Oops! It turns out that there was a new episode of Grey’s Anatomy [abc] last week. The full recap is posted behind the jump. Sorry for the delay, but the Southern California desert and all of the rock and roll goodness got in the way of television watching. This should have you all caught up for tonight’s episode.

The episode opens in the hallway of intern hangouts, and we soon find that George and Crazy Torres are still
shacking up in the hospital. As Meredith voice-overs, they have decidedly non-weepy sex in the storeroom. She thanks
him profusely for his efforts.

About that voiceover: “The key to being a successful intern is what we give up. Sleep. Friends. A normal life. We
sacrifice it all for that one amazing moment. That moment when you can legally call yourself a surgeon.”

Speaking of amazing moments, we cut to the trailer on the mythical Seattle lake. Apparently, it has just been a
rocking. Addison thanks Dempsey, which cracks him up because it was the boringest sex of all time. Trying again is
all in good fun until someone knocks their heads into each other. Slapstick at the Dempsey bedroom. We’ll be here
all week, folks . . .

“There are days that make the sacrifice worthwhile.”

The phone rings. It’s the vet calling about Doc the Dog. Addison grabs the phone and tells “Dr. Danders” that she’ll
have to go now because she and her husband are really trying their best to have some decent sex. Speaking of
hilarity, guess who wasn’t on the other side of the phonecall. If you guessed Dr. Chris O’Donnell — gold star for
you! It was Meredith, calling from Dr. Chris O’Donnell the Veterinarian’s office.

“And then there are the days where everything feels like a sacrifice”

Enter Dr. O’Donnell with Doc the Dog, both look rather frisky. Doc can go home. The vet tries to diagnose the
Grey-Dempsey situation: she says that he’s married and she’s knitting a sweater. The comedy routine continues here.
She repeats everything he says: that she’s single, asks her out, on a date. Meredith goes all flustered. She’s not
dating.

“And then there are the sacrifices that even you can’t figure out why you’re making.”

Big Board. Bailey. The Chief. Chief Wannabe #2. Bailey’s name isn’t on the board. The Chief pats her on the back.
Burke asks if she’s concerned about being mommy-tracked and gives her the Denny case for the day. Enter Sandra Oh
with coffee. He’s not enthusiastic, he’s missing his running buddy George, who shows up with a cappuccino for his
new bestest buddy. (If only Oh hadn’t quit with the “mocha lattes.) They shoulder bump and George follows up with
the news the Eugene Foot has arrived. O’Malley knows all about Burke’s love for this patient, a “genius violinist”,
but Sandra Oh’s in the dark. He invites George “in”, but he’s on Neuro. So Oh begs her way in, reminding him that
some nostalgia for her laying naked on top of him last night might be in order.

Looking through charts, Meredith asks Alex for advice about her dating Chris O’Donnell, but he’s not interested in
yeast cream or being a chick. Since he’s not on drugs, in jail, or a serial murderer Alex says that it’s o.k. to do
him. But Meredith isn’t talking about “doing”, she’s taking about “dating.” Plus. the whole knitting. Sandra Oh
drops by to disparage veterinary medicine, saying that they aren’t even real doctors. Note that she isn’t annoyed by
Meredith’s characterization of O’Donnell as “McVet.”

Grumpy Addison arrives, and Meredith and Oh scatter. Although he “doesn’t do vagina”, Alex is the only intern left;
so he’s on the case.

Bailey and Grey visit Denny, Izzie’s nearly heartless crush. They discuss the option of a portable heart fixer
machine and Isabel interrupts to (re-)warn him of the dangers before Bailey can send her on her merry way. The
weirdness of the inappropriate Dr.-Patient relationship doesn’t go unnoticed here.

In today’s other cardiac storyline, the genius violinist tells Burke that he wants his pacemaker removed because
it’s destroyed his ability to be a genius violinist. The patient’s music changed Burke’s life, the pacemaker has
changed the patient’s rhythm. Oh thinks it’s a little weird to sacrifice his music for his life, but Foot says that
they’re one and the same. There’s one last setting to tweak before deciding anything.

Addison’s patient is an overproductive mother. Overproductive, in that she’s 38 weeks pregnant with kid #7. Daddy
and the first half-dozen kids head off in search of ice cream, leaving Mommy Dearest a private moment with the
doctors. Mom wants Addison to interfere a bit with God’s plan and tie her tubes during the c-section. Without ever
telling her husband. Drama!

[ title card ]

The trick of all of this is that Mommy doesn’t want Daddy to find out about the tube-tying when he looks through the
hospital bills. She assures them that she hasn’t been abused, she’s just over-burdened with her existing kids. Dad
takes the Pope’s advice w/r/t birth control and wouldn’t be o.k. with any artificial efforts to stop their marriage
from bearing fruit. Alex, in Brash Young Doctor mode isn’t down with operation deception, and lashes out at the
patient for using the Pope to condone her lies. Addison takes it outside, Alex mouths off, and she tells him off
with a list of her credentials.

