The blowhard restaurant manager brags that he has the highest pain tolerance of anyone he knows. God, if this guy gets out of this episode alive I'll be shocked. Since the poor busboy can't say anything for fear of being fired, Bailey yells at the manager on his behalf. OOH. So Bailey tells the manager she's happy for him that he's not feeling pain from his minor injuries but that a bunch of the other victims are in a lot of pain, since they have real, manly injuries like bullet wounds and not some cracker-ass little injuries like his, and that all these other victims are praying like mad for him to just SHUT THE HELL UP. Only she says "shut the heck up" instead. Oh come on—this was the perfect Bailey smackdown moment and they watered it down. They can talk about vaginas and broken penises and chronic orgasms but can't use the word "hell"? WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SHIT?

Cristina and Meredith, meanwhile, whine to each other about Burke and He-Shepherd. Cristina claims that Burke is being a controlling macho dumbass, withholding surgeries from her for being a "bad girlfriend." She resolves to dump him right away and start screwing She-Shepherd instead. Actually wait, that was Under the Tuscan Sun. At this point Izzie walks up and blurts out frantically that she lied to Burke and can't figure out what to do. She says there's a guy ahead of Denny on the transplant list but Denny must get THIS HEART, not the next one. Cristina repeats that as long as somebody else needs the heart more than Denny, he's not gonna get it. This turns on a nice demented little lightbulb in Izzie's head, so she thanks them and runs off. Cristina says if she had to pick somebody who would go crazy and shoot up the hospital, it'd have to be Izzie. Youre just realizing this now? GREAT ANALYTICAL SKILLS, DEARIE.

So Izzie pulls a cart o' heart supplies into Denny's room and admits to him that there may not be a heart available anymore. Denny's heartbroken—GET IT?!?—but Izzie insists that there may be a way around the problem. She says in order for Denny to get the heart his condition has to worsen suddenly. He says that seems pretty unlikely, but Izzie counters that she'll make it happen. She then pulls out a karaoke machine and bursts into "Total Eclipse of the Heart" at full volume, plunging Denny directly into a coma.

Actually, Izzie pulls the blinds and starts rummaging through her equipment. Denny says there's no need to do anything drastic—he's waited a long time already and will just take his chances til the next heart comes along. But Izzie gets increasingly frantic and says no, he HAS to do this. Man, she is really getting seriously crazy. Denny shouts that he's certainly not about to steal a heart from some other guy's chest, and besides it'd be the end of Izzie's medical career. Izzie says she doesn't care about her medical career—after all she could just go back to semi-nudie modeling or horse whispering or something along those lines. She says if Denny tells her any more crap about looking toward the light or being up in heaven, she'll kill him right now with her ROUGHENED, TRAILER-PARK HANDS, and I DO MEAN PHYSICALLY KICKING YOUR ASS, because even if he's alright, what about her, huh, WHAT ABOUT HER, because if he goes away up to HEAVEN-LAND she'll never be able to forgive for MAKING HER LOVE HIM AND HOLY MOTHER OF GOD SHUT THIS BITCH UP.

Seriously, the hysterical crying in this scene is out of control, not to mention eardrum-bursting—I had to turn the volume down. Hey ABC, when I've been saying I thought Izzie was "crazy" I was just sort of joking, like "ha ha isn't she delightfully eccentric," not like "RUN FOR THE HILLS THIS BITCH NEEDS A STRAIGHTJACKET." So please, please no more of this. And you know what the kicker is? This shit actually works on Denny. The scene is so over-the-top that it strains believability to begin with—and when you combine that with the fact that I still don't buy this relationship for a second, I thought it just fell completely flat.

Possibly the scariest face I've ever seen in my life

In the hall, Callie reacts angrily when George defends Meredith for being so worried about her dog's bone cancer. Callie doesn't get why George would stand up for Meredith, but he insists that he and Meredith started together as interns, so even though she hurt him they're essentially family. Moreover George says that if Callie wants a chance to be part of his family too, then she better get to work trying to forgive Meredith herself. Ooh snap.

Burke calls Izzie's phone, impatient for Denny's "lab results." Izzie dodges Burke's questions and just says he should get back to SGH with the heart right away. Burke realizes something is up and asks gravely what Izzie has done. She stalls and says she doesn't know how long Denny will last once she "starts." Burke grows concerned and asks what's going on, but Izzie hangs up because the mothership is on the other line.

Burke tells the Mercy West doctors that Denny appears to be suffering from pulmonary edema, which would mean he now qualifies for the heart. But Burke wants to go back to SGH in person to confirm the results just to be sure. Dr. Hahn balks, but Alex covers up for Burke, saying that he's is the only SGH surgeon not currently tied up with the gunshot victims. Dr. Hahn relents and tells Burke to hurry back to SGH and check the results. As Burke leaves, he commands Alex to stay and protect the transplant heart and and tackle Dr. Hahn if she goes anywhere it.

Posted by m_ruv on May 15, 2006 5:04 PM