Nips Don’t Lie

Many moons ago, there was this show called Grey’s Anatomy. It was ostensibly about doctors and interns and surgeries and lattes but mostly about penetration. Anyway, ABC apparently decided to resurrect it this week, for the first time in what seems like decades. Here’s what happened.

Meredith, light of my life, fire of my loins. I just LOVE your voiceovers. Can’t get enough. This week Meredith starts off blabbering about how the key to being a successful intern is giving up a normal life: sleep, friends, autoerotic asphyxiation, the whole shebang. All that sacrifice for one amazing moment when you can legally call yourself a surgeon. Unfortunately, the poignancy of this silver-tongued oratory is disrupted by a horrific shot of George, with new and distinctly unimproved hair, “plunging the pene” with our lovely Dr. Torres. This is the worst scene ever. On top of the general ghastliness of it, we’re forced to view George’s nipple and then hear Callie thank him repeatedly for the sex. GREAT.At ye olde rustick mountain trailer, the Drs. Shepherd have also just “finished” in bed. She thanks him half-heartedly for what even he admits is the most boring sex ever. (What is with everybody thanking people for sex? STOP DOING IT.) After this awkward coupling, the phone rings, and it’s Meredith calling from the vet’s office. But She-Shepherd assumes that it’s the vet himself on the line, so she grabs the phone from He-Shepherd mid-sentence and unwittingly tells Meredith that they’ll call back because they’re “trying really hard to have some decent sex here.” Oops.

Over at said vet’s, Dr. Finn “Pride of the McGillicuddy Clan” Dandridge tells Meredith the dog can go home—he suspects it just has a virus. (My money’s on canine herpes.) Finn asks whether she and He-Shepherd are together, and Meredith bumbles a response: she and Derek are just friends, he’s married, she’s knitting sweaters, and there’s this funny problem she’s been having recently, it’s weird, she has a tendency to ramble these days, not sure why, but she wishes somebody would just tell her to shut up. Well here it is sweetie: SHUT THE FUCK UP. Anyway, Finn asks whether she’s single, because he’d like to take her on a date. She stutters some more, finally admitting that she’s not dating. Which I must agree is probably best for humankind.

At the hospital, Bailey is pissed because once again her name isn’t on the board. Webber says it’s a slow day and pats her on the back, which enrages her even more. Burke empathizes, so he offers to let Bailey handle Izzie’s sputtering Energizer Bunny of a heart patient, Denny. Yep, that son of a bitch is still going. Cristina comes up and offers Burke a coffee, but he barely notices it. He says he’s dragging a little—he didn’t jog as far this morning since Coach O’Malley wasn’t around and they couldn’t “push each other.” Speaking of, George comes up with a cappuccino for Burke, who accepts it eagerly.

George has learned that Burke’s hero—some genius classical violinist from San Francisco—has come to SGH because he’s having problems with his pacemaker, which Burke installed a while back. George and Burke bond rather gallingly for a few moments, and Burke offers George the patient—but George turns him down since he’s already assigned. Cristina says Burke should think of her a little more, since she was lying on top of him naked last night after all. Gross, they SPOON VERTICALLY??

In the dumbest move ever, Meredith asks Alex for relationship advice. But Alex doesn’t care at all whether or not Meredith goes on a date with a vet since he’s not big on chick stuff like dating or yeast cream. He says as long as the vet isn’t a serial killer Meredith should just do him and get it over with. Man, when they want us to hate Alex they really paint with a broad brush.

Ever the creative genius, Meredith names her vet crush “McVet.” When Cristina finds out about this, she blurts out disdainfully that Meredith can never date a vet because vets aren’t real doctors. At this point, She-Shepherd walks in, all flustered and pissy from her bad sex morning. The interns try to avoid her, but Alex gets trapped in the headlights and—despite his protestations that he “doesn’t do vagina”—gets roped into doing OB-GYN.

Denny tells Bailey he really wants to be off his LVAD machine and out of the hospital. Believe me buddy, I want it too. Just pull out the tubes and run free. Anyway, Bailey says he may be a candidate for a portable LVAD machine that would allow him to go home. Izzie overhears this and advises against it because she’s afraid of the risks. Bailey ignores Izzie and sends her off to the mothership.

Burke’s violinist, meanwhile, wants his pacemaker removed. He claims it’s messing up his heartbeat, his rhythm, so he can no longer play his music, his sweet music, since music comes from the heart. (Get it? GET IT?!??) To him music and life are inseparable, so he doesn’t care if the heart problem costs him his life. Burke convinces him, though, to try one last setting on the pacemaker before they remove it.

