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Derek has been spending his time in front of a roaring fire with Mere, thinking of how to cut out Izzie's tumor and thinks he's figured it out. The only problem is that there's a risk of also affecting Izzie's memories and personality, so she has a really hard time deciding what to do. She befriends Paris Geller, who decided against surgery and bought herself two unexpected years and seems to be doing great. That, and Meredith's ordering her not to have the surgery, makes her decide against. However, Paris then collapses and her surgery is unsuccessful and she winds up on a ventilator -- that, and a conversation with George where he tells Izzie she knows what she needs to do, makes her decide to do the surgery after all but to sign DNR so that she doesn't end up as a vegetable on life support if things go wrong. Alex is horrified, but Izzie convinces him it's the way to go, and he sobs and kisses her and sends her off to surgery. Meredith watches all this and realizes just how short life can be, so she asks Derek to go to the courthouse the day, because she doesn't want to not be married to him anymore.
George, Callie and Hunt are treating Matt Saracen, who is a soldier back from Iraq and with chronic pain in his leg as the result of an injury. He knows already that there isn't anything they can do to help that hasn't already been tried, so he begs them to amputate his leg so that he can get a prosthetic and go back to Iraq. Callie thinks he is nuts and refuses, but eventually he's able to convince her to do the surgery. When he explains why he wants to go back (that is his real family there, his family here doesn't understand him, and he could make a difference and help people) something clicks in George's mind and he goes and signs up to join the Army himself. Hunt is also affected by what Matt says and decides that the reason he is having a hard time in Seattle and hasn't even called his mom is because he has unfinished business there. But when he tells Cristina, he seems surprised that she flat-out refuses to support his decision. She finally admits, after the end of a horrible day with what happened with Izzie and Paris, that she doesn't want him to die. This seems to finally click, and he decides to visit his mom, with Cristina by his side. And his mom is none other than Edna Harper, who seems to have moved to Seattle from Everwood.
In lighter storylines, the Chief is trying to keep Bailey interested in general surgery and woos her with the purchase of a fancy surgical robot. She's delighted and spends the day doing awesome surgeries and skipping around like a giddy child, and winds up skipping a surgery with Arizona to use the machine instead. Arizona sees what is happening and tells Richard she's going to beat him at this game, because she has joy on her side. Bailey realizes this to be true when she finds Callie and Swender both shattered after their respective days, and so she takes them upstairs so that they can watch Arizona tell a kid's parents that he is going to be okay, and that warms everyone's hearts so that they can get out of bed to do more surgeries. Oh, and Mark asks Lexie to move in with him and she totally shoots him down as it turns out she's got the ten years of her life mapped out and apparently she can't reach her work goals if she's cohabitating with Mark, or something lame like that.
Check out part two of the finale here, then discuss both episodes in our forums. Then see vloggers Val and Beth debate the legality of the Izzie/Denny relationship in TV is the Answer!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Meredith starts us off by musing, "When something begins, you generally have no idea how it's going to end." That's true, we just had an earthquake as I was typing and I spent a few seconds doing the, "Is this going to get worse, or end?" thing. She adds, "The house you were going to sell becomes your home." Hmm. So a little bit different, I guess. The morning after the wedding, Mere and Derek are still in front of the fireplace, wedding decorations everywhere. "The roommates you were forced to take in become your family, and the one-night stand you were determined to forget becomes the love of your life." Derek wakes up Mere by stroking her face and tells her that he's been trying to figure out how to get to the brain tumor out of the head of one of those roommates. He's grinning because he thinks he's figured it out, and then tells Mere that once Izzie is clear they'll go get married on the beach in the Bahamas, where you can actually have drinks during the ceremony. Now that is my kind of wedding!
