We finally get some levity this week -- well, as much levity as you can get when you're working with one doctor trying to come to grips with her widowhood, two doctors whose marriage is in crisis, and an intern with a desperately ill preemie and an ill-advised crush on her resident.
As Mere and Derek drive to work one morning, they look out their window to see a lion nonchalantly crossing the street in front of them. They get to the hospital just ahead of two patients who have been mauled by said lion and come to find out that one of those patients was actually the lion's owner, keeping him as a housecat. Just in case anyone was curious, keeping a lion as a pet is in fact a Very Bad Idea. Jonathan from Buffy is one of the maulees; he had gone to the woman's house to pick her up for a date and wound up having his appendages ripped to shreds. Richard and Avery sort of fight over who gets to have the fun of treating him and wind up working together and bonding, weirdly, over the awesomeness of finding one of the lion's teeth in his body during surgery and the fact that idiot patients provide awesome(ly creepy) medial souvenirs.
Cristina is still not speaking to Owen, a week after his Great Affair Reveal. He now finally wants to talk, which she had been begging him to do for weeks, but she's no longer interested. She spends the day trying to build hearts from scratch -- which is obviously super painful because it's a cringingly literal metaphor for what she wants to do in her personal life. Meredith is working with Owen that day and in his desperation, he begs Meredith to put in a good word and tell Cristina how sorry he is. She wants to not talk about it but he keeps trying and finally, in front of Bailey as they all work on the lion owner, he blurts that it was just sex. It's extra awkward because until that moment, Mere didn't actually know about the affair.
When he tries to talk to her after surgery she repeats for the umpteenth time that she doesn't want to talk about it and informs him that Cristina not telling her about it means that Cristina doesn't want Mere to hate him, which then means that she must eventually be planning to forgive him. This finally puts a stop to Owen's begging Mere to be a go-between but he's another embarrassing situation because now Bailey knows about his big mistake as well. He talks to her later and offers to steer clear of her since he knows that Cristina is special to her, but Bailey tells him that while he did something terrible, it doesn't make him a terrible person. He seems to find a little bit of comfort in all of this and when he gets home, sits down at the table across from his wife to eat some dinner. After a moment, however, she jumps up and throws her bowl of cereal in his face, thereby assuring him that she's not actually anywhere close to forgiving him.
On the other end of the relationship spectrum we have Mark, who is starting to think about asking Julia to move in with him. Lexie overhears this and then tries to tell Derek that it's a horrible idea, but Derek refuses to have a personal conversation like that with her. After a while, though, he changes his mind and tells Lexie that he's not going to give Mark any advice one way or the other but he knows that Mark is going to do it unless he thinks he has an actual chance of rekindling things with Lexie. Derek warns her that if she says anything, she'd better be sure that she really wants to get back together with him and isn't saying something just because she's jealous and hates seeing Mark with someone else.
Callie is dealing with some jealousy of her own when she sees a nurse give Arizona a lingering hug goodbye and realizes that they once had a fling. Arizona tries to brush off the subject but Callie hammers away at her, trying to find out just how many exes she has in the hospital. Finally, exasperated, Arizona starts listing her rather impressive list of conquests, which sends Callie into a tizzy despite the fact that Arizona already knows about all of Callie's own exes who still roam the halls of their workplace. Mark finally pulls Callie aside and points out that Arizona is faced with Callie's past every single day since she's helping raise the daughter her wife drunkenly conceived with her friend. But, she has gotten past the jealousy and Callie now needs to suck it up and do the same. She does, and shows Arizona just how over it she is while peeling both of their clothes off at home that night.
Teddy is also dealing with her own demons in the hospital when she treats an elderly patient who was about to go on an anniversary cruise with his wife. He and his wife are super in love and cute, and the wife is terrified at the idea that she might actually lose her husband during surgery. Teddy is rather touched by their relationship; she has been doing a great job of shoving down and ignoring her own grief but seeing the two lovebirds is starting to cause some cracks in her defenses. The husband almost dies during surgery but she and Alex manage to get him all fixed up, and she happily goes to tell the wife about how well it went. She gets to the waiting area and sees that the woman has fallen asleep in one of the chairs but as she sits down and tries to wake her up, Teddy realizes that she has died. When Teddy has to tell her patient she breaks down upon seeing his raw grief, but it does seem like it might be what she needs to start getting through her own.
