Despite my attempts to ignore them, the interns don't seem to be going away and actually get an episode centered around them this week. Heather is assigned to assist Meredith in the pit all day; since Meredith's hands are busy with a patient, she makes Heather take her phone and call all of Derek's sisters asking if any of them want to donate a nerve for his hand surgery. When Derek finds out he is livid since he wanted to use a cadaver nerve and also doesn't want to ask his sisters for help, and Heather winds up in the middle of a spat with both of them yelling conflicting instructions at her. Oh, and she also winds up taking a call from Meredith's doctor confirming her ultrasound (and Callie overhears that too) but Meredith makes her swear to never, ever mention it again. At the end of the day Heather finally snaps and yells at them both that they put her in a horrible position but her rant is interrupted by Derek's sister Neve Campbell who arrives to give him a nerve despite his protests.
Smash is working with April, who, we learn, has been nicknamed "The Dud" by the interns since she failed the boards. She's in a heinous mood because she's on "lumps and bumps" duty which involves a day full of cutting out glorified pimples and other disgusting small masses from patients, and presumably also because of her breakup. Smash still has no poker face and April yells into him for that and forces him to remember that they are dealing with actual patients with actual feelings. Later, Callie and Jackson call all of the interns into a room and have them compete to see who will help out with Derek's nerve surgery. They systematically shoot each of the newbies down as they take turns examining Derek's wrist -- until they come to Smash. He takes a look at the hand and then tells Derek just what April told one of their patients, which is that he's sure this must be scary but that they are going to take good care of him. That instantly wins him the assist since Callie likes that he was the only one to treat Derek like an actual patient. Smash then goes back to help April with a second day of lumps and bumps and thanks her for teaching him so well about how to deal with patients.
Jo is working with Alex for the day and wouldn't you know that the moment I stop calling her Princess, Alex actually starts. He sees her expensive watch and her Ivy League education and assumes that she must be a spoiled girl from a rich family. Princess Jo helps deliver a teenager's baby; the baby turns out to be really sick and has to be put on bypass to survive. The teen mom is totally uninterested in the child when she realizes that a sick baby is a lot of work and so she and her mom abandon it at the hospital. Jo catches them on the way out and loses her shit to the point where she is wrestling the teen's mom up against the elevator wall until Alex manages to pull her away. She finally admits that her own mother abandoned her at a fire station when she was two weeks old and she lived in a number of foster homes before deciding to just live in her car at age 16. She has one nice teacher who helped her out and that's the one who bought her the watch when she graduated from college. Alex is of course wowed by her hidden depths and they reach a new level of respect for each other that will surely lead to bed.
Stephanie and Leah (LEAH. LEAH. I cannot commit this to memory for some reason. She's just the One Obsessed with Alex to me) are working with Cristina and spend their entire day trying to one-up each other to try and win the chance to scrub in on her surgeries. Leah wins the first round but then Stephanie wins the chance to scrub in on an infant heart transplant and Leah is filled with white-hot rage. When it comes to be time to prep another (adult) patient for surgery, they race into the room and try to outdo each other but wind up so crazed that they make a mistake that could have killed the woman. Cristina walks into the room just in time and is able to fix everything, but she benches both of them. Owen then backs her up and puts them both interns on probation. Later, however, the girls have a bonding moment inspired by the parents of two of their NICU patients from earlier in the day. I am still not terribly moved by their relationships to each other, but I am glad that they all seem to be growing personalities a little bit at a time.
It's been a while since our main doctors have been interns; for them the hospital means broken hearts and too many tragic accidents to count. So we have the current crop of interns to remind us that when you are starting out, the hospital is a magical place. So magical, in fact, that the chaos is seen in romantic slow motion. Well, at least it is for these guys. And what is more romantic than a pair of Converse covered in blood, I ask you?
