Leader of the Pack

S08E03

It's good to be Chief of Surgery. Because not only are you Chief, but it means that when you admit to messing with a clinical trial, you don't get fired. But while the Board doesn't fire Richard, he does decide to step down as Chief of Surgery and just go back to a regular old garden-variety surgeon so that he can spend more time with Adele. He hands the reins over to Owen, who has some big shoes to fill and a lot of skeptical surgeons to lead. None more so than Bailey, who is furious about the situation and refuses to give Owen an easy time as leader. Because people always want what they don't have, Owen becomes desperate to have her on his side. His chances of this happening, though, so far look about as likely as a snowball's chance in the Sahara. She still thinks that Richard lied just to save Meredith, but Richard tries to convince her that what Meredith did gave him extra time to be with Adele, so he wanted to step down in order to enjoy that time. She's still pissed but concedes that maybe one day, far, far in the future, she might be able to get over being angry at him.

Owen and Cristina are having an awkward day themselves because they now have no idea what to say or how to interact with one another. They are both overly chipper and somehow both awkward and yet formal, and Meredith's theory is that it's because they haven't actually talked to one another about the abortion. She thinks that they will have to talk and clear the air in order to get back to normal, but Cristina has no idea how to go about this. She and Owen wind up ordering Chinese food for an awkward dinner at home but then both come down with food poisoning, and while holding each other on the bathroom floor, the ice is broken and they seem to finally fall back into acting like themselves without having to sit down for A Conversation. Note to self: if I ever have a hard subject to bring up, just have some bad spring rolls instead and everything will work itself out.

In addition to it being Owen's first day as Chief, it's also the first day that the fifth-year residents will have their own surgeries. April still can't control them at all and when she tries to assign them all skills labs to teach, the others turn it into a contest where the person who does the worst at their surgery has to teach all of the labs. Callie finds April having a frustrated moment and they talk about it a little bit; Callie tells her she was an awful Chief Resident but can at least advise her that the best thing she can do is get them on her side and then she'll have a better chance of them listening to her.

For her first surgery, Cristina thinks she's doing a fancy cardio procedure but winds up with an appendectomy. The problem with this is that Teddy is right -- Cristina knows how to do the fancy procedure but the appendectomy not so much. She pretends to quiz the interns so that they'll remind her how it's done but once she's in the OR, she forgets the steps halfway through. Teddy crows that this is exactly why she's trying to teach Cristina the basics but when Cristina does finally ask for guidance, it turns out Teddy also don't remember how to do the procedure. Fortunately for them, the surgical nurse does know and she tells them what to do to finish the job. Jackson is supposed to be repairing a cleft palate on a baby, but Arizona wants Mark to do the job since it's a complicated surgery. Jackson finally convinces her he can do it but once they are in the OR and she starts talking about how this surgery will ultimately determine the course of the boy's life, Jackson finds he's not as confident as he thought and has Arizona call Mark to do the job after all. Alex has a bowel surgery that presumably he thinks will be simple, but as he prepares for it he also forsakes any trace of a bedside manner and April realizes that his bad attitude is because he's kind of terrified. She gives him a pep talk, and when it turns out the patient is beyond help and there's nothing Alex could have done she at least tells him she knows he did all that he could. At the end of the day when they compare notes they decide Alex lost the contest but April helps protect him by calling Jackson out for not even doing a surgery. They all decide that Jackson loses by default and while he's pissed, it's a good first step for April towards figuring out how to work with and lead the others.

The person who turns out to be a rock star is Meredith, who takes on an aneurysm as her first surgery. She tells Derek she thinks he should do it since the two of them aren't acting like a team, and that's a bad idea for her first go at this alone, but he declares that she's ready. Of course once inside the OR, he questions her choices and yells at her a whole lot though she sticks to her guns and does what she thinks is best. It turns out perfectly, which seems to make Derek even angrier, especially when she gets a round of applause from the rest of the surgical team. That night they finally have it out and he admits he can't trust her at all, but points out that he meant what he wrote on the Post-It so he won't leave her. He also grudgingly admits that he knows she did all of the crazy things including messing with the trial and taking Zola because she was trying to help the people she loves, but he's still angry that she's had no real consequences at all. I guess losing Zola doesn't count because it's not just her that's going through that pain? I don't quite know. They finally realize that the biggest problem they have is that he can't trust her at work, and so she says that they will stop working together and that being off of his service will then be her consequence. That seems to work for Derek and while he still seems fairly livid they at least fall asleep on the same bed with their hands nearly touching, so maybe the Post-It will usher them through this mess after all.

