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Let's start with the smaller -- totally gut-wrenching, but smaller -- storyline this week. Bailey and Derek are working together on a woman with a brain tumor. She has had surgeries before, and though Derek assures her she could live with her tumor for at least a few months, she opts to go forward with her surgery and also to sign DNR papers. Her husband is totally supportive, and they clearly have had long, happy lives together and seem to have the perfect marriage. (This is as opposed to Derek's divorce, etc. and Bailey's trying marriage counseling.) The surgery isn't successful, however, and when she flatlines, her husband crumbles and tries to literally keep her heart beating by himself. Derek has to step in when both the man and Bailey are too affected to let the woman die, and quietly and heartbreakingly, she goes.
Derek's annoyed with Meredith because she and Cristina are reading Ellis' diaries and talking about them late into the night, causing him to not get enough sleep. He enlists Sloane's, er... services, in that Mark will flirt with Cristina and hook up with her to keep her busy enough at night so that Mere will be quiet and Derek can then sleep. Cristina, however, is too busy competing to take part in a cool surgery. An unidentified patient comes in with a million things wrong, and she spends the day only trying to be the best for surgery. Alex and the interns are trying to get in practice so that they can show off as well, and they wind up working on unclaimed cadavers while George works on a weirdly realistic dummy that is presumably the one Izzie mentioned last week. Hunt is disgusted to see a) how personally involved with each other all the doctors are and b) how uncaring they seem to be about the patient, especially Cristina. But when he finally confronts her about it and basically calls her a heartless vulture, she explains what it was like to be with her dad when he died in a car accident and explains that's why she became a surgeon. He realizes he's totally wrong, and after earlier thinking he might quit, totally decides to stay on at Seattle Grace for a while.
Hahn has a heart patient coming in, who happens to be none other than the guy who would have gotten a heart over a year earlier... if Izzie hadn't stolen it from him. Izzie is paralyzed and can't do the job Hahn chose her to do, which is connect with the patient and help him through a risky procedure. She finds out that Izzie was responsible for the Denny Heart Debacle and goes to Richard to try and have her fired, but he won't do it and insists he took care of it and the situation is behind them. When they have to do the procedure a second time, she keeps Izzie on and forces her to do her job, and with the help of her visions of Denny, she's able to help the guy through it. It's not enough for Hahn, though. As she and Callie leave for the night, she's disgusted to hear Callie stand up for Izzie even a little bit. She tells Callie that she's reporting the incident to UNOS, and when Callie doesn't support the decision, tells her off for being only a sorta-lesbian, and leaves. It's only the second time we've really seen Erica have more than just one dimension to her personality, and yet at the same time, the argument is weirdly smooshed into one short scene that leads to Hahn's exit from the show forever. Except that it totally doesn't feel like that, we just know it from the news, and it means an otherwise pretty good episode ends on a fairly disconcerting note.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!"If you're a normal person, one of the few things you can count on in life is death." We're straight into things with the voiceover this week, no previously ons. Derek's awakened by a ringing phone. Mere's wide awake reading one of her mother's newfound journals, and Cristina's the one calling since it seems she's also reading some. Cristina loves it that they're all about medicine, and hardly ever mention feelings or, for that matter, Meredith. "But, if you're a surgeon, even that comfort is taken away from you." I get that the point here is that Meredith is annoying but seriously, what person doesn't just go have a conversation in a different room from the one where their significant other is sleeping? But Mere just gleefully exchanges medical tidbits with Cristina, not caring when Derek pulls his pillow over his head. One might also argue that Derek could just ask her to leave instead of dramatically flailing around with the pillow.
Izzie and Alex are being an actual, supposedly functional couple, spooning in bed while they sleep and Meredith VO's, "Surgeons cheat death. We prolong it; we deny it."
A patient is brought into the ER, where Dr. Major Hot... I mean Hunt, yells a lot and shocks his chest to keep him alive. Mere's VO explains, "We stand and defiantly give death the finger."
Mere and Derek get to work, and Cristina grabs Meredith to yell at her that she's late for skills lab. Derek greets her, "It feels like minutes." Dude, Cristina doesn't care. She just pulls Mere away as Bailey walks up talking on her cell phone. It sounds like she and Tucker have actually been attending marriage counseling, but she tells him she can't do it in the mornings any more since she's now late for work. Aw, yay! May the previously most functional marriage on this show be salvaged. Derek asks how counseling is going, and Bailey points out that they just had an argument about the counseling, so what does he think? Ever the gentleman, he yawns and she yells at him since he's operating on her patient later. He explains that Mere kept him up, quickly explaining that it was by talking on the phone with Cristina. Bailey asks him about his, "Either Cristina goes or I go," mindset, but he's at least smart enough to know he most likely would not win that ultimatum. Bailey reminds him that the girls come as a set. He just changes the subject to tell her that counseling is good -- he and Addison went to counseling. She yells after him as he walks off: "Right before you got divorced?!"
