Last week’s Grey’s – “The Becoming” – started off with an unexpected appearance by Preston Burke, Seattle Grace’s former heart surgeon. And what was the occasion? He won a very prestigious medical award: the Harper Avery. Forgive me if I am not jumping for joy. Not only do I have obvious beef with real celebrity, but I never could get behind his character, either.
Dr. Torres and Dr. Sloan are still sleeping together (yuck) and Alex wants his (not really) pregnant girlfriend – Ava/Rebecca – to move in with him. Izzie, being armed with the knowledge that he didn’t really knock her up, has obvious problems with that idea. Meredith and Derek have a new patient for their trial – a soldier in the U.S. Army.
George, Izzie, Lexie and Meredith are crowded around the article about Dr. Burke and discussing what Christina might think about it when – guess who – walks up. Izzie unsuccessfully tries to hide the clipping, but Yang sees it anyway and immediately walks away, becoming unwaveringly stoic for the majority of the episode. The nurses have boycotted all of Dr. Sloan’s surgeries because of his sleazy tendencies, and the nurses’ union rep – who happens to be the chief’s ex-wife, Adele – forces the hospital to institute a new “Date and Tell” policy, requiring all employees to report, in writing, which other employees they have slept with.
Next we found Dr. Yang in the morgue, where she was banished by Dr. Hahn to harvest hearts for research. When Lexie unsuccessfully tried to check on her, Yang started singing “Like a Virgin,” which was possibly one of the funniest things she has ever done in any episode. I thoroughly enjoyed that scene, even though I found it a little creepy as well.
Callie hears Hahn say, “It’s because I don’t have a penis, isn’t it?” and becomes very confused. Sadly, however, the conversation doesn’t go where I wanted it to when Hahn began talking about how she deserved the Harper Avery Award more than Burke. There’s a bit of flirtatious chat between the two of them, but Sloan swooped in just in time to dash our dreams. McGross said something inappropriate (what else is new?) which tips Hahn to the fact that the two of them are sleeping together and prompts her to walk away. Meredith is putzing around Darren’s room where he and Todd get in an argument about Todd being there. Though they are clearly having a lovers’ quarrel, Meredith seems unfazed, and even though she stares at them through a deep, passionate kiss, it clearly isn’t about the fact that they are both men; it is more about the fact that they are in love with each other and she is jealous. The couple’s kiss is broken up when Mr. Covington caught them in the act, and Todd was swiftly kicked out of the room. (Check out AfterElton.com’s take on the kiss and the rest of the soldiers’ relationship.)
George was declared “The Chief’s Intern” and given the task of distributing and collecting the forms for Date and Tell. Bailey, who the chief has exempted from the Date and Tell process, confronted the chief about not being required to fill out a form. She marched in with a form filled with (made-up) affairs and, in true Bailey form, pts him in his place:
This is a joke to you! I am a single woman. I have been a single woman for some time now. But the very idea that I could have a sexual encounter – a consensual sexual encounter – is a joke to you? So much so that you would single me out of this entire hospital as the one person who couldn’t interest a member of the opposite sex. It’s … it’s just … it’s … just shame on you, sir. Just shame on you!Hahn and Callie are scrubbing in for surgery and Hahn asks if they are on for a drink that night. Callie brushed off the question, and Hahn got upset saying that she doesn’t make friends easily and she doesn’t appreciate Callie hiding her relationship with Sloan from her. She is so endearing when she says, “I’m awkward and bad at small talk, and I generally don’t like people I don’t know.” Ahh, it’s funny cause it’s true. Once more before she leaves, Hahn announces, “I don’t make friends easily,” and Callie looks genuinely saddened by the conversation. You and me both, Callie.
The chief has called Yang into his office because she hadn’t yet filled out a Date and Tell form, so she does so in front of him, and he let her know that he realizes how hard it must be for her. What came next is hard to describe. Yang stood up for herself, which, in and of itself isn’t surprising. But Yang stood up for her feelings, which isn’t something the once hard-nosed doctor does too often. I could go on and on about the stellar performance (AE blogger the linster called it Emmy award-worthy!) that Sandra Oh delivered in this scene, nothing would do it justice quite like watching it. So, stop reading this for a moment and watch the clip here.
Sloan sulks around for a while at the end of the episode, upset that the nurses won’t scrub in on his surgeries. Callie calls him “useless” when he’s too depressed for sex and Bailey offers a him a backhanded favor by talking to the nurses for him, only to refer to him as a whore.
As per the standard Grey’s formula, all the doctors finished the day at Joe’s bar, where George comforts Lexie for being so forgetful to Alex, and for the first time all season, I actually find myself feeling a little bad for the girl. Callie and Hahn are chatting by the dart boards, and Callie admits she’s been avoiding her because, “when she was here, Addison said, well, she implied that we – that I was – that, um, you and I might be lesbians.” (Cue the collective gasp by suburban families everywhere. The term “lesbian” was actually used on prime-time network television!)
But how did they react? Oh yes, since laughter and awkward silence is the best way to deal with things.
So, what did you think of it all?