Mere's VO started a moment before my DVR did so I missed the very beginning, but she seems to be talking about all one's life leading to one particular day. It's a particular day all of the residents have been looking forward to but the attendings, not so much. Richard reminds them that today is the day that the fifth year residents rotate in as lead surgeons. How quickly these doctors forget this own day in their lives, even though for Bailey and Callie it wasn't that long ago. They all make suitably disparaging remarks as Richard reminds them that they will stay silent and step in on a surgery only if they have to. Basically, now every day is one big Gunther exercise, then. Then, as casually as if he was announcing a change on the cafeteria menu, Richard tells them that effective that morning he resigned as Chief of Surgery and that Owen is taking over the position while Richard stays on staff as a regular surgeon. He turns the meeting right over but his audience doesn't care about Owen and just wants to know what happened. Meredith VO's that you can't prepare for the day when you step down. Well... yes, you can. You might now know totally how it will feel until you get there but in many -- or most, really -- cases you can absolutely plan for stepping down. This VO is really pushing it today. Arizona asks what happened while Derek asks bitchily if the Board is forcing him to step down. Teddy chooses the awkward lull that follows to even more awkwardly excitedly to call out to Owen, "You're the new Chief of Surgery! Nice!" That good sex must be affecting her ability to judge a room. Bailey doesn't say anything because she's in utter shock, her face a complete blank like she can't actually comprehend what is going on.

Mere and Cristina are walking and talking and Mere tells her and us that she hasn't heard anything about Zola yet. Cristina wonders if she is okay but Mere points out that she has to be okay because she is clipping first aneurysm that day. May your patient not find out you're in the middle of emotional turmoil when doing this highly specialized and risky procedure that basically either ends in success or death. Cristina is doing a valve replacement and is reveling in the fact that Teddy isn't allowed to say a word to her while she's working. Eventually April falls in step with them and then Alex -- they all ask about Zola and ask if "it" is up yet. "It" turns out to be the board with their names written on as lead surgeons. Alex is mocked for taking an "easy" bowel resection instead of a pediatric case. Jackson is mocked for doing plastics until he boasts that it's a kid with a cleft lip. April gets mocked for fixing someone's knee. Basically, it sounds like some of them are aiming higher than others today. But all is forgotten when April reminds them that they all have to start teaching skills labs, and the schedule is up in her office. Their notice is less about the labs and much more about her having an office.

They descend on the office like locusts and April looks like she might have preferred hungry bugs to these guys. She protests weakly but they ignore her and make themselves comfortable on her craigslist sofa. When she points out the skills lab schedule everyone has excuses as to why they can't teach one (to be fair, these excuses are things like clipping aneurysms so probably do take precedence) and they remind her that any of the surgery they do this year could wind up on their oral boards and affect what fellowships they get. April needs to learn that a smart person doesn't get in between Cristina and her career. Meredith proposes that they have a contest, and the person who has the worst outcome from their surgery has to teach the labs for the month. Everyone but April is into this idea, but for the millionth time they ignore her protests and then continue to ignore her as she tries to shoo them out of her office. What does finally get their attention is when Jackson checks his Blackberry and announces that Webber resigned and Owen is now Chief. No one looks as shocked as Cristina at this bombshell.

Derek is packing up his ill-fated trial when Richard walks in; Derek pouts that someone in Phoenix is taking over the trial, while is he blacklisted and might never get to do another trial ever again. He really should hire a violin player to provide him a tragic soundtrack to match his attitude. Richard is much less devastated that he is also on the blacklist, and he doesn't take the bait when Derek accuses that he allowed the Board to fire him. Do we think he really had a choice? Although actually it sounds like maybe he did, and yet he resigned. Or "fired himself," as he puts it. I guess being Chief really does have its perks, including being allowed to mess with a groundbreaking medical clinical trial without fear of serious repercussions. Derek thinks it was one thing to take the blame for Meredith but another entirely to step down, but Richard has had enough of this topic and pointedly says that he was just there to ask about Zola. Derek hasn't heard. And he STILLwon't let it drop, and tells Richard all angrily that this isn't right. Richard is a bigger person than I for not pointing out that Derek is acting like a brat right now.