Mere and Cristina are watching the interns in the locker room like two bitter old crones; Mere can't believe how fresh and shiny they all look compared to the weathered, hardened faces of her contemporaries while Cristina just calls them pathetic. The interns realize that they are staring and so force themselves to keep smiling and act normal until the two elder stateswomen go away. But Mere and Cristina are savvier than they are and just sneak up on them from another direction to tell them that rounds are in four minutes. Once they are really gone, the interns all relax and banter about their assignments for the day. Leah and Stephanie are with Cristina and Stephanie can't help needle Leah about how much Cristina loves her already. Leah would rather swap with Jo, since she's working with Alex and Leah is apparently still obsessed with him, but Jo is a good enough friend to not let her do that. Smash is excited to be doing outpatient surgery with April but the others all start to bash her and call her "The Dud." Smash, proving his unending awesomeness, continues to stick up for her since she's the only attending who is actually nice to them. Heather is in the pit with Meredusa and though she offers to trade, no one takes her up on it.
Stephanie decides to give Leah a sporting chance and allows her to present their first patient, a 3-month old baby named Samantha. Sam's mom Laura is by her bedside and then a man named Noah runs up, worried he missed something. There's some embarrassed stuttering when Stephanie assumes he is the father and eventually they manage to clarify that he is the father of another infant patient, Reece, and that both he and Laura are "doing this alone." Sam has been on the list for a heart transplant for nearly all of her short life. Reece is also on the transplant list, behind Sam, and he's currently recovering from getting a shunt put in. Cristina tells him that Reece can possibly go home the week since he can safely wait there for a heart, and while Noah is stoked he's also visibly terrified at the idea of not being around doctors and nurses 24/7. Laura is thrilled for him, though, and assures him that he can do it. So, these two are falling in love at some point. When the docs walk away, Leah offers to get Cristina a copy of an article she just read on shunts -- it's brown-nosing at its most obvious but Cristina uses it to light a fire under Stephanie. Leah's dwarf name was going to be Droopy, but now she's going to be Perky or, to Steph's horror, Doc. I get the impression that she's still so green that she doesn't know Cristina is making a point of pushing her buttons to get her to work harder.
Jo is fiddling with her watch when Alex walks up and he can't help but needle her about how expensive it is. I assume it's supposed to be a Rolex? Sadly I am not at a point in my life where I can yet recognize them from a semi-distance so I'm not totally sure. And of course, after I got so sick of her being a sad sack last week and stripped her of her title, Alex this week has christened her "Princess" himself! Obviously this must be a shout-out to me and how much the writers appreciate my thoughtful moaning each week. Right? He sneers at her as he gives her supplies so that she can de-pact a kid's bowel while he's in surgery.
Smash is sadly disappointed when he lopes up to April like an excited puppy and she snaps at him as if he piddled on her shoes. She thinks he's faking his excitement and is in no mood for it. I assume she's grouchy both from her breakup as well as from the fact that today is "lumps and bumps" day: the hospital likes to schedule all of the mass and growth removal outpatient surgeries on one day to get them out of the way. She claims this is glorified pimple removal and, "A hillbilly with a pocketknife could do it." The waiting room is already wall-to-wall with just the morning's patients, and when Smash sees the crowd it finally dampens his great mood a little bit.
The cardio patient is Mrs. Crossley, who is getting a pacemaker and then heading home. Her husband is deaf in one ear and seems generally cross about life, assuming everyone is arguing with him when he can't really hear that nothing of the sort is happening. When the docs leave the room Stephanie and Leah try to out-kiss Cristina's ass and Cristina can't help but revel in it. She turns and regards them both for a moment before awarding Stephanie the opportunity to scrub in while Leah monitors the other patients. Stephanie does a dance in Leah's face just in case she wasn't already bitter and dejected enough at the turn of events.
Heather walks into the ER and as she does, everything turns all romantic slo-mo. Meredusa finally yells at her and it snaps her back into real time; as the two of them stare at each other I realize that in a weird way they quite resemble each other and I'm curious if that will be played up as the season goes on. Mere shoos her away but she's given a purpose when two hunters run into the ER screaming for a doctor because one of them thinks he just killed Bigfoot.
