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Hot Major Hunt is the new Head of Trauma at Seattle Grace, and for his first day he holds a clinic for all of the residents. Just in case we didn't remember that he's unorthodox, he unveils four sedated pigs, and promptly stabs each one of them with knife; the residents need to save them. Animal-loving Izzie thinks he's a barbarian, and storms out of the room. Everyone else keeps working away until a big trauma comes in to the ER, so Hunt leaves only Cristina (whose name he had to ask) and her interns to work on the pigs -- she is predictably ticked and irked even more by the fact that Lexie has named the pigs and cares about them too much. But when one starts to crash, she gets involved too and after a complicated surgery they save his life. Hunt comes in and is amazed at the sheer amount of crazy surgery they performed and after congratulating them, orders Cristina to put them all down. She gets pissed and yells at him -- both about the pigs and about not knowing her name earlier. He explains that the pigs are in such horrible shape that the humane thing is to put them down now, and also explains that he remembered her name, but that the kiss they had was "before." Before he went back to Iraq and 19 of his men were killed, that is. Now he's discharged and struggling to deal with what happened, and so he and Cristina appear to be a no-go.
There are some couples in better shape, even though it takes them the whole hour to get there. Alex and Izzie have been hooking up for a week, so he then asks her if he should go ahead and stop sleeping with [insert name of young hot hospital employee here]. Izzie throws a fit, but that night he comes in and admits that he has no idea what he's doing when it comes to talking about feelings and being a boyfriend, and asks Izzie to teach him. He picked up the asking/learning technique from Major Hunt who, when confronted by Derek and Mark for not doing things their way, asks them sincerely how he should do things here because it's quite different than being in the field in a war zone. So Izzie starts to kiss Alex, and they will be happy for I'm sure at least five minutes or so. Callie and Erica are also now having sex and Erica has a revelation -- sex with Callie is way better than any sex she's had before, and she had no idea it could be this good. She's totally gay! It involves crying, which freaks out Callie, so Callie sleeps with Mark to see if she likes girls or boys better. Turns out she likes both, but she decides she wants to be with Erica, admits she slept with Sloane, and so they seem to be okay for now too. And Lexie finally is able to tell George she that she's sorry -- she takes things too personally but she needs to not do that, especially at work, and the two of them bond over macaroni and cheese.
Richard, fully realizing Bailey's extreme awesomeness, puts her in charge for the day to see how she handles his job. A 10-year-old girl with an inoperable tumor is brought in, and it's Bailey's job to figure out how to save her. Bailey picks Mere to help her out, since she noticed Mere brought in a childhood toy that she'd found in her mother's things -- Anatomy Jane. Anatomy Jane's organs can all be taken out and put back in again, and Mere is inspired by that to suggest that they take out all of the girl's organs, remove the tumor, and put them back in again. Bailey runs the show and, despite a lot of bickering between her and Erica, the surgery ends up working. Once again Bailey proves that she's awesome, a true leader, and the total heart and soul of Seattle Grace.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!So, it looks like I should just make an apology/correction a regular feature of my recaps. This time, I have to admit that despite two viewings of the scene, I totally missed when Sloane referred to his, er, skills as "The Sloane Method." In my defense, he was taking off his shirt as he said it and also, the idea of it is really just as good no matter what it is called. But, hot naked torsos aside, I totally blew it. And with that, on to our recap!
Oh wait, first ABC wants you to know that no animals were harmed in the making of this episode. Okay, really on to the recap!
Mere is at her house, surrounded by boxes. Derek is looking exasperated, as usual, and notes that the plan was not to open any boxes, but just to move them to the attic. They are clearing out her mom's office for Derek, and Mere can't seem to resist opening some -- first, she pulls out a ragged old bunny. It's very weird to see her looking at things from her childhood with actual happiness, but it's a nice change from the norm. After the bunny, she pulls out a doll that is Barbie-esque, but much less glamorous. This is Anatomy Jane, and once you take off her hospital gown, you can remove a panel in her abdomen to reveal all of her organs. While Mere plays with Anatomy Jane, she VO's, "For a surgeon, every patient is a battlefield. They're our terrain. Where we advance, retreat, try to remove all the land mines." Actual Meredith pulls out Jane's organs and comments, "And she still has her little twosh!" The look of horror on Derek's face when he asks, "Her what??" is priceless. Mere explains that when she was younger she couldn't remember the actual names of the organs, so she made up her own. I have a very hard time imagining Ellis putting up with that, but Mere must have done it during the long periods where Ellis just didn't notice that she was there.
