As we open, Meredith is apparently acting as the spellmaster for the spelling bee; her voiceover tells us, "'Intimacy' is a four-syllable word for, 'Here are my heart and soul. Please grind them into hamburger.'" Oh, I was mistaken -- she's at home writing the monthly check to the nursing home where her mother is staying.
As the VO continues, Izzie walks into the bathroom where George is taking a shower. We get just a hint of pasty ass through the frosted glass of the shower door. George sees Izzie and freaks out. She grabs a toothbrush, starts to brush her teeth, and walks away. As she leaves, George sticks his head out of the shower and yells, "Is that my toothbrush?" I'm all for roommates walking around in their skivvies, but the fact that the first thought in George's head is that Izzie might be using his toothbrush tells me that Izzie has got some serious boundary issues.
Meredith has finished writing the check and preparing it for mailing. Still sitting at her desk, she picks up a picture album and flips through to a photo of her parents with Mere as a toddler. The VO tells us that intimacy comes attached to the three Rs: relatives, romance, and roommates. Izzie walks up behind Mere, still brushing her teeth. Mere looks at her, and we see that Izzie is wearing Japanese cartoon underpants. Mere: "Hello, kitty."
It's 4:30 a.m., and the roommates are in the parking lot of the hospital. George tells Izzie, "You don't understand. Me gonads, you ovaries." Someone send him back to medical school -- ovaries are gonads. Although maybe George is some kind of intersex person and he's not exactly sure what kind of gonads he has. George's gonad talk reminds Izzie that they are out of tampons; she asks George to pick some up when he does the shopping. (It is apparently his turn to do the shopping for the household). George forcefully tells them, "I am a man! I don't buy girl products!" And he doesn't want them walking into the bathroom in their undies while he's naked. Izzie tells him she doesn't care if he sees her in her underwear. I don't think it's Izzie's modesty that George is trying to protect.
In the locker room, Bailey tells the interns that when they examine the patients in the wee hours of the morning, they need to be polite and gentle when they wake them up and try to get them to share information on their condition, which will have the effect of preventing the interns from making Bailey look bad in front of the attendings. Bailey leaves, and Izzie approaches her locker (which is near Alex's). He calls her "Doctor Model," and she calls him "Doctor Spawn." He notices a little tattoo peaking out from the top of her pants and shines his tiny, inadequate little flashlight at it. He asks her if they airbrush the tattoo out for "the catalogues," and she asks him what they do for the "666 on [his] skull." So far the teasing is relatively playful, but Alex is still a pig.
Cut to George walking down a hallway. We see some male interns excitedly running into the locker room. George sticks his head in, and then Izzie walks up behind him. He tries to block her way into the room, but he thinks he's just continuing their fight and pushes her way past him. As she enters the locker room, the male interns start hooting and hollering at her. The walls are covered with dozens of copies of photos of Izzie in lingerie. Alex is hooting and hollering along with the others, but then he shuts them up and tells them to show some respect for Bethany Whisper. Alex: "I guess they do airbrush out the tattoo, don't they?" Izzie does a slow burn, and then asks Alex if he "really wants to see it." She pulls off her jacket and throws it at Alex, saying, "Let's look at that tattoo up close and personal, shall we?" And then she rips open her shirt and yells out, "And what are these? Oh my God, breasts. How does anybody practice medicine hauling these things around?" She pulls the barrette out of her hair and shakes it out. She pulls off her pants and notes that if she recalls her anatomy correctly, she has some glutes back there. "Let's gather 'round and check out the booty that put Izzie Stevens through med school." She asks Alex, "Have you had enough, or should I continue? Because I have a few more very interesting tattoos." Alex, shamefaced, does not respond. She walks up to him and tells him, "You want to call me 'Dr. Model?' That's fine. Just remember that while you're sitting on two hundred grand of student loans, I'm out of debt." She shoves Alex and storms out of the room (without bothering to get dressed). George offers to take the pix down, but she tells him not to bother. I would just like to point out that she never did show Alex the tattoo.
McDreamy examines Jorge to determine whether there's any neurological damage. He asks Jorge if he can remember what he had for breakfast on Monday. He can, because his wife makes him the same thing every day (a cheese omelet). I was joking before, but now I am starting to suspect product placement. Or a cheese fetish on the part of one of the show's writers. Husband and wife make cute noises about a cheese omelet being the only thing he likes to eat and the only thing she knows how to cook. McDreamy tells them that things look good, but he still needs an MRI to check for any residual bleeding.
Izzie walks into Creepy Masturbator's room and slaps down one of the copies of her ad. She tells him that the model is who she used to be and a doctor is what she is now, and she expects him to treat her the same as any of the other doctors. He tells her, "I'm sure you're a very good doctor." Izzie: "Then what is your problem?" He tells her that he's a creepy masturbator. Or rather, that he fantasized about Izzie's photos, and that seeing her just reminds him of the fact that he's about to very likely lose his ability to have a normal sex life. He also doesn't want the woman about whom he's fantasized to witness his emasculation.
