In honor of this being Halloween night, the cases this week are all a little bit extra stupid spooky. A guy is brought in who was attacked by a "zombie" -- a dude super high on drugs who tried to rip his face off with his teeth -- and when they bring the zombie in he reaches up and bites Leah in the neck. This is right after Leah and Arizona have finally had sex, but Leah is trying her hardest to keep things "easy peasy" between the two of them so when she finally melts down a little while waiting for the guy's HIV results, she steers clear of her hookup. Arizona finds her in tears and manages to make her feel better and assures her that in a situation like this where a guy's tooth is pulled out of one's neck and you need to see if he gave you an incurable virus, one doesn't have to be easy-peasy. Not easy-peasy: Arizona's interactions with Callie, which still dissolve into a big nasty fight every time they speak. This time it's because they each made a different Halloween costume for Sofia based on separate conversations they had about what to be for Halloween. Callie decides to skip the Halloween party and trick-or-treating in order to preserve the peace, but then her patient (who is terrified of hospitals so let something fester for months and came in with maggots in her leg) points out that a parent has a finite number of Halloweens with their child so Callie manages to keep things civil so that they both can enjoy their daughter at the same time for one night. And for the record, instead of an astronaut or a princess, Sofia goes as a space princess.
Owen and Cristina are treating the "zombie" and learn that the reason he didn't die when the cops shot him in the chest is that he has a rare condition where all of his organs are backward -- so the shots they fired didn't actually hit him in the heart. The two work together but Cristina has a way easier time than Owen adjusting her thinking during the surgery so that she can work backwards. While they are working, she frets about what is going on with Meredith -- Mere is hosting a kids Halloween party at Alex's house and only invited Cristina as an afterthought, and Cristina can't figure out if Mere really wants her there or not. More troubling is that she and Mere used to always just know what the other was thinking, so she's upset now that she's second guessing everything Mere says to her. Owen advises her not to overthink it and to just go to the party, but when Cristina gets there, she sees everyone busy with the kids and finally leaves, unnoticed except for the cupcakes she dropped off. She goes to the bar and does tequila shots with Smash instead, and man do I pray they leave that as a mentor/mentee relationship.
Owen, meanwhile, was dumped by Emma after she learned about Cristina, because she figured (correctly) that he wasn't really ready to date yet if he couldn't even bring himself to mention his ex-wife. But after spending all day with his ex, he calls Emma and leaves a horribly awkward message telling her that dating her is uncomplicated and that's what he's looking for right now. We'll see how she takes it, since it's not the best compliment in the world… especially with the way he delivered it on her voicemail.
Stephanie has just has laser eye surgery, but she worries about missing any work so she goes back when she still can't really see. It goes as well as one might imagine. Jackson, meanwhile, winds up working with April on the dude who was attacked by the "zombie." While in surgery, April hears a message Jackson sends to Stephanie where he calls her beautiful, and he admits he is trying to be a better boyfriend than he's been in the past. Seriously, he was never a bad boyfriend when the two of them were dating or whatever you'd call it, and they broke up because April took him for granted and treated him like an object, but sure, let's make it Jackson's fault. There's a lot of banter about how much better the two of them are for having dated each other, and how they're now so happy and aw, isn't that sweet. Jackson then finally convinces Stephanie to let him take her home and care for her until her vision stabilizes. I hope she appreciates it since it sure feels like he and April are going to rediscover each other one of these days.
Smash has a woman come in who has one severely clouded eye and is hunched over, so there's your old crone for Halloween night. She only wants to see Heather and says she'll wait until she's available. Smash can't convince her to do anything else, but when she eventually collapses he winds up taking care of her. It turns out Heather was treating her under the table because she was just that good a person, and Smash agrees to do the same thing as he strives to become a better person than the one who accidentally sent his friend to her death.
Richard announces that he wants to have an intern perform his surgery but Bailey doesn't even want to consider the notion because he's too important a patient and they are idiots. In response, Richard fires her from his case, pointing out that she's not actually letting the idiots learn anything. He tries to get Mere to replace her, but Mere tries to refuse so Richard finally apologizes for telling her that he made a mistake in picking her and she should have let him die. Mere then chooses Princess to do his surgery since basically she's the only available and able-bodied intern available, but she does a great job. During surgery Princess tries to unload Alex's secret on Mere, but Mere refuses to let her tell it and just says that Princess has to take care of it herself and that it's going to take some work because Alex is a tough nut to crack. Princess finally shows up at his door that night dressed as Tinkerbell and delivers a passionate apology for pressing him to talk to his dad, and Alex gruffly seems to accept.