I didn't realize how long it had been since we had an establishing shot of a ferry, and it's a nice touch now that Derek is marrying his ferry boat. Alex is helping Izzie walk through the hospital, and she looks tons better than when we saw her last. She explains to a worried Alex that she has good days and bad days and wants to be up and around rather than just spend their entire honeymoon in a hospital bed. Alex thinks this isn't their honeymoon but Izzie assures him that it is. She is taking him to meet her patient friends, which he doesn't want to be a big deal, and she assures him it won't be. That said, she waltzes into the room, holds out her hand with a big white plastic ring with small, colored rhinestones embedded and sings, "I'm a briiiiide." Since everyone is in the room is getting chemo, they make a captive audience for Alex to assure them he's getting Izzie a real ring. She tells him that she loves this one and that makes it a real wedding ring, which I actually find totally charming and sweet -- and who would have thought I'd come around so much as to ever say that about Izzie? Anyhoo, she introduces him to Austin, Star, Meg, Miguel and Allison. (Allison is Paris from Gilmore Girls, which I loved, but it also made it a bit distracting when I kept forgetting her name was "Allison" and wondering who they were talking about.) Of course, on this occasion where guests are actually given names clearly and early on in the episode, it's totally moot, because we'll only ever see Allison again. She wants Alex to turn around so she can check out his butt and when Izzie fakes him out saying there's a trauma in the hall, Allison gets an eyeful and declares it, "quality booty." She then congratulates Izzie.
Hunt finds Cristina and reports that he had a good session with his doctor that morning but instead of giving him his own congratulations, she asks if he talked about his mom and if he's seen her, reminding the viewing audience at home that she lives nearby and thinks Owen is still in Iraq. He's super-uncomfortable and manages to say he's planning to see her, but when she asks him pointedly when, he's got no answer and she walks away. George then walks up to Hunt, confused to work with him since George isn't on trauma today.
The guys walk into a room where Callie is studying an X-ray that looks like a series of nails running through a bone. And that x-ray belongs to none other than Matt Saracen! I guess it's a good thing he graduated from high school and his football career earlier this year. He tells Hunt that his C.O. told him a lot about Owen and the two joke about their mutual friend. Matt is in the Army, and while Callie tells him nothing is functionally wrong with his leg; he explains that he can't do anything without pain, and that medications and physical therapy don't work. While it could be nerve damage or chronic pain syndrome, they could look into different ways to help him manage the pain, but she tells him there is nothing she can do. He thinks, however, that there is. "You could cut it off." He wants that so that he can get a prosthetic and go back to Iraq where he is needed.
Shockingly, Callie doesn't seem too keen on the idea and in the hallway demands to know if Hunt knew that's why Matt came here. He avoids answering and instead asks if it's unreasonable; she think that cutting off a viable limb is dismemberment, so yes. She and Hunt argue -- he points out that Matt is only 19 and thought he had his whole life figured out. He tells her that many soldiers have gone back with prosthetics but she wonders if any of those amputations were voluntary. Hunt doesn't know, but he tries to make her feel guilty by pointing out that Matt's C.O. sent him there because he trusts Hunt. George pipes up to suggest they do a new set of scans and an epidural for the pain. (I have no idea what the epidural has to do with Callie's decision, so maybe it's unrelated but George didn't explain that well?) She grudgingly agrees to it but declares that if the scans show the leg is healthy, she isn't cutting it off. George and Hunt exchange raised eyebrows which she can't see.
Arizona finds Bailey and asks if she is busy, but Bailey tells her that depends. "You have any more dying children you want me to become over-attached to before they expire?" But no, this time Arizona actually has something uplifting -- an 8-year-old with neuroblastoma, and she's certain he's going to live. "So scrub in with me and see the joy!" But before Bailey can answer, Richard asks to borrow her for a moment.
Once he has her, he asks her who Santa Claus is. No, not, "An old white man who lives at the North Pole and enters people's homes inappropriately," as she guesses. Richard himself is Santa Claus, and he opens the door to show a giant robot, which moves its many arms and says, "All systems ready." What I want to know is how did he time it so that they could walk in and have it know to ask the question just at that moment? Regardless, Bailey is stunned and can't believe that Richard got them a Da Vinci surgical robot when she had just about left general surgery. He asks her if she wants to take it for a spin, knowing full well what her reaction will be. Bailey declares, "Santa!" and giggles like a schoolgirl as an answer.
