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Ah, Seattle. Home of the Space Needle, Pike Place market, the flagship Nordstrom and, apparently, crazed gunmen who like to shoot up a lot of innocent bystanders in one go. Cristina, fresh off of her cathartic fishing trip, decides to take a walk and explore the city but when she sees a line of ambulances scream by, she follows them and comes to a college where a gunman has shot down at least 20 people. She watches the paramedics load one kid into an ambulance and realizes that they need to crack the kid's chest, but they don't seem to be doing it. This seems to be the nudge she needed in the right direction, so she does it herself and plugs up his torn artery with her finger. Owen and Teddy are shocked to see her when they open the ambulance door, but they go with it and she tells Teddy she wants to stay and help with the surgery. When it turns out later that the kid they are working on is in fact the gunman, Jackson decides he can't help anymore, but Cristina decides to stay and seems to be back to her confident, ass-kicking ways.
Everyone at the hospital is understandably distraught about the shooting, some more than others, but it also makes them more able to understand and help the victims and their friends and family. Derek's way of dealing with things is to turn into a jerky surgery robot, and he insults Meredith for repeatedly leaving to update their patient's panicky wife about the surgery. She finally lets him have it by reminding him that she went through a trauma, too, not just him and Cristina, and that being the wife in the waiting room is so hard it caused her to walk in and tell the gunman to shoot her. She storms out and thankfully, it snaps Derek back into being a human again, he apologizes to all of the staff in the OR, and continues with his job. It's a tricky surgery, but the guy survives.
Once the ORs are all full, Owen turns the pit into a makeshift surgical area and puts April in charge of running the place, since she "won" his trauma clinic a few weeks previously. She's able to do it, and she, Bailey, Richard, Lexie, Mark and eventually Alex all work away on their patients down there.
Alex started out the day in one of the operating rooms with Stark, but when Stark decides it's easier to amputate the girl's leg rather than put in the extra work to save it, Alex yells at Arizona, up in the gallery, to intervene. Arizona thought she'd come right back to a girlfriend and a job in Seattle but the Chief had told her he didn't have the money to buy out Stark's contract, and Callie has no interest in talking things over. However, with all of the action, the Chief gives Arizona privileges, so she throws on scrubs and runs into the OR (where Alex has awesomely been putting his wrestling skills to use by physically blocking Stark's path to the patient) and takes over. She has Callie come in to work on the leg and thinks this might be a way to talk to her very angry ex-girlfriend, but Callie is having none of it. They save the girl but Callie tells Arizona that it doesn't mean anything and she still wants nothing to do with her. Fortunately for her, the Chief is more of a softie than Callie and tells her he'll hire her back, though she'll have to work under Stark... and it's not entirely clear if he's joking or not.
After everyone finishes up tending to their patients, they all wind up in the gallery watching Teddy and Cristina work, and Richard congratulates them on saving all of the patients that came through their doors that day. Afterward, Mere finds Cristina and OH HOORAY they actually say hi and seem to slip back into being friends. As they are reuniting, so are Lexie and Mark -- while he works on cleaning up the sutures on a patient, she tells him that she loves him.
Teddy doesn't hang around the hospital when she's done operating but instead goes to Joe's, where she meets up with her new husband. Oh yes, you heard me right -- she really did marry Henry that morning, and she has the insurance paperwork for him to fill out. While she's incredibly down from having just spent the day operating on a would-be mass murderer, Henry is of course charming and awesome and cute, and manages to convince her that she also saved his life that day. Yeah, those two are totally falling in actual love sometime.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Let me begin this week's recap on a serious note. It was rather horrifying to see the news on Saturday of the shooting by a kid named Jared, and to then sit down to write a recap regarding a fictionalized mass shooting... by a kid named Jared. My thoughts go out to everyone affected by the events of Saturday and I just want to say, let's just agree that no matter what, walking into a public place and shooting innocents isn't the way to go about things, okay?
Meredith begins this week's episode with a voiceover that talks about how medicine is both a science and an art. She's grilling Derek about his fishing trip -- we appear to have picked up the very morning, even if it's been a month in real-world-time since then -- and she refuses to believe that her husband and would-be best friend spent six hours on a boat and only talked about fishing. Derek gets increasingly annoyed as she demands more answers and declares that, "'She caught a fish and cried' is not the whole story." What it really boils down to is that she feels like Derek stole her friend and it's not okay, and though Derek argues that he's only trying to help, Meredith is pissed at all of their hanging-out, buddy time. As they argue they get under the covers and take off the appropriate clothing to get down to some baby-making, but Meredith is so mad she can't look at him. Derek declares, then, that she can just roll over, and, pouting, she does just that. What a way for a tiny baby to be conceived!
