Grey's Anatomy: Grey Matter

Pete Nowalk on "An Honest Mistake"...

Original Airdate: 2-19-09

When you’re writing an episode about God-like doctors it helps to have God-like actors playing them.  Which is pretty much what happens every week when you work on Grey’s Anatomy.  Sometimes though you get an extra dose of God, or as was the case in this episode, many extra doses.  Kate Walsh visiting from Private Practice?  Check.  Jennifer Westfeldt and Ben Shenkman playing a husband and wife suffering through round after round of nailbiting surgery?  Double check.  A certain Oscar-winning actress who is as close to God as one can get in Hollywood? 

Yup, I’m talking about Faye Dunaway.  Faye Dunaway who was in some movies called Bonnie & Clyde, Chinatown, and Network.  Faye Dunaway who was nominated for 3 Academy Awards.  Faye Dunaway who was kind enough to lend her genius to Grey’s and, by doing so, make me one giddy writer.

When we come up with characters in the writers’ room we usually have hoop dreams about the actors who could play them.  A beautiful model whose face was scarred in a terrible motorcycle wreck?  Let’s call her Angelina.  An ex-President in need of a quadruple bypass?  Call Bill Clinton’s agent.   A legendary surgeon who can both inspire and scare the crap at of us with just one look?  We need someone like Faye Dunaway.  Not that she’d ever agree to do it… 

“She agreed to do it?  Are you FOR REALS SHONDA??!!”  That was me when I found out Faye had signed on to play Dr. Campbell, Seattle Grace’s first female surgeon.   Actually I’m still pinching myself from the whole experience.   Watching Faye transform herself into this character was a gift.  Not only was she fun to watch, but she was also so lovely, generous, and prepared through the process.  And when I say prepared I mean that Faye did so much research for her surgery scene that I now personally trust her take out my gallbladder.  I’m not kidding.  Faye Dunaway knows how to do a cholecystectomy.  That is dedication, people.   

So that’s my love letter to Faye Dunaway.  I guess you could say my adoration is not so different from the way patients come to feel about their doctors.  When you allow someone to cut into you and poke around in your very delicate, very fine-tuned insides you have to trust that they’re an extra special breed of human.  It’s like what Addison told Derek in last week’s episode – that she needed him to be a God in order to trust him to save her brother’s life.  And Derek, as usual, was up to the task.  Even better, as Mark Sloan told him this week, he looks good doing it.  The dude’s a God, no doubt about it…

Now at this point I imagine some of you are about to yell at your computer.  Or at me.  Yell something in the vein of “THEN WHY THE HELL DID YOU LET HIM CUT OUT THAT WOMAN’S FRONTAL LOBE AND MURDER HER?!!  YOU’RE THE MURDERER.  A DEREK SHEPHERD MURDERER!!”  Or maybe that’s just what I yelled at myself when we were breaking this story in the writers’ room.  A lot of the writers felt the same way.  We were nervous to have Derek make a mistake that could possibly be attributed to a patient’s death.  But after much discussion – and real life research with real life surgeons – we agreed that this was a story we had to tell.  Doctors, like the rest of us, mess up.  And when they do, well… 

Okay, I get it, this whole doctors making mistakes thing is not the most uplifting topic for a blog.  Debbie Downer is not who I’m trying to be (even if, deep down, that’s exactly who I be).  I guess all I really want to say is that you need to keep watching in order to understand why we chose to tell this story with Derek.  It might not be the easiest thing to watch – seeing one of your heroes become human – but it will pay off.  Besides, we have to give every person bold enough to work in medicine credit.  Frankly it’s why I’m very happy that my job right now is to write this blog and not, say, cut an aneurysm out of a pregnant woman’s brain.  When I think about this – the frigging pressure doctors are under everyday – it doesn’t surprise me that they’d have some issues to deal with.  Or how they might need to punch the crap out of each other every once in awhile.