Cristina and Burke are in the hallway outside Nurse Fallon's room. Cristina asks if Burke has seen the overnight labs. He has, and he agrees with her that everything looks bad. She asks why he hasn't scheduled the Whipple, and he responds, "Excuse me? Are you a surgeon now?" She points out that she's spending a lot of time taking care of Nurse Fallon, and she wants to do something to stop her from dying. He makes delaying noises about her biopsy, and Cristina tells him to shut up: "I think you never intended to do the Whipple. I think, I think this entire thing has been bull, and you're behaving like the only reason she's in this hospital is to die." He just looks at her, and she seems to realize that she just hit the nail on the head. Burke walks away from her.
Jorge is just coming out of the MRI. McDreamy is looking at the results, and notes that there is indeed a tumor in the hypothalamus. Mere and McDreamy are both pretty unhappy with the news. Commercials.
McDreamy is breaking the news to Jorge and his wife. He thinks the best practice is to operate to remove the tumor, but notes that he won't be able to get all of it. Thus, the surgery will have to be followed up with chemo and radiation, which will probably give Jorge five to ten "good years," but which won't ever cure the cancer. Jorge tells him he wants to go with the surgery, but McDreamy tells him that there's a serious downside. The tumor is located in part of the brain where Jorge's memory and "personality" reside, so the surgery could cause memory loss and completely change who he is as a person. There's some kind of less-invasive surgical option (which sounded like it involved radiation), but it would only give Jorge three to five years of life. McDreamy and Mere leave the two of them to make their decision.
Nurse Fallon is sleeping in her room. She opens her eyes to find Mere sitting off to one side looking at her. Nurse Fallon greets her warmly. Mere tells her, "I told my mother about you. She remembers you very well." Nurse Fallon thinks that makes perfect sense, as "Ellis Grey never forgot a thing." Mere takes that in for a second, and then starts laughing. After a minute, she apologizes to Nurse Fallon, explaining that it's not really funny. And then Nurse Fallon cuts through the crap by asking what Ellis's diagnosis is. As we know, it's early onset Alzheimer's. Nurse Fallon knows Ellis well enough to realize that she's making Meredith keep her condition a secret. Mere: "You know my mother well." Nurse Fallon: "What a bitch." That sets them both laughing.
Cristina is lounging around on some kind of metal wicker bench. Izzie is nearby, defending the decision to let Nurse Fallon die in the hospital to which she devoted so much of her life. Cristina just thinks it's a waste of a bed and her own time. Mere approaches and asks them what they're talking about. Cristina explains that Nurse Fallon was brought to the hospital so she could die. Izzie thinks it's what Cristina would want if she were in Nurse Fallon's shoes, but Cristina disagrees -- she'd want every possible step taken to keep her alive. And then Cristina uses her feet to pick up a copy of the magazine with Izzie's pix that is sitting on a nearby table. Dexterous. Burke, you are (or will soon be) one lucky fellow. She flips through the magazine until she comes to Izzie's ad. Cristina: "You are eight feet tall. Your boobs are perfect. Your hair is down to there. If I were you, I would walk around naked all the time. I wouldn't have a job, I wouldn't have skills. I wouldn't even know how to read. I just would be... naked." She passes the magazine to Mere, who seems to be seeing it for the first time. Mere starts laughing. Izzie blames her blinding beauty on makeup and retouching. Cristina: "You get that we hate you, right?" But Izzie clearly doesn't get that, because she's smiling for the first time that day. Izzie's pager goes off. It's Bailey, "again." Cristina points out that "any patient who spanks to his doctor's pictures forfeits his rights." She thinks Izzie shouldn't give up participating in Creepy Masturbator's surgery. Izzie doesn't answer, and Cristina, frustrated, shouts out, "You know, sometimes it's actually, you know, painful to be around you." This makes Izzie smile again as she walks away.
CM is being transferred to a gurney in his room. George is helping Bailey and some nurses. Izzie enters, and Bailey yells at her for not responding to her page, noting that she's assigned Izzie's prep work to George. Izzie makes an apologetic face to George as he wheels CM out of the room. Bailey tells Izzie, "If I hear the words 'Bethany Whisper' one more time..." Izzie tells Bailey that CM doesn't want her in the room, but Bailey tells her that what he really wants is not to have cancer. She says that it's Izzie's choice if she wants to stay in the scrub room.
Through a glass wall, we see McDreamy speak with Jorge and his wife. He leaves the room and tells Mere that they've decided to go ahead with the surgery. Mere seems unhappy with that decision.
Elsewhere in the locker room, Meredith is telling Cristina that she hopes to get better patients than she got the day, when her work consisted of changing dressings for two colostomy patients all day. Cristina is certain that there's a surgery in the cards for that day, and Meredith pumps her for whatever information she's got. Cristina resists, telling Mere that she needs to hold on to her advantage because "I'm not the intern who's screwing an attending." Mere protests that she's not screwing any attending, just as the attending she's screwed and will screw again walks in the door.