Alex, meanwhile, had been working with her because he couldn't handle being around Morgan any longer. While it seems like deep down he might have some feelings in his small dark heart for her, he can't handle her adoration and asks Arizona to be taken off of baby Tommy's case. Morgan spends the day texting him, demanding to talk to him, but he avoids her at every turn. While he's gone, Arizona and April tell Morgan that Tommy needs another surgery but that things are looking really bleak for him by this point, and she might want to start considering AND: allowing natural death. She's horrified by the idea that her baby might not make it and is desperate for Alex's help in making her decision. But when she finally corners him, he yells at her that this is a decision she has to make on her own, especially since he is neither her boyfriend nor the baby's father. She finally does make one (they're doing the surgery) but wants Alex nowhere near them anymore. Arizona tells him that he did the right thing and that his actions are actually going to force her to be a stronger mother, which is what Tommy needs, and Alex dutifully agrees that if hating him gives her the energy to be strong for her baby, that's great. But his dismissive reply seems to be covering up feelings he's trying to bury, as we have seen so many times before.
Derek and Meredith are driving to work, the perfect family with the blindingly cute Zola in the backseat. The two adults are talking about the house; Derek seems like he might want Meredith to be a little bit involved in its construction but she's just happy to have him do what he wants and present it to her when it's all finished. From the backseat, Zola lets out a toddler-version roar and Mere congratulates her on making the same sound a lion makes. She doesn't seem to question why Zola was thinking about lions until she turns around and they see a very large one sauntering through the intersection.
Outside the car, a lot of panicked screaming starts up while Mere and Derek just gape in disbelief. Mere's VO teaches us that there's a phrase they use in the operating room: "Don't pet the lion." This means that no matter how small and easy a tumor it looks, it's still a tumor and is dangerous. Where, I ask you, was "Don't pet the lion" last week, then, when she and Lexie happily pet the lion and incapacitated a young woman? Was there too much going on to work that storyline into this episode? My guess is yes, but it just makes this kind of stupidly awkward.
Also awkward: Cristina and Owen's home life, since she isn't talking to him and they both seem to be walking on eggshells. Their roles have now switched: after weeks of trying to avoid talking to his wife, Owen is now begging her to talk to him and she's aggressively uninterested in doing so. It's too little, too late.
Teddy, meanwhile, has managed to get herself to a grief support group but she's not actually enthusiastic about it. The woman leading the group is telling this incredibly well-dressed group of widows that when they have a quiet moment alone, she wants them to say to themselves, "I am a widow"; she assures them that it will feel weird and stupid at first but that it really will help to give them some closure and strength. A woman then pipes up to say that she is shocked by how sudden her husband's death was since he just had a couple of "blockages" and some "minor" congestive heart failure.
Teddy responds to this with a belly laugh and the other women look shocked and appalled at her behavior. She proceeds to tell the woman, in a voice dripping with attitude, how her husband's symptoms mean he was super sick and it was a miracle he lasted as long as he did, and by the way, there's no such thing as "mild" congestive heart failure. I understand that she is supposed to be a mess but I'm not sure I buy that she'd really act like this in front of this group. Yes, we're supposed to see that she's got major issues that she's trying to bury and they are manifesting themselves in her totally inappropriate behavior. Her laughing, I totally understand. But I don't believe that she'd actually be a complete asshole to another new widow.
At the hospital, Cristina is shocked to hear Mere tell about the lion and doesn't seem to entirely believe it, and Mere is quite miffed. (For those who are curious, Mere saw animal control catch the lion with a tranquilizer and they took it away, so presumably we won't have a lion walking in to the ER and ripping the doctors to shreds. Although, you never can be too sure with this show...) Owen walks up to them to tell Mere that she is on his service, and his wife responds by walking away. He's much more interested in trying to talk to Mere about Cristina than about her lion sighting and Mere just tells him that he has to give Cristina time and let her come to him.
In a crowded elevator, Derek is also bragging about the lion and like his wife is put out that Mark is thinking about something else and barely listening. Mark is thinking about asking Julia to move in with him and wants more reassurance that Derek likes her, which we know he does. They then get off the elevator and a ton of people spill out as if it was a clown car until we can see that Lexie was standing in a back corner, heard everything, and is clearly not a fan of the idea of Mark's cohabitation.
So apparently the lion, who looked so calm while moseying through the intersection, did actually maul a couple of people and Jackson wants in on one of the cases. When he goes out to the ambulance bay he's surprised to see Richard, since Richard already had a scheduled surgery, but it turns out he traded that because he also wanted to work on a maulee. Of course he tries to tell Jackson he's just there to be, "of service to humankind," but Jackson sees right through it and so Richard switches gears and plays elder statesman, daring Jackson to even try and challenge him. When the ambulance arrives the patient they unload is Jonathan from Buffy, who is covered head to toe in claw marks and has one arm that was used as a chew toy. He's more worried about his girlfriend Naomi but the doctors don't really listen to him since they are each trying to take charge as well as get Mark and Callie to come help them out.
