After Reichsmarschall Bailey releases the interns, Cristina visits Burke. Burke tells her there's a risk he could lose all his hand function and never be a surgeon again—they have to decide whether to operate right away or wait it out. For the first time I can remember, Burke sort of loses control and appeals emotionally to Cristina for advice on what she thinks he should do. Cristina doesn't handle this well—apparently Burke only revs her engine when he's in brilliant-surgeon mode, not vulnerable-pansy mode. Cristina fudges a non-answer and leaves the room, saying she'll think about it. Afterward, she flees to the syph-tastic intern bunkbed sex room and leans against the door, trying to hold herself together.

Denny tells Bailey he cut his own LVAD wire, but she cuts right through the bullshit and says he shouldn't waste energy on lies. Izzie, defying Bailey's order of silence, asks if Bailey is gonna sign the charts and get the transplant heart—after all, Denny's labs are indeed bad, and his condition has indeed worsened. Bailey replies that she takes her medical advice from doctors and Izzie is now a visitor in this hospital until such time as Bailey decides she is. Izzie finally hands over the heart pump to Olivia, who struggles to operate it with her diseased, syphilitic fingers.

Bailey tracks down Webber and asks him what the hospital policy would be—hypothetically—if a staff member unhooked a transplant candidate's LVAD to try to get him moved up on the donor list. The bitch of it is that the patient is now genuinely in worse shape even though the circumstances that got him there were dubious. Bailey insists on keeping this hypothetical because she's worried the hospital could lose its transplant accreditation. Webber says that ethically their responsibility is to the patient—but practically speaking whoever cut the wire is PHUCKED, Webber-style.

At Mercy West, Alex tries again to intervene as Dr. Hahn prepares to rip the transplant heart out of the donor's chest with her powerful clawed forelegs. Hahn insists the other recipient deserves the heart just as much: he has two kids, has been on the waiting list forever, volunteers at the soup kitchen, and sings in his church choir when he's not busy raising orphan baby bunnies. Alex continues to plead, but the Hahn-beast remains unmoved.

By the next morning, though, UNOS has ruled that the transplant heart should go to Denny. After the requisite Seattle aerial panorama and Space Needle shots, Alex and Dr. Hahn land on the SGH helipad with the heart. Nurse Olivia, acutely aware of this week's plaintive soundtrack, squeezes Denny's heart pump in time with the music. Maybe next season she'll release an exercise video. Syphin' to the Oldies!

Since all surgeries at SGH are apparently simultaneous, they do Burke's operation and Denny's transplant at the same time. Seriously, it's like they just sit around drinking 23 hours a day and then do ALL THE SURGERIES AT ONCE for the one remaining hour.

Ironically, it's Dr. Hahn who performs Denny's heart transplant, while Webber and He-Shepherd try to remove Burke's le petit aneurysm. They're unable to determine whether Burke has paralysis in his hand: the nerve is intact, but his fingers show no reflexes. They deem that they must do a "wakeup test" in which they bring Burke out of anesthesia during the surgery so he can tell them whether he has feeling in his hand. I'll admit I quit the premed track halfway through junior year, but this sounds like horseshit. But I'm sure some doctor in Vladivostok tried it one time 40 years ago, so the ABC writers deemed it real medicine.

I guess we could call this the Breakfast Club once Meredith starts eating full meals

The interns remain on their post-Bailey-beatdown "timeout," sitting like ducks in a row under the surgery board. They're all terrified they'll get kicked out of the program, aside from Izzie, who's thinking only about Denny's marriage proposal and her imminent late-afternoon playtime with her sock puppets. Then Cristina is summoned to help wake up Burke, and Izzie goes to check on Denny—which leaves only George and Meredith sitting there.

Meredith turns to George and thanks him for paging her during Izzie's breakdown. She then starts to apologize once again for the whole "oops I just tripped on this one loose floorboard and my penis went right into your vagina" incident. But George interrupts with an angry shout that he's sick of Meredith saying sorry. He admits that he knew the whole time she wasn't interested in him, but he let it happen anyway because he figured the sheer carnal bliss of seeing her "O face" even one time was better than nothing at all. Instead, George says that he's the one who's sorry.

Cristina enters the O.R. where they're working on Burke. The doctors need her to keep Burke focused as they bring him up from anesthesia, since the tube down his throat will trigger his gag reflex. And yep, as Burke wakes up, he starts gagging like Lara Flynn Boyle after a hearty meal. He-Shepherd shouts at Cristina to get in Burke's face and give him something to focus on, maybe flash a little tit or something, but Cristina freezes up cause she can't handle the sight of Burke convulsing. She stands idly by while the others finally manage to calm Burke down and ask him to move his fingers. At first he can't, but ultimately he manages to wiggle his fingers a little bit. As he does so he shoots an accusatory glare at Cristina, who flees the room.

Posted by m_ruv on May 21, 2006 11:34 PM