, and Mere runs inside for help. Welcome to Season 5!
Get the full recap for part 2 of this episode here. Then talk about the show with other fans in our http://forums.televisionwithoutpity.com/index.php?s=1d1d04d7d2ca0acc906dd06faa793caf&showforum=807.