A woman, presumably Naomi, is then brought in with her neck resembling hamburger meat. She is calling out desperately for information about Kirby, so naturally we all think that's Jonathan's real name. Bailey calls for Hunt and then, when Naomi keeps begging for info, has someone check on Naomi's boyfriend. But Naomi is quick to correct her -- almost with disgust in her voice at the idea she'd be worried about Jonathan -- that Kirby is her pet lion.
Teddy finds Arizona and Callie excitedly discussing the king of the jungle and announces that she went to a grief group. Callie sneers in solidarity, assuming it must have been awful, but Arizona nudges her and tries to sound supportive and positive about it. Teddy sides with Callie on this one and tries to brush off her need for any such support; when Cristina walks up to say she's ready to start on the stem cell project, Teddy tells them grandly that this is the perfect example of how she's looking towards the heart-growing future rather than dwelling on the past. A nurse then comes up to say goodbye to them and we all pretend that this is someone we've seen before as Teddy and Callie give her big hugs and wish her well at her new job. The nurse then looks at Arizona and asks if it would be okay for them to hug. Callie laughs, wondering why it wouldn't be, but then sees that once the nurse has a hold on her wife, she gets all dreamy and seems to not want to let go.
Morgan is standing at Tommy's incubator and is ecstatic that he seems to be doing so well. She flirts furiously with Alex -- under the guise of talking about Tommy -- but Alex won't bite and instead he goes out to the hall and asks Arizona to take him off of the case. She thinks he's just looking for an excuse to work on a maulee but he explains that he wants to get away from Morgan and her crush. Arizona reminds him that because they work with sick kids they can get overly close to the parents, it's normal, and that he has to figure out a way to deal with it and put up boundaries. Weirdly, I never thought about that until right now but it makes sense that awkward situations do crop up more than usual for pediatric docs. Alex claims to have tried, but given what we've seen I'm not sure he's tried very hard. He seems to think he has, though, and when Morgan calls to him to come back in to see Tommy's smile, he gives Arizona a pleading look. She finally agrees to it, but tells him he better mean it. He assures her that he does, and flees.
Bailey is scrubbing in and lecturing them about how insane she finds this woman for keeping a lion as a pet, while Mere is just happy that finally there is proof that she saw a lion that morning. Still, no one seems to care, and once Bailey goes in to the OR Owen tries to bring up Cristina again and tells Meredith in grade school code that he knows that she knows. He wants Mere to tell Cristina how sorry he is, and finally says that it was just sex. Mere's jaw drops and she orders Owen to stop; he's so up his own ass right now that I'm not sure he realizes yet that this is the first Meredith seems to have heard of the affair. In fact, now that he's opened the floodgates he just wants to keep pouring his heart out but Mere yells at him again to stop and announces that this conversation never happened. He still tries to argue and she finally throws her hand up to physically stop him; in his earnestness he leans forward into her hand, causing her to have to start scrubbing in all over again. He's losing points with Meredith at a rather impressive rate right now.
Callie finds Mark and asks him if there ever was anything between Arizona and Nurse Hugs-A-Lot. For Mark, this question solves a great mystery of his own life -- if she's gay, that's why she didn't ever go out with him after years of trying on his part. Callie feels weird that Arizona never said anything while Callie worked with Hugs-A-Lot every day. As she is saying this to the father of her child, who was conceived when she and Arizona were broken up, and who not only works with but practically lives with them, this conversation takes on just a little bit of pot/kettleness. Mark tells her to stop thinking about it but Callie is clearly not doing that anytime soon.
Richard and Jackson are working on Jonathan, who is moaning about how he saw himself in the lion's eyes, and he looked like dinner. And somehow, this made him feel like dinner, and when the lion lunged he reacted by shoving his arm in the cat's mouth. He desperately wants to know what kind of idiot does that, and Jackson mumbles that he's wondering the same thing. Richard shuts Jackson up with a mean stink-eye and then Mark and Callie come in and ogle all of Jonathan's delicious injuries; Callie thinks this is just about what she was expecting when she heard someone was attacked by a lion. Jonathan thinks that getting what you expect is a good thing; he was going to his girlfriend's house for the first time and all she had told him was that she had a cat. All of the doctors are suitably surprised that she didn't mention that her cat was a little larger than most. For the record, when I talk about my cats, I'm talking about two only very slightly chubby tabbies, one of whom crammed his way onto my lap and is therefore making it very difficult for me to type. Kings of the jungle, not so much. With the info he had, Jonathan prepared for the meeting by taking an antihistamine.
