The Best Grey's Yet

In one of the best written and best acted Grey's Anatomy episodes yet, the characters try and fail to find a little happiness.

We began in the bathtub. Derek and Meredith, taking it slow, abstained with bubbles and candles. All sudsed up, Meredith declared herself newly "bright and shiny." She explained what she meant two scenes later, when she gallivanted into the locker room amongst the other interns and chirpily sing-songed the line, "Today is the day when dark and twisty Meredith disappears, and bright and shiny Meredith takes her place! The sheer intensity of her happiness will make your teeth hurt."

Unfortunately for Meredith, she was gloating while George sat there worried about his father, who'd just been admitted for what would become stage-3 metastatic esophageal cancer. She came off as incredibly self-involved at this point, not even noticing those around her until she saw the pained looks from Karev, Cristina, and Izzie. Every time we are given a reason to like her we are reminded off how selfish she can be. However, I know we are supposed to find her a little full of herself. It rounds her out. This was all affirmed later in the episode when Meredith, during an operation on a 5-year-old who loves her nanny more than her mommy, foolishly spoke out against workaholic moms in front of workaholic mom Bailey. That was stupid of her! It was also refreshing, and made for thick drama, and provided the setup for the classic closing scene with Bailey.

Enough about Meredith. Cristina was a much bigger player this week. Still secretly doing surgeries at Burke's side, she decannulated a heart. Don't know what that is, and had to look the word up to spell it, but it was serious enough to get George to keep wondering if something's up with Burke. The showdown between George and Cristina throughout the episode was tense and exciting, and it showcased what was easily Sandra Oh's finest acting so far in a season that has underused her so far. More than once when George got in Cristina's face about Burke,particularly the last time, when he implored her to do the right thing, since Burke was scheduled to do a heart operation on George's dad, Cristina's face turned into an imperturbable mask, which then cracked ever so slightly the minute George turned away from her.

That's so much of what the character's about, right there in just a reaction shot. George's scenes with Sara Ramirez's Callie made this an above-average episode for her too. She ultimately got through to George, who's still smarting that she slept with Mark, by connecting with his two lunkheaded brothers via car talk and busted-engine analogies. Another thing I noticed about the acting on this show this week was that a lot of the single-line readings were aces. I loved it when Bailey snatched Mr. O'Malley's chart out of George's hands and said, "Don't you think me reading it is more important than you reading it?'" I loved it when George stressed to his brothers that he was a doctor too by underplaying the line "White coat — look at the white coat." Loved the one-two comedy punch of Mark asking Alex, who was babysitting Izzie this week, "Is it Bring a Hot Blonde to Work Day today?" followed by Izzie's "Sexual harassment!" sneeze. And all the banter between Izzie and Karev, who kept playfully referring to themselves in the third person, was perfect.

The third-person shtick was also minutely woven into other parts of the episode. Think again of Meredith's ''bright and shiny'' quote above. And consider Karev and Izzie's last scene this week, which hinged on the third-person thing in a terrifically subtle way. Karev, earlier in the episode and mid-banter, kissed Izzie in the stairwell. She pulled away. ''I can't,'' she said, and ran away. Later, Izzie pulled up to Karev in the bar and, again, dropped the third person for just a single sad, honest exchange. ''I didn't know you still felt that way about me,'' she said. ''Me neither,'' said Karev. Then the way Karev's eyes softly lit up when he fell back on friendly, safe third person and said, ''Alex is sorry he's such an idiot,'' sealed it. This was the best scene in the episode.

At least until the very next scene. What followed is my new favorite sequence in all of Grey's. Bailey — obviously rattled by what Meredith said about workaholic moms — picked up her cell, found a corner in the hospital, got her unseen baby kid on the phone, and started singing ''God Bless the Child'' to the little one in her own soft and melancholy croon. Just as she was trying to get the kid on the phone, I was thinking to myself that maybe it's okay that Bailey's not the Nazi anymore: Maybe that's the point we've been missing all along. As she sang, we then faded over to Addison on the ferry, where she'd come to throw her wedding rings into the water. Does anyone thing Addison maybe the one who is pregnant? This week combined with last week gives me that impression.

That's where I thought the show was ending, with an ominous cliff-hanger. But that it pushed on, I think, is what turned this episode into perfection. Still set only to Bailey's singing, an achingly quiet and fast montage of scenes followed. First, as Cristina and Burke tossed and turned fornlornly in bed, she blurted out to him, "George knows." He said nothing. They're screwed. Then we saw George, another man of troubles, equally restless and wide awake in bed. And next we ended where we began: in the bathtub with Meredith and Derek, who are wiped out, with less-bubbly bubbles and the overhead lights on. Instead of "bright and shiny," they declare themselves "dull and lifeless." Finally, Bailey finished the song.

Man do I love this show! Next week, just looks simply amazing and action-packed. It is definately a must see!