Bailey's day is made somewhat better by the fact that Ben shows up unexpectedly, and he tells her it's because Halloween was his family's favorite holiday and he wants to do the same for his family now. Because he's just that good, he happens to give Derek an idea that's going to help his brain research while he's puttering around the hospital, gathering things for Tuck's costume. Ben then gets the house all set up and spooky so that he and Tuck can greet Bailey when she gets home. She's thrilled until they start talking and Ben admits that he missed being with them too much, so he quit school and is back for good. They argue while handing out candy to the neighborhood children and finally she admits that she's disappointed in him.
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With this episode airing on Halloween, the soundtrack gets a little spooky and we see the wind swirling some dead leaves out on the street. Leah wakes up in Arizona's bed, so I guess she really was ready to take it to the level as promised, and she tries to sneak out and get dressed but Arizona wakes up and sees her. Leah apologizes profusely for staying over since that's not what a booty call is supposed to do, but Arizona repeatedly assures her that it's fine. Leah continues to insist that this time around it's going to be totally casual and she's going to be Ms. "easy peasy lemon squeezy." With excuses including needing to find a costume for a party at Joe's that night, she bolts out the door as Arizona offers breakfast. Mere tells us that each Halloween we have to make a choice about what kind of costume we're going to wear. Well, if you are going to a Halloween party then yes, that is true.
Derek and Meredith run into each other in the hallway and she hands off Zola's Halloween butterfly wings so that he can repair a tear in one, because Mere is too busy with surgeries and ordering a 3D printer for her research since her grant request was approved. Derek is working on his own research and the two are all cutesy and in love and making it work. Mere then runs into Alex and asks if he has the house ready – since she asks about candy, pumpkins and spiderwebs one can only assume this is for a Halloween party. Alex is just happy that he got a keg. (At least, that's what I think he said, though that's an awful lot of beer for what turns out to be a small-ish get-together.) (Spoiler!) Cristina overhears this and asks about a party, and Mere explains that since they have no neighbors at their house, she got Alex to let them use her old house for a party with other kids from the daycare and as a trick-or-treating base. She's surprised he didn't mention it to Cristina, but quickly tells her she can come in a tone that is super overcompensating for the awkwardness of the situation. She supposes Cristina might not want to come anyway since it will be full of kids, and Cristina makes a stilted comment about how she hates children (in more of a "this is the theme of my life now" way rather than an actual children-detesting way), but she does love Mere's kids. Mere finally apologizes and it's the first time she's sounded normal as she tells Cristina she should come by for a drink. She then VOs that she's trying to be a superhero this year. You know, because she's Doing It All Despite What Cristina Thinks.
Jackson and Stephanie walk in and she's sporting some fetching, thick, wrap-around goggles on account of just having had laser eye surgery. Leah and Princess talk to her about it and Leah thoughtfully blurts out that her uncle had a botched surgery and is now in constant, terrible pain. Jackson thinks Stephanie should take a couple of days off as instructed, but she insists that she's missed too much already and she'll be fine. Princess recoils when Jackson and Stephanie have a quick kiss goodbye, so Steph asks her about Alex and Princess reports that she's heard nothing and she's sure it's over. Stephanie assures her that she thinks it will be fine, and then as the two stand up to go check on Richard she walks directly into the doorway. Jackson sees this and asks if she's sure she wants to work, but she's determined.
Callie walks up to April and Owen and asks about their Halloween plans; she finds out that April is going to Matthew's party dressed as a bunny. Callie puts on a saucy voice because she thinks it will be of the Playboy variety, but April corrects her that it's actually going to be velveteen. That's the laziest "joke" we've seen in a long time – no one calls him the "Velveteen Bunny" and so April would have said she was going to be a rabbit. I mean, they could have had her say any number of other things that could be demure but easily assumed as sexy without her having to use the wrong word entirely. Like bacon. Or Spongebob Squarepants. Callie asks Owen if he's going out with Emma but he reveals that he and Emma are no longer an item since she thinks he's not ready, given that he didn't even mention that he had been married (to a woman he still works with and whom Emma had met). Callie for some reason insists to him that he's ready, but when he walks away she and April agree that he's totally not.
Arizona walks up and asks what time they should meet for trick-or-treating and they realize that they each put together a different costume for Sofia – Arizona has an astronaut costume while Callie has a princess one. Each of them took the wishes of a toddler to be not at all fickle and made the costume that Sofia said she wanted from separate conversations, and of course then didn't talk to each other about it so that this could be an even bigger argument. Callie finally tells Arizona she should take her alone, because she can't deal with the fighting.
