While you were recovering from your Thanksgiving-induced coma, there was an extra long, super explosive, and blood soaked episode of Grey’s Anatomy [abc]. In case you missed it, a recap is waiting for you after the jump.

White screen. Over a montage of Sandra Oh, covered in blood and stumble running out of an O.R. cross cut with scenes of Sandra Oh and Chief Wannabe #2 sexing each other up in a dimly lit room, Sandra Oh gets the voiceover. {Just like that time when Danielle got the voiceover on that episode of My So-Called Life! The one where the parents go out of town and Rayanne ends up handcuffed to their bed.} Anyway, over all of the blood and sex, today’s episode overview: “As doctors, we know everybody’s secrets. Their medical histories, sexual histories. Confidential information that is as essential to a surgeon as a ten blade. And every bit as dangerous. We keep secrets. We have to. But not all secrets can be kept.”

The cross cuts get faster and faster and then head into reverse over the sounds of machines telling the doctors that their patient is dying. If you paid attention to the previouslies and the voiceover, you pretty much know what’s going to happen on this episode, but let’s recap it just for fun, shall we? Bang. The white light again with all of the time reversal and we’re floating over Seattle, high above I-5 looking southat Lake Union on a sunny day.

In the Grey House, Meredith helps McDempsey work through a crossword on their bed. Still no sex. Enter Sandra Oh, breathless in Standford hoodie and scarf. Not interrupting the non-sex; so Dempsey’s kicked out of the room to allow the urgent b.f.f. desperate heart to heart. She crawls under the covers looking panicked, explaining her sweatiness on a morning jog. Meredith goes through this whole “we don’t jog” routine. {Except for that one time, last season [mb]}. It’s convoluted-yet-transparent hypothetical time: if Dempsey robbed a bank and he got caught and she was driving the getaway car would she turn herself in. Meredith wants to know whose idea it was and tells her that maybe if she drops the harebrained scenario maybe she could help her out. To no avail, Oh is back on her way out and Grey is still confused about the jogging. Once she finds out that George hasn’t said anything about anything, she exits with a dramatic “I jog sometimes. Without you.” and heads down the steps to face down George. She tells him that he has nothing to worry about. He’s not worried. Not anymore. Isabel stops in to be jealous of Oh and Grey’s secret b.f.f. secret time, cranky from the candystriping. She should be grateful to miss out on some of the drama. And Meredith and Dempsey return to their gleeful romantic cackling, George refuses to tell Izzie anything. Tossing a used newspaper in her direction instead.

At Seattle Grace, the Chief walks in looking all glum and casual Friday. He spies Burke and Oh making conspiratorial conversation across the hall. The camera switches so that we can hear her telling him that the sky has already fallen: George Knows. Which, I’m pretty sure she told him the night before. He’s playing it cool — no tremors in a week and fourteen hours of surgery without a hitch. She takes credit, saying that he could only manage because she was by his side the whole time. All of this is wearing her thin, she’s worried that George will say something, on account of his dad going under the knife. She has been working her ass off, running the board surgical procedures she shouldn’t know, and covering for him. He takes offense at this; he’s been covering for her to and they’re a strong team and she shouldn’t sweat the O’malley stuff.

But their little scheming can’t go on forever. Everyone’s getting paged because someone drove a car into the “fish market”. All hands except for Izzie, that is. She’s prepping Father O’Malley, much to Sandra Oh’s dismay. George is also off for the day, further worrying her. Bailey is annoyed when she insists that she’ll need to leave at a moment’s notice to help “her” attending.

As the doctors swirl around the accident victims, an elderly woman explains that the drive-thru wasn’t her husband’s fault. The car, it seems, has a Christine complex. Bailey tries to get her to talk to the cops, but she goes back into the blame game and demands to stay with her husband. Across the way, Burke loses a patient as his old nemesis from Seattle Presbyterian enters with a wisecrack. As if that isn’t enough drama for one intro, a bloody woman staggers into the E.R., collapsing in Addison’s arms.

= title card =

Alex is on glass picking duty, plucking shards out of the bloody woman’s skin. Her day of produce sales at the fish market ended abruptly when she was thrown through a window. I’m trying to figure out the geography of how a car could throw her through a window at the Pike Place market without her ending up falling several stories, but that’s neither here nor there. Old Lady McExcuses drops in to see if she can help her young vegetable-selling friend out, further passing the buck on the demon car. Addison leaves Dr. Plastics to take over until the patient mentions that she hopes that her baby isn’t dead. In her plate-glass induced euphoria, she asks Addision to confirm that the doctors are man candy. She complies.

Izzie drops in to chat with the O’Malley’s about their non-sexual co-ed housing situation. George freaks out as his mother pries into the sexual dynamics. George gets paged, Isabel smiles.