Cristina and Teddy are discussing the first steps of this stem cell experiment: Cristina will take hearts from animal cadavers and use a solvent that will drain them of all of their cardiac cells, which Teddy explains is like stripping a building down the studs. She then goes on and explains dreamily that they are scrubbing away the heart cells, wiping them clean until they are blank and then injecting them with stem cells so that they will live again. Cristina's face is blank as all of this talk of erasing and rebuilding hearts is hitting a little too close to home. Alex comes in, having traded with April so that he is working with Teddy. Almost immediately his fancy new pager beeps as Morgan tries to track him down. Teddy gets her own page and the two go down to the ER, leaving Cristina alone and staring sadly at the table until she picks up a football-sized animal carcass and gets to harvesting hearts.
Derek and Lexie are looking at scans and to her surprise, he gives her instructions for how to clip the aneurysm they are about to face. She is shocked, asking if he's sure and admitting that she really screwed up on her last surgery. He agrees, but tells her that she is a student and this is how she will learn. Wow, that sounds strangely levelheaded coming from Derek Shepherd. He asks if she has any more questions and is very surprised when she asks if he's going to tell Mark to move in with Julia. He almost physically recoils as she babbles that Julia works on eyeballs, which is boring, and has thin hair which can be a sign of early menopause. Phew, if that's the case, I'm not going through that for another 20 years at least. Once he can get a word in edgewise Derek informs her that they don't talk about this kind of thing, and he leaves.
Poor April is in a rather unenviable position with Morgan, who is completely worked up that someone other than Alex is there. It's worse because something is going wrong with Tommy, and Morgan is yelling at April, telling her she's not doing things the way Alex does. Finally, April yells for the nurse to page Arizona but Morgan speaks up and tells the woman to page Alex, instead. It's pleasantly shocking when April puts on her respect-getting lower voice and hollers at the nurse in no uncertain terms that she's to page Arizona; even Morgan stops yelling for a moment.
At that moment Alex is with Teddy talking to their elderly male patient, Martin, and his wife Emma. As Martin tries to explain the chest pains he has been having, Alex's pager is blowing up -- I gather this is a fancy new work pager because Teddy has one that is identical, and so they probably need to leave them on, but it's incredibly rude that he keeps getting this bonking text message tone while his patient is trying to speak. Has he not heard of vibrate, at least until they are out of the room? Emma tells the docs that they are leaving the day for a cruise to Alaska for their wedding anniversary but it sounds like it might have to be postponed as the tests show that Martin actually had a heart attack, and they need to do an angioplasty. Teddy asks them what they were doing when he started having chest pain and the two exchange rather saucy looks, which, I was certain, were going to be about the horizontal mambo they were dancing. But Emma giggles and then tells them excitedly, as if she's revealing a huge secret, that they saw the lion. I am so unclear as to why they would not just have said that -- if I was having chest pains brought on by a lion sighting, that would probably be part of the story I told the second I got to the hospital. They're cute, though, and I like them. I'm sure that means something horrible is going to happen.
Callie finds Arizona and tries to sound all casual as she mentions Hugs-A-Lot's weird embrace, but she does it in that way where it's crazy obvious there's nothing casual about it all. She pushes Arizona while trying to act cool and finally Arizona admits that she and Colleen had a little fling a long time ago. Callie can't believe that she wouldn't have mentioned it and gets all passive aggressive, but Arizona wants to just let it go. After a lot of back and forth, Callie offers to tell Arizona about her exes but the thing is, Arizona already knows about them (even about Alex) so it's not much of a bargaining chip. Arizona tries to leave and answer the silent calls of the sick babies but Callie won't let it go and finally, Arizona admits that she has "one or two" exes about. Callie dumbly takes this at face value but come ON, it's either one OR two, no one can mix those two things up. And if she's being vague, obviously it's actually a lot more.
As Bailey, Mere and Owen work on Naomi, Bailey prattles on about the insanity of keeping a lion and eventually notices that no one seems to be listening. She finally asks if she has offended them, in an effort to get one of them talking, but that doesn't really work until Owen mentions that Cristina doesn't believe in pets. Well, I'm glad he's clear about her view on pets since he seems to still not be as sure about her views on children. Mere mumbles, "Cristina doesn't believe in a lot of things." It's very pointed, and Bailey realizes that she's missing something and just drawls, "Ooooookay then."
Once Alex and Teddy have done the angioplasty there is more bad news: Martin had another heart attack during the procedure and needs surgery right away. Emma is incredibly nervous about it and Martin very sweetly apologizes to her for ruining their vacation. She assures him that he didn't mess anything up and in fact, they came face-to-face with a lion, which is amazing enough for her. She wishes him happy anniversary but he tells her to say that to him again tomorrow. Teddy is having a bit of a hard time with this whole display of love and it looks like it's work to keep the smile on her face.