Bailey finds the newly-minted residents gathered around Richard's bed, all in awe of whatever he just said. But when he repeats himself to Bailey, she is all out of awe: he wants one of the newbies (except Stephanie and her goggles) to do his surgery. Bailey is not teasing or good-natured in the least when she counters that they are totally not ready. Richard just asks them questions about the procedure and they all sound like actual knowledgeable doctors as they answer. Ben then walks in and sounds all suave and smart as he answers one, and Bailey's mood upgrades exponentially since she thought she wasn't seeing him until the weekend. He explains that he didn't want to miss Halloween and then asks Richard how he's going to pick the lucky resident for his surgery. Richard gives that job to Bailey, telling her to watch them work and pick the one who deserves it the most. She's already decided that none of them do, but Richard dismisses her and keeps talking to the young 'uns.
Ben tells Bailey they need to think of a good costume with three parts so they all can dress up, as if a child like Tuck wouldn't have his costume picked out already by Halloween day. Bailey doesn't really want to play along and would rather gripe about Richard's choice, calling him the most important patient she's ever had. Ben turns it back to Halloween and explains that this was his family's big holiday and he wants it to be the same for them now. He promises to figure out the costumes and implies that he'll have something extra sexy for his wife later, too. She gives him a quick smile but is really overcome with the whole Richard thing.
The paramedics burst into the ER with a mauling victim, Victor, and Jackson and April go to him as he moans about how a person was snarling and growling at him before he tried to eat Victor's face. Because it's Halloween, see? And this gives us a patient who seems like he might be a zombie, oooooooooh! The would-be zombie is brought in and he is truly out of his mind, screaming and lunging but held down to the gurney with handcuffs. They see that he was shot twice right in the heart and have no idea how he could be stable, but the paramedic points out that he's high, and manages not to add, "Duh." He's so high that sedatives barely made a dent in his mania. While the residents are all gawking at him, he reaches over and grabs Leah, biting her neck, and we fade to the title card with her terrified screams in the background.
Leah then becomes the patient and her fellow residents are cleaning her massive bite wound. She wants them to patch her up quickly so that she can still fight to have Richard's surgery but Bailey appears behind them and declares that there's no way she's going into an OR with an open wound. And I know we're supposed to find Bailey as generally unreasonable when it comes to them and Richard's care but seriously, that's a perfectly fine rule to me. She tells them that they have to test the zombie and anyone whose blood he had in his mouth for all viruses including HIV. Stephanie has taken off her goggles to work and disgustingly, pulls a tooth out of Leah's bite. Bailey declares that's one down. Two, actually, since Stephanie is already out of the running.
Once the zombie is knocked out, Owen brings Cristina in and tries to get her to play along and say, "Trick or treat." She refuses, but then finally says it and he shows her an x-ray which she condescendingly points out is backwards. Owen delightedly tells her that it isn't; the zombie has a very rare condition where his organs are all backwards. Cristina is suddenly very happy about her treat as she's wanted to see this in person since she was in med school. Owen knew, and he is very pleased about his Halloween gift.
Princess has a patient who is a cute little girl named Taryn who is wearing her wizard costume. Her dad explains that he has to leave on a business trip later, and while he takes her on some trips like one they just made to Brazil, he couldn't bring her this time so they celebrated Halloween the night before by watching a scary movie (Poltergeist, which Taryn says with a grin was "Awesome") and having candy. Alex shows up to consult, much to Princess' dismay, and when Dad says that she got sick a few times after the candy Alex gets in a snide remark about his choice in dinners for his kid. Taryn's greatest concern is if she'll be able to trick-or-treat, and Princess assures her that there is awesome trick-or-treating on the peds floor.
Victor is in a daze after his zombie attack and while Jackson tries to work on the gaping wound in his cheek, Victor freaks out about why the zombie didn't die when he was shot. Victor is a moron, so when he tells them he's got pain all over, he convinces himself it's rigor mortis. They tell him that zombies aren't real and mercifully, when he tries to argue, his face droops on one side and he can't speak. Look, I'm not cold hearted, I am not saying a stroke was merciful, but I'm glad to not have to listen to the "funny" freakout that he's been turned into a zombie himself. Jackson tells April to book an OR right away so they can see what's up.
