Thursday Night Drama Queen: Grey's Anatomy

The first episode of season three of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ premiered last week and honestly, it felt more like an epilogue to Season 2 than a premiere. Tonight’s episode, titled “I Am A Tree” definitely felt like the real jumping off point for the season. Meredith tries to figure out whether to choose Derek or Finn, Izzie deals with her grief by baking and Cristina has to compete with Burke’s “Momma” for his attention.

Rather than going through the entire episode minute by minute, here is how it all broke down for each of the main characters:

Cristina meets Burke’s parents when they walk in on her giving Burke a half-naked lap dance. His mother expresses immediate disapproval of Cristina, even going as far as to call her racist (she overheard Cristina referring to Bailey as “the nazi”).

Meredith has to decide whether to choose between McDreamy or McVet. After weighing the options, she decides to date both of them. Both doctors seem competitively agreeable to it.

Izzie decides to deal with her grief the best way she knows how – by baking. She makes dozens of muffins and there’s no end in sight. She takes some of the muffins to Joe’s bar but doesn’t stick around long and inevitable heads back to the kitchen.

Meredith’s panties are discovered on the bulletin board and Callie takes the blame for them to save Meredith the embarrassment. George gets jealous because he thinks Callie fooled around on him but eventually they resolve it and Callie is flattered that George was jealous.

The Chief is sleeping at the hospital now since he’s on the outs with his wife. He takes a walk through the hospital and comes upon Callie’s “living space” down in the basement. He’s nice about the situation but tells her that she has to leave. She ends up going home with George and we can presume that she’s going to be staying at Meredith’s house for the time being. Whether or not her stay there will be temporary until she finds a permanent place to live is unknown. Its very possible that she’s finally done enough to earn herself a spot in the house and in “The Meredith Club”

Alex tries to talk to Bailey about Izzie but he only ends up upsetting her. After that, every time he opens his mouth around Bailey, she snaps at him. Alex ends up at Joe’s bar, chatting with a cancer patient whose realizing she hasn’t really lived her life. She flirts with him a bit and talks about not having enough fun and then subtly propositions him for a little bar-bathroom fun, to which he accepts. When they came out of the bathroom, both looked very pleased. The whole situation was actually kind of sweet and both of them definitely needed the release.

Towards the end of the episode, Bailey goes over to the intern house to talk to Izzie. The moment was brief but very sincere. She tells Izzie that she’s sorry for going soft on them after she had her baby and that she could’ve stopped the Denny situation from going down but she didn’t and so she’s partially to blame for his death. She then tells Izzie that she wants her back at the hospital and that they’d deal with the Chief together to get her back on board. She then pries the wooden spoon out of Izzie’s hand.

Finally, Addison decides to deal with Derek’s infidelity by taking the day off to go on a drinking bender. She spends half the day drinking at Joe’s bar and eating some of Izzie’s muffins. She comes to the conclusion that her marriage is over. Joe calls her a cab and she leaves.

After Meredith tells Derek that she wants to date him and Finn, he leaves the bar and goes to find Addison at a hotel. She lets him in the room and seems a bit sobered up by that point. They talk about how their marriage is really over and they both seem very accepting of the situation. This is when the surprise of the episode takes place.

The bathroom door opens and steam comes out. Who should emerge with the cloud of steam but none other than the very sexy, very naked (ok, he had a towel but barely) McSteamy! Derek’s ex-best friend and the man whom Addison originally cheated on him with has returned.

So McSteamy (whose actual name in the show is Mark Sloane) is back! This is obviously going to add even more tension to the whole Shepard issue. Just when it seemed like Addison and Derek were both prepared to accept their situation for what it was, he shows up to re-open the wound. I’m even more interested to see how this plays out than I am in watching how Meredith dating both Finn and Derek goes.

The George/Callie relationship is absolutely adorable. The interesting thing is, if I had to pick the perfect girlfriend for George, I cant say that Callie is what I would have pictured but she really seems to be bringing out the best in him. Callie is like Addison in that both are strong women who aren’t afraid to be emotional and who know what they want and are willing to work to make it happen. It seemed like it would be impossible for Callie to infiltrate Meredith’s tight circle of friends but she was tough enough to put up with it and eventually found ways to reach them without kissing their behinds or begging for acceptance. For that, she has my respect and I’m hoping that by now, she’s earned the respect of George’s friends.

Cristina seems to be dealing with a similar ordeal with Burke’s parents. While Burke’s dad seems quietly supportive of her, it was clear that only a “perfect” woman would be good enough to earn Burke’s mother’s approval. That being said, I think Cristina has what it takes but at some point (probably very soon), she’s going to have to stand up to her. Hopefully when she does, she finds the right blend of confidence and poise because that’s what it’s going to take to win the respect of a woman like Burke’s “Momma”.

This is not to say that I dislike Burke’s mother. She reminds me of the type of woman who would fit in perfectly at one of Bree Van De Kamp’s luncheons. My impression of Burke’s mother is that, like Bree (this is a ‘Desperate Housewives’ reference here), she’s the type of woman who is almost always cool, calm and collected. If Cristina wants to win her over, she’ll have to play the same way. As for Burke, its ok for him to accept his mother’s love and care but at some point he will also have to find a way to stand up to her and stand up for the woman he loves.

What did you think of this episode? There was some negative feedback about the first episode of the season. People seemed to feel the third season had lost some of the momentum after last season’s explosive finale. I’m thinking, based on tonight’s episode that the pot is about to be stirred.