Grey's Anatomy: "Lay Your Hands On Me"

"Average"
An episode about faith?

The final episode of Grey's Anatomy (GA) written before the strike.

The season started out surprisingly strong for me, then meandered to a relative plateau. The show opens with a monologue on life or some such by Bailey rather than Meredith. It was OK, but it didn't really do anything for me personally. Derek and Sloane're doing a morning run through some picturesque Pacific Northwestern woods, where Derek points out the spot on which he wants to build a house for Meredith. Meredith's not good enough to deserve McDreamy and the episode bears my opinion out as it goes on.

Derek tells Meredith in her mom's house he has a spot for their home, and she freaks out. Again. Everyone wakes up to the smell of "sulfur" for breakfast. I raised an eyebrow at Lexie rousing in the same room as George. Lexie and Alex have an awkward moment in which she observes that Ava didn't stay over. Alex reminds her that he said he was involved with someone else (who is married, has a daughter, and wants to throw her life away). Meredith lies to Derek about making breakfast for Lexie and the rest, who bite carefully into their..."fare."

Meantime, Bailey and her husband're having another argument as she goes out the door to work. I wondered why he hadn't moved out already after the tiff in "Crash Into Me" Parts 1 & 2?

At the hospital, Hahn gets Alex to help prep a woman for heart surgery when Izzie backs out. The woman happens to be a holistic healer who heals a man with heart problems (I believe) with the touch of her hands. She's wheeled back to her room, where she wants to have her procedure explained to her so that she can heal herself and avoid surgery, which is "barbaric." I agree myself, but till we get Star Trek-like medical tech, we're gonna have to go with blood n guts and drug-based medicine. Incidentally, Sloane teases Hahn about how she's using hostility to mask her attraction to him. I can see that, but not why he's attracted to Hahn at all. Except maybe as another notch on his bedpost? Naturally, Alex and Hahn don't put much stock in the woman's...um...approach. Hahn tells Alex to page her when the patient "codes." LOL.

George's mom shows up at the hospital and displays baby clothes for Callie's approval. Apparently, George has put off telling his family about his divorce. Callie skedaddles as soon as she can without spilling the beans.

Lexie goes around trying to scare up epinephrine (adrenaline) to deal with a rash from her allergy with the eggs Meredith made for her. Rose lets Derek off the hook for not following up on their kiss. And Bailey goes about the hospital ignoring her husband's constant paging--till he shows up in the ER with their baby, Tucker, crying and on a stretcher from having a bunch of books crash on him in their family apartment.

Bailey freaks and the Chief and the rest of the staff have to cajole and escort her out of the vicinity so they can diagnose Tucker's internal injuries and operate. Izzie stumbles across George's mom. When Mother O'Malley goes on about how hard a time George and Caliie must be going through (having a baby), Izzie spills her guts on how terrible she feels about breaking about George's and Callie's marriage. Izzie realizes she let the cat out of the bag and vamooses as George shows up to greet his suddenly horrified mother.

Mother O'Malley goes on about how sacred marriage is in the eyes of God, and George has to leave to answer a page. The healer's "healing team" shows up to start prepatory work. Alex looks at 'em like they all belong in strait jackets. Then they start pointing out how Alex has some dark chakras (nice touch) especially around the throat, which has him spreading the pain that turned him from a sweet boy to a not so sweet man. Mother O'Malley and Callie commiserate. Callie (and George later on) says that getting married in Las Vegas wasn't a promising sign for a stable marriage. I saw that coming right from the second those two came into the hospital newly hitched last year. Further, I still don't see why Callie was brought into the show at all and made a regular. Derek finds Bailey freaking out about whether or not she properly sealed a baby gate that Tucker toddled through. He gives her a great soothing spiel about how Bailey and her husband are good parents who love their baby, accidents happen, and nobody's to blame.

Meredith and George watch outside. As Meredith wonders over Derek's touch, George spills the beans about Derek's kiss with Rose. Meredith stomps away furious. Accidental revelations are in vogue in this episode. Things're said to happen in 3's, but there wasn't a third accidental one this time around.

The woman healer finds Bailey and her husband in pediatric ICU worrying over Tucker, who can't breathe on his own because of fluid buildup in his lungs. She asks them to find it in themselves to forgive one another and join her in giving Tucker a burst of healing mojo. And Tucker cries out later on, showing that his lungs're clear. But of course.

Izzie talks to Meredith about why she pursued cardio surgery to get some of Christina's faith in her ability and purpose for herself. But now Izzie apparently doesn't know what to do with herself. I lay that at the hands of the show's writers who've taken her (along with George, Alex, and Meredith) down some silly paths.

Alex then brings Izzie to the faith healer to explain the surgery because she's the "bright and optimistic" one. The healer and her team point out that Izzie certainly brightens Alex. The seeds of a renewed relationship whenever Season 5 gets going? If so, it's about time. It would've been nice to see if the healer healed herself.

Meredith finds Derek and says she can't trust him since he didn't tell her about Rose. Derek points out that she's making excuses and pushing him away again. He says he can't stay with her anymore and breaks things off. I hope they stay that way.