Stephanie walks up to her ER patient but she's having so much trouble she can't actually read the woman's name. Way to go continuing to examine her, then. Marge Walker is there with her grown son Philip, and she's in the middle of an anxiety attack about being at the doctor, begging him to take her home. Philip explains that she's afraid of hospitals, so Steph promises to be gentle. As long as nothing she does requires clear eyesight, she'll be okay keeping that promise. Philip explains that she got some sort of bug bite that seems to have gotten infected and she's in tons of pain. Marge doesn't care and begs to be taken home but Philip holds firm and Steph starts to remove the bandages. She recoils when she pulls off the last one and finds a gaping open wound filled with maggots. And that's when I threw up in my mouth just a little bit.
Stephanie runs to Mere and Callie to tell them about the maggots, but both of them are almost as disgusted by the news that Stephanie is trying to see patients a mere 16 hours after eye surgery. Mere tells her if she wants to be helpful, she can pop down and get candy for her party that night. Callie joins in and the two give her a hard time as they send her on the errand.
Derek is working on a fake skull in one of the labs when Ben comes in looking for an old-timey head mirror for Tuck's mad scientist costume. Derek laughs at him as he reminds him that doctors stopped using those a century earlier, but offers a brain in a jar -- which Ben turns down. When Ben asks, Derek explains that he's working on his study, trying to figure out how to get the sensors into the brain through a smaller craniotomy. Ben sees Zola's wings on the table and mocks Derek's stitches, bragging that he could have done way better. I always like seeing Ben around the hospital because he's got good dude relationships with the guys.
Callie and Mere go to see Marge, but when Callie mentions that they need to go to the OR to clean out her bug-infested leg she panics and grabs Philip, demanding that he take her home. Mere pulls the curtain and the two docs and Philip stand to the side -- he tells them that this phobia of doctors has gotten out of control since his dad died and asks tentatively, with the disclaimer that he doesn't want to sound cruel, if they can just give her a sedative and restrain her to get the procedure done. He certainly doesn't sound cruel, just desperate, but Mere sees a guy dressed like the Hamburgler and has an idea. She tells Callie she's popping down to the gift shop for a moment.
Smash is walking through the waiting room giving orders for the waiting patients when he encounters an old woman with one clouded eye who asks to see her doctor. Smash tells her that he's her doctor now but she's insistent that she see her doctor…named Brooks. Smash recoils and says that Heather isn't there, but the woman is shocked and insists that she is always there. Man, I will never trust this show not to bring back another ghost and I was afraid for a moment they were going to do that here, especially now that Smash looks like he's seen one.
It causes Smash to lose all of his decision-making ability and he goes to Bailey for help. She thinks telling the woman that her favorite doctor is dead is a bad decision and Smash needs to suck it up and treat the woman himself but when they go to the waiting room, she's disappeared. An unimpressed Bailey leaves, and Smash practically runs into the woman as he turns the corner. She's wheezing badly and he wants to give her medicine but says he needs her name first. She just wants to wait, and Smash pleads with her that if she doesn't tell him, he'll have to go through all of Heather's charts to find her. The woman just desperately insists that Heather will come. I get not telling her Heather is dead, but why not say… she had a family emergency? She's out of the country? She's ill? Well, then we wouldn't have a spooky storyline involving a maybe-ghost and a creepy crone with one good eye, would we?
Owen and Cristina are working on the zombie, and Owen is getting more and more frustrated since he keeps screwing up when various innards aren't in the place he expects them to be. He then asks Cristina if she has plans and she tells him about the party, and how she can't tell if Mere really wants her there or felt obligated to invite her. See, she can figure out how to change her thinking and do the surgery just fine, but she can't figure out emotions. She laments that she and Meredith used to just know what the other was thinking. I think this is not an insurmountable obstacle -- Cristina is thinking about medicine and missing her ex and her best friend. Mere is usually thinking about medicine and her family and figuring out how to balance them. Take a moment to think about that and then talk it out, ladies. Don't let this be the reason Cristina leaves the show. There's no time to think about it now, though, because the alarms ring as something goes wrong and Owen doesn't fix it right away because nothing is where he expects it to be.
Mere comes back from the gift shop bearing a sleep mask for Marge so that she doesn't have to shut her eyes to block out the hospital. Marge puts it on, and then Mere gets her talking about Halloween. It's stilted at first, but Mere gets her going. She panics a moment when she hears a strange noise but Mere explains that they are going to walk her to the OR to get a gown. Marge seems okay with that, so she and a silent Callie and Philip all roll her away while Mere keeps her talking about when Philip was a kid.