Mark finds Lexie at one of the nurses' stations and tells Lexie that with the upcoming McNuptials, Derek and Mere probably won't want them staying in the attic, so he wants to look for a condo. Derek walks up as Lexie gushes about how perfect it is for him to finally have a place of his own. Mark tells her he wants her to come with, but humiliatingly she excitedly tells him she'd love to go see it with him. She leaves, and Derek clears his throat; when Mark asks what he heard, Derek asks, "You mean the part where you asked her to move in with you or the part where she shot you down? I was here for both." He then tells Mark that it's way too early for the two to move in, and adds that Mark doesn't have to do everything Derek does. Wow, that was an arrogant statement even for the King of the Egomaniacs himself, Derek. Mark tells him that it's not about Derek, he's thinking about his own future and about how life is short -- look at Izzie. Derek tells him not to worry about Izzie, since he's got a plan. Well, if Derek has a plan everything will be fine and will be done without a hair budging out of its glorious place.
Swender still isn't on board with Derek's brand of know-it-allness and how she's supposed to bow down, so she's appalled that Derek wants to take out Izzie's hippocampus. Apparently it's a common procedure for seizure patients and he's done it a ton of times, but Swender gets him to admit that he hasn't done it on a cancer patient. Izzie seems to be stuck on the little matter of possibly losing her memory, and she could also lose her speech or any number of things. Swender wants to do some test I've never heard of but Derek brushes it off as useless. However, as her primary doctor Swender orders it to be done. Izzie and I both start to zone out, but as I contemplate my pedicure, Izzie...
Finds herself on the fakest beach set since "The Sun Also Sets" in Soapdish. She's wearing a bikini and big gold hoop earrings (which seems to be a total TV thing, because in real life I've never worn big earrings to the beach and never see anyone else doing it either) and sitting in a lounge chair, with Denny in a chair to her. But seriously, guys, you film this show in LA -- could you have not gotten a real beach for this hallucination? She's wearing a gorgeous, HUGE diamond ring and she and Denny discuss how many kids she wants to have. She wants to have them close together and wonders why she should wait -- especially if this surgery renders her unable to practice medicine because then she won't mind since she's looking after her kids. Denny keeps agreeing with her and when she asks why, he reminds her that he IS her, and that she's just talking to her own tumor. He then asks if she's going to have the surgery but he should know already that she doesn't have the answer.
Once she comes back from the beach, she walks down the hall with Alex while Cristina and Meredith trail behind. It looks like her options right now boil down to possibly losing her memory or possibly dying (and seriously, if she loses her memory it seems like she's still got the chance of dying on top of that) and she wants Alex to tell her what to do. Despite his sometimes acting like a caveman, he tells Iz he can't decide for her, even when she says that's what husbands do. He says that his job is to support what she wants to do, so since she's been thwarted she tries to put it to a vote. Of course no one is into that idea, either, but Alex tells her to just think about it. Unfortunately, as she points out, she doesn't really have time to think.
Matt and Hunt are joking around as George works, and when Hunt again references Matt's C.O., it gives Matt hope that Hunt thinks he will be able to go back. George then asks, with genuine curiosity, why Matt would want to cut off his leg to go to war. Matt's answer conveniently parallels George's life as he talks about how his family doesn't get him, and how he has nothing in common with them but that his guys in Iraq are his real family. A quick shot of Hunt shows he's taking some of this to heart. Matt adds that everything they got into in Iraq, they did together, but here he is alone and he's having a hard time trying to be just a regular person. There are lots of things he wanted to do, but none of them are here. George chews on all of this while Hunt nods sagely.
Swender isn't going to give in to Derek without a fight, and she brings Cristina in to show her Allison's scans. She had mets on her brain, liver and kidney that responded to five surgeries, followed by chemo, but then the mets came back. After that they used IL2, and after three treatments in three months, Cristina is stunned to look and see that all of them are gone. Swender thinks Izzie should be patient and give the IL2 a chance, and pointedly says that sometimes there's a better way to do things than just cutting. She seems to have done a good job, as Cristina seems awed.
