Grey’s Anatomy: Newbies are a bitch

This week on Grey’s Anatomy, the BIG merger that we have been anticipating for a good three weeks now has arrived. Meredith monologues the arrival as if they were a disease taking over the body. The invasion starts out small but quickly spirals out of control and the next thing you know, it has taken over. One by one, we see all our original Seattle Gracers meeting the new inhabitants with obvious annoyance-which is ironic because that is how I meet the original Seattle Gracers every week. Meredith looks on from her cot as the new regime strolls in ready to own this bitch.

Remember in season one when you were still pretty and young looking? Welcome to the future bitch. In the locker room, the Mercy West Newbies (from here on out the MWN’s) begin to pick out their lockers, just like the first day of school. They put up photo booth pictures and magazine cut outs of Zac Efron and are ready to start the day. A pixie looking MWN begins hanging up her boyfriends’ letterman jacket in her selected locker, George’s old locker. Izzie looks on horrified and asks her to pick a different locker. The pixie considers it and decides, no I’m good-plus my pixie cut kicks your pixie cuts ass.

Speaking of kicking ass, Izzie flips out on the pixie telling her that she has no problem fighting right here, right now. Alex comes in right as Izzie is up in the Pixie’s face threatening a rumble and pulls her out of the room.

“You don’t even know the trailer park beat down you are asking for Pixie!”

The Seattle Gracers, which now includes the non-moronic interns watch over the MWN from Meredith’s room. They are irritated that the new ones showed up and made themselves perfectly at home within an hour. They expected them to show some respect for the ones who have staked claim here already.

Meredith gives the troops a pep-talk telling them that they can’t let the MWN take over the whole hospital. She’s basically like, get off your asses, stop sitting in my room and go get some work done. Again, I wonder why when I’ve gone to the ER I’ve sat there for 4 hours while these shmucks sit in a resident’s room mourning their loss of things to do. However the pep talk works, and everyone leaves ready to fight for their right to kill patients. Everyone except Yang who has lost all motivation. She doesn’t know what she is fighting for anymore.

In the OR it is craziness. There are tons of doctors everywhere just milling around looking for something to do, including the newly returned Torres. Yang and her interns show up and ask the Major where he wants them. His response is interrupted by a hot MWN, Jackson (who looks a lot like Chris Leak, but that’s neither her nor there, since I caught his name, I’ll call him by it). Jackson tells the Major that they ran the zone at Mercy West and it always worked. I’m more of a man-coverage type of girl because I think people get through holes in the zone, but that’s just me. The Major disagrees and tells them to go for it. Yang looks on super pissed.

Come on Gang! Follow me if you don’t want to get fired!

Elsewhere in the hospital, Karev finds the Chief and reminds him that Izzie isn’t 100% but she needs to keep her job. She can’t be fired. Genius Karev, tell somebody who has to make impossible cuts that one of the people who have to save lives isn’t functioning at 100%. I’m sure this won’t blow up in your face.

Izzie is approached by another MWN with an unfortunately large forehead named Charles. He feels bad about the locker room incident and tries to make nice with Izzie. After she folds a little and offers a handshake, he asks for the code to a research library. Izzie, not ready to even the playing field, tells him it took her two years to get that code and she’s not giving it up.

And the MWN aren’t the only hospital invaders today. Torres’ father has dropped by for a visit and he brought a friend. After regaining Torres’ trust by acting like he wanted to play nice, she notices that he has arrived with a holy guest, the family priest. Torres is instantly outraged and begins maniacally saying “You can’t pray away the gay” before storming off.

No no no, we didn’t come to try and change you, we just wanted to say bye before you end up in hell.

Torres vents to Arizona how infuriating her dad’s visit is. Arizona appears relatively calm about the fact that somebody wants to pray her out of her girlfriend’s life. She reminds Torres that she did abruptly change the game on her family. After growing up dating, and boning and marrying men her whole life, the sudden change was a bit of a shock. Unlike Arizona who never showed interest in boys and her first date was with someone named JoAnne.

Lexie has a new tag-along for the day. An annoyingly chipper MWN who instantly annoys me, but I’m not sure why. Lexie shares these thoughts as they head into the OR to meet their first patient. As they enter Skipper (the chipper newbie) babbles about how scary the first day can be, and recognizes that Lexie must know all about being scared at Seattle Grace as she was there when the crazy intern was cutting out organs…Awkward.