"Just when you think you've won the battle, made the world safe again," Izzie rolls over and, come ON, makeup people. No one wakes up looking that perfect. You could muss her up a little bit, couldn't you? VO: "Along comes another land mine." Iz looks at Alex, who is sitting on the side of the bed and asks unceremoniously, "So are we screwing other people, or not?" It's how every girl dreams of being greeted in the morning, and Izzie acts accordingly. Alex explains that he wants to know if she's going to run off and screw George or someone, because then he won't have to cancel his plans with another doctor. She storms out while calling him an ass. If I had a nickel for every time she announced that Alex was an ass, I'd have at least a few dollars by now. It's kind of like how my boss' son tells me, "UCLA sucks!" or some variation every time he visits the office. I've been pleading with him to come up with new material, at least, to keep it interesting, but it's a little much to ask of an 11-year-old. But hey, that answers the question of what maturity level Izzie is generally operating on.
We join Erica and Callie post-sex, and both of them are exclaiming about how good it was. Callie seems especially happy that Erica loved it and that she seemed to love it too. But Erica more than loved it, she's overcome. (Looks like the Sloane Method is as good as promised!) In a voice raspy with emotion, she tells Callie that their sex is like when she got glasses as a kid. She never thought she needed them, but then once she got them, she was able to see that the green blobs outside were actually leaves, and that she'd never known she was missing anything before but now she was able to see how good it really was. And while her whole life she'd been with men having decent sex, it was nothing compared to what she has now. But the whole time that Erica cries about leaves, Callie's face falls and she looks more and more concerned. Once Erica happily declares, "I'm so, so gay!" Callie quietly says she has to go, and Erica's tears go from happy to embarrassed and sad. It's hands down the most genuine emotion we've ever seen from Hahn, and within two minutes went from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other.
At the hospital, Richard introduces Derek and Mark to the new Chief of Trauma, Major Owen Hunt. Derek and Mark mutter that he stole their patients, but Hunt just tells them that now they'll have chances to steal his. Richard tells them that now that Hunt is on staff, Seattle Grace is being reclassified as a Level 1 trauma center, so he can maybe relax a little bit now.
Mere and Cristina walk in, and Mere is showing off Anatomy Jane to Cristina. But when Cristina looks up and sees Hunt, she grabs Mere and orders, "Run!" They take off down the hall, Cristina only staring straight ahead, while Mere occasionally turns around to see what monster they are escaping from. They hide around a corner, and Cristina explains that Hunt is there, fessing up that she kissed him last time. Quickly though, she amends that he kissed her, and that it was a stupid nothing, and Mere points out that Cristina doesn't think Hunt thought the kiss was nothing. Cristina wants to know why he's back and not in Iraq like he said he was (and all of this, by the way, takes place as if she totally didn't see him at Joe's the night before, saying he was starting a new job). Mere wonders if he quit the military for Cristina (even before this episode was over and we know what happened, I could tell you that this was not it) but Cristina will only declare that she's not getting involved with another attending ever again. From personal experience I can tell you that a statement like that only means it's going to totally happen.
Bailey runs up to the helipad, having been paged by the Chief. She's confused to find that they're just talking and there's no helicopter landing, but Richard explains that he was totally impressed by her pulling off the domino surgery the week before. (Except, given the stuff with Joe's and Hunt saying he's starting a new job the day, and today he's starting a new job... wouldn't that mean the domino surgery was yesterday?) (Do you think I'll ever learn to just stop trying to make sense of the timeline on this show?) (Probably not.) Richard tells her that she has the potential to be a great surgeon, but that he wants her to be the best. And if she's going to succeed him as the best general surgeon in the hospital, she needs to start being Richard. He says that she can take point on a surgery, and that if problems come up, she's to just solve them without going to him about it. "Be me." She declares that she can do that, but notes that she's not sure why they're on a helipad for the conversation. With a dramatic flourish, Richard points and tells her, "That's why!" He has incredibly good timing to have figured out just how long he'd need to have this conversation before the helicopter arrived. He yells over the sound of the propellers that this is a 10-year-old girl with an inoperable tumor, and that Bailey has to put together a team and figure out how to save her. When she repeats the crazy order he answers, "It's not easy being me."
Alex and Izzie are in the locker room, and Alex is wondering why Izzie's having a snit. Dude, I get that you're bad at this, but... really? She of course just irks me when she tells him she's hot and great in bed, but that already he's bored after only a week so of course she's pissed. He says he's not bored, he just wants to know if he should stop sleeping with someone named Michelle. He then adds, "I'm asking if you're all in. What's so wrong with that?" She changes it up and this time calls him a barbarian instead of an ass. In that case, he informs her of whichever lucky woman he's going to tap .
Ugh, Lexie is still ignoring George, which we know because he walks past her and says that as roommates she's eventually going to have to speak to him, but she rejects that idea. Banter, barf, boring, Lexie's a pain. Cristina and Mere arrive as Bailey walks in to inform them that they have a mandatory skills lab that day, but that one of them will be excused to help her with the inoperable tumor. They all raise their hands to volunteer, George saying out loud that he'll do it. Bailey informs him that he's totally behind on charts so he has to catch up instead. Cristina calls him a slacker, and Alex asks how you operate on an inoperable tumor. Alex is out for not having faith, and Cristina is out for not supporting another resident and helping with George's charts. Mere has been unpacking her bag and Bailey notices the doll and asks if that is THE Anatomy Jane, the one with the 24 removable parts and optional parts to simulate pregnancy? It is, and Mere asks if she's out too. But no, she's in! Much to the vocal disgust of Izzie, but Bailey just informs her, "time you'll know to bring in an ugly doll, won't you Stevens?"
