Yang has to pick the person to perform a surgery that should be hers while she babysits the returned Cylon and everyone begs her for the surgery. Izzie's still schtupping a spirit and George is growing concerned. Callie may have a new girly interest. McBadass, Lexie, and Alex all decide to step up their love lives. Oh, and a girl's brains come out of her eyes, nose, and ears. It's so awesome!
The attendings unanimously pick Cristina for the solo surgery, but the Chief banned her because of last week's intern incident. As a result (and further punishment), the Chief forces her to pick a peer to perform the surgery. Since the interns are banned for the same incident as Cristina, the resident that Cristina picks will pick another resident to scrub in with him or her.
All of the residents, except for a few, immediately start petitioning for the solo surgery. George tries by kissing up and pointing out that he's actually successfully performed solo heart surgery. Meredith expects her friendship with Cristina (despite their fight last episode) to get her in. Izzie and several random never-before-seen-and-never-to-be-seen-again residents don't bother, agreeing with Meredith that she'll be picked because of friendship. Alex tells Yang that he can't bring himself to kiss ass and instead rattles off how to do the entire procedure, showing that he's prepared.
Cristina spends the majority of the episode just trying to be left alone and babysitting Mary McDonnel's Cylon Cardiologist character from several weeks ago.
Two sisters are brought in after a car accident and drive most of the doctor's crazy with their bickering until Alex yells at them to shut up. During their examinations, Alex notices something in the older sister's eye that makes him suspect some kind of brain injury. Apparently, it should have been pretty obvious because he yells at "No Appendix" Sadie for not catching it. As they're wheeling her away, the younger sister yells that she wishes she (the older sister) would die. You just know she'll regret that one.
While they're doing a CT scan, the older girl's brain matter begins leaking out of her nose and ears and she goes into code. They rush her into surgery where Alex and Derek operate with the assistance of Yang and the Cylon. As Alex is beginning to close up, the girl's brain begins hemorrhaging and they can't save her from brain death. I told you the younger sister would regret what she said.
The Cylon's only response is that the girl's young age means she'll be an excellent organ donor and spends the rest of the episode haranguing her family to donate the girl's organs - she eventually wins out.
Meanwhile, Sadie wanders into the X-Ray room where Callie is examining the x-rays of the younger sister's broken leg. Sadie engages in seemingly innocent banter about diagnosing the fracture and how much she likes bones, but Callie feels like she's flirting and bumbles her way out of the room.
Callie runs to Sloan who figures that Sadie wasn't flirting but Callie should avoid the trouble of hot interns and channel her energy into work. Later, it becomes obvious that he's talking more about his own need to resist his urges towards Lexie.
Sloan is in ENT specialist mode today, using a vein from a woman's leg to replace her ruined vocal chord and voicebox. She's apparently been without a voice for years and her husband has grown tired of not being able to communicate with his wife. She continuously types on a laptop while everyone tries to talking to her and when her husband mentions that she's a blogger, my fiance just gave me a look. She apparently feels that I could learn a lesson from this storyline.
She's lying next to me asleep right now, so I probably didn't learn the lesson.
Bailey asks to scrub in on the surgery and spends the procedure questioning every move Sloan makes. Sloan, on edge because of Lexie, snaps at Bailey for what he perceives as second guessing, but Bailey explains that she's not criticizing at all, but just trying to learn from someone she feels is brilliant and could teach her a lot.
Have I mentioned that I love Bailey? And Sloan is growing on me with his whole showing his humanity and shit.
Anyway, the surgery is a success and husband and wife get all happy about being able to communicate again. I don't remember them making out, but this is Grey's Anatomy, so they probably did.
Denny's tagging along with Izzie this week and she spends more time talking to him than with her fellow residents, the interns, or even the patients. I'm incredibly sick of this storyline, just for the record. When she finally wanders out to the clinic, she finds George and quite a few patients trying to get in. Izzie realizes that not only did she forget to open the clinic, she forgot to staff it and rushes back in to find some nurses and interns. Later, she asks George to cover for her while she rushes off and a nurse mentions that she's barely been in the clinic all week. We find out that Izzie's been sneaking off to have ghost sex with Denny and I crawl across the floor to figure out what couch my eyes just rolled under.
Seriously, y'all - So. Damn. Sick. Of. This crap. And I used to love Denny. See what you've done to my Denny love, Shonda Rhimes?
Yang uses the time not spent babysitting the Cylon to agonize over who she should pick. McBadass advises her to go with her gut, since that's what led him to choose Yang. In the end, she chooses Alex because he actually prepared for the surgery and knew what he was doing.
Alex runs off to find Izzy to tell her that he wants her to scrub in. He finds her lying in a room snuggling up to a shirtless Denny, apparently post-specter-coitus. Alex tells her she's scrubbing in and then goes into a really sweet speech about how happy she makes him and what-not and tells her he loves her and kisses her while Izzie just gives him a horrified look because she's an stupid phantom lover.
This is the first time I've ever felt sorry for Alex. He's been very cool and likable lately and it's going to suck when he finds out about Izzie's wraith-wrangling and goes all douche-tastic again.
Meredith, inspired by the sisters' fight to not take Cristina for granted, tries to make up with her, but then questions why she made it personal by not choosing Meredith for the surgery. Yang blasts Meredith by pointing out that she didn't make it personal, she chose the person that was best prepared, but Meredith DID make it personal. Cristina yammers on a bit, but it basically boils down to the fact that nobody said anything, even though it was everyone's interns in that OR. She points out that she's the best surgeon among them (I concur) and if she doesn't deserve this surgery, then nobody does (Again, I concur) before storming out of the observation theater on the verge of tears.
McBadass catches up with her and tells her not to cry there in the hall. He takes her through a series of doors and stairways until they reach the boiler room. Cristina's all confused until a big gust of air bursts through the grate she's standing on. McBadass points out that it helps clear the mind and it's all awesome because he actually gets her and where she's coming from and they kiss and I'm kinda happy for her and I'm going to stop gushing like a teenage girl now.
While Meredith's moping, she gets a page from Alex and goes to find out what's up. He's freaking out about telling Izzie that he loves her and her not showing up to scrub in. Just when it seems like she's not going to make it, Izzy walks in and starts scrubbing in and it almost seems like she's come to her senses.
Lexie shows up to Sloan's apartment to tell him that the woman can speak and how much she respects him as a doctor and man and then goes into a Meredith-esque refrain of "teach me" as she undresses - one piece of clothing per refrain. Sloan begs her to stop and you can almost see the pain in his eyes from trying so hard to do the right thing by not sleeping with Lexie, but he eventually gives in.
The episode closes with Alex preparing to amputate the patient's leg while Izzie looks up at Denny and smiles, Callie and Sadie look at eachother and smile, and Cristina/McBadass and Lexie/Sloan make out.
Next week: a serial killer patient played by creepy-ass Eric Stoltz!