As the girls walk up the stairs, Cristina wonders out loud how Owen could possibly not tell her about being Chief. Mere starts to delicately ask a question but Cristina tackles it head-on and just asks if it's because she didn't have his baby. As they discuss it they run into Owen, and he and Cristina have the most awkward-polite conversation one can imagine. Like they met at a wedding and spent the night together and run into each other at the hotel check-out desk the day bad. There's lots of stammering and over-loud laughing and assuring each other everything is okay as Owen says that he wanted to tell her, but she was asleep when she got home... we've all been here, which makes it actually all the more painful to watch. They wish each other good luck -- she with her valve replacement and he with being the boss, and then talk about celebrating. She can't do dinner because she has a long surgery, so they settle on performing an awkward hug-dance and then he leaves. Mere assures Cristina that that was pitiful.

Alex tells April that he need an assistant for his bowel resection and when she tells him good luck, he points out that he thinks it is her job to find one for him. Their fighting is broken up by Arizona, who rolls in to give Alex crap about turning down one of her surgeries. She thinks that Alex is picking a boring, easy surgery to get an easy A but warns him that he could lowball himself out of the pediatrics fellowship. It sounds like this idea never even occurred to April and she asks if it's true or if he's just trying to win the bet. Honey, that bet was made after he already had this surgery. She's trying SO hard and is SO uptight that she's almost as painful to watch as Cristina and Owen. At least he's eye candy... Regardless, when the Chief walks up and hears that Alex doesn't have an assistant yet he frets since this is one of his old patients whom he loves, and April assures him that she'll find someone even if she has to assist Alex herself. This is followed with a very weak, slightly maniacal laugh that I think the Chief deliberately ignores.

Mere is in with her patient and explains the surgery procedure to him and his wife; she'll be using a clip to stop the blood supply and then later using a needle to stick the top of it. If it holds and doesn't start bleeding, the surgery is a success. He seems to know quite clearly that if it doesn't hold, he's screwed, but Meredith tries not to focus on the "possible death" outcome. They then ask her success rate, and she has to unfortunately answer that this is her first procedure. The guy's wife loses her smile, though kudos to her for struggling very hard to not be obvious about it, and the guy admits he wishes she'd just lied. Derek has been standing in the doorway but he finally walks in and says that after today, she'll have a 100% success rate, and that she is the best. He also assures them that he will be there the whole time. For a brief moment, he's actually acting like a gracious human being and I can see just a teensy bit of that good-looking McDreamy of yesteryear.

Once they are in the hall, though, he becomes a scowling mess again. Neither of them has heard anything about Zola and he's convinced that if they haven't heard by now, that means it will be bad news. Mere says she will call but he bites her head off, ordering her not to do so since they have already called too much. He starts to walk away but Mere calls after him to ask that if they don't get her back, does he even want to stay together? Derek does what he does best: he informs her that they just need to focus on the surgery and then leaves. Mere is incredibly skeptical about his ostrich approach and heaves a big sigh.

Cristina and a group of good-for-nothing interns (well, I'm filling in her thought process based on the look of her face) (and kind of what happens ) are in with her valve replacement patient, while Teddy leans in the doorway as an observer. As the interns proudly go through all of the tests they have run in advance of the surgery Cristina listens, unimpressed, and finally asks if any of them have felt her stomach. She doesn't expect the answer to be no, and she rails at them about the importance of fundamentals. Teddy somehow manages to not bust a gut laughing at the hypocrisy as she watches the little tableau unfold in front of her. Cristina then examines the woman's abdomen and sends her for more tests.

Jackson, meanwhile, is talking to a very hot young mom about her little baby, who has the cleft lip. While she is scared about him having surgery so young, Jackson assures her that this is the time to do it so that his muscles can then form properly. Arizona has assumed the Attending Stance: leaning against the door with crossed arms, observing and adding a bit of silent pressure as well. After he explains it all, the baby wriggles and grins at him as the mom thanks him profusely. I'm not sure if this is television magic or if they really got a baby with a cleft lip but no matter what, that kid is also ridiculously cute. I was about to marvel at this and muse, "It's like there's a factory somewhere in which they are churning out cute babies for TV!" Um, Self? There is. It's called Hollywood. So, okay, then, big congrats to the casting director who is batting a thousand with the wee ones on this show.

Out in the hall Arizona proves that she's still probably the coolest and most supportive Attending as she tells Jackson he was excellent and runs through all of what he did right. But he's shocked when she finishes by telling him that Mark is going to do the surgery because she wants a different procedure used than what Jackson is planning. Jackson argues that this is his case but his protests are no match for Mark's artistry and Arizona holds firm.

