Josh and I had a slapfight at the meet-up this Thursday to see who would recap that night’s show.

No, not really. If that really happened, he would have won and I wouldn’t be doing this now, would I? I’m serious, he could totally take me. I really don’t have any slap fight skills or any other fighting-type skills. I’m more of a laminiator, not a fighter. In any case, I was really at the meet-up and thus missed the original airing, but did you know they re-run the episode on Friday nights? Or at least they did last night, which was nice of ABC to do for me. Thanks! But I’m rambling. What you’re really after, the full recap, is after the jump. Enjoy!

After the previouslies, we see Burke packing to go camping with McDreamy. You know what? This is the most Seattle I’ve seen in this show. I hope they start filming more here especially if there’s going to be actor fights around town. How exciting! So what do we have? Looks like Burke lives in Pioneer Square and Chief is staying in a hotel next to the monorail. Is that the round Westin? Over at House Intern, Izzy mothers George as he gets ready to go and we find out that although George was invited by Preston, Chief and Alex and Joe, the bartender, and his boyfriend, Walter, are tagging along. Damn that’s a lot of dudes camping. Oh and lest I forget Meredith passive-agressives to McDreamy about his space. And we’re off in the wilderness. Sort-of. I love that the Chief has brought a rolly-bag and pic-a-nic basket camping, that’s so me. Seriously, I went hiking on the peninsula in a skirt this summer.

Back in Seattle (HI!) at the hospital, McSteamy - shit, I’m calling him Mark - Mark walks in on Addison and Callie…having breakfast. What? What did you think I was going to say? Behind his back, Addison queries with her eyes and Callie does the best little gesture that pretty much says it all about her “relationship” with Mark. At the board, Izzie, Sandra Oh, and Meredith are studying the board and dishing on the camping party. Sandra Oh has a great line about guys named Preston not camping and getting beat up by a squirrel. I bet that wouldn’t be hard though, squirrels are tough. I once saw one fall 15 feet out of a tree onto a wooden deck, get up, shake itself off and continue to run around. Tough mofo. I wouldn’t be too ashamed if he beat me up. Anyway, Mark comes up looking for Alex, whom he calls “what’s his face.” Since Alex is camping Mark asks if Meredith would like to shadow him. She squirms and tries to bail out but Bailey shows up just in time to sell her down the river. Izzie is ordered into peer counseling and now Bailey is alone with Sandra Oh just as she planned. Sandra has no idea that she’s going to be ambushed and gets excited about the prospect of getting into surgery today. But nope. Bailey has saved the cruelest assignment for her: Case A - Monopoly Boy has swallowed all the pieces from the monopoly game because his mean older brother won’t let him play. Little punk. Sandra Oh literally gets the shit duty this week since she has to make sure all the pieces pass through. When Oh protests the assignment, saying it’s a nurse’s job, Bailey springs the trap and tells her that unless she cops to why she erased Bailey’s name from the “humpty dumpty” surgery, she’s out of the OR. For the moment, Oh stays strong.

In the elevator we catch back up with Mark and Meredith. She’s giving him friendship rules. He calls her a dirty mistress. I kind of like that. The rules are: “Number 1. No flirting. Second, no talking about Derek. C, no giving me the face.” The “McSteamy face” she calls it and claims she’s immune, I’m not so sure. And neither is he. He says, cheekily, “You know, if I had gone into the woods, I would have taken you to keep me warm.” She refs that he’s broken all three rules. Okay, I’m going to admit something that might get me stoned. I like Mark. He’s cute and funny and pretty unflappable. I can see why all McDreamy’s women cheat on him with Mark. McDreamy’s a drag a lot of the time, but I’ll stop the blasphemy there. Sorry.

Ahem. Quick jump to Izzie, who walks into a conference room and is greeted by super perky scary lady, Sidney. Sidney previously subbed for Bailey as Intern Wrangler.

And back to Mark and Meredith. He’s quizzing her on the state of her relationship with McDreamy. He asks if they are taking space or if McDreamy is taking space from her. Ooohh. Not nice. Totally true and awesome, but not nice. She non-answers until then they walk into Case B’s room. Case B is Donna Gibson, formerly Daniel, who is in to have her sexual reassignment surgery. Donna’s wife Nicki is there as well. Mark immediately makes me regret saying nice things about him because he lets Meredith drown in her awkward exposition forever. But he’s good with the patient. I guess that means something.

