From Krista Vernoff, writer of "Into You Like a Train"

Originally posted on 10/30/05

So - you saw last week's episode - written by the always brilliant Shonda Rhimes - wunderkind creator of Grey's Anatomy? Okay, yeah, not only written by Shonda, but written by Shonda as a season finale? Written by Shonda to leave such an impact on you that you would wait for four months, salivating and debating all summer long, then come back in the fall to see how it all panned out? So, imagine my surprise, I mean delight, okay HORROR, when Shonda assigned me to write the episode that followed hers, and would air not four months later, when the audience had had time to digest and process Meredith's brilliant "Pick me, Choose me, Love me" speech - but one week later, when all the drama of that beautiful "season finale" was still utterly fresh in the audience's minds. A tall order, to say the least.

Thank God we have an unbelievably talented writing staff and research staff and a writers' room that forever generates good ideas. That's one of my favorite things about writing and producing hour-long television - that every episode is, in a great many ways, a group effort. Stacy McKee, I think it was, pitched the idea of a train wreck - since that's how Meredith, and pretty much every woman we know, would feel after opening her heart to that degree. And out of a train wreck, there's room for almost any kind of medical story you want to tell…

We'd had a doctor in the writer's room several months before who'd told us about his work on the burn unit. He told us about a pregnant woman who was so badly burned that she couldn't touch or hold her baby which had to be delivered in an emergency c-section. He told us how he'd held the baby to the woman's face - the one area of her body that she could still feel… The image made us cry - and we knew we had to find a way to work that image into the show. The train wreck seemed like the perfect opportunity. I think that's the kind of the thing people don't realize - that sometimes a whole story grows out of our desire to include one single image… When I left the writer's room and went to my office to flesh out that story, my notes said "pregnant burn victim, baby on face." That's it. So the whole best friends having babies together came from many dark hours slamming my head against my keyboard, muttering "heeeeeelp" and "I'm sooo tiiiiired" and "whyyyy meeee" to the bear figurine I keep on my desk which, at three am one particularly horrible night, started to look a lot like it was mocking me and this pathetic notion that I could be a writer for a living… But I digress.

So. The train wreck… We had the pregnant burn victim, and we had heard a story, I think from Zoanne Clack, our brilliant writer/doctor/over-achiever, about how sometimes, when people are bleeding internally, and in shock, they die very quietly. We thought it would be funny to spin it - make the dying woman loud instead of quiet and that's where the character we lovingly referred to as "Chatty Cathy" was born. Eventually, she became "Yvonne," after my friend Yvonne, who whined to me one day that I never name any characters after her. That's another little thing we do, give the characters catch phrases like "Mr. Parkinsons" and "Tumor Lady" when trying to track their stories in the writer's room - and name them later in the script stage. Which brings us to Bonnie and Tom - the impaled couple - who, until the script stage, we referred to as Bonnie and Clyde. (Cause they're stuck together, and bloody and, okay, I think you get it. ) Jim Parriott, executive producer/writer-extraordinaire pitched this idea and when he did, I thought, "Fiiiine, I'll stop whining about having to write the damn train wreck episode that follows the brilliant would-be season finale because holy crap how great is this idea?"

I never did stop whining - But I loved the idea because not only is it medically fascinating and emotionally torturous, but metaphorically - and we're big on metaphor here at Grey's - it's awesome. Derek has been asked by Meredith to choose between the two women he loves. And the doctors are being asked to choose between two patients who are still sitting up talking, laughing, very much alive… At the end, one of them will be dead. Which is, I think, how Meredith feels when Derek says "She's my wife." Also, when Meredith asks at the end of an act "How do you choose which one gets to live" - she still doesn't have her answer from Derek about his other choice - so it's doubly loaded. This is the kind of thing a writer loves. Oh - and in the beautifully directed and edited sequence where Bonnie and Tom are separated, it feels, I think, very similar to how it feels for Meredith and Derek to be separated. And for how it felt for the audience to watch Meredith and Derek be separated. Which I know you hate me for. So all I'll say is this: SHONDA MADE ME DO IT!!!

(P.S. Kip Koenig, another of our brilliant writers, pitched the title "Into You Like a Train" - from a Psychedelic Furs song. Before that, the episode was called "You Oughta Know" after the Alanis Morissette song - and because the theme of the episode is actually about being in the know - because Meredith wants to know what Derek's decision is, and because the doctors don't know what will happen when they pull the pole from Bonnie and Tom, and because Alex didn't know Yvonne was bleeding internally etc. But then Alanis did that weird acoustic cover album of her own music and sold it in Starbucks and Shonda found it upsetting and besides the Psychedelic Furs title is just plain better. The End).