In the skills lab, Richard introduces the doctors to Stan -- "State of the art computerized patient simulator." Stan, in other words, is a very creepy-looking dummy. The way Izzie was yelling last week, I assumed the hospital both had these already and that the docs had worked on them, but I guess not. He explains that Stan does everything a normal patient does, including speak. In an eerie computerized voice, Stan tells Richard he's not feeling well. He makes a crack about Stan being more forgiving than their other patients (and pigs) in that he will just come back if they kill him. Alex wants the pigs back, and Cristina wants to work on an actual human, but Bailey tells them that when Richard picks someone to do the first solo surgery, they have to be ready. Chaos erupts as everyone starts shouting questions. She tells them she doesn't know when or what it will be, but that whoever wins should be prepared to do any type of surgical procedure. They also will be able to choose one intern to scrub in. With that, they are to practice and also not make Bailey look stupid. She sends Izzie and Mere to Hahn, Cristina to the pit, and leaves George and Alex to work on Stan. Alex starts walking backwards towards Stan, so George yells, "Dibs!" a hair before Alex yells "Mine!" and smacks Stan in the stomach. Stan answers by telling Alex he's having chest pain.
Izzie and Mere are following Hahn down the hall and Izzie is doing what she does best: whining. She's bummed that they won't be doing any big surgeries today since they want to start looking important for the solo surgery, but Hahn mercifully cuts her off. Their patient is someone who shockingly, she actually cares for personally and has been treating for over two years. They'll be doing some sort of procedure that helps buy him time before he can get a new heart, and Mere and Izzie to their credit immediately shape up and say they are ready. Hahn asks if they are familiar with the case, and Mere starts reading off the guy's stats -- Michael Norris, 44, blah-dee-blah blah heart disease... Izzie hasn't read the chart, so she gets increasingly nauseated-looking as Mere goes on to say that Michael narrowly missed out on a heart on May 14, 200 -- before they have to give a year and really show how screwed up the GA timeline is, Izzie cuts her off. It turns out, Michael Norris was supposed to get the heart that Izzie cunningly stole for Denny. BUM BUM BUM.
Derek finds Mark and with no preamble, tells him he needs him to have sex with Cristina. I'd say it's a much better plan than having Mere ask Cristina to not call so late, or, say, ask Mere to do her reading downstairs where she can talk away. Mark tells him there's no way, since she's serious and "un-fun," which is not his type. Derek thinks she should be his type, since she's intelligent and complicated. "She's like a single malt scotch, and you're used to beer bongs." Mark tells him that Callie is no beer bong. True. But Derek sees an opening, and teases Mark that he doesn't think he has a shot. He seems to almost get him with presenting it as a challenge but Mark still won't do it -- that is until Derek reminds Mark that he owes Derek for sleeping with Addison. Reluctantly, Mark agrees.
Lexie moseying along in the hospital basement, like you do, when she hears whispering and finds her fellow interns injecting needles into each other's arms. But it's not a drug party, but instead an IV party. The new intern, Ryan, tells her they did it all the time at Baylor (which, ew) but Lex refuses to think it's okay, and as she walks out they implore her not to tell anyone.
Hunt is in an empty ER room and takes a long, deep breath as Richard finds him for a word. Hunt warns him that something is coming in but Richard quickly explains that they're about to give a solo surgery to a second year resident, and asks for Hunt's opinions. Before he can reply the paramedics bring in an unidentified guy who sounds like he has just about every single injury a person can have. Cristina takes over and the paramedic explains that the cops found him under a freeway overpass, and they suspect that someone threw him over. Hunt asks Richard about the solo surgery while watching Cristina, and Richard explains that Hunt has no personal relationships with anyone and instead is a set of fresh eyes, "Which is rare here." Heh. Also, I guess he doesn't realize that the second someone walks through the door to Seattle Grace, they immediately start up some sort of inappropriate relationship and that Hunt does have a bit of history. Fortunately it's not too much, as these things usually go, and Hunt tells him he'll think about it. Cristina then takes a moment from her ministrations to ask the Chief what kind of surgery the solo will be, while Hunt looks disgusted that she'd think about it right now. Richard doesn't bat an eyelash, though, and just tells her that they'll all find out at the same time. He then turns to Hunt and comments that he's been working for three days straight, trying to sound light as he asks if he ever gets any sleep. Not entirely amused, Hunt asks if he keeps tab on all the attendings or just the new ones. Upcoming PTSD storyline, anyone? Alarms start to ring since John Doe can't breathe, and while Cristina promises she's taking care of it, Hunt grabs some sort of needle and pops it right into the guy's chest to solve the problem. He admonishes her that if she was caring for the patient rather than thinking about the contest, she might have thought of it.