Hey look! It’s Dr. Diane Grad from Chicago Hope! Except not really. Jayne Brook is playing Seattle’s top
divorce attorney who has a case of the seizures. Dr. Dempsey has her holed up in the hospital waiting for the next
one to hit so that he can map it using a funny hat to allow a more precise surgery. The main problem is that she’s
been there for a while without any seizures. The secondary problem is that she quickly figures out that Dempsey
might be in the market for a divorce. All of her time finalizing break-ups has significantly improved her powers of
perception; that, and the look that George and Isabel gave each other when she asks about whether any of them are
looking to get out of a bad marriage. Outside, he demands that they take extraordinary measures to get her to have a
seizure — drunken whiffle ball playing — because he wants her out of his life. With that, Isabel and George get to
work on seizure research. Isabel is more interested in researching where George is living. To Izzie’s annoyance,
Torres drops by to whisper sweet, funny, nothings into O’Malley’s ears.

Burke gets a private concert from Foot, saying that it’s an honor to hear him play. But the musician reads his mind,
saying that every-thing’s off and he has no business calling himself Eugene Foot, Genius Violinist. Burke tells him
that the operation won’t be simple. EFGV tells the story of how he came to love the violin, and although the surgery
could kill him, he wants the operation. If Burke won’t do it, he’ll find someone who will. Talking to Sandra Oh,
Burke says that EFPV is right: he no longer plays like EFGV. Still, he’s thinking about letting EFGV go somewhere
else. Oh tries to talk him out of it, since he’s the best hope and being average is excruciating painful and for
complete losers.

Back at the Tin Man’s room, Grey and Bailey are discussing the possibilities of installing the new heart support
device. They think he’s up for it, but he’s concerned that Isabel gave him different advice. He’s very interested in
getting the tubes out of his “you know what”. Bailey can see that he’s more worried about hurting Izzie’s feelings,
this would definitely concern him. He tries to cover, but they see right through him. Bailey interrogates Grey about
Izzie’s level of involvement with her patient. When Meredith tells her that she doesn’t think that Isabel would be
stupid enough to fall for a patient, Bailey reminds her that she and Oh were both stupid enough to fall for their
attendings. On the bright side, it turns out that Grey isn’t stupid enough to believe that Bailey cares about her
knitting or possible vet dating, although she still tells her about it.

Back at Chicago Hope, George and Isabel try to induce a seizure by having the patient watch TV up close. While they
Bicker, Lawyer Grad talks about how she’s had a chance to watch Oprah, praising her wisdom for never marrying
Stedman.

Addison works on convincing Mommy Dearest that she should just tell her husband about the tubal ligation. But the
Pope is pretty powerful, and denying his will would really screw up their marriage. The only way they held off on
kids for 4 years was with three years of abstinence (can you imagine? not being able to make love to your husband?
Addison doesn’t reveal that she can imagine this). Alex continues the unsympathy routine, illustrating how
the husband would look at his sacrilegious wife.

At the intern gossip station, Isabel tells Meredith that she’s on her side for today on account of George’s
suckiness. Meredith quizzes her about dumping Alex for a heart patient. Which, to Oh, is no worse than dating a vet.

In surgery, Addison detects some “bleeding” around Mommy Dearest’s uterus. They have a standoff over the bovi, but
eventually she cauterizes the fallopian tubes. After the commercials, she tells her patient about the
“complications” that will prevent her from being able to have any more children. Mommy thanks her, but on the way
out Alex confronts Addison about how it would be the most bizarre complication in medical history. Addison reminds
her that their obligation is only to her.

Metric plays in the background as we go into a montage of intercutting scenes to get us through the
patient-related plot development. {I’ll just summarize these case by case. Incidentally, last
weekend I was seeing Metric at Coachella (she was great), which is how I completely forgot to recap this episode
until now.}

Alex storms off. He runs into Daddy, and suggests that the “complication” could be God’s way of putting his seven
kids through college if he gets a lawyer.

Meredith catches Dempsey in the elevator and they have a good laugh
over the morning phone call. She tells him about Chris O’Donnell’s asking her whether they were together. They
exit the elevator. We Cut to Izzie and George forcing espresso and donuts down Lawyer Grad’s throat. Dempsey walks
in with his disappointed face. Later, she plays violent video games. Isabel and George fight about his lack of
disclosure, and his anger with her over the Meredith situation. Isabel says that even though what Meredith did was
wrong, George knew the risks and needs to take a little responsibility. Their fight triggers a seizure. Mission
accomplished.

In the O.R., EFGV’s pacemaker removal surgery doesn’t go well. Despite Burke and Oh’s best efforts, they’re soon
calling a time of death.

