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Considering we've got two episodes of Grey's back-to-back to create this two-hour season finale, they don't waste any time getting down to business. And what would that business be, exactly? Well, that would be thinning down this overlarge cast. And how would they do that? With a shooter in the hospital.
Of course this means that we start out with a bunch of extra happy people -- Meredith finds out that she's pregnant, and though it's an accident she's happy about it, if a little freaked out, and Cristina is thrilled for her. She doesn't tell Derek yet though because he's in a bad paperwork mood when she gets to his office, so she makes plans to tell him that night. Unfortunately, she has no idea that Gary Clark -- the one whose wife was unplugged and who filed the wrongful death suit against the hospital -- has arrived at the hospital armed and is looking for her husband. He tries to ask a few different people where Derek is but everyone is busy with a bunch of crazy emergencies all at once and everyone he asks brushes him off. When he finds Reed getting supplies and she's a snot to him, he announces his intentions for the day by shooting her basically point-blank in the head. Alex hears the commotion and comes around the corner and gets shot in the chest for his trouble. He manages to pull himself to the elevator and climb in, probably figuring someone will find him there sooner than in a darkened corridor. As April is going about her business she trips over something and when she realizes it's Reed's body, she runs to Derek's office in shock and finally manages to tell him what's going on. The protocol is to put the hospital on lockdown, so that's what happens, trapping everyone inside on their floors (and trapping a very helpless feeling Richard outside, as he was having breakfast and not at work yet when it all went down). Before everyone realizes what is happening and the lockdown is issued, Gary and Cristina wind up in an elevator together and he asks her how to find Derek; she's feeling pensive about her breakup with Owen and Mere's pregnancy and so is surprisingly calm and nice to him, giving him directions. In thanks for that he keeps his gun hidden and they wish each other good day before he goes off to continue his murderous rampage.
Gary starts wandering about looking for Derek and starts shooting people in his path, but he seems to be making a special effort to get surgeons. Mark and Lexie are together when he starts firing into a crowd and after he leaves escape to an elevator, where they find Alex, who looked very horrifyingly dead for a moment. He's alive, but not doing well, and they take him to a conference room to work on him; after realizing the bullet is still in his chest and giving him a chest tube Mark realizes he needs blood, and Lexie decides to go get it since Mark is the one who knows how to treat Alex and therefore needs to stay with him.
Bailey and Percy are caring for Mandy Moore, who is in the hospital awaiting surgery and who has her cute husband Pete in tow. When she finds out she can't have surgery that day she sends him off to get her some pizza, and so he winds up trapped outside with Richard. Meanwhile, Percy leaves the room and finds out what's going on, so he runs in to warn Mandy and Bailey. In some quick thinking Bailey has him hide and Mandy play dead while she hides under the bed, and it works for a bit until Percy makes a noise in the bathroom. Gary goes in there and shoots him when he finds out Percy is a surgeon, and then when he comes back out he realizes Bailey is hiding and pulls her out from under the bed (the shot ABC has been milking for a week now). He demands to know if she's a surgeon but she manages to squeak that she's a nurse, and so he leaves her unharmed and leaves. She then has to try and care for Percy who has a gunshot wound to the abdomen, but she's understandably a bit of a mess and it's a fight to hold herself together, especially as her assistant is Mandy, who can only barely help because she is so panicked. They both do the best they can, though, and Bailey tells Percy sternly that he's not dying though obviously he (and probably she) think differently.
Teddy and Hunt have a patient who was shot after a fender bender -- my guess is that he ran into Gary on his way in to the hospital -- and the lockdown comes while they are in surgery so no one checks their pagers and knows what's up. Derek comes and tells only Avery, with instructions for Avery to tell them only after surgery is over. Hunt doesn't take being kept in the dark very well and eventually decides to take his patient to ICU anyway because [some medical situation that I will understand better when I watch this again for the full recap] and Teddy goes with him, ignoring his trying to order her to stay. In another tense wing of the hospital, Callie and Arizona are locked down with Graciella (who we haven't seen in months and I kind of fear for her now) in pediatrics with only a few nurses and a ton of kids. They decide to keep the kids all together in the playroom but fight with each other the whole time, because Callie has decided this is a good time to talk about their relationship woes. They're brought back to the present by one patient whose appendix explodes, so my guess is we're seeing more hallway surgery in the hour.