Meanwhile, the subject of their argument is much happier in bed with her own husband, and as they canoodle Owen comments happily that Cristina really seems better. Cristina agrees that she actually feels better and amazingly, I actually believe her. It's super cute how happy he is for her though I'm sure he's also relieved that he might have his wife, the woman he fell in love with in the first place, back in his life rather than the broken shell of a person she had become. I don't mean that as any sort of blame, either -- it's a relief for all involved. (Including your recapper.) Cristina thinks that for the first time, she's going to go explore the city since she never had the time nor the interest before. Owen gets a page, and while a blissed-out Cristina gets dressed, he expresses total shock at something Teddy is doing. Meredith continues her VO and tells us that you don't want a doctor who is only about science when the shit hits the fan, you want someone who will follow their instincts.
Mark and Lexie are following their instincts, all right -- things seem to have progressed nicely since they started making out at Joe's, as they are now doing the horizontal mambo in Lexie's attic bedroom. They're both happy and lovey to a nauseating degree; as he pretends to try and go to work she keeps pulling him back to bed.
Not everyone's reunions have been quite as happy as theirs, though. Callie opens the door to find Arizona waiting out in the hallway with coffee in hand. She admits she did leave long enough to shower and grab a few winks but then she came back really early to sit outside her beloved's door. Her beloved, however, isn't impressed and instead tells Arizona she should really just go back to Malawi. Arizona contemplates this chilly reception as Mere tells us, "Extreme measures. That's where science ends and art begins."
Only slightly less awkward together are Henry and Teddy, who are waiting somewhere for their shotgun-insurance-wedding. Teddy's shaking her foot nervously and assures Henry that "he'll" be there; the "he" in question is Owen, who does show up to be her witness but who is seriously confused about Teddy's decision. Teddy is determined to go through with it, though, and even though she gets a page she decides to ignore it so that they can get through the fastest and least sentimental marriage ceremony of all time.
Cristina heads out to the streets of Seattle armed with a map, and while she can maneuver her way through a patient's heart we're to believe she can't find the Space Needle. She stops to ask a cyclist for directions, but as he gives them to her a bunch of ambulances scream by. She's distracted by them and after a moment, heads off in the opposite direction of where he directed her to follow the sirens almost as if she's in a trance.
Arizona has gone to the hospital to talk to Richard about getting her job back but he's only slightly more receptive than Callie was, and that just means he'll actually listen to what she has to say before shutting her down. He points out that he hired Stark on a year contract and can't just eat that money to hire her back. I love Arizona. And clearly, as she is a regular on this show, and her "replacement" is just a featured guest star, she will get her job back somehow, but seriously, did she figure that the job would just be waiting for her when she changed her mind on a whim? You're smarter than this, Arizona! Alex walks by and is totally stoked to see her, and it's a huge relief to Arizona to have someone finally give her the reception she felt she deserved. When the Chief goes to answer a page, she tells Alex to give her all of the dirt on her replacement.
Owen and Teddy walk into the hospital and while he did seem to go through with his witness duties, he's still feeling good and judgmental about her choice. She doesn't want to talk about it and won't answer if this is just right now or forever; she's saved when they realize that all of their co-workers are staring silently at a television on the wall. They are all stunned and some are crying, while a newscaster tells them that a gunman just opened fire on students and faculty at a local college. Owen tries to ask Bailey a question but she seems unable to physically get out an answer and they just stare.
On the scene, it's complete chaos and the newscaster tells us there are at least 20 victims. Cristina walks up to the mayhem, still in a bit of a fog, and just takes in the scene around her while paramedics rush around caring for the victims. As they load one kid into an ambulance Cristina hears all of the pertinent info about his condition and says quietly to herself that they have to crack his chest. When she doesn't get a response to her whispered suggestion, she calls it out, slightly louder but still timid, like she's not used to having knee-jerk reactions to medical crises.