Bailey, meanwhile, is doing surgery with Leo -- the Da Vinci machine, that is. She's still giggly and excited as she shows off some moves to the Chief, and then she starts making some whooshing noises as she works. The Chief asks dryly if she's making lightsaber noises and she controls herself, telling him, "Not anymore, sir." He then challenges her by telling her about another hospital that removed a gallbladder through a single bellybutton incision and asks if she wants to do that . She's beside herself, and can't help but resume the lightsaber noises.
Cristina is now playing the role of Swender and showing the scan to Meredith, who seems skeptical and points out that Izzie might not have three months for the IL2 to work. She's also stunned, since Cristina is never against cutting, but Cristina defends that she is against it if it's not in the patient's best interest. I don't entirely buy it, but fine. Mere asks if she thinks Derek isn't acting in Izzie's best interest when, speak of the devil, he pops his head in the door. He looks kind of suspicious, which has to be at least in part by how flat-out guilty Meredith looks when she whips around. He tells them that they are ready in radiology and then between his last suspicious glance and Cristina and Meredith's pointed glares at each other, there's a lot of eye-acting going on here.
Izzie's on a table with little silver nodes on her head, and Meredith and Derek are all decked out in their finest lead smocks. Mere explains what they will be doing, which Izzie knows -- Mere will show her some flashcards, then Derek puts half of her brain to sleep, and then she tries to tell Mere what she saw. Knowing absolutely nothing medically about this test except what I've just heard on TV, I have to agree with Derek that it might not be the most accurate representation of what could happen because... a full half of her brain? That's way more than just the portion Derek wants to remove, and I feel like that would have a lot of effect on things. But hey, I'm not a doctor, I just snark about them on TV. Izzie starts to show off and get too detailed in her descriptions of the images, which are of a dog, plane, and house. She chants that to herself as Derek does the brain sleep thing, but almost immediately her speech drops off. Mere tries to ask her what she saw, but Izzie can't even form words, much less remember. As it turns out, Izzie doesn't seem to remember Meredith or Derek either, and when Mere tells her to nod if she knows who Alex is, she just stares up with terrified, wide eyes.
Swender and Derek are once again arguing about Izzie's treatment in front of her. Given the results, Swender isn't totally crazy about trying out this surgery, but Derek argues that it was the worst scenario and has nothing to do with the actual surgery. His argument is that not operating is as risky as operating. This all is really helping Izzie, especially as it's taking place right in front of her. She asks Alex and again he throws it back to her, so the doctors leave them, but Alex follows Derek out. Meredith then shuts the door, turns to her friend, and announces... "You are not having the surgery."
Alex then asks Derek the question that we all saw on ABC about 47 times or so in the promo. He tells Derek to talk to him like a friend rather than a doctor, and tell him what to do. When Derek tells him that he can't, Alex pulls out the big guns and asks what Derek would do if it was Meredith. Would he choose having a few months with her knowing she was going to die and watching her in pain, or would he choose to spend his life with someone who was no longer actually Meredith? Alex calls Izzie the one good thing that has happened to him, although I would argue that Meredith was a good thing, and this job was a good thing... but it makes this scene all the heavier like that. Derek tells him that he would ask Mere to have the surgery.
Meredith, meanwhile, is convincing Izzie to do just the opposite by telling her about how Izzie couldn't remember anything including who anyone was or even how to speak. Izzie is confused, because... no one told her this until now? That seems like a rather glaring omission of Important Information. Izzie then asks again what she should do, so Meredith tells her about Allison's success with the IL2 and then announces, "you're not having this surgery."
So then Izzie goes to talk to Allison herself about it. Of course Allison's vote is to not do the surgery, but Izzie points out how bad her hallucinations have gotten -- she's having conversations with dead people (well, dead person) and right now sees birds flying around Allison's head. We get a bit of Allison's backstory: she rowed crew in college and occasionally forgot her sunscreen, because life was great and it wouldn't matter, of course until it did and she had a ton of surgeries. She gave up figuring she would die but the IL2 worked, and now no tumor anymore. Show of hands: how many people thought at this point that Allison's storyline was going to end well? Yeah, that's what I thought.
