The trial over, Callie is back at work and she and Arizona are actually working on a case together since they can finally now be in the same room as one another. At least, they can sometimes -- Arizona is back to living at the apartment, but she's sleeping on the couch. She admits to Callie that she got involved with someone while they were separated, but swears that it is now completely over. Awkwardly for that someone, she has to then work with Callie and Arizona. Leah tries to get herself excused and then during surgery has a bit of a meltdown -- the way she turns to Arizona to handle it tips Callie off to the fact that she was the very "someone" that Arizona had been sleeping with. Callie freaks out anew, but finally Arizona tells her that if they are going to really try to make this work, she can't keep apologizing for everything that happened and they have to move forward.
Bailey's tics and nerves seem to be getting worse, not better, so Ben tries to talk her into going and talking to somebody. This goes over like a lead balloon, so later when he's hanging out with Derek he does what friends do and unloads about his troubles. He mentions that he's sure that Bailey kept patients under longer than necessary and performed unnecessary procedures as she tried to convince herself that everything was okay, and all this appears to be because she's suffering from OCD. The problem with this is that Derek is a board member so he has to take this information to Owen, and Owen decides he has to relieve Bailey of her duties until she gets some help. Ben tries to talk to her about it first, but she brushes him off, so Owen has to go into the OR and stop her from operating in front of everyone. She tries to claim that she's fine, but when Owen has Mere move her instruments slightly from where Bailey originally placed them, Bailey can't leave them be and she finally has to listen to Owen and leave. She then gets in a screaming match with Ben at the house and knocks over a chair in frustration, but her OCD has gotten so severe that she can't actually leave it on the floor; she puts it back right in place, but this makes her even angrier and she seems to blame Ben for everything.
Emma uses her day off from work to go hang out in a conference room at Seattle Grace and write a grant proposal. She brings homemade muffins for Owen and when Mere tries them, she invites Emma to come cook Thanksgiving for all of them at her house. Emma agrees to do it, but then of course the guest list begins to snowball and she kind of freaks out when she realizes she's going to be cooking for most of the main cast of the show. To top it all off, Owen wants to invite Cristina so that she's not alone, but Emma promises she'll be too busy cooking to be bothered by it. Too bad the same can't be said for Mere. She finally is going to get her printer back from Cristina and is going to start printing veins, which she needs to do within the day so as not to lose her research funding. The problem is that something went wrong with the conduit that Cristina and Smash printed for baby Nathan, and they need to make a new one.
Cristina doesn't want to do it since she's tired of fighting with Mere and doesn't want to argue about using the machine any longer than was already agreed, but he pushes her to do it anyway. When Mere finds out she is livid, but Smash finally yells at her that she's the one who made all of this personal, and Cristina didn't want to do it but he bullied her and Mere needs to just shut the hell up. Once Mere storms out, Cristina thanks Smash with a kiss while Mere sulks and gripes to Derek about how Cristina is a Mean Girl and she's sick of it. It seems awfully like Cristina's not going to get that invite to the McMansion for Thanksgiving after all.
Mere is also frustrated with Richard, who keeps trying and failing to pass a stress test that he needs to be discharged from the hospital. He forces them to run it again, and Princess is in charge while he struggles on the treadmill. When she won't increase the speed for him, he does it himself and winds up flying off the back of the thing and breaking some ribs, thus earning himself a longer hospital stay. The interns all stay with him and the gang decides to order fried chicken for their own Thanksgiving dinner.
Finally, April is getting ready to send out wedding invitations and lets Stephanie know that she is invited -- what Stephanie fails to realize is that she's only invited so that she can bring Jackson, who is not. It turns out that the groom is uncomfortable with the man who deflowered his wife coming to their wedding, but April tells Jackson she can't do it without him there to give his blessing. Jackson promises her that she has that, but points out that if this bothers her, then maybe she's not quite ready to get married? Stephanie is also a little bit wigged out by the whole situation, but Jackson assures her that while it's a little bit weird, he totally wants to be with her and no one else.
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First of all, big thanks to Al Lowe for filling in for me last week while I was out -- it turned out to be an extra good thing when my cable went out on Thursday night and ultimately my DVR only caught 15 minutes of this episode. Yay technology! We open on a Bailey-finger-pulling montage and see her trying to grab her purse to leave for work, but she stops to pull everything out, organize it, and put it back in again. Ben notices, worried, while Mere tells us that doctors actually sometimes don't know what is some little glitch and what is a full-fledged medical disaster. Ben seems to realize that what's going on is a full-fledged disaster.