They meet their patient, who was burglarizing a house when he was caught and the homeowner beat the crap out of the guy. He is handcuffed to the bed, to which Skipper quickly asks to make sure he stays that way. You’re going to have to toughen up to make it in this joint Skipper.

We meet Izzie and Forehead Charlie’s patient for the day who is a patient about to receive a new kidney. It’s good news that she is getting one, as they have run out of options for maintaining her without the transplant. As Bailey asks the doctors about her diagnosis, everyone raises their hand to answer her question, except forehead Charlie who just starts to talk. He stops mid-sentence mockingly asking them….oh, you guys raise hands?

Raise your hand if you think Charlie’s forehead is enormous

The first trauma of the day comes wheeling in with a man on a gurney and a crazy guy following after him yelling. The yelling guy is accusing the wounded of touching his baby girl. YIKES. Seems incredibly sick until we learn that the child is only 19….the dude is still kind of old though so it’s only moderately sick.

Yang begins to work on the DOM (dirty old man) and blood begins to spew everywhere. Yang works frantically as the furious father tries to get to the DOM. Jackson asks if he can help Yang, but she instructs him to restrain the dad. She closes him up quickly and tells him that’s how they roll at Seattle Grace.

Pixie is talking to an old man about stomach pains he has been experiencing. Karev interrupts telling her that the old guy was his patient. Pixie is like, too bad so sad, he’s mine now. The old man and his daughter continue to try and discuss what his symptoms are, but Karev and Pixie keep arguing about whose patient he is. Karev ends up taking the patient’s chart and walking away. How reassuring for the old man to know he is in such capable and mature hands.

Izzie plays nice with her newbie giving him the good scoop on Seattle Grace. Like, which nurses to kiss up too, what actually goes on in the “on call” room, stuff like that. Their conversation is interrupted when the pharmacist asks Izzie about her cancer treatment.

Forehead is surprised to learn that Izzie has cancer and kisses her ass saying what a superwoman she is. Izzie stops him because the glare from his forehead is blinding her. He shares a personal secret of his own with Izzie, so she doesn’t feel bad about him knowing she has cancer. Turns out he’s in love with the bitchy Pixie but she doesn’t know he exists. She probably knows forehead, but is ignoring it because your eyebrows are where your nose belongs. Izzie feeling softened by their bonding shares the code to the research library with forehead.

I’m concerned that not only is your forehead the size of a roller-skating rink and that you have no neck, but your face looks like a thumb person.

The Chief has a meeting with an HR representative on the proper way to fire someone. Since the mass email didn’t go over so well, and has caused a couple lawsuits. God Chief, can’t you do anything right? You can’t even fire people right!

McD, Lexie and Skipper look at the ex-rays of the criminal and discuss next steps. Lexie says a bunch of medical mumbo jumbo that impresses McD. Skipper feigns she’s impressed but then spits our her own medical mumbo jumbo that impresses McD more and they go with Skipper’s idea. Lexie does not like moving to the back of the class.

Back in trauma with the DOM and the furious father, the 19 year old daughter rushes to her boyfriends side. The dad freaks out and grabs a hammer, that is ever so conveniently sitting in the OR and rushes at the DOM with it. Jackson sees this and tackles him to the ground quickly restraining him. Everyone looks on thoroughly impressed and begins to clap. Yang looks on with a total WTF face.

After the tackle the Major expresses his admiration for the tackle. He asks Jackson if he played football, and Jackson says that he played offense and defense. Did you play for Florida like your twin brother Chris Leak, Jackson? Sorry, I don’t mean to keep getting distracted but football is infinitely more entertaining than this whole episode, so I’m having trouble staying on task.

Don’t they look alike though?

Jackson

And his brother Chris Leak

Yang is progressively getting more and more annoyed by the adoration and hits a boiling point with the DOM asks her to bring Jackson over to thank him for saving his live. She’s like, I’m saving your life dick!

Karev and Pixie are still arguing over the old man patient, as Karev found something different in the diagnosis and is now going to bring him into surgery. The daughter comes out for some help and Karev is like, yeah be there shortly…rudely blowing her off.