Callie is still arguing with Matt about cutting off his leg (con) to cure the pain (pro). Hunt is taking the dangerous position of getting on Callie's bad side when he doesn't just back her up -- she points out that this is no guarantee the pain will be gone, but Hunt agrees with Matt that it might. She argues that it will be months until the prosthetic has fitted, it's won't feel like his leg but rather like a pinching hulk of metal. And the Army could say no. After some more back and forth like that, he completely snaps and yells, "Do you think I want you to cut my leg off? Of course not." Mmmm, Matt Saracen yelling, with no tentative mumbling and stumbling? He's even cuter now. He's not sure of anything except that he's in hell with a pain pill habit that's ineffective and that nothing she can say will scare him. So are they going to do this or no?
Chief and Bailey come out of surgery and run into Arizona, where the Chief brags about Bailey's just having removed a gallbladder through a guy's bellybutton. Arizona goes from impressed to disturbed, but Bailey quickly tells her how awesome and good it is. The Chief offers her another surgery that afternoon and she accepts, having totally forgotten about the neuroblastoma surgery with Arizona. Arizona assures her that it's fine and she's got the rest of her life for that, so Bailey happily runs off to lunch.
Once she's gone, Arizona glares at the Chief and walks towards him over some quirky music. She announces, "I am going to cry and I just want you to know that it's going to happen, and I just want you to ignore it." She apparently cries when she gets mad at people in authority, which is somehow connected to her daddy issues. The funniest thing is that through her anger and tears, she still manages to be peppy as she throws down a gauntlet. She knows the Chief is trying to lure Bailey back to general surgery with the robot because she doesn't have one, and kids are not as fun as robots. A parent or two might possibly take exception to this statement, especially from their child's surgeon, but they would have to agree that kids aren't shiny and new and can't pull things out of a bellybutton. Actually no. They'd have to agree to the shiny and new, but I would say that children have definitely pulled stuff out of their bellybuttons. Just not a gallbladder. I hope. Wow, that was a long ride to Tangentville! But her point is that she is going to fight him and win, because what she has that he doesn't is joy. Again, one could argue... okay, fine. Let's just leave it. The Chief chuckles in disbelief that she thinks she can contend, so he just wishes her good luck and leaves.
Alex walks into Izzie's room to find her going over the IL2 schedule with Swender and Cristina. It takes him a few moments to catch on, and Izzie has to tell him she's not doing the surgery. The doctors realize they need a moment and walk as quickly as possible out the door and then Alex shuts it to yell at Izzie that she's having the surgery. When she asks what happened to it being her decision, he yells that he only said that because he thought she'd make the right one. It's oddly comforting to have old Alex bust through like this, probably because, although he's infuriating, he's doing it out of love for his new wife. He yells at her that now that they are married it's his life at stake as well as hers, and informs her that she's having the surgery. She shuts her eyes and sighs, already forgetting that she just ordered him to tell her what to do. I have found, somewhere, sometimes deep, deep in my heart, a little bit of sympathy for Izzie but it's really only a little, and this isn't one of those times.
Derek has pulled Cristina into a conference room and is reading her the riot act for talking Izzie out of the surgery so much that she can't get a word in edgewise. Unlike last time Cristina was in trouble, however, Mere runs in and rescues her, telling Derek that she's the one who did it. Derek's shoulders slump in the realization that once again his fiancée has infuriated him. Cristina takes her leave and suggests an apology but Derek's look sends her out the door as-is, and he then shakes his head. Meredith reminds him that she saw what happened to her mother as she disappeared and lost her memory and her dignity as she declined. Derek isn't terribly sympathetic and argues that Izzie isn't her mother and has a treatable tumor, so she can't make this personal. He then orders her in no uncertain terms to go back and change Izzie's mind as a doctor, his resident, rather than as a friend, because her tumor could kill her.
