Meredith is sitting down as the shower rains down on her, dead asleep. Been there, done that. Her voice sets up this week's theme. "Remember when you were a kid and your biggest worry was like, if you'd get a bike for your birthday or if you'd get to eat cookies for breakfast? Being an adult? Totally overrated." As someone who has spent the last week doing things like organizing her finances, I concur. She's now out of the shower and walking to work in a purple sweater that looks very similar to one I just bought. "I mean, seriously, don't be fooled by all the hot shoes and the great sex and the no parents anywhere telling you what to do. Adulthood is responsibility."
She stares into the distance as a woman tells her that her mother's Alzheimer's is advancing, so she'll need to sign everything over to Meredith while she still has periods of lucidity. Meredith croaks out, "Me?" She seems to have laryngitis. Through a glass door separating the desk where Meredith and the woman sit and the parlor where Dr. Grey is waiting, she eyes Meredith with a disapproving look as she plays anxiously with her watch. Meredith tells the woman about having not slept in two days, missing her morning rounds and doing her first heart surgery the morning. These are her reasons for wanting someone else to take care of these issues with her mom, but the woman can't believe she's saying this about her mother's medical care, estate, etc. "Do you really want to leave her life in somebody else's hands? She's your mother." On the one hand, yeah, but on the other, maybe she shouldn't presume to know everything about the family dynamics of all of her residents. The responsibility voiceover continues until Meredith is at work in the OR, saying, "And if you're learning to be a surgeon, holding a human heart in your hands. Hello? Talk about responsibility!" At this moment, her half-mast eyes close completely and she doses off for a second, the heart slipping momentarily. When Burke wonders what happens, she just says that it slipped, which he's fine with.
In the peanut gallery, George is wishing he was there, Cristina belittles him by telling him, "a monkey could hold a heart," and George delightedly points out that she's just mad she wasn't asked to be in on it. Score one for George! Izzie sits down and tells them they need more ice and chips. Cristina suspiciously tells her, "Izzie, we said jocks only. Surgery, trauma, plastics. Who else?" Izzie nonchalantly tells her she invited some people from pediatrics. Cristina's upset about her inviting the "preschoolers" and then is even more upset to realize she invited people from psych -- the "mental defects." College would surely have been more entertaining had my major been called "mental defects," that's for sure. I think I'll start referring to it as that. George sternly talks to the girls and explains to us that they were supposed to be throwing a small cocktail party to meet Izzie's boyfriend who is coming into town. Meredith has no idea that the invite list has been growing, but Izzie promises she'll let her know. Cristina can't let anything go by without a snarky comment and asks Izzie if she's throwing the party to spend less time alone with him since he's bad in bed. She doesnât believe that Izzie just wants him to meet her friends, adding, "Right, sixty geeks in scrubs are your friends." That IS a lot of people. Her beeper goes off and she dismisses them with, "Bad sex, sucks for you."
Alex walks in at the moment and asks about the party, and they all really horribly play dumb. Never, ever try to engineer some sneaky plan with these guys -- they have all the subtlety of a Saturday morning cartoon. Alex ignores the stupidity to quip, "They losing her, or what?" The party has completely caused them to forget about the surgery, where an alarm is beeping and the woman is flatlining. Burke taps her heart and shocks her, urging her to come back, and finally they get a rhythm. It turns out to not be all roses, as Meredith looks down and notices a tear in her glove that looks revoltingly like she's playing with the hanging skin of a blister. Her voiceover concludes then with, "The scariest part about responsibility? When you screw up, and let it slip right through your fingers." It's so convenient when the subject she's been pondering about her own life ends up being illustrated metaphorically by one of the medical emergencies at the hospital that same week.
Outside, McDreamy meets up with Mere and asks her happily about getting to hold the heart. She's upset and monosyllabic, which confuses him, but she doesnât explain herself and just gets into the elevator with George. In one of the few elevator scenes lately that does not involve hot making out, she stares glumly at the numbers while George reads a book. Out of the blue, she blurts out what's been weighing on her to George: "I nodded off. Squeezed it." George assures her that the heart is a tough muscle that could take it, but she admits that her nail broke through the glove and freaks out that it might have punctured poor Mrs. Patterson's heart. George unconvincingly tells her that it's fine, but he's now as agitated as she is. They fakely try to convince each other that things are find and there's no reason to tell Burke what happened.
