Grey’s Anatomy: To Clear or Not to Clear

We open this episode of Grey’s Anatomy with Meredith trying to give McShrinky a snow job about how it was so scary to see McDreamy shot and how she really feels ready to go back to work.  Not buying one ounce of this, McShrinky asks if she needs a tissue or a hug.  “Go hug yourself!” she says. Nice try with the runny mascara, though.

Even a drunk high school counselor could see through this.

Christina wakes up, looks at her wedding ring and sits up abruptly as Dr. Ginger tells her to calm down and eat a multi-grain bar and then they’ll go to work.  Worst honeymoon ever.

Over at Seattle Graceless, they have clearly upgraded the locker room since season 1 as everything in now cherry wood and well-lit.  Wonder if they went to IKEA for everything?  Someone moans about how much longer everyone is going to stare at them and really?  People are still staring at the survivors?  Maybe they need to get in to see McShrinky.  Or get a life!

Finally Lexie looks at the gawkers and screams, “Yes, I’m the crazy one who freaks out and screams at people.”  Trust me, they know.  She wants everyone to stop asking her if she’s okay, “Okay?”  Well, then how about not indiscriminately screaming at people, okay?

Meredith tells Christina she won’t be talking to McDreamy this morning because she left him in jail.  Awesome.  Well, that’s one way to keep him off the streets.  He’d be worth a lot of cigarettes!  Christina is still chewing on her nut bar before she becomes one later.

And speaking of the devil, out pops McDreamy from a cab and Chipmunk (seriously, Dr. April is way too chipper) tells him Webber is looking for him, he missed the wedding and he “smells like pee.”  Ah, prison, you never stop giving.

If that’s not hair gel, what is it, Clarice?

McDreamy gets on the elevator with Meredith and asks how the wedding went and gets all pissy with Meredith for leaving him in there.  Hey, don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.  Then Meredith smells him.  I know, hott, huh?

Oh snore, Torres and Arizona are talking about redecorating Torres’s apartment.  See, this is why separate homes are the best thing for any relationship.  Arizona calls the apartment “frowny” because she’s 5 and Torres has to tell explain that wasn’t Christina’s decorating scheme, that was her decorating, and she likes it.  Now go fix her a turkey pot pie, bitch!  “I want it to be more ‘smiley,’” Arizona says.  Yeah, I don’t want you operating on me either.

Karev bumps into Bailey and true to form she cops a feel.  Of his bullet.  Not a euphemism.  She asks if it hurts and it doesn’t.  “Does it hurt when I do this?” she says and totally purple-nurples him.  I would totally do that every time I saw him.  She tells him if he ever wants to see the inside of an OR again, he has to have it removed.  Wouldn’t this fall under HIPAA laws?

This is exactly why Karev left the Catholic church!

Dr. Ginger and Teddy Bear are hounding Webber to allow Christina to do surgery – without McShrinky’s consent.  Webber isn’t sure that an “ex vivo heart reconstruction” is the best place to start, but once again it’s a “ground-breaking, once-in-a-lifetime” surgery that of course, ends up at this hospital.  They tell him she won’t be back to her old self until she starts sawing into someone.  I would probably give her something she’s used to doing to ease her back into OR society.  Like just plain open heart surgery.  This can only go well, so Webber clears her.

Even better?  The patient needing part of her heart removed remembers Christina because her previous doctor was Dr. Burke-hates-the-gays.  But he did loves him some Chinese Jew via Christina…so how he drew the line, we’ll never understand.  Bye-bye career!

Anyhoo, they mention that the last time they saw Christina she and Burke were getting married.  Since Dr. Ginger is in the room, this becomes awwwwkwaaaard.  Also, your heart is dying so perhaps we could put off the wedding gift buying until surgery is over?

Now the fun stuff!  They have a group of flag football players who were struck by lighting or close to the person who was struck by lightning coming to the hospital via…helicopter?  Oh, safe during a storm, guys.  The patients have issues from superficial burns to feet burns (ew!) to blown out ear drums and then some.  “God was in a mood today,” Bailey says.  He must have been watching C-Span.

Ah, McSteamy!  He hands a case off to Lexie then asks Torres what the requisite amount of time to wait is between someone getting out of the nuthouse and asking them to marry you.  Uh, girl interrupted, how about never?  Also, should you really be calling it a nuthouse?  I thought that was my job!  Torres snickers then says, “LOOOONG time.  As in not now.”  No kidding.

Meredith and McDreamy, the best neurosurgeon in all the lands, are checking on a guy with temporary paralysis in his arms from the lightning strike, which is pretty typical they say.  Good to know for future reference.  Football player #1 asks about Kerry and if she’s okay.  Meredith says she’ll check.

McDreamy is still pissy about being left in the bighouse and my thought is, shut the hell up!  You are the one who got yourself there and Meredith just showed she knows how to discipline unruly children.  This is actually a good thing.