As Derek talks to Lexie some more about the procedure she wrings her hands, and he finally demands to know what's wrong. She blurts out that she knows they don't talk about this kind of stuff, but what if she misses a great opportunity to get some help from her big brother? Huh. While that is technically now true, I didn't really think they were at the point of fully embracing each other like that, but I also think Lexie is trying to use anything that might help her get anything out of him. She asks, what if Mark is her soulmate? Derek quickly backs me up and tells her that he's neither her friend nor her brother right now but rather her boss, and she needs to buckle down. She immediately apologizes, and he tells her that she has an aneurysm to clip.
Cristina now has a tableful of Petri dishes each containing a tiny heart, and she's dripping stuff carefully into each when Jackson and Alex noisily burst in. Alex's pager is still blowing up and Jackson wants him to answer, but when Alex explains that he's trying to be cold and dead toward Morgan but it's only making her bug him more, Jackson tries to support his efforts. He jokes about how great Alex is at being a douche, so he can do this too. He uses Cristina as a great cold and dead role model -- all the while, she is ignoring them and thereby proves to Jackson just how good she is. Lexie then runs in and wants to talk about the lion, but by "lion" I mean "herself" as she tries to force a horrible metaphor between the surely lonely lion lady's life and her own. It's so awkward that I refuse to even try to transcribe any of it here. Basically, the guys think she is nuts. Cristina finally reaches her limit, and orders everyone out.
It turns out, though, that Morgan is freaking out for a pretty good reason. Arizona and April try to gently explain that a whole lot of things are now going wrong with Tommy. Morgan is belligerent, demanding to know where Alex is and wondering why they don't just go ahead with the surgery already. Arizona quickly says Alex is on another case and then gently broaches the subject of AND, which she explains is "allowing natural death" -- Morgan hadn't reached that part of her schooling yet. She can't wrap her mind around this and argues that they aren't there yet, but Arizona very gently says that they are since Tommy is deteriorating so badly. Morgan wants Arizona to tell her what she thinks they should do, but Arizona just tells Morgan to consider what kind of life she wants for her son. After reminding her of all of the pain and suffering he could be facing, she says that they will do the surgery if she wants, but if she decides to go the AND route they will support that as well.
Alex turns a corner and finds a crying Morgan gazing into the nursery at the healthy babies. He tries to leave but she sees him and hollers down the hall that she just learned what AND is. She's got on a v-neck shirt and you can see her bright red scar as a reminder that she herself just went through heart surgery a few weeks earlier on top of everything. As she angrily yells that her med school career isn't over yet since she's still learning new things, Alex turns and literally runs away.
Richard seems to be playing Jedi to his young Padawan Avery but I'll tell you right now, I don't get the point of their arc. Even when he tells us his point later, I still don't get how that all was supposed to tie together as an actual narrative. Richard seems to think that this situation shows how quickly things can change, while Avery thinks it's natural selection and that when a girl wants you to meet her cat, you run. Hey now! There are some awesome cat ladies out there in the world, with only a mild streak of crazy, if I do say so myself.
Callie pipes up that he was blindsided by someone he trusted. There's no heavy-handed music here so it's being played for comedy, which is why I can't get too worked up about Arizona's great deception of not giving Callie a list of all of her hookups. Mark finally bites, and asks Callie what she said to Arizona; Callie still feigns nonchalance and says that she just asked how many people she had hooked up with and she's fine with the "one or two" answer. Even wise Richard can't keep quiet at that, and he clears his throat. Mark tries to stop him but Callie wants to know what he thinks and Richard reminds her that when a patient tells you they only have one to two drinks per week, a doctor knows to round up from there. Well of course -- because one sounds like a lush otherwise but a glass of wine an evening is not a ridiculous amount of drinking! Ahem. Anyhoo, his point is that people will tell doctors what they want to hear, and Callie realizes this means Arizona had far more than one or two drinks in the time before she and Callie got together. Just then Avery says he feels something sharp and while it seemed like an excuse to distract Callie, he then pulls out a tooth larger than my thumb. Richard is in awe and won't let Jackson toss it away; he tells a nurse to keep it safe.
Teddy goes to the waiting room to talk to Emma, who is trying to send her grandkids a picture of the lion. Teddy helps her out and in doing so, sees from the photo just how crazy close they got. Emma is very proud and tells her that if Martin faced a lion and made it, that means it isn't his time to go. She then asks Teddy not to make her a widow. Teddy is still trying to avoid that word and instead assures Emma that she's is very good at her job and doesn't want her to worry. Oh Martin, because I've seen TV before, I can tell you that none of this sounds good for you.