This is intriguing enough that Richard, Callie, Bailey and Mere all run out after them to see if the mythical man-beast really was discovered and killed that day. The guy explains that he was hunting dear when he heard a scream but then when Bigfoot came running at him, he fired a warning shot and jumped in his truck. Bigfoot then ran into the road and the hunter accidently hit him. Speaking of, once they all gather around and wonder where Bigfoot is now, what appears to be a big pile of leaves and grossness starts yelling from the bed of said truck.
Princess Jo, meanwhile, wound up doing something far more exciting than bowel digging -- she's called to the bedside of a screaming teenager named Kimmy who is in labor. Princess looks like she's been taking poker face lessons from Smash which is to say she looks lost and terrified, so a nurse has to wind up walking her through her job. The baby has some kind of hernia that will keep him from being able to oxygenate when he's born. Since Alex is in surgery he had them page Princess, but she looks in over her head even before she's asked to do anything. Her mood isn't helped by Kimmy's scary mother, whose only concern is her daughter and not the silent baby that was just delivered. Jo actually asks the nurse desperately what they need to do and the nurse has to remind her that as the surgeon, she's supposed to be the one giving them instructions.
Princess deals with her fear with a detached slo-mo romanticized view of the baby being wiped off and having blood drawn from his foot. The nurse yells at her to yank her out of her reverie and she finally has the wherewithal to tell them they have to intubate. Kimmy's mom has the personality of a scary redneck stage mother and starts hollering at them to find out what is going on -- not because she cares about the baby but because Kimmy asked and they didn't answer -- but they ignore her and finally get the baby intubated. The nurse then takes some pity and gently reminds Jo of what she should do .
"Bigfoot" is on the table and as the hunter who shot him yells at him for being an idiot in ridiculously good camo, he realizes what is about to happen and yells at the docs not to cut up his ghillie suit
. The hunter is right when he yells that this foliage-esque camo is made for war, not deer hunting where people where traffic-cone orange vests so they won't get shot. Finally, the shooter and his buddy are ushered out as Jackson comes in and reports to Callie that there isn't a cadaver nerve long enough for their use. Callie exposits that they need at least a 7-inch nerve for Derek's surgery and Mere gets an idea. Heather has been salivating to practice actual medicine but instead Mere has her take her phone and call all of Derek's sisters (Nancy, Amy, Liz and Kate, for anyone who needed a refresher like I did) to see who wants to donate a nerve. Callie reminds Mere (well, mostly us) that Derek was very clear about wanting a cadaver nerve but Mere just orders a very unenthusiastic Heather out to start making calls.Once he is out of surgery Alex finds Princess walking with the incubator and tells her that they'll go hook the baby up to some special kind of apparatus but she can barely think about that since she just intubated her first infant. I think my notes really say it the best: "OMG whiner!" I mean, I get that you're wigged out but why do you seem surprised or upset at every single situation in which you find yourself? All those years of schooling must have given you a vague idea of what would be expected of you, right? Alex is stronger than me and instead of saying that just explains to her how they're going to hook the baby up to something that will oxygenate his blood.
Smash is having a hard time keeping the contents of his stomach from rising in his throat as April pulls some giant thing that resembles tripe out of a patient's back. Because Smash looks so horrified, the patient starts to freak out but April leans in and tells him calmly that she knows how scary this must be, but she wants him to know that they are going to take really good care of him. The guy smiles, relaxed by her soothing words and delivery, and then she takes a moment to call Smash into the hall to rip him a new one.
Smash wants to talk about how April looked like a magician pulling out an unending flesh handkerchief but April yells at him that he's got to stop making faces and freaking out the patients as they are actual scared people with actual feelings. She tells him that he has to ease patients' fears and talk to them like he actually cares, rather than like their body is an oddity in a circus sideshow. April is on a roll and continues that she knows that they call her "The Dud," which mortifies Smash -- but to his credit he doesn't interrupt her or deny it. She tells him that patients deserve respect and care no matter how crappy they feel. He's so wigged out by this new irritable April that he tells her he understands even though he's not totally convincing about it.