George and Bailey are looking at a lung x-ray, and he's talking about the obstruction that they see. They're going to operate and remove it, and Richard, who has been watching with them, updates George that the patient, Mrs. Drake, had another surgery there in 1999 but should still be talked through the procedure. He adds, "And resist the anti-smoking lectures, she feels bad enough already." George wonders, "Do you think if they put a picture of these on a pack of cigarettes, people would stop smoking?" Bailey shakes her head slightly. I was somewhere that they DID do that -- I believe it was in Singapore -- and the only reaction it seemed to incite was making me gag while I was buying my Coca-Cola Light at the 7-Eleven rather than actually stopping anyone else from smoking.
Alex and McDreamy are paired up today, and I need to take a moment to peel my panting self off of the television set where I was lured as if by a magnet by all the good looks gracing my screen. Their patient-of-the-week is a big guy who's being overly dramatic about his back pain. His description of the pain is "a thousand samurai warriors stabbing their swords into my spine." Unimpressed Alex suggests they give him morphine, but Mr. Drama immediately tells him that he needs Demerol. Both doctors notice the tracks on his arm as he tells them the dose that he needs, which is immense. When they express doubt, he reiterates, "Did you see that Tom Cruise samurai movie? Hmm? Pow! Pow! Pow!" Dude, by now no one's seeing any Tom Cruise movies -- you're going to need to come up with another cinematic reference to help feed your painkiller habit. Out in the hall, they discuss how he's a junkie and McDreamy asks what they do. Alex recites, "Check database for history, refer to a program, discharge." McDreamy adds, "After you give him some." Alex is disgusted, but McDreamy just explains that they still need to treat his pain as if it's real. "It's the first rule in pain management. Always err on the side of caution." Wow, that's the first rule? I'd like to then take this moment to thank my doctors who accidentally put me on a painkiller more often used for say, a bad sprain, after I had lung surgery and then didn't do anything when I was lying in bed moaning for a solid day. Who knew Grey's Anatomy could have taught them so much? McDreamy orders Alex to start a central line and Alex merely gapes after him.
Speaking of lung surgery, George is in the room with Mrs. Drake who is explaining to him how the last surgery was supposed to help but that "it never felt right." Despite the Chief's words, George tells her that quitting would have helped. Mrs. Drake indignantly tells him that she did -- a four-pack-a-day habit, in fact. She gets onto a gurney to be transported while George confusedly tells her that her x-rays tell him differently, but she's adamant that she went cold turkey five years previously. She's had to quit her job since even sitting hurts her, and no one believes that the pain is real. Even though he still doesnât quite believe her, he assures her that the pain definitely isn't in her head -- the proof is in the x-ray. She pulls him close and flirts, "You're too damn young to be a doctor." Smiling he throws back, "Hey, I'm older than I look." She asks him if he thinks the surgery will work and he noncommittally tells her that it's the best option. As she's pushed out of the room she calls him a straight shooter. "I like that!" I like her, despite the fact that she might be lying and/or deluded in some way.
Meredith visits Mrs. Patterson, the heart patient, who is in recovery with her husband standing over her. She tells him that all of her test results are fine and that, "heart surgery takes a lot out of a patient." She assures him that his wife should be just fine.
Izzie visits one of her patients who has just had a bowel obstruction removed. Talk about a party in your pants! They joke about it and she asks him follow-up questions including the always fun, "Have you pooped yet?" He hesitates and tells her, "I'm not exactly sure." This gives me some revolting mental images but he doesn't mean anything gross -- he's just hedging because he'd rather go home and can't until he's gone. He says that he should know better than to lie, since he himself went to med school. When Izzie asks him about it, he explains that by his last year of school he nearly got divorced because of the hours he was working, and so he quit and now does research and enjoys having a family. He assures her he meant no offense, and she says she didn't take any. "I'm one of those people who believe you can have both." He tells her, "Maybe so, but your first responsibility is always going to be your patient." That is surely not going to bite her in the ass later on, I'm sure of it. Although, on the off chance it does, I wonder if it will also have some uplifting undertone to the tough lesson? We're going to have to just wait and see.