The guinea pig patient is Sam, the guy who Richard mentioned had been his patient for years. He's in for his third bowel resection, which sounds like quite a party. His son has taken off as semester from school is there to help out with his recovery even though his dad doesn't agree with his decision. The two of them banter and are generally lovable and awesome, so my first thought was, "Sam, no! This isn't going to end well." April is having a good time joining in and starts to tell Alex about Sam's history with Richard but Alex kills the mood in the room dead when he sneers at her to just give him the bullet. She does, and now Sam and Jason look both chastised and also rightly worried about the man who is going to cut Sam open.

Arizona, Teddy and Bailey are taking a break from their babysitting duties to hang out in the lounge and gossip about what happened to the Chief. Teddy asks if they are all supposed to pretend they don't know what happened, and Arizona asks what Richard's "deal" is with Meredith. It's funny -- because since it's common knowledge for us viewers I thought it was common knowledge among the doctors that Ellis and Richard had a History. From the little we have seen and heard, it doesn't sound like discretion was their number one concern during that time. But I guess they must not know, and I guess no one is going to consider for a second that Mere was helping Adele out from her own warped sense of goodness. Even if they don't agree with what she did, they must be able to imagine that Richard wouldn't want Mere raked over the coals for that. Richard walks in at just that moment and jauntily heads over to the fridge with his lunch and peeks inside. Once he asks about the office Fridge Etiquette he sets his down and tells it he'll see it later. He's in quite a jolly mood, but the women look at him like he has a head injury and once he leaves Teddy muses about how hard he's trying and how noble that makes him. Bailey can't handle what she saw or the talk about it and she leaves.

April runs after Owen and Callie with a bottle of congratulatory scotch for him from Larry Jennings. She's about to run and put it in his office but remembers to tell Callie that she has to push her surgery a day so that she can teach a skills lab. Callie is appalled and neither she nor Owen is impressed when they find out that she also has to assist Alex because she can't convince anyone else (even an intern, it seems) to do it. Owen brings up a variation of an old chestnut: Don't try to get them to listen to you, just order them to do it. Has he met the other residents, by the way? He's married to the Queen of Not Listening so you think he might understand. He adds that leadership isn't about making friends.

After April leaves, Callie congratulates him on acting, "chiefy." But then he has a much less "chiefy" moment when Bailey walks up and demands her call schedule, essentially putting him is play by reminding him how 1. He's not like Richard and 2. He's not yet done what he told her he would do. Her general attitude is that she has already judged him and he has been found severely wanting. He can only stammer nervously and once she saunters away, Callie points out that this was in fact, "way less chiefy." Owen asks her what he did but Callie assures him that since Bailey was Richard's right-hand man, she'd treat any replacement like this. But she does ask an important question: Leadership might not be about making friends, but does he really want Bailey as an enemy?

When Cristina discovers that her patient just has appendicitis she walks out to Teddy and gripes that she's going to send the woman down to general surgery. Teddy gets all wide-eyed and innocently asks why Cristina doesn't do the appendectomy herself. Cristina gives her a litany of reasons: not a cardio procedure, not a fifth year procedure, etc. We (and Teddy) have heard the likes of this before but Teddy opines that since the patient needs her heart monitored and will have to have an open surgery, this is definitely something Cristina wouldn't want a moron to do. She basically orders Cristina to take the procedure while happily tossing her own words back at her from just that morning -- she loves the basics and fundamentals! Cristina has to eat her words and judging by the look on her face, they taste like bile.

When April goes back to Sam's room, he is sleeping but Jason asks her a number of questions about his dad's recovery and what his duties will be. His mom handled them after the last two but she's not here this time so he wants to be prepared. April explains that there could be a couple of different outcomes from the surgery, and she'll get Alex to come talk them over with him. Jason tries to approach his question delicately, asking if Alex is cool. But the delicacy is forgotten when he adds that Alex seems kind of "douchey." April tries to suppress her smile and admits that he can be, but that he's a good guy and a great surgeon, and this seems to appease Jason for now.

