Episode Report Card DeAnn Welker: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Nothing Really Changes
By DeAnn Welker | Season 2 | Episode 16 | Aired on 02.12.2009
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.It's a little hard for me to know where Grey's ended and this show began, because all of the stuff in Seattle sort of ran together. But I'll give it a try, starting with the easy stuff at Oceanside.
Dell continues to be relegated to irrelevance, which continues to irk me since I still have lingering affection for him from his time spent as Piz. Charlotte is still annoyed at Cooper for wanting to be there for Violet. She even gives him this impassioned speech about how he can't be best friends with a woman if he wants to be with a woman, which ... is just stupid and backwards and irritating. Seriously. Charlotte is cute and used to be funny, but I find her whining about Violet so tiresome at this point that I don't find it remotely feasible that Cooper could still care.
Also staying the same: Violet. She's still being selfish about the baby, and not letting Pete (totally the dad) in, even though he really wants to be part of this. It all plays out with a patient who tried to kill her baby and came to Cooper for help not killing it. She has postpartum depression and psychosis or something. I'll use the captioning when I weecap and give you much more complete information, of course. Pete and Violet both use the mother and baby to make their own arguments, but in the end, Pete calls Violet on how selfish she's being and then walks away. He totally wins this one.
Meanwhile, in Seattle, with Archer all saved and baby mama Jen also saved, Derek and his former friends are all partying at Joe's. But there are complications with Jen, and Derek's called back in. Derek and Addison operate simultaneously on mother and baby, but in the end she wakes up talking gibberish, so that we can continue our Big. Crossover. Event. Next week.
Eventually there are also complications with Archer, which Addison goes over Derek's head to find out, but it turns out the "complications" are things that will go away by the next time they scan him. And Derek thinks Archer will always be an ass. I couldn't agree more. Naomi likes him, though, which may or may not be why Sam passes out from an asthma attack. He tries to convince everyone he's over Naomi, and when we find out Bailey got him the wrong inhaler – one he's allergic to – he convinces everyone he actually is over her. Everyone but Bailey, of course. She knows better, and tells Sam that she's going home to hug her husband, despite their problems, because she doesn't want to watch her life from outside a window. Sam corrects her, "Ex-Life." It's really a sweet moment, and makes me wish we'd have lots more of Sam and Bailey interacting. Is it possible to just make this a two-hour event every week? It's sort of fun (although confusing to keep straight, so maybe let's not do it forever, okay?)
Would you trust Addison and Co. to operate? We wouldn't. See why in our Private Practice: Reasons to Avoid Oceanside Wellness Center gallery. Then discuss this whole crossover mess in our PP forums!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Just like last week, our episode begins as the Grey's Anatomy black bar of credits is still flashing on the bottom of the screen. ABC wouldn't want to let any Grey's watchers slip away before this starts, after all. I have to apologize in advance if it seems like I skipped a bunch of stuff when writing this weecap. Read Lauren's latest Grey's recap to fill in the blanks.
We start off with shiny, pretty L.A. beach image, lest someone think we're still in gloomy, gray Seattle. Cooper, Violet, Pete, and Dell don't have any extra work to do, apparently, even with three of Oceanside's doctors out of town. Instead, they're all sitting and/or standing around in the break room, wondering when Sam, Naomi, and Addison will call and let them know how Archer's doing. Not that any of them really know or care about Archer, but if they stopped worrying about this, they'd have to go help the patients that absolutely must be piling up in the waiting room. In case anyone missed Grey's, Dell, Cooper, and Pete exposit all about the worms/cysts in Archer's head, blah, blah, blah (read the recap). Cooper says that if they feel like waiting is hard for them, they should imagine how awful it is for Sam, Naomi, and Addison right about now.
Cut to Joe's bar in Seattle, where Sam, Naomi, Addison, and Mark are all dancing up a storm to some cheesy '80s song (specifically, "There's Always Something There To Remind Me"). Derek's against the wall talking on his phone, but no one seems to notice or care. Which isn't all that surprising, since these are the same people who haven't thought to call and let their friends back in L.A. know that Archer came through surgery with flying colors. These four are more concerned about how cool is it they're all together again. Sam says, "the five of us," but Addison and Naomi pointedly correct him that Archer makes six. He's all, "I forgot about Archer." How is it possible that Sam could ever be jealous of a tool like Archer, anyway? Mark adds that counting the worms in Archer's brain that makes, like twenty-six. I love him. Can he be on this show more, please? None of the guys on Private Practice are quite as snarky as I'd like. Addison toasts to dead brain worms and loudly tells Mark that she can't believe he fell for a Grey and is too scared to tell Derek (who is still slouching on the phone by the wall, remember, so it's obviously just a long chat and not an emergency or anything). Mark tells Addison to be mad at Derek or the ring his mother never gave her, but not at Mark. Derek's getting up and heading out of the bar, so Addison approaches him and asks what's up. He ignores her and just thanks Mark for that. Then he tells them he has to go back to work, and it's not about Archer. He leaves, and they all immediately think, "What if he says it's not Archer because he doesn't want to worry us," and they run out after him.