Arizona may be back at home, but it seems she is still sleeping on the sofa. There's a nice invitation -- please come back, but please sleep like a second-tier houseguest. Mere tells us that docs learn that they don't know everything at the beginning of their careers, and then spend the rest of said careers lying about it. This makes me super confident about my trip to the doc.
The McDreamys are getting ready for work and Lil' B is looking McCute in a little hat with tiny bear ears. Derek tells Mere that he had an epiphany about his research based on the pattern he saw in the sink when he spit out his toothpaste. Mere isn't entirely thrilled to learn that Derek has brilliant ideas even when he's expectorating.
Emma is spending her day off hanging out in a conference room at her boyfriend's workplace, like you do, working on a grant proposal. Of course she also brought muffins, and she and Owen flirt sweetly before she gets to work. I so wish I found her more interesting but she still is just "NotCristina" to me.
Callie and April have been gazing at them from the hallway when RealCristina walks up and welcomes Callie back. And that is all of any mention there will ever be of the massive lawsuit of last week, folks. Cristina is surprised to see Emma there and Callie and April try to commiserate with her, talking about how pathetic it is to spend her day off this way. Once Cristina leaves, though, the girls both admit they find it adorable.
Princess finds Mere to tell her that Richard wants to take another stress test, and we learn that he failed one spectacularly just the week before. Stephanie then runs up and Mere doesn't hide her disgust that Stephanie is on her service again. It was clearly way too good to last, Mere being the coolest and most level-headed doctor of the bunch. Those britches of hers are now getting awfully tight. Mere gives Stephanie some instructions about what they need to do before they print a vein, but Stephanie needs her to come see a patient named Donna whose scans showed something bad.
They go in and tell Donna that whatever she's got is more advanced than they thought, and basically the only thing they can do is surgery that will help ease her pain. Her husband Victor is there and he's devastated that there seems to be no hope, but Donna stays strong and says dealing with the pain is better than nothing, so they agree to do surgery later that day.
Cristina and Alex are checking on baby Nathan, and Cristina reports that Smash is currently in the process of printing the actual graft that they plan to implant in their tiny patient. She then changes the subject to Emma and her muffins, but tries to be the bigger person and chokes out that she's glad he's getting laid. She is much less glad that she is not, claiming it makes her work suffer. Alex wants Cristina and Mere to make up so he's saved the sex talk, but Cristina nags him until finally he plays along and suggests that she find something (and by that he means someone) to play with. Smash walks up then but they don't see him and he finally clears his throat while Cristina contemplates the idea. He then gives her bad news -- the conduit they printed is contaminated.
They go to the lab and try to figure out a solution since Nathan is in really bad shape and they don't think he can hold on for another day. She then leaves to discuss it with Alex and Smash reminds her that Mere gets the printer at 10 AM, adding that they were the ones who made a big stink about having a schedule and sticking to it so they've basically got to play along now.
April finds Stephanie and asks for her address so that she can send her a wedding invite. Steph is a little bit confused but writes it down while April tells her that, "obviously" she'll have a plus-one. Stephanie gets a turn at playing Incredibly Socially Dense doctor today and doesn't see the very obvious reason staring her in the face as to why she was invited.
Alex is pissed that Nathan's surgery is getting delayed again and when Cristina accuses him of needing sex too, he points out that he's getting some and that she's the one making him cranky since she asked him for a favor in helping with Nathan. He adds that he doubts if the procedure is even going to work.
As Ben and Bailey walk in he tries to get her to talk to someone in psych but she brushes it off as nothing. She's adamant that nothing is wrong, she's just got a busy life, "like you used to have when you were pursuing something that challenged you." She's got quite the claws on the fingers she is pulling! Also, I would argue that currently Ben especially considering that one could argue that Ben is very much still pursuing something challenging in trying to get her some help.
Just then Jackson escorts in a trauma and grabs her to help. The patient is a 6-year-old girl who was hit by a car, and she's accompanied by her frantic and worried babysitter who explains that the parents are out of town. Arizona is there and when they see the kid has a broken femur, Owen asks if it's okay to call Callie to help. Arizona tells him it's fine since they are working things out, and he's glad to hear it. He then assigns Leah to help them out; she immediately tries to get out of it but Arizona won't let her do that. She promises to update the babysitter and reassures her that everything will be fine.