The staff all gathers in the ambulance bay to wait and Owen tells them that 15 ambulances are on their way so far, and will be there in three minutes. That's just enough time for Richard to address them before the chaos hits. He reminds everyone that their trauma is fresh (because the crying and shock didn't already remind everyone of that) and that they are going to have feelings, which is okay. However, they need to be there for their new brothers and sisters in tragedy, so they need to work first and have feelings later. Lexie is the most upset of anyone and though she tries to tell Owen she's fine, Mark insists gently that she go downstairs to make sure all of the supplies are in order and that the blood bank is ready. She leaves just as the ambulances arrive.
Richard takes the first patient, a cop, and riding in the ambulance with him is Officer Graham. He sends April to get the cop, "Faz," inside while Officer Graham explains that Faz was the one who took down the shooter, and he needs Richard to wake him up from his own gunshot wounds so that he can give a description of said shooter, since the eyewitness accounts are conflicting.
Mere and Derek take the ambulance, and their patient is Professor Sturgeon. The professor helped a bunch of students up onto the roof of one of the buildings but then slipped as he tried to get up there himself and fell four. As they get him inside Owen stops to ask Derek, who has clenched up tighter than Cameron's ass in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (or Cameron's fist, if you're watching the neutered ca
ble version) if he's okay, but Derek grunts that nothing about this is okay. Owen runs to the ambulance where Alex is taking a 15-year-old girl who was shot in the leg and abdomen. He's shocked at how young she is, and the paramedic points out that this is what being a genius gets you these days. Isn't it amazing how everyone happened to wind up at the ambulance that just happened to have a patient whose injuries matched their specialties? That's the universe coming together, right there.
Finally, Owen and Teddy greet the last ambulance, which contains a shot 20-year-old. The paramedic tells them that this is the emergency thoracotomy he'd called them about. Owen is aghast that the guy would do a thoracotomy in the field, but he immediately defends that he didn't do it. The doors swing open to reveal Cristina, covered in blood, her hand inside the dude's chest, and she tells the gaping surgeons that she had to crack his chest as if this is the most logical thing in the world.
Once inside, we get the standard, dramatic hospital television show shot of them wheeling the patient to the OR while Cristina rides along with her hand in his chest. Owen's not sure she should be doing this but Teddy points out that right now her finger is plugging the hole and Cristina assures him that she will be okay. He's skeptical, but as ambulances are coming in like ants at a picnic, he runs back to work.
Stark and Alex are working on their teenage patient to the revolting symphony of gurgling and sucking that the GA sound folks do so well. Stark, being the most incompetent doctor alive who would rather let a patient get disfigured or die than miss his dinner reservation or the like, decides her wounded leg needs to be amputated. Alex is shocked because he's sure Callie can fix it, and as he argues about what they could do right now to save it, Arizona comes up to the gallery to watch her replacement. Stark argues that her life is worth more than her leg (which would be true if the leg couldn't be saved) but Alex's pleas to not disfigure a 15-year-old fall on deaf ears. Stark angrily orders him to prep the leg and starts to put the saw together, so Alex calls up to Arizona in the gallery to, "Freaking do something!" I'm really having a hard time believing that Stark would not only continue to get hired places, but that he would be hired as the head of a department. Would he really have been able to pull the wool over people's eyes for this long? If so, I'm renewing my fear of hospitals.
Meredith and Derek prep the professor for surgery and when a nurse comes to inform them that the patient's wife has arrived, Mere goes out to find her.
In the other OR, Jackson comes in as they are getting ready to go to work and is shocked to see Cristina, draped in a gown and finger still acting as a cork. Teddy brings him up to speed and tells him she wants some "backup"; Cristina bluntly tells him that she's not sure if Cristina can handle it. She's blunt, but she's not bitter -- even she knows it's a fair concern, though she seems to be in pretty good shape. As Jackson goes to scrub in, Cristina nods to herself like she's giving herself a silent, internal pep talk.
The waiting room is almost as chaotic as the scene at the school, and Mere is directed to a woman who is physically shaking, sitting by herself. This is the professor's wife, Mrs. Sturgeon, and Mere calmly tells her what's going on but Mrs. S. is stuck on the word "surgery." I suppose it's just as well since the rest of the info is about how they were going to remove part of her husband's skull. She wants to come with Meredith to the OR since her husband is afraid of hospitals and nearly panics when Mere tells her sadly that she's not allowed. Mere promises to give her lots of updates and then grabs a girl waiting nearby and asks her to sit with Mrs. S., telling them that it will be a long day and they have to take care of each other.