Finally, Cristina and Meredith ignore the lockdown order as they figure it's a drill, and Derek finds them wandering about and chatting. He tells them about the shooter and has them hide in a supply closet, where they are almost caught by Gary, who Cristina recognizes as the man in the elevator. But he doesn't come in and instead finds his way to Derek, and they have an artsy standoff on the walkway to his office, where Derek tries to talk him out of shooting him. Cristina and Mere have made their way out of the closet and can see but not hear what's happening, which is that Derek almost manages to talk Gary out of shooting him. Unfortunately April, who Derek has ordered to stay in his office, runs out, relieved that he's back and not seeing Gary there. That movement breaks the spell, and Gary shoots Derek directly in the chest, while Cristina holds a screaming Mere back on the other side of the floor. And with that, we head to the second episode. --Lauren S
Want more? The full recap starts right below!"For most people, a hospital is a scary place," purr the dulcet, still slightly whiny tones of Meredith Grey. It's been almost two years since I stopped watching this show, but I'd still know that voice-over anywhere. While Mere talks about how most people think hospital are foreboding palaces of sickness and death but not her because she was raised in a hospital, we survey over several images from Seattle Grace and its favorite sons and daughters: Lexie and Alex waking up all awkward in the on-call room (he knocks her over when her pager goes off); a woman cries as a dead patient is wheeled away; Richard sits at a diner and reads the newspaper, fingering his AA six-month chip; Cristina and Callie weep into their cereal over their respective breakups; and Meredith takes a pregnancy test into the bathroom and gets to aiming. Later, she waits for April and Percy to leave the locker room before she reads it. Preggo, y'all. "The hospital was my safe place," the Mere VO continues. "My sanctuary. I love it here," she says as she walks smiling down the hallway, happier than I ever remember seeing her. As she does, she crosses paths with a man who I know primarily as Secret Service Agent Ron Butterfield from The West Wing, though y'all will know him better as Mr. Clark, widower. They pass each other, and either she doesn't recognize him or is too much on a cloud to even see him. Either way, her VO says, "Correction: loved it here." Then the screen goes white and the title card says "OH SHIT." Or else, it should.
Once we're back, Mere has already told Cristina, who is freaking out a little bit. Was this planned? (No.) "So are we happy about this, or are we exercising our legal right to choose?" Meredith can't even answer, she's too busy smiling like a goof. Which is all the answer Cristina needs. I have to say, Cristina's developed a bit since I saw her last. The old Cristina never would have laughed at this moment and hugged Meredith over this clearly happy news. Mere hasn't told Derek yet, but she's says she's going to now. They're each paged (by Teddy and Derek, you can guess who's paging who), and Mere asks about the Teddy/Owen sitch. Cristina isn't entirely convincing as she brightly says she's over it. Cristina says she's proud of this "very adult" path Mere's about to walk down, and they depart, giggling about hoping the baby has Derek's hair. Okay, evolved or not, there is no way Meredith and Cristina being this cheerful isn't a bad omen.
Mr. Clark wanders around the halls semi-aimlessly, occasionally asking people where he can find the Chief of Surgery. He's getting no help, probably due to the fact that there are sick people everywhere who need to be tended to. Alex blows him off, and from there we cross perspectives to Arizona and Lexie, who are tending to little Kendall, who needs to have her appendix removed. Arizona reassures Kendall's nervous parents while, behind her, Callie crosses and shoots Arizona the evil eye behind her back. She snaps at Alex (and apologizes) before completely ignoring a greeting from Arizona and stomps off.
Elsewhere, continuing the theme of silent treatments, Teddy isn't speaking to Owen as they march off to surgery. You know, because Owen tried to get Derek to fire her so he wouldn't have to choose between her and Cristina. I didn't even have to look that up; Teddy just said it all out loud.