Mike asks his doctors if they're really going to cause him to have a heart attack. Meredith explains the procedure, "alcohol ablation" where Hahn will inject ethanol into his heart through a catheter in his femoral artery. The alcohol then burns off the tissue it touches. Izzie has been shaking her head and looking ill -- she's being so obvious that it seems like Michael and the other doctors should be able to hear the Drums of Doom that we do. Hahn asks Izzie to explain and she can barely get out that they are trying to burn away the muscle in his ventricle that's preventing his heart from getting oxygen. He asks skeptically if he'll be able to breathe and they tell him the effect would be immediate. Unfortunately, he can't be asleep during the procedure. Hahn explains that Izzie, of course, will be asking him to cough and inhale and exhale. He and his wife sound worried, and Hahn admits that it's dangerous, but it's one that they can monitor and control, and they all know that if he has another random heart attack, it would kill him. Izzie looks out of the window into the hall with her big, teary (really, really made-up) eyes and sees none other but Denny walking by, so she can only stare agape while poor Michael tries to talk to her about the surgery, asking her to make sure she really keeps him awake. Fortunately he seems not to notice his doctor's personal crisis that is keeping her paying any attention to her patient's care.
The girls follow Hahn out who tells Mere to get some results. Once she's gone, Mere asks Izzie if she's freaking out, and Izzie freaks out as she asks if Mere thinks she should be freaking out. Because we couldn't have this be big enough on its own, Michael is even in Denny's old room. Mere explains all this and adds that it's a lot of Denny for one day, and Izzie agrees. Izzie then asks Mere how much Denny she's "experiencing," and instead of calling her a nutjob, Mere just tells her that she can do this. I'd like this scene to go down as proof that Izzie does in fact have a friend in Mere, the time she starts moaning about how she's all alone.
George is working on Stan and getting frustrated, as Stan just keeps repeating that his pain is getting worse. Alex is just pacing behind him, and when George says he won't win the solo surgery practicing on a robot, Alex tells him that actually he won't win because he sucks. Stan then says, "Your bedside manner is what sucks." George is now much more appreciative of Stan, but Alex pouts and heads to leave. Stan calls after him, "What's the matter, scared of a little education?" Alex leaves, and George starts singing to Stan about how he's so awesome. Stan responds by getting what seems to be a projectile nosebleed and George freaks out.
Callie is in helping out with John Doe, and when Hunt muses that he might be able to tell them what happens once he wakes up, Callie expresses doubt that he will. Hunt then watches Cristina send Lexie for tests and an unclaimed body form. Lexie asks if he's going to need a chest tube, because with the solo surgery coming up... presumably she was going to point out that she'd like to actually learn how to put one in, but Cristina tells her that with the solo surgery, her only job is to impress Cristina. Once Lex leaves, Hunt tells Cristina that with the solo surgery approaching her job is to impress him, and so far she's not doing that by planning for John Doe's death. Cristina apologizes sincerely but reasonably defends that she was trying to be prepared -- it's refreshing to see someone firm but yet not combative nor whiny. He doesn't seem to think so, though, and tells her, "I can't use sorry, I could use a doctor. Be one."
Derek and Bailey are meeting with their elderly patient and her husband, Mrs. and Mr. Bullard. She has a tumor, and while Derek warns her that she could live for months with it as-is, she tells him she can't live with the pain like she is now. He's told her about how this surgery is extremely risky, but she definitely wants to go through with it. She and her husband gaze at each other and finish each other's sentences, and he echoes her wishes and seems to understand, as does she, what it really means when she signs the DNR orders. Both insist she wouldn't want to be on life support and "live" like that. All of this of course means that they are very likely to not have a happy storyline this week. Once all of the papers are signed, she tells her husband, "Bye, darling," and he replies, "Goodbye, love," and they share a rather passionate kiss. Bailey watches, seemingly in shock, as they have a long hug. Mr. Bullard smiles and tells them they do this every time -- sign the paper, kiss goodbye, "And after the surgery, we say hello again." Bailey looks incredibly affected, and as she walks out she whispers to Derek, "That there is the Holy Grail of marriage." Derek agrees, "Something to aspire to." Might be hard for you, Derek -- he doesn't seem to act condescending towards his wife on a semi-regular basis.
Lexie finds herself in a dim room surrounded by bodies -- it's like the most morbid lost & found imaginable. She picks up the forms for their accident victim asks what happens to the bodies. The tech explains that if they go unclaimed for a certain amount of time they are either cremated or preserved for medical research, and Lexie realizes that means that they could be used as practice bodies for med students. It's enough to make me want to wear an ID bracelet for the rest of my life, that's for sure. He catches on to what she's saying and turns around, but when he sees her he's blinded by her beauty and loses all power of speech.
thing you know, she's wheeling a gurney into a room where we see she's accumulated around eight bodies. Dude, she's cute, but that tech must not get out much to just hand over eight bodies like that. She welcomes the bodies to the room, apologizes for their having to die, and runs to get instrument trays.
Callie and Hunt are working on John Doe, and after they patch him up to at least get him to surgery, he asks for her opinion on the second years with regards to the solo surgery. She tells him that Yang is awesome and adds that one day she'll be a "cardio god," adding that they are roommates. About Izzie she tells him that Iz is supposedly compassionate and good with patients but that she also did sleep with Callie's husband. Hunt cuts in to explain he just wants the doctor part. But how do you untangle those things in this hospital, really? Cristina comes in with the results of the guy's scan, but as she starts to point things out Hunt cuts her off to inform her that he can do that by himself, and dismisses her to update the guy's chart -- all of which Callie watches with a raised eyebrow.
