It's the filler middle in our three-episode sandwich. Izzie drills a hole in her patient's skull to relieve the pressure on his brain, thereby becoming a neurological rock star. George wanders around looking for his patient's son (because he told her that her son was found and doing well). He eventually finds the son on Callie's operating table. Alex realizes that the best way to help worried family members identify their loved ones is to take pictures of all the patients and corpses from the ferryboat accident and post them on the bulletin board. And Cristina wanders around, doing nothing much except asking where Meredith is. The answer to that question is "bobbing around in the water." That is, until Derek notices Meredith's jacket draped across a patient and asks creepy silent Mini-Meredith where she is. He dives in and saves Meredith, but she's hypothermic, not breathing, and very possibly dead. Yikes.
Last week, a ferryboat went crash, and Meredith went splash. Also, Alex saved a pregnant woman who got crushed by a pipe, Izzie was trying to save a non-pregnant man who was still being crushed by a car, Burke stupidly told Derek he was engaged to Cristina before Cristina had a chance to tell Meredith, George promised an injured woman that he would find her son, and Izzie continued to be rude to George about the fact that he got married to Callie. But the only important thing was the "Meredith going splash" part. We pick up right at the moment where Mere got knocked into the water by her panicky patient.
Meredith voice-over: "Glub glub glub." Actually, we get a shot of the water, superimposed over faint shots of various cast members all looking scared and lonely. Mere's V.O.: "Like I said, disappearances happen. Pains go phantom. Blood stops running. And people? People fade away." We get a shot of the water alone that seems to go on forever. And then Meredith's head emerges from the water as she bobs to the surface. And goes right back under. And then comes up again. Meredith's limbs flail under the water as she waves for help and stares directly at us right on her horizon line. V.O., whispered: "There's more I have to say. So much more. But I disappeared." And with that, she slides under the surface of the oddly still water for the very last time. That scene was scary beautiful and well done, y'all. In grading this episode, I found myself trapped between this opening scene, which deserved an automatic 'A,' and the closing scene, which deserved an automatic 'F.' I ended up just using an average of those two.
We cut from a shot of some last bubbles breaking the surface of the water to Cristina, still back at the hospital and looking preternaturally calm and even slightly worried. A nurse starts to ask her about a patient, and then Nurse Tyler (a.k.a., Hot Nurse, and thanks to the many, many readers who wrote to tell me his real name) does the same. Cristina, of course, has already dealt with both patients. She gives the two nurses some instructions and then asks if either of them has seen Dr. Grey. And then she has to clarify that she's not talking about Ellis Grey, who is scheduled for surgery that day (but whose surgery will undoubtedly be rescheduled due to the emergency, I'm guessing), but about the actual practicing Dr. Grey. Neither nurse has seen her.
George stands in the door of an O.R. while his patient asks him if he found her son. He hesitates, which should clue the patient in that he's a very bad liar, but he goes on to tell her that he found her son and he's absolutely fine and eager to see her after her surgery. The patient is very happy to hear the news. So happy that she ignores the second sign that George is lying, which is that Bailey takes off after him as soon as he walks away from the table. Just outside the O.R., Bailey asks George what he thinks will happen when the patient wakes up from surgery and finds that her son is still missing. George thinks the lie is worth it if it helps the patient to actually survive the surgery. Bailey tells him that he had better have found the patient's son by the time she comes out of surgery.
The Chief, Burke, and Addison look at Crush's x-rays and discuss the upcoming surgery. They're in Crush's room. Addison looks unusually distraught. Burke leaves, and Alex enters. He's there to ask the Chief for advice on what to do with the mob of family members who are looking for information about their loved ones, most of whom still have not been identified. Alex asks if there's some kind of system, and the Chief tells him, "You're the system, Karev." So it's a hot system that occasionally gives people the syph. Got it. The Chief leaves, and Alex asks Addison how Crush is doing. The answer is that they won't know until they get her into surgery. It's not Crush's condition that has Addison upset; it's the fact that she's still a Jane Doe and has no family or friends standing by her side in her hour of need. Addison: "It makes you think. You know, what if I went missing? Would anyone notice I was gone?" Addison realizes how dopy this sounds, and she walks away with a sheepish grin.
