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Grey’s Anatomy Recap: 5.7 “Rise Up”

How TV works ? According to Meredith, “If you’re a normal person, one of the few things you can count on in life is death.”

But apparently, if you’re an ABC viewer, one of the things you can never count on is having an intelligent, extant lesbian character on a network series. Because that would just be silly! And confusing! Everyone knows the world consists solely of moronic everymen, scheming housewives, and self-involved dork hipsters who never comb their hair. It’s called professional television programming. You wouldn’t understand.

And this just in: Look for the much anticipated ABC mid-season replacement series, Who’s the Man?, starring Pauly Shore as a bumbling, yet lovable idiot married to an adoring former model and brain surgeon played by Sarah Shahi. Relatable! Hilarious! Someone please kill me!

Anywho ? Since this is the last Grey’s Anatomy recap on AfterEllen, let’s dispense, shall we, with the pretense that anyone cares about Alex and Izzie, George and Lexie, Meredith and The Hair, or Mark Sloan and the entire Seattle Grace nursing staff. Without Callica, it’s all a lot of fitted blue scrubs running in and out of unoccupied rooms, overlapping relationships, and a parade of vaguely familiar character actors suffering from diseases of the week.

Ho hum. Is G-String Divas on somewhere?

And as much has I heart Cristina, do I care if she lands the only real man in the Pacific Northwest? No. And will Bailey ever be recognized as the true leader that she is? Not as long as the Chief is shuffling around the corridors with his ladder, polishing that glass ceiling.

The threesome ? Despite her attraction to five o’clock shadow and her affinity for being sweetly patronized by a pair of twinkling eyes, Meredith’s real love affair is with her “person,” Cristina.

First thing in the morning, Meredith has a private book club meeting on the phone with Yang. Discussing her mother’s diaries with Cristina before work is far better than having morning sex with McStinky.

To get Cristina out of girlfriend’s life, Derek enlists the help of his best friend and the resident manwhore, Mark Sloan to take care of his “Yang problem.” I had a Yang problem once. Some ointment and a heating pad fixed me right up.

Derek needs his “person,” Mark, to seduce his girlfriend’s “person,” Cristina. It’s all about people. People who need people. They’re the luckiest people in the world.

As a selling point, Derek reminds Mark that Cristina is intense, intelligent and complicated, “like a single malt scotch.” Cristina has more bite than that and is probably closer to very good tequila: Strong, intimidating, yet alluring, and once imbibed, you become its bitch with no will of your own. More salt, anyone?

Stan the man ? Meanwhile, the Chief, in his infinite wisdom, has devised a diabolical plan to pit the residents against each other by offering the chance to perform a solo surgery. He not only inspires some friendly competition within a group of people who alternate between sleeping with, and back-stabbing each other, he’s guaranteed one hapless patient, not the best surgeon for the job, but the one most likely to steal a cadaver. Whatever the malpractice premiums are there, they’re not high enough.

The only doctor who seems to want to do his job and nothing more, is George. Considering what a crazypants time he had last year — marrying Callie, sleeping with Izzie, getting left back at hospital school — it’s no wonder George seeks out the quiet toil of saving lives.

To help train the staff, the Chief has diverted some funds from the nurses’ salary budget and purchased a fun latex-covered robot, named Stan. Stan has numerous symptoms and ailments of unknown origin, perpetually stares into space, and complains non-stop about chest pains. Just like my granddad.

I see dead people ? While poor T.R. Knight gets left alone yet again, while the others get to emote in scenes with real live actors. Or live actors playing dead people like Denny, the love of Izzie’s life.

Like the Tin Man, Denny needed a heart. Izzie, blinded by love and desperate to save him, cut some wires, broke some laws, and told a few lies to move him up the transplant list. He died anyway. Like the Scarecrow, Izzie needs a brain.

When the poo hit the fan, the Cowardly Lion, also known as the Chief, buried the incident because it would look bad in the hospital newsletter. Instead of following the letter of the law, he slapped Izzie’s hand, raised his voice, and told her not to do it again. He then puffed out his chest and wandered off to alter some medical records and put his feet up.