Princess finds Alex and asks if she's going to have to stay overnight, because Taryn's dad wants to know if he should change his flight. Alex doesn't hide his disgust for the man as he says that the kid might need surgery and she's in pain, so yes, he should. Princess finally sacks up and demands to know what his problem is, reminding him that this poor guy is not his dad. Alex tries to stop her but she says she's been trying to pretend that he's hurt and angry and it's clearly not working. She pleads for him to tell her what to do to make it better, but he just barks at her to get a CT. Dude, girl. Apologize. Explain your completely stupid thinking behind what you did. Recognize that he's not a moron and you aren't as smart about people as you thought.
Because Mere is a genius who has become that much better at medicine because of her own relationship with her family, Marge is still talking and seems much calmer. She tenses up when they say it's time to start, but when Mere promises to be in the OR the entire time, Marge finally agrees, constantly fiddling with her eye mask for protection.
Because they are dudes and Ben basically issued a challenge to Derek about his stitching, we see the guys with headlamps on, meticulously re-sewing the butterfly wing. Ben adds that he could add strings so that they would flap when Zola moved, but Derek thinks this might be going too far. He then asks Ben how he got the time off, and Ben avoids the answer, saying he just made it happen because he wanted to be with the fam on his favorite holiday. They both admit they are now fully domesticated, and then Ben comes up with another wing idea saying you could fan sections out with strings. The music of A Great Idea starts to play as Derek starts thinking about this.
Bailey goes back to Richard's room and rants to him that all of the residents are incompetent, which is surely a result of parenting these days which teaches all kids that they are geniuses and deserve a trophy just for showing up. And while I agree with her on that point, I also agree with Richard when he calls her out as the problem and says that he's trying to teach the kids but she's not letting them learn. He tells her that while he can barely get out of bed and his whole future is in doubt, teaching them is the one thing giving his life meaning, and she's standing in the way. Ouch. He drops his head and then tells her he's going to have someone else supervise them from here on out. In case her incredulous face didn't tip us off to her shock level, music kicks in to drive the point home. She looks like someone just killed her dog, and doesn't want to believe that he's kicking her off the case. Richard just responds that when he fires someone he likes to do it in their office so that he can deliver the news and walk out. She doesn't get it, so finally he orders, "WALK OUT, BAILEY." She's stunned to the core and dithers a little bit but finally shuffles out.
Meredith and Callie are working away and Callie notes that there's actually very little necrotic tissue -- the maggots may actually have saved Marge's leg. Please may I never have to mention maggots in a recap again. They then talk about the Halloween party and Callie tells Mere she's not going to go because she and Arizona can't be somewhere together without it dissolving into a fight and she doesn't want to ruin the night for Sofia. Mere asks if she's sure; Callie clearly is dying about the decision but sticks to it for her daughter's sake, and Mere offers to take pictures. She then gets a page and a nurse reads out that it's from Richard, asking if she has time to do another surgery. Callie comments that maybe Derek can take pictures.
Stephanie and Leah, having realized they really can't do any work at the moment, are lying on a bench head-to-head, eating Halloween candy and moaning about how their surgical careers are probably over. Leah says that her post-exposure counselor said that there are plenty of non-surgical careers in healthcare, but Stephanie points out that if she was a counselor she wouldn't be able to see the pamphlets to hand out the right ones. They finally both decide they are just screwed. At least Leah didn't do this to herself, Stephanie -- please just go home and rest.
Steph sends an incredibly misspelled text to Jackson that a nurse reads out to him, and he tells her to type a sweet message back, that everything will be fine, and she's beautiful. April is shocked to hear him say this and laughs that he was never this nice to her when she would freak out. Well, he was never not nice to her, and half the time she was freaking out about him to his face in a super insulting manner, so I think she's comparing blind apples and self-centered oranges a little bit here. He just tells her he's trying to be a better boyfriend, but she cheerfully points out that his being an ass (her word) helped her get her act together, and now she's getting married and is saving this stupid dude on the table in front of them. It's actually a fairly sweet exchange between the two, with no hard feelings, but I can't help but think she's not remembering things quite right.
Owen is still having a bitch of a time doing this surgery, and it's made all the worse because he thought it was going to be fun. She just tells him he's overcomplicating things -- all he needs to do is tell his left hand to do what the right hand usually does. She then teases him a little bit and when he gets something right, tells him it's simple. For the record, though, she does seem to realize that this is actually quite tricky.