Out in the woods, McDreamy is not relishing the non-peace and quiet that he’s brought with him. As he surveys the scene, Alex makes fun of Chief for bringing silverware, which why not? He’s got a rolly-bag and a chair and I don’t see anything wrong with that. He didn’t ask anyone else to carry it for him. Pfff! George who is inexplicably moving rocks around camp-snobs that Alex is wearing the wrong clothes. Chief tries to get in the sweet tent that Joe and Walter are setting up, not noticing at all that they’re a couple. More awkwardness abounds including the phrase “man love” and “one of my cousins is gay” until Burke herds everyone off to go fishing. Yikes.

Civilization: Oh is looking at the x-ray of Monopoly Boy when Meredith comes by to gloat. Someone’s always gloating about procedures around this show. Sandra Oh is upset until Izzie shows up and announces that she has to hide from Sidney. Sandra Oh gets her to look through MB’s poop, which is a good idea, no one’s going to want to find her there.

Case C - Jamie Carr is a pregnant woman who slipped and fell in the shower. She broke her arm and Addison is looking at the ultra-sound to check on the baby. Callie comes in to set the arm and in the professional OB/Gyn move of the year, Addison takes off with no explanation.

In the waiting room, Nicki and Meredith have a pow-wow about forms. Nicki admits to having left Donna when she first found out that Daniel wanted to be Donna. She claims she’s going to miss the penis. Somehow they’re going to tie this relationship into Meredith’s.

In the bathroom, Callie finds Addison crying in a stall and we find out that Case C’s baby is indeed dead.

Out fishing, Chief and Joe have a relationship talk. We find out that Joe is a better husband than the Chief which is no surprise to me. A few paces away, George and Burke also talk relationships and okay, pause. Boys don’t do this, they don’t sit around and talk about their relationships. Or do they? Anyway, Alex overhears George babbling about Callie and you can tell is toying with the idea of telling George about what he spied last week. And speaking of spying, George notices Burke’s shakes and questions him about it. Not liking what George is cooking, Burke escapes downstream.

Back from commercial and Hi, Space Needle!

Uh-oh. Donna has breast cancer, they make it seem due to the hormone treatment and I guess I can see that, although it’s still something that might headline the evening news. You know those “Are the seemingly harmless peas you’re feeding your children going to kill them?!” leaders they run almost every day? I hate those. Anyway, Mark tells Donna that they have to kill the hormone treatment and start her up on a cancer treatment. She wants to know if she can still go through with the surgery and Mark counsels against it. Not to go all women’s film study on you, but I don’t know if I like this underlying, changing your gender is unnatural theme that’s being worked here. Unintentional or not, “You will DIE, transsexuals!” seems a little extreme to me.

Over at Case C, Addison and Callie are looking in on formerly pregnant even though she doesn’t know it yet (FPETSDKIY) lady. Callie asks Addison to give the couple a few more minutes to be happy before Addison breaks the news.

Down at the stream, Alex asks George about Callie and tries to hint that he shouldn’t try to get back together with her. George tries to make him say why but Alex doesn’t…yet. Across the way, McDreamy gets pissy with Burke about all the extra guests. Burke makes fun of him and says that McDreamy doesn’t have any guy friends. Another reason why McDreamy’s a drag, he’s got no friends other than his wife and the guy who has sex with his wife. That’s gotta suck.

In poop-ville, Sidney, the scary peer, finds Izzie and instead of going away, she waits so that Izzie and she can “dialogue.” Just get it over with Izzie! It can’t be that bad, and I’m sure you need it.

Meredith and Mark have a little exposition time about Donna and not surprisingly Derek. Mark calls Derek damaged and asks Meredith out. Oohh, so slick! Nicki comes out and asks Mark to talk Donna out of going through with the surgery.

Out fishing, Chief says that Joe and Walter went for a “hike.” Oh, that part of camping I like. “Hiking” in the woods is the only reason I really go, but that’s probably too much information, isn’t it? Chief wants to know why no one has caught any fish and McDreamy is all passive aggressive about fish not liking a lot of noise. That’s totally not cool. The guy’s been kicked out of his house, is living in a hotel and is trying to get out and meet people and McDreamy has to be mean about him tagging along. Jerk. George asks Alex about Burke but gets side-tracked by Alex’s bad fishing technique. Alex is sick of being camp-condescended to and breaks out that Callie is sleeping with Mark. George decides that fighting (why not a dance-off?) is the way to get to the truth of the matter.