Out in the hall, Mark finds Cristina and turns on the charm as he asks if she paged. She did; she tells him all of the problems that John has going and directs him to the trauma room. Mark tries again, hoping that she wanted to see him, but she makes a phone call and again just directs him to the patient. Mark clearly has never had this happen before. (You know, except for how Hahn totally didn't react to his flirting either.)
Speak of the she-devil, she's got Mike's catheters in and is about to start the procedure. She tells a cowering Izzie to go sit with him, and manages to growl and whisper at the same time (not an easy task) that she chose Izzie specifically because it would make this a compelling, if not totally obvious storyline. Whoops, that was me -- she chose her because Izzie connects well with patients. Izzie actually chooses this moment to tell Hahn that she's been told to work on not connecting so well, but Hahn rightfully snaps back at her that Mike is nervous and needs someone there to help guide him through the procedure and she has to step up. Izzie sits but keeps looking like a lost kid over at Hahn, who has to prompt Izzie with what to say. Once she injects Mike he starts thrashing in pain, Hahn needs to remind Izzie to tell him to try and calm down. Izzie can't manage to act like a professional at the most important moment of his career, and instead sees a defeated-looking Denny in the room. While Hahn yells at her to talk to Mike, she furrows her brow like there's no tomorrow and breathes heavy while staring at her dead fiancée. And, after all that, Mike still can't breathe which means the procedure failed. Conveniently, Hahn explains that she could have chosen two routes, and that clearly she chose the wrong one but they can try again. Mike, though, declares there's no way he will or can go through it again. Izzie apologizes and flees.
Hahn is storming down the hall with Meredith tagging along, and Hahn tells her to get Izzie so that Hahn can permanently throw her off of her service. Meredith then makes the choice to sort of tell Hahn what's going on. On the one hand, I'm not sure how Hahn didn't learn about this already given the amount of personal shit that flies around this hospital. On the other hand, if she didn't know, would telling her really be the right thing, since it would most likely make her flip out? I don't know how you could think she'd react any other way. But, Mere admits that like Hahn has a relationship with this guy, so does Izzie, by way of Denny. Hahn just tells Mere to send Izzie to her.
As Derek and Bailey work on Mrs. Bullard, he tells her that he solved his "Yang problem." She's surprised that he managed that already and without even hearing the dumbass scheme, tells him it sounds too easy and warns, "If it doesn't feel like work, it isn't going to work." Derek asks if she learned that in marriage counseling and Bailey laughs that she didn't, and that counseling is a waste of time. She's sure the Bullards never got marriage counseling. In honor of their great marriage, the tumor begins to hemorrhage and her brain to swell. They get a handle on it, and Bailey tells Derek to make sure that the couple gets a chance to say hello again.
Izzie finds Alex sulking in the hall -- literally sulking, slumped, frowning, hands crossed over his chest -- because he hates Stan, and he asks if he can scrub in on anything. She just warns him that Izzie is having a bad day, but Cristina overhears and pulls Mere away to complain about how she is the one having a hard day. I don't always rank these things but in the scheme of things, I've got to say I'm actually going with Izzie having the short end of today's stick. She pulls Mere over to tell her that Hunt hates her, and when Meredith reminds her of the kiss, Cristina brushes that off as "before." She agonizes over the fact that she has no idea what she did to earn his wrath, and even goes so far as to say that it's worse than things were with Hahn. As she runs off to answer a page, murmuring that she needs to get off the case, she literally runs into Sloane. He again tries to sweet-talk her and suggests a little time in the on-call room but she cuts off every sentence he starts, clearly oblivious to his efforts. As she runs off he gripes, "This does not happen to me."
Lexie finds her interns and announces, "Bow to me, for I am the Queen of the Interns. I have assembled an army of the dead to teach us things." She's greeted with a lot of puzzled stares so she explains that she got cadavers for them to work on. The other interns react as if she really is their Queen, and they agree to meet the bodies for lunch. Of course, as she chose a super-private location known as, "the hall" to tell them, Alex overhears and bites into a sandwich with a scheming look on his face.
Hahn finds Callie to ask her if she knew about a relationship between Izzie and Denny. Callie laughs and snorts and refers to the engagement and the cutting of the LVAD wire to get him a heart -- see, she knows how the gossip flies around here. She adds that Izzie was on probation and was nearly kicked out. Now it's Callie's turn to act dumber than usual and not realize just how hard this would be for Hahn, and she just flippantly realizes that Hahn wasn't at the hospital then. Erica agrees that she was not; she was at another hospital, "Watching my patient's heart get stolen out of his chest." As she storms off, Callie seems to finally realize that Erica is genuinely upset and that this might be a bad thing.
