The surgeons have access to scalpels and bodies again (most of them do, at least), but tonight’s episode seems to indicate that nobody in Seattle Grace should be allowed to cut into patients anytime soon. The mood is way less self-indulgent than last week – thank god – but the shooting still weighs heavily on the doctor’s minds. Apparently, post-traumatic stress stifles emotions, so the doctors still aren’t generating much heat. The interesting stuff registers at an intellectual level, and we can’t really say that we cared too much about events that were supposed to break out hearts.
But maybe we, like Christina, are simply too unfeeling. Here’s a summary of the latest highs and lows at Seattle Grace – let us know what registers with you.
- The morning after her wedding, Christina wakes up with the classic “holy crap, what’s this ring doing on my finger?!” expression on her face. Owen realizes he isn’t lying in bed next to a glowing newlywed, so her offers her the standard remedies: multigrain bar, shower sex and surgery. Although the trauma counselor hasn’t cleared her, Christina is allowed back in the OR because her new hubby and his ex-lover think Christina won’t feel like herself until there’s blood on her scrubs. She performed her last surgery at gunpoint, so Christina has developed some negative associations with her former haven. She freezes in the OR, immobile on the floor, and realizes that she “doesn’t know where she’s supposed to be.” And remember, this is Grey’s Anatomy, so there has to be meaning behind the meaning. You don’t have to dig too far to figure it out. Christina realizes that her marriage might have been a mistake (You think), but just as she’s talking divorce rates with Meredith, her husband comes to bring her home. And she goes home with him. Make up your mind, woman!
- We finally get an elevator scene! With Meredith and Derek! But it was an angry elevator scene, and it was angry-angry, not sexy-angry. Meredith had left Derek in jail overnight, and he comes home with an incarceration record and the perfume of methhead urine. Derek isn’t willing to sacrifice the life-affirming thrill of driving at 120 mph until Meredith finally shares the worries that she has bottled up since the surgery. She’s scared that he’ll die, either at the hands of a shooter or behind the wheel of his car. She’s stressed about keeping her miscarriage a secret. What else can Derek do but concede? Maybe he’ll just stick to 80 mph.
- Lexie is still giving off crazy vibes, causing people to “stare” and Mark to keep her under his watchful (fatherly?) gaze. Mark wants to propose – showing that his impulse control is prey to the effects of shock, too – but Lexie tells him to stop being such a creep before he can spit out a single word.
- The more outrageous of this week’s cases involves a flag football team that gets struck by lightning. There’s one girl and seven guys. This girl has to be a mathematical genius, because she really knows how to play the romantic odds. She has three teammates declaring their love for her, but instead of going for the hot blonde or the adorable brunette, she says that she has always, just always, been in love with the average-looking bald guy. Let the “Aws” ensue.
After recapping this episode, we think the screenwriters had it right and something got messed up in the delivery. It sounds juicy. It just didn’t feel like much at all. Can television audiences suffer from post-traumatic stress, too?
