Once again, it’s another new episode of Grey’s Anatomy [abc].

After the jump, play-by-play tour of the episode featuring a whole lot of loving, a key-induced existential crisis, a one night stand that results in maybe the most mentions of an erect penis in primetime history, something about a thirsty tumor, and a quintuplet storyline that will carry over into next week’s episode!

The hour opens with yet another post-Joe’s one night stand hookup for Meredith. Ah, memories of the first episode! But this time, Grey isn’t the only one using her anatomy. Most of the show’s couples swirl into various stages of undress and into bed — Sandra Oh and Chief “Preston” Wannabe #2 at his place, Alex and Isabel also at the Grey House, Patrick Dempsey and AddiSatan, possibly in a hotel room. For all of the hot sexy intro action, most of the pairings end with at least one unhappy partner.

While all of this is going on, we get the voiceover to tell us that sex is the new candy. “When you were a kid, it was halloween candy, you hid it from your parents and ate it until you got sick. In college it was the heady combo of youth tequilia, and well, you know.
As a surgeon, you take as much of the good as you can get, because it doesn’t come around nearly as often as it should. Cause good things aren’t always what they seem. Too much of anything. even love is not always a good thing.”

On the phone to Sandra Oh, Meredith reports that there’s a boy in her bed. For those of you playing along at home, it’s not the same guy who bought her a drink last Sunday night. Sandra Oh one ups her hookup, by revealing that she’s at CW2’s apartment, which is freakshow spotless, lots of stainless steel, books arranged in Dewey Decimal order, even worse, not a lot of stuff for morning after snooping. Meredith tells her latest that she needs a shower and he needs to leave. Meanwhile, Oh uncovers a key in a coffee cup with her name on it.

George, after another “sleepless night in Seattle” (thin walls + loud roommate sex makes George a tired boy), runs into Isabel in the kitchen where they recount the highlights of Meredith’s latest sexual exploits. He claims not to mind, since he’s totally over her, but wonders whether his roommate is trying to set some kind of record. George also mentions that he noticed that Alex came home with Isabel last night. Alex, however, didn’t want to stick around to talk. There were technical difficulties, which George finds hilarious. He’s definitely going to think about making fun of him the next time he sees him. Isabel says that Alex claimed that it never happens. George laughs and reveals that’s what we (and by “we” the means “they”) all say. Isabel doesn’t find it funny, she just needs sex now and pulls him toward her. But George says that no matter how hard she begs, he’s not doing her.

We find Addison in the Chief’s office. She’s signing her big contract and getting all sorts of praise from her new official employer. The Chief says that he’s giving her a huge salary, her own service, a fancy NICU, and whatever she needs to become his newest star. Conveniently enough, she’s expecting a mother who’s expecting quintuplets and will need lots of doctors to help post-delivery.

In the radiology room, an annoying guy yells about there being food on this flight. Alex briefs Dempsey about the case: Old Yeller collapsed and fell and got a subdural hemorrhage, along with a bunch of weird stuff like strange eye movements and a sodium too low for Patrick’s tastes. The patient calls for a stewardess to bring him a drink, and Dempsey notices a cyst on the pituitary gland that’s causing his delirium, excessive thirst. Apparently, it’s not to blame for his extremely annoying personality. Alex is left to treat him with a few hours of saline solution.

Elsewhere, it’s time for Isabel and Addison to meet the high-profile parents. Isabel is very knowledgeable about gestation periods. For what it’s worth, the Quint Mom is 32 weeks (Dr. Model sez that 34 would be very successful, although Quintcubator wants to keep them in utero for 36. If only she realized that she was on a television drama, she wouldn’t be so optimistic.) QuintDad is on the phone dealing with their other kids (triplet boys). Isabel makes a poorly received joke about the consequences of fertility drugs. Instead of thanking her from avoiding an Eight is Enough joke, Addison tells her not to say everything that pops into her head.

