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.
At the hospital, Arizona’s pregnant patient has been in a car accident, giving her preemie a stroke. Callie meets a girl who fell off her roof and broke one bone for every state in the union. They each try to rush their patients into the one open OR. Gurney races!
Owen grabs Callie and warns her to beware of Cristina because he didn’t page her. Knowing how she hates to be left out, she’s sure to be on a rampage. But it’s much worse than that; she’s giving him the Asian cold shoulder.
Cristina, Callie, Dr. Potato Head and Vanessa Williams gather ’round to hear Arizona deliver one of her many soliloquies. Someone in the writers’ room likes Jessica Capshaw as much as that other person in casting likes ginge. She tells the group why pediatrics is so much better than grown-up medicine.
Arizona: They believe in magic. They play “pretend.” There is fairy dust in their IV bags. They hope and they cross their fingers and they make wishes. And that makes them more resilient than adults.
So, they’re gay men?
Callie looks on, smiling warmly with girlfriend pride at Arizona’s sensitive nobility. Cristina is, well, Cristina.
During rounds, we meet Wallace, a sickly 10-year-old nerd with no intestines and a head for algebra. His parents are so impressed with his care, they call a meeting with the Chief, the douchey Mr. Suit from the hospital board and Arizona and promise a 25 million dollar donation to the pediatrics department. The Chief and the suit instantly get erections, while Arizona is humbled and rendered speechless. Therein lies the difference.
Wallace’s parents tell Arizona, “Happy Birthday!” because it’s all about her and not at all about the self-serving or bumbling guys. The sight of the Chief’s face falling faster than his woody is worth more than 25 large — it’s priceless.
At home, we learn that Callie is not only a surgeon, she’s a short order cook. While serving up breakfast to roommate Cristina, and sleepover boyfriend, Owen, providing coffee to neighbor Mark, and sleepover girlfriend, Lexie, Callie discovers she’s the last to know that Arizona’s birthday is on Friday.
After Arizona leaves, Callie immediately starts plotting birthday festivities. Mark warns everyone surprise parties are the worst, saying, “They’re hostile.” Nothing good ever came from a surprise party. I tend to agree. While the thoughtfulness and planning are not lost on me, a having people leap out at me in the dark is about as fun as going through a haunted house on Halloween, which I also hate. What’s wrong with a nice dinner with friends, and later, lots of burfday sex? We can even skip dinner.
Elsewhere, Derek keeps showing up at work, despite the fact that the Chief fired him. It’s his daily reminder no one respects his pretend authority. One thing the Chief can do fairly well is be the accounting department’s messenger. He hands Alex a stack of Izzie’s medical bills, totaling $200,000. And that’s with the employee discount. If you get sick in the US, you had better be really rich or really poor. Because everyone in-between will be charged $15 for one aspirin. Enjoy the Jell-O.
Pixie Reed tries once again to buddy-up to Alex but he wants her big saucer eyes and hair-color-not-found-in-nature ‘do to tell it to someone who cares. Meanwhile, it turns out that the girl who broke nearly every major bone is also suffering from the invincibility and arrogance of youth: she was high on mushrooms when she fell. “You’re bummed because it reminds you of your own infallibility, she tells her shocked parents, “I’m bummed, too.” Were we all that bratty at her age?
Also bummed? Wallace’s parents. He’s taken a turn for the worse and Arizona strongly advises against any more surgeries. The Chief, seeing 25 million dollars slipping away, one Benjamin at a time, orders Arizona to do the impossible surgery anyway, thereby completely reversing his position from last week, when he fired Derek for doing the exact same thing. How this guy ever got a corner office is anyone’s guess.
Up in maternity, Alex is comforting the only female that doesn’t piss him off: an infant with a grave prognosis. Bailey notices the baby’s vital signs are improving the more Alex holds her. Theorizing his “kangaroo hold” is helping the little thing thrive, she tells him to take his shirt off.
Skin-on-skin could provide even better results. And that, people, is how Naked Twister was invented.
In surgery, Callie, Owen, Cristina and Vanessa Williams are amazed that Supergirl talks to her parents the way she does.
Owen: The mouth on this one. If I talked to my parents like that?Callie: Oh, my father would have — you don’t even want to know.
Cristina: I had perfect grades, perfect record. I said whatever I wanted, did whatever I wanted. My parents couldn’t do a thing about it.
Vanessa Williams: Wanna hear about my childhood? [long silence] No? OK, I’ll just think about it quietly in my own head.
Maybe Vanessa’s not so bad, and I should learn his name. It’s Jackson Avery.
Everything looks good with Supergirl’s new metal pins and parts when she goes into distress. The doctors see an air embolus in her chest. Owen calls for someone to page cardio, Cristina’s old stomping grounds. Chomping at the bit to do it herself, she eyes the rib spreader like it’s a big hunk of crack. Owen orders her to stand down, but she can’t resist and goes in, rogue.
