TV Recap: Grey's Anatomy - In The Midnight Hour

Okay, let's see if I can make this a little less chaotic than the actual episode. Izzie schtups a ghost, Sadie almost becomes a ghost, Bailey hates the appendix, Yang kinda hates Meredith, Sloan has a heart, Derek brings home a stray, and McBadass and George both contemplate communication.

In the middle of the night, McBadass is standing outside the ER waiting for an ambulance when Yang walks up. McBadass wonders if she's there to help with his trauma, but she bribed a nurse to page her when an appendectomy was scheduled, since last year's solo surgery was an appendectomy and she wants some practice. McBadass starts to say something else and Cristina waits expectantly, but he clams up.

Meredith and Sadie are reminiscing about Ellis Grey when Yang - as a true friend would - pages Meredith to come work on the appendectomy with her. Sadie decides to tag along. Yang isn't the only one who bribed a nurse, though, because Alex is on his way out to try for the same surgery. He knocks on Izzie's door to ask her if she wants to come, but she claims to be sick and begs off.

George is the resident on call, so he's also shown up for the appendectomy. Bailey's running the show on the surgery, so she has to choose between George, who was on call; Yang and Meredith, who studied up on the patient's case; and Alex, who just thinks that Bailey's an amazing surgeon.

Luckily for Bailey, McBadass's trauma patient shows up and George peels off to work with him. Next, a random doctor asks Bailey for a resident to help with a patient who has abdominal pains. Bailey sends Alex with her and takes Grey and Yang for her surgery.

That's alot of build-up for a surgery that was pretty noneventful. All we really get from that surgery is the idea that Bailey has done so many appendectomies that she pretty much runs on autopilot without thinking about what she's doing and is frankly a bit sick of appendixes. Grey and Yang learn alot more later in the night.

Alex's patient with abdominal pains is a hypochondriac who dosed herself crazy with antibiotics for what her husband and dermatologist both thought was a pimple but she swears was a staph infection. Now she's certain that she has stomach cancer, but Alex discovers that it's C-Diff resulting from the previously mentioned antibiotics killing off the good bacteria along with any bad. She now needs what he calls a fecal transplant from her husband. I realized that it involves his poop going into her somehow and tuned that shit right out.

McBadass's trauma patient is a man who ran out of a second story window while sleepwalking and having night terrors. He wakes up while they're trying to treat him and knocks Callie across the room when they're trying to calm him. She hits the floor hard with her nose broken.

While Sloan is trying to set her nose, she keeps complaining about her life falling apart and, while he's sympathetic, he decides to knock her out to reset the bone, both so she can get some rest and so that she won't feel any pain while he's doing the work. Callie's effectively taken out of the episode.

Through talking to the sleepwalker, they find that he's had the night terrors for years and went to many clinics after his wife left him. Eventually they diagnosed the cause as stress and prescribed some kind of medication to keep his stress level down. He thinks that he hasn't had them for a long time and just forgot to take his meds that night, but Sloan finds out from his exhausted daughter that he has them almost every night. She stays up trying to take care of him, thinking that she's the main cause of his stress and thus the whole thing is her fault. After doing some tests, Derek and Sloan find out that the cause is actually a rare form of epilepsy and operate.

The daughter is relieved, but still refuses to sleep because of worry about her dad. Sloan tells her a story about being a kid and never wanting to sleep because he didn't feel safe in his own home until Derek's family took him in and made him feel safe. He offers to keep watch while the daughter sleeps in order to make her feel safe. She finally passes out and he finds a quiet cot to put her to sleep in. Sloan's actually really cool when he has a heart. He's starting to become one of my favorite characters.

While they're working on the man, George wonders aloud why the man's wife never talked to him about her feelings, though it's obvious that he's really talking about why Lexie never came out and talked to him about her feelings. McBadass answers that somehow talking about your emotions is incredibly frightening, but it's obvious he's talking about his trouble talking to Yang. I know how ridiculous it is to imply that a US Army trauma surgeon needs to grow a pair, but... both of these dudes' balls need to drop. Just sayin'.

...and now for the highlight of the night. Sadie wanders into the interns' hideout to find everyone gathered around "Number 2" in a hospital bed and everyone poking his feet and whatnot. Lexie explains that they gave him an epidural. Through back and forth shit-talking, Sadie goads Lexie into proposing they give #2 an appendectomy since he doesn't really need an appendix. He wusses out, but Sadie steps up and volunteers, as long as she gets to do someone else next time.