She walks out of the room past Burke, who is holding two coffees and gives one to Cristina. She's prickly and suspicious, as is her wont, but he tries hard to be cool. "It's just coffee." "Good," she says. "Okay." "Okay." Despite her less-than-warm acceptance, when she thinks he's gone she drinks it. He peeks from around a corner and grins. Coffee: Step Number One to Getting It On.
Meredith washes her face with water in a short scene that seems to be there solely to make me envious of her long bangs that sweep perfectly to the side and don't obstruct her vision like mine do every time I start to try out that style. The scene then jumps to Bailey, Richard, and George getting ready for Mrs. Drake's surgery. Bailey explains how they're going to cut and deflate the obstruction and they carefully dig around in her torso and watch their progress on a screen. They then see something black that causes them to panic. Richard immediately orders them to "open her up," Her ribs are spread, and after a moment of digging Richard pulls out the nastiest black, decaying towel I've ever seen. George asks where it came from and Richard answers that it's most likely from her surgery. Bailey mutters, "Something careless this way comes." George just stares. It turns out that Mrs. Drake isn't crazy at all.
Outside of the ER, Cristina has heard what happened and can't believe it while Richard keeps repeating how bad this is for them. They send Cristina to research the old files and find out who performed the last surgery. George is ordered to stay with Mrs. Drake since she likes him. He hems about it a little bit, adding, "Because technically, I'm off at six." Bailey smoothly replies, "Am I invited?" George stutters, "Excuse me?" Bailey calmly repeats, "Am I invited to the party." Caught unawares, he tells her of course, and as she leaves, Cristina stares him down and groans. He wails, "What was I supposed to say?"
In the hallway, Izzie's on the phone ordering beer. As she's befuddled, clearly having been asked what kind she'd like, Alex walks by and without missing a beat tells her to get microbrews and bar nuts. She snipes that she's ordering office supplies and then immediately orders everything he suggested. Her non-pooping patient walks by at that moment and even he knows about and wishes he could attend the party.
Pained yelling comes from one of the rooms and McDreamy walks in to find Mr. Drama -- now named Mr. Ross -- moaning and writhing in pain. He leaves to track down Alex and chew him out for not obeying orders. Alex tries to justify his inaction by reporting that Mr. Ross has been in seven hospitals over the last four months. However, McDreamy points out that though he's a junkie, he's also got a "three-lumbar fusion." I don't know what that is, but it certainly sounds bad. He tells Alex that he's really feeling the pain that he's claiming and sends him off to do his job. As Alex angrily stomps off, McDreamy pauses and thinks, presumably about the argument they just had, but I like to think maybe about a cute recapper he can sense living in Southern California and how he might like to vacation there and sweep her off her feet.
George sits with Mrs. Drake, who is awake and groggily recounting the conversation she had with a handsome surgeon who told her about the towel. George tells her that was their Chief of Staff. She tries to digest what happened but is confused and weak and begins crying and quietly moaning, "Who would do that?" While she's clearly not completely come to from the surgery, she is alert enough to be hurt and appalled at what has happened. George looks helpless.
Cristina, meanwhile, searches through boxes of old files and eventually finds what she's looking for. Once she's flipped through the paperwork, she finds what she's looking for...Dr. Burke was the surgeon who worked on Mrs. Drake in 1999. She gives the file to Bailey, who reads it for herself. Cristina then asks what's going to happen now and Bailey merely tells her to keep it to herself, "while we work this out. Do this for me." Cristina looks tortured -- one of the first times she's looked anything but arrogantly confident or angry.