Mere is looking at what looks like a display from one of the bead shops that were so popular when I was growing up, where you could make your own jewelry and I always came out with some variety of very big, very colorful earrings. These aren't beads, though, but tons of different tiny brain clips. Richard walks in to wish her luck and when she explains that she's choosing what to use in surgery, he tells her that she won't know what she needs to use until she is in the OR and looking at it. He then reminisces about a resident's first aneurysm and tells her that this is a big deal, and that after she's done Derek will lead the staff in a hearty round of applause. Meredith manages not to fall off her stool with tragic laughter but does mumble that she's not sure if he'll do that today. Seriously, has Richard been paying attention? Evidently not, since he asks Mere if she and Derek are okay. He must already have forgotten that he had to yell at Derek for being an overly harsh asshole after they had their meeting with Larry Jennings. Mere doesn't say anything so Richard just warns that if she can't communicate with her attending, then they have no business being in the OR no matter how prepared they are. Mere isn't ready to deal with that, so she tells Richard that they are fine. Oh, MEREDITH, it's like you're a compulsive liar these days. TRY HONESTY. I get it, but dude. Richard accepts her answer but he seems to maybe not entirely believe her.

Either it's just run-of-the-mill that a hospital would have a serious inventory of pigs or someone in the props department found one left over from a few seasons ago and was like, hey, you know what was cool? When the students had to save pigs' lives as a learning exercise! Let's give one of those little guys another shot at fame! Alex is practicing for his surgery when Cristina walks in and tries to take the pig from him but he is the first in a long line of people to ask Cristina if pigs really do have appendixes. (Dr. Google tells me no, they do not.) Mere runs in and offers up her aneurysm but she has no takers; Cristina is too caught up in her panic as she tries to remember how to do an appendectomy, since she hasn't so much as thought about one in at least three years. Mere keeps begging since she's freaked out about how Derek is going to act but no one else wants the crazy risky surgery for their first time out of the gate. Jackson runs in and requests just the pig's head for some practice of his own, and then April joins her disobedient charges to try and ask Alex to talk to Jason before his dad's surgery. Alex instead orders her to kill the lights and shows off the neato surgery he just did: injecting the bowel with glow-in-the-dark dye that you can see under a black light. Any piece that is viable will light up like the Main Street Electrical Parade. After they gaze, transfixed for a moment, the residents all scatter. Cristina realizes that there is a skills lab going on and makes a beeline for the interns. April tries again but Alex yells at her that answering questions isn't his job. Actually, isn't that completely and utterly part of his job? I am not sure when it became that surgeons don't have to talk to patients with questions about their surgery. Isn't that part of the definition of being a doctor, in fact?

Cristina runs into the skills lab and asks the interns how many of them know how to do an appendectomy. She is pleased and practically starts twirling her moustache and tapping her fingers with a cackle like an old-timey villain.

Owen runs up to present Bailey with her call schedule and seems to have hoped for a more grateful reaction than the disgusted glare he receives in return. He sits down a moment and tells her that he knows she took over the trial, so he wanted to give her some protected time to do research. He's pleased as punch that he's doing something nice and doesn't expect her to turn it back on him, asking if he thinks she doesn't manage her time well. She proceeds to twist his words around until he's a stuttering mess but when he tells her to forget it she then asks, offended, if now she doesn't get the time at all. Owen assures her she does and as she walks off, he gapes after her. He's kind of like pre-teen boy trying to talk to a girl for the first time with all of the awe and the stuttering and the utter smackdown of it all.

April is sadly erasing her knee surgery from the board when Callie runs in and says she'll go ahead and do it herself. This gives April yet another reason to feel sorry for herself since she is now losing procedures. Callie tells her that being Chief Resident sucks, and April is amazed to learn that Callie once had the job and asks how she possibly got her peers to listen to her. Awesomely, Callie admits that she didn't and that she was horrible at the job, which as I recall is a very accurate assessment. She regards April a moment and then seems to deem her worth of advice; she tells her that it's not about making friends but it is about getting them on her side. She congratulates April on having a great idea with that day's competition but after a moment looking at April's face, Callie realizes that wasn't her idea at all. Callie finally just tells her not to give up, and she'll be great. Or maybe she won't! "I never was." It's not really the pep talk that April was hoping for but it's far more than she's gotten from anyone else so far.

Jackson calls Arizona in to check out the practice surgery he did on the pig's lip; when she compliments his pig-prettyfying skills, he asserts that he's ready and deserves to do the baby's surgery. Arizona actually agrees and tells him sincerely, "You go, Gunther."