Arizona gets on the intercom in the gallery and tries to suggest options to Stark that don't involve cutting off the girl's leg but Stark just snaps back at her, asking if she has privileges there anymore. She thinks it doesn't matter and when Alex agrees, Stark boots him off the case. They've managed to incense the tiny man even more so than usual, and he hollers that she's unprofessional and he's done talking. One might argue that "unprofessional" is being too lazy to do one's job and hacking off a teenager's LEG to shorten a surgery, but to each his own, right? Arizona takes total exception to all of this, yells at Alex to block Stark so that he can't get to the patient, and sprints downstairs. Awesomely, Alex jumps into a defensive stance, hands up, in front of an aghast Stark.
Richard and April are working away on Faz, and Officer Graham is hovering since he wants them to wake the kid up so that they can ask him about the shooter. Richard clearly thinks this is a bad idea and points out that if they do it, it will be incredibly painful and traumatic, but Graham points out that there are still conflicting reports about the shooter, that the kids are too traumatized to be credible witnesses, but that cops are trained for that sort of thing. He then insists that Faz would be okay with some pain if he could ID the shooter. I love when people say that. I realize it's probably true, but it's become such a cliché in these kinds of TV and movie situations. What if Faz just wants the doctors to make sure he'll be okay and is chock full of pain medication before he wakes up? Would that be so bad? Richard reluctantly agrees to do it after they get a chest tube in. Arizona then bursts dramatically into the room yelling about what a yahoo Stark is for wanting to cut off a good leg, and asks Richard for privileges so that she can take care of things. He agrees immediately since they need all of the help they can get, and she thanks him -- still chirpy even at this time of crisis -- and runs out. Graham points out that it's not an easy day to be the man in charge, and Richard agrees.
Arizona sprints past Callie, who is working on some kid's neck wound, and yells that she needs her in the OR immediately. Callie has Bailey take over on her patient, Chuck, who seems to be in (totally deserved) shock and he wonders out loud who walks into a classroom with an automatic weapon? Bailey doesn't know. Neither do any of the rest of us, for that matter.
Since Arizona needs to get herself some scrubs -- chunky African necklaces not being quite right for surgery -- Callie arrives at the OR first and walks in to find Alex dancing around, still blocking Stark from the patient. She asks what's up and though Stark claims Alex has lost his mind, Alex gives her a rundown on the patient. Callie asks some questions and Stark insists that saving the leg isn't as important as dealing with her abdominal bleeding, but the other doctor, some dude named Dave, calls out that the bleeding is under control for now. This only adds to Stark's annoyance -- that a doctor would actually put the well-being of a patient ahead of backing up another doctor on his ludicrous bad judgment. Seriously, Stark would rather be right than have this poor girl keep one of her appendages.
Callie points out that she can do exactly what Alex thought could be done from the very beginning, and Stark goes nuclear. He screams that he's never experienced anything like this before but Callie goes to the patient while explaining that they take shootings rather personally here and she'll just go ahead and save the leg. When she asks if he's working with her or not, Arizona bursts in and grandly declares that she talked to Richard and this is her patient now. Stark is reduced to angry babbling and storms out of the OR; Alex then jumps up and fist-pumps like he just won a championship basketball game. Callie can't disguise her glee at the situation but she tells Alex they now have enough hands in there so he should go find someone else who needs help. Alex is fine with that and as he runs out, he yells, "All state, baby!" regarding his old wrestling skills. It's a good moment of levity for Callie, Arizona, and all of us in an episode with not a whole lot of that to offer.
Derek and Meredith's OR is much less action-packed, but still nearly as tense when, after Derek pulls part of the professor's skull off, Meredith says she's going back to give his wife an update. Derek returns fully to his douchey, condescending ways and snips that she's a surgeon, not a social worker. He has no patience for what Mere wants to do when they have a patient open on the table and when she says that isn't the whole story in this case, he has the nerve to mutter, "Don't start this again." Man, I'd be re-thinking that post-it about right now if I were Mere. Mere keeps at it so finally Derek yells at her to go ahead and go.