Meredith is sitting at a desk, and McDreamy asks her again if she's okay and doesn't believe her answer that she is. He offers to take her out to dinner to talk about it and eat "chunks of carbs in a basket." Mmmmm, carbs in a basket. When he takes me on our date that's what we're getting too. When he tells her to forget about the party, she can't believe that he knows about it. Considering this hospital can't keep anything quiet, ever, it's not such a surprise, but then again, she is specifically the roommate who hasn't known that her house is basically hosting a kegger later. When he needles her for not inviting him, her beeper goes off and she sprints down the hall. People are surrounding Mrs. Patterson, who has a literal geyser of blood shooting out of her chest. Really, that can't be good. The husband is there, worrying that she's dying, and Meredith orders someone to get him out of the room. Burke appears and as they tend to the patient Meredith reports that all of her tests looked normal. In her hoarse voice, as they pause to unhook something to wheel her back into surgery, Meredith blurts out, "I popped a glove...I think I may have nicked her heart." The husband overhears her. While confession is good, it's only probably the worst possible moment in the world she could have admitted something like that -- the really serious version of the room going silent just in time for you to accidentally let out a little bit of gas because dude, no one will know the smell was you.
In surgery, Burke chews her out for both not speaking up earlier and then blurting out her confession in front of the husband. The reason he's so angry is because she might have had nothing to do with it, but now that the husband has heard he can still cause them lots of trouble. At that moment, he finds the problem and angrily points out to her that the ventricle wall burst -- something that had nothing to do with Meredith's fingernail. The door slides open and Richard storms in, having just been confronted by Mr. Patterson. He orders them to show him the chart and meet with him and legal the morning. "And you better damn well be able to explain what happened here." He mutters on his way out, "People poking holes in hearts, leaving towels in patients..." What kind of two-bit operation are you running over there, Chief? I hope this isn't what comes from hiring the Best Looking Staff in America. Burke tells Meredith, extremely clipped, that he's going to speak to the husband while she reviews the file, and that she needs to apologize. Not one to mince words, he warns her, "Your ass is on the line here, Dr. Grey." It's moments like these that make me realize when someone calls me and says they have an urgent question about some variety of lame paperwork when I'm at work, they don't really mean it. No one's got holes in their heart and pending litigation.
Meredith is studying while George and Cristina hang around, each playing their own personal roles to a tee. George is freaking out and assures her she's not getting kicked out, while Christina is blasé in saying she thinks the husband will sue, and then berates Meredith for speaking up at all. She seems extra gruff, and I think some of those icky "emotions" might be seeping in and she might be worried about her friend. As Meredith leaves, Izzie comes in and updates them on the booze and the ever-increasing, Cristina-angering guest list. George asks if she's told Meredith and she again assures him that, "a few more people's not going to make a difference." Cristina starts in again about the bad sex, Izzie shoots back about the buckets and loads and hours and days of sex they're going to have, and George pipes in again to order her to talk to Meredith. Izzie finally admits to her actual reason for the party, which is that she wants her hockey-playing love monkey to know that, "we're not all workaholics with God complexes." Cristina retorts that in fact, "We are workaholics with God complexes." Realizing that no one ever listens to him, George has merely blown up a glove and put a worried face on it, and flicks a finger at the two ladies. He really is Mere's best girlfriend of the three of them.
Meredith is on the phone, clearly going through preparations to sign the paperwork with her mother later that day and says she'll be there at 6:30. McDreamy joins her and says that he overheard. She panics and abysmally covers with, "It's a notary thing! Some thing to get...notarized!" The only reason he doesn't notice her lie is that he's had a lobotomy. Oh, actually not -- it's because he's talking about the heart situation and it's serious enough to distract him. When he asks if she wants to talk about, it she just says, "We're adults! When did that happen? And how do we make it stop?" He looks contemplative. And honestly, I'd love to see the script for every episode and start doing a count of how many times a scene ends with that direction for Patrick Dempsey.
Burke and Cristina see each other and avoid each other's eyes as they greet each other formally. When she makes a comment about the surgery getting complicated he suavely says, "Nothing I couldn't handle." "Good," she says, and we really start to see the infinitesimal cracks in her façade as she hopes he really can handle anything.
Mr. Patterson is on the phone outside, and Meredith approaches. He was talking to his lawyer, and as he says he's been advised to not speak to her, she ploughs ahead and persists that they need more information about his wife. When she continues that her heart walls were weak, he explodes. He yells at her to not blame his wife, who was in the best shape of her life, having lost 100 pounds the year. He finally cuts off her pleas and leaves.