Still elsewhere, Bailey and Percy tend to a patient who looks like a really worn down version of Mandy Moore. WAIT A SECOND! Yeah, Mandy's our special guest host this week, as a patient who's in between two surgeries to do something-something, and in the interim she's gotta wear a colostomy bag, which she finds appropriately gross. She's complaining (adorably) about having to wait for a blood transfusion before she can have the second surgery, and she's dying to be able to eat real food. She's so hungry she could eat Percy. You guys, at this point, if I'd have been able to put a thousand dollars down that Mandy was going to die in the two hours, I honestly would have. I was POSITIVE. Bailey gives her a sweet Bailey pep talk and says they'll have her up and eating again, "so you don't have to eat Dr. Percy. I don't like him, but he's useful." That comment earns her a wary look from Percy, but nothing more. Mandy sends her wicked cute husband (played by Ryan Devlin, who I immediately recognized as Smith from the excellent Cougar Town and also from the final season of Veronica Mars, where even back then, Couch Baron and I were hoping for bigger and better things. Needless to say, we were probably envisioning better than nabbing the lead in the Shit My Dad Says show. Alas, where was I? Right: wicked cute husband) for some pizza, the bowel cleanse/enema that will follow be damned. Mandy then demands Percy check out her husband's hot ass. Step aside, Dr. Percy, I've got this.
Yet farther elsewhere, Teddy and Owen's patient is a car-accident victim who was then shot by the guy who hit him. I'm not sure it's ever said who did it, but you have to wonder if it was Mr. Clark, right? The patient says he only got out to exchange insurance info, and Clark would obviously not have wanted to be slowed down. Anyway, we're getting ahead of ourselves now. For the moment, the patient's girlfriend is hysterical and needs to be removed from the trauma room, and the patient starts bleeding out. Emergency surgery, then! Cristina comes in, responding to Teddy's page. Teddy needs her to cover her post-ops. Cristina asks if that means she's not scrubbing in on this one. Owen starts to say something, but Cristina shuts him down quick, then agrees to do the post-ops without fuss.
Mr. Clark's still looking for the Chief of Surgery, but nobody has time for him. Looking angrier now, he steps into the supply room. He finds Reed in there and asks her, this time asking for Shepherd by name. She doesn't know, and he grabs her arm as she tries to walk past. He pressed, and she snaps at him that she's got a patient having seizures. Go find a nurse. She walks away, but when he asks again, she turns around and begins to say he's not even supposed to be back here, when BAM! He shoots her right in the head! Like, chunks of brain pouring out of the hole in her dome after she hits the floor. Whoa. Alex rounds the corner, sees Reed on the floor, but before he can process it, or let out anything beyond a "Dude..." Clark shoots him too! In the side, this time, but Alex goes down. At this point, you could call me "intrigued."
After the break, Alex is alive but seriously struggling. With the use of pretty much one arm, he drags himself into an elevator, then somehow reaches up to hit the button. All the while, you're expecting Clark to come finish him off. Since, for better or for worse, this has now become an actual horror movie. As Lauren said in the recaplet, Alex likely figured he'd be more likely to be found in an elevator than in a dark supply closet. Oh how wrong he was! See you in about 30 minutes, Karev.
Meredith doesn't know that yet, so she's still disconcertingly smiley as she steps into Derek's office. Derek is less boundlessly cheery as bureaucratically stifled at the moment. Sensing it's not the right time, Mere makes plans for tonight at home. Pushing papers around his desk like a champ, Derek can only say, "I hate that you're so happy right now." To Meredith's credit, that potentially ill-timed remark rolls off her back, and she tells him to look forward to the dirty sex they'll be having tonight. Derek's all, "Okay, twist my arm."
In the O.R., Teddy, Owen, and Avery are working on the gunshot victim. Cristina pops in to consult about bla-blah-medical-jargon for one of her patients. Teddy's impressed at Cristina making a good catch, but before Cristina can leave, Owen says he'd like her to scrub in. Cristina declines. He asks Teddy and Avery to keep the patient stable, as the surgery can wait until after he's talked to his girlfriend. So I see that's still happening. Out in the hallway, Cristina pounces on Owen, saying HE pursued HER, and she wants to know: "Do you love her? Or do you love me?" His inability to answer is enough. "I'm done," she says.
