family drama! in a hospital!

(previously [mb]) Oh, remember how we all had a good laugh at the hilarious “rain” on the last installation of Grey’s Anatomy [abc]. After this week in actual Seattle, I take it all back. Or at least some of it.

In this episode, another day in the life of Seattle Grace Hospital: a family car crash, a guy who gets off on swallowing doll heads, and way too many transplants and semi-dead people to keep track of. Also, a cameo appearance by the poster for last year’s performance of Bunnicula at the Children’s Theater [mb]!

previously [mb]

As usual, the voice over starts the episode by telling us about “an aunt who would say `say when’ . . . [yet] we don’t `say when’ because there’s something about the possibility of more.”

While this Meredith’s disembodied voice is laying out this episode’s themes, actual Meredith is recovering from all of the last episode’s tequila and Sandra Oh is hanging out in the bathtub to keep her company. This is the point when a limited proportion of the audience is happy to still be on speaking terms with good old tequila. But enough about us, Meredith says. Or rather, that their problems (Dempsey’s wife and the InterimChief’s break-up) are not about them: their problem is with the stupid boy penises. Oh disagrees: it’s the estrogen that has turned her into a stupid pregnant lady who cares. Soon enough, the bathroom is packed full of interns getting ready to work.

When they arrive it’s sunny and rainy and they’re sort of getting sort of wet. This is actually a nice reflection of the actual weather situation in Seattle. Meredith accuses Dempsey of stalking her. He’s all, “don’t you remember how I spilled my guts to you outside my trailer last night?” and she’s all “I’m a sink drain, everything you pour out isn’t enough because my drain isn’t even plugged!” And he’s all, whatever, you’re hung over.

A bit of business between InterimChief about an organ harvest from an Out Of Town Brain Dead Donor results in Dempsey being annoyed by having his O.R. rescheduled and breaks him away from his stalkee as all of the interns pack themselves into the elevator.

Apparently the interns were taking the elevator straight to a set of auto accident trauma cases: “Mom”, “Son”, and “S.O.B.” Dad were in a car that hit and killed a single driver (”dead guy”). [[Seriously, doesn't Seattle Grace Hospital have an E.R.?]] But we suspend disbelief as each of the fab five pick up a patient. Dr. Model gets the most exciting patient (the father) and follows him into surgery. Naturally, George is assigned to the dead guy and Meredith tags along. The patient isn’t quite dead enough for Bailey who assigns George (and his syphilitic nurse friend) do do a whole bunch of procedures to keep DeadGuy from being actually dead. Although George’s heart isn’t really in the heart-restarting, there’s apparently something of a lesson. On E.R., there would be a lot of people trying to save this guy, right? But here, it’s just George and his nurse in a little room with a dead guy.

act 1
The temporarily NotChief is still recovering from his brain surgery. We know this because Dempsey is annoying him by shining a light in his eyes. What episode would be complete without some obvious parallels? Not this one: it seems that Dempsey has called in his patient’s wife without telling him. Just like NotChief called Addison without telling Dempsey!

Back in trauma patient land, Alex [Ed: what happened to calling him Dr. BYG? -- A friend convinced me to temporarily retire it by (1) telling me his name and (2) making a case that he might have some character development this season. We'll see if it sticks.]] is treating the not dead driver’s son while Sandra Oh works on the mother. Hilariously, both patients are telling the usually heartless doctors about their family life and the circumstances of the accident. Mom has a much sunnier view of things, while Son says that dad’s road rage caused the accident and that the S.O.B. got what he deserved. Drama!

In another O.R., the surgeons are chiding the S.O.B. for not wearing his seat belt while Izzy is looking at the S.O.B.’s crusty liver.

Although he isn’t trying very hard, George is still working on the dead guy. He doesn’t understand why, but Bailey is still trying to teach him a lesson.

Five interns and four traffic victims mean that Grey gets this week’s B-story: a guy with an impacted bowel. It’s amazing how often this problem turns up on medical shows, isn’t it? Like everyone else in the universe, he’s sort of in love with her. She asks what’s blocking him up, but he refuses to tell her on the grounds that it might offend her delicate sensibilities. But he promises that it isn’t drugs, but an entirely wackier subplot.

Soon everyone is in the X-ray room. Traffic accident son’s films look fine, the mother’s look like she’s either abused of a bull fighter, and impacted bowel guy looks like he didn’t learn a lesson from Maria Full of Grace. But Alex notices that the balloons full of drugs aren’t actually balloons, but tiny faces of ten Judy dolls. At this point, the home audience says “Judy Dolls? What?” as they cut to commercials.

act 2
Apparently, they couldn’t get permission to use “Barbie” so instead they’re Judy dolls. But they still need to come out of that guy’s intestines.

