George's new flame, Dr. Torres, sets the lightning-struck patient's leg—apparently she is SGH's designated, take-no-prisoners bonesetter. God knows what she'll do to George. Speaking of, George approaches and asks whether she he can give her a hand. Dr. Torres says too late, he missed the boat. Oucho. Then Meredith walks in, trapping George in an awkwardness box between the two women. Dr. Torres notes that the bruises on the patient's leg don't look like they came from a tree branch. So the patient admits she wasn't on the ground but was actually UP in the tree when the lightning struck and then she fell down. Jesus, could she revise her self-diagnosis ANY MORE? What's next? Fecal impaction? HISTOPLASMOSIS?

Outside, Cristina tells Burke she's sorry his patient died. He complains that the laundry lost his mdash;he knows it's not the reason the guy died, but the caps are "a comfort thing" nonetheless. Along those same lines, Cristina mentions she'd be MUCH more comfortable if George and his clarinet-playing ass were out of the apartment, especially because then she and Burke could resume their nasty, SaranWrap-clad sex romps all over the living room. So Cristina admits to Burke she has one of his caps hidden in her possession and just maybe she'll keep it hostage til he kicks George out. Burke doesn't like ultimatums, so once she's gone he enlists George to recover his lost flava, wherever it might be found. Suddenly this plot is sounding a lot like Austin Powers 2.

"I dunno, I've just been puking up blood and feeling a chill, a really BIG CHILL"

It turns out one of the patients who arrived earlier is an old friend of Dr. Webber. He WOULD associate with the coughing-up-blood set. I was gonna write that this woman is the love child of Mary Kay Place and Bette Midler, but fortunately I checked the cast list and realized that it IS Mary Kay Place, so phew, disaster averted. Anyway, she's got all manner of bleeding in her digestive region. This scene turns very interesting when the patient asks how Webber's been doing recently. He says Ellis Grey's in a nursing home and he's been visiting as often as he can—which prompts the woman to interrupt WTF he's having what amounts to an emotional affair with the woman who drove him to ALCOHOLISM? Ooh so Webber was an alcoholic! And at the hands of Meredith's mother, no less! (Also, I saw on a spoiler site that Webber is African-American—don't tell anybody though.) Anyway, the woman is a former alcoholic herself and used to be Webber's sponsor. Due to cirrhosis she needs a liver transplant. She scolds Webber for hiding his emotional dallying from his wife but says she's proud he's stayed sober for seventeen years.

In the locker room, Cristina catches thieving George going through her locker. And boy is there about a decade's worth of old garbage in there: Red Bull, slutty underwear, handcuffs, rectal thermometers—but no flava cap. Cristina says George won't find it in there; despite his offers to do her dishes or laundry for a month, she remains unmoved. He asks what she could possibly want, but she wants only for him to leave the apartment. The impasse continues.

Tree-climbing lightning lady needs her spleen out, because it's so badly damaged it could pass for corned beef hash. Meredith notes to Bailey that she gets the sense the woman is a bit of a stalker. Wow! Is Meredith a psychic or what?!? Meredith also asks Bailey what she thinks about this "seven fatality" voodoo, and Bailey claims to have none of it. Clearly this is all lies.

Burke, meanwhile, is doing a procedure to see how bad Denny's clot is. While this is going on, Denny tells a little anecdote about horses, which prompts Alex to chime in that he has an uncle who's a rodeo cowboy. What? SHUT UP. Anyway, Burke says Denny's clot is so big—Izzie gets real excited for a second—they can't get it with a catheter and will have to open up his chest again.

Why does this guy remind me of Cookie Monster

SGH's wacky staff psychologist/swami shows up to empathize with the OCD guy. The patient says his car accident happened because he couldn't bring himself to pull through the intersection til he'd counted 333 clicks on the turn signal. You know what I'm thinking? Natural selection. Anyway, OCD has ruined this guy's marriage and career—and his mom had it too, in fact it drove her to a little seppuku at age 38. The patient apologizes, saying he knows his habits are really annoying. Oh good, I thought it was JUST ME. Incidentally, throughout this whole episode, George is pressing his face to the window in an attempt to "intimidate" Cristina. Since when does "follow Cristina around" translate to "act all retarded and bloaty and regress into infancy"?

What's up, QUASIMODO

Webber delivers some bad news to his patient/ex-sponsor: to tide her over til a liver transplant he'll have to put in some shunt in a tough procedure that has only about a 50% survival rate. The unexpected twist? She really doesn't have any other choice. Ha ha! Never saw that one coming!

The stalker lady has heard about all the other surgical deaths and refuses to have her spleen out til the next day. Bailey cannot tolerate this shit and argues that "spleen trumps horoscope." AWESOME, medical rock-paper-scissors is back! Gout-psoriasis-irritable bowel! Pleurisy-nail fungus-cretinism! It was fun two weeks ago and IT'S FUN NOW. Anyway, the patient, convinced she'll die if the surgery goes ahead, asks Meredith to call her "boyfriend" so he can be there for the operation. Right honey, maybe with that restraining order in tow.

Posted by m_ruv on March 23, 2006 11:30 AM