Today, the chickens have come home to roost: Erica’s current patient is the man who was next in line for a heart — the heart that abruptly and mysteriously vanished like Brooke Smith from this show.

Speaking of, Erica goes to Callie and inquires about Izzie’s history with her patient. Callie laughs light-heartedly, as if they’re gossiping about last year’s Christmas party, and tells her ersatz girlfriend all about Izzie’s organ-stealing hijinks. Callie can’t believe Erica wasn’t in that loopy loop.

“No, I wasn’t. I was at another hospital, watching my patient’s heart get stolen out of his chest,” Erica says with incredulous alarm.

Callie is practicing some new kind of selective memory loss and tells Erica to let it go; it’s in the past. “It is not in the past for me. It is lying on a bed in the ICU, about to die,” replies Erica with disgust.

Erica stares at Callie in disbelief at her blasé attitude. This is the point in every relationship when the heady intoxication of desire wears off and you start to wonder with sinking dread, if your dream woman isn’t in reality, completely insane.

Kool-Aid, anyone? ? Erica bursts into the Chief’s office, guns blazing. “It’s no wonder this place is number 12! What kind of hospital are you running?” she yells at him as he rolls his eyes and admires his manicure.

Having formerly been an ABC executive, the Chief doesn’t feel the need to explain himself, doesn’t appreciate his ludicrous actions being questioned, and furthermore, shouts back at Erica to shut her lesbian pie hole.

Meanwhile, new guy, Owen Hunt, is experiencing the same mass hysteria. In the ER, he finds Cristina treating a beating victim like a bullet point on her resume.

Owen shakes an imaginary fist in the air and shouts, “You have no sense, no decency and no respect!”

Oh, honey. No. No one’s listening to your cries in the wilderness. Just drink the Kool-Aid. There’s no sense fighting it if you want to keep your job.

Lastly, Bailey uncovers yet another affront to humanity and decency: The residents and interns are trading pilfered cadavers like baseball cards. Adding insult to injury, they’re using the bodies as lunch trays. She, too, goes ballistic on her knuckleheads.

Bailey: Each one of these people was loved. Each one of these people was somebody’s somebody. So we are responsible for treating them as such. We claim them and treat them with respect!

Today’s theme, bois and girls, is respect. And if you look up “irony” in the dictionary, there’s a picture of Brooke Smith and a description of this episode.

So long and thanks for all the fish ? After a long, arduous day of fighting the good fight, such as it is, Erica and Callie walk out together. Callie asks Erica about her patient, who still clings to life, waiting for a heart that may never come.

As wisps of smoke waft out of her ears, Erica reminds Callie that none of this would be happening if Izzie hadn’t previously engaged in organ thievery, deception, and oh-so-subtle Emmy pandering.

Erica says she’s going to blow the whistle on the lot of them. Callie steps back and lets her true allegiances step out into light — let sleeping, heart-stealing dogs lay.

Erica’s eyes, big as saucers, stare back at Callie in utter shock.

Erica: There’s right, and there’s wrong. And this was wrong. And illegal. There is no grey area here. You can’t kinda think this is OK. You can’t kinda side with Izzie Stevens. And you can’t kinda be a lesbian.

Callie: [pause] Yes, I can.

Erica: I can’t believe I didn’t know this.

Callie: Erica, Chief is right.

Erica: No. You. I don’t know you at all.

And she’ll never get the chance to know any more than she does at this moment. Erica walks away, across the parking lot, and off the edge of the earth, never to be seen again.

Thank you, Brooke Smith, for being a great actor and a classy person. The monthly meeting of Female Actors Who Have Been Screwed by ABC is now in session. Roseanne Barr, Margaret Cho and Ellen DeGeneres saved you a seat.

Next week ? Next weekend, I’ll be doing something far, far away from my computer. Thanks, as always, for reading the recaps. Love you guys. Rock on. ? Dara

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