Thursday, October 19, 2006

Grey's Anatomy: Can you eat Reese's Pieces at an M&M?

Spoilers for the best "Grey's Anatomy" of the season coming right up...

So pleased, virtually all around. The Bailey subplot totally made up for that horrid "My pregnancy is the reason Denny died" monologue from a few weeks ago. I actually felt some emotion about all the McDreamy/McSteamy sturm und drang. I liked the segue of the Prince Albert storyline from farcical Montgomery/Shepherd parallel to crisis point for Burke. (The hand tremor plot is stolen from a "St. Elsewhere" plot where Dr. Craig injured his hand, but it's been 20 years, and if you're gonna steal, steal from the best.) Firing on all cylinders...

...well, almost all cylinders. All the stuff with Izzie made me as crazy as it usually does. Time for the all-caps: SHE KILLED A GUY. Not through a screw-up, or even a moment of weakness like the one the Chief described as a lame attempt for Shonda to get her off the hook. She deliberately broke every ethical code in the book and endangered the health of a patient because she had gone batshit crazy in love. Better that they just stop bringing it up then to continue these annoying attempts to pretend that they didn't do something that should have written Izzie off the show.

Oh, and can one of those interns please get Izzie into a headlock and drag her and her big wrinkled check down to the bank to deposit it in a passbook account or something? It's fine to wait until you know what to do with the money, but only a complete imbecile or lunatic -- like, maybe, the type of person who would cut an LVAD wire to move her bohunk up the transplant list -- would just leave the thing, uncashed, under a refrigerator magnet.

And now I see that I've written twice as much about what I hated about the episode than what I liked. Oh, "Grey's," why do you vex me so?

What did everybody else think?

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, now I want to hear what you really liked so spill! I really liked the scene where Dr. Bailey went to talk to the breast cancer patient/mom. That was a very quiet and powerful scene. I was also a bit floored by the Meredith tells Derek elevator scene as well as the scene between Callie and George.

Anonymous said...

Like I've said before, Izzie's going to get back into the program somehow. Either you can live with that or you can't. But there's no way it will be plausible.

That said, I actually thought the scene between Izzie and Burke was quite good. Because Burke himself is falling apart, it is understandable that he would be more focused on Izzie "wasting" her hands than on the fact that she killed a man. The notion of anyone wasting their hands is clearly an outsized concern for him right now.

The scene with the chief, on the other hand, was ridiculous. The notion that there's any equivalence between what he did -- hesitating, panicking a bit maybe, as an intern -- and what Izzie did -- cut a man's lifeline -- is absurd. I can only hope that Dr. Savoy, designated jerk, gets one more guest shot to point this fact out.

And Karev's going to go into OB/GYN. That's so sweet.

Anon

Anonymous said...

I actually got a bit weepy at the Bailey/Cancermom scene. Chandra Wilson rocks.

Izzie deserves all the punishment she gets, but what she does not deserve is Burke heaping guilt on her for what happened to him. I know he needs to blame someone, but Izzie's not the reason he got shot. He got shot because Ken Marino was playing a slimeball, as usual, and Burke got in the way of his comeuppance.

And after tonight, I'm firmly in the Karev-McSteamy-jerkface camp. Yeah, those guys are asses, but at least they're open about it. They don't play stupid elevator mindgames or refuse to talk about what's going on with women they supposedly love.

Anonymous said...

WORST. EPISODE. EVER. Izzie - shut up! There are no likeable characters left.

Anonymous said...

I agree that Karev is going to wind up in OB/GYN. But it is tough to be a hard-ass there, so it should be interesting.

Izzie - meh. Whatever, we knew she was going to stay in medicine. I did like the M&M scene, so I'm glad that it was mentioned at least. ANd I agree - cash the damn check - you can move the money around later.

I am really getting sick of Derek. He walks out on Addison and also Mark when they are trying to explain things. He can't just be mad and say lets move on - he has to make too big of a move. It strikes me as very hypocritical. I think this character is portrayed as a nice guy, but these strains of selfishness and self-righteousness are weeping out.

I really though Callie and George would wind up together again. I was surprised that Mark cheated on Addison, and that is one of the reasons she left NYC

Anonymous said...

How come when the patients on Grey's Anatomy give the doctors life lessons, it is OK with everyone? When it was done on ER, it is "anvilicious" to quote someone on TWOP? I don't think either one is done to excess (although both Bailey and Addison got that this week) and it is fiction, so these coincidences happen. THey even happened on NYPD Blue on occasion too.

Anonymous said...