Mere takes off down the hallway, followed by McDreamy. He's got an early surgery and offers to buy her breakfast when it's done. She tells him that she's already eaten, and when he asks what she had, she tells him, "None of your business." He starts trying to guess what kind of breakfast she eats, and she confesses that she had leftover grilled cheese. I'm sorry, but if there is grilled cheese, there should not be leftovers, because that shit is good. McDreamy turns into Timer, and PSAs that every day should start with a good breakfast. (And now I'm hankering for a hunk of cheese. Curse you, '70s nostalgia!) Meredith tells McDreamy that she's not going to be seen socializing with him at the hospital. He thinks it's perfectly fine for an attending to get to know an intern, but Meredith disagrees when the attending has already slept with the intern. He tells her that if she wants him to be professional, he'll be professional. And then he bids her adieu with an excess of formality.
Bailey, standing at a desk, asks if anyone has seen the floor chart on the new patient.
Cut to Cristina stealthily creeping into a darkened room for an early morning examination of said new patient. Cristina turns the light on, and the patient (who is already awake, although wearing a sleep mask) yells at her for her lack of subtlety. Cristina asks the patient of she is Elizabeth Fallon. Ms. Fallon thinks Cristina must know the answer, since she's got the chart. Cristina notes that the chart says that Ms. Fallon used to be a nurse at the hospital (which Ms. Fallon instantly corrects to "scrub nurse") and that she has pancreatic cancer. Nurse Fallon knows that Cristina is hoping to get in on a Whipple. It's a rare procedure that Nurse Fallon says would be performed just a few times a year at the hospital. She asks Cristina if that's why she arrived at 4:30, and Cristina corrects her to tell her she arrived at 4:00. Cristina examines Nurse Fallon while Nurse Fallon demonstrates how exactly on to Cristina's cutthroat ways she is. Cristina introduces herself, and Nurse Fallon tells her, "I'll call you Cristina, and you call me Nurse Fallon." Well, that works out perfectly for me.
Izzie enters another patient's room and awakens him for an exam. He starts out with his back to her and gripes and complains as she wakes him up. She starts to place a stethoscope on his back and he looks at her and says, "You're not a doctor." She tells him that she is a real live doctor and that she'll be assisting in his care. He tells her to get another doctor and shuts her down when she tries to assert herself. He roots around in a pile of papers to his bed, pulls out a magazine, and opens it to a spread of Izzie in lacy bra and panties. He asks if it's Izzie in the photos. Is he here because he's having problems with his vision? Because it's a pretty clear photo of Izzie. He insists that she leave the room. There are two things very wrong with this situation. First, did he bring this magazine to the hospital as a masturbatory aid? If so, ew. Second, if I were in the hospital and an object of my lust (let's say, oh, Thom Barron) walked in and started to examine me, I would not assume he was not a doctor. Rather, I would assume I was dreaming, or (worst case scenario) that I had died and was in heaven. But anger would likely not be my first reaction. And for reasons which will become apparent, this patient will be known as Creepy Masturbator, or CM for short.
In the hallway, George is pressing Meredith to establish some rules about sharing personal space in the house while naked or partially dressed. Meredith tries to laugh it off, and then tries to abdicate responsibility by claiming that it's her mother's house (and therefore not Meredith's place to set the rules), but George is insistent. After a second, Mere asks if George likes Izzie and that's why he's so flustered. Of course, he immediately becomes flustered and stammery and eventually says, "Izzie? No, she's not the one I'm attracted too." And how stupid is Meredith that she didn't realize that there's only one other "one" in the house for George to be attracted to? Instead, she just realizes that George is attracted to someone without realizing that the someone is her. George insists again that there need to be rules. Bailey tells the two of them to find Alex and head to trauma, because McDreamy needs them.
The three of them walk into a trauma room where there is a patient on a gurney. McDreamy is sitting at this head examining him. Meredith thinks it looks like the guy has nails in his head. Both McDreamy and a quick glance at an x-ray confirm that this is the case. Credits.
We come back in media trauma. McDreamy yells out orders while everyone else scurries around. Hammerhead is apparently awake, because he starts shouting out that he can't see. In all of the conversation, we learn that Hammerhead is actually named Jorge Cruz, and that he claims to have fallen down a flight of stairs holding a nail gun. That only makes sense to me if he was holding the nail gun to his own head. McDreamy notes that Mr. Cruz didn't hit any major blood vessels but does seem to have messed up his optic nerve. McDreamy orders a CT and is not happy when he learns that the CT is down. George suggests an MRI, but Alex reminds him (and at least some of us) that the "M" in "MRI" stands for "magnetic" -- probably not the best place for a man with a head full of metal. Alex notes that the real alternative is a set of x-rays from three vantage points. McDreamy orders that up and also tells the interns to do some research to find out whether this has ever happened before.