The remaining residents and interns are getting into robes for the skills lab, and an intern we haven't seen before asks Cristina what the lab involves. It turns out that he's her new intern, Ryan Spaulding, but she takes a moment, assesses her remaining interns and declares that he's "4.2." She then sees Hunt coming and hides behind Lexie, but he just marches in and declares who he is and that he'll be teaching them over the few months how to work quickly and efficiently to keep someone alive who chances are will be dead in an hour. That doesn't sound kind of horrific and defeating at all... He asks if anyone has a problem working with live tissue. Everyone looks a little confused at it but no one says they have a problem, so he pulls back a curtain to reveal four giant pigs, all sedated and tied down on their backs. Each resident will get a pig (convenient that he knew that Bailey would have an unexpected surgery and be taking the fifth resident already, no?) but before they go over to see their patients, he walks down the row and violently stabs each one in the chest. The pigs, not the residents. Everyone gasps in absolute horror but he just orders the doctors to go ahead and save their lives.
Izzie, finally learning to expand her vocabulary even more, yells at Hunt that he's a monster. Hunt maintains that the pigs were sedated and felt nothing, and when Izzie yells that he stabbed them, Cristina breathlessly adds, "So we can save them." Izzie is having none of it, though, and after yelling at Hunt that they could do the very same things on surgical dummies, he asks if she's out. She declares that she is, and storms out of the room, leaving everyone else to raise their hands excitedly when Hunt asks who wants two pigs. Even Lexie raises her hand, but she looks nearly as grossed out as Izzie, only less angry about it.
Back with the human patients, Mere introduces Tori, the 10-year-old with the inoperable tumor. As about 20 family members look on, Mere explains that it is wrapped around three different and very important-sounding arteries. Bailey sweetly asks Tori if she understood any of that, and she admits no, so Bailey has Mere sit down and show her what she means, using Anatomy Jane. The Chief, upon seeing the doll, makes a pained face and the camera keeps cutting to him looking uncomfortable. Mere shows Tori that the tumor is under a ton of organs, which is why it's so hard to get to; her father picks up on her wording and asks if it's hard but not impossible? Richard assures them they will do all that they can do, and Tori's grandmother chimes in to say that the best means they want Dr. Hahn in on it, since they heard it was the best. She threatens that if they don't have the doctor, they'll take Tori to another hospital, sounding like she might also rip out all their throats for good measure. That said, she then offers them some homemade fudge.
Mark runs into an on-call room, declaring his love of the hospital. Callie's waiting for him in bed under a sheet -- clearly she paged him. She tells him this time it's not lessons, it's just good, old-fashioned, missionary, boy-girl sex. She warns him that this means no dirty talk, Erica talk, or talk at all, for that matter. As he jumps into bed he asks what's up, and she tells him she's testing a theory.
As the gang quietly works on the pigs, Cristina notices that Lexie is kneeling by hers, petting its snout. She hisses at her to stop petting the pig, but is interrupted when Hunt comes by and notes that she's spending too long on something, Dr... Cristina looks stunned as she reminds him of her name, but he makes no indication that he remembers her. He tells her to come over and see what George is doing, which Alex knows is going to gall Cristina to no end. Hunt points out that George stopped the bleeding and moved on, and while Cristina argues for thorough work helping avoid complications, Hunt tells her that she can go back and make things pretty later. Her pig is having problems due to the fact that she hasn't moved on, and Hunt tells her that if this was a kid he could be dead by now. He then calls her "Christine," to which she yells, amazed, "Ah! Cristina-AH!"
Mere and Bailey are doing a procedure where they run a catheter into Tori to then somehow see the tumor. Bailey notices that there are two people on the other side of the window watching, and as she goes to shoo them away, Tori explains that it is her aunt and uncle, who don't like her to get lonely. The funniest thing is that Bailey flips the switch so that they can hear her and she repeatedly tells them that Tori is okay and they need to leave, but they keep staring like robots at Tori. It's kind of eerie, and I'm not sure if they were supposed to look more like they could at least hear Bailey? Even if they were ignoring her they'd have to at least blink. Tori coughs, so Bailey decides it's fine to leave them there so that she can get to work. Only then, when she says they have to stay in the outer room to avoid the radiation, does Uncle give a thumbs up. Once the docs pull up an image on the screen, they see what looks like a bundle of little vines all grabbing at arteries. Bailey can't really cover her unfavorable reaction, so Tori asks if everything is okay. Distracted, Bailey tells her it's fine while still gaping at the screen.