Steph walks out of her patient's room and when she sees Smash, does some serious gloating about her awesome ability to do a post-op dictation on her own. So... the pagers that make the bonking noise and which they all now wear around their necks are also recorders? This is a strange new world. Smash just pulls out a cup of pink slime which he's taking to the lab and argues that his goo is cooler than her dictation. She asks if he has seen Leah and when she hears that Leah just ran off to answer a 911 page her haughty attitude drops and she sprints off to see what just happened.
The issue in the NICU is that Reece has gone totally downhill and needs to be taken right into surgery to fix something with his shunt. Noah is completely freaking out but the interns don't seem to really care. Instead, Leah just gloats in Steph's face that she won the right to scrub in.
Heather walks into the OR and gazes happily at the big, disgusting surgery going on until Richard notices her and Mere claims Heather as her own. Mere asks about the calls and Heather reports that Kathy and Amy got messages, Nancy hung up on her twice and Lizzie said she might be up for it but she's way more interested in learning about what's going on with Zola these days. Derek then storms in because apparently Lizzie called him as soon as she was off the phone with Heather. He and Mere yell at each other about his care, since he didn't want his family involved, but she argues back that they have to do the surgery ASAP since the longer they wait, the less chance it has of being successful. That seems like a completely reasonable argument and Bailey chimes in that it's a no-brainer, but Derek is too worked up and yells at Heather to call all his sisters back and undo everything. This is very classic Derek equal-opportunity boorish asshole behavior today. As soon as he leaves, though, Mere yells at Heather not to undo anything.
Alex walks Princess through the procedure of getting the baby hooked up to the machine until an alarm starts to ring and he takes over right away. He actually seems like a decent teacher as he does his thing; he has Princess do compressions on the baby's heart while he works quickly to try and finish up the surgery before the baby bleeds out or some other horrible thing happens.
Arizona comes in to see if they need help, and if her hair is any indication she is feeling amazing because it looks possibly the best it's ever looked on the show, all glossy and wavy. She's beams with pride when she sees that Alex has everything under control and tells Princess to take notes, since he is one of the good ones. I wonder if seeing this might start to change Princess' mind about her gruff, manwhore boss? If it does, it's only for a second though because he tells her the baby has to be monitored 24/7 and so she should go grab a nap. She demands to know why he keeps calling her "Princess" but he just sneers, "Have you seen yourself?" She rips her robe off in disgust and storms out. Unfortunately for her, when she does it, it's a little princessy.
Smash is examining a patient when he comes across a presumably horrific growth on her ass, if his reaction is anything to go by. But he's learning, and he manages to sort of control his expression as he leans over and gives the woman the 'it's scary/we'll take good care' line. Since she has not yet seen whatever is on her backside she's a little bit confused, but it's better than offended. Smash is coming along. He then runs out into the hall to ask April a question about how to fast track results from the lab, but he can barely get the words out around the vomit that's threatening to escape his throat. April thinks he's being overly dramatic so goes into the room to see for herself; when she comes out she's also trying to swallow down bile. She gives him the info he needs while they both breathe deeply and try not to retch all over each other.
These interns have found a new hangout for themselves and while I appreciate the need to get outside for some air, it appears that they are sitting right by the dumpsters for the cafeteria and I get a little nauseated just imagining what it must smell like out there. Princess is soaking up the sun like she is Cristina while Stephanie bitches about Leah having become such a shark. Smash and Heather join them too and Princess starts to complain about her nickname in a very princessy tone of voice. She realizes she's not getting the support she expected and is indignant when she realizes they think she's prissy. She tries to spit to prove how down and dirty she is, but it's a prissy little spit. Heather has Mere's phone and it rings; she's determined to ignore it since she can't handle talking to another Shepherd sister but Smash looks at the screen and sees instead, "Bigfoot 911." Heather grabs the phone and her coat and sprints back inside. I do not understand why shows will do things like have the characters use iPhones -- things that many of us in the real world have -- but yet pretend they act differently. The phone just rang, but then when Smash looks at the screen, apparently there is a text? WE KNOW HOW PHONES WORK. I don't think it would have been any more difficult to write this short scene where Heather was using a phone like all the rest of us do in the real world. And this is a rant aimed at Hollywood in general, not just this show. If you're talking about something the majority of your viewers are familiar with, just let it work like it is supposed to.