Dr. Rival (Han) banters with Burke about how his getting shot was karma’s revenge on his heart theft (way back in the last season where Izzie killed her fiance to get him a higher ranking on the transplant list.). She’s there for a consult. I wonder who called in the second best cardio-thorassic surgeon in the city to operate on his father… Meredith gossips-up Sandra Oh to contemplate her chances of getting in on Dr. Han’s surgery, wondering who the VIP patient is. As Oh sees Geroge chatting up the rival doctor, her perma-panicked expression gets even more worried and she sprints off.

The Chief is pleasantly surprised to see Dr. Han and lays on the recruitment. George is upset by Callie’s politely asking about his dad. He drops the bomb that he knows about her adventures with Dr. Plastics. Who, by the way is stitching-up Veggie Girl’s forehead. She talks about how she’s keeping the father in the dark. Torres storms in to confront Meredith, but she’s rebuked by all of the medicine going on. Addison sympathizes with Alex’s relegation to scut work, but it turns out the patient has more serious problems than needing a chest tube. Yep, one of those shards of glass managed to find its way into her heart and Bailey has the X-ray to prove it.

Grey tries to catch-up with Callie, but finds Dempsey instead. He shows her the scans of Mr. Driver. His spine has narrowed, meaning that he probably couldn’t feel his legs and definitely shouldn’t have been driving. Preston stops in and Dempsey grills him about what’s going on with Sandra Oh busting up his morning pre-sex romp and skipping out on CT duty. Meredith and Preston provide a cheery cover story. Grey refuses to divulge the content of their morning chat, charming him off of the hunt. She finds the rOhbot spying on the O’Malleys, Dr. Han, and the Chief. Spotting her, the Chief asks that she send Burke to his office A.S.A.P., mentioning that Father O’Malley has elected to have a the cross-town rival take care of his valve replacement.

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In the stairwell of frequent confrontations, Oh is still freaking out as she tells Burke about the surgical switcheroo. She’s sure that the Chief knows about Dr. Shakyhands and suspects that Dr. Han is going to be the new head of Cardio. {Surgery, not aerobics class.} She wants to align their story before he talks to the Chief. But that’s not his style and he skips out.

Isabel’s playing detective in the O’Malley room, wondering why they changed surgeons. This just gives meddling Mrs. O’Malley a chance to dig into George’s love life. Is he sleeping with Dr. Han? Why did Torres break up with him? Izzie spills the dirt about Callie’s naked thing, and mentions the whole “Meredith” thing that the parents obviously didn’t know about. Mom wonders why they’d switch; Izzie says that Dr. Burke is the best, which makes them want him back on the case.

In ye olde locker room, Callie enters in crazy mode, throwing Meredith against the wall and ranting about panties. It takes an Isabel intervention to sort out it wasn’t Grey who told George about her sleeping with “McSteamy”. Izzie suggests that maybe it was, um, the jerk that she had sex with? This cools off Torres, who insists that she didn’t betray George since they’d broken up. As she rushes out to find her weasely beloved, Meredith and Isabel have a cute laughing moment about how Callie went all cage match on her.

George and Izzie meet up at the nurse’s station to chat about his parents and their confusion over his last-minute surgeon trade. He demands that Sandra Oh explain it all, but she just says all that matters is that Dr. Han is a great surgeon, his father is in good hands, and nothing else matters. He tells her that there are a lot of other people’s fathers in the hospital who care about who their doctor is. His little self-righteous crusade is getting old fast. If he really thinks that Burke is such a menace, he needs to say something instead of just being all sneaky and insinuating. She tries to comfort him, but he throws her candystriper status back in his face.

Veggie Girl is hoping to use the excuse of surviving her shard-to-the-heart as a reason to keep her bastard child. Alex encourages her to bring the cheating father back into her life for the sake of the unborn kid. Then she crashes.

As Dempsey tells Old Lady McCrazyExcuses about her husband’s numb legs and all of the surgery that he’s going to need, she continues to blame the family car.

Yet again. Sandra Oh is spying. This time on the Chief and Burke. He exits the office with a handshake and a smile. Again, anyone who watch the previously montage knows what happened, but Oh was too busy prepping excuses, cover stories, and contingency plans to know that the Chief called him into the office because it’s retirement time. He wants Dr. Han to be head of cardio- and Burke to ascend from wannabe to actual Chief of Surgery.

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Back in the dorm room of doctor hookups, Oh and Burke continue to process the Big News. He’s worried about ascending to Cheifdom with a lie in his heart and blood on his shaky hands. She’s all plotting and scheming, seeing this as a way out and a road to more procedures for her. Then he turns, saying that she dragged him across the ethical line, lying to Dempsey, and making them a team. She says that he’s still mad at her for leaving when he got shot. They’re both scared when they go into surgery. He’s worried about his patients and her career. He says that there’s no team, just him making up for her emotional shortcomings. They’re both freaked out by the outburst and decide not to say anything else. He picks up his pager and she takes a nap.

George goes back to his father’s room. They’ve switched back to Dr. Burke because of Izzie’s advice. He explodes. He tells her to get out and revealing that Isabel’s on probation because someone died the last time she was allowed to interact with a patient. She politely exits and George kicks something. Because he’s a jerk.

