Of Course Everyone Lives Except for the Guy I Actually WANT to Live

This episode of Grey's Anatomy started out with a weird slow-motion techno montage of scenes that actually happen at the END of the episode. This is absolutely not the kind of thing that Grey's fans have come to expect. It was quirky and weird and almost made me wonder if I was watching the wrong show. But after that brief wtf moment, I realized I kind of liked it. It drew me in. It wasn't the same old whoop-de-doo self involved Meredith voice over. Of course, Meredith's voice over was still there, but much less pronounced and not so much the focus of the entire intro. Kudos, Grey's Anatomy, for trying something new.

Let's start with Meredith. She is working on the paramedic in the upside down truck. Remember him? The previous episode ended with Meredith crawling over the other, dead paramedic to get to him, only to realize that the live paramedic was only barely grasping life. Well, she got the ultrasound equiptment in the ambulance and blindly ran it over his chest, without being able to see exactly what was wrong. She is relying solely on the Chief, outside of the ambulance, to tell her when to stop and diagnose the problem. Evidently, the paramedic has blood in his peritoneal cavity. Now, I'm not sure what the peritoneal cavity is, or what it does, but i do know you are NOT supposed to have blood in there. So Meredith demands an 18 gauge needle to suck the blood out. However, the peritoneal cavity is located in a very specific spot, and if Meredith goes in even a fraction of a degree off-angle, she could clip the heart and kill him. Dr. Hahn, who has been requested to oversee this process, pretty much lists all the ways Meredith could kill her patient, who is conscious (although barely so), and can hear all of this. Now this is the part where Meredith earns my undying devotion. She comforts the now severely freaked out paramedic and then quietly turns around in the ambulance and tells the ever so smug Dr. Hahn to shut the hell up. Yay! I've been waiting for someone to do that forever. Anyways, the procedure goes as planned, with the paramedic telling Meredith that it felt good once she got all the blood out of that cavity. The rescue people come in with the jaws of life to rush the paramedic off to surgery while Meredith crawls out of the ambulance with only a few cuts and bruises. The chief commends her performance and her ability to stay calm in a stressful situation. After that, the day is pretty much done for Meredith until she finds McDreamy and explains that she doesn't want him to date other people.

Unfortunately, McDreamy has already kissed that nurse he's been flirting with. And let me just tell you, I am not happy about this. I actually yelled at the television when it happened. As a result, McDreamy will get only a bried synopsis as his punishment. The computer guiding the needle for his brain surgery case breaks. That icky, slutfaced nurse steps up and says although she only has 3 semesters of computer science under her belt, she can fix it. She fixes it. McDreamy completes the surgery. His patient lives. He kisses the whore in the scrubroom.

Alex's patient, the guy with the heart problem, also lives in spite of the fact Alex clipped his tube while trying to show off for his lady friend Ava, who is sitting in the Gallery. McSteamy notices Ava there, realizes who she is, and proceeds to tell Alex he is in deep shit. But they save the guy. Once at home, Ava tries to talk to him and console him after such a trying day. Alex ends up yelling at her because she is the one that got him suspended from work. He accuses her of playing dress up when she's with him because she has a husband and baby at home. He confesses he has been sleeping with Lexie all this time, and eventually explains that Ava isn't here to talk. Apparently Ava agrees, because she says nothing to his rather harsh speech and kisses him. I can only assume they engage in sex.

Although Izzie was first assigned to this case, awful Dr. Hahn sends her off to do little errands and help with other cases. When she asks Dr. Hahn if she should update the family, Hahn demands that Izzie start thinking like a surgeon and not a social worker. So Izzie goes off to do her other duties and when his wife asks her how her husband is doing, Izzie can't tell her anything because she simply doesn't know. The wife goes on a tear, blaming bad parenting for making Izzie such a horrible person. Of course, Izzie, being an angel and unusually sympathetic to families whose loved one is in surgery, takes this to heart and later tells George that she is not, in fact, hard core. She'll never be Cristina and maybe she's not cut out for Heart Surgery. George tells her its a good thing that she's not hard core. They profess their love for each other once more, but admit that it's probably not going to work out between them. However, they're still all lovey dovey. So I wonder, are they really breaking up? Will my question ever be answered?

Bailey is still elbow deep in Nazi man, as more and more complications arise. This makes her later and later for her lunch with her husband. Since this lunch was supposed to address the issues in their marriage, mainly the fact that Bailey is never home and always puts surgery above the family, the fact that she can't come because of a surgery nearly puts him in a tizzy. George acts as messenger between Bailey and her husband, and relays messages back and forth. Finally, Baiely's husband says this is it for him. He's giving up. During surgery, Bailey claims that Nazi man's incision is kind of jagged, which would require her to pull skin to close up the incision, effectively destroying his swastika tattoo. Everyone in the O.R. agrees that the skin is jagged and that something must be done. Once out of surgery, Bailey waits around at the hospital until her husband goes to sleep so she doesn't have to deal with the fight that would surely arise. Cristina approaches her and voices her indignation at being pulled off of Hahn's services to help Bailey with Nazi man specifically because of the color of her skin. Clearly Bailey could have done the surgery herself and Cristina resents the reverse racism Bailey employed so she wouldn't have to deal with Nazi man herself. Meanwhile, Nazi man is complaining that Bailey screwed up his tattoo on purpose and George essentially tells him to shove it because a black woman saved his life today and if it had been him conducting the surgery, he would have let him die because the world would be a better place without him. Although completely out of line, I say "right on George!"

Lexie is handling the situation with exploded corroded artery guy very well, even though she is literally drenched in his blood. Honestly, the back and forth between corroded artery guy and Lexie is absolutely adorable. Lexie stops the bleeding (at least for a little while) and calms him down. In response to her stopping the bleeding and making progress in saving his life, he says, "well I love you now". And it's just sweet, and cute and sort of made me go awww, when I should have been going ewww because of the gallons of blood everywhere. Eventually they move corroded artery guy to an O.R. leaving a lake of blood on the floor under the bed and a tiny trail from the room to the O.R. Unfortunately, corroded artery guy doesn't make it and Lexie is left staring at the table where his body once was. Cristina comes in and assures her that what she did was not easy, it was brave. Lexie then tells her, she has no one. Apparently, she was sort of hoping for something with corroded artery guy, if her survived and recovered (To be honest, the romantic in me would not object). In an effort to cheer her up, Cristina takes Lexie to Meredith's house where the three of them drink and dance their troubles away. Meredith is tolerant of Lexie, if not nice to her and that gives me hope for the two of them, as well.

In the end, Nazi-man, the paramedic and the heart patient with the worrying family all live. But of course, the one guy i was really rooting for, corroded artery guy, dies. There were some tears. And i can't even remember the last time I cried during a Grey's Anatomy episode. I can't believe McDreamy would kiss that slutty nurse when Meredith is finally willing to commit. I really hope this George/Izzie thing is almost over, because it is barely tolerable, at best. Basically, I loved this episode. It reminded me why I became a Grey's fan in the first place. Of course, sometimes the show dissapoints. But it's episodes like this that I live for. There was no preview for next week, and i can only assume that is because of the writer's strike. I'll also assume that Grey's Anatomy will be re-runs until after the winter break. But I'll keep you posted, as always.