Back on the ferry, the guy pinned beneath the car is seizing. One of the Three Burly Friends (kind of like the Three Tenors, except they don't sing and they would probably beat you up if they knew you were comparing them to opera singers) yells at Izzie to do something. There's really nothing she can do, however. They keep yelling, and Izzie keeps explaining that there's nothing she can do. And then the seizures stop. They keep asking her questions, and Izzie snaps: "I'm out of practice. I've been watching for weeks, I've just been watching. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." BF #1 reassures Izzie that she stopped the bleeding, and then tells her that he "believes" his friend can make it and needs her to believe the same thing. Izzie thinks for a second and then asks if any of them have cell phones. Of course, they all do. Because everybody does.
On the pier, Derek walks around and acts very commanding and in charge. He finds some paramedics wheeling a patient along and asks them what's up. It's a guy whose leg was nearly severed, but whose arteries were tied off. Derek exams the wound and asks who tied off the arteries. And then he answers his own question when he sees Meredith's I.D. badge pinned to the coat that is laying on top of the patient. (Her I.D. picture is quite adorable, by the way.) The paramedics know nothing about any "Dr. Grey." Derek lets them go and starts looking around. He sees creepy little Mini-Meredith standing around. He starts to walk towards her but gets waylaid by someone needing his medical help. After he gives some medical instructions, he continues to move towards Mini-Mere, who is surprisingly still standing where he first saw her. I kind of thought they might stretch this out to a fourth episode by having Derek spend an hour looking for the little girl, who would use her creepy serial killer powers to disappear whenever something passed between her and the camera. But she's still standing there when he walks up to her. He asks her if she's okay and then tries to get her to tell him what happened to the doctor she was with earlier. Eventually, he just asks her, "Is Meredith all right?" After a long, creepy pause, she shakes her head 'no.' Creepily.
Cut to Meredith sinking down beneath the water. Was she wearing her lead weight sneakers this morning? Credits.
Back at the clinic, patients' family members look tired and worried. George is holding the crumpled picture of the little boy he's supposed to find. He starts walking around the clinic and asking if any of the little boys he sees is named 'Chris.' None of them are. George leaves the clinic and Alex enters. He's trying to be unobtrusive, but the people in the clinic have clearly pegged him as the guy to go to for information, so they all start trailing after him and asking him if he's got a new list. As the family members all yell at Alex, Sidney watches from the sidelines. Alex eventually responds to all the screaming by telling everyone to shut up and leave him alone he can take five minutes to figure out how to put patients and family members together. Faced with the use of the word "damn," the family members have no choice but to back off. Sidney tells Alex, "I just want you to know that I understand you're under a lot of pressure. If you, if you just need to sit for a minute, or you need a hand, or a hug... ." Sidney, nobody blames you for trying to wrap your arms around the hotness that is Alex Karev, but does he really look like a hugger to you? While trying desperately not to look Sidney in the eyes, Alex sees a Polaroid camera sitting on a desk. Could that be the answer to his problem? As he runs out of the room with the camera in his hands, Sidney actually looks a little sad. I think she wanted him to use the camera to take some pictures of her, if you know what I mean.
The Chief is in the gallery, watching the prep for some surgery, when his cell phone rings. It's Izzie, calling for advice about how to help her patient. Do you think she just has the Chief's cell phone number memorized? The Chief, of course, has no idea who is blathering away on his phone, which is quite funny because these interns all think they're the center of everyone's universe. She gives him info about the patient, and he asks her when they'll be arriving at the hospital. When she tells him it won't be anytime soon, due to the fact that the guy is still stuck on the ferry, he tells her to stay calm. Izzie: "I can't stay calm. Calm was over minutes ago, calm is gone, calm is an impossibility." Gee, this is just so unlike the levelheaded Izzie Stevens we've all come to know and loathe. Er, I mean "love." She asks the Chief to please tell her what to do. After a very long pause, he tells her she needs to drill some "burr holes." She freaks out, but he tells her that after he looks something up in a book, he'll talk her through it. Izzie: "You're looking it up in a book?" Izzie, maybe you could not yell that out where the patient and his friends might hear you. Just a thought for the big ferryboat accident. The Chief hollers out for someone to find him a particular neurosurgery text just as Mark walks up. It turns out that Mark has drilled some burr holes in his day. (Once you put Mark into the mix, it all sounds so very dirty.) Izzie listens to the Chief give some instructions, and then she asks the Burly Friends if one of them has a drill. One does (of course), and another one asks her what she needs a drill for. Izzie: "I've got to drill holes in your friend's head." Now it's a party.