Alex has paged Izzie down to the basement and she mopes down the hall behind him, explaining that she's not in the mood for sex. He just asks if she wants to see dead guys, which freaks her out and she demands to know why he'd ask that. Don't worry, Izzie, you're the only one seeing your dead fiancée's ghost and letting him distract you. Alex takes her inside and unveils the grey feet of the cadavers, adding he heard she was having a bad day and wanted to cheer her up. She chuckles maniacally at the bouquet of corpses Alex just brought and I feel a little sorry for him since he seemed so proud that he finally did something right. Izzie starts talking to herself, assuring herself that Denny is dead and that there have just been too many dead people today. I hope today is the last we see of Dead Denny. I love him, but this is making Izzie's already-stupid storylines even worse. She walks out as Lexie walks in, and when she yells that the cadavers are for interns, he yells back that she should go play with Stan.
Stan, meanwhile, is busy spraying blood out of all sorts of different orifices. George freaks out while trying to help him and Stan actually tells him that there must be something he's forgetting. He then adds, "I'm surprised you even passed your intern exam!" It's at this point that I thought George would realize that someone was operating Stan from behind a curtain, but no, he just keeps working. It turns out that the wizard is none other than Richard, who can't keep from laughing as he watches what's going on from a bank of monitors with an amused tech sitting to him. Hahn finds him chuckling but isn't amused to watch as Richard blows one of Stan's arteries and cries, "I'm bleeding out!" She announces that she's there about Izzie and Denny, and the Chief puts on his Serious Face in response.
As soon as they get to his office, she demands to know how Izzie still has a job, how Seattle Grace is still accredited and (answering her own question) how it could have gone unreported. Once she tells him it's no wonder the hospital is ranked twelfth, he finally orders her to stop. She won't, however, and yells that she wants an ethics review panel assembled, and Izzie and Bailey investigated. As Richard tries to stop her, she screams that her patient lost a heart and so someone better lose their job. He stops and angrily yells back that it was reported to him and he dealt with it, and that they aren't going to dig it up again. He maintains that Izzie was punished and learned from her mistake, and that she's, "On her way to becoming an excellent surgeon." Well, let me know when we see proof of that one. He yells that it's in the past and will stay there. She leans over his desk and in a husky voice rails that it's not in the past for her, "It's lying on a bed in the ICU about to die." Richard informs her that she is then responsible to make sure that doesn't happen, and she turns and slams out of the office. For the second week in a row it's raw, actual emotion from Erica, and yet another dimension other than just "angry surgeon," or "dopey in love." Too bad this only came out now.
Derek and Bailey are with Mr. Bullard at his wife's bedside, and Derek explains that the surgery was difficult and they don't know how they'll respond. Mr. B waits a moment but puts on a happy face and tells them the waiting is the hardest part. Derek warns somberly that she might not live through the night, and Mr. B nearly cuts him off assuring that he knows. He then sits down to his wife and puts his hand on her arm to wait.
Mere heads into the x-ray room and finds Izzie -- again she is really gentle as she asks if Izzie is hiding from Hahn. Izzie answers, "Sure, her too." She asks after Mike, and Mere explains what Izzie was there to hear already: the procedure failed and he's refusing to try it again. Mere tells Iz she should go find Hahn but Izzie morosely reminds her that she stole his heart, both for Denny and for herself. "And now I'm supposed to hold his hand while we torture him?" Well, you'd be holding his hand while you tried to save his life, actually. But if she helped save him then she wouldn't be able to wallow in her own martyrdom, now would she? She admits that she can't even look at him and that yes, she's hiding, so Mere leaves.
Callie, Cristina and Hunt are working on John Doe. Callie can sense the tension in the air and apologizes for before, adding that everyone kind of ends up in everyone else's business there. Hunt gruffly says it's best to keep it professional and Callie agrees. Unfortunately she doesn't stop there, and starts to muse about how one minute you're friends, and the minute... she forgets the entire genesis of the conversation and starts griping about how there's pressure to define who you are. Hunt cuts her off to ask if she realizes she's doing it again and then Mr. Inappropriate Fraternization himself, Sloane, comes in to do his part of the surgery. After some customary blustering, he manages to continue to make Cristina look even more unprofessional by flirting about his own surgical prowess and talking about how great he is when he manipulates a little skin. Oh, Sloane, isn't that obvious even for YOU? Callie shoots him a "What the hell?" look as Hunt dismisses Cristina from the surgery.
Once she's scrubbed out, she runs into Lexie who thinks she might get to scrub in. Cristina informs her that there's no way, and then asks why she smells like formaldehyde. Realizing what she just asked, she turns and again asks Lexie why she smells like death. Lexie clearly panics...
...Because Cristina strolls through the doors and happily announces that she sees dead people. When Alex runs up to stop her, Cristina gives him a once-in-a-lifetime offer, "I'm going to trade you my beaten-to-a-pulp, traumapalooza patient for no less then three of your cadavers. Pony up." He calls it a deal, and Cristina and Mere plop down happily in front of a body. Izzie then wanders in with her lunch to find some company, and thanks Alex for her corpse bouquet. Lexie then slumps in and asks if she can try something, but before she says what they all shoot her down. Mere then happily shows off a technique for holding instruments that she learned from her "dead mommy." It's weird, but Mere really is almost like a functioning adult in this episode! Izzie wants to know if Mere sees her dead mommy and laughs it off when Mere explains the journal reading. But when Mere adds that she once saw her mom, bomb squad guy, and Denny, Izzie looks like she might lose her lunch all over the nearest body while she asks if that was today. Duh, silly, it was when Mere was dead. Lex unhelpfully adds that she feels her mom sometimes. Actually, it was kind of helpful, because it causes Izzie to flee to try and get off the case. Lexie then asks again if she could try something and is shot down yet again.