April walks into the supply room with her face buried in a chart. She doesn't see Reed's dead body in the middle of the floor, nor the vast spill of blood that surrounds her. Doesn't see it even she it as she trips over it (taking a seriously nasty fall on her face that honestly looked like it broke her nose). She puts one hand to her nose, which is bleeding a little. Then she picks up her other hand, which is severely bloody from the ground. That's when she looks back and sees Reed. And that's when she starts shaking so bad I wonder if SHE'S the patient with seizures Reed was talking about.
April bursts into Derek's office, unable to speak, but Derek can see she's covered in blood. He asks her what happened, and she starts hyper-babbling about growing up on a farm and being used to blood and slaughtering pigs and you wouldn't think a skinny girl like that could even have that much blood in her but oh man, there was so much blood. (Sidebar: Would a gunshot to the head produce that much blood. I mean, I guess in a closed system, blood would just rush to any opening it could find, but it's not like this was a chest wound where all the big blood-pumps are. Hi! This is gross.) Derek tells April she's in shock, and he gets her to calm down enough for her to tell him that Reed's dead, and someone shot her.
Cristina gets into an elevator, and we all get to have our own private freakout when we see Clark's there with her. He asks her for directions to the Chief's office. She very nicely explains that it's in the east wing, across the third-floor catwalk and into the main lobby. He thanks her for her help. Again on the "how far Cristina's come" tip, but to think somebody got shot for being irritable and snappy to Mr. Clark when asked a simple question and it WASN'T Cristina? Even after she's just broken up with her boyfriend? I'm impressed. And, indeed, Clark rewards her non-bitchery by declining to shoot her after he exits the elevator. She even gets a "Have a nice day"!
Back from the break, and Alex is still on the floor of that elevator, and not looking good. Blood everywhere, ashen face, breathing not very easy. Up in Derek's office, he's in the phone with security and frantically paging through contingency plans. I know this is supposed to play up how green he is at this Chief-of-Staff stuff, but honestly? This information can't be anything you're ever going to have to think of. Unless you're on a show written by Shonda Rhimes. They decide on a lockdown -- everybody stays put. Which...you know, I'm not going to question it. This is Grey's Anatomy, I'm not really expecting fidelity to modern-day crisis management procedures. Anyway, April is still a whimpering mess, while Derek keeps repeating "I'm the Chief" to himself as he heads out into the war zone. ...Yeah, these are the two I want as the first line of defense against an armed madman.
Space Needle! We're in Seattle! The old Chief is sitting in that same coffee shop, reading the paper, when he spots a cop car flying down the street. Followed by another. And another. There's a doings a-transpiring! Richard slaps a twenty on the table and gets moving.
Up in Peds, Callie comes in looking for a chart and pointedly ignoring Arizona. They get the call that they're on lockdown, which totally makes Callie's day. Arizona uses that practiced calm voice that comes with a career in pediatrics to inform the staff that they're sealing the floor and to attend to the patients and do not alarm them. Callie continues to throw attitude (reminding me that part of the reason I stopped watching was because Callie was starting to become self-absorbed and whiny like the rest of 'em), until Arizona's like, "What, you can't be on the same floor as me? That's a hardship?" Callie snots that it is, actually. Oh, lesbian drama. What are they arguing about having babies or something? ...Oh. Oh, all right.
Bailey's back with Mandy, who's been freshly transfused. She notes that Cute Ryan Devlin hasn't made it back with her pizza yet and generally tosses off a few more Plucky Adorable Patient vibes that definitely had me sizing her up for a death scene. (Turns out I was half right, but let's not get ahead of ourselves and/or start sobbing.) Bailey gets the page about lockdown and looks troubled.