Dempsey invites Burke to scrub in on NumbLegs just as Alex summons him to extract shard of glass. Burke takes the more glamorous glass removal and requests that Sandra Oh scrub in with him.

In the stairwell, Callie tries to apologize to George, but he’s too busy being crumpled against the rails to talk.

As they wheel of NumbLegs and Veggie Girl off to surgery, Mrs. Excuses makes a confession to Bailey. She knew about his problem, her daughter even took away the keys, but she gave them back because he really loves to drive. Bailey takes her hand and leads her to the cops.

Oh and Burke mask-up and scrub in in silence. Burke extracts the glass and sidelines his girlfriend to prove a point. Sure, he occasionally flexes his fingers to add to the drama, but everything goes well. Not that it comforts Sandra Oh.

Aside from Dr. Han’s flattery of McDempsey’s genius, the other surgery is going less well. Dr. Rival discovers an aortic tear and calls in the calvary. She needs extra hands; so Meredith runs off to fetch Burke (who has just finished Veggie Girl’s heart). While the heart is getting ready to come off bypass, Burke goes to help. Sandra Oh tries to follow, but he tells her to wait. Meredith sees the light when she asks, “do you think Burke can’t operate without you?” and Oh won’t respond. She pleads for Grey to keep her mouth shut and get back to the O.R.

-commecials-

Oh watches over Veggie Girl’s heart for signs of life, worried that Burke isn’t back now that the heart is ready to come off bypass. Meredith eyes Preston’s hands as he stitches up NumbLegs’s aorta. Just in time, Burke returns and they shut down the bypass machines. More finger flexing as the heart starts beating. The patient blows a stitch and squirts all of that blood from the intro all over Sandra Oh. {And you thought that Burke was going to kill George’s dad this episode episode, didn’t you.} While she’s trying to save the day with options, Burke dismisses with an “I don’t need you for this.” Bailey responds to a page, and sticks around to help with the next attempt to come off bypass.

Damien Rice sings a duet in the background and Sandra Oh pulls off her mask and stumbles into the hallway soaked in blood. It’s almost a repeat of the intro, except that this time, there are more lights and other people around.

After the surgery, Burke stops at the Chief’s office to talk. And we see just where Oh went after she cleaned up a little. She’s perched in the back of the room as Preston glares at her.

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She watches from the skybridge as the chief makes an impassioned speech. As Dr. Han exits she tells her how lucky she is (to be studying under Burke).

Alex checks in on Veggie Girl, who made it through the surgery. Addison doesn’t think that she will take his advice about calling the unborn (but still healthy) fetus’s father. She expresses surprise that Alex a protegee / lackey of Dr. Plastics would have such a supportive opinion. {I don’t actually see how telling a woman to go back to her scumbag boyfriend is such an enlightened opinion, but the point of this scene is just for Alex and Addision to have a nice little (kind of flirtatious) moment. So I guess it doesn’t need to make sense. }

In the Elevator of Convenient Meetings, Dempsey runs into Burke. He says that he would have helped him. Burke can’t deal. Dempsey says that he thought that Burke was his friend. Burke responds with an “I thought you were my surgeon.” The rest of the ride is in silence.

As real Sandra Oh leaves the hospital, her concluding voiceover kicks in along with some Bjork violins: “In some ways betrayal is inevitable. When our bodies betray us, surgery is often the key to recovery. When we betray each other … the path to recovery is less clear.”

The Chief looks at the busy big board, likely contemplating the new difficulty of retirement. Oh sits outside the hospital and George walks past. Meredith stops to sit down. Oh says that it was both of their idea to rob the bank, but she couldn’t do it anymore. Grey says that she did the right thing. Oh doesn’t know where to go now that she can’t go home.

Izzie arrives at the Grey House finding George sulking on the couch. He explains that it’s his dad and he’s scared. He tries playing the Denny card, but she shuts him down and tells him that it’s too early to apologize. She joins him on the couch, steals his spaghetti, and tells him maybe tomorrow.

The aftermath of the shakyhanded situation has made it to the master bedroom. Dempsey grumps to Meredith about how she watched Preston’s hands throughout the surgery and didn’t tell him. She says that can’t say anything because Sandra Oh is her friend. Dempsey angrily asks how she could suspect and not even tell her. She reminds him that he cleared him for surgery and asks how he didn’t know. Oh is her best friend, and right or wrong, she was there when he wasn’t. You’d think this would ruin their evening, but it seems to work. He turns to her, they give each other loving half smiles, and it looks like their little prohibition on sex is about to end.

“And then there are some wounds, some betrayals, that are so deep, so profound that there’s no way to repair what was lost. And when that happens … there’s nothing left to do but wait.”

Oh enters the Burkeatorium. She sees Preston getting ready for bed. They exchange a long soulless look at each other until he breaks it by slowly closing the frosted french door in her face.

—previous episode [mb | next episode [mb]

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