Izzie storms from the lab up to Derek and declares that Hunt is, "a murdering, sadistic bastard." Derek just asks, "Let me guess -- first wet lab?" She continues to rant about him stabbing the pigs, aka the "live tissue," but Derek warns her that he's the new Head of Trauma, so if that's how he does things, she needs to try to go with it. She reminds him of "First do no harm," pointing out that it's not just about humans, it's about all living things. Derek: "Actually, I think it's just about humans." Tell that to Izzie's deer friend. Izzie stands there with her mouth hanging open a second and then tells him, as his roommate, that he disgusts her. As you can imagine, he really, truly gives a crap about that.
The deed done, Callie is morosely getting her clothes back on. Mark can't fathom that it wasn't good, but after a moment Callie mumbles that the problem is that it WAS good. She slumps out of the room, while Mark calls after her that she could have at least thanked him. Fear not -- he doesn't actually seem too worried.
Bailey paged Hahn, who finds the Future Chief looking at Tori's angio. (Aha! That's the procedure they were doing!) Bailey explains that the tumor is wrapped around her aorta, and that she's putting together a team to take care of it. Angrily, Hahn corrects that it's wrapped around five major arteries, and when Bailey tries to tell her that she has ideas, Hahn snaps that she should try them out on a patient who might actually live. Bailey tells Hahn that the family asked for her by name (well, sorta) but Hahn doesn't care. Bailey shoots back: "Well, I do!" Hahn, clearly channeling every feeling she's currently having about her own love life, seethes, "Don't get emotional, Bailey -- No one likes a girl who gets emotional." Bailey, very clipped and calm, tells her through gritted teeth that she would still like Hahn on her team, and they have a glare-off.
Lexie, rather than doing actual medicine on the pigs while the others work away, is stroking one's head and apologizing for what's going on. As she whispers to him, Hunt gets a page about a big trauma coming into the ER, and tags Alex to go down there with him. This means his lab is over, and Hunt dismisses George, too, so that he can go take care of his charts. Cristina's pissed to be the only one left there when she could go take care of bloody humans, but Hunt reminds her that she's got four patients right there that she needs to keep alive. He adds that they'd better all still be alive when he gets back.
Down in the ER, Alex is given a guy who went forehead-first through a window. Izzie gets something that sounds like an abdominal injury, and once she tells Hunt that she can do a trauma ultrasound, he gives her the patient. Derek and Mark show up -- Karev paged them -- but Hunt seems surprised and assures them they have it covered. Derek, not sure if Hunt really knows he's talking with a cover model, says that they have a patient with burns and a head injury, so they probably don't. But Hunt just asks Karev if he is capable of assessing the patient's injuries, and when he says that he is Hunt repeats that they are fine. When Derek points out that they are there and could just jump in, Hunt explains that the residents are going to learn more by doing and not by watching attendings. Unless, of course, that attending is himself. With that he dashes in, leaving Derek to pout.
Meredith is busy playing with Anatomy Jane while she, Richard, Bailey and Hahn are in a meeting about Tori. Richard is clearly uncomfortable watching her fiddle with the tiny organs, but he's brought back to the subject at hand when Hahn announces that three other hospitals turned Tori away and they should have as well. Bailey rightfully demands, "What is the matter with you?" We the audience know what's up, but to Bailey this is just Hahn being an even bigger bitch than usual. Everyone throws out ideas, but Hahn systematically shoots them all down, then demands to know who all the people are who are staring through the window. Bailey points out all of the members of Tori's extended family, and when Richard asks why they are staring Bailey tells them she thinks they are just waiting for news. Richard gets a page and leaves after warning them to come up with something before he gets back. Hahn just tells Mere to close the blinds.
Derek was the one who paged Richard, and he did it just to whine about Hunt: "Rambo's completely out of control." Richard's slow on the draw and asks what Derek is talking about, so Derek pouts that Hunt, "kicked [him] out of [his] own ER." Your ER, huh Derek? I would bet there's a few doctors that might raise their eyebrows at that -- guess that article is keeping you quite warm at night these days. When Richard establishes that Hunt hasn't killed anyone, he leaves to go back to the meeting, telling Derek only to call him if Hunt does in fact kill a patient. He explains that he's got a bunch of bickering doctors, and Mere playing with a doll. Derek smiles and asks, "Anatomy Jane?" Richard gripes that Mere dragged Jane all over the hospital when she was five, and that it was much cuter in a child.
