By Michelle Lerner
As Doctor Karev inserted a needle into a patient’s eye on tonight’s episode of GREY’S ANATOMY, I couldn’t help wishing that I were in the patient’s shoes. A needle to the eye would have been preferable to sitting through the goopy whimsy of most of tonight’s episode.
It wasn’t all bad, so let me start with the good. Sandra Oh must be popular in the writers’ room; they really do give her the best stuff. Tonight she realizes that M. Grey is sleeping with Shepard again (although I find it hard to believe that she had thought they had ever stopped sleeping together.) This annoys Yang, because she realizes Meredith didn’t tell her to protect her feeling. So as revenge she pretends to be sad and steals Meredith’s surgery. Well played Yang. She also gets a good punch at Izzy in. Declaring that she was getting over Burke her way, she says “I’m not going to lie on the bathroom floor all day, I’m not Izzy.”
The other good part of tonight’s episode was Meredith Grey. In season’s past she has been the most annoying part of the show. But this season things are really coming together for her. Her plotlines aren’t quite so ridiculous and sentimental. And Ellen Pompeo is playing her with a streak of “no nonsense” a mile wide. I like the less maudlin Meredith- the one who deals with what others throw at her, instead of throwing things at people. Things come to a head with her sister Lexie, tonight, and after some strong words from Bailey, she does the right thing. She sits Lexie down and goes over the evens the preceded Lexie’s mother’s death, calmly and honestly. There’s no fake tear when she tells her half-sister that she was “very fond” of her mother.
Other highlights: Karev has a great moment as the asshole he is, outing the insufferable George as a repeat intern, and every scene that Bailey is in. Chandra Wilson is great. She makes the most ludicrous dialogue sound plausible. When she bitches out Karev for apologizing to an intern, I almost cheered.
Now for the lowlights. Will someone please put a muzzle on Izzy. It’s not Katherine Heigl’s fault that they write her so hideously. The whole story line between her and George is starting to really creep me out. Tonight she battled with “really old guy” who woke up knowing all the secrets of the gang, since they had eaten lunch in there for the past year. His big wish is to die, and Izzy tells him “no way, not on my watch.” Of course he wants to die! I would too if I had to listen to them every day, especially whiney Izzy and unbearable George. Izzy and George have no chemistry anyway! At this point they are truly beating a dead horse, and it’s starting to stink.
George and Dr Torres were built to implode. He asks “who marries someone who just buried his father?” Well, who knows? Maybe someone who LOVES someone else, and wants to be there for that person. There are a thousand reasons. George’s whole objection to his wife on that front is false. I have no problem watching adultery on T.V. at all. It’s drama, and it can be very compelling. But I feel like the writers aren’t sure what they want to say about their characters; one minute George and Izzy are painted as virtuous true lovers, and the next they are in a moral quagmire. I am sure this is an attempt at reality, but it is starting to feel like navel gazing. Just get on with it already. And someone give George a happy story line. His misery is very boring. I miss old puppy dog George.