Cristina gives the interns a pop quiz, the subject being open appendectomies. In doing this she tricks them into walking her step-by-step through the procedure until one poor girl gets stuck and can't remember what to do after cross-clamping the appendix at the base. Cristina gives her a really hard time and when the girl still can't answer, she does a very dramatic rendition of a beeping alarm indicating that the patient just croaked. The girl cries, so I'm sure Cristina will go home satisfied that she did her work right today, scaring underlings.

Cristina and Mere get ready for their surgeries, and it's good that the one who is trying to walk herself through the steps out loud is NOT the one doing the incredibly risky procedure. Owen comes up and when he finds out Cristina now has a much shorter surgery, he asks her if she wants to do dinner after all. Cristina then offers to pick something up, he suggests Chinese, and then they go back and forth assuring each other that whatever the other one wants is good until Meredith tells them Chinese is perfect, just to stop the slow-motion car wreck going on before her eyes. Mere thinks that they have to talk about the abortion now because currently they are unable to talk about anything else. Cristina has no idea how to broach the subject or if Owen even wants her to. Finally, it's time for them to head off to their surgeries and they each warn the other not to screw up.

April and Alex are scrubbing in for their procedure and April persists in trying to give Alex some personal details about the guy he's about to cut open. The reason his wife isn't there is that she died of a stroke, and Jason only had one semester left in college but he dropped out to help his dad. Alex seems disgusted that April has the gall to personalize a case but April lectures him that this is about more than an easy A or a bet he can win. She reminds him that this is, in fact, his job but he feels quite differently and says it's just his job to open and fix the person; he could spend time talking or he could spend his time figuring out what to do. April finally realizes that at least today, Alex's bad attitude is actually a show of bravado to mask his fear at being in charge for the first time. She assures him that he will be fine. Richard then pops in to tell Alex that he's loving his book and if Alex doesn't screw up, he will get to finish it up during surgery. He asks Alex point-blank if he'll finish the book and Alex unconvincingly tells him yes.

The scrub room is not a happy play today; as Derek and Meredith get ready he asks if she's looked at the scans but when she says yes, he immediately says he wants to take a look again. That's all the undermining Meredith needs and she tells him calmly that she thinks he should do the surgery. He practically spits, "Why?" She really is damned if she does, damned if she doesn't with him; he's predisposed to go against anything she says or does. Meredith points out that they aren't a team right now and really, sounds like the much more mature adult in this conversation. Derek asks her some questions about the procedure and when she answers he curtly tells her she's ready, so let's go. But he didn't really mean the "us" part of "let's" as evidenced by the fact that he walks into the OR and lets the door shut in her face.

April and Alex walk inside and he seems pissed that she's standing in his spot until she hisses at him that as lead, he goes on the other side. This might be a small issue as he practiced the procedure from the spot where April is standing. But when Richard asks if there is a problem Alex quickly says no and picks up the knife.

Not one of these residents is enjoying working with their Attending right now -- Teddy keeps asking Cristina to tell her all of the steps of the appendectomy as she performs them and warns Cristina that this isn't going to get old. Well, not for herself, at least.

Alex is staring dejectedly into Sam's rotting bowels and tries to find some that will work, but April has to gently assure him they don't have enough. Alex has them turn the lights back on, and Richard puts down his book to see what might happen .

Cristina admits that she really can't remember what she's doing, and Teddy is rubbing it in hard that she should remember this time she's yelling at an intern to remember the basics. All the while, Cristina is holding up this appendix which looks a little like a chicken strip dipped in buffalo sauce. And... Now I'm totally not ordering that when I watch football this weekend. Cristina sucks it up and tells Teddy to go ahead and finish, but Teddy just tells her to take her time, and it will come back. As Cristina is assuring her this won't happen, a realization starts to dawn on her: Teddy doesn't know either. Teddy tries to deflect the accusation but it's no use and they argue back and forth about how long it's been since they each did the procedure while the nurse looks at them disgustedly over her mask and advises them on the step.

As Mark finishes up the baby's surgery he can't help but rub salt in Jackson's wounded ego. Jackson is still holding on to the fact that he's the Gunther but any points he earned with Mark for that have all been lost today.

He may try to act like he doesn't care, but Alex seems rather despondent that if he just closes up his patient now, that basically means leaving him to die of sepsis. He turns and starts asking Richard questions, but Richard stays silent and eventually goes back to his book. You know he's reading the same paragraph over and over, though. April tells him she is sorry and he finally calms down and says sadly to just go ahead and close Sam back up.