Of course, though she wants off the case, Iz approaches Mike's room while whispering pleas for Hahn not to be in the room. I guess she wanted to try and get off the case through telepathy. Hahn sees her and strolls out looking meaner than ever. Izzie rather humbly apologizes and asks to be let off of Hahn's service, but she has other things in mind. She's going to try and convince Mike to do the procedure again and if he does she's going to make Izzie help him through it, through the pain she herself caused. "And if he dies, I want you there for that too, because you're responsible." Mike's wife comes out of the room and tells them tearfully that Mike has decided (for the millionth time this hour) to not go through with it. She then leaves to check him out, and Izzie enters the room despite Hahn's warning tone. Mike gasps that his wife will be okay, and that this has been coming for a long time and she'll move on. It's said much more haltingly and sounds a lot less harsh than the words read on paper/screen. Izzie dramatically tells Mike that his wife won't get over him, and that even when she thinks she has he'll suddenly appear and seem as real as day. I think if you don't nearly kill someone for selfish reasons, you might not then see your loved one coming back to judge you all the time, but I could be wrong as I haven't cut any LVAD wires in my time. She adds that it will all become real for his wife all over again and she won't be able to move on. Oh, if only Izzie would move on, already. In so many different ways. Actually no, just in one way... out of Seattle.
Bailey runs in to Mrs. Bullard's room where alarms are beeping, quietly but insistently. Mr. B demands to know why someone isn't helping her and Bailey gently explains that they are keeping her comfortable, which is all they can do given the DNR order. She reminds him that they wanted to extreme measures when Mrs. B's time came. "Her time is here." Derek runs in and Bailey explains what's going on. Firmly but sadly Derek reminds Mr. B that this is what he warned could happen. Even if they did resuscitate her she could never wake up. He says quietly that there's nothing more he can do, and Bailey's lip trembles as Mr. B stares at them blankly. After a moment he turns back to her bedside and begins to call in a small voice, "Rosie!" Bailey drops her head, barely able to take it as Mr. B continues to call her name. Once his wife begins to flatlines, he begins to cry, and after a moment starts to pump her chest with his hands, begging her to stay with him, voice trembling. It's absolutely horrible. And while Bailey usually seems to be able to handle situation, she looks like it might do her in to witness this scene.
After a commercial break to give all the viewers a chance to grab a box of Kleenex, Mr. Bullard continues to pump his wife's chest. As he keeps her heart beating he repeats over and over, "Stay with me Rosie, don't leave me." Yes, take a moment to grab one of those tissues. He's pleading with her in the saddest, most despondent small voice. Bailey approaches to calm him but Mr. Bullard begs her to do something for his wife. Bailey apologizes that she can't, and Mr. B yells at her and keeps pumping harder and harder. When Bailey tries to take his hands he yells at her, and Derek pulls her away. The beeping of the machine now matches his movements completely, showing that he's the only reason her heart is still beating.
Hahn, Izzie and Bailey are back in the OR with Mike, who has decided to try the procedure again. He tells Hahn to thank Izzie, adding the unfortunately spot-on joke, "It's her fault we're here, right?" He's punctuated by the always subtle Drums of Doom. They begin the injection and as it starts, Mike seems to change his mind but it's too late. Izzie has her wits more about here this time, though, and she demands that Mike look at her and stay with them. Mike's instincts have taken over and he's writhing and clenching in pain, but Hahn yells at Izzie to get him to cough since his current not breathing could kill him. Izzie yells at him to look at her but as he does, another face also looks over -- Denny. He looks incredibly solemn, and Izzie now can only stare at her ghostly dead fiancée instead of helping the poor man crashing on the table to her.
Alex and Cristina are busily working on their corpses when Lexie pages to say that "beaten to a pulp guy" is coding. Alex pulls off his gown and yells that he's now Alex's patient, and runs after Cristina.
Once is the guy's room, Cristina demands to know why Lexie didn't put in a chest tube, and is disgusted when Lexie admits that she doesn't know how. Lexie finally stands up for herself for once and reminds Cristina that of course she doesn't know how, because Cristina never lets her do one, and also hogs all of the robots and bodies that she could learn on. Alex notes, "Dude, I think you broke her." He's not wrong. He then notices blood in the guy's urine, which causes a lot of calling dibs on different surgeries. Hunt is outside and watches the gross display as they bicker with one another about whose patient the guy is. Disgusted, he comes in and orders them off of the guy. Alex starts to explain what they just did but Hunt is furious and shuts him up. Alex defends that they saved his life, but Hunt -- who looks like steam might actually start coming out of his ears -- yells at them for acting like vultures "What you did was treat a man who's fighting to live like he's already dead. You've no sense, no decency, and no respect!" The three are finally too stunned to respond, and Cristina actually flinched a little when he made the crack about their lack of decency. Hunt orders them out of the room and she's the last one to go, taking all of the medical waste with her. He won't look at her but she stares at him as she goes.
