bad machine's blog

Meredith is back at work, liver intact. She's somewhere in the bowels of the hospital, pacing that little-used corridor where the gang used to gather to gossip, nap and hide from their Attendings. Back from who-knows-where, Izzie rounds the corner, pushing her favorite teacher from high school, Dr. Singer (Broadway veteran and Buffy demon Joel Grey) in a wheelchair. However, that's not the time-warp part. The time-warp part is that Izzie suddenly has a full head of hair.

Human hair grows about one half inch per month. So, let's see. Either that's the best damn weave I've ever seen, we've inexplicably time-jumped 10 months, or the same person who decided Grey's didn't need to explain why the Chief has no Mercy West counterpart clearly thinks no one is paying attention.

Meredith wants to know where the hell Izzie's been, but Izzie only wants to talk about her former mentor, who now has dementia. Out of frustration, Meredith hits Izzie but it's going to take more than a couple of girly smacks to slap the self-involved crazy off of that one.

Meanwhile, Dr. Singer thinks Izzie is still a student and warns her to beware of teen pregnancy and cheerleaders because "those little bitches are poisonous." Maybe he's not so far gone after all.

Getting a text at 3:00AM doesn't alarm me. Usually, it's just some drunk friend letting me know they're eating pizza with Jesus, decided we should form a rock band, or in a panic because they've lost their phone.Texting me they've lost their phone. Yeah, I know. But when the phone rings in the middle of the night, it's never good news. It usually means someone is in trouble, hurt or worse. And when you're a surgeon and your pager goes off, it means all three and there's usually no pizza involved.

Callie and Arizona are fast asleep — Arizona peacefully REM-ing like an angel and Callie hanging precariously near the edge, snoring ever so daintily — when a pager goes off.

Arizona wakes with a start, sees it's Callie pager and not hers, gives her girlfriend a shove, and gleefully gets back under the warm covers as Callie tumbles off the bed. Arizona's glee is short-lived because her pager goes off a moment later. Great. This is not the fun way to be woken up in the middle of the night. Guess there's no time for a quickie when lives are at stake — or so I'm told.

Derek says there are many reasons people choose to become surgeons. Some like the excitement, some like power of saving lives. He says he grew up in a house full of women and chose surgery for the peace and quiet. So, the stress of holding a living brain in your hands doesn't come close to the nerve jangling cacophony of a hen house? I get that. I'd rather disarm a bomb than watch The View.

Big Chief I'm-In-Charge has just birthed another brainchild: He proudly announces they've switched over to surgery scheduling software, which would be special, were it 1983. The staff is less uneasy about losing the surety of Dry-Erase markers and a white board than they are of anything the Chief concocts. It's just like the time he implemented his super-confusing Dress Like a Patient Day and someone accidentally gave George an enema while he was napping.

Meanwhile, Alex's elfin nemesis, Reed, has turned the locker room into a yoga studio. As Dr. Keebler stretches her hammies, Cristina comes in to remind Alex that Izzie has an oncology appointment. Considering he doesn't even know if his wife is still in the state of Washington, that's a cancellation fee waiting to happen.

Before the free yoga classes, group showers and long, peaceful days spent staring at river stones and Victor's butt, Sierra was Priya, a poor, yet happy Australian artist. While selling her paintings on the promenade of the sunny, hippie freak show known as Venice Beach, California, she met Nolan Kinnard, a rich guy with a crush and an offer. And it wasn't to buy her a corn dog and a tramp stamp.

One year ago. To win Priya over, Kinnard commissions a large painting and throws a party/art show at his home in her honor. Priya is out of place among his douchey rich friends and can barely hide her eye-rolling as she walks away from an insipid woman suffering from faux patrician lockjaw.

Echo sidles up to her in a cocktail dress slash sausage casing that has just enough "give" in all the right places. Thank you.