Patient Kerry can’t wiggle her toes and they are going to run a CT scan on her to make sure she’s okay.  Turns out Kerry doesn’t care about football player #1, she wants to know about Warren.  Football player #2 arrives and pushes the doctors out of the way.  Good thinking, Einstein, they are only taking care of your friend.  She asks him about Warren but #2 says the lightning was a once-in-a-lifetime thing so he needs to take a shot.  He tells her he loves her and will love her forever, which kind of had a creepy stalker vibe to it.

OMG, you never say it first, dude!  Didn’t you read the handbook?

McSteamy has the same look on his face that I had on mine.  Kerry shakes her head and says, “What?” pointing to her ears like she can’t hear him.  Except she totally could and just figures he’s over-excited. Then Lexie spouts off some statistic about how you have a better chance of being hit by lightning than getting married to a terrorist after the age of 40 and Meredith is like, uh, Lexie?  And she wonders why people keep asking her if she’s okay.

So now the heart patient’s doctor has his dander up.  Maybe it’s because he was really hoping Dr. Burke and Christina would work out?  He yells, “Why is this better than what Dr. Burke did?”  Well, your wife is back in the hospital so maybe what Dr. Burke did hasn’t worked long-term.  Also, why wait until right before you sign hospital papers to ask questions and get pissed off.  Maybe if you had used your Christina/Burke marriage talk time earlier a little more wisely…duh!

While everyone else was working, Arizona ran out to the nearest hardware store to pick up paint chips of white, off-white, ecru, eggshell and beige.  Just like my mother!  And if she’s like my mother, she’ll leave the paint chips taped to the wall until no one can see them anymore.

Arizona thinks the pastels and earth tones will take the edge off the chrome and concrete.  Is she talking vibrators now?  Also, I’m going to go out on a limb and say she’s the wife of this couple.  And no man wants to talk pastel paints.  Just paint and let Torres watch the game, Arizona.  Also, she’s at work and needs to focus on something other than paint.

So, which one do you want to stop having sex to?

Meredith tracks down nerdy Warren, patient zero on the lightning strike.  He’s all a-twitter about Kerry asking about him and I’m thinking these guys really need to get out a little more.  Don’t get me wrong, she’s adorable, but get more chicks on the team or go to a sports bar after the game.  There are plenty of women out there.

Then Warren and two of the players get into a fight over Kerry.  Yeah, happens to me all the time.  In Bizarro World.  She tells all of them to shut up then asks Warren to talk.  He says, “Kerry, I…” then spits up a whole mess of bloody tar.  Wow, he must be really nervous!

Sometimes Asian woman are just too much for nerds  and they implode.

Nope, turns out he has a hole in his bowel.  Karev wants to do surgery but Bailey nurples him and says he can watch.  Sucks to be you, Karev!  Bailey asks Lexie but McSteamy who is stuck to Lexie like a remora fish shakes his head so Bailey moves over to “the other Grey” who says she’d be happy to scrub in until Chipmunk shows up and says she’s free, especially since Meredith wasn’t cleared for surgery.  Meredith points out that if they are going to be friends, Chipmunk is going to need to learn how to shut the hell up dot com!

Teddy Bear and team are playing Ms. Pac Man with animated heart anatomy as she says they will use a human aorta from a donor to repair the heart.  Seems like that might not be the kind of surgery you could plan since most people use their aortas until they die and you don’t know you have a donor until someone is dead…so can you see why planning might be kind of creepy?

Then I’ll just levitate this to its rightful place in the chest.  It’s like I’m Chris Angel but less creepy.

Christina continues to look at the monitor and when Teddy asks if she’s excited, she says she is and it’s pretty clear Christina is not herself.  Dr. Ginger says going back into surgery will be just like getting back on a horse and simultaneously insults surgeons and cowboys alike.

Teddy prepares to go into surgery by heading up to the neo-natal unit and quizzes Arizona on the love nest she’s creating with Torres.  Arizona volleys by asking Teddy how it’s going with McShrinky and she says great.  Unfortunately, she knows nothing about him because she mostly talks and he mostly listens, and Arizona points out that duh, that’s what he gets paid for.  D’oh!

Kerry’s talking to the two guys who didn’t vomit bloody tar on her hospital gown and says they don’t really love her.  They just think they do because she’s “down with flag football,” but dammit, so it Betty White.  She didn’t really say that last part.  Also, because they got struck by lightning everything is different.  Take it away, Lexie!

Lexie goes off on them saying the lightning changed everything.  They were part of a team and now they are looking at her differently because of the lightning.  Kerry’s like, uh, no, but way to use transference, Freakshow Lexie.  Could you please deal with your problems on your own time?

Oh my God, she’s one of the ones who got cleared?!?!