It's time for Richard to wake up Faz, and he's still obviously not happy about it. He warns Graham that he's going to push somethingorother that will wake him up but that he's going to be in some really bad pain, so Graham needs to talk to him quickly. He seems to be hoping that Graham will change his mind, but he doesn't, so they get to the waking. Sure enough, Faz wakes up and starts moaning about how badly everything hurts while Graham tries to ask him about the shooter.
We're left hanging about the outcome and just see Richard walk out in the hallway, where he's accosted by a furious Stark. He demands to know if Richard really approved of Arizona taking his patient and humiliating him, and he's so up his own ass that he doesn't see that Richard doesn't care at all about what happened. He just tells Stark to find another patient and jump in but Stark prissily informs him that he won't do that, he'll go back to his original patient. The guy has no people skills and no ability to read others so he's surprised when Richard finally blows up and yells that people are dying, so he needs to go be a doctor and save a life. Stark stays ticked but at least turns and goes.
Alex, still upbeat from his victory, finds Hunt to ask where he's needed but Hunt and the other doctors are all watching the TV and silently gaping at the news that they just found another classroom of victims, which means they'll be getting at least a dozen more patients soon. The problem is that they are out of operating rooms, but the other hospitals are all out of space too. God forbid Seattle has an earthquake or other large-scale natural disaster if just this shooting puts all of their hospitals out of commission. Basically, they are screwed if anyone else needs surgery and judging by the bloody chaos all around them, someone else is sure to need it.
Richard makes his way to Teddy's OR, and stops short when he sees Cristina. T
hey fill him in on what happened and when he asks her if she's okay, she tells him she is and she's going to stay, if that's okay with him. It's old Cristina! It's old Professional Cristina Voice! Huzzah! It's of course okay, and Richard gets down to the reason for his visit -- he wants to know if their patient is a 20-year-old redhead. When they say that he is, he solemnly tells them that he needs any bullet fragments that they collect. There must be some sort of Stupid Gas in the air because no one seems to catch on to the situation and Teddy has to ask what's going on. Richard tells them that they are currently operating on the shooter, and any bullet fragments they find will be evidence. Teddy allows herself to close her eyes for one moment at the news, and dramatic music ushers us into the commercial break to ponder this turn of events.
People, watch Off the Map! Then go and read the recaps by the always-awesome Joe R! You know you'll love them.
Back from commercial, the staff all waits while Teddy composes herself, but when she tries to get back to work, one of the nurses tells her in a quivery voice that she can't do it. The Stupid Gas is still in the room, so Teddy doesn't seem to understand what she means and Jackson angrily explains that she can't save a guy who just shot up a bunch of other people. He's on a roll until Teddy cuts him off to point out that she had to work on Iraqi soldiers that had attacked Americans and she didn't like that either, but she took an oath. She tells Jackson it's not his place to judge, and that he's there to save lives that need saving. I actually can really understand both sides of the argument but I'm alarmed that Jackson seems to have been taking lessons from Derek about being infuriatingly condescending -- it's affecting his hotness for me, and I don't like that. He refuses to continue and leaves, as does the nurse, though she apologizes sincerely for it. Teddy then looks around and asks Cristina if she's staying. Cristina says she is, and so they get back to work.
When Richard gets back to Faz, he finds April trying to intubate him as alarms ring to indicate his plummeting vitals. It turns out he's got a belly filled with blood.
Outside, Owen is having people clear the area and when he sees them wheeling Faz out of the trauma room, he sends them right back and calls for an anesthesiologist to come down. Richard is not pleased to hear that he's going to have to operate in a makeshift OR on a hero cop, but Owen tells him it's his best option. Richard is skeptical but then again, so is Owen, who is just hoping that this crazy idea works. Richard sends April off to get supplies for the procedure and then sees Avery wandering about, so asks if Teddy is done. Avery just mounts his high horse and points out the obvious -- that a cop is bleeding out while upstairs they are using an OR to save the shooter -- even though Richard obviously knows this as he's the one who broke the news in the first place. Owen's horrified to hear this and is surprised when it turns out Cristina is aware of the situation but still helping out. When April comes out he reassigns her to oversee the outpatient recovery area, and when she starts to panic just a little he reminds her that she trained for this and she just needs to oversee everything.
In a neighboring OR, Arizona tries to use the time alone with Callie to start talking about their problems, as does everyone at this fine medical establishment. But Callie decides that this time it's not allowed. She declares that she's just there to rebuild this girl's leg, and that there's to be no talking otherwise.