Alex is with Jerry the junkie, who has a drip in his arm and seems quite content to the point of smugness. Eventually he delivers #7 on Lauren's List of Totally Overused Lines as Ranked Off The Top Of Her Head: "You don't like me very much, do you?" Alex assures him it's not him personally, "just people like you, that's all." Such a bedside manner on that one. With that, in walks McDreamy; Jerry is kicking back with his hands behind is back and reports that on the pain scale he's currently "about a three." If you were using the doctor's happy face scale that you see in every exam room, I believe that's the one with a straight line for a mouth and just a touch of squiggled line to portray a slightly furrowed brow. McDreamy tells him very sincerely but just a touch too loud that he's glad that they could help as much as all of the other hospitals he's been to, and lists them all. He and Alex establish that Izzie is the one to discharge patients today, and will be doing so for Jerry. Jerry gets increasingly upset but McDreamy calmly points out that they've done their job, he's no longer in pain, and Alex will give him a list of recommended treatment programs. "Go home. Get some help." Jerry screams that they can't do that, but they just did, dude, and you're going to need to let the needle tracks heal a bit more before you try this again.
Izzie's patient, meanwhile, is still waiting for his Bowel Movement of Discharge -- wow, there originally was no pun intended there, but that turned into a little bit of magic. Since there's been no movement, so to speak, he's got to stay for another night, which bums him out since everyone else is going to the party. ["Hee, 'bums.'" -- Joe R] He asks if she'll make it, and she's pleased to report that she will since he is her last patient. He's very sweet and genuinely pleased to see her prove that a doctor can have a life and a job when McDreamy stops in to order her to discharge Jerry. Her patient just gives her a knowing look, but she assures him it will be easy. Has she not yet learned to not say that out loud? It's just like when my team declared at trivia today that we had the best three rounds we had ever played -- only to be spanked hard and only answer one question correctly in the final round. Don't get cocky -- or your chance of winning will hinge on you knowing that Liberia is the oldest African republic. Karma comes in many forms, Izzie.
Izzie pages George so that he can go home and sign for the beer, and a passing Alex snarks at her to have her boyfriend take care of it. They snap at each other some more, and he tells her he never would be interested in going to the party anyway, since she thinks it's all about him not being invited. Which on the one hand, it probably is, but on the other, it's Alex being Alex, so who knows? She just makes a fourth-grade mad face at him as George asks again about letting Meredith know about the party. When Izzie says she's going to tell her at that very moment, Cristina reports that she's gone. Suddenly, Izzie's confidence is gone and she is getting worried, and George disavows all responsibility for what's going to happen when Meredith finds out.
Meredith, meanwhile, is late but makes it to the meeting she organized to take care of signing everything over. The same bitchy lady from that morning, however, is upset with Meredith and reports that everyone is there except her mother, who is yelling at everyone that she needs to leave to take care of a cranial reconstruction. Meredith tries her best to talk to her mother and bring her back to reality, and is stuck having to use almost a baby voice and soothing tones like she's trying to reason with a toddler. It's heartbreaking. Her mother doesn't respond, and the bitchy overseer continues to gripe at Meredith about how they should have taken care of this earlier. Meredith finally snaps, and rightfully so. She yells that she couldn't do it earlier that day and asks how she, or her mother's lawyer, allowed her mother to put this meeting off until now in the first place. Since it did seem as if no one had warned her this day would come where everything would need to be signed over to Meredith, I'm on her side here, as any of the healthcare professionals she's entrusted or her lawyer should have given her more warning than just that morning. When she's done yelling she leaves, and her mother continues to sulk about being kept from her mind's hospital duties. Kate Burton, as Ellis Grey, is really an actress who I think gets overlooked since there are so many other great performances on this show, but she's alternately so aggravating and heartbreaking, and kudos to her for how well she plays these scenes.
Back at Seattle Grace, Cristina sees Bailey telling Burke about the towel. Through the window where she's watching, he appears to ask for and receive the file. Cristina just looks back with a worried face.