She-Shepherd’s patient is some monster of fertility who has about 20,000 children already and now another one on the way. She’s close to term and needs a C-section. After her husband and legions of Aryan spawn leave the room, she tears up and asks She-Shepherd if she could make this baby her last—i.e., tie her tubes during the C-section. The catch is the woman’s husband is ultra-Catholic and would flip out, so she doesn’t want him to find out. Alex listens to all this with great disapproval. Indeed, this question of whether or not to tie the tubes looks like tonight’s meaty ethical dilemma.

She-Shepherd tells the patient she needs have the tough conversation with her husband. But the patient wants to do the entire operation off the record—she’s saved money so she can pay out of pocket and keep the procedure off the insurance paperwork. Alex thinks the woman is lying and the husband is probably abusing her. The woman insists not and says the husband just doesn’t see religion as a “buffet table” where you can take what you want and leave other things. So, theoretically speaking, on the buffet table of Catholicism, what would a C-section be? The capers? The sausage links? The TOFU? WHAT WOULD IT BE LADY?

Alex calls B.S. and growls that the woman doesn’t get to lie to her husband and then blame it on the pope. Uh, since when is Alex ethical? She-Shepherd drags him outside and is about to yell when Alex says he has no interest in OB-GYN and she can just throw him off the case if she wants. She retorts that until he can top her reputation as a surgeon he better watch his mouth. So of course he mouths off yet again. I was hoping the silly ho would slap him across the face, but sadly we weren’t treated to what would’ve been one of the best She-Shepherd moments ever.

Samuel L. Jackson would KILL for this hat

He-Shepherd’s patient is some lady working on her laptop from her hospital bed and wearing some silly-ass electronic hat. She’s been having seizures, and the hat is some device that helps locate where the seizures originate. But the problem is that she suddenly isn’t having any more seizures, so the hat isn’t worth shit.

It turns out the patient is a divorce lawyer, and since she’s sick of losing billable hours she asks jokingly whether anybody in the room needs help getting out of a bad marriage. George and Izzie exchange a knowing glance behind He-Shepherd’s back, which prompts the patient to be like “OH REALLY, Dr. Shepherd, might you be interested in LE DIVORCE,” but he denies it. But the patient knows better, guessing that the Shepherds’ marital problem is bad sex. Bingo! He-Shepherd is not in the mood for this. He tells Izzie and George to do whatever it takes to make the patient seize up—strobe lights, alcohol, wiffle bat, Maude reruns, anything. He just wants to get her out of his sight as soon as possible.

So George and Izzie go to the SGH Internets Lab to do some research on inducing seizures. We’re treated to another doozy of an Izzie Moment in which she laughs heartily, and I do mean HEARTILY, at one of her own jokes. George ignores her completely, which briefly makes me gain about 1000% respect for him. George discovers that there’s some old arcade game that apparently causes seizures after level 53, so they decide to get their hands on a copy. Izzie starts asking George a bunch of irritating questions but is interrupted when Dr. Torres comes in, prompting all manner of cooing and googly eyes and whispered inside jokes. Izzie rolls her eyes and goes back to her sock puppets.

“Christmas and Hanukkah in one holiday? Now that IS funny!”

Burke’s patient, meanwhile, is playing his violin in bed. Burke reveals that scar tissue has formed around the patient’s pacemaker, so it would be very risky to remove. The patient recalls how he first saw a violin as a boy in his grandpa’s attic and was hooked from day one. Well NO SHIT MARY, the only thing more addictive than violin is cowbell. Anyway, the patient knows the surgery could kill him but also knows Burke is the best. He wants Burke to do the operation himself—and if he won’t, he’ll find somebody else who will. Ooh, passive-aggressive violinists! A new Grey’s Anatomy demographic.

Outside, Burke admits to Cristina that he might defer and send the patient elsewhere for the surgery. Using her trademark sledgehammer sensitivity, Cristina dismissively blurts out NO, Burke MUST do the surgery. Only then does she note that he’s been crying—he’s wiping his eyeglasses—and realize maybe she should be a little compassionate. So she asks Burke to imagine if he himself were the patient and had a condition that meant he would be only an average surgeon, not a great one. A clarion call of trumpets fills the room as Burke becomes Inspired.

Since Denny’s vital signs are normal, he’s eligible for the portable LVAD. He’s psyched because he’s sick of having dozens of tubes stuck in his body. In particular he wants to get rid of the catheter that’s stuck right up Little Denny, since he’d love to be able to use Little Denny for other functions, like muddling mojitos or spreading mayo on sandwiches. But he has reservations because Izzie advised him not to get the portable device. Bailey’s horseshitdar is on full alert, and she says that Denny better not be allowing his concern for Izzie’s feelings to get in the way of medical advice. Wisely, Denny acquiesces. Outside, Bailey asks Meredith what’s going on between Izzie and Denny—crush, innocent flirtation, or full-blown chorizo-chomping? Meredith says she can’t imagine Izzie would cross the line, but Bailey retorts that the interns have proved time and again that they’re dumber than air. As icing on the cake, she also states she couldn’t give two shits about Meredith’s dating life.