After the break, Chief plays the referee and says that in order to not injure their hands, Alex and George have to fight with what he calls “open handed blows.” I think he’s trying to shame them into not fighting, but no, they insist on having a slap fight. I immediately get excited. This is going to be the awesomest thing I’ve ever seen on this show. So manly! McDreamy and Burke spectate which includes more pissing and moaning from McDreamy. Shocker.

In the hospital, Donna is insisting on the surgery. Her reasoning is that her chance of a good life with risk of death is better than the sure thing miserable life without the risk. I’m totally with her, but her wife is not and storms out after calling her Daniel. Meanwhile, Callie is setting FPETSDKIY lady’s arm. When she’s done, Addison tells them that the baby is dead. Over in Monopoly Boy’s room, Oh and Izzie are dissecting more poop. What did they do, give the kid laxative? So gross. And Sidney is still waiting. Oh makes Izzie go with Sidney and as Izzie goes they exchange evil glances. Monopoly Boy comes over and has words with Oh. Oh, I see, this is the maturity episode.

Slap fight!! As an aside, Burke lets McDreamy know that Mark slept with Callie. There will be repercussions there. But again, slap fight! It’s totally hilarious and dumb for a few minutes until Walter says, “Next time, we’re not going camping with straight guys.” and then gets knocked down and slams his head on a rock. Okay, this is not a good night for alternative lifestyles! All the doctors converge and commercial.

When we come back, Oh is coveting Meredith’s surgery and they chat about it. The real reason she’s searched Meredith out though is she’s having doubts about keeping Burke’s secret. After Oh asks a bunch of questions about Meredith’s mother, Meredith finally notices something is amiss. Before they can get into it though, Oh gets paged and runs into the room to find Monopoly Boy getting sick. He’s not so clever after all, is he?

Outside, Walter is getting stitches on his head which Joe calls a “MacGuyver surgery.” I always love a Mac reference. George watches Burke pretty closely and I don’t see why one of the other doctors - not interns couldn’t have done the sew-up. Uh, Chief? McDreamy? But whatever. I guess they need a plot device to get others to notice that Burke is having problems.

Back at the hospital, it’s the surgery portion of the show. Bailey is scrubbing up to get the pieces out of Monopoly Boy’s, uh, out of Monopoly Boy. Oh wants in, but Bailey is all hard ass and won’t let her in until she tells her why she was erased from the board. Oh again refuses to answer. Up in the gallery, Izzie and Sidney look on. Sidney asks her to share about Denny and Izzie goes off on her. In OR 2, Meredith and Mark are doing Donna. After a little I’m-so-great-speech, Mark manages to get a “taking space” dig in. He’s quite the multi-tasker, that one.

At camp, the boys are all paired up. Alex and Chief talk about trying to get away. Chief admits that he misses his wife. Burke lectures George about being hyper-critical. He says that he and Sandra Oh are part of a team and that if George isn’t on a team he has to play alone for most of his life. It’s all very deep.

At the hospital, the pregnant lady delivers her dead baby.

On the river, Burke pushes McDreamy to talk about Mark. And now we see the purpose of this camping trip, McDreamy was trying to escape Mark and yet didn’t. “There is no wisdom here,” Burke says. Truest line in the show. And then they go home.

Hi, Seattle ferry dock!

And it’s wrap up time:
In the locker room, Sidney tracks down Izzie again and tells her about how she lost a kid her first year. That’s why she’s Izzie’s peer and finally she stops being a jerk and lets her.

In Donna’s recovery room, Nicki’s there. She and Meredith talk about relationships.

In the hall, Addison and Callie bond over Mark and decide to get drinks sometime.

Burke and Oh share a moment in the hall.

Callie and George see each other and instead of talking about all the crap between them, she tells George that his dad is in the hospital.

Commercial and Seattle fly over!

At the bar, Mark is hitting on Meredith. He conveniently gets a page so she’s alone at the bar when McDreamy walks in. McDreamy fantasizes that they can start fresh. And…she lets him. Sort of, since we close on them kissing in the bar.

And that’s it for this week. Next week, Josh retakes over the recap helm. See you in three weeks, everyone!

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