We get artsy now as the music starts and a hand erases Jackson's name from the board. He glowers as the baby's mom gives Mark a big hug, and Mark, ever the very picture of maturity, gives Jackson a very pointed look over her shoulder.

The hand then erases Cristina's name as she and Teddy walk out of the OR and the disgraced surgeons agree in as few words as possible never to speak of this again. However, the nurse doesn't make any of her own promises as she shakes her head at them while walking out.

Alex's name is erased as he stares at Jason in the waiting room. April offers to go talk to him but Alex agrees to do it. Before he goes, April gently tells him that while Jason won't understand it, Alex did everything he could and needs to remember that. The fact that he doesn't make a snide comment back to her seems to say that he appreciates it. He then sucks it up and goes out to the waiting area.

Mere is almost done -- she just needs to finish STAPLING THE GUY'S SCALP BACK IN PLACE OMG NO. I'd like to thank the show for giving me a visual of that, as well, because the sound of the stapler and the knowledge that it's being used on someone's head wasn't enough. I'm going to crawl out of my own skin. And I've HAD staples! Loads of them! But I never had to HEAR any of them going in! (Nor, full disclosure, did I ever have to look directly at them since they were in my back.) One of the people in the room -- I think the anesthesiologist? -- looks at Derek rather pointedly but when Derek does nothing, he starts a hearty round of slow-clapping for Meredith's job well done. She's happy until she turns and sees Derek; he finally joins in halfheartedly to not look like an asshole, but he's glaring at her and the smile drops right off of her face. Finally, her name is artfully erased from the board.

The now-humbled group of residents reconvenes in April's office but this time it's to do rather melancholy shots of tequila. Neither Cristina nor Meredith wants to go home, and Mere says maybe she'll come by later. Cristina is excited until Mere admits that if that happens, it means her marriage is truly over. Alex joins them, and after they drink they compare notes to see who lost the bet. Mere, obviously, is the winner. Cristina brags about her flawless appendectomy until Jackson snarks that a nurse had to finish it for her and Cristina is more shocked than she should be that that poor performance already made its way through the hospital grapevine. Jackson then gives Alex a hard time for his patient never even waking up and Cristina mocks him for blowing an easy procedure, and April steals a worried glance at Alex since she knows this is actually hitting right in his soft, unprotected underbelly. She tells Jackson to stop and he doesn't, so she announces that Jackson didn't actually perform his surgery so that means he must lose by default. Jackson is mortified since he told her that in confidence, but it gives April the little seed of camaraderie with the others that she needed. She then proposes a rematch and as they talk about it being a competition every day, she beams that her colleagues finally seem not to hate her.

Bailey is on her way out -- so this is really not ideal timing to begin with -- when Owen stops her and immediately launches into what he learned in the army: a leader is only as good as the people around him. She's one of the best, and he wants to make sure he has her on his side. It's true. The less you respond to a man, the more he will desperately want you. Richard arrives at the elevators and this time we don't pretend that there's any sort of magical sound barrier; he hears the whole painful conversation. She asks calmly if she's done anything wrong to make him say this and when he assures her no, she drives the knife right in and asks if he just wants her to like him. She's not swayed by his stuttering denials and keeps a very straight face, and finally he gives up and tells her to carry on.

She walks up to Richard, and he cautions her that if she wants to be mad, it should be at him. She claims not to be and then singsongs that everyone knows who they really need to be mad at. Meredith better start sleeping with one eye open because Bailey is not messing around. Richard tells Bailey seriously that what Mere did was give him some extra time with Adele, so he's going to take advantage of that time and spend it with her. He is happy and wants her to be happy for him. She finally concedes that she'll try. But once they are in the elevator she adds that he's going to have to give her a little while. He brightly tells her that he'll wait. I still think hell is coming for Meredith from most of the Attendings and I just hope Richard doesn't continue to act shocked or like he can change it with a silly quip. He's a smart man, he should be able to gauge what is going on at his hospital, even if it's not totally his anymore.

Cristina and Owen are eating dinner, alone, together, at their own home, in what seems like the first time in quite a while. They still are struggling for conversation and resort to commending on the food. Cristina jumps up to do the dishes but Owen holds up a finger and tells her he has been feeling terrible. She immediately sits down, thinking it is Conversation Time. But after she asks if he wants to talk about it, he walks calmly to the bathroom and begins retching. She realizes he actually meant that he was feeling awful, and looks rather worried when he asks her if she had the spring rolls.