Heather is so excited that someone actually needs her and is crushed when it turns out that Callie sent that call/text for Mere and forgot Mere had handed off her phone. The phone then rings and with Mere staring at her, Heather can't ignore it like she tried to when hanging out at the smelly oasis. She winds up talking to Lizzie about Zola and then hangs up to relay messages to Mere including questions about Christmas plans. Lizzie then calls back on Mere's phone while Kathleen seems to have found Heather's own cell number so that she can make these conversations even more confusing and comical. Heather is going back and forth between the phones when another call comes through on Mere's -- it's the doctor calling to confirm Mere's 8-week ultrasound. When Heather says this Callie raises an eyebrow so high it almost flies off of her face of its own accord while Mere orders Heather to hang up, so she cuts off every call on every phone for good measure.
Stephanie finds Noah hanging out in the NICU even though Reece is in surgery and he explains that the surgical waiting room is where he found out his wife died, so he's not terribly fond of doing any more waiting in there. Stephanie is not a robot so she tells him very genuinely that she's sorry; it also explains more about how he and Laura came to be single NICU parents who then forged a special connection. Laura is playing solitaire on her phone and refuses to take her eyes off the screen. But when the phone rings and it's UNOS, both parents are suddenly staring at Stephanie with naked anticipation. As she talks, Noah tries to keep Lauren calm and talks about how both of their babies will be okay. He then takes her hand and starts to make a Big Declaration of Love: he can't imagine going through life without her. The mood is dampened a little when Stephanie gets off the phone, though, since she looks worried and won't answer any questions but instead runs off to find Cristina.
Cristina is still working on Reece's heart and since they have out the tiny paddles that look like the cocktail-stirring spoon I have at home I'm going to guess that things aren't going well. Stephanie reports that they have an hour to claim the heart; Cristina replies that they want it and has Steph call them back and hold the phone to her ear while they shock Reece's tiny heart.
When she comes back to the NICU she's doing it in slo-mo though it's less romantic-seeming than it is slowing down time to put off having to deliver bad news. Noah and Laura grasp hands and ask if the heart is for Samantha but Stephanie just replies by asking Noah to speak privately. Neither of them seems to guess why this might be and Noah insists that Laura stay because he needs her. It's rather horrifically awkward, then, when Stephanie tells them clinically that Reece got worse and was moved to the top of the list so while there is a heart, it's going to him instead of Sam. Despite a moment ago wanting to stick together, Laura's eyes fill with tears and she drops Noah's hand as if it just reached in and ripped the heart out of Sam's chest himself.
Stephanie feels wretched after having to dash Laura's hopes and it's not helped when she runs into Leah who is massively gloating about how the transplant surgery is hers. Steph's kind of over it but Leah refuses to let go and taunts Stephanie, asking if she's worried that Cristina might like her better. Cristina walks up at that moment and after Stephanie reports that the heart is on the way, Cristina demands to know why she looks so horrible. Stephanie explains the conversation she just had with Noah and Laura and Cristina tries to reassure her that an equation decides who gets the heart, not the doctors. She then tells Stephanie to go ahead and scrub in on the transplant to cheer herself up. Stephanie is so shocked that she doesn't do a victory dance or even look anything but stunned, but Leah turns on her in a rage and mocks her sad mood like she did it as a calculated play to get the surgery.