In the OR Arizona tells Leah she should stick around to help Callie when she's done, reminding a protesting Leah that she's a resident and should be begging for any chance to be in surgery. She tells Leah it doesn't have to be awkward, and Leah finally asks if Arizona and Callie are really getting back together. Arizona tells her gently that they are, and that Leah doesn't want to be the person who will wait around in case it doesn't work out. Word times a million, there.
Donna has a friend visiting and Stephanie can't help but overhear their conversation while she works in the room. She then can't stop listening when she realizes what is going on -- Donna is trying to find someone to be with her partner after she passes because she thinks he is going to need someone and would never do it on his own. The twist in this, as she clarifies for her friend, is that this isn't for her husband (who she loves) but rather for a whole different dude named Stan. If Steph was a cartoon character she'd be scraping her slack jaw off the floor right now.
Derek is working on his new genius-spit implant design and catching up with Ben; both men admit that things aren't ideal but that you have to make sacrifices for your family. Derek, however, seems about to reneg on his sacrifice and admits that Mere is going to kill him since he's very clearly not downshifting to be with the kids. All the more fuel that Mere can add to her indignant, entitled, martyr fire. As they talk, Ben admits that Bailey has been having troubles that just might maybe kinda be a case of OCD. Ben had known that the holey glove incident was hard on her but didn't realize how much -- and I would argue that she would have continued getting over that if not for Richard winding up as her patient and then firing her which seems to have reignited and accelerated her nervous tics. Ben admits that he's not sure she's actually doing anything to deal with it on her own, and he's worried since she kept a patient under for an extra hour a few days earlier. It's at this point that Derek tries to stop him, but Ben is so grateful to get things off his chest that he goes on about how she's performing unnecessary procedures. Derek finally cuts him off to remind him that he's on the board, and therefore can't ignore any possibility of physician misconduct. Ben's face falls with an, "OH, SHIT," look upon it.
Cristina finds Smash and tells him that he has to break it to Mere that they need the printer for longer, griping that she doesn't have the time to, "manage her feelings." She knows Mere will be pissed but says she'll get over it, though she doesn't seem as sure about that as she might have in the past. Smash has the idea to tell Steph and have Steph tell Mere, and Cristina is fine with it. Smash then changes tone and in a saucy voice tells her that if she needs to have a little bit of fun between the sheets, he's there for her. Cristina turns in slight disgust and asks, "Are you offering to service me?" It's awesome moments like these that I just want to cry because Sandra Oh is leaving. Smash apologizes but tells her it was just for the sake of the work, which she informs him is actually an even worse approach. She finally gets him to shut up, to save him from himself.
Mere swings by the conference room where Owen is hanging out and Emma is surely not actually getting any work done. She tries one of the muffins which is of course amazing and makes a crack about their Thanksgiving, which elicits a lot of awkward stuttering and denials since they hadn't talked about the holiday. Lots of stuttering short, it turns out neither of them has plans, so Mere half-jokes that they can come to her house if Emma will cook since she and Derek basically just always ignore the holiday since they can't cook. People, we live in the age of really amazing dinners that you can pick up fully cooked, so that is no excuse. Mere tells her to think about it and goes off to do some work.
She finds Stephanie and icily tells her that she's going to examine Richard and then they can go visit the printer before asking, "Is that okay with you?" So she's not over that whole little, "getting kicked out of the OR" thing. Leah and Princess witnessed the scene so Steph tells them what happened and then changes the subject to April's wedding. It seems neither of them had to give their address to April, but yet somehow this doesn't yet clue her in as to what is going on. Smash then comes up and tells her that they need the printer for longer. She hollers at him that he has to tell Mere himself but he claims he has to go set up the machine, and takes off leaving her to the unenviable task.
Richard really, really wants out of the hospital, but they can't let him go until he passes his stress test -- the loophole being that he could go to a rehab facility, but he absolutely doesn't want that. He even promises to get a medical aide if he goes home, so she finally agrees to letting him do the test again and says Princess can run it. MEre then adds that if he's out by Thanksgiving, he and Catherine can come to dinner at her house. He's skeptical until he hears that someone other than Mere will be cooking and then starts to fuss about how Emma makes her stuffing.