Outside the hospital, Sandra Oh and Meredith sip generic lattes. Meredith whines about how her one night stands always look so sad when she sends them home and wonders why they don’t realize that being picked up for sex in a bar doesn’t imply a future of picket fences or kids. [Maybe they're just sad that they're sent off into the cold morning without breakfast?] Always competitive, even in relationship storytelling, Oh brings out the freshly minted key to Chief Wannabe #2’s apartment. Being “keyed before coffee” leads her into an analogy about how today’s men are like 1950s debutantes. Guess who arrives just in time for the conversation about how pesky it is when men want to stick around? Why, it’s Meredith’s latest fling! He’s surprised, embarrassed to find that she works at the hospital. Or maybe he’s just embarrassed to be showing up with his coat draped awkwardly in front of him. He’s having a little problem. Rather than underestimate himself, he corrects his statement: he’s having a big problem. Throwing back the curtain that was his coat, he reveals the source of his agony. Thankfully, the home audience is spared from the view that Sandra Oh drools over. Ever since Meredith, the guy has been unable to shake his gigantic throbbing erection. This scene would have been approximately 100 times funnier if he had a Trapper Keeper instead of a jacket. Goodbye 1950s family hour!

– credits –

Meredith and Sandra Oh drag Cocky into the hospital. He says that it hurts like it’s serious. Grey wants to hide him somewhere until they can figure out what’s wrong with him. After all, she doesn’t want the whole hospital finding out that she broke a guy’s penis. [I guess she's come to terms with the whole hospital knowing that she picks up one night stands at Joe's bar, one of whom happens to be her married boss]. On cue, Bailey enters with a “broke his what?” Oh escapes to check on labs.

Back in the baby den, Isabel says that the ultrasound doesn’t look bad. When the Quintcubator expresses concern over this, she says that “not bad is pretty good when you have five babies in your uterus.” The mother thinks that Isabel thinks that she’s crazy or stupid, and tells her that the only way that she’ll be offended is if Isabel doesn’t admit to have been judging her since the moment they met. Since they’re going to be together for a long time, why not be honest? Isabel, opting out of small talk, informs her patient that had she simply reduced the pregnancy by two, the other three could have hung out in the Uterus Inn for a few more weeks and been born healthier. With this, Quintcubator takes her doctor on a tour of her oversized belly, introducing each member of her own personal Party of Five along the way.

Back at erection central, Meredith explains that they were just bring Cocky up because he was a friend. Despite a bit of harsh interrogation, with threats of procedures and pain such that he’ll wish that he never had a penis, Bailey can’t get him to admit to having anything less than a 100% natural and drug free specimen holding court in his pants. He’s admitted for mysterious priapism and Meredith gets the joy of doing the work-up. Does anyone else get the sense that the show arranges possibly unethical pairings for the sake of awkward drama?

Both Chief Wannabes are at the desk, and at AddiSatan’s disposal. [Is there a new Chief Wannabe in town?] In any case, she gives them the rundown on the quintuplet drama that’s about to unfold, and introduces Dempsey to the mother. Quintcubator thinks that two doctors with the same last name must be so cute that everyone at the hospital hates them. She must be a regular viewer! In any case, Dempsey’s charge will be to take care of LuCy, the little hydrocephalic baby. The good news is that he’ll be able to take care of it early to avoid brain damage.

Back at the Desk. Sandra Oh and “Preston” have a short existential discussion about the key that she found in her coffee mug this morning (”If a key turns a lock and no one asked for the key or even wanted the key, does it make a sound?”) Meredith interrupts to report that Cocky was ED free and needs an enema. She can’t do it; so she makes a deal with Oh. Meredith will do all of her enemas for the next month. As delicious as this all sounds, is this really the best use of surgical intern time? A scene later, her lubed up finger meets Cocky who can’t believe this is happening (”you have a few drinks, a few laughs, you make out in the car, you have a good time”) . . . and you find yourself being anally probed the next day to take down a runaway erection. I will definitely need a shower to wash away the ickiness of typing up this episode.

Back to the most annoying patient of the episode, middle-aged angry Old Yeller. The docs tell him about the cyst and how they’re planning to take it out through his nose. For this reason, they’re taking away his SmartWater privileges. Old Yeller tells his sweater vested assistant man to look up Dempsey’s credentials and looks really unhappy when he takes away his water bottles. This case is really boring and only seems to exist as a mechanism for Alex to have some uncomfortable realizations about the consequences of his BYGness.