Since it's the middle of the night, the interns don't have much trouble finding an empty OR, so they give Sadie some general anesthetic (but keep her awake so she can watch, too) and get to work, while continuously referencing a text book so that they know what they should be seeing. Lexie starts to back out, but Sadie grabs the scalpel, slices herself open, and tells Lexie to get her damn appendix out. Things go fairly smoothly until they notice that something is inflamed. Some of the interns want to get a resident, but Sadie refuses, not wanting to get into trouble.

Meanwhile, Yang and Meredith have gotten out of their surgery and Yang realizes that all of the interns are missing. She figures they're performing sutures on one another again and goes to yell at them, but finds only Number 2 still in the hospital bed. She tells him to come with her, but the epidural hasn't worn off and he can't walk.

While Yang's dealing with him, Lexie comes to get Meredith for help and has a terrified look on her face. Yang must have found out what was going on from Number 2, because she and Meredith show up in the OR at the same time to find blood everywhere and terrified interns. They immediately jump in to save Sadie and send an intern to find Bailey.

While they're working, Yang realizes that the stitches in an artery came loose, but there's too much blood for her to see what she's doing. Bailey stays calm and talks both Yang and Grey through the surgery and they save Sadie.

The Chief comes in and pulls Yang and Meredith into his office while a nervous Lexie watches. She thinks they're getting yelled at, but the Chief is praising them both for doing great work saving Sadie and calling Bailey for help immediately, neither trying to cover for their interns nor letting pride get in the way of saving a patient. But then Lexie storms in trying to make excuses for her sister and Yang and unfortunately lets it slip that Yang tried to stop them yesterday. The Chief is furious that she didn't report this. Yang tries to explain that she caught them doing sutures and thought she had stopped it for good until the botched surgery, but the Chief's not hearing it and disqualifies Yang from the solo surgery.

Afterward, Yang is furious with Meredith for not sticking up for her with the Chief and letting her take the fall when all of the residents were equally to blame for this since all of their interns were in the OR. I had just been discussing with my fiance how, though the interns were stupid to do this, it was really the fault of the residents since I haven't seen a single one of them trying to teach their interns. Maybe if they had tried to teach the interns like Bailey taught them, the interns wouldn't have been so desperate for experience.

The residents ask Bailey what they should say to their interns, but Bailey tells them that these are their babies and their problem - they'll have to come up with their own speeches. She then goes to visit Callie where they have a talk about being tired of certain aspects of their lives and their need for change. I get the feeling that Bailey's going to move more and more into a Chief-type role and be doing less and less surgery. I wonder if the Chief will be leaving soon?

"Sick" Izzy has been shacking up with Denny all day, and this is probably a good time to mention that Shonda Rhimes has stated in many interviews this past week that Izzy does not have a brain tumor, so I'm out of ideas on this one.

Izzy is certain that she's losing her mind because Denny can't be there, so Denny figures they should do something a ghost can't do and they never had the chance to do - get nasty. This is actually what Izzy was doing when Alex knocked on her door - she passed off her moaning as sick moans, but nobody was fooled - they all figured she was indulging in some self-love. Izzie passes out after... whatever happened there.

For the sake of argument, I'll just do this like Izzy's not crazy and Denny really is there, okay?

When Izzie wakes up, she reaches out for Denny, he's not there and she starts screaming his name until he comes in the door like he was there all along. He tells her that he's not going anywhere and repeats that he's there for her, but she goes off into a rant about he can't be there and she must be crazy and blah blah blah and he just listens patiently. Right about then she gets a 911 page and has to rush to the hospital, presumably to yell at interns, and Denny just tells her that he'll be there when she gets back.

The residents bring all of the interns into Sadie's room and make them report on her case before telling them how stupid they all are and how disappointed they and the Chief are in them. Alex says that they've all lost his respect and he's not sure if they can get it back. One intern smarts off about how Izzie still has his respect after she killed a man and Alex almost beats him down while pointing out that killing a man while trying to save a life is different than risking a friend's life just for fun - just as Izzie shows up.

Back home, Izzie begins to give Alex a Meredith-esque "I'm a mess..." speech when Alex cuts her off and tells her that he understands if the relationship is too much for her right now, but she'll have to break up with him because he's not going anywhere. He heads to bed and asks if Izzie's coming. Izzie glances towards her bedroom doorway where Denny's standing and tells him she's sorry. He tells her that it's okay and he'll still be there and she goes into Alex's room while Denny just stands there all sad and I have absolutely no idea what's up there. My brain hurts.