Hunt then finds Cristina and pulls her into a supply closet for a "consult." Sadly it's a less sexy "consult" than happens most of the time when one doctor pulls another into an empty room. He excited tells her that he's figured out what's wrong -- he hasn't gone to see his mom because a part of him is still in Iraq, and that he hasn't fulfilled his commitment to his unit. He would still be there if not for what happened to his unit and so he has unfinished business which is why he can't move forward with Cristina or anything else. For someone who seems to have come far with his therapy, it seems awfully dense for him to think that his PTSD might get better if he goes back to the war zone. On the other hand, though, he could really believe that facing it head-on could help him get over it. She's totally stunned as he concludes that he has to go back, and then he's stunned when he realizes she's not jumping for joy at the prospect. He asks her for her support, but she informs him he doesn't have it, and she walks out.
Matt, meanwhile, gets on his crutches and goes to find Callie and George to apologize. They try to stop him but it's something he needs to do, since he knows they were trying to do their jobs. "And your job is to put people back together, not take them apart." He knows it doesn't make sense for him to want to go back to somewhere that people are getting hurt and dying, but he wants to help people just like they do as doctors. The camera focuses in on George's face as Matt is talking so that we really, truly don't miss that he's Learning Something from this. Matt then asks them to think about what they'd do if they couldn't be doctors anymore -- wouldn't they do anything they could to be doctors once again? Callie's mouth drops open a little and George just does some extra-deep brow furrowing.
Izzie is now up in Allison's room, moping about how she and Alex had their first fight. Allison tries to cheer her up with talk of makeup sex, although I would think at this point Izzie would just want to one day have married sex at all before she contemplates makeup sex. She then tries to chatter about the birds Izzie sees around her head. Izzie doesn't really bite and keeps talking about her brain surgery and her husband, like it's a giant, life-changing decision or something. Allison assures her that Alex will come around, even if it takes her getting back to work, tumor-free for him to really do it, and then she muses some more about the hallucinated birds just so we really do know she's chipper and likable and optimistic.
Mere finds Cristina and tells her to talk to Izzie, but Cristina's having none of it since she thinks it's just Meredith trying to get Derek to not be mad at her. Cristina presented the options to her as a doctor should and let her make the decision. Mere, however, actually fesses up to what she did, admitting she presented it more like, "You're having the surgery over my dead body." It's like they've switched roles, it's such a Cristina statement, but Cristina is just aghast as Meredith adds that Derek has a right to be mad. Cristina then gets some sort of crappy page, so she and Mere will have to finish this later.
She and Mere run into Allison's room to find Izzie doing compressions in a panic on her new friend, and Cristina takes over and yells for Swender.
Matt's plea seems to have finally gotten through to Callie, because she's firing up the bone saw in the OR. She's still not happy about it, though, and asks Hunt to remind her why she's doing this. Hunt sighs and says that Matt could possibly go back and fight, win and save lives, but if they don't do the surgery he won't have a chance. He insists that they are saving him, not crippling him. George then adds, "We're doing what he wants." Oh, that! Callie nods, and oh my god I have to cover my ears over the squeal of the bone saw as she starts to work. By "cover my ears" I might also mean "cower into the sofa in the fetal position" because something about that noise makes me picture just what is happening, even if it's not to a real person.
Cristina and Swender are in the other OR, manhandling Allison's bowel. Cristina reports no perforation but Swender yells at her to run it again, sure that it's there. As she works, Cristina sighs, "So much for IL2." Swender must be having some of the same thoughts, or else she wouldn't have immediately jumped down Cristina's throat, demanding to know if Cristina thought this was her fault. Cristina is surprised and very sincerely denies it, but obviously Swender's been bouncing this around in her subconscious, at the very least. She vehemently defends what she's done, reminding Cristina that there is no cure for cancer and instead it's just doctors fighting as hard as they can, which means using horrible toxins that can very occasionally kill the patient. Whoopsie! She reminds Cristina that Allison has had 2 years after a prognosis of 3 months, so Swender isn't giving up on Allison or the IL2, and neither is Cristina. Yeah, say that all you want, but while I don't at all think she pins this on Swender, I also think she's kind of giving up on the IL2.