Kimmy and her mom have come to see the baby and Princess explains to them how the bypass works. Kimmy is worried, but it's not about the health of her newborn, per se -- she wants the baby better by the end of the week since her friend is throwing a party for her and she's supposed to bring her new accessory along. She's put out that she has to tell her friend that this might not work out, and Princess can barely hide her shock and disgust. This is the one case, too, where I find it perfectly acceptable to show your feelings because Kimmy and her mom really are gross. Kimmy is selfish and her mom is indulgent, and though Princess tries hard to have Kimmy come in and say hello, she's more worried about getting back to her room and calling her friend than she is about bonding with her offspring. Princess seems to be taking it almost as personally as Leah took Stephanie's depression.
Speaking of depressed, April wants to kill herself when she realizes they didn't get through all of their lumps and bumps and have to continue removing them the day. Smash tries to cheer her up but she cuts him off and warns him that if he wants to avoid this, he needs to make sure he passes his Boards. She then stops herself and dismisses him; when he offers to help her the day she thinks he's making fun and orders him to leave. Something in the water is seriously making everyone take everything personally today, even more so than the normal level of self-obsession that exists within these hospital walls.
Heather is gazing at both phones intently when Mere comes out and she excitedly comments on the pregnancy but Mere shuts her right down. She informs Heather that she is to act as if never heard anything and knows nothing and isn't to say anything to anybody. Heather doesn't want to be turned to stone so she readily agrees, though she does again try to offer congratulations before the subject is put to bed forever. Mere just gives her a glare and leaves. I see now why the interns settled on the nickname "Medusa."
Of course teeny-tiny heart transplant surgery gets the romantic slo-mo treatment. Leah is burning with jealousy in the gallery and only brought back to real time when Smash comments that he can't wait to do something like this. She's not awed like he is though, but instead is bitter that she's not the one down there. Owen comes and pauses in the doorway as Smash comments on Cristina's ridiculous awesomeness and Owen can't help but agree with him. The interns sit up straighter as soon as they see him and he gets a chuckle out of their fear.
Alex and the Princess are in with the baby and she can't get over her disgust at Kimmy's skewed priorities. Alex points out that the girl is 15 but Princess thinks that is no excuse -- but this just makes Alex snap at her that not everyone lives in a perfect world like she does. She gets defensive again but doesn't give him any info that would change his assumptions and he reminds her that she had a perfect GPA at both Princeton and Harvard as if that means she must be a rich bitch. She finally just stares at him and for the first time, seems to be contemplating their exchange rather than just pouting with an injured air like she usually does. She begins to joke about how she grew up blowing her nose on hundred-dollar bills and how her birthday cakes were made out of caviar. He tells her to shut up but they both wind up kind of having a giggle about it as love begins to blossom.
Reece is out of his transplant surgery and Cristina reports to Noah that while they have to keep a close eye on him for 24 hours, so far he's doing amazing. She leaves Stephanie to monitor the baby, and Steph watches as Noah stares despondently Laura while she plays solitaire. He finally works up the courage to go and talk to her but she tells him dully that she has been waiting for a heart for months and she's not sure how much longer Sam can last -- she plays solitaire to keep from just watching Sam helplessly as she dies. Just so we all don't worry about dying babies this hour I feel I should report that Sam is stable. If I were in the position I'd be freaking out too but I just wanted all of my caring viewers to know that infant death is not imminent. Laura looks at Noah and admits that she wants to be happy for him but she can't be right now.
Sometime in the middle of the night, the interns all wind up talking and roaming the halls together. As the Princess freaks out about how a tiny baby's life is in her hands, Smash reminds them that in fact that is an awesome thing (and, also kind of the point of becoming a surgeon, I think -- again, what did they think would happen after all of those years of med school?) and that with the attendings asleep right now they are all in charge. He won't let them keep bitching about things because they should be happy that they are now real surgeons. His inspiration speech is interrupted by a yell and when they look up, they are horrified to see Mr. Crossley holding up his wife by her feet. They plead with him to put her down and she herself finally tells him to do it so that they can see what happens: he lays her down, and she passes out and her heart stops. Mr. Crossley doesn't listen to the interns who are yelping at him to leave her alone and instead just picks her back up so that she wakes up again. The interns can all only stare, so finally he yells at them to go find his wife a "real damn doctor." I guess he didn't hear Smash's speech a moment ago.