At the hospital, clearly late, Burke sits reviewing the file. Meredith is heading home, emotionally and physically drained, and arrives to thumping music, taxis letting off partiers, and a pulsing crowd spilling out of her house. She mutters, "Izzie, I'm gonna kill you..." Inside, Cristina looks awesome in an off-the-shoulder sweater -- that is, until she turns around and I realize that it's a cardigan on backwards. It's like some strange homage to Kris Kross, but fifteen years or so too late. I wish I hadn't seen that and could go back to admiring her sexy party top. She goes for the food but Bailey appears, saying, "You could touch that, but I'd have to kill you." She's rocking a purple top with a satin shawl on one shoulder, and some big, sexy, party hair. While she peruses the food, Cristina tries to ask about the towel but gets shut down. Bailey will only tell her, "It's been taken care of." After more questioning, she finally orders, "We're not going to talk about it is what's going to happen. We clear, or have you had too much alcohol to understand me?" Chastised, Cristina agrees that she's very clear. That out of the way, Bailey grabs a plastic cup and looks for the bourbon. Cristina walks away and the room is filled with absolutely no one else we've ever seen before.
Jerry's not taking the leaving very well and is begging for Demerol and physically trying to stop the forward motion of the wheelchair in which he's riding. As he gets more and more agitated, Izzie goes to call psych. Before she can make the call, he gets up to run away but trips and falls, cracking his head on what seems to be a portable x-ray machine. Izzie and Alex page McDreamy and they do a CT that shows subdural bleed with midline shift. I had no idea until this very moment that the midline of your brain could shift -- I think mine is shifting just trying to figure out the physics of that -- but it definitely seems bad and they have to do surgery immediately. McDreamy asks, "Anywhere else you need to be, Dr. Stevens, or are you in?" A wide-eyed Izzie asks, "Brain surgery? Are you kidding me?" McDreamy happily replies, "That's what I thought."
Meredith drags herself into her pulsating house, rescuing furniture along the way. Holding a Tiffany-looking lamp, she finds George and demands to see Izzie, understandably freaking out about the huge party. George tries to escape but when Meredith begins to sound desperate about not being able to handle things, he puffs up and offers to kick everyone out. Right at that moment, however, a very drunk and elated Cristina looks over and yells, "Baby, you made it!" She throws her arms up and it only takes Meredith a second to change her mind. "Screw it! Hold this," (shoves the lamp into George's arms) "and give me this," (tequila.) She jumps onto the coffee table with Cristina, dances, and chugs. It's not the size bottle that actually needs a handle, but it's the one just beneath that, and she does a very impressive job with the swig she takes. They plead with George to join them, and he finally gets up, chugs (though he's clearly an amateur and chokes a little bit) and they make a George sandwich and dance and dance.
Once inside Jerry the junkie's head, the surgeons find what they were looking for and work to fix him up. Alex comments that this might be his way out of "the hole." When McDreamy questions his choice of words, Alex explains that his dad was a musician with a smack habit. McDreamy and Izzie are quiet, finally understanding a little piece of what might make Alex tick.
Back at Casa de Drunkards, Meredith, George, and Cristina play cards. Cristina has hers stuck to her face and lets out a grade-A belch as they discuss being surgeons. Cristina beats George to the hand, and with her order to, "Get naked, baby boy," it becomes clear they've been playing strip poker and George should be lucky he layered. He's down to his shorts, while the girls are fully clothed. A cute guy comes in, looking for Izzie. Why, it's Chase Carter, Dr. John Carter's heroin-overdosing cousin! Or rather, Hank, Izzie's hockey-playing boyfriend. George looks up and slurs, "You and Izzie will give birth to very tall, blonde people. Like Barbies." He must be drunk, as Hank looks more like a redhead on my TV. But then their babies would just be Barbie's punk-rock friends, or kooky cousins, or something. He seems pretty annoyed to not find Izzie and while it's completely understandable, he seems to be radiating a level of jerkwad vibe as well. He's surprised to even find a party, which Meredith assures him, "pisses both of us off." He declines her drunken generous offer of tequila and asks when Izzie will be back. Meredith doesnât know but suggests he get ice. Though she's drunk, she's serious, and explains Izzie's absence and unknown arrival time with "We're interns, Hank. Hospital owns us. It's what we do." He shakes his head and leaves.