Gross, it’s sonogram time for She-Shepherd’s patient. There’s a “you ain’t ready for this jelly” joke in here somewhere, but I just don’t have the stomach for it. The woman says she tried to go on the Pill once, but then her husband stopped going to communion. Alex inserts a nice little comment about going to hell. Then the patient says miserably that she and her husband have abstained for three of the last four years in order to avoid pregnancy. But Alex continues to make jibes, saying that even if the husband finds out about the tube-tying, it’s not like he can divorce her—he’s CATHOLIC. Ha! The woman says if her husband found out, he’d judge her as harshly as Alex is judging her now. Sounds like a great marriage!

Later, during the C-section, Alex is cauterizing away when She-Shepherd says she sees some “abnormal bleeding” and asks for the cauterizing tool. He knows what she’s up to, and the two have one of those intense stare-at-each-other-over-the-surgical-masks moments. Finally he backs down and gives her the tool, so she FRIES THE SHIT out of this woman’s fallopian tubes.

“Congratulations! Here’s your little bundle of LIES AND DECEIT”

Afterward, She-Shepherd presents the baby to the mother. Discreetly she tells her there was a “complication” during the surgery and she won’t be able to have any more children. The woman is very grateful. Outside, Alex confronts She-Shepherd about this ludicrous “complication,” but she maintains that their obligation is always to the patient.

Izzie and George give He-Shepherd’s seizure lady dozens of espresso shots, which she pounds one after another. She’s enjoying the coffee and donuts LIKE YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE—at one point she says giddily that she’s sick of being a lawyer and “courts are stupid because I LOVE DONUTS!!!” In short, I think we’ve found a screen partner for Rosie O’Donnell in Riding the Bus with My Sister Part Deux. I was convinced the patient was gonna seize up with the donuts in her mouth and start coughing up powdered sugar, but alas, it was not to be. Incidentally, I notice throughout this scene that Izzie has the SHARPEST TEETH EVER, so don’t mess with that bitch unless y’all wanna get BIT.

“Ha yeah now drink that coffee or I’ll BITE YOUR HEAD OFF WITH THESE THINGS”

With all this caffeine in her, the patient gets really into the seizure-inducing video game George found, screaming “DIEDIEDIEDIEDIE” in the same voice I imagine Catherine Zeta-Jones reserves for her household servants. At the other end of the room, Izzie confronts George about refusing to say where he’s been living ever since he moved out and started dating Callie. Fourth-grader that he is, George changes the subject and starts blaming Izzie for advising him to go after Meredith in the first place.

Then we go into impossible-to-recap mode in which the show cuts back and forth among four different scenes. As Bailey continues to treat Denny, Dr. Webber watches over her shoulder to see whether she’s doing things right, which really pisses her off. Burke begins the surgery on his violinist. And then outside, the C-section woman’s husband comes up to Alex, distraught because his wife has told him about the “complication” that left her infertile. Uh-oh. Alex is gonna seriously screw this up.

Izzie and George continue to argue. Izzie says she advised George simply to tell Meredith how he felt, not to jump into bed with her. George insists that Izzie sent him into Meredith’s bedroom simply to humiliate him. Okay, memo to George: Izzie is many things but she certainly is not GLENN CLOSE FROM DANGEROUS LIAISONS. Izzie retorts that it was obvious Meredith wasn’t into George, yet George simply didn’t want to hear it. He needs to sack up and take at least a little bit of responsibility. The seizure patient watches their increasingly heated argument and suddenly, guess what, has a seizure. Schwing!

Alex tells the distraught husband that he might want to get a lawyer regarding his wife’s C-section “complication.” Denny, meanwhile, suddenly starts hyperventilating. Sorry, but I am so sick of this bastard hyperventilating. JUST DIE ALREADY. It’s getting to be like Madonna’s whole two-month-long death scene in Evita. And then in Burke’s O.R., his violinist starts flatlining. Though Cristina tries to stop the blood loss, the patient dies.

Despite his wheezing episode, Denny turns out to be okay. Meredith apologizes for her forwardness but asks him what’s going on with him and Izzie. She says she’s not judging, it’s just that there are strict rules against doctors dating their patients. But Denny replies that he’s thought a lot over the past year and has realized that the moments in life he values most were those when he ignored the “rules” and followed his sputtering, diseased heart instead. In short, life is too short to be following rules. In keeping with the moment, Loretta Swit and Bonnie Bedelia show up, film an impromptu after-school special right there in Denny’s room, and everybody barfs with saccharine, life-affirming joy.