Mere is still fiddling with the doll when Richard gets back, and he finds that they haven't come up with any sort of solution. Hahn continues to not only be unhelpful but to berate his decision to bring the girl here, informing him that she knows he's desperate to be #1 but that he can't take in every "charity case" since it's only a waste of resources. Isn't someone world-class supposed to be up for a challenge? Richard finally snaps at Mere to put Anatomy Jane away, telling her it's not playtime. She defends that she's thinking, not playing, and asks if they could take out each organ where the tumor interferes with its blood supply. Hahn shoots that down as too dangerous, so Mere suggests taking them out one by one. Hahn snots that they don't have the time, but Richard asks, "Well, what about if we made the time?" Hahn sighs at the idea that they might be able to save the life of a child, but Richard tells Bailey to start putting some stuff up on the board behind them.
Alex does his job and determines that his patient has a subdural hematoma, so he asks Hunt if he should book an OR. Hunt wants to know what he'll do even before that to stop the bleeding. Alex would normally page Derek, but Hunt points out that he isn't there, and wants to know how he will handle it using just what he has in the room. He shoots down Alex's tentative guess of staples, pointing out that then his patient would look like Frankenstein. Alex settles on skin glue, which Hunt approves, so Hunt tells him to seal and clean the guy's head and then put a dressing on. He then goes to see Izzie and her patient. She's giving the guy a tetanus shot, and Hunt asks her who they have to thank for the vaccine. She's silent, so he supplies that it was developed in experiments done on horses. Izzie's super pissed but he leaves before she can say anything -- instead she just pouts in front of her patient like a consummate professional.
Tori's entourage has been invited into the conference room, and all of them are a bit horrified at the idea of the doctors removing all of her organs. Bailey explains that they'd keep the organs on ice, cut out the tumor, and then put everything back in and reconnect the arteries using synthetic grafts. Well then, easy as (organ) pie! Grandma asks why no other hospital suggested this treatment, and Richard has to admit that it's never been done before. Hahn takes the opening and adds that it's super risky and tons of things could go wrong. Tori's mom asks about doing more chemo, but Bailey tells her that unfortunately there's no time. Tori's dad asks if this surgery will save her life, and Richard answers truthfully that it's her best shot. "Her only shot." Her dad tells them to do it.
As Bailey preps for surgery, Cristina comes down to complain that she's not a vet, and while she respects practicing procedures on live tissue, there's lots of live tissue hanging around the ER. Bailey seems to barely hear her, and just asks who is babysitting the pigs. When she finds out that it's the interns, she asks if Hunt asked for the interns to do it, or for her to do it? Cristina claims it isn't the point, but Bailey orders her to make it the point, especially since she's got six organs to take out of a child. Cristina whines, "See, that's not fair! I'm not Dr. Doolittle." Bailey just replies," The zebras and the elephants are thanking their lucky stars for that." Too bad the pigs didn't have a say.
Mere goes in to the scrub room and starts getting ready for surgery. Richard is already there, and she asks him why they aren't removing the kidneys. He answers that they can do the surgery without having to remove them. Satisfied with that answer, she then asks a second question. "Why can't you look at me?" He claims she's imagining things, so in a sing-song, "I totally know you're lying" voice she says she doesn't think so, but if he says so... He snips, "I do. I say so." He tells her to worry instead about the young girl they are about to eviscerate, and not about her crazy, totally-on-point observations.
They all get to work on Tori, and there's a montage of guts. While Richard is wrist-deep in the girl's abdomen, a nurse comes to interrupt him and tell him that Tori's dad is on the phone, asking for an update. She seems to ignore the fact that they are all wrist-deep in Tori's abdomen, and Richard needs to point out that he's too busy to talk to Dad. Then there's some minor disaster and a bunch of alarms start ringing -- they call for more blood, and Hahn declares that if her aorta is in the same bad shape as whatever they were just working on, all the blood in the world won't save her. The power of positive thinking!
Lexie is finally working on a pig rather than stroking his snout. She has decided to name them -- she's working on Wilbur, whose pulse is really high, but Reggie and Babe are both doing well. Cristina overhears and calls out that they are not to name the pigs, since they are subjects, not pets. Their job is just to keep them alive. Under her breath she adds that they need to be alive so that Hunt can eat his words at the end of the day. In a loud voice she advises, "If you want to call them something, call the 'Sausage.' Or 'Prosciutto.'" But before they can re-christen him, Wilbur crashes. He's already got a chest tube in, but she realizes she needs to open him up with a full thorachotomy. I always can't watch when humans have procedures that I myself have had, but it's kind of weirdly compelling to think I might see it on a (fake) pig.
In Tori's OR, it's time to take out the organs. On the count of three, they all get their hands under a pile of intestines and something that looks suspiciously like a frozen hamburger patty, and heave the gloppy pile into a bowl. I'm very surprised that they let Mere handle organs so soon, but fortunately everything stays off the floor this time. The nurse comes in again to pester Richard, actually sounding perturbed that he won't come talk to Tori's dad. Seriously? I mean, dad can't physically get in the OR to do anything to Richard, and Richard is busy operating on the man's daughter. It seems to me he could call all he wants with the same result. But Bailey actually tells him he needs to go talk to them (all the better to have a big emotional revelation, I guess) and reminds him that he put her in charge. Sighing, he storms out.