Derek walks into Teddy and Owen's O.R. and pulls Avery aside. He tells him about the shooter and says that when surgery's over and the patient is stable, they're all to stay put until they hear otherwise. Avery takes a moment to look thoroughly freaked out before returning to the table. He goes to provide suction for Teddy, and Owen notes his shaky hands. Yeah, I'd say so.
Meredith finds Cristina in a hallway, and they muse un-seriously about the lockdown. "It's probably just a drill," Cristina says, "or a psych patient got out. Or a baby went missing from the nursery." Okay, the sarcastic edge she just gave "nursery" tells me we've still got some of the old Cristina. "Or," she says cheerfully, "there's an axe murderer on the loose." Meredith smiles and says that would at least mean mucho surgeries. Because they're so dark and twisted, you guys! They LIKE carnage! Boy, I hope nothing happens to remind them of the gravity of the place where they live and work. Cristina then asks if Mere told Derek about the baby and/or if he wept "like a bitch-baby" when she did. Mere says she hasn't told him yet, because he was in a mood. She wants it to be special. "You find out in the ladies room squatting over a stick," Cristina says. "Why does he get special?" Mere feels like her head's gonna pop off if she doesn't tell him, so she decides to tell him right now. Cristina wants to be there to see the bitch-baby tears, so she's coming too. It's saying that she broke up with Owen that convinces Mere to let her come along. Aw.
Down in the waiting room, Lexie asks Mark to sign a chart for something, while Mark wants to make small talk about the lockdown and Alex and how much he misses her. Lexie would rather he just sign the chart. A nurse yells at an unseen man that nobody's allowed to leave the floor. The man, Clark, turns around and fires two shots into her, and the room explodes into screaming and chaos. Mark hauls Lexie to the ground with him. They crawl over to Nurse Vivian, who is totally dead, and Mark picks Lexie up and bolts for the nearest elevator. When it finally shows up, the three of you who hadn't already guessed it can find out that it's the one with Alex's half-dead body in it. Lexie and Mark are ... concerned.
After the commercials -- including one for Katherine Heigl's Killers, which I honestly hope does well, because sorry haters, I'm the last person in America who doesn't hate her guts -- Richard has made it to the barricade in front of the hospital. There, he's met by a cop played by Tom Irwin, aka Graham Chase, aka Angela's dad from My So-Called Life! Officer Graham explains that a shooter "took down one of the doctors" and they're not sure if he's still inside. Richard makes to rush inside, but Graham blocks him. No one in, no one out, no exceptions. Richard is frustrated but he ultimately abides by Officer Graham. Cute Ryan Devlin shows up at the barricade with Mandy Moore's pizza, wondering what's going on. Again: Mandy Moore's TOTALLY gonna die, right?
Lexie and Mark lay Alex down on a conference table, but Lexie's certain the gunman is going to come back around and wants to move him. Meanwhile, Mark's tending to the bullet wound, dismayed that there's no exit wound, and Alex is grunting sub-literately about how pissed he is. Mark goes to set up a chest tube, while Alex growls to Lexie, "I'm gonna kick that guy's ass when I see him!"
Peds. It's pretty much chaos, and as Two reports (I'm fairly sure this is the intern Cristina used to call Two, yes?) on the all the sick and/or crying kids, they realize they're way understaffed. Callie suggests putting most of them in the playroom, where they can keep an eye on all of them. Two objects, but Arizona thinks it's a great idea. She thanks Callie, who huffs off all "Whatever..."
Meredith and Cristina saunter up a staircase like there's not a gunman on the loose (far as they're concerned, there's not), and Cristina talks out the Owen thing. Mere cheers her up by telling her she's going to be a godmother. Cristina's effervescent about that one. She needs clarification as to what that means -- like, God stuff? Mere says it means Cristina takes care of the kid if she and Derek die. "I gotta admit," Cristina smirks, "I kinda hope you and Derek die, just a little bit." As both women sidestep a lightning bolt, Derek bursts into the corridor. He's all "Uh lockdown! WTF?" Only more gravely concerned. They're still flippant until he moves them into a closet and tells them there's a shooter on the loose. He orders them to stay put.