Comments

[Andrea]

I love this show. I feel what the characters showing us. Thanks for such great writing.

[Jen]

I have to tell you that this episode is hands down the best episode I've seen of GA! I just laughed and cried and comtemplated...etc. Thanks so much for writing the best hour on television!

[Erin]

This was absolutely the best episode of Grey's Anatomy. I loved the parallels drawn between the Derrick/Meredith storyline and the medical cases. It almost felt like a reading a great book with great literary symbolism. This one really caught me emotionally.

[Jan]

How can it get any better. this by far is the best show ever. My daughter (23) and I (50) talk every Monday about the show. We both agree this one was the best YET.

I thought that this episode was without a doubt the best of all shown to this point.

The story line was heartwrenching and the writing was brilliant.

Thank you

[JW]

This episode was an emotional meat grinder. I can't remember the last time I misted up over a fiction television show. Even though I watched that seen several dozen times (Thank you, EyeTV)

Great work.

[Aaron]

What you have here is a very unique show that displays the humanness of medicine alongside the humanness of those practicing medicine. No other medical show (and there have been plenty) that I know of has been able to do that the way GA has done. Thanks for a wonderful show. I look forward to Sunday night.

[yee]

this show by far tops any comedy/drama/horror show ive ever seen. keep it up and DONT U DARE END THIS SHOW!

[Juce]

It was kind of nice to see Derek and Addison take the move, and the shower scene was shot beautiful...It took me back to the same experience I had with someone sometime ago. It definitely hit home.

[KBMH]

This episode made me cry so hard I couldn't catch my breath. Now reading about it weeks later is having the same effect. But Derek made the right choice in choosing Addison. I felt that way when the episode aired and I feel that way now. He vowed to love and cherish this woman until death do they part, and it warms my single heart to see him take those vows seriously, even if just for a few episodes longer.

The writing in this show is fantastic. Not since Sex and the City, have I been as touched by every single episode. Props to you guys!! Sunday has become my favorite day of the week. Only six more days to go until the next episode!!

[Sylvia]

I don't watch much television, but this is one hour a week that I can't miss. This was by far the most memorable episode of the show for me. And now, weeks later, I still have the image of those two people stuck on the rod together in my mind. I have never been so blown away by television writing in my life! Also, I think you made a noble choice in making Derek choose his wife. As much as I hate her and love Meredith, that decision has totally shaped Derek as a character. The conventions of writing about upper middle class Americans have been broken and, for once, loyalty has won out over romance. Congratulations.

[Anne]

The actress who played Bonnie blew me away. I couldn't wait for her to be on the screen again. She took what could have been an over the top situation and imbued it with clarity and compassion and love. I wish a BIG PART for her somewhere soon.

[GA hooked]

Juce (or anybody) What shower scene????? B/w Derek and Addison? I probably missed it

[Annie]

Oh my gosh, I remember watching this episode and my heart just about stopped when Meredith said, "Oh, you're going back to her" or something to that effect! I love Meredith & Derek but it just crushed me when Derek chose his wife. But I def have to agree with Meredith that if Derek didn't try to work things out with his wife, he wouldn't be that guy that she had fallen in love with. Ahh...like the songs goes, "Love hurts...". I don't dislike Addison but she's one lucky woman to have a husband like Derek take her back after sleeping with his best friend. How many husbands or wives do you know today that would do the same? The name "McDreamy" definitely suits him! He's like this too-good-to-be-true kind of guy. He made me mad too because he didn't tell Meredith in the beginning that he was married. Man, love does make you do and say crazy things!

[Bill]

This was the episode that got me watching regularly. How I caught my first glimpse of the show? I was listening to KLOS on Sunday, a garage music show and Disney-owned station BTW, and was channel surfing when I saw the image of a drunk woman in doctor's scrubs. I started my VCR immediatly. In between commercials on Radio I turned up the sound on the TV and found myself getting deeper into the story. Getting deep into the story...this never happens on TV?

After the radio show wrapped, I found myself repeating scenes from my home taping of the episode, especially Mer's meltdown after the doctors abandon the young blond girl stuck to the pole. She quickly dies and Mer's reaction is so human and wonderful! It's so freakin' heartbreaking--I hadn't seen anything this emotion-producing on television in a long long time.

What's great is that I knew absolutely nothing about the characters backgrounds prior to this--yet I was hooked! This has not occurred very regularly in my life.

I think all the writers on the show are rock stars. I'll be seeing you all in your underwear on the cover of Rolling Stone one day--this is of couse after the cast of Grey's gets their picture on the cover.

[Maria]

Incredible episode! it's so coherent, the way Derek appears on the bar, but not because he choose her, but that he doesn't want to leave her pathetically alone.