If you're an aficionado of old Japanese cinema, (as I'm sure most of you are) or merely took a film class in college because watching movies seemed like an easy three credits, (it is) then you're familiar with Roshomon. This classic film tells one story from the perspective of several witnesses, each version differing from the others, leaving the viewer to decide what really happened. In science, this subjectivity of memory is called the Roshomon Effect. In police investigations, it's called having unreliable witnesses. In lesbian relationships, we know it as She Said-She Said, or the more common, "My ex is crazy and that never happened."

At Seattle Grace Mercy West, something very bad has transpired. All the kids have been called to the principal's office and wait somberly outside the Chief's door. Some words are exchanged between Alex and the cute guy with the blue peepers whose name I haven't bothered to learn, so let's just call him Dr. Vanessa Williams.

The whole Red Sox vs.Yankees, shirts vs. skins, over vs. under toilet paper hanger rivalry comes to a head and a fight breaks out between the camps. Hearing the ruckus, the Chief pokes his dopey head out of this office. Keep it down; some of us are trying to sleep over here.

With a board member and the hospital's lawyer by his side, the Chief plans to interrogate every single doctor to discover the events that led up to a patient's avoidable death. The Chief calls Owen into his office. As Owen passes Cristina, she whispers what everyone's thinking: "I'm not going down for this."

Starting from the beginning, Owen sets up the scene. A hotel fire has inundated the ER with victims. One of the patients died — a woman who came in with an ugly but non-life-threatening leg burn. If only she were Jorja Fox, and not just someone who looked a little like her.

The merger is complete and Seattle Grace is under attack. Swarms of orange-clad Mercy Westies show up for their first day of school like they own the damn joint. No one's happy about it, least of all, Izzie, who wants to have a throw down with the redhead who has the nerve to take George's old cubby.

Everyone convenes in Meredith's room, where she's recovering from her recent liver donation-ectomy, to gripe and resign themselves to careers in the coroner's office. Meredith gives them a pep talk based on the plot of Aliens. "They can't attach themselves to our faces, and then when we're eating spaghetti, explode out of our chests and skitter across the floor. This is our ship!" she assures them. Well, good, because I'm pretty sure their HMO doesn't cover this.

Cristina is feeling lower than ever. Does anyone remember the heady days when she was a shining star in the cardiothoracic universe? She doesn't either. Meredith tells her to nut up and get out there.

So, there's this nefarious organization that takes real people and zombiefies them until they're pliable puppets, ready and waiting to be told what to do. No, not the Christian right. The Dollhouse. And theirs is such a great idea, it was only a matter of time before some nutball decided to try it at home. Meet Terry Karrens: nutball.

Glen Campbell called. He wants his shirt back.

How do we know Terry is certifiable? It could be his high-water Dockers, or the creepy, slicked-down comb-over so popular with the serial killer set, or it could be that he's playing a genteel game of croquet with several women he's paralyzed with animal tranquilizers. What's this? One of them doesn't want to play anymore.

"Aunt Sheila" is getting away. Well, sort of. Terry grabs the girl and sticks her with another syringe, but not before she gets in a shot of her own. Now you've gone and made him mad. Terry bashes her head in with his mallet. That's going to leave a mark.

As newlyweds Izzie and Alex are learning, there are many advantages to living in a trailer perched atop a mountain: the stars are brighter, the air is fresher and you'll never look out your window only to see your neighbor taking out the trash in his underwear. There is, however the occasional downside, as Alex finds out this morning.

Bears aren't the only ones who s---t in the woods.

Conversely, the looming hospital merger has everyone at Sphincter Level 10. The Chief holds a staff meeting where the free danishes have more substance than his words, and Cristina is so desperate to perform a surgery to prove her worth, she'd probably remove her own spleen if they'd only let her. Things start to look up for Yang, though, when Lexie comes in, holding up her pale, disoriented dad. He promptly hurls blood all over Meredith's shoes.

The merger of Seattle Grace and Mercy West has everyone freaking right out of their scrubs. Not only does no one dare go home, let alone screw up or get some shut-eye, there's a good chance the hospital will be renamed Smercy Grest, or Macy Gracy, or just plain old, "The Chief's Place."

