Post by Leanne on Feb 6, 2009 3:45:38 GMT -5
'Grey's Anatomy': The crossover begins...
By Lisa Todorovich
February 05, 09:40 PM
Take an imminent proposal, a doctor who's denying he wants to be in the relationship he's in, another doctor who may care too much, someone who's trying but scared to death to figure out what's wrong with her, and some romantic tension that's chaste but hot, add some celibate confusion and a few secrets, and what do you get? Tonight's Grey's Anatomy.
Keeping secrets doesn't give me high blood pressure, but spoilers ahead anyway...
There's a lot of running around and yapping this week, and quite a funny bit involving the men of Seattle Grace and Derek's plans for Meredith, and I'll get to all of that in a minute. For me, this week was Dr. Bailey's turn to star. We learn that after almost losing Jackson, she took three days off -- the only time she's ever taken off besides maternity leave. We learn that as soon as she finishes her residency the Chief wants to promote her to be an attending in general surgery (and about time she got that kind of formal recognition). Bailey's thrilled, and assures him that she'll be fine as long as she doesn't have to deal with any dying kid cases.
Which of course jinxes it for her. Dr. Dixon (Mary McDonnell) is back, and Bailey and Cristina are working with her on the case of 9-year-old Stacy Pollack, who suffers from secondary pulmonary hypertension. As Dixon explains her surgery to the parents, Bailey steps in and explains in English to the kid what will be happening. But the more she sees how sick Stacy is, the more Bailey's gripped by anxiety. She doesn't want to see another kid slip away, and it's freezing her up in a very un-Bailey-like way. She gets a great pep talk from Dr. Robbins, who reassures her about kids' resiliency and argues that Bailey will want to be there for the moment when they take care of what's wrong and hand Stacy the rest of her life back.
But it's not so simple. In surgery, Dr. Dixon sees the extent of the damage to Stacy's heart -- there's too much scar tissue, and if she doesn't get a heart and lung transplant, she's going to die. Meanwhile, she's now on meds that have to be administered every three minutes, effectively confining this active little kid to her bed for potentially a very long time. An upset Bailey bolts, taking solace with Tuck in the daycare center. She comes back newly inspired about Stacy wearing a backpack and having a portable medicine pump that they can train her parents to use. It's a great idea, except that (a) Bailey didn't discuss this with Dr. Dixon, and (b) her excitement, coupled with the parents' excitement, coupled with the mother hugging Dr. Dixon, is really too much.
Dr. Dixon's Asperger Syndrome makes it impossible for her to process all the stimuli, and she loses it. Bailey finds her in an office hugging her lab coat to herself as tightly as she can, and Dixon explains that people like her need intense pressure on their bodies to calm their nervous systems (this made me think of a fascinating scientist named Dr. Temple Grandin, who has autism and designed a hugging machine that would apply this kind of pressure, similar to the chutes in slaughter houses that calm the animals down). So basically she asks Bailey to hug her. Then Cristina comes in, and she's recruited for the hugging -- the look on her face is priceless. Eventually Dixon calms down and she explains the effect of tight squeezing: decreased pulse rate and metabolic rate, easing the nervous system.
So Stacy gets her backpack, and Bailey's left to ponder Dixon's remark that she's not a general surgeon, but rather a pediatric surgeon. Of course that plays to every feeling of fear and dread that Bailey holds about working on kids, but Robbins encourages her. Given that she still wants Bailey to consider becoming a pediatric surgeon after she notes with mock horror that Bailey has decorated Stacy's backpack with a BeDazzler (as seen on TV!), she's gotta mean it.
The couple in the car accident: An ambulance brings a nice young couple in -- she's accidentally run over him with the car. The wife, Jen (Jennifer Westfeldt -- competing in prime time against her real-life boyfriend, Jon Hamm, who's guesting on 30 Rock), is a few months pregnant, and seems to be experiencing "pregnancy brain" -- forgetfulness, distraction, etc. He needs surgery to fix a dislocated shoulder and fractures, and Lexie's carefully monitoring her because her blood pressure is a scary-sounding 170/100. Derek sees them and remarks to Meredith that they'll have cute kids. "Yeah, not as cute as ours, but cute," Meredith says. Which stops Derek in his tracks. More on that in a bit.
While her husband's struggling in surgery -- there's a possibility he'll bleed out, but Hunt comes in and takes care of him -- Jen has a seizure. During her neuro consult, she spies the ring box in Derek's pocket and he's forced to tap-dance to avoid Meredith finding out his proposal plans -- a secret that more and more people are learning about by the minute. After an MRI, Jen learns she has an aneurysm, which they'll take care of as soon as her husband recovers from the complications of his surgery, which Lexie didn't tell her about. Whoops. The docs emphasize the need to stay calm. "You just told me there's a time bomb in my head," Jen says. "I promise you I'm not going to stay calm."