Bailey's nervous now as she checks on Mandy, though she hasn't yet told Mandy what's going on. After Bailey checks her pager for the fifth time, Mandy calls her on it, and on hanging around the room for no reason, and on Cute Ryan Devlin not being there. Bailey starts to explain but before she gets to "lockdown," Percy bounds in and says "He's on the floor. The shooter." Bailey and Mandy are both pretty floored that there's a shooter, and Bailey goes to look out the door. She sees people scrambling, and then Clark comes into view, shooting a security guard and firing a few more shots around. Shit had indeed gotten real. Bailey orders Percy to hide in the bathroom, then lowers Mandy's bed flat and tells her to "play dead." Okay... that would freak me out a bit. Perhaps to the point that I'd be happy to have a colostomy bag handy. Anyway. Bailey's frantic as she covers Mandy with the sheets, like she's dead. Then, without any place to hide, and Clark heading right for their room, Bailey crawls under the bed. And waits.
Clark enters and pulls back the sheet on Mandy, who miraculously doesn't fucking jump out of her skin in fear. The sight of a "dead" body only serves to make Clark more unhinged and overcome. "This is too much," he tells himself, between sobs. He keeps repeating "Okay, okay" to himself, and seems like he's about to head back onto the floor when something clangs in the bathroom. We don't see Percy, but Bailey's face has panic enough for everyone. From her POV, we hear Clark open the door, we hear Percy beg him not to shoot, we hear Clark ask him if he's a surgeon, and we hear him ask it again. "Yes, sir, I am," Percy says. And then he begs. And then Clark shoots. Bailey covers her mouth to keep from screaming, and now she sees Percy, fallen to the ground, wide-eyed and convulsing. Looks like he's been shot in the gut. Bailey grabs at her face to keep from making a sound. She's staring at Percy, waiting for Clark to leave so she can help him, when she gets pulled out of the frame. That was a good shot to include in the promos and it's a good one here. Holy crap. Clark points the gun at her and asks if she's a surgeon. She can barely form words, and it looks like she almost says "yes," but ultimately she's able to stammer "No! No... no... I'm a... I'm a nurse!" I do not like seeing Miranda Bailey whimpering and begging for her life, I'm just gonna say that. "I'm sorry," Clark says, as he reloads, "for the trouble... for the mess." Is that an "I'm about to shoot you" I'm sorry, or what? Bailey's clearly not sure. But Clark just says he's sorry again and walks out. From her bed, Mandy finally breaks, while Bailey exhales in relief, fear, horror, and shame ("a nurse") all at once. Meanwhile, Percy's bleeding out. Act break time? Oh yeah.
Back with Alex and Lexie, Mark uses his most soothing voice (non-panty-dropper division) to prepare Alex for the uncomfortable reality that he needs to put in a chest tube. Alex is not enthused. They go in through his side, armed with disinfectant but no anesthetic, so of course Alex starts screaming bloody murder. So here's the scene: Mark is shoving a chest tube through Alex's side, Alex is screaming like his limbs are being cut off with a Swiss army knife, Lexie is understandably upset by the situation, and Mark is intermittently yelling at Lexie to "SHUT HIM UP" lest the shooter hear and come to finish the job. Lexie talks soothingly to Alex, and that works for a moment ... until the tube comes into play, at which point Lexie needs to shove a towel into his mouth. Whatever works.
Peds. Arizona and Callie are wheeling some kids down to the playroom, and after Callie throws some more attitude her way, Arizona's finally like, "I thought we were going to be friends." So, yes, they're going to talk about this right now. Callie says she tried the rising-above/being-friends thing, but it didn't work for her, so now she's decided to hate Arizona's guts. Arizona doesn't think that's fair, says she's always treated Callie with total respect and love. Callie begs to differ. She says she's spent the last month trying to convince herself she doesn't want to have kids, turning herself inside out to fit what Arizona wanted. But did Arizona ever consider changing her entire life's desires to fit what Callie wants? Um...well no, but the fact that y'all's wants and desires for life are so diametrically opposed is kind of why you're broken up, right? Sorry, I love Callie, and maybe it's just the Arizona-soothing-Peds-voice thing, but I'm on her side. Anyway, Callie concludes that Arizona "dismissed [her] dream, which shows that you don't give a rat's ass if I'm happy." She says she "never understood squat" about who Arizona is (um...?), and now that she does, she doesn't like it. Callie goes to storm off, but Arizona's not just going to let a remark like that pass. She's like, "Oh, I'm supposed to completely change for you? I guess it's easy, what with you constantly changing what you want. Women/men/women and all." A cheap shot, yes, but it's interrupted by their young appendix patient who appears to be in acute distress.