Cristina is more unhinged than her peers are because A) she's ambitious as all get out, and B) she's off the cardiac rotation and so desperate to find a chair before the music stops, she's willing to pretend she likes snot-nosed children to get into pediatrics. Yes, kittens, things are that bad.

Cristina: You're safe because of Derek. Izzie's safe because of cancer. Alex is Bailey's new favorite. You know, even George would have been spared because he's Owen's guy. Cardio has been a revolving door around here. And no one's got my back.
Meredith: So, Arizona is your cover?
Cristina: She's merger-proof. She keeps little kids alive. No one likes a dead kid.

But everyone loves a fanciful wig. Izzie shows up to work wearing an Eva Gabor number, insisting it looks real and not at all like a fox died on her head.

Ballard has some free time between staring at Echo while pursing his lips with lustful concern, and rifling through Adelle's desk, looking for Dollhouse secrets and breath mints. He wanders into Topher's lab and fondles the treatment chair with curiosity, a hundred questions racing through his mind. What's it like getting your entire personality erased? Does it hurt? How's the lumbar support on this thing?

Topher discovers Ballard and scolds him for touching the equipment. But he quickly forgets about that because he would rather talk about what a smarty-pants he is. Topher's found a way to change the Actives on a "glandular level," which would explain the lack of acne, PMS and obesity in the Dollhouse ranks.

The possibilities are endless. Topher says he could program someone to cure cancer (he doesn't) or be telekinetic (again, not worth his time) or play "fancy piano." I don't hear any Chopin, do you?

Part two of the season premiere begins with Ceviche — real name, Clara — finding out that on top of being sliced and dice by a boat propeller, she also has sea monkeys living in her bowel because the water was dirty. Yang says the two words every young woman dreads, "colostomy bag? And Clara freaks and rightly so. What kind of shoes go with a poo bag? Clara says "no way" to more surgeries and Bailey goes ballistic on Cristina for her awesome bedside manner.

Later, Izzie is getting her daily dose of Chernobyl while Meredith and Cristina take advantage of the fruit pops available only in the cancer ward.

Cristina: Bailey's on some sort of rampage. [laughing' I think it's Post-traumatic stress disorder.
Meredith: [to Izzie] She's not dealing with her grief.
Cristina: You sound like Owen's shrink.
Meredith: Owen's shrink is withholding sex. So [Cristina] is grumpy and inappropriate.

What's her excuse for the other 2000+ days of the past six years?

There are five stages of grief: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. And you can bet your catheters we're going to go through all of them in this first half of the two-hour season premiere of Grey's Anatomy, which picks up right where it left off last season. Izzie makes the kind of miraculous cancer recovery usually reserved for daytime soap operas, and George is brain-dead, succumbing to chronic Creator Ignoria, followed by a fatal case of Actorial Quitius.

Lexie judges the hamburger lying on the table to be taller than George, causing mass confusion and a tiny swell of false hope. The gang confronts Meredith, The Girl Who Cried George, and demands to know how she's so certain it's their friend. "He wrote in my hand!" she tells everyone.

Not good enough. Ex-wife Callie knows about a freckle shaped like Texas and goes into the room to check. I wished to God the freckle was located on his penis but that's probably why the ABC writers' room doesn't return my phone calls.

Welcome (back) to the Dollhouse! Joss Whedon's sophomore season begins with a big day: Echo is marrying Apollo. Or is it Faith marrying Lee Adama? Whether Greek letters are hooking up with Greek gods, or Slayers are tying the knot with Viper pilots, Jamie Bamber from Battlestar Galactica is the guest star. And he gets to drop the American accent and speak in his natural British one, so, cool.

But before she can shove wedding cake all over the groom's face in that oddly passive-aggressive ritual straight people are so fond of,Topher has to imprint Echo with the personality of the bride-to-be.

Ousted FBI agent, new Dollhouse employee, and lipless stick-in-the-mud Paul Ballard watches as Topher does his thing. The monitor goes wonky and suddenly, the lab is picking up a rerun of The Bride of Frankenstein. Oh that Dr. Saunders. She's messing with Topher because last season, she found out she's actually a doll named Whiskey and boy, is she pissed. And has impressive hacking skills, apparently.

