Episode Report Card Mollie: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT You Give Me Fever
By Mollie | Season 1 | Episode 8 | Aired on 11.20.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.So remember last week, when Pete stood Addison up, Cooper turned Violet down, and Sam and Naomi got it on? It's the next morning, and everybody's acting awkward (except Dell, who wonders what's going on). Addison gets an ego boost when a cute guy flirts with her in the coffee shop downstairs. Afterward, she coolly informs Pete that he's been downgraded to "acquaintance." Sam and Naomi are giddy from the previous night's encounter, but they discuss it and decide that it was a "slip-up." Then "their priest," Fr. Mark, summons them to a convent where a mysterious illness is felling temporarily cloistered nuns. It turns out to be typhoid -- but who brought it into the convent? Carl, Addison's admirer, is a patient of Violet's, who hovers nervously and refrains from comment as Addy goes on a date with him. (Pete, jealous, does not refrain from comment, but Addison blows him off.) It turns out Carl has a sticking-things-up-his-butt compulsion, which we learn when Violet gets called to the ER, and which Addison learns when she realizes that one of her shoes is missing. Ew. Charlotte King gets the Oceanside crew involved with a program called "Safe Surrender" that rescues newborns from moms who want to give them up. Pete and Addison, manning the hotline together, pick up a supposedly newborn infant from a teen mom. Addy gets very attached to the baby, and even names her "Batgirl" (Addison would be an awesome mom), but of course Batgirl's mother comes back for her eventually. Later, Pete and Addy rush to a park to find an abandoned baby, whom they can't resuscitate. It's just not Addison's day. After trying and failing to reestablish any kind of relationship with Violet, Cooper turns to the internet and sets up a rendezvous with...Charlotte. She's deeply horrified when she finds out that Cooper is her date, and runs off in a hurry. Of course, the next day, they see each other at Oceanside. Coop asks her out for a drink, promising "no sex"...and they fall into bed immediately. Looks like quite a workout, too. Sam and Naomi figure out that the nuns were infected by Fr. Mark, who is a typhoid carrier, and who has a very close but entirely chaste relationship with the ailing Sr. Virginia. They find Fr. Mark's devotion to his friend touching; he also reminds Sam and Naomi that, religiously speaking, they are still married and therefore are permitted to have conjugal relations. They take this advice to heart, as Addison discovers when she stops by Sam's house looking for someone to talk to. She tells Sam that she tried calling Naomi but got no answer. When Naomi walks out wearing Sam's robe, Addison bursts into tears. Sam goes back to bed. The fact that Naomi stays with Addy instead of following Sam makes her a pretty darn good friend, I have to say. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
What happened last week -- Pete proposing sex to Addison, then standing her up; Cooper agreeing to friends-with-benefits sex with Violet, then backing out; Naomi and Sam going at it on the conference-room table -- was so important that we can't just let the characters recap it for us in conversation, the way they normally do. This kind of drama necessitates our first-ever "previously on" opener -- with Naomi on voiceover duty, probably because she has the prettiest voice.
Once we've been reminded of the previous night's adventures, we open at Oceanside the morning after. Cooper, wearing sunglasses, rushes into the lobby (having taken the stairs) and passes Dell at a trot. "Violet here?" he asks, not slowing down. Dell tells him no, and he hurries away. Naomi comes in from another direction, also wearing sunglasses, also not slowing down to greet Dell. The elevator dings and Pete and Addison step off, both wearing hangdog expressions; Violet is also wearing a wide-brimmed hat. Poor, confused Dell tosses out a "good morning" as they dash by. Addy's next, looking distracted, and focused on her handheld device. It's not unusual for her to dismiss Dell's greeting, but the way she hangs her head and asks for Naomi is rather out of character. Dell points her in the right direction. Sam is the last to come in, looking stiff and awkward like the rest. He's also wondering about Naomi, but Dell wants to know, "What's up with everybody? Was there, like, a car accident on the way to work or something?" Aw, do they carpool? I never thought about that. I hope Sam and Addison ride together sometimes, at the very least. Sam gazes toward Naomi's office, where the three women have gathered. "...Or something," he replies, and he walks off without even glancing at poor, befuddled Dell.
Sam enters the kitchen and announces to Pete and Cooper that the women are "behind closed doors." He strokes his bald head for comfort, the way a toddler might stroke a blankie in moments of distress. Except when Sam does it, it's sexy. He thinks, as long as the women are gathered to discuss the men (what else would they have to talk about, after all?), the men should do likewise. Pete and Cooper nod uncertainly. "Let's talk...let's talk smack," Cooper agrees. But nobody says anything. They just watch the women.
Violet and Addison are arguing over who has the greater claim on Naomi's attention. Naomi, still hiding behind sunglasses, tries to dismiss them both by announcing, "She slept with Cooper; she slept with Pete; cat's out of the bag, all that." But thanks to last night's late-night visits, Addison and Violet both know the other didn't get any. "There are no secrets around here," grumbles Violet. "Oh, there are secrets," says Naomi mysteriously. When Violet gives her a quizzical look, she remembers that she doesn't really want her secret to get out, so she covers: "Neither one of you? Really? I didn't know. That's all I'm saying." Addison is too wrapped up in her own problems (shock!) to pick up on the weird vibe from Naomi. "Pete literally stood me up!" she cries. Okay, everybody pay attention: He didn't literally stand her up. Actually, he literally sat her down, right before he stuck his tongue down her throat, in the scene we revisited at the top of the show. But he figuratively stood her up. Let's try to keep that straight, even if Addy is too incensed to use words correctly. She insists that she simply does not get stood up. "I'm Addison! Which means something! In places where...things mean things." Don't fool yourself, honey; it never meant a whole lot to anybody at Seattle Grace that you were Mrs. Shepherd. You're in a better place now, really. Violet bitterly asks if Addison revealed her nakedness to Pete, like she did with Cooper: "Did you stand in front of him like a peeled banana?" It would be awesome if she went on, "...which will survive in the fridge longer than the unpeeled ones you like to keep there." But she doesn't. She pep-talks herself, insisting that despite having been rejected by Cooper, she has "good parts." Addison pipes up, "Damn right you do, and so do I!" "I like your breasts," Violet says earnestly. "You have a good ass," Addison replies. "Thank you! I like it," Vi says sweetly, making her the episode's first candidate for the Best Line Delivery Award. Every time these two have a conversation, I love them more. Well, except when they're talking about Pete. Or anything work-related. Naomi is so distracted by her own issues that she cuts off this conversation -- which could have gone on all day, and I kind of wish it had -- to sum things up. "The point is, we should not be having sex in the office." The intensity with which she says this, attempting to hide her inability to focus, puts her in the running for the abovementioned honor. So Violet's like, Who in the what now? And once again Naomi has to backtrack, claiming her point is that no one is having sex in the office, and it should stay that way, because otherwise, "You don't know where you stand." Violet and Addison are deeply confused to find that, at this moment, Naomi is more off-balance than either of them.