Stephanie finds Leah moping in the stairwell about how Arizona and Callie don't need her since they have each other and she is the saddest little angel the hospital has ever seen. Stephanie delicately asks if Leah was really that into Arizona, and an insulted Leah interrupts to insist that she was. She then moans about how she can't keep falling apart at work when she gets dumped, which is starting to happen all the time. You know, or twice. A full year apart. Steph basically orders her to get up, pull herself together, and do her job like a real surgeon but she does supportively offer her hand to help pull Leah up.
Owen runs into Cristina who tells him briefly about how they had a problem with the graft, and they will have to do the procedure tomorrow. He's fine with that and then asks her about Thanksgiving; unsurprisingly, she was planning to just work. She asks what he is doing and he stutters until she points out that he can say Emma's name without her falling apart. She then gives him a friendly warning that if Emma is cooking a turkey just for two, he'll have leftovers for weeks. He heaves a sad sigh as she leaves, a sigh of a man having Thanksgiving with his new girlfriend and all of his ex-wife's friends.
Leah updates the babysitter, who is in a panic that the girl needs more surgery and doesn't seem comforted when Leah tells her they will take care of it. She's upset because she's sure the parents are going to blame her when they get back from Alaska, where they have been studying the nesting habits of eagles, of course. Leah tries to assure her that they will be fine but the girl says that people always need someone to blame after something terrible happens, and she knows it will be her since they can't blame the child who was riding her scooter downhill expressly against the family rules. Leah of course is taking all of this to heart, especially when the girl freaks out that she might never see her charge again, and then softly says it's probably her fault for getting so attached UGH UGH UGH. WE GET IT. The notes I took for this scene even just say, "Ugh."
Stephanie finds Jackson and gets him to adjust his surgery schedule so that she can get an OR for Mere at the time that she wants because basically she's sure Mere is going to murder her soon if she doesn't get her way on everything from here on out. Jackson agrees to do it, and they have some cute banter and kissy times. Before she goes she turns and tells him about the invite to the wedding -- she's insulted because she thinks they are both going to get invites plus one, and is sure it means that April doesn't respect their relationship. Getting her eyes fixed did not help this girl see the obvious. Jackson assures her it will be fine and she leaves, but he's taken stupid pills today too and seems to also find it weird.
Alex finds Princess and tells her that she's invited to Mere's Thanksgiving, which thrills her until she realizes that actually only he was invited and he's bringing her as his date. She thinks they should just meet up afterward so it's not weird but he doesn't want to go if she doesn't want to, and she beams and tells him he's sweet. They joke about eating takeout chicken in the car, and then she teases him with something I could never quite make out: I think I love you? You think I love you? The real takeaway is that she used the word "love" in a sentence and he didn't turn to stone as a result.
Victor reports to Donna that one of the women who responded to her ad is coming by to meet them later. He then admits that he told Stan, and she is hurt and furious. She was desperate to make it all seem natural, but Victor couldn't bring himself to lie and points out that their situation has worked because they've always been open and honest. Of course Stephanie is in there to overhear all of this. Donna says it's not a lie, it's a kindness, and now that she's dying… he points out that honesty actually matters more now because of that little point. Two thumbs up for Victor in my book.
Owen finally meets with Derek and Ben and freaks out that Bailey may have performed unnecessary procedures. Ben is petulant because he thought he was having a conversation with a friend and not making a report to the board; to his credit, Derek pats his back and tells him he's sorry. Ben wants to take it all back and sounds much like his wife when he promises she will handle it so Derek has to point out that Ben already said he didn't think she was doing that. Owen tells them he has to pull her out of work until it's under control and Ben, realizing that he's defeated, asks if he can at least be the one to tell her.
Victor is watching one of the booty interviews through the window and asks Steph, who is also watching, what she thinks. Steph tries to play dumb but pretty quickly admits she knows what's up and that she wanted to stay in the room but had no good reason to do so. Victor admits that he knows this is strange, but tells her she's young. And weirdly, while I've never encountered anything like this, I will say that as I get older I realize there are so many random things going on with people that hey, whatever makes you happy. Victor tells their story: He and Donna were happily married 30 years when the, "fire went away;" they didn't want to get divorced since they were still best friends but they both found other people. Victor explains that Stan has never been in love like this before and Donna is afraid he'll be alone forever. It turns out Victor knows him well since they played golf together for years, and he doesn't want Stan to be left alone either.