Mr. Bullard is still pumping on his wife's chest, and Bailey gives him some oxygen. Derek pleads with him to understand that his wife is gone, that her heart isn't beating on its own. He adds that once Mr. B stops, her heart will stop. Gutted and exhausted, he tells them he can't be the one to let her go. Bailey tells him she' know. "I know you can't. She puts her hands over his and begins the compressions herself while Derek takes the broken man and helps him sit down. Derek gives Bailey a tiny nod, but Bailey is looking straight at Mr. B and now she can't do it either. Mr. B watches her like a scared child and Derek says her name, but she gives a tiny shake of her head and keeps going.
Izzie is still staring at Denny, completely oblivious to the chaos around her. But once she gets a small smile and a nod of approval, she's able to go back to the more pressing task of actually helping save a man's life. She orders Mike to open his eyes and stay with them, and Hahn watches her warily as Izzie demands for him to cough. After a moment, he coughs and then takes his first deep breath in who knows how long. She looks back up for more approval from the dead, but Denny is gone, and she looks rather sad about it.
Derek watches Bailey continue on Mrs. Bullard and then finally takes control of the situation. Softly he tells her, "You don't have to do it. Let me." He takes over and makes a few slow compressions before laying his hands down and then taking them off his patient completely. Bailey goes over to Mr. B and places her hand on his back to help comfort him as the monitor drones to remind them of her flatline. Mr. B seems completely destroyed.
Sloane finds Yang sitting at one of the nurses' stations and tries to sexily ask her for a post-op report. She barely hears him, so he finally asks what's wrong with her. She's totally perplexed. He "explains:" "I've had women opt for needless buttock enhancement surgery just for another chance to be flirted with by me!" It takes her a while to clue in but when he finally yells that he's been hitting on her all day, she begins to chuckle maniacally. She then gives him a pained, "ooh," face for his efforts before chuckling again. Hunt watches through the window as she walks away laughing, and Sloane yells after her that it was Derek's idea. When Derek walks up, Mark declares that Cristina is no single malt scotch, instead she's, "bad cheap wine that gives you a headache you can feel in your teeth." Hunt seems to quickly be turning into the grouchy old man of the staff and to prove it, actually harrumphs.
As he walks into the hall, Richard finds him to ask his opinion about the doctors. He first answers that it's only been a day, which seems to surprise Richard but he takes it and turns to leave. Hunt then lets loose. "They're undisciplined, inarticulate, and they have a lot to learn about respect. Mostly they're more interested in their personal crap than anything else. And I'm not sure they're being taught anything different." I love this man! Less than a week at the hospital and he's the first one to notice all these things? He's awesome. He then informs Richard that he might not continue working there, and excuses himself.
Alex and Lexie head back to the bodies, where they find an absolutely horrified Bailey. She demands that they tell her she's not seeing what she's seeing: "A roomful of bodies half open, scattered, and forgotten about." Lexie weakly tries to justify that they are unclaimed, but she's messing with the wrong emotionally battered doctor right now. Trying to stay calm, Bailey informs them that each of these people was loved by someone, and that they are responsible for treating them as such. "We claim them. And we treat them with respect!" That seems to include not leaving one's half-eaten lunch on the gurneys, weirdly enough. She orders the two docs to close and cover up the bodies and then put them back.
Hunt is sitting in a dark on-call room when Cristina finds him to let him know their patient's wife is there and identified him. Hunt's in the mood to pick a fight, and cuts her off to ask the guy's name. When she doesn't answer, he again asks her condescendingly if she asked the name so that the patient could become a human being to her. He gets going then, and rants that the patients are people, not a game or a contest, and that the doctors get to save them. He admits that she could win all of the contests but that if she's here just to win she should get out. He asks again about his name and when she doesn't answer, he shakes his head as if she's a lost cause. Instead of leaving, she closes the door and sits down in front of him. She tells him a story in fits and starts, clearly not used to telling anyone what she's telling him now. Her dad died in a car accident when she was nine, and she was in the car. While they waited for an ambulance, she tried to hold his chest together to slow the bleeding. "When he died..." she pauses to collect herself and doesn't look up from the floor as she continues, "My hands... felt his heart stop beating." At that, she looks Hunt dead in the eye. "That's why I do this. It's also why I win all the contests. The patient's name is Tom." She then leaves, and he chuckles to himself and once again shakes his head only this time it is also at him as well as her. He muses to himself, "Single malt scotch."
Out in the lobby, Derek shakes Mr. Bullard's hand and watches the man shuffle out. I found myself aching, hoping that this fictional character had somewhere to go and someone to help him -- that's how much he got to me. Mere begins to wrap us up for the week. "We are born, we live, we die. Sometimes not necessarily in that order." Derek drops his head and walks back into the hospital.