Meanwhile, The SOB is still in surgery. Even though he’s on the liver list, his only hope is a family donor. InterimChief gives them six hours to find a liver while the other surgeons fix up all of his other accident-related injuries.

George and his Syphilitic Nurse are still working on the dead guy, making awkward small talk about Alex, the timing of her sleeping with Alex, and the “syph”. At some point, George gets paged and decides to leave the dead guy. The Nurse reminds him that he should probably make a call. (Not her, but the whole time of death).

Back in trauma follow-up mode, Alex is pushing the son into an elevator. To signal that he’s a troubled youth, the son is knocking on the rails of his hospital bed. Alex tries to lighten the mood by telling the kid about the guy who gets off on swallowing Judy doll heads. This doesn’t seem very professional, but at least he’s making an effort to make a personal connection in that they’re both a children of abusive fathers. Alex knows all about being angry and advises his patient to deal with it by thinking about doll heads.

We return to Abused Mom who expositions about how there aren’t a a lot of B-negative donors for her liver deficient husband. Naturally, her son is a good match, but hasn’t made up his mind about donating. Having seen the X-rays and bruises, and knowing that SOB is an abusive drunk who just killed another driver, Sandra Oh encourages Mom not to pressure her son into anything. The InterimChief wants her to take her time, which angers Oh. When she fills him in on the backstory, he lectures her about how it isn’t up to her to have feelings. Great, just when the estrogen & the break-up was turning her into less of a robot .

act 3
When we return from the commercials InterimChief is talking to a nurse about the out-of-town organ donor mentioned at the beginning of the episode. Grey interrupts to get an OR for the Judy doll extraction. This bring us back to the temporarily NotChief’s office where his wife is cleaning out her husband’s office. Amazingly, she was relieved to find out about the brain tumor because being the Chief of Surgery (or the wife of the Chief of Surgery) isn’t so much fun. and she wants him to retire. She tells InterimChief that he’s a perfect replacement: unattached & obsessive, this job would be enough. Isn’t it great when they bring in characters who can act completely oblivious to the actual situation on the ground just to say things meant to inspire soul-searches by the main characters?

Izzie and Alex are hanging out with the Son to talk about the transplant. Izzie misses it, but Alex and the Son continue to sort of bond. He chases Isabel out of the room for ethics violations and for cramping his style.

Back in the B-story, Meredith learns that her patient was hoping to get enjoyment from the Judy dolls when they come out. Yes, that was too much information, wasn’t it? And this guy claimed not to want to offend her sensibilities! As Mr. JudyDoll is wheeled into surgery, Addison makes an attempt to patch-up (or at least get a feel for) the Dempsey-Grey break-up situation, but Meredith wants to keep their already weird relationship professional. Ha! On Grey’s Anatomy?!

As is their custom, the interns all take their lunch outside and leave Alex sitting alone at another table. They must always sit in the same place, because Alex has set up a little art installation of headless Judy sculpture at their usual table. Torturing one of the decapitated dolls, George reveals that he doesn’t want to make up with the nurse. Izzie insinuates that this is all about another girl [his very obvious crush for Meredith]. Suddenly, it’s time for this to be about something else: the estrogen twins tell George that he shouldn’t let her think she has a chance. Because there’s nothing worse than thinking you have a chance when you don’t have a chance. Oh, the implications.

While the wannabe doctors are lunching, the wannabe chiefs are looking at the booked up OR schedule. Ha ha it’s funny to be the Chief, isn’t it?

This Judy storyline is kind of taking over the episode (since it’s Meredith Seattle Grey’s involved). The quest to understand the doll head fixation only reveals that eleven would have been too many. For some reason they’re doing surgery and a bunch of the interns are in on the fun of picking through this guy’s intestines. Here, we get a bit of backstory as “Black Judy” is a blast form the past for uncharacteristically not that mean Bailey. She knows all about Judy dolls and might be a collector. Just when we’re getting to the fun part in which Mod Judy looks like Grey, the InterimChief breaks up the party by pulling the interns out to work on the liver donation storyline.