Also in distress? Dr. Percy, whose whole abdomen is in a bit of a situation. He's conscious but hyperventilating and in shock. He and Alex and April should really start some sort of fraternal organization for that. Bailey's putting pressure on the wound and telling Mandy to fetch some gauze, but Mandy's not exactly the coolest cucumber at the moment either. Bailey's freaked, but she's still Bailey, so she's able to make Mandy fetch the supplies and then go check the hallway to see if anyone can help them. Bailey continues to pack and wrap the wound, and Percy's writhing and generally in a bad way. Mandy reports that the only people still left on their floor are the dead bodies. "There's no one else. There's no one to help us." This freaks Bailey out, which freaks me out and should freak you out too. Suddenly, Bailey looks upwards and wonders why there's water leaking from the ceiling. Mandy informs Bailey that it's not a leak -- Bailey's crying. CRYING, people. That generally means it's time to bite down on that cyanide capsule. I did think it was slightly hokey that Bailey was all "I am so unfamiliar with the sensation of crying that I can't tell what tears feel like on my face," but again, I was too freaked out by out-of-control Bailey to care. She had Mandy wipe her face off so she can continue working. She orders the room -- the universe, really -- that it's all going to be fine. Nobody believes that.
Teddy and Owen are finished with the surgery, and Owen wants Avery to take the patient up to ICU. But Avery can't do that because, as he announces, there's a shooter and a lockdown and an order from the Chief. Owen's pissed that Avery didn't say anything until now, despite what Derek said. Now they've got a hypothermic patient who needs to get warmed up in ICU lest he die. Owen decides to take him up to ICU himself. He balks when Teddy says she's coming too, so she had to play the whole "I'm a cardiothoracic surgeon and my patient has a penetrating chest wound" and blah blah, she's coming with him. (Also, sidebar: Penetrating Chest Wound! That's the PCW they keep talking about in this episode. You guys, there are a LOT of them.)
Callie and Arizona that one intern Graciella are dealing with this poor girl and her appendix. Arizona has Graciella set up a portable ultrasound, then rounds the corner for some supplies. Callie follows her, asking when she's gonna let her off the hook for "not being a good enough lesbian for you." Oh HOLY JEEZ, Callie, this is why people hate this show! Yes, it's also why people love this show, but come on, man! Eye on the ball! Arizona returns that she can't trust that she's any different, in Callie's big ol' heart, than George or Erica or Mark or the coffee cart girl. She can't trust her not to move on to the thing, basically. This seems to quiet Callie's rage for a moment, and Graciella comes around and, not wanting to freak out the girl, just makes an exploding motion with her hands, re: the appendix.
Cristina and Meredith are having trouble cooling their heels in the supply closet. Meredith, in particular, is feeling the morning sickness she's been suffering from all week rear its ugly head. Cristina's like, "Yeah, I'm not gonna be able to be here with you and the pervasive smell of vomit, shooter or no shooter. Except: shooter. Because Cristina spots Clark walking down the hall right towards them. She whispers to Meredith to get out of sight, and we all start praying Mere can keep from vomiting and thus alerting Clark to their presence. Cristina gets a good look at him as he walks past their room, and she recognizes him as the guy from the elevator. Then she remembers that he was asking how to get to the Chief's office. It takes Mere a second, so Cristina bottom-lines it: "The guy with the gun is looking for Derek." Time for Mere to vomit!