Have you ever had a girlfriend who took you for granted? Maybe she spent the money you gave her for your dry cleaning on drinking, or was late for dinner because she was at the mall with her friends, or gave that special lunch you made her to the UPS guy. And she only came to when you were ready to pull the plug on the whole pointless mess? Well, meet Charlene.

After weeks of messing around, sunning, clubbing and flat-ironing, she's now pleading with her boss, Linda, to let her try one more time and make Truck Stop: Miami a reality. And what better place to have the conversation that could save your job than squatting in the middle of the sidewalk?

Linda relents because A) she's already invested a lot of time, money and faith on Charlene and B) it's a win-win situation for her: either the event happens and she makes money, or Charlene flames out in spectacular fashion and that, my friends, is good television.

Charlene meets with Omar (remember him?) and finally admits she has no idea on God's green earth what she's doing. Omar tells her what he told her six weeks ago: Get the other promoters on board. Charlene proceeds to meet with a parade of boy bar promoters, all of whom are impressed with her passion for lesbian events. Plus, they feel sorry for her because she's crying in front of them.

When we last saw Charlene, her bosses, Linda and Michelle, were pulling the plug on her Mission Possible. Even with explicit instructions, plenty of resources and local contacts, Char blew it: Truck Stop: Miami is over before it began. This show will self-destruct in five seconds, if it hasn't already.

When we last left Miami, Jazmin hallucinated that Charlene was hot to trot for her girlfriend, Gaby, Hilary began to wonder if she needs Jazmin in her life, no one showed up for the Truck Stop dancer auditions and Charlene pissed off the one promoter in town who can make or break her. Also, Davonee warned Charlene to stop messing around with lesbian drama and get to work. Davonee as the voice of reason — did you feel that? Hell just froze over.

Today, Charlene is rehearsing a motley crew of waitresses slash dancers that she's cobbled together from who-know-where. As she sips her morning java, the tramptastic group give Char their version of a show.

This is what rugby looks like in my dreams.

I'm not quite sure what's going on here, but it seems this lady is also playing charades.

Back from her camping trip, Charlene is putting in a full morning's work. She's made a bunch of phone calls, posted an online ad for dancer auditions, and updated her Facebook. Phew, exhausting. Someone needs some R &R, so it's off to a coffee date with a girl named Erin, one of Maisi's friends.

Erin and Charlene take their coffees, find a nice spot on the beach and get to know each other. To go with their coffee, Erin's also brought some cheesecake. This girl knows how to make a good first impression. The meeting consists of the usual first date elements: a little about themselves, shared interests, nervous laughter and jazz hands.

After agreeing to have dinner someday, Erin and Charlene part ways – Erin presumably runs off to text Maisi every last detail of the date, while Charlene heads over to a dance studio to audition dancers for Truck Stop: Miami. Hilary and Davonee are waiting there for her.

Charlene predicts, "Based on my calls, I'm expecting about a hundred girls to audition." Inside, they meet Ruben, their new choreographer. He has great ideas about adding a little Latin spice to the street moves that the Truck Stop Girlz are known for. Meanwhile, Davonee keeps her shades on to avoid being mistaken for Maddox Jolie-Pitt. Again.

Charlene is liking Ruben's creative vision, and can't wait to see the legion of dancers who are undoubtedly waiting outside to try out. Unfortunately, Charlene's audition calls were made a mere two hours ago, and Miami's hottest bar and pole dancers are still sleeping, at Pilates, or posting bail.

It's morning in Miami. Well, it's actually afternoon, but when you're Charlene and your job is to hang out in lesbian clubs, dancing, smoking and drinking your face off, you tend to miss The Today Show. To make matters worse, Char is in Miami, but soon finds out that the Miami scene is located an hour away in Ft. Lauderdale. Other geographic disappointments: The NY Giants' stadium is actually in New Jersey, nobody's really "in da house," and your girlfriend is texting you from Las Vegas.

