Imagine trying to take one of the biggest exams of your medical career while stressing over your wedding day (which is tomorrow), being blamed for your stepmother’s death, being in love with a married man, planning to quit your job because you cheated on your wife with your coworker or worrying about an amnesic patient who might have gotten her memory back but refuses to admit it. These are the issues that the interns on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ were dealing with while preparing for their big exam.
Tonight’s episode of ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ titled “Testing 1-2-3” had all of the interns trying to juggle their own personal issues with the impending exam. Meanwhile, Addison has returned from Los Angeles, Derek is feeling unneeded by his girlfriend and Bailey got some unexpected competition in the race for the chief resident position.
George got accepted for the position at Mercy West. Callie is thrilled about this, no doubt because it means she’ll finally have George all to herself, with no Izzie drama getting in the way. Word gets around at the hospital and no one else is as pleased as Callie is to learn that George is leaving (pending the results of his intern exam). Izzie begs him not to go and he explains to her, with puppy dog eyes, that he has to leave to get away from her because he’s a married man and cant be kissing other women in the elevator. Callie spies their little moment. Though she didn’t appear to hear it, she could read their body language and makes a note of what she saw.
Izzie later confronts George and tells him that the night they spent together meant nothing so he doesn’t have to leave because it’ll never happen again. She then goes to find an empty room and cries. Later that night at Cristina’s bachelorette party, Cristina is trying to figure out what to write for her vows. Izzie goes on a rant about how all of them (Callie is there also) have the man they want and the vows are important because they get to hear the beautiful words from the person they love. Meredith asks her if she’s talking about Denny because they’re all a little confused as to where this outburst came from. Izzie says yes but the look on Callie’s face tells us that its clear she knows Izzie’s talking about George.
Speaking of Callie, the girl was on fire tonight! She rocked three surgeries at the same time and barely broke a sweat. Sloan made a comment to Bailey about Callie being some real competition in the race for Chief Resident. It was clear by the look on Bailey’s face that it didn’t even occur to her that Callie would be going for the position. Callie summed it up though by saying she thinks she’s qualified for the position so why shouldn’t she go for it? Bailey couldn’t argue with that but for the first time since the position opened up, it was clear that she was having doubts as to whether she’d get it.
Since learning that she probably can’t have children, Addison has become surrounded by pregnant people. Joe (the bartender) and his boyfriend bring in a young pregnant woman who is considering them to be the adoptive parents of her child (or children, since it turns out she’s having twins). The woman complains of heartburn but apparently it’s more than that because she collapses at the end of the episode.
Adele (the chief’s soon-to-be ex-wife) comes in after a minor car accident and asks Addison to examine her because she too is pregnant. Fifty-something years old and having her first child. She refused to tell Addison who the father was and wouldn’t stay overnight despite Addison’s advice (she saw some spotting and thought Adele should stay just in case). At the end of the episode, the Chief spots Adele but she ducks into a ladies room. He has no idea why she’s even in the hospital and begs her to come out, assuring her that he’s moved on. Eventually he goes in after her and finds her on the floor, unconscious and lying in a pool of blood (which seems to be coming from her “equipment” region).
When Ava is helping Alex cram for his exam, she mentions that her daughter has her father’s nose. Alex realizes she remembers something and becomes excited about it but she brushes it off. He asks her if she remembers anything else but she says no. Eventually he begins to suspect that she’s lying and calls her out on it. After arguing for a bit she admits that she does remember everything. She woke up the other day with her full memory back. She tells him that she was unhappy with her life and her perfect husband so she left him and came to Seattle. Shortly after, the ferry accident happened and she lost her memory.
Alex is upset that she hasn’t gotten in touch with her husband or her family. She’s not ready to deal with the life she left behind though and refuses to tell him her real name. Eventually, she does. It’s Rebecca Pope. I’m really starting to think this story has run its course but since it’s the first time since forever-ago that Alex has had a real storyline in the show, I guess I can let it slide for now.
Despite being slapped in the face by her father, Meredith still plans to attend Susan’s funeral before taking the intern exam. She gets all dressed up in black and stops in at the hospital. Thatcher shows up and is still as enraged as he was when we last saw him. He didn’t slap her again but he may as well have. He screamed at Meredith, saying that Susan trusted her and then accused Meredith of killing her. He tells her not to come to the funeral and leaves.
The shock of this settles in just in time for her to go sit for the exam. While the other interns get through their tests, putting their drama out of their minds for a couple of hours, Meredith just stares blankly at her test and never writes a thing. Afterwards she goes down to the lobby and sits there. George ends up finding the chief and telling him what happened with Meredith blowing the exam. The chief witnessed the Thatcher scene earlier and though he tried to talk to her about it afterwards, she lashed out at him saying that just because he slept with her mother doesn’t mean he’s her surrogate father.
Though those words must have stung, Weber still felt enough compassion to let her retake the test. He brought her into an empty boardroom, gave her some water and a sandwich and told her she could have a second chance. She tells him again that he’s not her father but immediately afterwards, lets him put his arm around her as only a dad can and she cries for the first time that day.
When a bunch of missing climbers are found, they’re brought to Seattle Grace for emergency surgery. One of their friends is still missing but the doctors are mostly concerned about tending to their broken bones and some seriously nasty frostbite. Throughout the episode we get bits and pieces of what happened to them on the mountain. They took a dangerous passage up and were all tied together so they all fell together. One of them was experiencing extreme remorse over having to leave their unconscious friend behind. They spoke of him as though he had died on the mountain. Another of the climbers said they had to leave him or they would’ve died too.
After their surgeries, which included one of the guys having to get both of his hands amputated, the fourth climber is brought into the hospital. He was found and is definitely still alive though he has a climber’s axe lodged in his skull. That doesn’t look like the kind of injury that could’ve happened in a fall. Perhaps his friends decided that speeding up the death process was the merciful way to leave him so they used the axe. We didn’t get to find out what happened, though I’m assuming we’ll get the rest of the story next week.
When Burke and Callie were performing surgery on one of the climbers earlier, they discussed why anyone would go mountain climbing in the first place. Callie said she climbed all the time when she was in college. She explained that its hard work and you feel terrible sometimes doing it but in the end it’s worth it to reach the top. It helps you to learn how strong you are. Burke is hearing all of this and thinking about his fiancé. He’s been climbing Mount Cristina for well over a year now. If he can get through the wedding day, he’ll have finally reached the top.
Finally, throughout all of Meredith’s drama (the exam, Thatcher, etc), Derek has been trying to be there for Meredith. She continues to reject his attempts and its clear that he’s getting tired of it. At the end of the episode, while enjoying a few drinks with Burke, Addison and Sloan at Joe’s bar, a beautiful woman approaches him. She offers to buy him a drink and though he seems very attracted to her, he politely declines. It looks like it wont be long before things begin to unravel once again in the Derek/Meredith relationship.
What did you think of the episode? Will Cristina go through with the wedding or is something major going to happen to cause the whole thing to fall apart? Do you think all of the interns will have passed their exam or will one of them end up having to repeat their intern year?