In Nurse Fallon's room, Cristina is giving Burke the (very detailed) bullet on the patient while the patient looks on with scorn. The Chief enters during the recitation of medical mumbo-jumbo and places his hand on Nurse Fallon's shoulder. Burke cuts Cristina off, and Nurse Fallon calls her "an aggressive little witch." And then Nurse Fallon busts Cristina on having stolen her chart so she could hog the case for herself. The Chief tells her that he had been planning on giving Nurse Fallon to Mere. Nurse Fallon calls her "Ellis's daughter," and we learn that Nurse Fallon was Ellis Grey's scrub nurse for 18 years but never met Meredith during that entire time. Burke tells the Chief that Mere is working on the guy with the nails in his head, and Cristina is suddenly very jealous to hear that there is such a guy and that there might be a super-cool surgical procedure involved in removing the nails. The Chief calms her down by noting that she'll be assigned to Nurse Fallon's case and will get the Whipple. Burke gives Cristina a full set of orders on how to take care of Nurse Fallon (which includes an enema), and then he and the Chief leave the aggressive little witch with the aggressive big witch (whom the Chief calls "an institution"). Nurse Fallon: "Good call, doctor. Grey's got the human two-by-four, and you have the institution in need of an enema."
Mere takes a history from Mr. Cruz. He tells her that he's had some headaches lately, but "nothing compared to now." The guy is pretty calm and smiley, all things considered. McDreamy shows his wife in, and he and Mere give the two of them some privacy. His wife's name, by the way, is something like "Sonna" or "Shoshana" or "Sussudio." I can't make it out, so Jorge's wife she will remain.
In an office somewhere, George and Alex conduct their research on nail-gun-to-brain incidents. There have been 23, although Alex thinks one doesn't count since it was attempted suicide. Which doesn't quite make sense to me -- wouldn't the treatment be the same regardless of the motivation? And then Alex asks George if Izzie and Meredith really walk around in their underwear. George gets a bit flustered (of course) and tells him that they only do it some of the time. Alex keeps asking more questions, and George seems to think that he's having a moment of male bonding -- until Alex suggests that Izzie and Mere are acting like they are George's sisters. (Or maybe that they are acting as though George is their sister -- the syntax is a bit confusing here.) George thinks that's ridiculous, but Alex points out that neither of the foxy babes are coming on to George, so they must see him as some sort of desexualized eunuch. Of course, they're not coming on to Alex, either, but that's because they see him as an oversexed pig.
Bailey enters the antechamber to an O.R. (or some other room in which procedures are performed) and asks Izzie if "he" is prepped. Izzie thinks "they" are doing "it" right now. Bailey yells at her for not being in the room while Creepy Masturbator gets his prostate biopsied.
Bailey enters the room, where CM is splayed out on some contraption like...well, I guess like a woman visiting her OB-GYN. Sucks to be you, ladies. Izzie feels guilty about her dereliction of duty and enters the room. As soon as CM sees her, he starts yelling at her to leave.
On the Bridge of Sighs and Regrets, Mrs. Cruz asks Mere about whether her husband will be able to see again. Apparently, he's a talented amateur photographer. Meredith asks Mrs. Cruz about the headaches her husband mentioned. They started just in the last couple of months. Mere asks if she's seen Jorge experience any dizziness or disorientation; after a few tense moments, Mrs. Cruz tells her that she has.
Bailey leaves CM's biopsy room and finds Izzie waiting outside. Bailey asks her for an explanation of CM's outburst. Izzie unconvincingly chalks it up to patient craziness, but Bailey's not buying it. After a few seconds, Izzie walks closer to Bailey and whispers "Bethany Whisper." Bailey's as confused as I am, but it turns out that Izzie's lingerie layout was an ad for a company named "Bethany Whisper." Bailey wonders when she has time to pose for magazines, and Izzie explains that the shoot came in her not-at-all busy final year of medical school but that it was just published recently. Bailey essentially accuses Izzie of being embarrassed because her patient saw her in her undies. Izzie doesn't deny it, and suggests that it would be easier for her to assign a different intern to work with CM. Bailey nixes that idea, and tells her that if CM's biopsy comes back positive, she expects to see Izzie in surgery. Izzie stands there motionless. After a few seconds, Bailey walks back to her and tells her that she's really not getting off CM's case. Izzie slowly picks up CM's biopsy samples and carries them off to the lab.
Mere tells McDreamy about Jorge's dizziness. He thinks it's nothing; she's concerned it could be a sign of some larger problem (such as a tumor). While they're talking, he's scrubbing in. They move into the O.R., and McDreamy acknowledges that there might be something else, but he wants to get the nails out of Jorge's head before looking for any other problems. Then McDreamy gets on the phone -- it's Alex and George calling with the results of their research. McDreamy also states that the attempted suicide doesn't "count" as a case of nail-in-the-head. Again, I'm mystified. Alex and George summarize their research, which basically just told them that the biggest issue in removing the nails is to watch for bleeding. McDreamy hangs up, and George leaves the research room. He asks if Alex is coming, but Alex seems to have become distracted by something. After George leaves the room, we see that Alex found a magazine with Izzie's lingerie photo in it. Commercials.
When we return, we see that Alex is making a lot of photocopies. He has a smile on his face. It's an evil smile.
In the O.R., Jorge is telling Mere all about how much he loves his wife. He tells a story about how when he met his wife, she was obsessed with the color red. He didn't really like it that much, but a couple of years ago he took her "up to the mountains." She was wearing a red dress, and they came upon a field of red poppies, and she ran into the field and started laughing. Yeah, I don't get the point of that either.