The Chief interrupts Tin Man Denny’s new heart thingy. Bailey is really annoyed. Denny’s soon gasping for air, the
Chief is second-guessing Bailey. But when we get back from the commercials, all’s well in Dennyland. Meredith asks
him about Isabel. Not because she disapproves, or is on a high horse [pay attention to this for later], but because
it’s really not allowed for doctors dating patients. Denny doesn’t care about the rules, because
his most memorable life experiences have been about rule-breaking. Life is too short for rules.

Bailey confronts the Chief about his short-changing her schedule. He says that he values her and it’s not a
punishment, but he’s concerned that she’s not back on her game with all of the sleep deprivation involved with just
having a baby and coming off maternity leave. Their conversation is cut short by litigious Daddy.

Off work, Meredith drops by Chris O’Donnell’s place to tell him that she’s back in the dating game. He’s glad to hear
it, but has an errand to run. She volunteers to tag along. Soon, they’re in Enumclaw. Or some other horse stable.
He’s there to birth a horse. Meredith declines to stay out of the stall, volunteering to help.

Back at the hospital, Addison wants to talk to the Chief about Alex’s insubordination; he wants to talk to her about
the mystery complication and the legal implications.

In Lawyer Grad’s room, Dempsey tells her that she had a grand mal seizure (bad news), but that he now knows where to
cut to treat them (good news). However, her days of fun trying to conjure a seizure caused her to re-evaluate. Maybe
her work-centered friendless funless life in which she only encounters fighting people would be a better solution
than having her skull peeled away. She decides that she’ll try a lifestyle intervention before letting Dempsey have
a crack at her brain.

Holy cuteness overload! Baby horse cantering around its mother! Grey and O’Donnell agree that it’s pretty good. Us,
too.

Mommy Dearest apologizes to Addison about telling her husband about the complication. She refuses to reveal to him
that the “complication” was her idea. It’s only frivolous lawsuits after all, not that she’s ungrateful or anything.

Burke takes a moment in the bunkbed room of doctor infidelity with a CD of EFGV.

At vet central, the horse afterbirth isn’t coming off Meredith. She tries not going upstairs for him to cook her
dinner. He lobbies for it, because it involves her naked in his apartment. She re-refuses, insisting on her
celibacy. He promises not to have sex, or even kiss her.

Voiceover time again: “A wise man once said that you can have anything in life if you will sacrifice anything for
it.”

George drops by Lawyer Grad’s room to say that he hopes that changing her life will help. She says that people who
fight like he and Isabel love each other and they should make up and be friends again.

“What he meant is nothing comes without a price. So before you go into battle you better decide how much you’re
willing to lose.”

Passing Addison in the hallway, Alex tells Addison that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Sure, he’s
meant to be the brash young intern guy, but this episode seems off the charts, doesn’t it? His punishment is that
she’s assigning him to her service, which seems a lot like punishment to both of them.

Isabel sees the Tin Man walking around with the new heart thing. They do some serious hugging, which Bailey walks
in on.

“Too often, going after what feels good means letting go of what you know is right.”

Sandra Oh visits Burke in the bunk. He tells her that both he and EFGV were the sort who make up for what they lack
in natural ability with discipline. Unlike Sandra Oh, he wasn’t the most talented or brightest at school, but he
was the best. Because he practiced. This arouses some sympathy in her, and she lays her head on his chest.

“And letting someone in means abandoning the walls you’ve spent a lifetime building.”
“Of course, the toughest sacrifices are the ones we don’t see coming.”

Dempsey and Doc the Dog, sick again, pay a visit to Dr. O’Donnell’s office. Meredith comes downstairs in one of his
shirts, inducing a stunned hurt look on Dempsey’s face.

George and Torres drop in on Isabel at the Grey House. I forgot to mention this, but George has a new haircut from
the last episode. It doesn’t look much better than the Hobbit version as far as I’m concerned. Anyway, he explains
that since they spent the night at her place last night (a.k.a. the illegal hospital squat), tonight they’re hanging
out there. That is, he’s moving back in. After all, he’s still paying rent. They crack open a couple of beers and
all in magically well again. Isabel eats a cookie, happy about the arrangement, welcoming him home.

“When we don’t have time to come up with a strategy to pick a side or to measure the potential loss . . . ”

Dempsey is back at the trailer. He turns on the shower while she complains about her day. He takes off his clothes
and tells her to get in the shower. She says that it’s small, but he asks if she wants to have hot sex. She thanks
him and strips as they tumble into the tiny stall. Seeing her in a vet’s clothes is all it took to break Dempsey
of his Grey habit, I guess.

“. . . when that happens, when the battle chooses us and not the other way around, that’s when the sacrifice can
turn out to be more than we can bear.”

— previous episode [mb] | next episode [mb]

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