Once upon a time, there was an emperor who had no clothes. Well, no clothes save for a white physician’s coat with a bottle of Jack in one pocket, and some mints in the other. One day, a handsome prince with twinkly eyes came to town in search of a razor and some shaving cream. He never did find that razor, but after a few years of living under the rule of the pompous, pontifical emperor, the prince overthrew the blowhard and ascended to a corner office. Some villagers rejoiced, while others worried they would soon be exiled with nothing more than their stethoscopes and slips of pink.
Changes abound across the land. Teddy, still stinging from Owen choosing Cristina’s snark over her Iraq vet benefits, she replaces her rival with Dr. Vanessa Williams. Oh, honey. No. We know Cristina Yang, and you sir, are no Cristina Yang. Meanwhile, Arizona tells Alex that pediatrics is his true calling and drags him off to the lollipop ward, where it’s “hard core” and smells like Fruit Roll-Ups.
The hospital offers the Chief two choices: surrender his license and never come back, or complete a rehab program and maybe they’ll let him back in the building. He tells them he’ll think about it. It’s a no-brainer, so clearly, it’s perfect for the Chief; he doesn’t have one. You could give this dolt a choice between a birthday party and botulism and he’d need to sleep on it.
Derek’s first day as Chief isn’t merely decorating his new office and cutting to the head of the line in the cafeteria. A woman woke up during her surgery and she is not happy about it. Ignoring the fact that Bailey saved her life, she’s all in a tizzy just because she got a whiff of her own bowel. Derek now has to head off a lawsuit using just his winning smile, while Bailey goes medieval on the anesthesiologist, a.k.a., the gas man.
Gas Man: You have no idea what went wrong in that OR.Bailey: Here’s what I know. I know that you’re new here. I know that you probably still have a chip on your shoulder because your parking space at Mercy West was better. And I know that you’re an anesthesiologist, which means you make buckets of money, logging reasonable hours sitting on your behind, and flipping through Architectural Digest while somebody on the other side of the curtain does the real work and gets sued for it.
He’s good-looking, black and gets on her nerves. The wrongmance brewing between these two is about three episodes away. Four, tops. Meanwhile, the Gas Man isn’t the only one who uses surgery as a chance to catch up on the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly.
In other news: Cristina tries to get back into Teddy’s good graces, but Teddy’s jealousy doesn’t make for a conducive teaching sitch. Bailey’s patient grows more annoying with each passing minute — lip quivering, she shrieks and freaks when Bailey tries to exam her incision. And in fashion trends, suburban teenage boys are now waxing their eyebrows.
Who says gays don’t have any influence?
Alex is learning that in pediatrics, the pains in the ass aren’t the kids, it’s the parents. The boy’s dad balks at the expense of medical tests, saying his son will say anything to get out of Spanish class. Well, yeah. My grandmother died four times while I was in high school.
Lexie is still fuming over Mark not speaking to her and vents to his BFF, Callie.
Lexie: We’re going to have to see each other every day. I mean, he’s best friends with my sister’s Post-It husband. I don’t know what to do.
Callie: I know. He’s not exactly being fair.
Lexie: No, he’s not being fair.
Callie: Seriously, go easy on the cast padding.
Lexie: At least he could be civil. I had a one-night stand. OK, big deal.
Callie: Right.
Lexie: It’s not like he didn’t sleep with Addison.
Callie: True. More than once.
Lexie: What?
Callie: Hmm? I didn’t say anything.
Lexie storms out to hunt down Mark and kill him. Foot in Mouth Disease claims thousands of victims each year. Let this serve as a warning to others — don’t tell Blabbermouth Torres anything.
Elsewhere, Derek and The Artist Formerly Known as Chief have a shouting match in full view of the staff, none of whom know the real story about the Chief’s drinking. Meredith comes in and tells them to shut up; they’re scaring the kids. Derek admits he wanted the job, but the Chief can’t admit he blew up his career all by his lonesome. Blaming others is a key managerial skill. Maybe the board was hasty in letting Pointy McFinger go.
Cristina and Owen are having dirty boiler room sex. In fact, they’ve been going at it all over the place like there’s no tomorrow. Cristina comes hobbling up from the basement looking for Meredith and some Neosporin. Meredith has to dash off, so she gives the task to Lexie, who gets nostalgic at the sight of Cristina’s butt crack.
Lexie: Is this a sex injury?Cristina: Oh my God.
Lexie: It is. I used to have sex injuries with Mark. Mark was really awesome at leaving you with good sex injuries. [Starts to cry] And —
Cristina: Please don’t cry on my ass. Please don’t cry.