George wanders around the E.R. looking for a little boy. He finds Cristina stitching up a woman's arm and asks her if she's seen a little boy around. But she doesn't want to talk about little boys -- she wants to know where Meredith is. They talk at cross-purposes until George gets Cristina to acknowledge that she has not seen any lost kids wandering around.
In the clinic, Alex posts a few dozen pictures of patients on a bulletin board and asks family members to provide the names of any patients they recognize. It would have been awesome (and more true to life) if Alex had the bright idea to take pictures of the patients and then discovered he only had enough film to take three pictures. The people who find pictures they recognize are ecstatic just to have some information, but there are a bunch of folks who don't find their family members on the board. One woman asks Alex, "My husband, he's not on that board. What does that mean?" Just off the top of my head, it could mean that he's at a different hospital. Or that his injuries were so minor he hasn't been brought to any hospital. Or that he's one of the many people we've seen still wandering around the scene of the accident. Or, maybe, that he's dead. But all Alex can suggest is that the missing loved ones might be wandering around in shock somewhere. This show is making me think that there's only one hospital in all of Seattle. And that said hospital is staffed by a total of thirteen doctors (five attendings, three residents, and five interns). All of whom are too busy having sex with each other to treat patients. This is not a good ad for Seattle, is what I'm saying. (And that's before the ferryboat crashes and the creepy silent serial killer girls and the Dead Baby bike race.) The time I want to vacation in the Pacific Northwest, I think I'll head to Portland. Or Eugene. Anyway, one of the family members asks Alex how they can know that their loved ones are not among the dead. And then a tall guy announces that he's looking for his pregnant wife.
Back at the scene of the accident, Mini-Mere is creepily (and silently) looking all about while Derek holds her hand and waits to for her to tell him what the hell happened to Meredith. If have to say, if I thought that speaking up would cause McDreamy to stop holding my hand, I might also become unable to speak. He asks her to show him were Meredith went. She looks around some more and then walks away from him. He follows her to the edge of the pier and asks her to point to where Meredith is. She just points in the general direction of the water. I hope somebody had the good sense to check this kid for blunt head trauma. Commercials.
When we come back, we get a very quick shot of Meredith floating face down several feet under water. Does Puget Sound have negative buoyancy? Just another reason to stay the hell away from Seattle.
From Meredith's floating corpse, we cut to an O.R., where Burke is performing surgery on Crush while Addison looks on. Alex enters, camera around his neck, and tells Addison that Crush is not a Jane Doe, because her husband is looking for her. Addison asks him how he can be certain that Crush is the man's wife, as odds are that there were more than one pregnant woman on the ferry. Whoops. She tells Alex not to give the husband hope until he's checked every last body in the morgue. Couldn't he just take a picture of Crush and then see if the guy recognized her? Although given the state of her face, I can see why that wouldn't be the most reliable way to check her identity. And now I'm imagining a very inappropriate show in which the guy thinks Crush is his wife just until the swelling goes down, and which time he would realize she was a complete stranger. Alex takes a picture of Crush. After he leaves, Addison tells Burke, "I gotta tell you, this group of interns... " Burke: "Emotional." Addison: "Headstrong." Burke: "Hotheaded, stubborn. They think they know everything. And you can only give them so much rope before they hang themselves with it. It's like they lose all rationality, don't want to listen to reason." Addison looks like she's thinking about how manly and virile the interns are, but she just says, "Geez, Preston. Don't hold back." And then there's some medical drama, but Crush and the fetus both pull through.
Stairwell of Regrets and Recriminations. Alex enters the stairwell, going up, and finds George huddled over a map of the hospital. George is complaining about how big the hospital is and how many people are jammed into it and how many spots there are for a little boy to hide in. Alex asks what's going on, and George explains that if he doesn't find this little kid, Bailey will change her son's middle name to "Elvis" or "Tupperware." Alex tells George that he knows where a kid might be.
