Last week: Burke is gone, Bailey is bitter, McDreamy and McBrittle break up, Lexie shows up to ruin my world, and George loves Izzie.
I thought we picked up this week week where we left off, with George telling Izzie he loves her. He’s inside the house babbling to Izzie about how he feels like he just woke up and he’s excited. They’re both wearing completely different clothes though, so I’m not sure when this is taking place. George explains his abrupt decision to marry Callie: basically, she told him she loved him, his dad loved her, he loved his dad, his dad died, so he got married. I’m sure poor George thought it made more sense at the time.
Meredith and Derek are in bed. He’s ready to go to sleep, but she tells them that since they’re broken up, he’s not allowed to sleep over. He makes fun of her because she’s being completely stupid and arbitrary and she accuses him of mocking her severe emotional limitations. So they decide that their new not relationship will be based on sex and mockery. Sounds good to me.
According to the Meredith VO, the word of the day is “addiction.” As in everybody on this show is a junkie in one way or another. Everybody’s got to kick that habit. How much do you want to bet that doesn’t end up working across the board?
Cristina is all alone in Burke’s apartment. Didn’t she hang on to her old place? Is Burke still paying the rent? Because if so, she’s totally squatting and that’s awesome. Otherwise, she got served. Getting stuck with fancy apartment rent after being left at the aisle? Now that’s some insult to injury right there. Also, she’s surrounded by very expensively-wrapped presents. Apparently all of Burke and Cristina’s friends take Martha Stewart’s advice very seriously. I’m glad I wasn’t invited to that wedding, because whatever I ended up getting them would look completely busted by comparison. I’m leaving for Indiana tomorrow to go to my boyfriend’s brother’s wedding, and we are fully going to stop at Target on our way to the church and throw some stuff from the registry into a gift bag. Because I’m classy like that.
Anyway, back at the house, George is still babbling while Izzie just sits there with her Farrah Fawcett hair and an awestruck look on her face. He proclaims that he needs to go tell Callie that the marriage is over. He leaves and Izzie sits back on the couch and says, “he loves me too” with a big ol’ goofy grin.
The next morning at the hospital Derek and the Chief are at the board. The chief is bragging about how he’s starting to delegate responsibility so he can be home more and eventually get his wife back. Derek asks if she’s speaking to him yet. The chief says she isn’t, but once she finds out he’s delegating, she totally will. So let that be a lesson to you: nothing gets you into a lady’s pants faster than delegating responsibility.
Sloan comes by and tells Derek he looks like crap. Derek explains that he had a long night doing the “horizontal mambo” with Meredith. Sloan gives him a look of pity and tells him that the first step to recovery is admitting he has a problem. Derek counters by asking how many nurses he’s banged this week. Dude. None of them are Meredith, so it doesn’t matter—he totally wins.
Cristina has apparently brought some of her wedding gifts in to the hospital and instead of returning them, is giving them away in exchange for surgeries and other favors. Izzie really wants a giant mixer, but Cristina won’t give it to her because Izzie has nothing she wants. Sloan, however, manages to score an espresso machine by letting her scrub in on a surgery he has scheduled later.
The interns are skipping rounds today, as there is carnage coming in, and as Cristina tells them, “carnage always trumps rounds.” Apparently there was a gas explosion in an apartment building and five people were injured: a mom, her husband and baby, their friend and a neighbor. The chief takes the mom, who has 3rd degree burns and is the most critical. George gets the friend who looks like he has internal bleeding, Alex gets the baby, who doesn’t seem to be injured but is crying a whole bunch, while Callie takes the old man, who has moderate injuries.
Bailey wants some residents in the clinic, but Callie says she can only have interns. Bailey isn’t used to being told “no,” and predictably, does not take it well. To make up for her lack of power, Bailey is a hard-ass to Lexie and floppy-haired boy, the interns who ended up with clinic duty.
Meanwhile…MAMA’S BACK! Burke’s mother is in Seattle Grace and Cristina, naturally, is hiding from her. I would too. That lady’s makeup is so perfectly applied that it almost looks like she’s wearing a mask…which she will soon rip off and reveal herself to be a monster. I’m pretty much guessing she looks a lot like Predator under there. Anyway, Cristina makes a smart move and sends Meredith in to get rid of her, which leads to my favorite part of the episode: the part where Mama rips Meredith a new one—and it goes a little something like this:
Meredith innocently walks by Mama, notices her and asks if she’s there to meet anyone. Mama realizes who she is and says the following:
“When you stood up in front of Preston’s friends and loved ones and you said, ‘It’s over, it’s over. It’s so over,’ were you trying to smash the hopes of the best man or were you just trying to be…funny? Because making light of that situation would be inappropriate. And to use that moment to send a message to your boyfriend? Well that’s…selfish. So were you being inappropriate? Or were you being selfish?”