In the ER, Lexie is starting to do the surgery under Derek's watchful eye but then he realizes he just isn't comfortable and takes over the procedure, though he profusely apologizes. Lexie is clearly hurt but assures him it is fine. He seems to feel bad at this show of no faith and so after a moment he tells her that he's not going to tell Mark what to do. Lexie is surprised but keeps her replies measured and even, like Derek is an animal that could be easily spooked and run away from the conversation she wants to badly. He announces that he knows Mark well enough to know he'll move in with Julia no matter what Derek says, unless... he knew he still had a shot with Lexie. She's blown away by this revelation but Derek adds a stern warning: Mark is happy and that Lexie better be sure she wants him back because she loves him and not just because he's with someone else. Wow, that is actually good advice. Who knew he had that in him?
Teddy and Alex are almost done with Martin's procedure when Alex's phone again starts dinging. There is a nurse who is just sitting in front of a bank of identical devices and it seems these are fancy pagers that actually get text messages. She tells Alex that it's for him and then starts to read all of the angry texts from Morgan, who is livid that Alex is ignoring her and demands to talk to him. Once she adds that they devolve into "strong language," Alex finally tells her to turn the thing off. Teddy tells him that she thinks he's doing the right thing and that Morgan needs to take care of herself -- she's alone and there's no time like the present to embrace it. Hmm, projecting much? She and Alex then get ready to unhook Martin but when they do, his heart starts bleeding and alarms begin to ring. Teddy pleads with him to hold on.
When their surgery is over, Owen runs after Mere as she goes into the scrub room, STILL trying to talk about what happened. For the love of little green apples, he's out of his mind and this is ridiculous. He vilified his wife for a life choice that she was always totally honest about and then cheated on her and THEN blurted out his misdeeds to her best friend -- how does he not realize he has to just shut up and stop, already? Meredith, realizing he's not going to, turns to him and growls that the reason Cristina didn't tell her is because she doesn't want Mere to hate Owen, which means that she's either going to forgive him or at least is trying to figure out how. Meredith doesn't care if it was just sex or not, she's just livid that Cristina didn't want her to know this and now she does, and she finally manages to impart that she's done talking to him. Unfortunately, after she storms off he turns around and finds a very embarrassed Bailey who just walked in and caught all of the juicy bits.
Cristina, meanwhile, looks about as sad as she ever has as she gazes at her little heart farm. She closes her eyes, almost as if she's hoping that the solvent she's about to use will wash her own heart clean. Trying not to cry, she finally picks up a first tiny heart and begins to use the solution to clean it out.
Teddy and Alex are working very carefully, and she seems extra invested in making sure Martin survives. After she does her thing they carefully wait to see how he does, and everything is in working order again. Alex is crazy impressed, and Teddy is elated.
As Arizona buys herself some lunch in the cafeteria, Mark walks up to her and warns her quickly that Callie is freaking out about Arizona's exes even though Mark tried to shut her down. It's actually a really cute moment -- I know these two have gotten along for a while now but I still found it an endearing testament to how far they've come from when Arizona thought he was the scum of the earth. Arizona sits down, though, and asks Callie if she really just went talking to her own ex about Arizona's exes. Exactly. Arizona says that Mark doesn't get to give that kind of input on their lives. Well, really, it's far too late for that, but I get her point. Callie is still grossed out that she worked with Hugs-A-Lot for two years and had no idea she and Arizona had hooked up which I do also understand. Arizona finally decides to give in and asks Callie what she wants to know, which are names. With that, she proceeds to point out and/or mention at least seven women, much to Callie's shock.
After his surgery, Jonathan is moaning about how much of a wussy he is while Richard and Avery putter around him. He explains that they met on a dating site and because she was adventurous and outdoorsy, he maybe kinda sorta portrayed himself as the same. And this is why online dating isn't necessarily placing an order and getting what you want, boys and girls. Also, apparently your date might have a lion as a pet. He knew Naomi was disappointed when she met him but even so, she stuck around hoping maybe to find some of that guy he pretended to be. But Jonathan admits to screaming like a little girl when he shoved his arm into Kirby's mouth and goes back to calling himself a wussy.
Now, after two viewings, the thing that happened came out of left field. I guess Richard must have remembered Jonathan saying that the lion lunged at him? Or he just decides that he feels sorry for the poor dork and wants to make him feel better? Either way, Richard suddenly gets wide-eyed and asks in awe if Jonathan is saying that Kirby was going for Naomi and not for him and that he stuck his arm in the lion's mouth to stop him. What? I don't know. I'm leaning towards Richard pitying him because this is so pulled from nowhere. He manages to convince Jonathan that he's actually the hero of the hour, a white knight who saved the princess. Avery seems to be sharing my thoughts but when Richard prompts him he comes to and pretends to agree. Honestly, other than the fact that he's a fun character actor who was on a beloved show, I will never understand why Richard took such a shine to him. It wasn't just the tooth because he was sticking up for him before that too.