Speaking of Alex, he and SyphiNurse are catching up outside Old Yeller’s room. They go back and forth about how she’s not not talking to him, but isn’t so keen on having gotten Syphilis. She wonders about George, who Alex likens to a fetus — whiny and afraid of the light. Being all about the minimal disclosure, BYG doesn’t see the problem with George not knowing about their fling. SyphiNurse strides off just as Isabel drops by to tell Alex that she used her Quints connection to get him on the list of doctors to clean up post-delivery. He doesn’t seem very excited, which leads to a discussion of their sex life. She wants to know if it was her? (He claims that, unrelated to her Dr. Modelness, he just wasn’t in the mood.) His being on call thwarts her plan for a make up make out session that night; so she proposes an on the job hookup since people have sex in Seattle Grace Hospital all the time. Here, we thank Chief Wannabe #2 for setting such a shining example for his students.

Bolting up the stairwell of Intern Run Ins to get a spot on the Quints List, George runs into a dejected looking Meredith, sitting between flights. Whether Meredith is saddened by Cocky’s Permanent Erection and its potential effect on her hospital or dating relationship or if it’s over not being able to help with the Quint Post Birth Recovery Efforts on account of AddiSatan’s involvement is not really at all clear. George lightens the moods to ask about how one goes about breaking a guy’s penis.
g: how do you break a guy’s penis? He sits down for the lecture, which begins with Grey’s question, “why does every guy I meet come with his own set of nightmarish humiliations?” George, clearly not over her, suggests that it’s a matter of the volume, and that the quality vs. quantity. Meredith gets insulted about being essentially called a slut, but George just thinks that she’s being risky and could end up in some guy’s Silence of the Lambs hole in some guy’s, “putting the lotion on the skin unless you’ll get the hose again” until Jodie Foster shows up to save the day. He thinks she wants to be over Dempsey, but a future of one night stands and problematic penises isn’t want she wants. She wants and deserves better. Not every guy is a nightmare. Maybe this is George’s prelude to a “love me, pick me” speech?

– commercials —

Back from the commercials, we find Isabel and Alex half dressed (or half undressed, depending on your place on the optimism-pessimism continuum) in the Bunk Bed with Tasteful Desk Lamp suite. Yet another failed attempt at the lovemaking, and Isabel still thinks it’s all about her. He denies it, but when she brings up the idea that it’s a medical thing since “some guys have problems”, he tells her to get back into that bottom bunk. They’re going to keep on doing it until they do it right. He slowly unties her scrub pants, leaving just enough time for Isabel to be paged. He punches the top bunk in anger as she dashes out to meet up with AddiSatan and the Quintcubator.

After asking Isabel where she’s been, Addison tells her patient that she has a low laying placenta. Everyone wants to keep the quints in there as long as possible. With drugs, hyphenated procedures, and putting Isabel on call for the night, the doctors are going to do their best to delay labor. Quintseminator, reporting on his puking triplets, looks less certain about his impending 4th through 8th children, but mom gives him a pep talk about how they survived the triplet boys and will do great with the girls too.

In Cocky’s room, Bailey peeks under the sheet. We get old one eye’s view as she tells us (Sandra Oh and Meredith, really) that the enema didn’t work. Sandra Oh says that the next step is a needle aspiration. He isn’t happy about introducing his penis to a sharp and pointy, but after Bailey tells him that not draining the blood could result in impotence, gangrene, he nauseously consents. Meredith tells him to relax, to which he points out the obvious: “If I could relax I wouldn’t be here”).

Alex meets up with Old Yeller’s assistant, telling him that his boss’s surgery is scheduled for tomorrow and that he shouldn’t be allowed to drink any water even if he begs. To illustrate the perils of minimal disclosure, the assistant tells Alex that Old Yeller doesn’t have any family and friends on account of his generally disagreeable nature. Since he’s been assisting for three years, maybe the assistant is his friend.
a: don’t let him drink any water
assistant: no friends,i’ve been his assistant for three years

Oh and Grey then pick up the key conversation over penile blood sucking. Meredith thinks that Chief Wannabe #2 will be hurt if she returns the key, and doesn’t think that she should have taken the key if she didn’t intend to use it. Cocky interjects to be an advocate for Burke, saying that giving her a key was a big step and that he was putting himself out there. Sandra Oh points out that he isn’t in the best position to be dispensing relationship advice. With the procedure over, she congratulates him on being flaccid. He’s surprised to be so happy to hear the news.