Ben has clearly told Bailey, and she's taken it about as well as one would think. She doesn't think she needs a few days to manage herself, even though she's nervously pulling on her fingers while they argue. She seethes that Ben is to stay out of her business, and finally he has to take the direct route and he grabs her shoulders warning that Owen will bench her if she doesn't bench herself. She shrugs him off and backs away as if he's a rabid dog, and he just says her name, defeated, as she leaves.
Mere finally finds Cristina and yells at her (in this case, I think, rightly) for having her "lackey" tell Mere's "lackey." But then she accuses Cristina of destroying her study, finally explaining that if she doesn't finish this phase by the end of the week she'll lose her funding. Did Cristina know this? We don't know, since these two only avoid each other or Mere is snapping Cristina's head off anytime they are in the same room. Cristina begs Mere to follow her, and takes her to the nursery to show her Nathan and his concerned mother. Instead of being moved by the patient becoming a real person, Mere snaps at Cristina that just because she has kids, she doesn't lose her ability to reason each time she sees a baby. Of course she won't let Cristina speak when she tries to point out that this was not what she was doing. Seriously, Cristina has almost become a different person in how she is trying to defer to or avoid Meredith at all costs, rather than standing up for herself with a sassy bite like she normally would. I think her biggest fear is losing Mere but she doesn't know what to do with herself now. Mere is on an indignant roll, and hollers that Cristina just wanted to do something flashy and it didn't work, and now she wants Mere to shut down her whole study for Cristina to take a huge chance that might even kill her patient. Again, methinks that Mere has decided to take things so personally that she's not even in the same zip code as reason. But she does have a point when she tells Cristina to put in an artificial graft like they have in every other patient. She adds another barb about Cristina not being able to do this fancy new thing, and the two part, hurt and angry.
When Emma finds out the 4-person dinner has swelled to 16, she kind of panics but Owen talks her off the ledge, promising to do all of the planning and food shopping, and she finally agrees to do it. He then takes a chance to ask about Cristina, and if they can invite her purely as a friend. She tries very hard to stay positive, he sees this and cancels his request, but she agrees, says that she trusts Owen if he says he is over her, and points out that she's probably not going to be able to leave the kitchen for it to be awkward. Just then, Ben comes in and shakes his head in the universal gesture for, "My wife is still denying her serious psychological problems and we have a huge issue on our hands."
Princess gets Richard ready for his stress test, while he talks about his preferences for how Emma should prepare her Thanksgiving dinner. Stephanie comes in and sits down to dish about her patient and her husband interviewing future mates for her lover, and Richard wonders, confused, if this is a, "threesome thing." The girls are delightedly horrified to hear him say that, and then he calls Stephanie out for avoiding Mere and sends her back to her work.
Owen finds Mere and tells her that he needs her to take over Bailey's surgeries; she is completely insulted like her work is worth nothing until she sees his face and realizes that this is serious and maybe she has to set aside her martyr complex for a few hours.
Leah is in surgery with Callie and Arizona, and Callie gives her the chance to do something or other that involves drilling through the girl's leg. Callie talks her through it and she does a great job… until she goes too far and drills through the table. Callie calmly tries to talk her through reversing the drill but Leah has an absolute meltdown and wants her to take over. Callie keeps telling her to pull herself together, but Leah is way beyond that and turns to Arizona, yelling at her to do something. Arizona calmly asks Callie if she can take over and give Leah a moment to calm down, and after lots of various squinting and eye-acting over their masks, Callie realizes that Leah was Miss Ten-Plus Times. Callie angrily takes the drill out of Leah's hands and pulls it out of the table, while Leah won't look at her.
Afterward, Leah and Arizona have the traditional scrub-room screaming argument, with Leah furious that Arizona told Callie about them. Arizona points out that Callie guessed when Leah came unglued, and when Leah yells at her some more she reminds the younger woman that this is her marriage. Leah counters that this is her career, and says that Callie hates her now. Well, I would argue that losing all ability to maintain herself professionally probably had more of an effect on her career, but sure, this isn't helping either. She then uses the babysitter's reasoning that Callie will need someone to blame, and it won't be Arizona because she loves her. Arizona for her part looks like she's trying to be patient but is totally fed up and wondering if this was really worth it.