Just as I got annoyed at everyone going off on Derek for becoming involved with Meredith as "adulterous", when it wasn't -- as far as Derek was concerned, he wasn't married anymore, in anything but legalities...

I'm irked about the whole Izzie/Denny thing. She didn't kill him, folks.

A clot killed him, after a very successful transplant.

You want to accuse her of stealing the heart from the other donor, go right ahead.

But any cuplability she bears for Denny's death is very indirect at best. We certainly haven't been given evidence that suggests otherwise.

Given the constraints of series dramatic network television, you could say Shonda painted herself into a corner, plotwise, with this one... but that's about all... and my personal opinion is she's getting herself out about as well as can be expected.

Nice slug, though, Alan; and we love the blog...

Alan Sepinwall said...

The thing I'll say about Denny is that I'll let it go if Shonda does. I understand that it's Television with a big T, that real-world logic only occasionally applies, but at the same time, stop trying to justify something that can't be justified. It would be easier to accept Izzie's return if they stopped making other characters give lame, false apologies for her.

It's like secret identities in superhero comic books. I don't believe that a pair of glasses is all it would take to keep people from realizing Clark Kent is Superman, but the only time it actively bugs me is when some writer tries to give a more "realistic" explanation, like Superman using his super-speed to vibrate his face just enough that you don't see his features clearly. It's a silly device, and the less said about it, the better.

Anonymous said...

I liked last week's episode better, but this one was also pretty solid. Excellent Bailey storyline, not too much Meredith and Derek, and the scene where Cristina and Burke operated on the heart was so tense and well-done. I thought the "couple stuck together" storyline was a little too raunchy, but I loved Cristina's reaction: "He's having ... a heart attack! Oh, thank god. I mean, Code Blue!"

I also like where they've taken Callie and George's relationship. I respect Callie for sticking by the breakup instead of confessing her one-night-stand and begging George to forgive her. She did, after all, break up with him before she slept with McSteamy, and the fact that he either didn't notice or is pretending it didn't happen is typical of how George has handled their relationship. I appreciate how the writers have allowed Callie to stick up for herself even though she's in love.

Anonymous said...

"Now you don't have to feel guilty." "SHUT UP!" rivals "MICHAEL FEARS NOTHING!" for greatest line of the night.

I love Addison so much.

Anonymous said...

"It's like secret identities in superhero comic books. I don't believe that a pair of glasses is all it would take to keep people from realizing Clark Kent is Superman"

His hairstyle is different, too :-)

Anonymous said...

A more believable way to keep Izzie in the hospital would be for her to donate the money to the hospital and become a member of the board. But I agree if they insist on forcing the whole "you're a surgeon!" thing then they should just pretend the Denny thing never happened at this point.

Anonymous said...

The thing about the Izzie situation, and I might be mistaken but that's how I viewed it, is that her actions did NOT end up killing Denny. She made a bad decision and it COULD have killed him...but all turned out well. Denny was fine. Denny proposed to Izzie and she said "yes". All was now well. And then he died (I believe of a blood clot?) in recovery...which had nothing to do with what Izzie had done. Again, I might be misinterpreting the whole situation...but that was how I viewed it as it happened. My thoughts at the time that it was a convenient way to have him die, but not have Izzie be directly responsible.

Anonymous said...

Two folos:

Callie did *not* break up with George... and we went directly from "I have to tell George" to "get off my front porch, idiot".

Nope, sorry; Zoanne dropped the ball on that one...

Secondly: there is, on reflection, a good reason for Izzie not to deposit the check yet: taxes.

It isn't *income* (or, in this case, a gift, but a big enough one to be subject to gift tax), until she cashes it, but she should certainly put it in a safe-deposit box or something.

Incidentally, I asked today at an Amscot check-cashing place (which has 8-foot tall people on the walls with $37K checks saying "we'll cash anything) what they'd do when she walked in.

They said they'd find a way...

Unknown said...

So late to the dance yet again...at least there is Tivo.

Alan, not sure you even read the comments this late, but do you have any thoughts or knowledge about the alleged dustup between Washington and Dempsey?

But to echo some of the others...the thing with the check kills me. It actually felt borderline insulting to me, (and I am assuming) most of the audience, who does not make doctor money in the first place, that she would be so cavalier about that check. Just deposit the thing.

Anonymous said...

Not to be too technical, but gift taxes are paid by the gifter (on gifts greater than $10,000 in the aggregate in any one year), not by the recipient. A bigger issue is the estate tax -- Izzy will have estate tax liability whenever she cashes the check, assuming the money came from Denny's estate and not from his parents.