Derek and Mark are finally getting to take their turn with Alex's patient, and are dismayed to see that he used skin glue. Alex just tells them that Hunt wanted to get things taken care of fast, and Derek responds indignantly that the guy could lose half his face. Mark adds that he can't do [something-or-another to do with his skin] and tells Alex that if he can't take care of it, he needs to call someone who can. Alex defends that Hunt, who he seems to admire quite a bit, says that being in the ER is like being in the field. Mark just asks what qualifies the hospital as a war zone. "Our undermanned gift shop? The lukewarm drinks from the coffee cart?" Derek dismissively calls Hunt a meatballer, and Mark explains to Alex that as a trauma guy, he just slaps things together.
When Richard reaches Tori's dad, he makes no effort to hide his annoyance as Dad asks how his daughter is doing. Richard impatiently answers that she is stable, and adds that he should be there. When Dad defends that he just needed an update, Richard tells him that's not important; that it's only important that the best doctors he has are working on her right now. He chastises Dad for making so many calls, and Dad breathes kind of heavy, on the verge of tears. But he controls himself enough to apologize for being underfoot, while explaining that hospitals are horrible places to try and get information. The doctors never tell them anything, and he's not sure if that's ego or neglect. (Hint: Ego.) He reminds Richard that they are trying to take care of their scared, sick little girl, and they're doing everything they can. Richard, having been put in his place and taught an Important Lesson, replies, "Don't ever stop taking care of her like that." He then goes back to surgery.
In another OR, Hunt and Izzie are working on her abdominal guy. Hunt asks Iz if she's used a GIA stapler, and she jumps at the chance, saying she hasn't but she's ready. Hunt, however, has some fun up his sleeve first. He tells Izzie to first answer three questions, and number one is which animal she has to thank for the polio vaccine. She asks him if it's necessary, and he tells her it's only necessary if she wants to use the stapler. Glaring, she answers, "Flipper babies." She tells him that 10,000 babies were born with birth defects during the '50s because the mothers took medicine tested on guinea pigs, who had no side effects to the drugs. Her point is that animals and humans can have different reactions, and she's furious when he calmly tells her that they can, but not always. She gripes that he can tell that to the babies and their mothers. He happily announces that the polio vaccine was tested on mice and monkeys, but she's done and tells him to keep his precious stapler.
Cristina, clearly having forgotten her naming rule, asks for updates on Reggie and Patty. They're stable, and Stinky 2 reminds her that they aren't supposed to use names. Without missing a beat she tells him that she could call them numbers, but if she told them to give antibiotics to "3" she might find him sticking a needle in Lexie's butt. Cristina is upset that she can't figure out what's wrong with Wilbur (I believe). She makes the call to open him up more, and when Lexie frets she tells her sternly but not unkindly not to get emotional and to just get ready to massage the heart. She almost looks like a real teacher for a moment.
Tori's team has hit a roadblock, in that there's not enough artery left to dissect. That means they can't reconnect the organs to the vessels, and Mere points out the obvious (in a whiny little-girl voice, no less) that if they can't reconnect them, the organs will die. Hahn nastily agrees, so Mere asks if they could find a donor. Hahn growls that they'd have to find six organs in eight hours, and Mere concludes that they'd be too late. Hahn declares, "And a gold star for Grey," while Bailey stares daggers into the other surgeon.
Bailey then makes some suggestions, but for every suggestion she and Mere have, Hahn has a nasty comeback shooting down the idea. Bailey finally demands to know what Hahn's plan is -- she's so good at shooting down everything, so why doesn't she offer her own suggestion? Helpfully, her suggestion is that they never should have done the surgery in the first place. Bailey shoots back that she's made that clear every chance she got, and finally Richard intercedes to shut them up. He orders them to get over themselves and talk to each other, and after a few moments of what I'm sure are supposed to be pointed stares over their surgical masks, Bailey comes up with the idea to use human umbilical veins. Hahn has to admit that it might work, but it's Bailey's call -- and Bailey's decision is to go for it.
Hunt and Izzie are scrubbing out, and she couldn't look more like a little storm cloud if she tried. He compliments her work on the valve, adding that she has pigs and cows to thank for that. Izzie asks if he's done and she can go home, and Hunt defends that he's just trying to teach. Izzie has had enough, and lets loose a tirade that he can teach on the dummies that react to everything the way that humans would. He thinks that until you operate on live tissue you're going through the motions, but she maintains that might have held water in the olden days, but now they have the technology to not have to work on animals. He finally loses his cool at the suggestion that he tortured the pigs, but while he argues that they felt nothing, Izzie argues that there's no way he could know that. She goes on that animals are sensitive and intelligent, which is not her whim but a fact. "You are torturing God's creatures in an age where we have the technology that no longer requires us to. If you want to do that go ahead, but don't tell me I'm less of a doctor for walking away." Unlike most of her fights with, well, just about everyone in the hospital, Hunt furrows his brow and seems to think about what she said.