Bailey confronts Webber for undermining her authority in front of Denny. Webber insists he’s not punishing her—he’s just not sure she’s entirely back on her game after having her baby, but he still values her immensely. Webber is interrupted when a nurse informs him that the husband of She-Shepherd’s C-section patient wants a word with him. Egad.

After work, Meredith stops by the vet’s office again and says she’ll go on a date with him if he still wants to. He says he’d love to but he can’t tonight because he has an errand to run. Meredith offers to accompany him and soon finds out that the “errand” is delivering a baby horse out in the stable. As we find out, Meredith LOVES using “birth” as a verb. “You’re birthing a horse? BIRTHING a horse? I want to birth a horse!” For god’s sake STOP USING BIRTH AS A VERB, you’re not GODDAMN DR. QUINN.

Back at the hospital, She-Shepherd tells Webber that they have to discuss Alex’s bad attitude. But Webber points out that the C-section patient’s husband is talking to a lawyer in the next room and therefore She-Shepherd has much bigger problems than Alex. Webber read her notes and the nurse’s log and knows that her story about the surgical “complication” is complete crap. Oh snap.

He-Shepherd tells the seizure patient that they pinpointed the source of her seizure and can now perform surgery. But the patient says she no longer wants the procedure: she realizes that the last few days in the hospital are the first time she’s had fun in years, and that her seizures must’ve stemmed from the stress of her professional life. Now she plans to change her life, tone down her work commitments, and focus on the things that really matter. I sure hope Loretta and Bonnie are still around, because it looks like we have another after-school special in the making.

At the vet’s, the horse is born. Just as Meredith and Finn are “celebrating the moment,” Tom Cruise whizzes by on a combination snowmobile/motorcycle/road-luge, snatches the horse placenta from the stable floor, and rides off cackling maniacally into the night. As Meredith and Finn continue to watch the newborn foal, they engage in a spirited round of awkward flirting.

“Heavens, we just birthed a horse! How DELIGHTFULLY WASPY!”

At the hospital, She-Shepherd confronts the C-section patient, who apologizes because she didn’t realize her husband would cause a big legal stink. She-Shepherd says she needs the woman to admit to her husband that the tube-tying was her own wish. But the woman refuses—even when She-Shepherd pleads that her career is on the line—saying that it would ruin her marriage. God, this woman sucks. She-Shepherd walks away exasperated.

Since Meredith is, you know, covered in afterbirth, Finn says she should come up to his place and shower while he cooks dinner. Meredith again does the stuttering thing—not charming—and Finn interjects that she should just come up to his apartment and get naked because he’d sure like to see some emaciated ribcage. Meredith takes mock offense, but Finn ensures her that in reality he has no intention of trying to get into her pants tonight.

Back at the hospital, Alex continues to taunt She-Shepherd about being in trouble. But she gets the last laugh, telling him he did “such a good job today” that she’s gonna have him assigned to OB-GYN with her for as long as she wants. Denny, meanwhile, is all proud of his new portable LVAD. He and Izzie engage in some aggressive hugging, which Bailey witnesses but resigns herself to ignore.

At home, Burke, devastated about the loss of his violinist hero, sits on the floor of his bedroom listening to one of the man’s recordings. Later, in bed, Cristina insists he did everything he could to save the patient. Burke says the thing he admired most about the violinist was that he wasn’t a natural virtuoso but made up for it through discipline and practice. Burke says he was the same way: he wasn’t the brightest in his class like Cristina but nonetheless was the best because he practiced. Aww, Burke is opening up.

COINCIDENTALLY, He-Shepherd stops back by the vet’s house just as Meredith is coming down the stairs, showered and in Finn’s clothes—apparently the dog is sick again. He shoots Meredith a very nasty look. Back at Meredith’s house, George comes in the door with Callie, saying he figured they’d spend the night. He says he doesn’t know whether he’s back for good, but it’s still his room and he’s still paying rent. George and Callie crack a couple beers and sit at the kitchen table; Izzie welcomes George home warmly as she destroys some cookies with her knife-sharp incisors.

And finally, He-Shepherd arrives back at the trailer, where She-Shepherd launches into a tirade about what an awful day she’s had. All worked up, he ignores her and commands her to get in the shower for some hot middle-aged action. She-Shepherd pulls off her top and once again says “thank you thank you thank you”—for god’s sake she thanks people BEFORE AND AFTER SEX? I’m all for decorum, but enough already.

Mmmm… trailer-park sex

I thought the episode was a little cheesy at times but overall a lot of fun—at the very least, it was nice to have a new one instead of a repeat or a horrifically narrated clip show (seriously, who was that guy?). Next week looks like it could be good, since apparently He-Shepherd calls Meredith a “whore.” I’m just a little worried about what they’re planning to do with She-Shepherd—if they get rid of her I’m gonna raise a mob to storm the ABC studio gates with torches and pitchforks. Who’s with me?