While washing their hands after a little bit of late-night brain surgery, McDreamy tells Alex and Izzie to take care of Jerry through recovery. Alex offers to do it himself but Izzie assures him she's okay. He offers again, seriously, and tells her, "Go see your hockey player." She agrees and thanks him sincerely and, as she leaves, gives him a look back over her shoulder. Uh-oh, we all know that the look back means sexual shenanigans are brewing.
Once Izzie leaves the hospital in her street clothes, she runs into Hank outside who has come looking for her. She seems delighted and they hug, but he's still bent out of shape. When he mentions the party, she happily tells him she hopes he was able to meet her co-workers. However, he tells her he doesnât care about them; he just cares about seeing Izzie. She points out, "Well, you didn't mind meeting the people I worked with when they were models." It's just so peculiar how it always works out like that. He points out somewhat snidely that back then she'd also come to her own parties. She stops and starts a few times but finally tells him that this is her life now, and that her patients come first, and she works long hours. Mr. Not-So-Passive Aggressive points out his flying cross-country only to find a party and no girlfriend. If he weren't being so hostile about it, I might see his point, but between the fact that he seems like a big asshole and she's, well, a doctor and shit happens, I've got nothing but advice for Izzie to run like the wind. She can sense my advice and tells him that every other person at that party understands her job. "I shouldn't have to apologize for that." In his single unselfish move, he agrees, and they have a silent moment of understanding that this is the end. She tries to convince him to go home but he decides to leave and unconvincingly says that he'll call. She looks sad, but rather than going after him, she turns and goes back to the hospital. He's cute, Izzie, but you're better off with someone who understands your work schedule and also won't overdose on heroin and end up in a rest home one day, too.
At the house, Meredith stumbles outside with her bottle and dances to whatever music is in her head on the front porch. On the street, McDreamy is leaning against his car, watching her. When she notices him, he smiles and teases her. She walks towards him, and it's at that very moment that my pants ACTUALLY LIT ON FIRE from the burning in my loins. When she reaches him, he announces, "So you blew me off for a bottle of tequila. Tequila's no good for you. It doesn't call, it doesnât write. It's not nearly as much fun to wake up to." She grabs him and they kiss. Seriously. I am engulfed in flames. "Take me for a ride, Derek." Yes, please. In the moment they're undressed in the car, talking about sneaking back inside. Meredith's tired of sneaking, and also clearly too drunk to care that much. "Yeah, we're pretty good sneakers," he admits. He pulls his shirt around her and at that moment, Bailey's face is reflected in the window, unsmiling. She knocks and asks, "You mind moving this tail wagon? You're blocking me in." Meredith's not so drunk to realize this is bad, and both of their smiles are gone. Derek sighs, "Apparently, not good enough."
The morning, the house is a post-party war zone. I can almost smell the stale beer and like it always does the morning after, it makes me a little bit nauseated. George brings some coffee into the living room and an arm reaches up -- it's Meredith, who has spent the night on the floor. Her meeting about that whole pesky heart thing is in an hour. Izzie gets home and breathes, "Holy mother of destruction." Meredith greets her, "You missed doctorpalooza. I should probably never speak to you again." Izzie starts to apologize, but Meredith is already over it, asking, "What would I be doing, anyway?" George answers, "Preparing for your career-altering meeting?" He laughs and still sounds drunk. Seriously, she should maybe think about at least getting in a shower before fighting for her job, I would think. Instead, she stays on the couch and moans that the heart wall should have never torn. Izzie picks up an open beer off the table and takes a swig -- I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth at the thought. Post-party beer? Let me count the ways (that drinking it is one of the grossest things you could ever do): 1) Whose beer is it? 2) It's warm. 3) Whose beer is it? 4) While almost any time is good for beer, I make an exception from approximately 6 to 8 AM. 5) Seriously, there were hundreds of people there. You're a doctor. Gross. She's not thinking about all that, though, and instead listens to Meredith recount the patient's weight loss. Almost as an aside, she remarks, "100 pounds in a year. How's her muscle mass?" At that moment, a light goes on for Meredith. George asks the question we've all been wondering, if she knows whose beer that was. "I hoped it was yours," she says. He groans and leans over the couch as if to vomit. I'm with you, George.