Speaking of the pigs, alarms are going off and Cristina is begging Wilbur to pull through. She again advises Lexie in a calm, not condescending manner, and explains that she should massage the heart with both hands, "like a heart sandwich." After digging around some more, she sees something she missed and realizes what is wrong.
At the same time, Bailey, etc. work away on Tori. The pig surgery and the little girl surgery scenes are overlapped for "dramatic" effect. As Wilbur's heart starts beating again to the cheers of Cristina's interns, Tori's organs are all reconnected successfully and Richard genuinely announces, "Everyone, hell of a job."
Mark and Callie are back in bed, and while Callie mopes, Mark muses about the fact that he's known women who weren't able to get to the "big finish" (totally their biology and not him, of course) but he's never known one to be upset that she could. That is, until this moment. "You're a conundrum, Torres." Callie finally admits that Erica cried after sex that morning, and Mark immediately tells her that was a compliment. Callie denies it and miserably tells him that Erica had a revelation. Callie's having a hard time because while the sex is awesome with Erica, it's still awesome with Mark, and she thinks that there should be a difference. Mark tells her that there is a difference -- he knows she slept with Erica that morning, but Erica doesn't know that Callie slept with Mark. "And that makes you a cheater. Do you want to be a cheater? 'Cause I'm fine with it. The question is, are you?" The door opens -- seriously, they didn't lock the door?!? -- and as Callie hides under the covers, Derek asks Mark if he wants to come along as Derek yells at Hunt. Mark's all for it, he just needs a second. Derek leaves, and as he does calls hello to Callie, who answers with a small, miserable hello back.
With Mark acting Robin to Derek's Batman, they approach Hunt and ask to talk to him. Derek tries to dismiss Karev, but Hunt says that he can stay, so Derek blusters that's fine if Hunt wants Alex to know how Hunt screwed up the guy's glued head earlier that day. Hunt announces that his job was to keep him alive, and that's what he did. Derek yells, "No, what you did was almost maim a guy for the rest of his life." It's interesting that his sentence contained the key word "almost," which was so totally edited out of the commercials for this episode so that we'd think that Hunt maimed someone on his first day at work. Derek adds that Hunt's lucky that Derek saved the blood supply. Hunt asks what they would have done, and Mark blusters that they would have asked two world-class surgeons who were standing right there to help out. Hunt, though, clarifies that he wants to know what they would do medically, so that he can learn and do better time. Alex and Derek are both mystified at this humble reaction. Hunt explains that he knows there are different ways to do things, adding that in a hospital, the person closest to death gets treated first while in Iraq that person doesn't get treated. He tells them that if they think they have a better way, he'll listen. Alex takes this all to heart, which we know by the tender piano playing as they show his face.
Richard, Bailey and Hahn are scrubbing out, and Richard congratulates both women on a job well done. Bailey smiles, and Erica happily thanks him. But once he leaves, Bailey laughs at her. Erica actually goes so far as to ask what Bailey's problem is, and Bailey points out the obvious: she's amazed Erica would accept congratulations since she both didn't want to do the surgery and then fought them during the entire process. Erica, however, still doesn't show any humility at all and replies, "And yet you had a world-class heart surgeon by your side." Bailey acknowledges that Erica is an amazing surgeon, but that day she was also a bullying pain in the ass. She at no point gave anyone any encouragement that they might succeed, and made the entire surgery as hard as she could for everyone involved. "So yeah, we did a nice job today... we did a great job today, but that wasn't thanks to you. That was thanks to me. And the chief. And Meredith Grey." After a moment, she remembers the most important participant. "And Anatomy Jane." Erica seems a bit chastised -- maybe it was the mention of the doll being more important than she was?
Cristina is walking Hunt to each pig's beside, animatedly updating him on all of their conditions. In a decidedly un-Cristina moment, she even calls them champs, and calls Wilbur a fighter. Hunt looks amused, but then genuinely congratulates her on a job well done. She's beaming, and he tells her to write everything up... and put them out. It takes a moment for Cristina to register what she just heard and asks him again. He clarifies that she is to terminate them, and in response she just walks out.
He finds her leaning against a railing, and as he approaches she announces that she's not killing them. She spent the day trying to keep them alive, so Hunt can go ahead and kill them himself. Hunt replies by listing all of the crazy procedures she was able to complete that day, both to point out what she learned but mostly to point out that each of the animals would have months of horrible, painful recovery, and that keeping them alive isn't humane. He turns to walk away and finally she calls after him, "Seriously, you don't remember my name?" He walks back and tells her that he does, but that was before. After a moment, he calmly recounts that in Iraq, he and his surgical team were treating the wounded, doing damage control, and then getting out of the area quick. One day, though, there was an ambush. All 19 of his men died, and he was discharged. "I'm not there anymore, in the before. I knew your name in the before. And now I'm living in the after." He leaves, and she heaves a big sigh.