In the Quint Den, Addison introduces Chief Wannabe #2 and George to the Quintparents. They’re there to talk to them about one of the babies and her hypoplastic left heart syndrome. Dad seems surprised to hear about this, maybe he’s been too busy with the boys to realize that his wife is in the last stages of a high-risk pregnancy? Neither Burke nor the Quintcubator believe in odds (which aren’t supposed to be great for the heart valve surgery). Addison wanted them to have a chance to ask questions now since there won’t be a lot of time to chat after the girls are born; so he explains the problems with her heart.

In the Elevator of Important Conversations, Burke and Sandra Oh meet to talk even more about this morning’s key party. He says that it’s just a key, which she thinks is a good answer. Until he nervously says, well, maybe it means that you could start thinking about moving in with me. It’s nice that the Old Yeller storyline has competition for the least interesting, but really. Do we need yet another excuse for these two to engage in uncomfortable glances away from each other until Sandra Oh can flee the elevator in shock?

Checking in on Old Yeller. Alex runs into the assistant making a hasty exit. Sweater vest was just fired because the boss didn’t think the he commanded his respect anymore. Or because he was thirsty? Alex suggests that Old Yeller thought that Sweater Vest was his friend, but the prospect of this is ridiculous to the angry thirsty man. Here we go, the Alex-targeted patient-delivered message: “I’m sure you’re a hotshot doctor who doesn’t let any of the other hot shot doctors around here know anything about your problems.” Alex agrees with the hotshot doctor part, but says that because of that he doeesn’t have any problems. The knives to the heart aren’t done yet, as Old Yeller guesses that Alex probably doesn’t have any friends either. Zing! The other interns have been saying this for the past 15 episodes.

Hit me baby one more time, it’s the Penis Cam looking up at Bailey once again. Guess who’s back? Why it’s none other than Cocky’s Big Fat Erect Penis. To her, this means that it’s a neurological problem. When Grey enters the room, Sandra Oh quietly informs her that a neuro has already been called for a consult. Do the math, and this means that Patrick Dempsey is already on his way to see the swollen member of the last guy that Meredith slept with. Awkward much? On cue, he shows up to ask, “what’s up?” Oh, the humanity.

– commercials –

We return to find Dempsey’s curious expression as he looks deep into the eye of the Penis Cam. Jesus. Let’s hope they retire this device at the end of the episode. He asks when this all started. Cocky reports that he had an erection last night and woke up with one this morning. Bailey knows that an early exit from Penisland is in her best interest; so she jets off to consult with the Quintcubator, with Sandra Oh quickly following after. Probing deeper, Dempsey asks when he last ejaculated. At this point the countdown to Meredith’s embarrassment strikes zero, as cocky asks her what time their moment of drunken bliss ended. Intrigued/offended/jealous [?], Despsey repeats the question, but with different italics and dramatic pauses: “Yes, Meredith, what time did you two . . . ?” This is possibly the most bizarre thing about this episode. They can have an entire storyline about priapism, with repeated offscreen erections, but need to leave the actual mentions of sex in the ellipses?

At the Quintfant Den, Bailey explains the problem with her particular little patient. The little problem being that one of the quintuplets has all of her tiny organs growing in a sac outside her body. Like the rest of the consulting doctors, Bailey seems confident that she’ll be able to fix this up with a small incision and an abdominal tuck-in.

As night falls on Seattle Grace, Chief Wannabe #2 meets up with Sandra Oh in the locker room. Oh asks what makes him think they can live together, since he doesn’t know anything about her. [and whose fault is that?] “Preston” responds by saying that he does know her. As evidence, he reminds her about how she likes a certain scalpel, has a cute name for forceps (pickups), prefers coffee from the coffee cart to the cafeteria. She’s not convinced by those tiny details, but he insists. He knows her. He knows that she doesn’t want to move, but he can’t always be the one that takes the step. And then another ultimatum: any more steps and he’s walking away. He then nods, turns and walks away. But not metaphorically or symbolically. He just leaves.