Bailey walks out of Creepy Masturbator's room and tells Izzie and an attending that the cancer has not spread from CM's prostate to his lymph nodes, which makes it relatively easy to treat. Bailey suggests trying to spare some nerves so CM can have a normal sex life, but the attending thinks it's safer to just cut everything out so as to be sure to get all of the cancer. He asks about the schedule, and is pleased when he learns they are set for 10:00 AM, because this may give him time to "squeeze in a round." He leaves, and Bailey tells Izzie that everyone calls that attending "Limp Harry" because "he never spares the nerves." Izzie looks concerned, and looks over at Creepy Masturbator. He's got the remote control for the television in his hand. I don't want to know what he's watching.
In McDreamy's O.R. there is an enormous crowd gathered to watch the nail removal. The Chief is giving everyone a lecture about what they are going to do, which is basically to take the nails out. In the gallery, Cristina enters and asks George what's going on. He tells her what we already know (which is that they are just about to start), and congratulates her on the Whipple. Cristina calls it a "maybe Whipple," and complains about how hard Burke is making her work for it. She notices something in the O.R. and fumes with jealousy. Alex is there, and he makes an ass of himself. We get a truly disgusting shot of a bloody and brain-covered nail being removed from Jorge's head. In the gallery, Cristina makes a joke about Jorge having just forgotten the entire third grade. Suddenly, we hear Burke's voice. He asks Cristina if she's done everything he asked her to do for Nurse Fallon, and then tells her to take Nurse Fallon to Radiology for her MRI. She looks distraught over having to leave the ultra-cool nail-pulling surgery, and Burke asks her if she really wants the Whipple. Resignedly, she leaves. As Cristina walks out, Izzie walks in. She hands George some money for groceries, and starts to remind him about the tampons, but he shuts her down before she emasculates him in front of all the other doctors. But the dreaded "T" word comes out anyway, causing some smirks from other doctors. George asks her if she hasn't heard a single word he's said, and she tells him that she's perfectly aware that he's a man. Alex, sitting behind George, leans in to taunt him about having his "salamander" shrunk. George slowly stands up and leaves the room.
In the elevator on the way to Radiology, Cristina is getting a lecture from Nurse Fallon. She tells Cristina that she's always divided surgeons into two categories: those who remembered their patients' names and those who didn't. Cristina assumes the first category were the better surgeons, but Nurse Fallon tells her that some of the best surgeons distanced themselves from their patients so as not to allow emotion to cloud their judgment. Cristina keeps waiting for the "but," but it doesn't come. Instead, as they arrive at Radiology, Nurse Fallon is swamped with former colleagues who want to give her their best and catch up with her.
Back in the O.R., McDreamy removes the last nail. There's no sign of bleeding, and he's confident they didn't make anything worse. They won't find out if his optic nerve is working again until the day. Mere asks if she should order the MRI, and he tells her it needs to wait until Jorge has recuperated.
Cristina runs back towards the O.R., but the tide of doctors coming in the other direction tell her that the surgery is finished. Her peregrinations have brought her to the O.R. schedule board, and she quickly sees that there is no Whipple scheduled. She runs off to find out what's up.
In the lobby, Cristina catches up with Burke and asks him if he's seen Nurse Fallon's labs. Apparently, things are getting worse and whatever they've been doing is not helping. Cristina asks if she should schedule the Whipple, but Burke tells her he'd rather wait for the results of her biopsy and her overnight labs. Cristina is surprised to hear that there will be overnight labs. Burke points out that since Cristina is on-call that night, she should be able to take care of getting those done. She asks him if he's planning on doing the Whipple, and he responds, "The woman has pancreatic cancer, Dr. Yang. We're gonna do something." And by "something," he means "give her one last day of pleasure by allowing her to terrorize a young intern."
Back in her room, Nurse Fallon says goodnight to a herd of well-wishers. Meredith enters against flow of the crowd. When Nurse Fallon sees her, she notes that Meredith is smaller than Ellis. Mere knows that Nurse Fallon was Ellis's scrub nurse, and they introduce themselves to each other. Meredith tells Nurse Fallon that Ellis wanted Mere to "send her regards." Nurse Fallon knows that's a lie, because "the Ellis Grey [she] knew didn't have regards for anyone except Ellis Grey." Nurse Fallon asks after Ellis's whereabouts, and Mere takes a very long time before lying and saying that Ellis is "traveling." Again, Nurse Fallon thinks that seems out of character. She probes further and asks Mere if Ellis is practicing medicine. Mere tells her, "Not so much." Again, Nurse Fallon thinks this sound unlike the Ellis that she knew, who never left the hospital and never stopped working. She asks Mere is Ellis is well, and Mere lies again and says that she's doing great. Mere beats a hasty retreat.