Meredith is gobsmacked and I am cheering Mama on from my couch. Because, seriously. That was a punk move that Meredith pulled in the finale. That girl cannot get it through her skull that not everything in the world is about her and it’s about time someone called her bony ass out on it. Team Mama!
Back in doctor land, despite her objections, Izzie ended up on the old man case with Callie. He’s asking about his neighbors, who he calls his family. He doesn’t have a family of his own, so he kind of adopted them. The conversation turns to marriage and Callie says that she is very happily married. Izzie, who has been freaked out during this entire scene, knocks a bunch of crap over as she says this. Callie gives her the fish eye.
Alex is back with the dad and the baby, who still won’t stop crying. Alex picks up the baby to try to calm him down and creepily starts sniffing at him like he’s a melon at the farmer’s market. He tells the nurse on the sly to order a tox screen.
Izzie, who’s still freaked out, runs into George and tells him that he can’t tell Callie that the marriage is over, because Callie’s having a bad day? I don’t know. They almost kiss again, and it must be very awkward for these two, being best friends in real life, because Katherine Heigl totally looks like she’s trying not to bust out laughing as she goes in for a kiss.
Bailey corners Meredith and tells her that she really needs her to work in the clinic. She’s having a little bit of a breakdown about the idiots in her clinic. Lexie’s there, so that totally makes sense. Meredith looks unconvinced, so Bailey brings up the whole “saving her life after she tried to drown herself” thing and tells Meredith that she owes her. Meredith agrees, without knowing that Lexie is there. When she enters the clinic and sees her, Meredith looks like she’s about to hightail it out of there. Unfortunately, Lexie sees her first and bounds over. Lexie is all wide-eyed and eager and reminds me of a stupid puppy. I like puppies but I kind of want to kick her.
George is giving a CT to the guy who was just visiting his friends in the exploding house. He’s all freaked out because he just stopped by on his way to work and now he’s in the hospital. Although, that’s probably not the only reason he’s freaking out: Alex gets the tox screen back on the kid and finds out that he has crystal meth in his system. Apparently, the “gas explosion” was really an exploding meth lab. How rural.
As all of this is going down, the chief is operating on the mother and patting himself on the back for saving a good person. Alex comes in the middle of this and tells the chief the news. He delegates the situation to Callie, who is supposed to follow exposure protocols for the kid. She in turn just tells Alex to call the police and social services and runs off.
George runs into Mama and introduces himself as “Burke’s guy.” He asks how Burke is doing and she replies, “he’s a gentleman, so he really doesn’t want to talk about it.” HA! I can only imagine that this is a little dig at Isaiah Washington, whose decidedly un-gentlemanly behavior and inability to shut his trap at any point before or after his firing has gotten him into a heap of trouble in the press.
Derek pages Meredith, but not for sex like she hoped. Instead, he is trying to feed her. Good man. She, unsurprisingly, turns down his lunch offer as well as dinner for good measure. She had a raisin at breakfast guys, she is totally bloated.
Alex is back with meth dad who is yelling at the baby to stop crying. Alex shoots back that he can’t stop crying because he’s totally in withdrawal. Meth dad blubbers about how he and his wife are good parents, but Alex is having none of it. He tells him that social services and the cops are on the way. Meth dad punches him and takes off with the baby. The chief finds out about this and yells at Callie for doing a sucky job and losing the kid.
George tells his patient that he’s probably going to need surgery, so he can’t leave the hospital—which sucks, because he’s about to go into meth withdrawal. The guy whines about how “he’s not that guy.” Then he seizes and dies.
Shortly thereafter, Derek finds meth dad and the baby hiding in meth mom’s bathroom. The baby has stopped moving because he had a stroke. They do surgery on him though, and he’s fine—except for the fact that his parents are going to jail, but hey—no more meth! At least until high school.
Cristina finally decides to suck it up and go see Mama. Turns out she just wants the key to the apartment so she can pick up some things. She also tells Cristina that she’s sorry that she lost both the man she loved and an amazing teacher. With him by her side, she could have become a brilliant heart surgeon. Cristina asks mama to take the wedding gifts and realizes that Burke’s never coming back, not even to say goodbye. Mama tells her she’s a strong woman and leaves.
So it’s the end of the episode and everybody is sad. Mer VO tells us that addiction never ends well because whatever is making us high eventually lets us down. Lexie is depressed because Meredith doesn’t want to know her (you’re better off!). Derek is realizing that his relationship with Meredith is ridiculous. He’s admitting he has a problem. George tries to talk to Callie, but she says no and asks him not to say anything. Not tonight. They go home together.
Derek looks like he’s going to stand Meredith up, but totally goes back to her anyway.
Cristina comes home to Burke’s empty apartment. She looks lost.
Moral of the story: Addiction = bad. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.