I'm shocked to see Derek actually at Meredith's house, and with a drink in hand at that, like he's planning to stay there. He walks right past her folding laundry but she's done with not talking about it and chastises him that they never should have been operating together earlier because they aren't currently a team. She needs to figure out with him now, before they (hopefully) throw Zola back into the mix, if they can be, so she tells Derek to say what he feels. He tells her he can't, and starts to explain that he'll say things he doesn't want to but Meredith is tired of this crap (thank God) and tells him, exasperated, just to spit it out. Seriously, Derek, you've had no problem badmouthing her to people or yelling at her in front of others, so what could you say right now that would shock her? She tells him that she can face the consequences but that is apparently Derek's biggest problem and he sneers that she's never accepted a consequence in her life. He points out that other people around her have been hurt but she hasn't suffered. She rightly throws back at him that she lost Zola because of this but he yells back, "So did I!" So, in Derek's world, that means it's not a serious enough consequence because she wasn't the only one to experience it. This is why I find him almost unwatchable. He's not a fun villain, he's just an ass. He then rehashes everything that she does without thinking about it first, such as stealing Zola, and she seems exhausted to remind him again that she told him why she did that. He doesn't think she really means it when she says she's sorry. Wow, this scene feels like it is 20 minutes long.

She follows him up the stairs and the camera pans directly over all the baby gear just in case we forgot that they are Sad and Empty people without their daughter there. He tries to throw in her face that she once again didn't listen to him in the OR (unsaid: when he was certain he knew best) (but I was certain that he just wanted to disagree with her for the sake of it) but she argues that she didn't listen to him because she knew what she was doing and that it was right. She has a point there. Look, her decision making has been totally awful and nearly inexcusable but she did have a reason for doing all of these stupid things, which is Love. (Awwwwwwwwww.) [Insert Peter Cetera song here.] I don't expect everyone to just let her off the hook but I do wish that people would at least think about how complicated some of these situations were for her. And wow, I just spent a lot of page space defending Meredith. I don't think I'm ever going to get over how weird that feels. She tells Derek she has to trust him and he blows up that she set back his and Richard's careers, so he has no reason to trust her. Finally, she asks the million-dollar question: If he can't trust her, why on earth is he with her? He angrily points to their framed Post-It and screams at her that he meant what he wrote there. He promised to love her and that includes even times that he hates her too. He says that he is trying, but she makes it so hard. She refrains from telling him, "Likewise, buddy."

She understands but tells him she doesn't want him to keep his promise if he doesn't want to and if he can't trust her with Zola. He snaps back that that isn't what he said. He tells her that he knows she did all these crazy things to protect the ones she loved, and reminds her that she offered to take a bullet for him, which is exactly what he both loves and hates about her. He lies down on the bed and throws his hand over his eyes as if he has the weight of the world on his shoulders and no one has known this stress ever, before, to the level that Derek Shepherd is experiencing it now. Meredith finally realizes what he's driving at, which is that he can't trust her at work. She points out that there is an easy solution to this -- she is now off his service. She gets a consequence (which is actually a rather real one since she wants to be a neurosurgeon and we're reminded every week that he is the very best) and they have a fighting chance to make their personal life work and to get Zola back. She VO's something about stepping up and becoming a leader, which feels to me a little farfetched as a comparison. She kind of stepped up but I wouldn't call her a leader.

Across town, vomit is a healing balm for two crazy kids. Cristina is lying on the bathroom floor with Owen sitting beside her, dabbing her forehead with a washcloth. They finally joke with each other like normal people about the restaurant and that he picked it specifically because she liked their spring rolls, which makes her laugh. They seem to have broken through the barrier that was still up and are just back to loving each other for who they are once again. He wants to go to bed but she's not ready to get up from the floor so he just shifts her over so her head is resting in his lap and they gaze lovingly at one another.

Meredith and Derek have both fallen asleep. They aren't under the covers and are still fully clothed, but they are at least on the same bed with their hands almost touching. We get one last head-bashing shot of the empty crib and Meredith VO's about taking a path even when you have no idea where it's going. It better be going back to Derek not make every single tiny thing just about himself, or else I'm going to throw something at my TV one of these episodes. And I love my TV too much for that.

Lauren S is a writer and gal-about-town who lives and works in Atlanta and is going to skip the spring rolls at dinner tonight. She wants everyone to know: "The views expressed in my recaps and anything else I might write on TWoP are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer."

By Lauren S