Cristina examines Mrs. Crossley, who has been put on a gurney tilted so that her feet are above her head. She had gone home, had a coughing spasm, and when she passed out and slipped her husband grabbed her ankles somehow by accident and she regained consciousness. I can think of very few ways this could have played out but I'm going with it and assume it wasn't during some freaky sex game. It turns out there's something wrong with her pacemaker, so Cristina will have to go back in to make the fix so that the poor woman can go back to living upright and her husband can go back to being eye level with her head instead of her feet.
Callie and Jackson then call all of the interns into the skills lab and announce that they are conducting a contest to scrub into the coolest of surgeries: Derek's nerve graft. She tells them that they will all examine the patient and then whoever makes it through that round will go on to a skills test. Both of them don't actually trust any of these interns yet, so they have a lot to prove. Princess is up first and manages to make the patient flinch. Out. Stephanie tries to act cool and asks Callie which fancypants surgical approach she took the first time, to which Callie points out that she should be able to tell from the scars. Out. Smash then comes up and the first thing he does is grin and nervously introduce himself. Derek chuckles since they have in fact already met, and then Smash starts the examination, and asks him if he's having any pain. He is, and it's getting worse. Smash then goes romantic slo-mo while he has a think, and finally does just like April taught him -- he says that he knows this must be scary, but the doctors are super talented and will take great care of him. Callie beams and ends the contest right then and there, declaring that they have a winner as Smash was the only doctor who treated the patient like a patient. She then yells at all of the other exhausted interns to scram.
Once in the hall, Stephanie and Leah both realize it's time to prep Mrs. Crossley and take off in a sprint to her room since both of them want to scrub in and think the one who preps her will get the right. They go so far as to shove each other into things and people as they race, and Leah manages to get an edge and zip into the elevator first. Once both are in the room they continue sniping at each other as they rush through their work, and their patient is getting understandably alarmed. But while she keeps trying to break into their argument, they fully ignore her as they fight and Leah declares triumphantly that she just got the IV hooked up, so there. Stephanie takes a look and then freaks out, yelling at Leah to pull it out. She somehow hooked up the oxygen to the IV, which could cause an air embolism that could kill the woman. Mrs. Crossley yelps just as Cristina walks in, and she yells that the interns are trying to kill her.
Princess sees Kimmy and her mom at the elevator and it must be exhaustion that keeps her from cluing in right away to what is going on. Kimmy's mom gets all shifty and tries to cut off any conversation while she repeatedly hits the button and pleads with the lift to arrive already. Eventually Princess realizes that something is amiss and Kimmy admits that she's not coming back, and has no interest in the baby since, "He's all messed up." It's awful but you can at least see it coming from a young teen -- what's worse is Kimmy's mom who is just happy to go along with this without even having a conversation about what a big decision this really is. The Princess is appalled and tries to block them from getting into the elevator; when the mom threatens her they wind up fighting and Princess pins her to the wall until Alex runs over and literally pulls her off. As the doors close she screams that Kimmy can't abandon her baby and then she runs off with Alex in slow pursuit.
He finds her sitting outside by the dumpsters again, and asks the obvious question which is why isn't she hanging out in the tunnels like interns usually do? She doesn't give an answer, which is a shame because I'm very curious why. I'm all for making your own traditions, but I feel like most people don't want to make their own traditions somewhere that smells like garbage. He then tells her that unfortunately, she can't go around insulting the patients. Let's all pause for a moment and think of how far Alex has come to be the one dishing out that advice, shall we? She argues with him and he calls her Princess, so she finally snaps and gives him the nutshell version of her life story: her mom abandoned her at a fire station when she was 2 weeks old, she lived in various foster homes until she turned 16 and then started living out of her car. She slept near school so that she could sneak in and use the showers, and a nice teacher let her do her laundry for free. She worked hard, got into good colleges, and that teacher Mrs. Schmidt was the one person who was there when she graduated. That's also who gave her the watch, and she got it because her son works for the company. When Alex finally says something it's to compliment the watch; she thanks him and they both sit in silence amidst the smell of fish. And if there was any doubt that these two are being set up as a potential couple this just cleared the last of it, because we know from experience that Alex has a thing for Troubled Women.