Jackson finds April to ask her about Invitationgate, and to no one's surprise other than him and Stephanie, she awkwardly tells him that he's not actually getting an invitation, so she invited Steph so that he could be her plus-one. She tries to justify it, pointing out that since his name stars with "A" he was the first invite on the list and she didn't want to rub it in Matthew's face. Jackson points out rather sensibly that if his name on a list upsets Matthew, he should probably not be attending this wedding at all. But of course April pleads with him that they are friends and she needs him there, finally adding that she can't go through with it if she doesn't have his blessing. So, you know, this is basically the worst idea marriage of all time since clearly no one is over anyone else. Jackson tells her that she has his blessing, but insists he doesn't think he should be there.
Stephanie goes to break the news to Victor that Mere had to do an emergency surgery, so they have to push Donna's surgery a day. As they are talking another man comes up -- this is Stan, and he's appalled to see that Donna is that very moment conducting a Booty Interview for him. He wants Victor to talk to her, while Victor points out that Donna doesn't listen to anyone and besides, this isn't the worst thing in the world since it's taking her mind off the fact that she's dying. Stan is insulted but even more so he is brokenhearted, and he begins to cry as he asks if Donna really thinks she can be replaced. As he breaks down, Victor pulls him into a big, sad hug.
Little baby Nathan has held on about as long as he can, and Alex tells Cristina they have to do the surgery now -- the problem is that they still don'' have a conduit printed. They hook him up to a machine that shakes him with little vibrations that seem to stabilize him and buy them a day. Once that is settled, Cristina tells Alex that thanks to him, Smash just offered to service her. He asks if she's going to take him up on it but she says no, it would be, "like having sex with a baby seal." If I don't think about that too hard, I get her point. She tries to get Alex to talk to Meredith for her in hopes that she'd cut Cristina some slack, but Alex doesn't want to get in the middle of it and points out that Mere is right, she could just put in the artificial implant like they would normally do, and when she argues that he rejected it the first time Alex replies that they just give him a bunch of meds and buy some time for a year or two until this procedure has been tested. He basically calls her on this being about more than just the baby, and she gets her hackles up and leaves.
Richard is on the treadmill, but he's very obviously struggling and Princess doesn't want to up the pace any more since it doesn't look like he could handle it. But Richard is stubborn, and after she increases it a notch he yells at her to take it farther and finally does it himself, cranking up the speed like he's training for the Olympics. Since he's actually still in terrible shape, he loses his balance, and flies off of the end of the machine. Princess hollers for help and Derek runs in to examine him while Richard groans in pain.
Bailey is getting ready for her surgery, and she lines her instruments up just so and then continues to touch them and replace them as if the outcome of the surgery depends on their being right in those spots. Owen comes in and asks to speak to her; she tries to confidently push him off until after she's done but he's not having it and insists that Mere, who came in with him, can take over. Mere walks up to Bailey and Owen quietly asks her to reach over and move one of the instruments by an inch. Bailey pleads with them not to do it and then, after staring at the misplaced tool, finally can't help herself and moves it back with a sad whisper of, "Grey…" Owen asks Mere to do it again and Bailey screams at them to get away from her table; Mere recoils, and Bailey realizes she's crossed the line. She stands there, radiating betrayal, and then turns and leaves.
They've gotten Richard back in bed, and he grimaces and tells them he's sure he's broken some ribs. Callie comes in and is appalled and exasperated to see him hurt; he's embarrassed, as he really should be.
Leah is gazing into the room where Arizona is updating her patient's parents when the babysitter slinks out and mopes that she probably should leave, since she's sure she's the last person they want to see. Maybe Leah will see such a kindred spirit that she'll fall helplessly in love with her in the five minutes. The babysitter emotionally flogs herself for getting too attached, and then admits she wants to stay to see if they need anything. Leah offers to wait with her and then gazes longingly at Arizona some more. I don't mean to sound like a heartless bitch, like I know I so often do, because I have fallen for someone unavailable and it really sucks balls. But Leah herself points out that she gets too attached too quickly, so I can't get very invested in this.
Stephanie finds Jackson and after she fails to get any dirt out of him regarding Bailey's getting kicked out of the OR, he tells her happily that he got them out of going to April's wedding. She finally seems to absorb what the actual issues are, about feelings that may still be lingering, and tells him all about her patient's convoluted love life. She tells Jackson that Victor hugs Stan when he cries, and that's what it looks like when people are actually over each other. She both has a point, but yet also this assumes that everyone is a hugger, which is very much not the case even when you are over someone. She then basically tries to get Jackson to admit that they aren't going because things are still weird, and to his credit he says that April is neurotic, he and Matthew will never hug, and that it's always going to be a little bit uncomfortable, but that none of that means he's not over April. Well… we'll see. He assures Stephanie that she's his girl, and she seems to finally relax and take him at his word.