The only problem with aggressive sex is that it’s all fun and games until someone burns their ass on a hot grate. Or falls out of bed. Or gets kneed in the head, or poked in the eye, or scratched, elbowed, clothes-lined or a charley horse at the worst possible moment. Or so I’m told.
Speaking of elbows, the woman who woke up to find Bailey up to hers inside her abdominal cavity has decided she’d rather have calm, quiet and totally inexperienced Meredith do her second surgery. Another good decision based on emotion. Have you met the Chief? He’s single.
Derek, Mark and Owen hang out in Derek’s new office, playing mini-hoops and doing a little girl talk. Mark tries to get Derek to spill the beans on how he got the Chief’s job, but Derek is a better secret-keeper than Callie. Changing the subject, Derek informs Mark that he’s an ass to be mad at Lexie for sleeping with Alex once, when he slept with Addison multiple times. Mark doesn’t see the double standard because when they told him about the Hippocratic Oath, he thought they said Hypocritic Oath.
Owen learns a bit more about the inscrutable Cristina Yang. Derek and Mark casually recall how she almost married Burke. Not knowing anything about it, Owen realizes how little he knows about his girlfriend, other than she has a waffle iron pattern on her butt.
Meanwhile, in an OR, Alex and Arizona are doing exploratory surgery on Zac Jonas Bieber but can’t find anything wrong with him other than his haircut is going to be out of style in about five minutes. In post-op, DaddyNobucks is going ballistic thinking about how much all of this is costing him, when suddenly, his son takes a turn for the worse. Alex slices him open right there in front of his horrified parents. Well, at least they’re getting their money’s worth. Happy now?
The problem turns out to be a hard-to-detect cardio case. Teddy swoops in to take control of the case and barks orders for someone to page Cristina, completely forgetting that Avery is the new Cristina. Luckily, for Avery, Cristina is doing it with Owen for the fourth time today. “Don’t go. Stay with me,” Owen urges as Cristina’s pager beeps incessantly. She heeds his pleas because nothing says “I’m sorry I tried to trade you for surgeries” like a urinary tract infection.
Bailey reports to Derek that Meredith did well in surgery and the Gas Man isn’t the a-hole she thought he was. Derek is relieved, but still worried about the possible lawsuit. Bailey wisely reminds him an apology goes a long way. “People like to feel heard. They like to feel respected, and they like to hear an apology. That’s what Chief Webber would do. He’d walk right into that woman’s room the minute she got out of recovery, and he’d apologize,” Bailey says.
Is that supposed to be an endorsement? Running around apologizing when he’s not getting shit-faced in the men’s room is not really my idea of Churchillian leadership.
Cristina finds Teddy and does some apologizing of her own for not answering her pages. Owen tries to take the blame for “detaining” her but Teddy doesn’t want to hear their excuses. After she’s gone, Cristina turns to Owen and says, “What are you trying to do to me?” You mean, besides brand your hindquarters?
It’s Hour 23 into the Chief’s conference room sit-in. (That’s right. He’s still there. ) Bailey pays him a visit and tells him to go to rehab, stupid. He looks at her with appreciation. See that? She put an end to his intractable bullcrap in under two minutes, flat. Why is she not in charge of everything?
Up in pediatrics, Alex’s ornery bedside manner is really winning fans with the parents, especially the fathers. After getting into a shouting match with Eyebrows’ dad, Arizona tells him to pull his pants up and put the ruler away. She reminds him that saving kids’ lives feels great and is total hard core, despite the Muppet wallpaper, nose-picking and teen acne. She smiles and skates away on her sneaker wheels.
Cristina comes home to find Owen sitting in the living room, waiting for her. She’s mad at him for making her miss an important surgery; he’s upset because she won’t talk about the Burke years. Just another Thursday for these two.
Cristina: Burke? Burke was — he took something from me. He took little pieces of me. Little pieces over time, so small I didn’t notice. One day, I was me, Cristina Yang. And then suddenly, I was lying for him, and jeopardizing my career, and agreeing to be married, and wearing a ring, and being a bride. Until I was standing there in a wedding dress with no eyebrows, and I wasn’t Cristina Yang anymore — I lost myself for a long time and now that I’m finally me again, I can’t. I love you. I love you more than I love Burke and that scares the crap out of me because when you asked me to ignore Teddy’s page, you took a piece of me. And I let you. And that will never happen again.
In the very next room, Mark is finding solace from his relationship woes in the bed of his best bud, Callie.
Arizona says, “This really isn’t going to work for me.” Hotdorable.