George is having a much better end to his day as he shocks Stan and manages to keep him alive. Triumphantly he holds the paddles he just used in the air and yells, "Yes! You! Don't! Get! To! Die!" It's a bit of a shock when Hunt congratulates him, and George tries to brush off his excitement and act cool, responding that Stan is just a robot. Hunt walks up to Stan and says to him that he wants to take back what he said earlier about leaving, and that he was overreacting. "I was just... it was personal and I wondered if you could just forget about it." See? No one can work in this hospital without getting unprofessionally involved! George is totally confused, especially when Stan tells Hunt to go get some sleep, he'll see him tomorrow. Hunt nods and leaves, and George glares at Stan and then finds where a camera had been hidden in the room. He asks, "Chief?" Chief tells him, "Good save, O'Malley." Trying to salvage his pride, George thanks him through clenched teeth.
Mere wraps up Lexie's day: "We put things to rest, only to have them rise up again." Lexie finds the other interns chanting like someone is doing a keg stand, only they're all actually putting in IV's. They look at her expectantly, so she swallows her pride and tells them, "I'm in." Everyone cheers, and she sits down gleefully to start her career as a human pincushion.
Derek walks into his and Mere's bedroom to find Mere reading to Cristina from one of the journals. The girls see him and Mere can't stop grinning as she asks, "Oh, Sloane. Seriously?" Cristina asks if he thought maybe they'd double-date? He nods ruefully and then warns that he's going to take his pants off, which sends Cristina running. Man, I remember a time that I as a viewer would have been much more excited at the prospect than I am now. McDreamy, where did you go? Mere then gathers up a few journals and happily kisses Derek to go downstairs and read. See, as that really so hard? Her VO asks, "So if death is not the end, what can you count on any more?"
You can count on this scene to be really awkward, that's for sure. Callie and Hahn are walking out of the hospital and Callie asks about her patient. Hahn fills her in and then informs Callie that she went to Richard and he shut her down, so now she's going to report what happened to UNOS. Callie is completely taken by surprise and sputters, "Whoa, whoa, what why?" Hahn is appalled when Callie asks what good would come of it, and when Callie asks if it would change Mike's outcome, Hahn yells angrily that he wouldn't even be there if not for Izzie. Callie asks if she's really going to cost the hospital its certification, patients new organs and people their jobs over what happens, as well as cost Izzie her career. Hahn absolutely can't believe that Callie is taking Izzie's side and I have to say, I agree. I fully believe where Callie is worried about the hospital as a whole, but it's a little much to have her fully looking out for Izzie. Callie tries to defend that doctors at the hospital have to look out for each other, but Erica shuts her down immediately. Amazingly, Callie continues to defend Izzie, telling Erica that unless she was there in the room with Izzie and Denny, she can't judge what happened. Hahn thinks it's easy. "There's right and there's wrong. And this was wrong. And illegal." Her voice has the same husky emotion it did last week when she realized she was gay, but this time it's not happy emotion. She spits, "You can't kind of think this is okay. You can't kind of side with Izzie Stevens." That said, she delivers her final blow. "And you can't kind of be a lesbian."
After taking a moment, Callie quietly informs her, "Yes I can." Mere cuts in, "Because you sure can't count on anything in life." Hahn laughs bitterly and tells her (now ex-) girlfriend, "I don't know you. At all." To tell the truth, I still feel like all along these two didn't know each other as well as they thought. Between Hahn reacting to every fear Callie had with the same blank smile and Callie not thinking that this thing with Izzie would be a big deal, the two both seem to have not really gotten one another. VO: "Life is the most fragile, unstable, unpredictable thing there is." With that, Hahn walks off alone to the parking lot while Callie stays after her, and we have a clumsy end to an equally clumsy storyline. And it's a shame, because Brooke Smith is an incredibly talented actress and could have added a lot if the show had given her some more depth and not then tried to force this relationship down our throat and insist it was totally organic.
Unfortunately, we're still stuck with Izzie here, although now there's the promise of her being in some trouble. She is in the locker room alone and as she unties her shoes, she's once again joined by a silent Dead Denny. Without looking at him, she tells him that he can't be there and she has to move on. I agree. Denny's dead, I miss him on the show, but I don't need to see his ghost trying to fill the space. Izzie pleads that the reason she had Mike as a patient today is so she could save his life and not feel guilty any more. Really, she's still feeling guilty? Because I've seen zero evidence of that, myself. She begs Denny to go and thing she knows, Alex is beside her where Denny had been. She grins and kisses her living boyfriend, then tells him she'll meet him at Joe's. He leaves, and Mere narrates, "In fact, there's only one thing about life we can be sure of." It's that Jeffrey Dean Morgan is going to have creepy guest spots until the END OF TIME, it seems, because there he is again. But this time, he finally speaks. "Are you sure you're okay?" She sighs while he smiles at her. Well, at least we got to hear his sexy voice -- that's my silver lining to this whole thing. Mere finishes: "It ain't over 'til it's over." With that, this hour's over.
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