Mark finds Lexie and manages to admit that he was asking her to move in if she wants to. Lexie is stunned but happy, since she would like to move in, although not right away. Of course, as Mark suggests a year, she suggests ten years. Wait, what? Both Mark and I wonder what the hell as Lexie goes on to explain how she'll be a resident for six more years and then she'll want to get her practice up and running. I can't believe that they sucked me in and made me believe and like this couple, and now they are having Lexie spout this absolute stupid crap out of left field. I don't know any person, no matter what your thoughts or beliefs, that sets a goal of dating someone for ten years but oh boy, then they'll move in together! They negotiate on the years a bit, but she's got the excuse of still being a resident at the ready. Mark reminds her about Izzie, Alex, Meredith and Bailey -- all residents who are happily married or about to be so. Well... sort of, at least. Lexie then gets nervous and stutters as she asks if Mark just asked her to marry him. He didn't, but he tries to act suave as he asks, "Why, would you?" Lexie manages to squeak, "Should we be having this conversation?" and Mark admits probably not, so they both run off their separate ways. But seriously, what the heck? She's been basically shacking up with him but now living with him will thwart her career plans? This is just dumb all around, and feels like they didn't have anything for these two in the finale so they decided on the fly to write up this drivel for them.
Bailey is still giggling as she heads out of another surgery with a very smug Richard who gives Arizona a pointed look as they walk up. Arizona makes her own move and saunters over to Bailey to congratulate her. After a moment Bailey remembers to ask about Arizona's surgery, and Arizona reports that it went amazing and the kid will make a full recovery. She admits that's why she wanted Bailey there -- because the kids they can save almost make up for the ones they can't. She's off to go monitor the kid and then tell his family the good news and invites Bailey to stop by and "See the joy." That said, she smiles proudly at the Chief and walks off while he shows off his angry squinty face in her direction.
Izzie shuffles into the ICU to see Allison, who is unconscious and on a ventilator. From a distance she watches as Swender tells them about the surgery, and how they couldn't finish because she was too unstable. Cristina looks away from the grieving parents and brother to watch Izzie, and then turns back as the family tries to get assurances that Allison will come out of this okay. Swender is overcome and unable to finish, so Cristina jumps in and gently breaks it to them that she probably won't be able to come off the ventilator. Swender just stares with giant wide and an air of desperate panic about her as the family breaks down, and Cristina turns back to Izzie, who has been watching everything.
Izzie then escapes to the faux seaside with Denny and stares at the "sky" with tears in her eyes until she realizes someone is calling her name.
George shows up in response to a page -- remember, these two used to be friends and George used to get more than two lines an episode? She still doesn't know what to do and figures she's dying either way, and asks George to tell her what to do. George, however, has the first calm and logical response to her plea: she knows what to do. She argues this but he points out that she's scared, and that's the only reason she's waffling, but that she made the decision back when she decided to fight the cancer in the first place. He tells her to look at how far she's come, to be a great surgeon and teacher (albeit with mania and drastic mood swings, only some of which can be explained away by the cancer) and then puts his arm around her. She leans into him and cries, in a scene that reminds me of how I liked when these two were really just best friends lo those many seasons ago, and he tells her, "You know exactly what you have to do."
Derek is reading and furrowing his brow like a champ when Mere and Izzie walk in and Izzie announces that he can do the surgery. He nods but can tell that something else is coming so he doesn't say anything and Izzie goes on to say she doesn't want to end up a vegetable. Mere tries to assure her this won't happen but Izzie cuts her off and says that she doesn't want to be on a ventilator and so she's signing a DNR. The look on Mere's face says that Izzie didn't tell her this before, and Derek finally looks more concerned than cocky.