At Old Yeller’s room, SyphiliNurse is pounding on his bathroom door. He’s locked them out, even though she says that he can’t. Alex rushes over, and chides himself for failing in his tiny obligation to keep his idiot patient from drinking. In what seems like a scorched earth strategy, he dispatches SyphiliNurse to get some restraints and shut off the water for the entire floor while he takes care of this business. When she returns (after the next scene), the water’s been shut off, and Alex huffs and puffs and breaks down the bathroom door to find Old Yeller lapping away at the water in the toilet.

We return to everyone’s favorite erection, where Patrick Dempsey has found the cause of all the excitement. Cocky has a tumor on his lower spine, which is inducing the erection. Cocky wonders whether he should be scared, grasps for Meredith’s hand. She says not to worry. They’ll remove the tumor and everything will return to normal. Then there’s another bit of wordplay where Cocky and Dempsey repeat their little repeated wordplay things in which they do each other’s lines with different emphasis points where we learn that things will be back to “normal, normal”. Through all of this Meredith looks seasick and Dempsey acts especially disgusted. Cocky asks her to call his mother using a number that he keeps in his wallet. That’s kind of weird, but at least he has the good sense to remind her not to tell the Moms why she’s getting on a plane. Or not. Maybe that would be way scarier. What do I know, I’m not a mother. Dempsey’s mean-spiritedness continues when he asks how long they’ve been seeing each other. pd: how long have you been seeing each other. Meredith says that they aren’t seeing each other, and Cocky fills in with the part about them meeting at Joe’s bar last night. In case we’ve forgotten, Dempsey reminds us that he met a girl there, too. A very long time ago. He’s awfully judgmental here, for someone with his history.

– commercials —

We get back to find Old Yeller where we left him. Alex and SyphiliNurse drag him away from the toilet and back to bed. He’s still thirsty and ornery as they chain him back to his bed and he yells at them to stop looking at him in his pathetic state. To take down the hotshot doctor, he threatens to fire him, but Alex seems to like this idea.

Cut to Chief Wannabe #2 at home, doing weird abdominal exercises with a handheld wheel. Sandra Oh enters, proud of her use of the key. Burke agrees that it’s a step. She asks if he really wants to know him and he says that there’s nothing she could tell him that he wouldn’t want to know. As he should know by now, such a statement is a recipe for disaster. We jump to Sandra Oh’s very very messy apartment. She gives him the tour of her homemaking deficiencies: she doesn’t do laundry, she just buys new underwear, she doesn’t throw away magazines [ed: me too!], she tried hiring a maid but it didn’t work, her fridge only has water, soda, and vodka [ed: me too!!]. She doesn’t care about these things, but knows that he does and asks if he still thinks that living together is a good idea. He looks far too stunned by all of this to say anything.

Instead, we look at a pretty pink sunrise as the camera quarter-circles the Washington Municipal Tower [emporis], more affectionately (and appropriately) knows as the Penis Building. Talk about doing their research!

At the hospital coffee cart, Isabel approaches to make tea and tell Meredith and Alex that they’re on notice. Not in the Colbert Report way, but in that Addison wants them to be on the quintuplet case. How perfect: five babies, five interns! She’s annoyed that they’re not stoked about their assignment. Walking away, Alex says the he was studying and asks Meredith about her excuse. She was staring at the ceiling in horror as her one night stand turned into a neuro case. Alex is impressed by her penis breaking skills. Meredith says, “So I’m having a of of sex, what’s wrong with that?” Alex says that there’s nothing wrong with that [except maybe that he isn't? or isn't succeeding.]. She thinks that it only gets problem is starting to care and letting emotions get in the way. As he walks back to Isabel, still at the coffee cart smelling baked goods, a page interrupts his possible intention to say something nice to her.

The page is regarding Old Yeller, who had been acting jittery and all slurry. Soon after Alex arrives, the patient starts foaming at the mouth [really!] and having a seizure. Syphilinurse reveals that Alex gave the wrong sodium order (instead of 500 cc over four hours, he ordered 500 cc per hour over four hours. [goddamn math equations!]). Dempsey is justifiable unhappy with BYG’s lack of follow-up, saying that now that Old Yeller is impaired he can’t have the operation.