This gets a little confusing because the episode has two organ donation plots. As George and the Syphilitic Nurse supervise the out-of-town organ donor the writers indulge in yet another bit of having the characters talk about one thing while meaning another the Syphilis Nurse is talking to George about calling in Dead Guy’s family. She tells him that it’s always better to get bad news first hand. And she’s definitely like to talk to the one who called it (and ended the relationship, hint hint.) Amazingly George actually wants to save this supposedly brain dead donor, who appears not to be quite as brain dead as we were led to believe.

act 4
Back from commercials, we find the Son is gazing thoughtfully out the window. Alex arrives.

Meanwhile, the doctors are telling abused Mom that SOB Dad only has an hour left. She wants to talk to her Son, but Sandra Oh wants to keep her away because “when we’re feeling emotional it’s hard to keep a level head and face the facts” (about one’s husband being an abusive killer). But Mom realizes that Sandra Oh clearly does not understand the power of love.

None of the transplant doctors (for OOTBDD) care about the patient possibly not being brain dead; so George calls in the Dempsey calvary. Dempsey flexes his neurosurgery muscles and insists on doing tests before this person’s organs are scattered across the state. Amazingly, InterimChief agrees because it’s not his call. The wannabe chiefs are kind of acting like buddies while their former girlfriends exchange meaningful looks. Because he noticed the not brain deadness of the patient, George gets to tag along for the MRI.

As the clock ticks down on the SOB’s window of opportunity, Alex takes the son out for a stroll to chat about “the Anger”. Alex reveals that his anger at his mother-beating father took on a life of his own. A life that led Alex dangerously close to the world of professional wrestling. Although he buffed up, beat up his dad, and ran away from home, he now wishes that he’d been nicer to his old man. Surprisingly he convinces the son to give the dad another chance.

Back in the Mom’s hospital room, the Son is pounding on his wheelchair while everyone looks on in suspense. This pounding is actually really annoying, but I suppose it’s meant to convey his emotional conflict and the lack of time. [[Hey that's a Bunnicula poster on Mom's wall!]] When the Son decides to donate a chunk of his liver, he lays out some conditions: mom is going to tell the cops the truth about the accident and she and the son are moving out because enough is enough.

act 5
As we start the final act of the episode Oh and InterimChief take a little time to deal with their break-up. He wants to know if she’s O.K.; she answers by asking if she can scrub in. If so, she’s fine. That’s the Sandra Oh we know and love!

Meanwhile, Dempsey and George are wrapping up the OOTBDD story by looking at the MRI and talking about their crappy days. Dempsey reveals the silver lining, saying that he’s going to take out the tumor to give this patient a good chance at recovery. He dismisses the transplant team and asks George to look out for Meredith. [[ Doesn't Dempsey know about George's unrequited love for Grey? ]]

Let’s not even talk about how this is meant to make the home audience feel about the prospect of organ donation. Because it’s time for George to talk to Dead Guy’s very granola-looking family from Portland. Before he does this, he takes a few minutes to break up with his short-term nurse girlfriend. He tells her that it isn’t because of Alex or “the syph” [[are they not allowed to say Syphilis on the air?]], but because there’s another girl for him. A girl who could give him Ebola and he wouldn’t care. What he’s trying to say is that he just doesn’t like the nurse enough to patch things up. This sounds really harsh, but she doesn’t seem to mind being written out of the show since she gave the relationship a shot and appreciates his honesty.

This is of course a nice warm up for letting the family know that their husband/father/whatever is dead. This, of course, is Bailey’s lesson for George. Because he spent hours doing pointless interventions, he can now tell the family that they did everything they could. As he breaks the news, the kind hearted syphilitic nurse looks on lovingly.

Wrapping up the threads of the episode Addison and Dempsey have a little chat in the elevator about their relationship. Or Addison tries, with a speech about trying to get attention, and her loneliness in success, etc. but like Grey Dempsey claims to be a “sink with an open drain.” Speaking of the title character, Grey is hanging out with JudyGuy, who is feeling a little empty, too. Just like Meredith. How serendipitous that they were assigned to each other! Still, they’re not quite soul mates enough for her to find out why he likes to pass doll heads through his digestive tract. Here, the audience breathes a sigh of relief.

The ever-so-meaningful voice over returns as the episode closes to blather on about the joy of a half full glass, knowing when to say when, wanting a taste, etc. The point is that some people need just a taste (maybe the InterimChief) and others never get enough and always wants more (Grey gazing at Patrick Dempsey). One of these might have been about Bailey’s obsession with Judy dolls, too.

Next week (mb]: dramatic things involving the return of Dr. Mother Grey and Sandra Oh on a gurney!