Nursing home (or whatever it's called). Mere is showing Ellis some of the pictures she found. When they get to the picture of the three Greys, Ellis asks who the man is. Mere tells her that it's her husband, Thatcher Grey, whom Ellis called "Thatch." Ellis doesn't seem to get it, and is also confused by Mere's explanation that one of the photos is of Mere when she was four. Meredith gives up and puts the photo album away, and then tells Ellis that she saw Nurse Fallon at the hospital. Suddenly, Ellis comes to life; she laughs, and asks how Nurse Fallon is doing. Ellis: "Is she still a scrub nurse? She was excellent." Commercials.
In the Bathroom of George's Shame, Izzie (in tank top and panties) yells at George (naked, in the shower) about not getting the tampons when he went shopping. He claims to have forgotten them, but she sticks her head into the shower to accuse him of being passive-aggressive. He starts yelling at her, pointing out that he's naked. She closes the shower door and tells him that she's upset because she really needs the tampons. Mere walks in, and Izzie says that she doesn't want to ride in the same car as George. Mere tells her that she won't be riding with Mere unless she gets dressed. And then Mere asks where the tampons are. Izzie tells her that George didn't buy them, and Mere yells at him. George yells you, "Men don't buy tampons!" Mere storms off, and Izzie opens the shower door and tells George that he's going to have to get used to living with women. George tries to cover his nekkidness and falls down in the shower. He picks himself up and yells after the two of them, "I am not your sister!"
McDreamy finds Meredith looking over a chart. He asks her if she had grilled cheese for breakfast, and she tells him it was cold pizza that morning. This episode is brought to you by the cheese lobby. He asks if Jorge is awake, and Mere tells him he's even better than that. The walk into Jorge's room, where we learn that he is able to see again.
Izzie and George walk into the front door of the hospital. The air is frosty around them. Izzie tells George that she's taking the elevator, so he'll have to take the stairs. He claims that was his plan all along, and walks away. Izzie gets on the elevator with some men. A couple of them start snickering, but cover it up when she glares at them. The elevator doors close, and we see that a blown-up copy of the Bethany Whisper ad is taped to the doors.
Cristina stomps into Nurse Fallon's room and turns on the light. Nurse Fallon wakes up and grumbles at Cristina for her rudeness. Cristina blames her shortness on being on call and not getting any sleep, but Nurse Fallon knows that Cristina would rather be at the hospital than anywhere, in part because Nurse Fallon knows that Cristina has neither boyfriend, girlfriend, nor pet waiting for her at home. Burke is in the doorway and is laughing at the hard time Nurse Fallon is giving Cristina. Cristina tells her that what she has waiting at home is a bed, but Nurse Fallon thinks there are more than enough beds at the hospital. She continues, "I don't feel sorry for you. This is who we are. This is our life." Through all of this, Cristina is giving Burke a series of nasty looks. As she walks out of the room, she asks if she can speak with him.
Cut to George walking down a hallway. We see some male interns excitedly running into the locker room. George sticks his head in, and then Izzie walks up behind him. He tries to block her way into the room, but he thinks he's just continuing their fight and pushes her way past him. As she enters the locker room, the male interns start hooting and hollering at her. The walls are covered with dozens of copies of photos of Izzie in lingerie. Alex is hooting and hollering along with the others, but then he shuts them up and tells them to show some respect for Bethany Whisper. Alex: "I guess they do airbrush out the tattoo, don't they?" Izzie does a slow burn, and then asks Alex if he "really wants to see it." She pulls off her jacket and throws it at Alex, saying, "Let's look at that tattoo up close and personal, shall we?" And then she rips open her shirt and yells out, "And what are these? Oh my God, breasts. How does anybody practice medicine hauling these things around?" She pulls the barrette out of her hair and shakes it out. She pulls off her pants and notes that if she recalls her anatomy correctly, she has some glutes back there. "Let's gather 'round and check out the booty that put Izzie Stevens through med school." She asks Alex, "Have you had enough, or should I continue? Because I have a few more very interesting tattoos." Alex, shamefaced, does not respond. She walks up to him and tells him, "You want to call me 'Dr. Model?' That's fine. Just remember that while you're sitting on two hundred grand of student loans, I'm out of debt." She shoves Alex and storms out of the room (without bothering to get dressed). George offers to take the pix down, but she tells him not to bother. I would just like to point out that she never did show Alex the tattoo.
McDreamy examines Jorge to determine whether there's any neurological damage. He asks Jorge if he can remember what he had for breakfast on Monday. He can, because his wife makes him the same thing every day (a cheese omelet). I was joking before, but now I am starting to suspect product placement. Or a cheese fetish on the part of one of the show's writers. Husband and wife make cute noises about a cheese omelet being the only thing he likes to eat and the only thing she knows how to cook. McDreamy tells them that things look good, but he still needs an MRI to check for any residual bleeding.
Izzie walks into Creepy Masturbator's room and slaps down one of the copies of her ad. She tells him that the model is who she used to be and a doctor is what she is now, and she expects him to treat her the same as any of the other doctors. He tells her, "I'm sure you're a very good doctor." Izzie: "Then what is your problem?" He tells her that he's a creepy masturbator. Or rather, that he fantasized about Izzie's photos, and that seeing her just reminds him of the fact that he's about to very likely lose his ability to have a normal sex life. He also doesn't want the woman about whom he's fantasized to witness his emasculation.