Two seconds later, the embolus is gone, and the other surgeons are staring at Cristina, horrified. Oh no, she d’int. Oh yes, she did.
Afterwards, she has it out with Owen, who hasn’t caught on that his girlfriend used to be somebody. He warns her he’ll have to tattle to the Chief.
Cristina: [laughs] He’s not going to fire me.Owen: Of course not, because you’re invincible.
Cristina: No. He’s not going to fire me because the last time I did an open thoracotomy for an embolus was with him. In his OR. Only he was giving me words of encouragement. Not screaming in my ear.
Owen may not think his girlfriend needs emotional support, but lesbians do things differently. Arizona is getting her game face on for Wallace’s surgery when she asks Callie to tell her she’s great. You are great, Arizona Robbins. You, your passionate soliloquies, those baby blues, your pretty blond, hair. It’s all good.
Later, at home, Arizona is waiting for Callie. Callie walks in the door and going off the look on her girlfriend’s face, assumes the surgery failed. But no, the surgery went fine. It’s much worse than that. Much worse. Put on your helmets.
Arizona: What I needed from you tonight was support, for once. And you weren’t here.Callie: OK, you’re scared and so, you’re picking a fight. You get that, right?
Arizona: Yeah, fine, whatever. But I have helped you through crisis after crisis and once I thought that I could come here tonight and I thought that I could get something.
In walk Owen and Cristina, having a fight of their own. Owen warns Cristina, (do I detect just a hint of wishful thinking?) that her luck will run out someday and storms out in a huff. Arizona gets paged back to the hospital and leaves in her own cloud of righteous indignation. Cristina turns to Callie and says, “Bitches.”
Arizona goes back into surgery with Wallace when the Chief comes barging in, asking if he can help save the money boy. Arizona didn’t want to risk Wallace’s life in the first place and yells at him, “Get the hell out of my OR!” And keep going until you hit Portland.
Let’s see. Derek went rogue, got fired and refuses to leave. Cristina is cranking open ribs while Owen is yelling not to. Bailey is asking guys to take their shirts off, and Alex complied. At least someone’s orders are being followed.
Short on intestines and time, little Wallace dies. Arizona leaves it to the Chief and Mr. Suit to break the news to his parents, knowing their ass-kissing serves the hospital better than her saying they should sue. Cristina pays Meredith a visit and complains about Owen’s blindness to her awesome skills. Meredith happily flips through an issue of Seattle Liver and tells her BFF it’s only because Owen cares.
Meredith: I’m dying to get out of this bed and cut, but you did an unauthorized procedure in an OR. I mean, you’re an amazing surgeon, but if anything had gone wrong, that would have been your career. I mean, he cares about your career. [giddy] He’s in love with you.Cristina: I hate married, happy you.
Back in the hospital, former Westies, Reed and Avery admit they’re crushing on Gracies, Alex and Cristina, respectively. Avery has good taste, Reed, not so much. What is it about those girls who go for the nastiest, most insulting jerk in the room? If anyone see’s Reed’s self-esteem, please page her. Meanwhile, Alex may have found the only people he can actually tolerate: those too young to talk or who’s days are numbered. Preferably, both.
After her terrible day, Arizona goes to Callie’s, where it only gets worse. Surprise! Arizona has the predicted reaction and flees.
Outside, Callie tells her not to worry, she’ll explain to everyone. This is where any other couple on earth would hold each other, or at least hug once, but this is Grey’s Anatomy and we don’t do that here. Arizona leaves in tears and Callie goes back upstairs, where Mark is kissing Lexie and Avery is busy hitting on Cristina by doing the same. This show makes South of Nowhere look like lesbian porn by comparison.
Cristina finds Owen in the hospital and apologizes. She asks, “Please come home with me,” choosing the adult who won’t always tell her she’s awesome over the better-looking young gun who would. If that’s called growing up, I want no part of it.
Meanwhile, Wallace’s parents tell Arizona, the Chief and Mr. Suit that they’ll still get the $25 million – not because Mr. Suit is so far up the father’s ass, all you can see are his Italian loafers – but because of Arizona. She joins the mom in Wallace’s bedtime ritual: “Bad dreams, bad dreams, go away. Good dreams, good dreams, here to stay.”
Arizona comes home to find Callie asleep on the couch, wearing hot hot hot lingerie and surrounded by party decorations and doughnuts. Let’s do a ritual of our own: “Bad scripts, bad scripts, go away. Calzona, calzona, show they’re gay.” It only works if you say it three times.
Arizona says quietly, “I love you.”
Callie: You do?Arizona: I do.
[fade to black]Callie: I love you, too.
Holy s–t, it worked.