Teddy and Alex, still high from their surgical triumph, are on their way out to go talk to Emma; Teddy wants Alex to come along and he teases her that she just wants an audience. They are stopped short, though, when they round the corner and come face-to-face with a livid Morgan. Teddy goes off to talk to Emma alone so that Alex and Morgan can talk.
She tells him why she now knows about AND; she has to decide today if they are going to operate on Tommy or not. This seems to stun Alex, who stares a moment, slackjawed, and then tells her he didn't think they were there already. She yells that this is because he disappeared, and then turns sad as she tells him that since Tommy had such a good day the day before, she went online and bought a used crib. I am not superstitious about a ton of things but the ability to jinx stuff is one of my things and this is why. But now, she wants Alex to tell her what she should do. No matter how stupid he was to let this situation get to this point in the first place, and how clumsily he is handling it now, that one question just proved that he is doing the right thing.
He gives her the doctor's line, about considering quality of life, but this enrages her and she yells that she doesn't need another doctor right now. He tells her it's not his decision as he's neither boyfriend nor father, and she can't believe he's using this moment to prove that point and accuses him of being an asshole at the worst moment of her life. Alex yells back that this isn't the worst moment -- that will be either when Tommy dies or when she sees him in pain, or struggling, or spending all of their time in doctors' offices. She yells back so what if he is different, and why do, "you people" think if he's not perfect, his life isn't worth living? And so ends any question about Morgan's possible medical career, since she's now firmly established the line between doctor and patient and put the doctors far on the other side from where she is standing.
Alex's voice gets a bit gentler as he tells her that's pretty much the point: the only thing that matters is what she thinks. But when she claims she's trying to decide he gets tough again and points out that weeping while gazing at all of the healthy babies is just wallowing. He tells her that no one said she didn't get the shitty end of the stick but now she has to deal with it herself. Oh, Alex. You're right, but can you maybe finally mature a little bit and time try to avoid getting in to this situation in the first place?
Mere finds Cristina in the lab and in a too-gentle voice says she brought her a treat and sets down a cup of what I think is ice cream. But instead of asking her what is going on, Cristina thanks her in much the same voice. She then explains to a curious Mere what they are doing and Mere concludes that they are making new hearts from scratch. Cristina is trying way too hard to sound light as she agrees. She just seems like a broken shell of a person right now, and while I'm not saying if it's right or not for Mere to keep the secret forever (since secrets seem to blow up in her face) I'm happy she just went and was a friend to Cristina rather than going in guns a-blazin' wanting Cristina to explain what happened between her and Owen.
Teddy finds Emma sleeping in the waiting room and gently tries to wake her to tell her the good news about Martin. But after a moment Teddy realizes she can't wake her up, and puts her fingers to Emma's neck and realizes that she has no pulse; she yells for a gurney.
Alex finally goes back up to the NICU and through the window sees Morgan sitting with Tommy. Arizona comes up to tell him that they are doing the surgery, but Morgan has said she doesn't want Alex involved. He agrees and just asks to hear how it goes. Very seriously, Arizona tells him that he was a good doctor today -- Tommy will need a tough mom and if Morgan's hate helps her become that... Alex readily agrees, but seems worried and sad. Dude. In or out, come ON.
Through all of this action, Richard and Avery are still in Jonathan's room when Naomi is wheeled in beside him. Jonathan is super happy to see her and all sweet, but she refuses to look at him and instead moans that "he" is gone. Jonathan is deluded enough to think she's talking about him, but of course she means Kirby the lion, who was her best friend for the past 15 years. She then turns to Jonathan and spits, "Because of YOU." Jonathan, though, is high on Richard's praise and yells at her that he was a hero and saved her... she yells at him that Kirby was just playing and only freaked out because Jonathan screamed... he yells back about the idiocy of keeping a lion in a townhome. The real question is, how did she get this lion and how did no one realize it for FIFTEEN YEARS? Because I can't imagine lion in a townhome is exactly legal. Richard and Avery are now watching from the hall, and while Richard admits he is disappointed that they can't get along, Avery points out that it isn't surprising since they are both idiots. Richard looks down at the lion's tooth that he is still holding and tells Avery that he has something to show him.