Owen goes into the scrub room and watches Cristina, who has conveniently moved to the other side of the table so she can't see him. He catches Teddy's eye and they have a silent conversation of miniscule nods that translates to, "Holy shit, this is a giant fucking mess, what on earth is going on and is my wife going to crack up again when I just got her back?" "It's all good, she's okay; go get back to work with the other patients."
April seems to be holding her own running the show, but Bailey can't believe they are still accepting more critical patients. She goes to take the new one and leaves Alex to do a surgical repair on Chuck's neck there in the middle of the room. Alex can't really believe it, but goes along with things.
Derek's surgery isn't going well, and after an alarm rings he determines he has to take off the other side of the professor's skull as well. As he starts to prep, Meredith says she's going to update the wife, and Derek loses his shit. He snaps at her, wondering when she became so interested in updating the wife and she finally snaps back that it's since she was the wife. She goes the opposite way of Callie and airs all of their dirty laundry out right there for all to see, asking if Derek thinks that he and Cristina were the only ones to go through a trauma? He pouts that she's not to bring Cristina into it, and actually has the gall to say that she's not allowed to act like a spoiled brat like this. Oh, go fuck yourself, Derek. He and Brandon Walsh should get together for a Prissy-Know-It-All-Holier-Than-Though TV Character Summit. I finally start to tolerate Derek a little bit and then here we go again, with him regressing back into one of the most insufferable characters on TV today.
Meredith yells back at him that while he and Cristina were taking care of each other they totally forgot she went through a trauma too. (To be totally fair, she's acting bratty too, but one could argue she's been provoked into it.) (I can't believe I just defended Meredith Grey. Somebody shake me.) She then reminds Derek that she once was the wife, and that it was so hard that she marched into the OR and told the guy with the gun to shoot her. With that in mind, she's off to update the wife, and storms out. All of the remaining OR staff stare at Derek in judgment and he quietly says that he's sorry.
Mere updates Mrs. S, who is still accompanied by the buddy Meredith grabbed, plus a few others, but she doesn't really understand when Meredith says that they're taking off the other half of her husband's skull, freezing it, and then sewing the scalp and muscle back over his brain. I can't really blame her, since that does sound more like science fiction than actual medicine. Meredith tells her she knows that it's extreme and scary but Derek is a very good surgeon, even if he is a petulant man-child who only wants his own way all the time. Okay, fine, I added the last bit.
Across the room, Officer Graham calls out for the family of Jared Sworn, and a woman stands up and worriedly asks if her son is okay. We all know what horror is about to befall her as Graham asks her to step into the other room and Jackson abandons his search for another patient's family to follow and see what happens.
What happens is that Jared's mom starts screaming, freaking out that her son can't be the shooter. While Graham doesn't reach towards her his body language still reads as sympathetic, at least, while in the hallway Jackson just puffs out his chest in anger and storms off somewhere.
In the community OR, Mark is doing stitches on a girl's arm when Owen walks up and unceremoniously shoots a few staples in to finish the job, then tells Mark he's done and to find another patient. Mark is livid and refuses to put his name on the chart since it's what he calls a "hack job." But it frees him up to go help Lexie, who is in tears, calling for another doctor to help with her patient's intercranial hemorrhage. She tells Mark what needs to be done and calmly, he assures her that they can take care of it.
I thought Jackson was going to storm back into Teddy's OR for another argument but he just goes back to the pit, and Alex calls him over to help with Chuck's procedure. Jackson can't help but gripe about what's happening and Alex just tells him that they can't choose who they save. In a voice dripping with attitude, Jackson replies that that is certainly the party line. Alex just tells him that the shooter was sick, since no one in their right mind does this kind of thing. Jackson is unmoved until Alex mentions calmly, like he's talking about the weather, that his brother had a psychotic break and tried to kill his sister, was hurt in the process, but after all that Alex still wanted the doctors to save him because he's still his little brother.
On the other side of the room, Mark makes an incision in Lexie's patient's head but when she tries to hand him the drill, he tells her she's going to be the one to do the holes. She's really not sure but he tells her she'll be the one to save his life, and then he talks her through it. At first she seems alarmingly shaky for someone holding a drill to a person's skull, but she seems to do a good job of it.