Meredith is watching Wheel of Fortune when Christina comes up and says, “Really?”  Meredith says this is what she’s cleared to do.  “Scarlet Pimpernel.”  Dammit!  With only two letters Christina gets it.  On top of that, she’s cleared for surgery (hold that thought) and Meredith is pissed.

They continue watching TV when Karev and Lexie show up just in time! Turns out somebody was bored enough to videotape the flag football game and we see the lightning strike.  Except Kerry seems to have gone down thatswhatshesaid first – before the lightning hit.  Lexie runs off and Christina says, “Bet you $20 she’s back in the cuckoo’s nest by lunch.”  Yeah, I’m kind of with her on this one.

What happened to the guy who taped this lame game?

McSteamy asks McDreamy if he shanked someone in jail to let them know who is boss (I think his hair already does that) and Webber overhears.  He’s shocked that McDreamy was in jail all morning.  God, Webber is so out of the loop sometimes.

Did you go to another Burning Man get together without me?

Then McDreamy asks if Webber has been over 120 miles per hour.  Or 80.  Of course he hasn’t.  McDreamy wants to take him out right now.  But instead…

Lexie runs up to McDreamy and goes batshit telling him that Kerry fell before the lightning struck everyone mostly dead, and she needs to be checked, yadda yadda.  They take off.  Webber tells McSteamy to take care of Lexie and he says he’s trying.  Sooo not in the job description.  If he were really as good a plastic surgeon as they make him out to be, he’d be working in Beverly Hills nipping and tucking and banging every piece of ass that walked in his door.

You make me pull my own fingernails out.  Now imagine what I will do to you if you don’t shut up!

Surgery time!  Teddy tells Christina to take the heart.  Ewww!  Please stop showing this stuff, we get it, it’s a medical show.  But let’s remember – ALL of us – that this is fiction and we don’t need Trauma in the E.R. showing up.  They pull this woman’s heart out and put it on ice so they can operate on it.  “Welcome back, Dr. Yang,” Teddy says.  I said hold that thought!

This reminds me of the Barefoot Contessa’s brisket recipe.

Back with Kerry, turns out she has a hematoma on her spine and it just started bleeding thanks to Warren bashing into her prior to the lightning strike.  But super McDreamy is going to take it out and she’ll be back to flag football and marrying Warren in no time.  Yay!  And he invites Lexie in for surgery, giving McSteamy a dirty look.  Double yay.  I think.

Kerry starts crying and admits to McSteamy that she was worried about telling Warren how she felt because it “might shake up the team.”  She’s not talking to you about your situation, McSteamy, but clearly you think it’s your horoscope.

Karev and Meredith are viewing the heart surgery and they start talking about his relationship with Lexie.  He says it ends the way it always does…he falls in love with a chick and the chick goes crazy.  Wow, that really is his pattern, isn’t it?

They are almost three hours into surgery and someone knocks over a tray full of instruments onto the floor with a loud crash.  And now they can’t find Christina…where is she?  Oh, on the floor with the rest of the medical instruments.  They try to talk her up but she flashes back to the shooting in the OR.

Oh shit, she’s fallen and she can’t get up.  Also, I think she dropped a skin graft.  Or a maxi-pad with wings.

McDreamy and Lexie are fixing Kerry’s back and she thanks him for listening to her.  She says McSteamy is being McSmothering and she’s over it.  McDreamy says he’s just making sure she’s okay.  And suffocated.  It’s all from love.  Think of Dr. Ginger suffocating Christina.  I guess his was more literal.

Meredith runs into the OR and Chipmunk is all like, you can’t be in here and Mere stabs her with a scalpel.  No, wait, that was my fantasy.  Meredith runs into the OR and lies on the floor next to Christina who cannot move and says she can’t feel anything.  Meredith holds her hand and waits for her to calm down enough to leave.  Get comfy, she’s going to need a few.  See?  This is what marriage does to career women.

No seriously, Christina, this ether really helps.

We come back from commercial to see Meredith helping Christina out of the OR.  The husband of the patient sees Christina and asks if everything is okay.  Meredith says his wife is fine and they are still working on her.  Yeah, Christina’s demeanor would not instill a lot of confidence.  Bet she would’ve been fine if she had married Burke!

McSteamy decides life is too short to wait on asking Lexie to marry him.  Torres says dude, you and I always skip steps in a relationship (and I’m guessing McSteamy skips foreplay as well) which mucks them up.  She still thinks proposing is too much especially when she’s just one who flew over the cuckoo’s nest but he’s adamant about making this huge, impractical decision because dammit, no one has made a piss-poor interpersonal move in about 15 minutes.  He’s taking one for the team.

Aww, McSteamy, you are adorable when you are about to f#ck something up.