Now, based on the preview for next week, as well as Jennifer Westfeldt mentioning on the Golden Globe red carpet that she'll be doing several episodes of Grey's, this is clearly a big drama-getter for sweeps. I for one hope it doesn't get too sad and go the way of the 1995 "ER" episode "Love's Labor Lost," which still blows my mind.
Quite a decent proposal: So Derek's walking around with the ring, which kind of makes no sense unless he's planning on proposing in the hospital. He shows it to Mark ("That's dangerous -- people who carry guns have got to be ready to fire them.") and confesses he's still trying to figure out how to ask Meredith, because he doesn't want to spook her. Good call, Derek. In due time, Cristina finds out about the imminent proposal, as do the Chief and Hunt (Sloan has a big mouth). And Lexie and Jen the patient. And every time people start to talk about what Derek should do, Meredith comes up and the conversation abruptly ends. It's a funny little schtick, unless you're the neurotic one who's stopping the conversation. Meredith can't figure out why he's been acting so weird since her comment about their future babies, and begins to worry that he doesn't want babies ith her. "Because my babies will have Alzheimer's. And suicidal tendencies. And split ends."
Bless her, Meredith's neuroses show doesn't last very long and like a psychologically healthy person she tells Derek she knows something's up. And if he doesn't want kids with her and her damaged DNA, he should just say so. He reassures her. Then goes home to plan the most insane proposal I've ever seen, filling their bedroom with dozens of roses, candles, and a *teddy bear,* and arranging rose petals on the bed in the shape of a heart. Who in heaven's name is he proposing to? Has he even met Meredith? Sloan's helping him set everything up, arguing that cliches work.
Then Derek gets a call from Addison. There's been an emergency involving her brother. And the next time we see the bedroom, Meredith's come home from work and everything's been taken away. Except for the stray rose petal under the pillow. This storyline continues on Private Practice -- and in a big fat crossover next week.
It's called a relationship: While watching Derek prepare to propose, Mark becomes convinced he should break up with Lexie. Because when Derek proposes she'll be his little sister and he can't sleep with any more little sisters. Callie tells him to man up, which he more or less does. Then Lexie calls him out and says either we have this relationship in front of Derek and Meredith or we don't have it. Again, I say: Please give Sloan something more to do. He looks bored. Oh, and his injury from last week seems to have healed just fine.
A Victorian romance: Meredith hands her mother's ninth journal to Cristina, because it deals with her affair with the Chief. After perusing a bit, Cristina tells her that it's not explicit, but hot, actually. Chastely hot. Lots of stolen glances. It reads like a romance novel.
Which suddenly totally appeals to Cristina, who's having her own Age of Innocence stolen glances moments with Hunt. He falls into step with her as she's walking down the hall, and brushes her hand as he walks away. Tells her she should wear her hair up because he likes to see her neck. There's lots of flirtatious longing and slow motion camera work, which I should hate, but kind of love. It's odd, it's out of character for both of them, but I think it kind of works. As they do their slow-motion walk toward one another down a crowded hall thing, Hunt sees a blonde woman get off the elevator behind Cristina. He bolts for an exam room, panicked and anguished, and I must note that Kevin McKidd has the best distressed face of anyone I've seen on television. Cristina comes in and tries out the hugging thing she learned from Dixon -- anything to calm him down. Which he does so much that he ends up asleep on her midsection in the on-call room while she reads from Meredith's mother's journal. Aw. But it's going to hit the fan soon.
What's wrong with Izzie? Well, she's trying to figure it out without anyone knowing, so she tells the interns working in the clinic that no one orders tests without talking to her first. Excellent way to teach and to bilk the insurance company all at the same time. This starts when Sadie's unable to draw blood from a patient, so Izzie makes her draw hers and send the samples to the lab together. Over the course of the day, Izzie has an MRI, a chest x-ray and goodness knows how many other tests. When the bloodwork comes back, she finds out she's anemic. That's it. But Sadie's patient has cancer, and they have to tell her. Any takers that the lab results got mixed up? Just a guess.
George's word count this week: To Izzie, as she's lying in the MRI machine talking the interns through the procedure: "I see a crazy person taking expensive tests for no reason. And oh, I see the chief finding out and expelling crazy person. And then I see joblessness, homelessness and depression. Yeah, it does not look good, Izzie. It does not look good." 43 words.
Spicing things up: A couple comes in because something went awry with their attempt to spice up their relationship -- number 9 on a magazine list of techniques. Only notable for the very funny discussion of who's done what that's kind of a more grown-up version of "I Never."
And there's a surprise: Callie's celebate and lonely, and her romantic past is haunting her. She's having trouble keeping it together, even at Joe's. Robbins goes to find her in the ladies' room, where she's gone to compose herself, and offers a terrific pep talk about how much people like Callie and how concerned they are for her. And when she's done feeling bad, there will be people waiting for her, she says. Callie's disbelieving until Robbins
leans in and plants one. So don't despair, Callie.
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