We catch up with Mere and Richard right after he's asked her to take over the case, and she absolutely refuses, and won't let him argue, raising her voice to insist she has no time. Finally, Richard apologizes for telling her he was wrong to choose her to be in charge of his medical decisions. She won't look right at him as he goes on that he's now remembered what there is to live for, and he wouldn't have gotten here if not for Mere, "So I'm sorry." She may be thick-skinned, but it has to get to her to finally have someone genuinely apologize to her, and she finally looks at him. He pleads with her to help him teach the rugrats.
Derek then looks at some drawings of what look like fans, and explains to Ben that if he makes the sensors in that shape he can insert them through a burr hole and then fan them out which will mean way less cutting open of someone's skull. Every season I have at least one instance of being incredibly sorry I Googled something to check the spelling, and this season it's burr holes as the Google images that are returned pretty much all contain brain matter. Can we not put those after a jump, Google? Ben thinks this is great (and it's not clear if he even realizes he inspired it) while Derek asks with genuine surprise how he himself never thought of it before. McDreamy, always the modest one. Ben comments that Derek doesn't seem to regret stepping back from surgery; Derek admits it's only been a week but so far, so good. Ben might as well have a neon sign hanging around his neck that says, "AND BY THE WAY I QUIT MY RESIDENCY."
Princess finds Alex rushing through the hallway, and he hands her a tablet so that she can see Taryn's test results, which show she's not producing enough adrenaline. She muses about what could cause that and then remembers that she just went to Brazil -- a fact Alex is mighty pissed to find out wasn't put in her chart. They run to Taryn's bed and walk up at the same time as her dad to find it empty. Dad had just gone to change his flight, and Alex yells at him for not looking after his own child. There are days when I wonder why Alex is actually allowed to interact with other people but then I think about a couple of doctors I've had the "joy" to see during my lifetime and I think that docs like this really do exist. There's a lot of Alex yelling at the dad about how adrenaline keeps one's organs from failing if they get hurt, traumatized, or scared. He all but blames it on the dad for letting Taryn watch a scary movie, even though the now-terrified guy insists that she wanted to watch it. As Alex rants some more, Dad finally asks, "She can get scared… TO DEATH?" Great line, which if used about three lines earlier could have been a cheesy but fitting punchline but which just fell flat since Alex had basically already said it twice. Alex and Princess then run off to try and find her.
At the same time, Smash is wandering around looking for his patient. He runs into Stephanie who tells him that Heather was always helping out the homeless and uninsured, so the woman is probably one of her "strays."
Somewhere, Taryn is wandering along a very dark hallway with a pillowcase for trick-or-treating but when she sticks her head into a patient room, the guy shoos her away. There's a light that is flashing as if it's got a bad connection down at the end of the hall, and it's Halloween and scary and all that, but there's no way they'd turn out all the lights on some random floor just for the holiday's sake and we know they just fixed everything in the hospital -- I would actually think that electricity would be a little bit of a sore point for them right now so why have some fake, jittery light going? Ugh, this is dumb. Then, suddenly, we see the old woman come through a door and cling to the wall, gasping for breath. Taryn is terrified, and after some heaving breaths of her own, she passes out. The woman, meanwhile, keeps reaching towards her as if this poor unconscious wizard might be able to help.
Alex finds them immediately and runs to Taryn while the woman is still panting and reaching. As Alex picks the little girl up, finally some other staff gets to the woman to help out.
Marge wakes up in a room that she very happily notes doesn't feel like a hospital at all, and Callie explains that they took out all nonessential equipment and have a note on the door so she'll have privacy. Marge is happy and relieved, and I'm sure it helps that she doesn't have an army of bugs eating her leg anymore. Callie finally asks Marge if she'd like her to stay, but Marge asks if she doesn't have kids to get to. Callie admits she does but insists its fine, but Marge is having none of that. She tells Callie she's only got ten Halloweens before Sofia is going to want to go out with her friends, so she's got to enjoy it while she can.
Cristina and Owen finally finish up their backwards surgery, and Owen points out that she still has time to make it to the party, if she's going. Cristina decides that she is and tells Owen that she and Mere will talk and get past all of this weirdness. Of course, then she gets a text from Mere that says if she's coming, can she bring cupcakes, but if not, no problem. Cristina can handle organ placement confusion but not this, and she kind of freaks out wondering just what that text means, and if it's no problem that she not bring cupcakes or no problem that she doesn't show up at all? Finally, Owen tells her to just go and not overcomplicate things.