New housemate and vlogger, Hilary, wakes Char up by sticking a video camera in her face — next week's episode is about drooling. Char eats leftover hot wings and Hilary chooses one hard-boiled egg for breakfast, which explains why these two roomies will never be sharing clothes.

Sitting in their super-fabulous breakfast nook, Hilary invites Char to her birthday dinner. Then it's off to the bathroom for a few hours of flat-ironing.

The doorbell rings. Who could it be? Hilary opens the door to find Davonee, Char's Truck Stop cohort from LA, standing there with a bag and a grin. Char flies out of the bathroom at the sound of Davonee's voice, and starts jumping around excitedly at the sight of her.

Char asks Davonee how long she plans on staying. Davonee says vaguely, "I dunno," as Hilary looks on with mild horror. The gaysian reunion is cut short, because responsible Hilary tells them they're late for dinner.

Gimme Sugar Season 1 featured a small group of young L.A. lesbians with interesting hair, no filters, and a desire to launch the hottest girl club in West Hollywood. When they weren't "working," the girls' were consumed with hook-ups, break-ups, fights and make-ups. In other words, just another weekend in the aptly named section of Los Angeles known as Weho.

How did that go? As they say, "If wishes and buts were clusters of nuts, we'd all have a bowl of granola." The girls couldn't make their club dreams come true. Charlene, the leader of the pack, went to work as the MC and host of Truck Stop, a popular girl party run by real promoters.

In the premiere of Season 2, "Char," as she's called, has a meeting with her Truck Stop bosses, Linda, Michelle and their matching boots.

Linda scolds Char about slacking and being M.I.A. and says they've been considering firing her ass. Char tears up (she's a crier) and reveals she had a break-up, as if that's any kind of excuse.

Instead of firing Char, Linda and Michelle give her a chance to redeem herself: Go to Florida and set up Truck Stop: Miami. Great. One more city where Char can howl, "Laadieeeeesss!" on the mic every 20 minutes. Well, that's one way to scare away the Cuban refugee boats.

In the two-hour season finale, some of Seattle Grace's denizens will be sad, some will get mad, some will decide, and some will have cried. And two will have died. Sorta. Maybe. The distinction between well-written dramatic cliffhangers and contract negotiation is so blurry sometimes.

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Meredith tells us you think you know stuff, but you don't: "The house you think you were going to sell becomes your home, the roommates you were forced to take in become your family, and the one-night stand you were determined to forget becomes the love of your life."

Conversely, those high-waisted shorts you heard were going to be the new hot thing for spring now make you feel like a soccer mom with camel toe and don't you feel duped.

Arizona approaches Bailey with her signature wide-eyed enthusiasm for childhood diseases and offers her the chance to scrub in on a surgical procedure I can't spell.

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Before Bailey can answer, the Chief drags her away, asking pointedly who Santa Claus is. Bailey assumes he means the fat white guy who "enters people's homes inappropriately." No, that would be Rush Limbaugh.

In last week's episode, Alpha, the missing rogue Active, had tricked Ballard into helping him break into the dollhouse, attacked Victor's sweet face with a scalpel, snatched up Echo and took off with her like two kids trying to elope. It was almost romantic, except for, you know, the face-slicing and psychopathic rampage.

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This week, in the season finale, we pick up right where we left off. Dr. Saunders, a.k.a., Dr. Scissorhands, runs out of her office, screaming for help. Adelle and Boyd try to lock down the facility but it's too late — Alpha has escaped with Echo, but not before and imprinting her with a new, sassy personality that digs him deeply, and removing the GPS tracking device from neck.

While Adelle's security people run uselessly around in circles, and Dr. Scissorhands slowly beginning to wonder why Alpha called her, "Whiskey," Alpha and Echo drive off into the night in a stolen car loaded up with every imprint she's ever had, cool, new clothes, and the nice sales girl who waited on them.