A few minutes later Karev is paged back to the old man’s room by Karev. Turns out, Pixie spotted some neurological problems in the old guy, and his arteries are like 90% clogged. So, the tumor Karev found is trumped by the blockage Pixie found. Pixie gets the surgery and the smugness of beating Karev. Karev stops her in front of the patient and his daughter and asks why that wasn’t in his charts. She nastily says, Oh, I must have forgot. How fortunate for the patient who is a pawn in their battle.

Per Arizona’s advice, Torres tries a different approach with her dad. She sits down with him and the priest mediator to calmly discuss their relationship. She tries to reason with her dad and see things from his point of view, but he quickly begins to use the bible to scare the gay out of her. Even the priest is like, wtf? This is not what we discussed.

As Pappa T reviews his note cards of how quick her journey to hell is if she stays gay, Torres leaps up in fury and verbally bitch slaps him with Jesus’ word. (I cannot believe I just wrote that) She spits out verse after verse of how you love and accept everyone according to Jesus, and chastises her dad for not accepting her, his daughter. In other news, during this episode we’ve learned that Torres’ name is Colliapy. Did anyone else know that?

This is what we call a bible beat-down.

Lexie treats the burglar who has a little surprise for her. Skipper has spent the entire day jotting things down in a small notebook, and the burglar stole it. He must be pretty good to have been able to steal something from someone that she has been writing in constantly while he is strapped to a bed with handcuffs. He gives it to Lexie to gain a little leverage verse Skipper. Lexie is horrified, but quickly takes it when Skipper comes looking for it.

At lunchtime, Lexie reviews the book and makes the mistake of telling Karev and Yang that she has it. They all commiserate about how MWN are pretty much kicking their ass up and down the hospital. As they discuss this Izzie joins them with two coffees, one for her and one for Forehead. She tells them to get past their pettiness because not all the MWN’s are bad. After she leaves it dawns on the Seattle Gracers that not only are the MWNers kicking their ass, but none of them are in the cafeteria eating. They all take off to go find out what they missed.

Yang finds her patient with the Major and Jackson, and of course something went wrong with him. Jackson caught it, and the Major invites him to scrub in on surgery. Yang is furious and confronts the major, because that was her patient and its bullshit that she isn’t scrubbing in. Halfway through her argument she gives up, and I think this might be the end of Yang and the Major.

Forehead, Pixie and Skipper are all hanging out in the middle of the hospital as Forehead entertains them with the stories of all that he has gotten Izzie to do for him. He brags that she basically is eating out of the palm of his hand, and that she’s his surgical bitch. While he is talking, Skipper nervously gestures behind him with the ever so original “their right behind me, aren’t they?” Izzie has overheard the whole conversation, and looks like she might stab him in the heart. Instead she just drops the coffee she got him all over his feet. Next time, do it in the face. Seriously, I don’t know how much longer I can look at this guy.

I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there. The glare off my forehead is blinding.

Karev checks up on the old guy and as he is checking him out the old man starts to mumble a bunch of random crap. Pixie comes in, and Karev tells her that something was wrong with her diagnosis. They begin to argue about it, and finally the daughter interrupts them and calls them out on being completely self absorbed assholes all day who cared more about the other one getting it wrong then fixing the old man. They both sheepishly apologize and leave.

Forehead finds Izzie with the kidney patient and tries to make nice by offering to help. She walks away from the patient and tells him to get lost. He explains that at Mercy West everyone was fighting to get ahead, and that’s just part of the job. Izzie, furious tells him that they don’t roll like that at Seattle Grace. They aren’t all about themselves. Um, really? Since when? She tells him he’ll never be as good as the people they lost, and goes back to treat her patient.

In arguably the most real scene in the entire season, Yang goes into Meredith’s room and closes the door. She slowly begins to completely break down into hysterics about her devestation over the current state of her career. She cries about the crappy situation of her job, the loss of her passion and Burke. She reminds Meredith that when Burke was around she held a heart every day, and now she hasn’t touched one in months. It is a pretty significant change that she went from performing constant surgeries for Burke to getting suckered into a penile implant. I’d feel bad for her if she hadn’t been such a heartless bitch all season.

