Grey's Anatomy's winter vacation felt long, didn't it? I really didn't like it! I dad to watch that "previously on Grey's Anatomy" opener more closely than ever. Where did we leave off? Well, Cristina had betrayed Burke; now he's gotta get his hand fixed. George's sick dad survived the fall finale but needed a tumor removed before he could get his cancer treated. Addison seemed to be forming some kind of triangle with Sloan and Karev. And Meredith's half-sister Molly had a problem baby, and Meredith's estranged yet dopey dad, Thatcher, was lurking about the hospital.
With Molly's baby still incubating, dotty old Dad lurked around the hospital some more, and Meredith avoided him. I just don't buy the conception of the father character so far — why is he so dopey and dithery? This is Meredith's dad? I'm hoping something big and unexpected will blow wide open here in the coming weeks. Until then, the only really good payoff from this subplot last night came during a nice early scene between Meredith, pushing back the tears for most of the episode, and Cristina, who admitted, after prodding from Meredith, that she has a stepfather she sees for Yom Kippur. Meredith didn't know that.
In other hilarious news, Cristina is desperate to hear how Burke's hand is doing, but she won't go to Burke herself and ask, because she and he aren't talking to each other right now. Addison asked Burke that very question as he was lying around in his hospital bed, and he replied, "Did you ever play 'say uncle'?" And you had to get a little excited here because you knew another good, tartly written Grey's speech was coming on. The game, Burke explained, is when "someone bends your arm behind your back harder and harder till you say uncle." Addison, who had to be playing along, then asks what happens next. Then Burke answered, "they have all the power." Another Grey's speech, this one modestly scaled but still pointed, hits the spot. Addison's reaction was also appropriate: "That's pathetic!"
This was a much-better-than-usual episode for George and Callie. George, previously a freak about patient care when it came to his dad, settled down a lot. This resulted in his most affecting episode. George stayed something of a likable hard-ass playing cards with his wistful old man on the eve of the surgery. He also showed good stiff upper lip when he counseled his lunkhead brothers and mom to be prepared, choking up just the slightest bit at that line, before they went in to see their stitched-up dad. Knight was particularly solid in the scene where Callie tried to win an anxious George over in the waiting room with her amusing and well-played new "stare" move, which she picked up from Bailey.
Behind George's back, Mr. O'Malley urged the Chief and Bailey to take the tumor out no matter what. The Chief and Bailey complied, even though in the OR, the opened-up inside of Mr. O'Malley's corpus turned out to be riddled with horrible white cancer. If they'd kept the tumor in and patched him up, Mr. O'Malley would've died slowly of the cancer in the coming weeks and months. Now that they've taken it out, everybody's got their fingers crossed. If Mr. O'Malley doesn't get better, his sick organs could easily fail, and he could die in double time. George has slight cause to go nuts if he finds out what the Chief and Bailey did, and he probably will — better TV drama that way, and I still say Mr. O'Malley's a definite goner.
His condition at the end of the episode did lead to a funny moment. In front of his brothers and mom, George was checking his dad's urine bag for signs of dreaded kidney failure, and he got an encouraging reading ("130 cc's of shiny yellow urine!"), and so he started to dance, and then Callie came in and started to dance too. Finally they kissed in front of everybody. I was really happy to finally see this happen between then.
It was a heavy night at Seattle Grace but, as usual, the few stabs at humor and cuteness lightned up the atmosphere. Another scene I enjoyed was when Izzie finally took her coffee-ringed, food-stained $8.7 million check off the fridge and into the bank. She had to, as a condition for Bailey to let her back in on a surgery, but she sure didn't want to, as we saw when Izzie was sobbing and yammering uncontrollably in front of the banker. It was funny, heartbreaking, painful, and just enough over-the-top, which I loved.
The other stories where good too. Such as the teen who was literally doubled over by Vater syndrome. It was awesome when she zeroed in on Izzie with the takedown that began, "You're way too hot to be a doctor." Bailey had a stand-out zingy line too. When Callie asked her if she knew Derek well, Bailey casually described him with "Lots of hair, too many women, likes elevators and long walks on the beach."
Best of all was the exchange Karev used to rope in sweet Addison. Yes, all signs pointed us here this season, and here we were at last. Sloan was riding Karev all day, and he was a dick to Addison too. At one point, Sloan wanted a coffee, and Karev gave him a vanilla latte, which didn't go over well. At the end of the episode, both of them perched intimately over Meredith's half niece's incubator, Karev admitted to Addison that he planted the vanilla latte on purpose because Sloan was rude to her. The line worked nicely on Addison, who headed slowly in for the complicating kiss until they got interrupted by a nurse at the last minute. I think this romance should prove to be very interesting and has the potential to involve a lot of the characters.
Finally, in a big shocker, Addison appears to have aborted Sloan's baby! At least I think that's what happened. The show got a little vague on this hot topic this week. So it's a question mark, a real big one. IS that the rumored pregnancy that was supposed to happen? I was left thinking that as the episode ended in typical montage-mode. Also, what happened to Meredith's narration?
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