And that place is the morgue. Which I guess is not in the basement, since Alex was walking up the stairs to get there. However, the morgue is suitably dark and spooky, with a minimum of lighting. Alex is taking pictures of the faces of accident victims and looking for any other pregnant women while George looks for a little kid. There's some mutual whining from both interns about how much their work is sucking on this particular day. Alex resents having to deal with "people" (i.e., the family members) instead of patients. And then George gets angry because one of the corpses is face down in its body bag. He makes Alex help him turn the corpse over. George is bothered by all the death, and Alex acts like it's no big deal. I feel like we've done the sensitive/macho contrast and compare enough with these two, and now it bores me. And then George finds a young pregnant corpse. Alex takes a picture.
Back at the ferry, one of the Burly Friends holds up the cell phone while Izzie preps for the procedure. It's tense, and Izzie keeps stalling by wanting to clean the drill bit some more. And holy crap, are they drilling a hole in a guy's head or hanging a plasma TV on a concrete wall? Because it looks like they chose the very largest possible drill bit. Izzie starts the procedure with an incision and then has to yell at one of the BFs who starts to gag. She tells him that since his friend is not under anesthesia, she needs him to keep it together and hold his friend's head straight. He pulls himself together and she proceeds. And it's tense and gross (especially when she has to stick her finger in the hole to clear out the blood clot). And as she's finishing up, the patient's eyes open. Which sounds like a horrible nightmare to me, but which Izzie and the BFs take as a good sign.
Mini-Mere stands at the edge of the pier and stares at the water. A Coast Guard guy finds her and tells her that she needs to come with him, but she's as creepy and silent as ever. He picks her up to carry her away, and then there's a splashing and coughing sound. Derek carries a very gray-looking Meredith up the gangway at the side of the pier. Commercials.
As the ambulance drives to the hospital, Derek performs CPR on Meredith.
George enters the O.R. to check on his patient. The surgery is almost finished and the patient is doing well. Bailey asks about the son, and George tells her that he hasn't found the boy, either because he's lost or because he's dead and floating around in Puget Sound. Bailey: "So when she wakes up, I get to inform her that she's not going to die, she's just gonna want to die." He apologizes and offers to keep looking. Bailey: "Yeah, you do that."
Out that the hospital bay, Izzie unloads her patient and gives the Chief a status update. She's apologetic for having had to use some guy's t-shirt to dress the wounds (pointing out that he was at least not a sweaty guy) and notes that she dropped the scalpel and was not able to re-sterilize it because she had run out swabs. The Chief tells her, "Stevens, you put a drill through a man's skull and didn't hit his brain. You saved his life." He tells her to get cleaned up and get to the O.R. for the guy's surgery. She's surprised to hear she's being allowed into the O.R., and he tells her that she's off probation.
Izzie makes her way through a jam-packed corridor and finds Cristina re-stocking some supplies. Izzie: "Oh, Cristina, oh my God, you are not gonna believe what I just did. I'm gonna tell you, but you're not gonna believe it, you're gonna think I made the whole thing up." Cristina of the one-track mind asks if Izzie has seen Meredith. Izzie tells the story of the burr holes and notes that she now gets to scrub in on this guy's surgery. (The owner of the drill was named "Vince," by the way). Cristina still only wants to hear about Meredith, but she can't get Izzie to listen to her until she acknowledges that Izzie is a hero and that Cristina is jealous. Izzie hasn't seen Meredith and knows nothing about her location. Crowing about her rock star status, Izzie leaves Cristina to stew in her own feelings of vague concern.
Alex is holding a very large stack of Polaroids of corpses from the morgue. He posts them on the board and asks people to identify any people they recognize. The scene is suitably teary and sad. I'm guessing that the budget for this episode was split equally between the costs of shooting the accident scene and the costs for industrial-size barrels of glycerine. Alex stands at the center of the storm of tears and finally seems to see the corpses as people.