Cristina and Burke are in the hallway outside Nurse Fallon's room. Cristina asks if Burke has seen the overnight labs. He has, and he agrees with her that everything looks bad. She asks why he hasn't scheduled the Whipple, and he responds, "Excuse me? Are you a surgeon now?" She points out that she's spending a lot of time taking care of Nurse Fallon, and she wants to do something to stop her from dying. He makes delaying noises about her biopsy, and Cristina tells him to shut up: "I think you never intended to do the Whipple. I think, I think this entire thing has been bull, and you're behaving like the only reason she's in this hospital is to die." He just looks at her, and she seems to realize that she just hit the nail on the head. Burke walks away from her.
Jorge is just coming out of the MRI. McDreamy is looking at the results, and notes that there is indeed a tumor in the hypothalamus. Mere and McDreamy are both pretty unhappy with the news. Commercials.
McDreamy is breaking the news to Jorge and his wife. He thinks the best practice is to operate to remove the tumor, but notes that he won't be able to get all of it. Thus, the surgery will have to be followed up with chemo and radiation, which will probably give Jorge five to ten "good years," but which won't ever cure the cancer. Jorge tells him he wants to go with the surgery, but McDreamy tells him that there's a serious downside. The tumor is located in part of the brain where Jorge's memory and "personality" reside, so the surgery could cause memory loss and completely change who he is as a person. There's some kind of less-invasive surgical option (which sounded like it involved radiation), but it would only give Jorge three to five years of life. McDreamy and Mere leave the two of them to make their decision.
Nurse Fallon is sleeping in her room. She opens her eyes to find Mere sitting off to one side looking at her. Nurse Fallon greets her warmly. Mere tells her, "I told my mother about you. She remembers you very well." Nurse Fallon thinks that makes perfect sense, as "Ellis Grey never forgot a thing." Mere takes that in for a second, and then starts laughing. After a minute, she apologizes to Nurse Fallon, explaining that it's not really funny. And then Nurse Fallon cuts through the crap by asking what Ellis's diagnosis is. As we know, it's early onset Alzheimer's. Nurse Fallon knows Ellis well enough to realize that she's making Meredith keep her condition a secret. Mere: "You know my mother well." Nurse Fallon: "What a bitch." That sets them both laughing.
Cristina is lounging around on some kind of metal wicker bench. Izzie is nearby, defending the decision to let Nurse Fallon die in the hospital to which she devoted so much of her life. Cristina just thinks it's a waste of a bed and her own time. Mere approaches and asks them what they're talking about. Cristina explains that Nurse Fallon was brought to the hospital so she could die. Izzie thinks it's what Cristina would want if she were in Nurse Fallon's shoes, but Cristina disagrees -- she'd want every possible step taken to keep her alive. And then Cristina uses her feet to pick up a copy of the magazine with Izzie's pix that is sitting on a nearby table. Dexterous. Burke, you are (or will soon be) one lucky fellow. She flips through the magazine until she comes to Izzie's ad. Cristina: "You are eight feet tall. Your boobs are perfect. Your hair is down to there. If I were you, I would walk around naked all the time. I wouldn't have a job, I wouldn't have skills. I wouldn't even know how to read. I just would be... naked." She passes the magazine to Mere, who seems to be seeing it for the first time. Mere starts laughing. Izzie blames her blinding beauty on makeup and retouching. Cristina: "You get that we hate you, right?" But Izzie clearly doesn't get that, because she's smiling for the first time that day. Izzie's pager goes off. It's Bailey, "again." Cristina points out that "any patient who spanks to his doctor's pictures forfeits his rights." She thinks Izzie shouldn't give up participating in Creepy Masturbator's surgery. Izzie doesn't answer, and Cristina, frustrated, shouts out, "You know, sometimes it's actually, you know, painful to be around you." This makes Izzie smile again as she walks away.
CM is being transferred to a gurney in his room. George is helping Bailey and some nurses. Izzie enters, and Bailey yells at her for not responding to her page, noting that she's assigned Izzie's prep work to George. Izzie makes an apologetic face to George as he wheels CM out of the room. Bailey tells Izzie, "If I hear the words 'Bethany Whisper' one more time..." Izzie tells Bailey that CM doesn't want her in the room, but Bailey tells her that what he really wants is not to have cancer. She says that it's Izzie's choice if she wants to stay in the scrub room.
Through a glass wall, we see McDreamy speak with Jorge and his wife. He leaves the room and tells Mere that they've decided to go ahead with the surgery. Mere seems unhappy with that decision.
Nurse Fallon is having difficulty breathing in her bed. Cristina enters, and Nurse Fallon tells her, "They were never gonna operate." Cristina thinks that Nurse Fallon could have told her, but Nurse Fallon thinks that would have taken all the fun out of it. Nurse Fallon: "Think of it as a hazing ritual." She tries to speak more, but is having too much difficulty breathing. She grabs Cristina's hand, and then crashes. Cristina looks panicky and pushes the call button on the wall. Commercials.
