Life and Death

Last night was the final episode of Grey's ferry disaster arc and the climax ended things perfectly. It was an excellent night in spite of the fact that most of the scenes with Meredith in the afterlife were kind of cheesy. I did enjoy the past guest stars that showed up. Dylan (Kyle Chandler) and Denny (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) picked up with Meredith in the heavenly, hyper-lit O.R. of the gods, and these two fine actors were immediately asked to fall back on the kind of painful wisecracking shtick such as "Meredith, this is not your brain on drugs," said Dylan. "This is death." Denny piped in: "Whoa! Way too harsh." At least, the actors did a good job.

What was with that ghost woman who kept bleeding from the stomach right before the commercial breaks? I remember her as the girl from long ago who came into Seattle Grace impaled on a pole. But isn't it awfully random? What purpose did she serve last night? It was all too abstract, pretentious even. The bleeder was far and away the weakest link in the episode.

This afterlife stuff climaxed in that heavenly and hyper-lit hallways of the gods, where Meredith briefly met her Mom. I knew this was coming beforehand because of some spoilers I read online. Yes, Meredith's mom died — Kate Burton turned out to be the cast member whose death on the show had been correctly rumored in the spoilers. She entered limbo only to give Meredith her Get-Out-of-Jail-Free-and-Go-Back-to-Real-Life card. The brief, otherworldly reunion of mother and daughter really was touching. However, it had nothing on the scene three episodes ago where living Meredith faced off against living Ellis, and Ellen Pompeo's tragic voice broke like the ice under a doomed ice-skating 6 year-old. What that scene provided was some closure for Meredith and the viewers when Ellis told her she is anything but ordinary.

Things went great in the real world. Last night, every single scene actually set at Seattle Grace provided exactly the kind of catnip that fans come to the show to get hooked on. The reason last night's episode totally worked was quite simple: Grey's stopped trying to be what I think of when I think of ER, and went back to being Grey's. And last night it excelled at being Grey's. Each great Seattle Grace scene seemed to improve on the last great Seattle Grace scene. I'll pull out just a couple that featured our main players.

(1) Izzie: She stealthily ruled the backroads of last night's episode. When she sassed her enemy Callie early on, Callie was so incensed she ripped the drip she was donating blood into and got up to say, "I will not run off!" Katherine Heigl showed the great actress she is. Watching her bobble her eyebrows and half-cross her eyes and dip — in this scene with Callie alone — into a rich, unspoken register of Izzie's hurt, shows us how great she truly is.

(2) Cristina. Last night was a great night for her. Cristina can't deal with a dying Meredith, who is her "person," so she jets work and goes shopping, zombie-like, at the dollar store. Then she hangs out at Joe's bar doing Sudoku until Burke comes to get her and give her a great talk: "Listen to me. This is about you and the woman you call the 'person'... If she dies, and you are sitting here when it happens, I can't see you coming back from that. Come and say goodbye to your friend." Powerful speech. I liked Isaiah Washington last night. Then Cristina goes and yells at the Chief and Bailey until they attempt to save flatlining Meredith again, and I liked the highly dramatic moment of Sandra Oh's barking.

(3) Derek. This episode was nothing less than Patrick Dempsey's finest hour in season 3. Strangely underutilized so far this season, Dempsey had an awful lot to do as Derek had a lot to cry about. He was breaking out in quivers most of the night. The highlight was when Derek huffily faced off with Ellis in her sickbed: "You broke her," he charged, speaking of half-dead Meredith. "She may not survive this, and that's on you." I thought it was blistering stuff. Dempsey affirmed he can act, and then some, while Kate Burton's reaction shots were totally pro. Ironically enough, he ended up pumping Ellis's chest trying to bring her back to life.

And more great, finely scripted things were littered throughout. Bravo to George putting Izzie in her place ("If I'm not making a mistake, you're gonna look like a jerk. And if I am, I'm gonna need you."). And three cheers to the soapiest scene of the trilogy, when, towards the end of last night, Addison said if Mark can go 60 days without sex, then she'll try to be together forever with him, and he takes her up on it. The cut straight to Karev after this exchange was a sharp moment of high Grey's comedy.

All told, this episode created great TV out of jeopardizing the life of the main character, even as we all knew that main character wouldn't die. Meredith is with us for good but tonight, the writers built good drama out of her near-expiration. It was about time. Ellen Pompeo is a great actress and the show wouldn't obviously be the same without her. Also, it was so touching in the last scene where Izzie pauses momentarily alongside the feeling ghost of Denny Duquette.