This is Grey's Anatomy's 100th episode. After years of hook-ups, break-ups, pining, fighting, quips, angst, and an endless parade of faceless patients with life-threatening illnesses, gaping wounds, and one, literally, without a face — the show has decided to mark its centennial installment by closing the loop on the fitful love lives of those kooky doctors at Seattle Grace. For now. No one's allowed more that two weeks' worth of happy. It's in the TV writer's handbook.

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Izzie may be on death's doorstep with a brain like Swiss cheese, but she still has enough of her faculties to muse about the auspicious moments in life: the big days, and the small days that turn out to be big ones. Those are the best days. Like the day you realized the real reason you liked that popular girl so, so much.

Cristina finds Callie drooling on a couch in the residents' lounge.

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Nice socks.

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In a dark alley, a bum is dumpster diving when he gets a big surprise: an arm reaches out and grabs him by the throat. Look at that — someone threw out a perfectly good killer.

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Elsewhere, Echo is reading Sleeping Beauty to a bunch of rapt children. One older girl stands off to the side with her arms crossed, listening to the story with growing disgust. Finally, she snaps and tells Echo, "This is crap. Crap! Don't you know what that means?" Well, Eliza was in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, so yeah, I think she knows what "crap" means.

The girl, an angry kid named, Susan, goes off on a rant: the lame prince didn't deserve credit for waking Sleeping Beauty, Sleeping Beauty was a loser who should have saved herself, and what the hell is a spindle, anyway? Susan grabs the storybook from Echo's hands and violently starts tearing the pages apart. Fairy tales are misogynistic junk.

During our last visit to Seattle Grace, we saw Izzie manically latched onto Meredith's wedding plans; a distraction from the fact that she won't be alive to dance at the reception. Owen had left Cristina because he's afraid he'll beat her to a pulp in his sleep. Callie, her family, and their money, are all estranged now after learning she's dating a woman named after a state that doesn't recognize Daylight Savings Time. Nobody likes a holdout.

This week, Izzie is still holding court in her room on the oncology floor. She makes Derek try on tuxedos while the others are forced to gnaw on meat skewers and tell her if they taste like chicken.

Later, Owen bumps into Cristina, mumbles an apology, says, "Take care now," and walks away like he barely knows her. Newly poor, Callie tells Cristina that she doesn't have her half of the rent and furthermore, her dad is still not speaking to her. The silent treatment has spread to her mother, her aunt and sister, Aria. Calliope has a sister named Aria. I think it's safe to assume there is no sibling named Jane in the Torres clan. Also ignoring Callie: her other sisters, Isis and Chlamydia, and her half-brother, Bastardo.

Cristina gives Callie an action plan for dealing with her family.

Cristina: Why can't you just tell them you guys broke up? I mean it's no one's business who you go out with anyway.
Arizona: [in a you-better-not tone] And I will leave you to ponder that.
Callie: You really think I should lie?
Cristina: I really think you should pay rent, but ya know, whatever. Take care now.

To distract Callie from her financial and familial woes, Mark presents her with an orthopedic surgeon's wet dream: a passionate tree-hugger named Willow (or Karen, depending on who you ask,) who was pitched from her perch while trying to save a forest of oaks from the evil-doers who plan on building ski condos in the area. All her limbs are pointing the wrong way. Now she looks like a tree, too.

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Margaret Bashford is a horsewoman. Not a horsey woman, but a woman who loves her horses — almost as much as she loves her much younger husband, Jack. Oh, and she's rich. Finishing school, private stables, rolling hills estate, "What's Walmart?" rich. Too bad she's also dead.

At the dollhouse, Adelle has imprinted Echo with Margaret's memories. Echo/Margaret sits up after Topher's procedure, takes one look at Adelle and says, "You look terrible." Nice to see you, too, honey.

We learn that Margaret was an old, dear friend of Adelle's, and had previously made a deposit of the personal kind at the dollhouse. One that didn't involve a plastic cup and a magazine, but personal just the same. Maybe you can't take it with you, but when you have foresight and a friend in the biz, you sure as hell can come back and visit it.