At the hospital shortly thereafter, Cristina, George, and Izzie wait on the artsy elevated walkway, predicting the outcome of her meeting. Cristina naturally assumes she'll get kicked out and nothing will happen to Burke. George finally stands up at a moment when he should and says, "Please be nice to her."
Inside, a still scratchy-voiced Meredith tells the gathered crowd that she's done the research and also knows what she did wrong. And while you can tell she's clearly ready to accept blame, she brings up Mrs. Patterson's weight loss. She still weighs 200 pounds, so no one thought about her rate of weight loss, but what her body has been through technically makes her anorexic. Burke picks up at this point to explain that because of this, she was losing muscle as well as fat and that would include heart muscle. Richard has the same little light over his head that Meredith had earlier and realizes they could be right. The hospital lawyer, however, is less interested in their miraculous reasoning and is still focused on what actually happened the day before. Her problem is Meredith not bringing up the punctured glove when it actually happened. Meredith begins to speak, "And if I could change that..." but she's cut off with a simple, "And you can't." She's worried about the liability the hospital is now open to and insists that Meredith is too late. Burke speaks up in her defense, "But she reported it, she spoke up!" He pauses, and then launches into the story of a lung surgery he performed years earlier where he had a nagging feeling that he didn't check the body cavity, but he didn't say anything. Richard slowly looks at him as he finishes that the towel he turned out to have left in that patient was taken out the day before. "Why didn't I report it at an appropriate time? Maybe because I was afraid that I would be called into a meeting where some hospital lawyer's fear of liability would end my career. Even great doctors make mistakes, and when we do, we have got to be able to speak up without fear of retribution. Or everyone suffers. Dr. Grey spoke up." No one says a word, though I suspect the lawyer is now thinking about quitting when she realizes the second lawsuit that might be brewing.
Meredith VOs again about responsibility. "It really does suck." She exits and reports to McDreamy and the Best Looking Interns on the Planet that she's on probation and Burke saved her ass. Bailey chases them off to get to work, but grabs Cristina to explain that Burke was always going to tell Richard about the towel incident, but that he wanted to wait until the right moment. "Information is power." Cristina pauses and sees Burke exit the Chief's office, and after a long look in his direction runs back to work.
At Dr. Grey's rest home, the group has gathered again and she signs everything over to Meredith, whose voice continues, "Unfortunately, once you get past the age of braces and training bras, responsibility doesn't go away." To illustrate that point nicely, Alex is seen bringing someone in to talk to Jerry the junkie about rehab options. Burke is in with Mrs. Drake, apologizing profusely and sincerely about the towel as George watches him. "Either someone makes us face it, or we suffer the consequences." McDreamy runs up the stairs and runs into Bailey, who gives him a Glare of Death. He continues up and she shakes her head -- a tiny shake that contains a giant load of disappointment.
Who's not disappointed? Izzie's patient, who cheerfully calls out, "Izzie! I did it! I pooped!" She is predictably thrilled, and at that moment, Alex walks by and grabs her, asking if she missed the party. She chalks is up to, "Life as a surgeon." He grins, "You're loving every minute of it," and they head opposite ways.
Inside the on-call room, Burke takes off his shoes and his scrubs. Holy gorgeous torso, Batman! Burke's definitely keeping up the part of his Seattle Grace contract that says that everyone working there must be deliciously attractive. Cristina walks in and clearly has the same thought, and closes and locks the door. She thanks him for the coffee and they start to make out, and then the untying of the scrubs commences. Meredith's voice comments, "And still, adulthood has its perks. I mean the shoes, the sex, the no parents anywhere telling you what to do? That's pretty damn good." Though those perks include cleaning up her house of the thousand empty beer bottles, she's not wrong. Clearly, where I've been going wrong is not working with more hot guys who can buy me coffee so that I can thank him with really hot sex. Note to self: find office environment like Seattle Grace. Stop saving money by making your own java in the morning.