In the O.R., Mark tells Izzie that "they" (presumably including the non-speaking neurosurgeon who undoubtedly is running this surgery, right?) have decided to allow her to drill the additional burr holes they need to start the procedure. Once Mark has removed the covering skin (or something), Izzie will get to "see what a high-speed pneumatic neurosurgical drill feels like." She looks giddy, and clearly takes great pleasure in telling the nurse, "Drill, please." And the bit on this official-looking surgical drill is indeed enormous, so I can't fault them for lack of realism for using the gigantic drill bit on the ferry. But I still hope nobody ever tries to drill through my skull with something that big. (Feel free to insert your own oral sex joke here, if you'd like.)
Back in the clinic, everyone is still crying. Sidney comforts a woman whose husband is dead. Alex looks around until he sees the man whose pregnant wife was missing. Alex tells him that they have two pregnant women. Alex hands him the picture of Crush and asks him if she's his wife. Because she's so disfigured, the man isn't sure, and they have to talk it through before Alex mentions that her eyes are brown. The man's wife's eyes are blue, so he knows Crush is not his wife. The man wants to hear about the other pregnant woman until he realizes that she must be one of the fatalities. Alex hands him the picture of the woman George found in the morgue, and the man breaks down into sobs. And so did you, admit it. Alex looks around at all the people crying around him.
Bailey greets an ambulance and asks the paramedic for the bullet. As he opens the ambulance door, he describes the patient as a Jane Doe who's hypothermic. And then Derek yells out that it's not a Jane Doe, it's Meredith. Derek is still performing CPR, and Bailey tries to find out from him how long Meredith has been down. He doesn't know, and just mutters, "She's alive. She's alive." Bailey directs Derek and the paramedics into the E.R. Commercials.
Cristina is suturing up some guy's leg. She sees Burke and asks him how his surgery was; he tells her it was fine. She gives a particularly hard yank on the thread and her patient yelps in pain. She gives him such a look and tells him, "You're numbed." Patient: "Whatever. It looked harsh." She passes the patient on to a nurse to finish up, and she and Burke walk into a nearby exam room. He asks her what the problem is, and she tells him that everybody is back except for Meredith, "and I'd listen to her, every day, about her big love life and McDreamy and crap, and the one day, the one day I have a thing, she disappears." Burke doesn't get why this is an issue, and Cristina tries to explain that Meredith is "her person." Burke asks what would happen if Meredith doesn't approve of the engagement. Cristina tells him that it's not about getting her approval. But when she tries to explain what it is about, she tells him, "If I murdered someone, she's the person I'd call to help drag the corpse across the living room floor." Instead of telling Cristina that she's very, very strange, Burke decides to take offense at the fact that he's just been called a corpse. As he leaves, Cristina's pager goes off.
Izzie assists a real neurosurgeon on her patient's surgery. A pager goes off on the nearby table on which all of the doctors have deposited their electronic gear. A nurse tells Izzie that it's her pager. When Izzie expresses a clear preference to stick with the surgery, the nurse tells her she should probably respond to this page. Which makes me wonder what the page said. "Title character near death. Come at once"? It also makes me wonder who decided that the people who needed to be immediately paged were Meredith's friends.
Alex walks by a room where Addison is checking in on Crush (who is covered by some kind of air-filled blanket thing -- it looks like she fell asleep on the deck near the pool and someone decided to throw a pool toy on her so she wouldn't get a burn). Addison tells Alex that Crush is doing fine for the moment. He breaks the news that Crush is still a Jane Doe. Addison puts on her sexy librarian glasses to write something in the chart. Alex tells her, "I'd notice." Addison: "What?" Alex: "If you went missing. I'd notice." He walks away from her and her moist panties. And then his pager goes off.
George sits on the stairs near the O.R. board and ponders the crumpled photo of his patient's son. And then he sees that there's a surgery on the board being performed on an unnamed 7-year-old who was admitted to the E.R.
George enters an O.R. where Callie is performing surgery. He asks if she's really operating on a 7-year-old John Doe from the ferry crash. She is, and he asks if he can see the patient's face. Unfortunately, she's operating on his spine, so he's face down at the moment. George holds out the photo and asks if her patient is the boy pictured. She kind of ignores him, and he asks her, "Please tell me it's him. Tell me he has been right here under my nose and open on your table all day and not drifting along the bottom of the ocean." It's an estuary, George. She relents and asks him to hold the photo in the light so she can see it clearly. She tells him she's sure it's her patient because he has unmistakably goofy ears. George is near tears (of relief) as he walks away. As he backs out the door, he loudly says, "Callie O'Malley. I can't kiss you right now 'cause you're scrubbed in. But tonight, when you get home, I am going to... ." Callie cuts him off before he gets to the good part and asks all of the assembled doctors and nurses to please focus on the surgery and not on her naughty bits. As she kicks George out of the room, his pager goes off.