“Is she dead?” Christina asks Dr. Ginger when she sees him.  No, your freakout did not kill the patient.  And now is the time for their first fight as a married couple.  She says she wasn’t ready to go back, he pushed her, he was wrong, and if season 1 Christina saw this season’s, she’d shit and punch herself really hard.

McDreamy asks Meredith if Christina is alright and Mere is like, dude, no one is alright.  She tells McDreamy to shake off the night in jail and get over it and he says he doesn’t want her to worry about that.  Then she blows up and tells him that’s all she does – worry about him.  She says she dreads the call that he wrapped his car around a pole and that’s why she left him in jail – at least she knew he’d be safe.

He tells her he’s right here and he’s okay and they’re okay.  So Meredith finally fesses up that she was pregnant and lost the baby. He says he wants to help her and she says you can control your driving, so do that dumbass.  He hugs her.

Okay, I hear what you are saying in a non-judgmental way, but I’m still going into a shame spiral.

Back to Christina and Dr. Ginger…he says they couldn’t have seen what was going to happen, and the truth is, he’s right – she probably would have been okay had that tray not been knocked over.  Christina says she doesn’t feel anything.  She says she can’t be in there and if she can’t be in there, she doesn’t know where she’s supposed to be.  At home making Tollhouse cookies?

“I’m sorry,” she says, handing him back the wedding ring.  Uh, what about the engagement ring?  That’s where the real money was spent!  Rude.

That’s what 2 months’ salary buys?  Someone doesn’t know how to negotiate!

Aww, look, it’s Warren back from bowel surgery, visiting Kerry.  Geez, what did that take, 20 minutes?  In, out and awake already?  He apologizes for getting all of them struck by lightning and she says she’s not because she’s in love with him and she’s been in love with him forever.  Crazy kids.

Bailey has called Karev in for a surgery – and he’s the patient!  She says she doesn’t need a reminder of that day so get on the goddamn table so she can rip that thing out ASAP.  “Get in there and get your shirt off!”  He’s right, all of the women in his life do go crazy.

Meredith and McDreamy come into the house and Christina is there.  Twisted sisters need a conversation.

Teddy asks McShrinky if she talks too much.  Then she talks too much about how it’s his job to listen to people and she hopes she’s not treating him like a shrink because she’s really enjoying his hotness.  He says he likes listening to her because it’s not work and he’s enjoying her hotness, so let’s make out so neither one of them have to talk.  Amen!  Cleared for surgery all around!

Cleared for fornication!

Oh man, Lexie is leaving the hospital and McSteamy wants to talk with her/propose to her in the most inopportune and unromantic way ever.  She basically says yes, I went batshit crazy and you helped me through it, but I’m moving out of it and you won’t let me.  She says everyone is watching how he’s treating her and they are following suit.  She begs him to just leave her alone.  He agrees.  Can I have the ring since she doesn’t want it?

Why is Karev awake for surgery?  I mean really.  But at least the bullet is out.

A sure sign that your surgery has gone wrong…you hold a full conversation with the surgeon while you are being operated on!

McSteamy and Torres are sharing a bottle of pity and he tells her to paint the wall beige.  Man, I’d love to see them go at it again.  Is he rubbing her feet?

God, that is one klassy broad.

Over at Mere’s house of woe, Christina is talking about how 50% of marriages end in divorce.  Yeah but usually not after 18 hours.  She says she thought marriage would fix her but Meredith said that’s not why Dr. Ginger married her.  She tells Christina she told McDreamy about the miscarriage.

“You got married Christina, for better or worse, and this is the worse part,” Meredith says.  “There will be other parts.  You should go back.”  Christina agrees.

Round like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending on beginning
On an ever-spinning reel
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind
Now get the f#ck out.

Dr. Ginger takes that moment to barge into the house and tells her that she doesn’t feel “nothing.”  He says that’s fine and when he was there and took it out on her but she was patient and kind and stayed with him because she likes erotic asphyxiation.

Now get your ass home before I get you cleared for surgery again.

He says she can be scared or pissed with him, but she’s going to be with him.  “I’m not going anywhere without you.”  She stands up and says, “Let’s go home.”

Not to let a man get too proud, Meredith says, “I already fixed her before you came, but that was a nice speech.”  He laughs and shakes his head.  Now just get out.

Meredith fesses up to McShrinky that she lost a baby, almost lost her husband and is not sure her friend is going to be okay.  Then she pull a Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption and says, “Clear me or don’t clear me, I don’t have control over any of it.”  And she’s cleared.  Just like Morgan Freeman!

Eat my dust, bitch!

Next week?  Bailey and Lexie try to get someone out of a car to help them and despite pausing the DVR, I could not see the hideous problem the person in the car was hiding.  Christina considers not being a surgeon and McDreamy tries to help her get through it since you know, she saved his life. See you next week!