Inside, Leah and Stephanie are hollering at each other about whose fault it is that they nearly killed a patient while trying to one-up each other. Cristina comes up and lectures them that she understands competition, but they also have to learn how to work together and they are off her service. Owen comes up behind her to sweeten the deal -- he bans them from the OR until further notice. It's a very dramatic way of telling them that they are on probation. Cristina thanks him; Stephanie is resigned to it while Leah is horrified. Steph turns to her but she just stalks off. Like what, she thinks this is a grave injustice? Leah is quickly making Princess Jo far from the most idiotic and annoying intern of this batch.
Smash then finds April about to embark on her second day of lumps and bumps and proudly reports that the lady's disgusting butt growth turned out to be malignant but it looks like they caught it in time. She thinks someone put him up to being there and refuses to believe him when he tells her he's just fulfilling his promise to help finish up all of the lumpy and bumpy patients. He finally tells her about winning a spot on Derek's case and tells her that it was because of what she taught him. April gives this some thought as he tells her that he's grateful for his job and that he's going to "glove up" and help her finish these patients; by the time he's done, she can't help herself and is wearing a big smile. She gives him the nastiest case on their list but he's grinning with joy at getting to be a surgeon and she seems calmer and happier than she has in a while. I am sure that being embarrassed and defensive about not passing her boards has been wearing her down, not to mention her breakup on top of all that, so this really is quite an emotional release.
Stephanie stops by the NICU to say goodbye to Laura and explain that she's off of Cristina's service; as they talk Laura sees Noah looking sad and gazing down at Reece and she excuses herself and walks over to him. She asks if he is okay and he admits he's worried that Reece might still reject the heart. She takes his hand and tells him with confidence that that won't happen, and Stephanie watches and ponders.
Heather heads downstairs and comes upon Mere and Derek arguing; Derek wastes no time in pulling her back into the middle of things by asking if she shut things down with his sisters. Mere yells at him for getting her involved but he points out that she actually did it first by asking her to make calls. They both were selfish and stupid, let's move on. The gist of their argument is, he is way too proud to want his family's help since he loves having been the de facto head of it for most of his life, while Mere thinks he's wasting time and this is his best chance to really fix his hand. Heather finally cuts them off and points out basically that: a live nerve is his best option and that must be obvious because even she knows that and she's a lowly intern. But she also tells Mere she put her in an awkward position by throwing her to the wolves -- not that she's calling his sisters wolves -- and she was told a number of stories about them both which she cannot unhear. As she tells them that fights make her uncomfortable, Neve Campbell walks up and guesses (correctly) that Heather's parents had a messy divorce and put her in the middle. This, as it turns out, is Lizzie, "One of the wolves." She then tells Mere with a bit of an edge that she needs to see some baby pictures, STAT, because she didn't rush to Seattle merely to give a nerve to her brother. All three of the adults here look a little bit tense through their smiles, which surely means good times are ahead.
Back in the interns' locker room, the gang is a far cry from the perky group we saw 24 hours earlier. They are tired and defeated, but Leah is especially tragic while she cries silently and acts like this is the most surprising and horrifying thing that's ever happened. Stephanie, having become a better person by watching Laura get over her hurt, puts a supportive hand on her frenemy's shoulder. But once they are all dressed and walking out, and Mere's VO is advising them to enjoy the moment because the love affair won't last forever, they see the attendings bringing in a bunch of emergent patients in slo-mo dramatic fashion. Cristina is even riding on a gurney doing chest compressions, which looks especially spectacular at half speed. The interns all gawk, their troubles forgotten, and in awe they comment that they can't believe those doctors used to be them. Truth be told, I can barely believe it myself.
Lauren S is a writer who lives and works in Atlanta and she wouldn't hesitate to have jerky interns thrown out of her hospital room. 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."