Mark comes across Callie who is gazing at a wall of faculty photos trying to figure out which ones have hooked up with her wife. Mark argues that everyone has a past but Callie points out that while that is fine, she's upset since she didn't know she was working with so much of it. Mark finally seems to tire of Callie's mood and points out that Arizona sees him in their house, holding her baby that he and Callie made together, every single day. Callie finally seems to absorb this and admits it can't be easy, so Mark uses that as his cue to lighten up once again and add that it's hell for her knowing that her wife was with the "golden boy" of the hospital. Callie is finally able to let go of the wall of conquests and leaves Mark basking in his own glory. Under all of the self-adulation, Mark has a good point, and she seems to know it.
Teddy goes to Martin's room and as she walks in, he happily thanks her for doing such a great job on his heart. Before she can say anything he asks about Emma and if she's heard the good news. Teddy looks crushed, and after taking a breath, explains how she found Emma and thought she was sleeping, but... he knows what she's going to say and he starts to fade. Teddy tells him they did CPR but couldn't resuscitate her and just pronounced her dead. She tells him how sorry she is and seems barely able to hold back her own grief. It's made worse because Martin is so heartbroken, and he keeps repeating, "She's dead?" Teddy has to keep telling him yes, and it's harder every time. Finally, he begins to cry and call for his wife, and Teddy tries to go but he grabs on to her hand and clings to it while he sobs. Teddy can't really hold it together.
Owen is working on the computer when Bailey walks in; as soon as she sees him, she tries to duck back out but he calls after. Fortunately, his Cristina-mania seems to have calmed down and he just apologizes for what she saw. She tries to play dumb but he tells her they both are aware of what she heard. He then says that while they are supposed to do a surgery together the day, but because Cristina is "one of [her] own," he will understand if she'd rather he didn't scrub in. Choosing her words carefully, she tells him that she won't pretend to understand what is going on but that she knows affairs don't happen in a vacuum, and he is a human who made a human mistake. She looks at him and his face is comically like a droopy dog, so she adds that he did a terrible thing but it doesn't mean he's a terrible person. Mercifully, he doesn't try to keep talking but just nods his thanks.
Teddy goes to the bathroom and stares at herself in the mirror, crying. It's finally time to try saying the words, but she struggles mightily. Finally, she manages to say, "I am a widow," and then repeats it a few more times, stronger each time. She then gets a page, so she pulls herself together and goes off to answer it. It looks like the woman was right and it really does help to say it.
Lexie is waiting for the elevator so she can go home and is surprised when it arrives and Mark is the only other occupant. When they get to the lobby he is happy to walk out with her but after a moment she makes an excuse that she forgot something, and heads back upstairs. So it looks like she's not entirely sure if she's in love or jealous. You're in love, Lexie! I want you and Mark back together again!
Richard brings Avery to a secret small room filled with jars containing all sorts of random knickknacks. He proudly tells Avery that every one of these things -- including a string of Christmas lights -- are items he took out of patients. Avery admits that the collection is awesome and Richard muses that they'll get both geniuses and idiots on the operating table, but he prefers the idiots. With that, he holds up the tooth and adds that you don't get a lion's tooth from a genius. True. But I still don't understand what the point of all of this really was. Oh well.
Callie gets home to find Arizona holding a glass of wine, and she launches into a rehearsed speech defending why she didn't disclose all of her past conquests -- she kind of hates knowing about all of Callie's. Callie just agrees to everything Arizona says as she sets down the wine, and then peels off her shirt. Arizona tries to stay on topic but Callie finally seduces her, and all is well for another day in the Torres-Robbins household.
Meredith gets home just as Derek presents Zola with a stuffed lion he got her that day. He then puts her to bed, and I bask in her utter adorableness some more. Mere walks up and just glares at him; surprised, he asks what is wrong and she threatens to kill him if he ever cheats on her. He thinks this is reasonable but she's serious and makes him say, "I will never cheat on you." He asks her if she wants to talk about it but she yells no, though she then wraps him in a big hug.
Her VO this whole time has been about how we ignore warnings and push our luck because human nature is that we touch things when we're told not to, even if we know better. Seriously, this is so a week late. But I suppose it does kind of apply to Owen and the fact that he can't seem to handle letting Cristina come to terms with his affair in her own time. When he gets home from work with some takeout she's already there, eating a bowl of cereal at the table, still silent. He sits down rather tentatively but then takes out his food and starts to eat. She just stares at him and when he finally looks up, after a moment she leaps out of her chair and throws the bowl of cereal in his face. Well, at least she's moved on to acknowledging his presence, in a way.
Lauren S is a writer and gal-about-town who lives and works in Atlanta, and tells her dates that she has cats before they come over for the first time. 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."