Mini-Mere is standing in the hospital, creepily looking around and picking out her victim. And then a woman runs up to her and starts hugging her. I guess even serial killers have mothers who love them.
In a trauma room, various doctors are working on Meredith while Derek continues to perform CPR. He's tired and fading, but he doesn't want to quit. But Bailey is as strong as she ever is, and she tries to get him to leave the room so they can save Meredith's life. But he won't leave until the Chief arrives and orders him out of the room. Patrick Dempsey has never looked as gorgeous as he does in this moment, teary-eyed and shaking and gently caressing Meredith's forehead. Commercials.
Burke exits the elevator outside Meredith's room and sees Derek sitting on the floor crying. You can see that he's torn between the desire to dive into the action of trying to save Meredith's life and comforting Derek. Burke asks Derek, "What do you need?" Derek tells him that what he needs is for Burke to go into Meredith's room and help save her.
In Meredith's room, there's talk about body temperature and procedures and whatnot. And then there's an alarm and they have to shock her before returning to CPR. Addison enters through a different door and is shocked by what she sees. But she jumps in with suggestions to raise Meredith's body temperature.
Derek sits on the floor in the hallway. Some hot muscular legs in dark blue scrubs walk up to him. They belong to Mark, who sits to Derek. After a moment, Mark reaches over and squeezes Derek's arm.
In Meredith's room, the doctors are very quiet as they work. And then a door opens and Addison turns around and sees Derek and Mark sitting on the floor, Derek's face still tear-stained.
Izzie leans against a door at the end of the hallway. Through the glass, she can see Mark and Derek slumped over on the floor. They almost look as though they're praying. George and Alex are there as well. Cristina walks up to them, asking them if they're sure it's Meredith. She clearly plans to barge on into the room, but Alex grabs her arm and won't let her past. Cristina takes it all in -- the tears on George's face and the sight of Derek and Mark sitting on the floor -- and it's as though she's been punched in the gut. She loses her breath, and Izzie tells her, "She will come through this." But George doesn't think anyone can guarantee that. George: "People die." Izzie: "I know people die. People die in front of us every day. But I believe Meredith will survive this. I believe... I believe... I bel... . I believe in the good. I believe that it's been a hell of a year, and I believe that in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we will all be okay. I believe a lot of things." Like what, Izzie? Izzie: "I believe that Denny is always with me. And I believe that if I eat a tub of butter and no one sees me, the calories don't count. And I believe that surgeons who prefer staples over stitches are just lazy." Turning to George, she tells him, "I believe that you are a man who made a terrible mistake marrying Callie. And I believe because I'm your best friend, I can tell you this and we can be okay. I believe even though you made this mistake, you will be okay." Wow. Way to shift focus, Izzie. I believe that someone gets to point out their good friend's mistake exactly once and then needs to shut the hell up about it. But that's just me. Izzie: "I believe we survive, George. I believe that believing we survive is what makes us survive." Izzie hugs Cristina and tells her that everything is going to be okay. Cristina doesn't look like she believes it.
In Meredith's room, the doctors continue to work in near silence. Things are not going well. The heart monitors go off, and the Chief announces, "We're losing her." We get a close-up on a very gray Meredith and a flash of white light.
Meredith, flush and with a bit of color on her lips, coughs and wakes up. She sits up. Who's that standing to her? Why, it's Kyle Chandler, a.k.a. Pink Mist, last seen on this show getting blown to kingdom come. Hey says hello and gives her a hot smile. She asks him, "Am I... dead?" From the other side of her, a voice says, "Damn right you are." Hey, it's Denny. Meredith looks back and forth between the two of them and then, the last word cut off when the camera retreats to the other side of the window, says, "Holy _____." Holy _____ indeed, Meredith. Holy _____ indeed.