Alex retires to the bunk bed room to bounce a racquetball against the wall in Toby Zeigler fashion. Syphilinurse comes in to apologize, saying that he’s still a good doctor, but that Patrick Dempsey needed to know the truth about the Old Yeller situation. Alex says that lately he’s been crap. Same for the nurse, but for different reasons. Seeing an opportunity to wallow in their collective misery, Alex brings up their sex life to ask if the sex that lead to the syph was good. She says that it was good, really good, pretty great. Alex agrees, it was easy and simple. Which is as good a reason as any to cheat on your hot Dr. Model girlfriend. Alex and Syphilinurse start making out on the Bottom Bunk of Failed Alex-Izzie Love, with the nurse saying that he’s better have a condom this time! There you go kids! Don’t forget — unsafe hospital sex can lead to STDs!

Through this scene and the ones following it, a Lifehouse song (”You and Me”) plays distractingly in the background. It’s sappily awful and makes is hard to pay attention to the drama.

Anyway. Sorry for the digression. Next, we find Patrick Dempsey and Meredith all gowned up and in the O.R. cutting away at Cocky’s little spinal tumor. After removing it from the S1 vertebra, they banter between glances into the surgical microscope. He says that he doesn’t think there will be any long term damage, but advises her against trying anything out right away and she compliments him for being such a funny guy. He just didn’t know that she and Cocky were dating. Grey says that it had to happen eventually, to which Dempsey replies that eventually feels a lot different than actually (which is surprisingly painful). He sighs sadly, and she says that it gets better. Or at least she’s determined to be optimistically.

After surgery, Dempsey crosses the big window to nothing but the flapping Washington State flag, and meets up with AddiSatan near the big surgery board. They talk about how she finally signed her contract, which she says was an effort to move forward. He looks unhappy about this prospect, although they agree that they’re O.K. Addison gets paged and she runs off the the QuintDen to find that not only did her water break, but that the placenta is tearing leaving blood on the sheets. With that, it’s time for the much anticipated trip to the O.R.

– commercials —

Addison tells Isabel to page everyone on Quint Duty. The Quintseminator is at home with the kids; so he’ll be called too. Despite their assurances, the Quintcubator thinks that the situation is anything but fine. Isabel asks her to trust them. She’s done her part, and now it’s the doctors’ turn.

From the four minutes left on my clock, it’s obvious that the Quintuplestoryline won’t be resolved this episode, but there’s still time to wrap up Cocky’s tale. Meredith catches up with him post-operatively. He guesses that he’ll need to tell her that he’s happy to see her (because the gun in his pocket has finally been unloaded). He thanks her for being there for him [even though it seemed obvious to the home audience that that was the last thing that she wanted], since you don’t normally expect your one night stand to stick with you through a tumor. He suggests that they do this again sometime [we assume he means the being nice to each other, not the tumor surgery and uncomfortable erections]. But Meredith doesn’t think so. She admits that she was looking for something to make her feel better and thinks that he deserves better. And so ends the story that stretched our expectations about how many mentions of tumescent penises could make it into primetime.

Because elsewhere everyone’s (including Meredith’s) pagers are beeping like crazy to summon them to the giant O.R. that will witness the headline making Quintdelivery. Sandra Oh and Chief Wannabe #2 bolt from the post-coital bliss in her messy apartment, making Alex the only doctor not to heed the call of duty on time. After all, he’s too busy getting his groove back with Syphilinurse. Of all people, Isabel is dispatched to find them in the act on the bottom bunk. She looks crushed and coldly tells him that it’s time for the quints and that they need him.

Soon, the O.R. is packed with doctors, decked out in a huddle reminiscent of March of the Penguins, except with people, and in blue. And with less snow. The music for this montage is less annoying than the previous one’s?

And our suspicions about the incompleteness of the episode are confirmed as the voiceover kicks in, over the thrill of five tiny newborns popping out and being handed off to their various teams and wheeled out to their surgical destinations in little glass cases. “How do you know how much is too much? Too much too soon. Too much information. Too much fun. Too much love. Too much to ask. . . . and when is it all just too much to bear?”

next week: a different, deeper, more dramatic voiceover informs us that 5 doctors will be responsible for five tiny lives! It will be nothing short of a miracle if all of them survive.

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