After the commercial, Derek races across the catwalk when he hears a man call to him from behind. Mr. Clark, obvs. The gun's in his pocket, so Derek tells him to get out, that it's not safe. "Of course it's not safe," Clark muses, almost laughing. "That's the whole point. This hospital isn't safe." He asks if Derek doesn't recognize him, and right then, Derek does. He tells him to get someplace safe before he gets hurt. "I'm already hurt," Clark says as he raises his gun. "You hurt me when you decided to kill my wife." To Derek's credit, he doesn't say, "Oh. That."
Back with Alex, they've apparently got the chest tube in, but he's still losing a lot of blood. Mark says they'll need to do a transfusion. Lexie volunteers to go find the supplies, and while Mark objects on gallantry grounds, Lexie says Mark's the one best equipped to keep Alex alive, and she can't just stand there and do nothing. She leans in to Alex and tells him she'll be right back and don't die. She leaves and Alex summons the strength to ask Mark not to kill him. Mark, beleaguered, says he's doing his best.
Meredith is increasingly freaked out as she and Cristina roam the halls looking for Derek. They get to a spot where they can see the catwalk, all the way across the atrium. Too far to be seen or heard, but close enough to have a perfect view of Clark pointing his gun at Derek. Clark rants at Derek about how he's the man now. He wasn't then, when he allowed Derek to "decide she should die," but he is now. A man stands up for his wife. Across the atrium, Derek's wife watches helplessly.
Bailey has somehow found an oxygen mask to put on Percy, and she has Mandy retrieve a pair of those sticky circle things (Bailey's words! You can't yell at me!) that are used to monitor heart rates or whatever. She also asks for a wire, apparently looking to MacGruber this whole deal. She tells Percy he's doing fine, but he doesn't believe her. He thinks he's dying and she's saying what they always say when they're dying. Bailey looks at him and tells him definitively: he is NOT dying. She would tell him so if he was. Now Mandy needs to hold his hand, because she's gonna to something with that wire and those pads, and my guess is it's gonna hurt.
Catwalk. I love how Shonda Rhimes, in her post-show blog, described it as "my beloved catwalk." That explains so much about the geography of this show. Anyway, Meredith is still freaking out, because Derek's still staring down the barrel of a gun. Clark rants about this unsafe hospital and its bloodthirsty surgeons. Surgeons who play God with their patients. He really looks like he's about to shoot him. Derek starts talking about loss, how he lost his dad when he was a kid. "Two guys killed my father for his watch, right in front of me." Did we know this about Derek? That he's Batman, I mean. He says he became a doctor to save lives, not play God. He asks Clark to look him in the eyes, see that he's a human being. He says it again, "I'm a human being. I'm flawed. We all are. Today I think, for you, is just a mistake." He says Clark's a good man, he can see it in his eyes. "Can you see it in mine?"
Clark finally lowers his gun, and Derek, Meredith, and Cristina all get a moment to breathe. It's only a moment, though, because here comes April, bounding through the door, thanking God that Derek's okay. Whether this spooks Clark or snaps him out of his momentary brush with humanity, I'm not sure. I do feel awfully bad for April, though. It's not her fault she has awful timing. You can see it in Derek's eyes as he turns to April that things just got fucked again. He mouths the word "Go!" while Meredith silently screams from across the way. We can't hear, because the patented Grey's Sad Guitar of Somebody's Dying has started to play. That's when Clark shoots Derek right in the chest.
Derek falls to the ground, Meredith screams, Cristina holds her back, and April has just found about twelve new reasons to go babblecrazy again. Meredith's VO from the opening repeats itself. She grew up in this hospital. "The hospital was my church, my school, my home, my safe place, my sanctuary. I love it here." Derek, staring directly at the camera, blinks, then closes his eyes. "Correction: loved it here."
Black.
That's it for my hour! Lauren takes back the reins for the second, tear-soaked hour. Thanks for letting me be your substitute teacher! And on such an awesome episode!
Joe R is about halfway towards taking this show back. He definitely will if Derek bites it in the hour. He can be reached for lavish praise and nothing but at joseph.reid21@gmail.com.
Read the recaplet of the second half of the episode.
See what made the cut in this list of TV's 50 most shocking moments ever.
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