Mere finally goes to the lab to confront Cristina while she and Smash are printing out their new conduit and tries to kick them out, but Cristina tells her they still need more time. Mere is furious at the idea and finally lays into Cristina the way I think she felt Cristina laid into her a few weeks ago, telling her she's not God, she failed to revolutionize medicine with this experiment, and now she might lose a baby because of it. Just as she's picking up steam Smash yells at her to be quiet and she can't believe her ears, warning him to tread carefully. Cristina has spent the whole time with her shoulders hunched protectively, facing the printer, and doesn't really move as Smash yells that Cristina wasn't going to do this because she didn't want to upset Mere, but Smash talked her into it. Cristina tries to get him to stop, and Mere smiles venomously and mocks that Smash has a case of Hero Worship. Remember earlier this season when Mere was actually one of the coolest, together, reasonable people on this show? I barely do either. Smash totally calls her out on being the one to make it emotional, pointing out that the normal course of action would have been to go to the Chief to settle this dispute, but he figures she knows that he would have let them finish. He informs her that she'll get the printer tomorrow. Mere cocks her head a moment and death stares at Cristina, but finally storms away. Once she's gone Smash apologizes for stepping out of line, but after a moment Cristina reaches up and gives him a long kiss. Oh boy.
Arizona and Callie are getting ready to leave; Callie snarks that she was going to check on her patient but she doesn't want to run into Leah and make her cry. Arizona has finally had enough, and when Callie goes on at length about how time maybe Arizona should find a hookup outside of their workplace, Arizona stands up for herself. She reminds Callie that they are getting back together under the assumption that both of them made mistakes, and they are ready to start fresh. She adds that she can't keep apologizing, and Callie can't keep playing the victim. Which, AMEN. I mean, I get it, so much, but inviting her back and then keeping her on the sofa is a kind of bitch move. She tells Callie that if she wants her, she is back, but she's not there to be a whipping boy. Callie actually gets all huffy, but Arizona just adds that by the way, if she's back, then she sleeps in the bed. Callie negotiates one night to get used to it and then says fine, she can sleep in the bed. It's not enthusiastic, but it's a start.
Ben and Bailey arrive home, and she's hollering at him for getting her in trouble and orders him to stay out of her career. When she tries to really get going, Ben finally cuts her off and yells that he should have gone to Owen himself days ago, and this is not received well at all -- Bailey knocks a chair over in anger and frustration. But, proving that Ben is right, she can only leave it there for a few moments before picking it up and positioning it just so. The fact that she can't help herself makes her even angrier, and she cries and leaves the room.
Princess and Alex are outside Richard's room while Leah and Stephanie get him settled. She's beating herself up for not stopping the test sooner but Alex sweetly -- and truthfully -- points out that he's a hard guy to stand up to. They then talk about Thanksgiving, and she tells him that he should go on his own to Mere's and that she and the girls are going to spend it here with Richard. Alex jokes about her blowing him off but they decide that all works and they'll meet up after -- it's awfully adult and functional of the two of them. She then goes inside and after some bickering they decide to pick up a bucket of fried chicken and all the trimmings to celebrate the holiday.
Meredith, dressed and about ready to leave, bitches to Derek that her best friend is a mean girl, which never bothered her when she was mean to others, but not she hates it and doesn't know why she picked her. Dear Mere: Please find a little bit of your sense of personal responsibility. You seem to have misplaced it somewhere and it's making you insufferable. Also: please go watch some dancers perform a tango. Notice that it takes two people. Derek is clearly tired of this rant and when Owen walks up to happily say that Emma is fine with it if Mere invites Cristina, and Mere bites his head off, Derek does a quick but admirable eye roll. Cristina then walks up behind them to get a file and, sensing the tension, Owen slowly backs away. Derek takes off too, leaving the two woman to aggressively ignore each other while Mere VOs that surely, it's just a cold, nothing is really wrong because if it was, they'd be able to figure out it out because they are doctors… right? Seriously, least dignified setup of a beloved character's exit, ever.
Lauren S is a writer who lives and works in Atlanta and hopes all of you lovely people have a wonderful Thanksgiving. 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."