She said that she wanted the surgery right away and she wasn't kidding -- Alex is walking to her as they wheel her to the OR, and he begs for her to change her mind about the DNR. He's panicked and reminds her how nuts she went when Denny did the same thing, asking if she wants him cutting LVAD wires and ruining his career, because dammit, he'll do that. I kind of can't care about this whole argument, because Izzie's comeback is that she just didn't understand when Denny did it, but now she does -- so I feel like maybe she should have a little bit more sympathy for Alex for not understanding. On the flip side, Alex is a doctor and knows the consequences and should probably try harder to understand, because I think he's fully capable. She then tells him that where his eyes should be, she sees white sandy beaches, and there is an ocean behind his head with ghosts (again with the bullshit plural) wandering in and out, and she can't live like this. She pleads with him to not do anything crazy, and if things go wrong, to just let her go. Alex sniffles with tears in his eyes and Mere just stares at the floor as Izzie asks Alex to kiss her. He does, and they wheel her away. Before Meredith and Derek follow them in, Mere admits that she always thought it would be her that got Alzheimer's and forgot everyone. She then tells him, "Let's go to City Hall tomorrow. I don't want to spend another day not being married to you." He agrees and they kiss as Izzie is wheeled away.
Hunt finds Cristina on a bench outside, defeat and exhaustion radiating from every pore. He sits to her but doesn't say anything, and she begins to talk about how it doesn't matter how good you are, how hard you work, or how much you research and master techniques because the patient is still going to die. Even if you fix someone today, they could go out later and get hit by a car (hmmm) or find a mole on their back, "And there's nothing you can do about it." This seems to have helped her find what she needed to say and so she turns to him and says, "I don't want you to die." He stares back but doesn't answer.
Bailey finds Swender and Callie both looking like empty husks of people in one of the lounges, and when she asks what is wrong Callie mumbles that she cut off a healthy leg and feels like a butcher even though it was for the guy's own good. Swender can't believe that her miracle case is on life support after she thought the miracle really was complete and adds that she hates this job sometimes. Callie adds a similar sentiment, so Bailey puts on her no-nonsense voice and orders them to follow her.
The two shuffle along behind Bailey, no longer giggling, and she leads them to pediatrics where Arizona is in a room hugging two happy parents while one of the cutest little boys on the planet beams from in the bed. I know I've seen this kid before somewhere but can't place it -- but damn, he could solve world peace with his precious little face, all neuroblastoma-free. Bailey tells them, "We came to see that," but Callie doesn't get it until Bailey explains, "The joy. It comes around rarely, so rarely we forget it can happen, but that. That's why we do this. The joy." Both of the other doctors smile -- a little bit sadly, but they are still smiles.
Meredith's VO starts, showing that this really was two fully separate episodes of the show that ABC lumped into a solid time block for good finale ratings. "We spend our whole lives worrying about the future. Planning for the future. Trying to predict the future." Cristina is in Owen's Jeep and he asks her if she'll come with him. We don't know where, and we don't know what she does as Mere goes on. "As if figuring it out will somehow cushion the blow."
"But the future is always changing." At an Army recruiting center, a guy walks into the office of the man in charge and says they have one more, a doctor who has to do it today. He leaves and there's a knock at the door, which opens...
On Edna, having moved from Everwood to Seattle. While she stares, disbelieving, Meredith says, "The future is the home of our darkest fears." After a moment Edna asks, "Owen?" Cristina is in fact standing to him as he says hello to his mother and tells her he's home; she then grabs him in a desperate bear hug and cries while Owen closes his own eyes and holds her, and by now I'm crying, too, because of all the things that get me, old people crying is up very near to the top of the list. "And our wildest hopes." Cristina gives a little bit of a smile as they continue to hug.
"But one thing is certain. When it finally reveals itself... the future is never the way we imagined it." The Army paperwork is handed back to the officer, who shakes someone's hand and welcomes him to the Army. And with that, the camera pans over to reveal that it's George, and we fade to the title card, having most likely not imagined this (unless you read spoilers).
Check out part two of the finale here, then discuss both episodes in our forums. Then see vloggers Val and Beth debate the legality of the Izzie/Denny relationship in TV is the Answer!