Once they get Taryn settled back in bed with the right meds, Princess goes into the hall and reports to Dad that she's going to make a full recovery. But because of Alex's steady stream of insults, Dad is still terrified, and he tells Princess that he never would have taken Taryn to Brazil if he knew she'd get sick, and that they watched a scary movie because she loves them. Desperately, he cries that it was one bad call and Princess interrupts him to assure him that he's a good dad, and that he's to ignore stupid Alex, who does actually know he's a good dad too. Princess says wistfully that Alex is great with kids, but, "so crappy with other people." The poor guy is in tears but Princess seems to have helped calm him down, and she then gazes in at jerky Alex being all nice to Taryn.
Victor wakes up from his surgery and Jackson and April update him on how he is doing, which seems to be pretty much fine given his injuries. But Victor is ridiculous, so after he asks about the zombie he starts to panic that he's in quarantine. Jackson assures him that it's just the ICU but Victor babbles on and on until finally April screams at him that he's in the ICU, and his attacker was a normal dude who was super high and whose organs are backward, so his heart was on the wrong side of his chest which means getting shot didn't kill him. Victor finally just comments, "That's random." April turns back into her chipper self as she points out that really, it's scarier that there was nothing supernatural going on. That might undo some of the work she just did shutting Victor up, but she and Jackson walk away while Victor chews on this and April smugly tells Jackson that when someone is spinning out, you just shut them down. Says the girl who was devastated when she spun out and was dumped, a.k.a. the Ultimate Shut Down. She can't help but add in a simpering voice that Jackson can still tell Victor he's pretty if he wants to. MEOW.
Mere and Derek pass each other in the hallway again and Derek reports that the wings are repaired and he also just changed the future of science. Mere congratulates him but doesn't stop since she's off to find a resident to do Richard's surgery so that she can be home in time for the party. She marches up to Shane and tells him that he's won, but Shane is standing with his old lady who is having a breathing treatment, and he says kind of pitifully that he's already got a patient. Princess then walks up and asks Mere if she can talk to her about Alex, so Mere tells her she's got just the place where they can talk without interruptions.
When Bailey arrives home she finds the house transformed into a spooky laboratory, and Tuck the mad scientist and Ben the zombie/experiment/something that involves visible rubber organs surprise her. Bailey is totally delighted and also relieved to see him after her crappy day, and she practically cries as she grabs him in a hug and tells him he is amazing. And he truly is, since he somehow found one of those little head mirrors for Tuck after all, who is quite an adorable mad scientist. Ben tells her that they should do this kind of thing all the time, and she wistfully agrees that she would love it. Ben finds his opening, and tells her that he's sick of just seeing them on weekends and holidays, and he wants to be with them all the time. Bailey figures that they'll have that in a few years, and besides, it's not like he can drop out… except he totally did. When he announces that he quit, Bailey's face falls and she almost physically recoils from him.
Arizona walks into the locker room looking for Princess but instead finds Leah in tears. Leah tries to say everything is fine but it's an obvious lie and finally she admits that she got bitten by a psycho drug addict and is waiting to find out if he's got HIV. Arizona is horrified, and asks why Leah didn't tell her, but Leah reminds her that she's currently trying to be easy peasy. Arizona sighs and then goes and sits down to her to tell her about her first needle stick with a needle from a patient with end-stage AIDS. She remembers every detail like it was yesterday, and after telling Leah how terrified she was, gently tells her that this isn't the time to be easy peasy. Leah nods, still in tears, but calmer.
Smash's patient is finally in a bed, breathing easier. He takes a deep breath of his own, and then admits that Heather died three months earlier. The woman is shocked and sad; while she ponders, Smash asks if Heather was treating her under the table. The woman is hesitant, and finally admits that she didn't want to get Heather into trouble. He hands over two inhalers and tells her that when she runs out, she's to come see him and he'll take care of her from now on. It's really cheesy but unlike the other clunky crap of this hour, it's actually quite sweet. Of course, then there's a 2x4 to the face when she says Heather was a good doctor -- "Are you as good as she was?" Smash thinks a moment and says no, "But I will be."
Mere and Princess are working on Richard and Princess wants to spill the beans about Alex and his dad, but Mere refuses to let her tell any secrets. She points out that Alex trusted her with it, so telling someone would be horrible, and she's got to deal with it herself. Mere adds that Alex hates being vulnerable and therefore pushes people away but that is when he actually needs someone the most. Princess promises to try, but Mere tells her she will have to do better than that because her life is too busy right now to deal with broken Alex. Rather matter-of-factly and I've-turned-into-superwoman-mom-doctor-teacher-ly, she tells Princess with conviction that she can do it.