Derek finds Rose and asks if she wants to join him for dinner. I couldn't help thinking "Yes!" when she accepted. Hahn admits to Sloane that if they weren't working together she'd likely be all over him. Can't say I really care about this matchup. Can't say I'm really thrilled about Hahn replacing Burke on the cast neither. As unpleasant coworkers go, she's pretty one-note and dull about it to me.

George asks Lexie how her apartment search is going and if she needs a roommate. Another possible matchup which I theorized about earlier after "Crash Into Me" Part 2? I'd be curious to see how that goes.

And as Bailey watches over Tucker, she lets slip to Meredith that her husband went home to get some sleep and pack up before going to a hotel room. Pity they can't seem to patch things up. I'm concerned for Bailey's sake, but I can't say I'm too involved neither.

Bailey monologued at the end about how watching Tucker made life clearer (guessing that she sees Tucker is important) and people have to be there for one another (but her husband left and how does this relate to the rest of the cast?). Nothing much for Christina and the Chief in this episode. I liked the woman healer, but she struck me as a major deus ex machina device. If she hadn't been around, I wouldn't have cared to wager on Tucker's chances.

As this premature season finale wrapped up, I found myself wishing that Shonda and the writers had shown us the fall out from the other interns learning about George's repeater status after Alex spilled the beans and I wished that we'd seen more continuing storylines with Meredith's and gang's interns, who suddenly vanished in the last few episodes.

This wasn't a bad episode, but I felt it could've been better.

Grey's Anatomy: "Crash Into Me" Part 2

"Pivotal"
Another great two-parter.

I have something of a love-hate view towards "Grey's Anatomy" (GA). The show is very good, but it amazes me how Shonda Rhimes and the producers can have fine stuff come out almost hand in hand with questionable creative choices. I for one did not care for the backdoor pilot of "Private Practice" wedged into Season 3's "The Other Side of This Life, Parts 1 & 2." If Shonda wanted to jumpstart another series, why not just air it separately in its entirety and not at the expense of a good GA episode? I'm indifferent to "Private Practice" and won't miss it if cancelled.

Anyhow, I digress...

As in many episodes, contrivances pop up to conveniently ramp up the drama, but I feel "Crash Into Me, Parts 1 & 2" upholds GA's knack for two-parters. Our characters scramble to save patients in difficult surgeries that experience one complication after another and several people juggle personal issues while they're in their patients' innards up to their elbows.

Watching Lexie bond with Nick (Seth Green), struggle to keep his carotid sealed...and fail couldn't not pull at the heart strings. Something might've started if he'd lived. And I had the feeling he would've been better for her than Alex.

Seeing Bailey overcome her distaste to save a neo Nazi paramedic suffering from internal injuries while her husband announced he was giving up on their marriage... Talk about being caught on the horns of a dilemma. Her speech to George about telling her husband to take their "vows" to heart was riveting. George's line: "Can I just do charts?" Priceless.

There's Alex working on a patient with both Eva and Lexie watching. I expected more fireworks. We'll just have to see in later episodes what the fall out will be.

For the first time in a while, I found myself liking Meredith as she reverted to form as a caring doctor faced with a no win situation, sticking a needle into the expanding heart of a trapped paramedic before helping him get out of an upside down, crushed ambulance passenger compartment while his dead partner's body lies inches away (with the Chief guiding her along the way. And then she persuades the wife of the dead man's partner to stay and be there for his good as much as for her own.

The season long rut Meredith has been locked into of hating her likeable half-sister, Lexie, and running away from a relationship with McDreamy has been making her extremely unlikable to me. It would've been...interesting if Derrick and Lexie had built on their meeting at the bar. But then we wouldn't be able to enjoy watching Derrick and Rose come together. Where one door closes, another opens. I'm more than willing to slam the door on Meredith for Rose's sake.

Letting Lexie dance with her and her friends at her mom's house kinda announces that Meredith is softening. But it comes out of the blue for me. I'm afraid I missed what made Meredith ease up enough to include Lexie for the first time.

And Meredith telling Derrick that she's trying to overcome her fear and doesn't want him to date other people was nice, but I wonder if it's too little too late?

The sparks are starting to fly between Derrick and nurse Rose, who saved Derrick's operation by getting their computer imager to work again despite being "nervous and flawed." Thank god for those three semesters of computer science she had at Santa Barbara. Needless to say, Derrick was able to continue excising the tumor from the brain of the black lady ambulance driver (the neo Nazi's partner no less) who crashed her rig (extremely convenient for the two-parter's sake) into the ambulance that Meredith and the Chief were performing triage at.

I originally started as Meredith-Derrick shipper. But I won't mind if Derrick begins something with Rose. (In fact, I think Giselle of "Enchanted" is better for him.) Somehow, I doubt Shonda and her braintrust will let these two be, though. But that's one reason why viewers will keep tuning in: to find out what'll happen between Derrick and Rose.

Hopefully the writers strike will be settled sooner rather than later. There aren't too many more Season 4 episodes left in the can, which is a shame since I feel this season of GA is turning out to be one of the better ones.

A lot of interesting things happening in this two-parter. Just skimming the highlights is a long essay.