Callie shuffles into Erica's office, and without looking up Erica just tells her, "If you want to apologize to someone, apologize to Bailey. Thanks to you I made her life a living hell today." Callie replies by announces point-blank that she slept with Sloane. Erica is clearly taken aback but Callie cuts her off to try and defend her actions by reminding Erica of her reaction that morning. Callie says that while Erica saw leaves, Callie hasn't and she may never, or she may see entire forests. I just love primetime gay sex euphemisms. But Callie assures Erica that regardless of what she figures out, she wants to be with Erica right now, and that involves telling her the truth -- which happens to be that she slept with Mark. Twice. Erica is clearly working to absorb everything and just answers, "Okay."
Mere finds Richard in the conference room that night, and he paged her to make an admission. He tells her that she used to run around the hospital with Anatomy Jane all the time. Seeing Tori's family -- all of those people that care so much about her -- reminded him that Mere had no one and that he was responsible for that. It's such an awkward segue, but leads to a nice scene, even if it's one I feel we've seen before. "You're a living reminder of every failure in my life. And that's not your fault." ... Thanks? How do you respond to that? Meredith just doesn't, and he continues that if he thought saying sorry would mean anything at all, he'd say it 1,000 times a day.
Mere VO's over Cristina and the pigs: "Some wars are never over. Some end in an uneasy truce." As Cristina stares, paralyzed, Lexie comes in. Cristina, continuing her day of actually treating Lexie fairly, admits that she knows she is supposed to but she just can't kill them. Lexie just tells her gently that they will suffer. "Don't let them suffer." Silently, Cristina goes and mixes the injection.
Mark and Callie are in street clothes, leaving for the night. Callie has told Mark that the on-call trysts are over, and he does admit that's too bad. He then starts to walk away, and she calls after him to invite him for a drink. He seems surprised and she chuckles and informs him that even though they aren't sleeping together they can still hang out and be friends. He looks both confused and happy -- it's really endearing and also kind of sad that even he doesn't think he's worth anything more than the Sloane Method. She assures him, "You're good for more than sex, Mark." That said, he happily leaves with her to get a drink. Callie asks, "She's not gonna cry every time, right?" He assures her that it will pass. Well, sadly as we know now, it's going to pass in some way or another.
Richard sees Tori's family hugging Bailey, and smiles, clearly thinking of how clumsily they managed to tie this family's story into the Sad Tale of Meredith and Anatomy Jane.
VO: "Some wars results in complete and total victory." George gets home to find Lexie with the table set and candles burning -- non-romantic candles, that is. She tells him to sit, and presents macaroni and cheese that she made from the box, not the freezer. Mere explains the mac and cheese: "Some wars end with a peace offering." Lex sits down and tells George that she named the pigs, and he admits sadly that he has no idea what that means. She admits that she takes things personally and gets too emotional. "There's no place for it at work -- not with the pigs and not with you. I'm sorry." Good lord, she just sounded mature right there! This must be a fluke. George thanks her by exclaiming how much better mac and cheese is from the box rather than the freezer.
At the Home for Wayward Residents, Izzie is moping in bed when Alex knocks on the door. She snaps at him that she thought he was sleeping with Michelle that night. He says her name, but Izzie interrupts to tell him she had a hard day and that she wants to be alone. He finally gets a word in, though, and admits that he's not good at relationships or, "talking about stupid feelings." But he admits that she is (and how) and asks if she could teach him. "Tell me what I did wrong." Izzie jumps up, because being asked to tell someone what to do is like a dream. She realizes that he doesn't want them to see other people, and that asking if he should stop sleeping with Michelle was his way of showing it. She laughs, and he informs her that it's not helping and turns to leave. She grabs him though, and with her arms around him tells him that first he can start with all sorts of compliments. "Izzie, you're so self-righteous!" Oh wait, that was me. She then tells him to say, "You want to go steady with me?" He protests that this is what he would say in 1952, but they get all kissy. She then asks if he wants to go steady with her, and he tells her, "If that's what you want, whatever." They then fall into bed in a fit of giggles.
Meredith tells us, "And some wars end in hope." She and Derek are back at the house, unpacking more boxes. As she models a crazy pom-pom knit hat, Derek opens a box and grows serious. He tells her that she should unpack that one and pulls out... another journal. And then a handful more. Meredith looks shell-shocked and her VO finishes, "But all these wars are nothing, compared to the most frightening war of all. The one you have yet to fight."
With that we fade out, with me wondering only -- what correction will I have to make week? And also, what on earth is going on with the casting decisions on this show? And will we have to see an episode-ending scene with Izzie and Alex trying to be a couple for the third week in a row? So many questions.
See who on staff is a doctor and who is a high-schooler in a lab coat.