Congratulations from spanish girl ;)

[RJ]

This episode is amazing. I taped it and showed it to everyone i know. now everyone watches Grey's. This is by far the best episode i've ever seen. It has a brilliant intellecual level other show don't have.

[terri]

BEST SHOW since er was still er. that girl that played bonnie should get an emmy or something, the way she played against the emotion. i was sobbing as i watched it, tears running down my face.

[lori]

I just wanted to say - this episode is so powerful that reading your summery/explination for it made me tear up 4 months later. To me this episode sums up so much of what this show is about. I also wanted to say, reading thru this blog I'm noting that most of my favorite episodes/moments are coming from Krista - and your reasons behind them always resonate with me, so...Thanks.

[Miss M]

So this is way way late, but I became a fan after the Thanksgiving episode. I bought the first season and devoured it, and I watch every week now (of course). After giving up on iTunes, I have started downloading the older season 2 eps with the use of bit torrent, and I just now watched "Into You Like a Train" for the first time.

No disrespect to Shonda or any of the other writers, but this episode was my most, most favorite ever. I cried like a baby, and I just loved how focused you stayed on Bonnie and Tom. We knew what the Bonnie and Tom story was really about, but by hinting at Der/Mer and staying with the actual medical case, it was so much more moving.

Beautifully, beautifully written. I don't know if you'll ever read this, but I'll be looking forward to watching everything you write, Krista.

-Miss M

[Kathy]

Oh, Krista. Forgive me, I didn’t know it was you! I just got done re-watching this episode. I cannot for the life of me understand how I could have originally downplayed the undeniably beautiful painful mind-blowing metaphor between Bonnie/Tom and Meredith/Derek. Holy %^$#! Brilliant. Beautiful. He actually did feel her pain right along with her. My heart was breaking watching them both go through that.

You are, by far, the best writer on GA and you have written what I believe to be best episode in television history. From beginning to end it was breathtaking. I have finally forgiven you for that gut-wrenching scene in Yesterday. I mean, poor Stacy had to follow up with the gory details so you – in the end – actually had the easy part. To think I actually thought I despised your writing. I was so naïve.

You probably will never see this - your blog is so long past. I can’t believe there were only 18 comments after it aired. A thousand people should have sung your praises. I know I am.
Thank you...

[Miss M]

Alright, I'm still thinking about this ep - my earlier comment hasn't shown up yet, I'm hoping it's just a lag and not lost.

Another brilliant moment - when Bailey hit the alarm on the elevator. That whole scene just made me cry and love them all even more - Derek for hurting and doing the right thing, and Bailey for being Bailey - sympathetic, but in her own way. It was just perfect.

-Miss M

[Mel`]

Perfect. Just beautiful. Heart-wrenching and sob-inducing, and so just... perfect. Krista, you probably won't read this, but I just am in love with this episode. It's the only one that I taped and watch over and over, and every time I watch it, it evokes even more emotion out of me. Love you, love your talent, and am basically in awe of everything you do.

[casBoston]

First - a huge THANK YOU for replaying the ONE episode I missed this season! And such an increadibly good one, too!!!

I must admit, I didn't remember missing an episode, and I was very confused at first - was this a repeat? or was it a new episode disguised as a flashback?

This flashback idea was reinforced twice in the first few minutes - first, when Derek charges into the bar after everyone has left. I didn't know that had happened, and was beginning to fear that all of the emotional drama had been due to a critical error in timing. How cruel you writers are - either way!!!

The second time I thought this had to be a new flashback rather than an old rerun was when the guy from the bar comes into the hospital, and tells (very drunk) Meredith that a Dr. had come to the bar looking for her. She asks who it was, and the guy says McSteamy. She's all confused - McSteamy or McDreamy, she says... Um, McDreamy, I think...

Now, of course, I know that this was a repeat. Not that that lessens the impact or importance - this was a BRILLIANT episode. However, I must know - did you writers already KNOW you were going to have McSteamy show up in the future, and be so named? Or was this simply an innocent usage of a great name, so great in fact that you had to reuse it later for evil/sexy Mark?

Once again, thank you all for such brilliant writing/acting/directing etc, etc, etc!

[JustBreathe]

Okay, I'll admit I didn't watch the whole episode over again. Mostly because I'm a bit squeemish and not because I couldn't watch each episode 20 times over.

But I did watch the last 10 minutes again. Where Derek has to tell Bonnie's fiancee that "If love were enough, she would be here right now." Knowing in his own way he could say the very same words to Meredith. Heartbreak.

And then the subsequent scene where he an Bailey are in the elevator and she stops it. Ahhh. My breath catches in my throat at the magnitude of compassion in her simple gesture.

All I can say is -- Thank you all for your brilliance.