Things aren't going so well for Chuck, though -- he starts crashing, and Alex has to start compressions. Bailey notices what's going on and runs over, ordering Chuck not to die as Jackson and Alex get the paddles ready and shock him. Nothing happens, and Bailey gets increasingly desperate as she orders him to come back, even slipping and calling him Charles in a clear callback to the Charles who died during a shooting. They shock him again to no avail, and Bailey finally turns her face up to heaven and yells, "You bastard!" and orders the big man upstairs to send Chuck back right now. After a moment, he does, and after she gets a hold of herself, Bailey quietly apologizes for calling him a bastard. See, I really have meant it every time I say that no one messes with Miranda Bailey. Not even God.
Mere seems to be taking her sweet time getting back to surgery, but who can blame her given the abuse she's been taking? She looks pretty beaten down as she walks across the catwalk but then she turns to look out the window and seems confused. She runs downstairs to get the professor's wife and brings her and the others back upstairs to see something -- outside, hundreds of people with candles are standing together and singing. It's incredibly moving, and I got a wee bit teary eyed, as do all of the people standing on the catwalk, watching. A tear runs down Mrs. Sturgeon's face as she tells Mere that they are singing the school's alma mater, but she smiles and is calmer than she's been all day.
As the singing continues, we are treated to a surgery montage, which ends with Teddy thanking Cristina for staying. She tells her protégé that it can't have been an easy decision but Cristina thinks about it for a second and says that actually, it was.
Mere heads back into the OR and of course just then, alarms start to ring because the professor is bleeding too much. Derek works away, clearly worried, but outside at least his patient's wife is doing okay as she cries and watches the people sing.
Later, Derek and Meredith walk out to talk to her together, and after Derek introduces himself he begins to explain how her husband is in a medically induced coma, his skull is on ice, etc. But she makes him go back and just assure her that he is alive, since she obviously was prepared to hear that he didn't make it through the surgery. When she's assured that he is, she grabs Derek in a ferocious bear hug and thanks him, and the doctors both grin happily.
Across the room, Jackson tells two girls we haven't seen that their unknown loved one is going to be okay, or so I assume from their celebratory hugs. He then turns and sees Jared's mom sitting by herself in a dark corner, looking utterly shattered. He pouts and thinks about just walking by but then takes a deep breath and approaches her, asking if anyone has given her any update on her son. With a shaky voice she tells him that the police questioned her for hours, and that they found a suicide note in his jeans, but she tells Jackson that she didn't know anything, and now her whole life until now seems to have been a lie. She's trying to keep herself under control, I think for the sake of all of the others that are there because of what her son did, but she starts to crack when she tells Jackson that she jus
t wants to know if he's alive. "Is that terrible? All those people he hurt? Does that make me a terrible person?" I don't know what it was but this actress wrenched at my heartstrings when I saw this and did it again when I re-watched the episode. She somehow conveys how she really does know that people will think she's horrible for still worrying about the condition of her son. Jackson seems inclined to tell her just that but instead he leans down and explains that Jared was shot, but that he's got a good surgeon doing everything she can; since they are still in surgery that means he's still alive and they'll update her when they are out. Jared's mom puts her head down and cries, both happy and completely torn apart. She whispers a thank you and wipes her tears away with her head still down as he walks away.
Richard walks out of his makeshift operating room to the group of cops that are waiting and tells Officer Graham that Faz's surgery got a bit hairy, but that he's going to be fine. Graham thanks him and puts out his hand, and as Richard shakes it they agree that they need to stop meeting like this.
One of the victims is sitting up in bed laughing with friends, and I have to assume this is Callie and Arizona's patient judging by the scaffolding sticking out of her leg. Indeed it is, and Arizona is outside in the hall happily talking to Callie about how well they worked together that day. Callie finishes up the chart and hands it over, and Arizona is surprised that she turns and just walks away and calls after her, using her full name. Callie turns, and Arizona apologizes profusely and promises to keep apologizing as much as it takes, for the rest of her life, because she loves Callie so much. She finishes up by reminding Callie she flew across the world to be with her. Callie retorts that she flew across the world because earlier she flew away. Arizona is confused that Callie is holding a grudge but Callie just tells her that they are both in the relationship and that even though she came back, Callie didn't, and nothing has changed. She then walks off. On the one hand yes, this is all true. But on the other hand, can Callie please just take at least a little bit of responsibility for what happened between them in the first place? It wasn't a black-and-white case of Arizona being a selfish ass and leaving Callie in her dust, but that's how Callie is treating it.