This face will get you back in the Emmy conversation my friend

McD, Lexie and Skipper all head to surgery and Skipper has taken it upon herself to prep the patient. Even though that was Lexie’s job. McD praises her enthusiasm, and Lexie uses this opportunity to use Skipper’s ammunition against her, by quoting key lines from the stolen red journal. She also let’s Skipper know that she can tell the nose job is fake and maybe don’t bring your personal diary to work you tool. Skipper is horrified and excuses herself to go cry. After she leaves Lexie looks slightly remorseful.

Elsewhere, Arizona confronts Mr. Bible Belt himself, Daddy Torres. $10 says this is a Grey’s Anatomy speech with a lot of repeated words. Any takers? She starts out the speech by telling him that she wasn’t named after the state, but of the battleship that her Grandfather died on while saving 19 men in Pearl Harbor. She speaks a lot of her father and the honor with which she was raised. I heart this speech, but I’m a total sucker for anything military. She shares with Daddy Torres her father’s reaction when she came out to him. His only concern was that she was the same woman he had raised, which she was.

She then repeated a few phrases a bunch, like: I’m a good man, I’m a good man in a storm and I protect what I love. Stuff like that. Overall it’s one of the better Grey’s speeches, and Daddy Torres seems to agree because Arizona leaves him tearful.

I’m pretty much the only good person in this whole hospital so she really could do a lot worse. Plus I’m pretty.

Meanwhile, Izzie and Foreheads patient has begun to crash and foam at the mouth. Izzie rushes in and instantly blames Forehead for head butting the patient, but he quickly reminds Izzie that he didn’t do shit and she was the last one with him.

After the patient is stable, No Nonsense Bailey is ready to pounce. She confronts Izzie and Forehead to find out WTF happened in there. She doesn’t allow Izzie to talk, but tells her that Forehead tattled that she was very upset with him when she read the labs, which is probably why she read the labs wrong. Izzie begins to argue, but Bailey interrupts her to show her what she did (medical talk) and it turns out Izzie in fact did completely screw up, almost killing the woman.

Now the woman is alive, but she can’t get the kidney anymore and if they don’t find her a new one in three days, she’ll die. And No Nonsense Bailey lets Izzie know it will be all, her, fault. F-ing brutal. Bailey and Forehead walk away and Izzie looks devastated because she knows Bailey is right.

As Bailey tells the patient the bad news, Izzie gets a page from the Chief. Ugh, I know exactly the feeling that hit the pit of her stomach when she got that page. It’s like the time I snuck out in high school and about 30 minutes after I snuck out I got a 911 page from my mom. That is the absolute worst. And yes, I’m that old that I had a pager…not a cell phone in high school.

Also, Lexie apologizes to Skipper, but nobody really cares.

When Izzie enters the Chief’s office he introduces the HR rep and Izzie knows exactly what that means. She begins to argue that the Chief can’t fire her because she has cancer. The Chief lets her know, that is not why….and as she continues to argue you begin to see why he was given a pre-written speech. She apologizes for the mistake with the kidney but reminds him that she was allowed to come back after the cut the LVAD wire. Yeah…maybe don’t remind someone who you don’t want to fire you, that this isn’t even your worse f-up.

But I don’t understand…this isn’t even the worst thing I’ve done!

The Chief begins to explain that people have expressed concerns about her stamina, Mc D, the Major and even Karev. Izzie is shocked that Karev would have said anything, but the Chief doesn’t get a chance to explain what Karev’s concerns were. The HR rep interrupts him, so that he can give the approved speech. After he fires Izzie, she sobs and makes one final plea for him to not take away the only thing she has left.

As the episode wraps up, Daddy Torres stops Torres to make nice. Whatever choices she makes he will always love her and support her. She even makes him happy to say that if she will give her mom a huge wedding, grandkids and that even though she doesn’t eat meat, she’s not a vegetarian.

In the locker room, Karev finds a note in his locker. He takes the note straight to Grey’s room where Yang and Grey are lying in bed watching TV. He tells them that Izzie left him. He doesn’t know where she went but he doesn’t think she’s coming back. Grey and Yang are naturally shocked and Karev seems more shocked than sad, but a little sad.

And with that, the episode ends. I know this is super late, and I apologize because I’ve been traveling a bunch so next week’s (tonights) will be much faster. Thought this episode was good and like that we have no idea what will happen with Katherine Heigl. Will she come back after maternity leave? Does anyone care? Can we get WAY less Forehead and a lot more Jackson? And where was Sloan this episode?

Only three residents left…