And now it's time for one of the semi-montages that this show is famous for. Pretty music plays as Mere watches Jorge's wife stand up from his bedside and walk out of his room. (Mrs. Jorge does a tremendous job of looking slightly disoriented herself here. Brava.) Mere calls out her name.
Meanwhile, we see a team of nurses responding to Cristina's emergency call. They enter Nurse Fallon's room to find Cristina performing CPR. Cristina starts calling out orders, but one of the nurses sees that Nurse Fallon is DNR. Cristina tries to get them to resuscitate her anyway, but it's no-go.
Mere is talking to Jorge's wife. She's trying to convince her that keeping Jorge alive for a few extra years won't be worth it if the surgery turns him into a completely different person or makes him lose his memories of their time together. Mrs. Jorge isn't up for hearing this; she thinks that a few extra years will be worth it, and that it's none of Mere's business. Mere thinks that five good years is better than ten bad ones. McDreamy sees what's going on and walks over to ask Mere what she's doing. Mere says that she's trying to make Mrs. Jorge understand what she's going to lose, but Mrs. Jorge cuts her off: "I do understand! You think I'm being selfish, that I don't want to give him up. This is Jorge's decision. And if that means ten bad years for me, fine, I'll give him those years, because I will give him whatever he wants. And if he doesn't remember me, if he doesn't remember what we are, he's still my Jorge, and I'll remember for us both." She's crying by the end of that speech, and so am I.
Burke enters Nurse Fallon's room to find Cristina performing CPR while the nurses watch. Burke tells her to let her go, but Cristina keeps pumping. So eventually Burke grabs Cristina and pulls her back. She struggles and pulls away from him, while he yells at her that "DNR" means "do not resuscitate." She stands there, looking down, confused by these emotions she's feeling. And the semi-montage ends.
Izzie enters the scrub room where George is watching Creepy Masturbator's surgery. She asks for an update on where they are in the surgery, and then asks him if he feels like she's been emasculating him. George puffs out his chest and responds, "No. I'm too masculine to be emasculated." But he clearly knows that's not true. She laughs, and apologizes. He congratulates her on putting the "Doctor Model" nickname to rest. They bump shoulders. It's very sweet.
In the O.R., Bailey is telling Limp Harry that the nerves he's planning on cutting out are perfectly viable and should be saved. Limp Harry thinks it would take an extra hour, and some of the cancer might be left behind. Bailey thinks CM's prognosis would be just as good if he had chemo following the surgery, and she offers to finish up if Limp Harry is concerned about missing his tee-time. Izzie pulls on a mask and enters the O.R. Bailey and Limp Harry ask her what she's doing. She tells them that they've go to save the nerves: "You told me the most important thing is giving the patient what they want. What [CM] wants is his erection." Limp Harry tells Bailey to get Izzie out of the room, but Bailey tells her that Izzie is a young puppy who is too ornery for her to control. Limp Harry promises to report both of them to the Chief. Bailey tells him that he should do that, but in the meantime she would like him to pretend that his prostate is on the table and do his best to save the nerves.
It's another semi-montage. In Nurse Fallon's room, a huge crowd of nurses and doctors has gathered to witness her passing. The monitor flatlines, and Burke listens for a heartbeat. Cristina still looks abashed, and Burke asks her if she's ever called a time of death. She hasn't. The Chief tells her to call it. Cristina announces the time of death as 11:43 and walks out of the room.
We see McDreamy speaking to Mrs. Jorge while Mere watches. Mrs. Jorge walks away from McDreamy and gives Mere an inscrutable look as she passes on the way back to Jorge's room. Mere's voiceover tells us, "I wish there were a rulebook for intimacy. Some kind of a guide that could tell you when you've crossed the line." McDreamy walks over to Mere, but she just walks away.
Mere's VO continues: "It would be nice if you could see it coming. But I don't know how you'd fit it on a map." Burke walks into the stairwell and finds Cristina. He says something indeterminate, and she responds with an angry gesture. She starts to walk away (I think to do something in Nurse Fallon's room), and he grabs her and whispers, "Let her go. We have to let her go." Cristina looks to be on the verge of tears, and these two look to be on the verge of making out. "Crossing the line," indeed.
CM is wheeled out of the O.R. In the scrub room, Bailey tells Izzie, "Of course, now you know, every time he gets a rise, he'll be thinking of you." Izzie smiles.
Mere's VO: "You take it where you can get it. And keep it as long as you can." We see Jorge, still pre-surgery, taking a photo of his wife in her red dress. Then we cut to Mere slowly walking down a flight of stairs with her mother. Mere's VO: "And as for rules? Maybe there are none." Cut to George, getting out of the shower to find Izzie brushing her teeth. He tells her that she'd better not be using his toothbrush, and she confirms that she's not. Because she's not a pig.
Mere's VO: "Maybe the rules of intimacy are something you have to define for yourself." Cut to Mere walking onto the patio of a restaurant and sitting down for breakfast with McDreamy. Credits.