Well then, after a season of ferry crashes, a visit to the great afterlife, romantic proposals and infidelity, we finally made it to the end of the third season of ‘Grey’s Anatomy.’ The episode, titled “Didn’t We Almost Have It All,” left me surprised and a little bit irritated. The irritation comes mainly from having that damned Whitney Houston song stuck in my head after reading the title. The surprise comes from the fact that while I thought this season had some major weak spots, the finale brought it all back together and the season ended strong.
Let’s get the rock-climbers story out of the way. As I suspected, the guy with the axe in his head got that way because one of his friends tried to kill him to put him out of his misery. After they fell, the guy was in so much pain that his friend tried to kill him to end it. Though they lied to the doctors and said the axe went in accidentally, Derek realizes it was intentional during the surgery. The axe was too far in and there was no tearing in the brain. Cops and lawyers were on the scene after that. The friend who axed the guy said he’d do it again if he had to. He’s a true friend. Honestly, had they left this story out of the episode, it wouldn’t have mattered and they could’ve gotten the show done within an hour (and I wouldn’t have had to waste the first paragraph of this recap on this story which would’ve been more interesting had it not been in the season finale).
As for the relevant matters in the episode:
Derek got the offer for Chief of Surgery. He turned it down, telling Weber that if he really wishes he could do it all over again, he should. So Weber’s not leaving. Or maybe he is. Adele miscarried her baby, which turned out to be Weber’s child. She realized she misjudged him and it looks as though these two might be ready to fall back in love with one another.
Speaking of babies, Callie wants to have a baby. She and George even tried to conceive one in the break room. Shortly after, Izzie confessed that she’s still in love with him just after saying she’d do everything to support his marriage with Callie. The two shared lots of eye-contact after that but nothing more. George has bigger problems though. He didn’t pass his intern exam. He didn’t tell anyone but Bailey obviously knew. She told him he could either walk away from being a doctor or repeat his intern year. George chose to walk away but just as he was cleaning out his locker, the newest crop of interns came in, taking a self-guided tour of the hospital. A beautiful girl stays behind to ask him for advice. She introduces herself as Lexie Grey. Who is Lexie Grey? (Thanks to the commenter below who explained that she's Meredith's half-sister!)
Bailey got passed over for the Chief Resident position. Callie got it instead. There was no explanation for this because unlike the Attendings, who each got to meet with Weber to get their rejection speech (which mainly included Weber pointing out all of their personal flaws), Bailey got no such meeting. Callie’s name was posted on a bulletin board and that was that. I don’t understand how Callie got the position over Bailey. Sure, she appears to be a great doctor but we’ve never seen her delegating or taking charge. So either Bailey lost it because of the Denny fiasco last year or else we can just chalk it up to hospital politics.
Ava/Rebecca’s husband came to reclaim his wife. Like Rebecca said, her husband is a nice guy. He even admits to Alex that he didn’t pay enough attention to her. He clearly loves her though and is ready to bring her and their baby home. Alex is visibly disappointed by this but when Rebecca tells him that he’s the only person who saw the real her and asks him to give her a reason to stay, he cant. It seemed like he was letting her go because he didn’t want to make her stay, only to disappoint her.
Derek told Meredith that he flirted with the girl in the bar. Later, when they have more time to talk, he tells Meredith that he loves her and will never leave her but that she keeps leaving him. She doesn’t leave her friends but with him, she comes and goes whenever it’s convenient for her. He basically tells her that if she’s not in it for the long haul, she needs to leave him for good. She gets teary and then says she needs to go to help Cristina. Just before the wedding, Derek tells Burke that he doesn’t think he and Meredith are going to make it. He also lies to Burke and says he got turned down for the Chief of Surgery job.
Cristina and Burke didn’t get married. After Cristina freaked out because the vows she wrote on her hand got washed off, Burke came out to find her and decided that he knew she didn’t want to marry him. He gave her a speech that pretty much said just that. She tried to argue with him but both of them knew what he was saying was the truth. The two biggest signs that this marriage wasn’t meant to be were the vows and Cristina’s wedding attire.
While Burke had this beautiful set of self-written vows about how he was giving Cristina his heart, Cristina needed her friends to help her write hers. And though she can commit volumes of medical text and procedures to memory, she cant remember a short list of vows? Her hand isn’t that big so I can’t imagine she had all that much written on there. How did she plan to read the vows off her hand anyway?
The wedding attire was a beautiful mess. Her dress, while lovely seemed to cling to her narrow frame as though it was wearing her. Momma-Burke insisted that Cristina wear a jeweled choker that was a Burke-family heirloom. So if the dress wasn’t constricting enough, now she has a decorative collar to match it. The icing on the cake was when Preston’s mother tweezed Cristina’s eyebrows completely off. Cristina, whose eyebrows are the most expressive feature on her face, looked really weird without them. She had fake eyebrows drawn on when she did her make-up but still, the damage was done. The Cristina standing in the entrance of the church was not the Cristina that Burke wanted to marry. There is no Cristina Burke and never will be.
In the end, she goes back to their apartment to find that Burke is gone. Meredith asks her how she knows and Cristina points out that Burke’s trumpet, jazz collection, lucky scrub-cap and picture of his grandmother are all missing. She cries and then says she’s free. Anxiety washes over her and she suddenly needs to get out of the wedding dress. Meredith helps her get the choker off and literally cuts the back of the wedding dress to get Cristina out of it. Burke and Cristina are over. Burke is gone.
So George isn’t a doctor anymore. Callie could be pregnant. Izzie is in love with George but supports his marriage. Bailey got robbed of the promotion she deserved. Cristina’s single again. Meredith and Derek are on the rocks again. There’s a new intern whose last name is Grey. Addison is leaving (though that never actually officially happened, we’re assuming she is). Alex let Rebecca go and Weber and Adele are reconciling. Not a bad ending to an ok-season of ‘Greys.’
What did you think of the episode and the season in general?