Ben and Bailey are having an incredibly heated argument about his quitting that keeps getting interrupted when trick-or-treaters come to the door. For the record, Ben is way better at putting on a cheerful face for the kids when it's his turn to answer the bell. She's having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that he threw them for a huge loop and moved away a week after their wedding for this thing that he loved, and now he just seems to want to throw it all away. He's miffed that she doesn't seem to think that his wanting to spend time with the family he loves is a good enough reason to quit. She searches for words and finally, turned away so she doesn't have to look at him, she admits that she's disappointed in him. In turn, he looks completely betrayed by her admission. Of course Tuck then comes up and asks if they can go trick-or-treating, so Bailey grabs him in a hug and gets ready to go.
Owen is fidgeting with his phone and finally picks it up and gives Emma a call. It goes right to her voicemail and he proceeds to leave the most awkward message in the world -- he tells her he wasn't ready to talk about Cristina because things were so complicated, but he can't handle complicated right now and thinks Emma is so great because she's simple. He immediately realizes how bad that sounds but only makes it worse by telling her she's easy. He quickly says to delete this message and hangs up, mortified. Immediately after he does, the phone rings, and he's all smiley when he sees that it is her and sounds relieved that she doesn't start by yelling at him. Granted, she also has had no time to listen to the message -- it's all smiles and cooing until she hears the recording, dude.
Once Richard wakes up, Mere tells him that Princess was awesome. He is thrilled, and wants to hear every single detail of the procedure. Mere has Princess run through it in the interest of education/trick-or-treating and then slips out as Princess starts talking.
Leah is dressed as a… scarecrow? Yes, let's go with that. At Joe's, she walks up to Stephanie, dressed as a dejected clown, declares that the test came back negative, and downs a celebratory shot. A guy walks up to Stephanie and she tries to shut him down before realizing that it's actually Jackson and she dissolves into self-pity again. Jackson decides to take April's advice and gives her a lecture that he was going to take the day off from work and care for her while she slept and let her eyes rest, but instead she insisted on working which strained them and made her feel like crap. She pathetically asks if they can do that tomorrow, and he declares that in fact they are going to go home right now.
Mere gets home to find a small gathering and Derek carrying Lil' B, adorably dressed as a pumpkin. She's happy to see both Arizona and Callie there and no resulting bloodshed. Callie repeats Marge's advice about only having a limited number of Halloweens, and Callie said that she and Arizona finally agreed on something in not wanting to cut that number down even further. Cristina walks in with the cupcakes and looks into the living room to see the adults all focused on the kids and happily playing. She stares for a beat, puts the cupcakes down, and then leaves. Alex sees them there and starts to pick at them as the rest of the gang gets ready to go trick-or-treat. Mere is adamant he hand out candy, and though he wants to eat the candy himself in the dark and pretend no one is home, he promises to hand it out. Mere sees the cupcakes and her face falls, since she realizes that Cristina must have come and gone. Her ending VO is kind of weak this time around, as she tells us that some Halloween surprises are good and some are bad, but we can't let the fear of that keep us from walking up to strangers' houses and asking the question.
Cristina walks into Joe's and when the bartender asks what she's supposed to be, she declares, "Sexy!" and then dons a witches hat to get into the spirit. Smash happens to be there, dressed, I believe, as some variety of ninja, and is surprised she didn't have other plans. She claims to have had many options, but this seemed most fun, so he slides closer to her and asks if he can buy her a drink. She's shocked but kind of amused, and has him buy her a tequila. Oh no. No no no. Please don't let that happen. These are two of the characters who I still actually enjoy and this wouldn't make sense. I know it's a soap opera but can we please have at least two people not have sex with each other? I pray that this doesn't end up leading to where it feels like it is leading.
Alex, in fact, is eating all of the Halloween candy in the dark while watching an old scary movie, and when the doorbell rings he angrily yells that the lights are off. It rings again so he stomps over the answer the door and soft music starts playing as he sees Princess standing there, all desperate and sad in a sparkly Tinkerbell costume. She immediately launches into a long apology for pushing him to talk to his dad, saying that she never would have done it if she thought he'd end up hurt. And once again, she proves that her brilliant street smarts and instincts about people are not nearly what they were made out to be. She tells him she's so sorry, and reminds him that it was just one bad call on her part. He finally opens the door and while he doesn't get all mushy, he does bark at her to come inside before the kids realize he's home. Once she's in, they stare at each other in the dark, presumably about to make up in a horizontal fashion.
Lauren S is a writer who lives and works in Atlanta and fears maggots and most other insects. 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."