Welcome to Grey’s Anatomy Season 8 Episode 2: “Take the Lead.” It’s time for the fifth year residents to do their first solo surgeries. You know something bad is going to happen, right?
AfterEllen Bait (What enticement did the episode use to reel in gay lady viewers?)
Although I’m an avid GA watcher I mainly tune to with the hope of seeing Calzona share the screen and hopefully kiss or hug or fist pump. (I’ll take what I can get.. At the top of the show, the warning “No animal was harmed in the production of this episode” is plastered across the screen and my first thought is, “I love animals!” Don’t all lesbians/bi chicks love animals? If it’s a fluffy animal, I hope it lives. (Of course this warning means something bad is going to happen to an innocent, albeit fake, animal. What did the fake animal ever do to you, Shonda Rhimes? My erratic emotions brings us to the below category.
Feelings, Feelings, Feelings! (Did the episode have a lot of feelings or give you a lot of feelings?)
Ugh, this episode is flooded with anger, repression and subtext. The entire Seattle Grace staff desperately needs therapy. (Where’s Oprah when you need her?) Less than 20 seconds into the show, the Chief announces to the Attendings that he has resigned as the Chief of Surgery, although he will remain on Seattle Grace’s surgical staff. So who’s the new Chief of Surgery? Dr. Owen Hunt, or as I like to call him, Mr. Owen Yang (aka one lucky bastard!) All the doctors are stunned by the news and Bailey looks like she’s going to explode. Teddy is the only one who congratulates Owen.
The Chief, who I guess, I now have to refer to as “Dr. Richard Webber” takes a seat with the rest of the staff and turns the hospital over to Mr. Yang.
April is still running around like a chicken with its head cut off, but she does have her own office! The Residents take over the Chief Resident’s digs and Avery gets a text message stating the Chief has resigned and Owen is taking over. Meredith looks like she’s going to puke and Cristina is dumbfounded. (Usually when good things happen to a married person, they share that news with their spouse. Or maybe that’s just rule in my house. We also have a rule called “Lower the Volume on Judge Judy! She’s Giving Me a Headache.”
A pissy pants Derek is understandably upset that his Alzheimer clinical trial has been taken away from him. Derek tells Richard that he’s been blacklisted.
Cristina runs into Owen and gives him an awkward congratulatory hug while Meredith asks Derek if he wants to stay together or break up. Derek tells Meredith that they should focus on their surgery not their marriage. Oh, diss!
Bailey is fuming over the Richard’s resignation, so she throws some serious attitude at Owen. Owen is a sad, confused puppy just trying to do his job. Do puppies have jobs?
Callie tells a frazzled April that when she was Chief Resident, she sucked at it, too. See, April? Sucking is totally normal.
Bailey spends the entire day pouting and snapping at people and Richard tells her that if she wants to be mad at someone she needs to be mad at him, not at Meredith and not at Owen. Richard says he’s happy he resigned because now he can be home with Adele and he wants Bailey to be happy for him. Bailey says she’ll try to be happy for him but keeps she keeps the chip firmly planted on her shoulder. (On a side note, I don’t like chips. Give me a Hershey bar over a bag of Doritos any day.)
At the end of the day Cristina and Owen pick at their take-out dinners in silence while Derek and Meredith have a massive fight.
Derek admits that he doesn’t trust her anymore and he’s only staying with her because of their Post-It-note marriage license.
Derek: I promised I wouldn’t run. I promised I would love you.
Meredith: Even when you hate me?
Derek: Even when I hate you!
These two desperately need marriage counseling.
Meredith finds a temporary solution. If they want to stay together (with or without Zola) they can no longer work together. Meredith and Derek fall asleep in the same bed but don’t quite touch. That’s actually an incredible improvement from last week, so let’s enjoy their baby steps towards reconciling.
Whores & Gore (Was there an excessive amount of bed-hopping and blood? Hopefully not at the same time. )
There is no flirting or nookie in this episode (which might be why it’s so boring), so I’m doling out a 0% whore rating. Now it’s time for the gore. Avery has to do surgery on a baby with a cleft lip, and Alex practices his operation on a pig carcass (it’s not fluffy, so I’m less sympathetic to its lifeless and plastic body). Cristina busts in while Alex is yanking out pig intestines and asks if she can practice removing the pig’s appendix. Then Avery storms in and asks if he can remove the pig’s head so he can practice stitching up its lip. (OK, now I feel bad for the pig carcass.)
Then, to wrap up the whole show, during Cristina and Owen’s awkward celebratory dinner Owen gets up and vomits. Well, at least he makes it to the bathroom.
Medical Mishaps (What’s wrong with this hospital?)
An exhausted Arizona falls asleep while she’s talking to Alex but she wakes herself up and continues on with her day. Alex snaps at April in front of a patient and the patient’s calls Alex “douchey” because he’s being a douche. Since Cristina doesn’t remember how to do an open appendectomy, she raids the skills lab and makes the interns teach her how to do it. When one of the interns forgets the next step, Cristina yells, “Call the morgue, moron. He’s dead.”
As Cristina and Meredith head into their separate surgeries they both urge each other to not “screw up.” Um, shouldn’t that be obvious?
Alex is so nervous during his surgery that April has to coach him through it, while the former Chief sits in the back and reads a book.
As Avery prepares to operate on the young child’s lip, Arizona stands next to him and says that if he messes up then the kid might never go to the prom or be married or be ever happy. Are lips really that important? Luckily, Mark steps in and sews the kid up perfectly.
Teddy constantly quizzes Cristina during her appendectomy surgery and Cristina forgets what to do next.
Then there is a montage of bickering; Meredith and Derek fight during their surgery, Teddy berates Cristina, who snaps at her to shut up, and Alex freaks out on April.
In the end, there is nothing else Alex and April can do for their patient, so they stitch him up knowing he will die. Cristina asks Teddy for help and realizes Teddy doesn’t remember how to do the surgery either, so the nurse has to instruct them. Meredith finishes the surgery, without the support of Derek, and the entire surgical team applauds her. Derek does clap but you can tell he doesn’t really mean it. I have to learn how to do that passive-aggressive sarcastic clap. Once I have mastered it, I’ll add it to the special skills section on my acting resume.
And at home, the new Chief (Mr. Yang) and Cristina lie on the bathroom floor in anticipation of more vomit.
What did you think of this episode? Where the hell was Lexie? Why were Callie and Arizona never in the same scene? If I eat a spring roll, will I vomit, too?