Mere has gone back to the catwalk and is gazing at the crowd with the candles outside. Derek finds her there and nuzzles her as he marvels that she's been holding everyone up though she's been having a hard time too. Jeez Derek, and it only took you this long and a very public fight to notice -- how thoughtful. It was just a little miscarriage she had, right? But they get all schmoopy and cuddle because she loves him even when he's a stupid jerk. He then says that he knows she's mad and thinks fishing didn't work, but that he just heard Cristina is in the OR. Meredith smiles and thinks he's joking but when she realizes he's telling the truth, she takes off to go find her friend. Derek gazes out at the crowd, thinking about how even in a time like this he managed to get in a good "I told you so" to his wife. Ah, love, McDreamy-style.
Cristina and Teddy are still working and Richard comes to the gallery to watch; eventually, all of the doctors wander in as they finish with their own patients. Owen is the last one to arrive and says he just took the last patient, other than the one on the table below, to a room. Down in the OR, Cristina and Teddy finish up and stare, waiting and hoping for his heart to start back up. After a moment it does, they heave sighs of relief, and Teddy nods at Richard and the rest of the audience to convey the news.
Richard then tells the other doctors that they saw 26 patients and didn't have a single casualty. Lexie starts crying again, followed by April, and pretty soon everyone is either crying or trying pretty unsuccessfully to fight their tears. Everyone, that is, except Derek and Meredith, who grin and look like the smuggest of smug married couples. They actually start to giggle, which at first seems appalling but then serves to break the tension, and eventually all of the doctors are laughing. Stark had joined the group but when he sees this show of semi-hysteria, he finally declares that he hates this place and walks out. This only makes everyone laugh harder, of course. Meredith voiceovers about surgery being extreme, and then Richard admits to Arizona he was holding a grudge and of course she can have a job there, but she'll have to work under Stark. He leaves her with a clap on the back and everyone starts laughing again, because it's so funny that he hired a guy whose laziness has contributed to all sorts of near tragedies! Arizona clearly isn't sure if he's joking or not, and I'm not entirely sure myself. I guess we'll see if Peter MacNicol's name is in the credits week or not.
The patient whose arm Mark was stitching up earlier is still asleep, and Mark is there stitching her up once again, undoing the stapling that Owen did earlier. Lexie walks in and Mark tells her that the girl is just a kid, and shouldn't have a big ugly scar. Something about the way he says it is so sweet and sincere, and Lexie obviously thinks so too. When Mark asks if she'll wait until he's done there, she whispers that she loves him and then adds that yes, she'll wait. Mere's voice is glad life has no scalpel because then when anything hurt we'd just get to cutting.
Teddy walks over to Joe's and meets up with Henry; she tells him he looks exhausted but he tells her that she looks exhausted, and adds with a cheeky grin that he looks handsome. Man, on Felicity Noel started to bug me so much that I forgot about Scott Foley's inherent charm, but I'm very happy to be remembering now. He's adorable! Teddy isn't really in a lighthearted mood, but she pulls out the paperwork to get him some insurance. Henry suggests they get a drink first but she's not in the mood, and Henry's jokes about how they didn't have any vows, rings or sadly even cake, so the least they can do is have a toast, don't sway her. She finally tells him she spent the day saving someone who was really not a good person, and tries to get him back to the paperwork. But he tells her sincerely that she also saved his life that day, and he thinks that deserves a toast. She finally has to give him a little sad smile about that, and he beams at her. As I said in my recaplet, these two are so actually falling in love.
And finally, we have the moment we've all been waiting for. Mere finishes up her VO repeating it's a good thing that life isn't like surgery, because then you don't lose what you cut out forever. She comes down the hall to find her bestie and the two walk towards each other slowly, winding up face-to-face. If this were any other pair of friends, they might have some sappy moment but since this is the twisted sisters, Cristina finally asks if Meredith wants a drink, and she agrees. As they walk away Mere adds that it shouldn't be a real drink on account of her getting pregnant so Cristina instead offers that they could find some crack cocaine. Meredith takes her arm, and I for one heave a giant, happy, sigh of relief that Cristina is BACK, baby.
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