How’d you feel about that fight?  Personally I found it hard to watch.   Don’t get me wrong.  I love a good argument.  But with words.  Verbal sparring is more my style than some bloody, violent, broken face brawl.  I didn’t even know what to write for this scene so I think I put some line in the action that said “Mark and Derek kick the crap out of each other, etc., etc…” and left it up to the director and crew and actors and to figure out the rest.  Choreographing a fistfight on a tiny catwalk that hovers 200 feet in the air (in a real hospital by the way) is not an easy feat.  And for that I’d like to give major props to Randy Zisk and Herb Davis and everyone on the crew who made the fight look so freaking real.   Meanwhile I stayed back by the craft service table and watched the whole thing through my fingers.  And just wait till you see the fallout from the fight in future episodes.  Again, it’s not going where you think…

Know what else isn’t?  Meredith and Derek.  And that’s all I’m going to say.  Because saying anything else would get me fired.  Besides, you actually don’t want to know.  If you’re like me you watch TV because it’s enjoyable and surprising.  Telling you anything more will just take away from your own personal enjoyment of a story.  (How’s that for playing coy?)

Onward.  How about that gnarly wound Dr. Campbell left her patient with?  Dissssssssgusting.  Cristina, being Cristina, felt this mistake was unacceptable.  Owen, being Owen, thought it simply proved that surgeons are human.  No need to judge there, missy.  Owen’s take of course is informed by the fact that he has made a few mistakes himself.  A secret ex-fiance who appeared in last week’s episode, for example.  And now he’s finding himself involved in a relationship with someone who, for better or worse, holds people to very high standards.  Still, what I love about these two is that their professional disagreement didn’t get in the way of their sexy sexiness.  At the end of the day they can still sit down, have a drink, and say things like, “I want to be around 40 years from now.”  Hot damn.

Back to the depressing stuff.  Namely, Izzie.  Who is not anemic.  Sadie mixed up the blood samples (as many of you guessed, gold stars all around).  Now by the end of this episode Izzie has her correct test results in a folder.  We debated back and forth about this moment in the writers’ room.  Should we know what’s in that folder before Izzie goes to teach her interns?  Or should we delay it, revealing what Izzie knows only as her interns figure it out?  Having watched the episode, and knowing what happens in the next, I think we made the right decision.  Shonda’s been pitching this scene of Izzie putting her scans up for the interns since the start of the season so it was exciting to finally to watch it come to life.  Regardless of what’s going on with Izzie – be it nothing or some dire diagnosis that might or might not explain the Denny of it all – a day like the day Izzie’s had in this episode could break a lot of people.  I wouldn’t blame her for just wanting to go to Joe’s and get wasted.  Instead Izzie chose to use this very difficult moment in her life as a teaching moment.  It’s selfless.  And admirable.  And I love her for it.  Just wait till the next episode where we find out more about Patient X. 

Are you annoyed with all this “wait and see” stuff??  I know, I’m actually annoyed at myself.  Which is why I won’t do the same thing with Callie and Arizona.  I will say this though.  I totally understand why Arizona wouldn’t want to date a newborn.  It’s like getting a Freshman as your Physics lab partner even though you’re a Senior who not only knows the Laws of Motion but has mastered them in ways that would rock that Freshman’s world.  Which is not to say the Freshman won’t grow to be really good at Physics, or that Callie won’t catch up to Arizona on the lesbian front, it’s simply that Arizona might not have the patience to wait that long.  You, however, should.  Have the patience.  Because this story man…

I am officially stopping with the teasers.  No more carrots dangled.  Really.  Not about George.  Or Bailey and her Peds fellowship.  Or Alex and his secret love child with the Chief’s secretary Patricia.  Okay, made that last one up.  But to be honest there’s a small part of me that’s jealous I don’t get to watch the show from my couch along with the rest of you every week…  I’m lying.  Because I’m about to go into the writers’ room to work with the rest of the staff on episode 521.  That’s only 3 episodes from the end of the season, people.  3.  And boy are you gonna be floored.  Okay, last time I do that.  Really…

Tony Phelan and Joan Rater on "Before and After"...

Originally aired: 2-12-09

Hi there Blog readers.  This is Joan and I hope you liked tonight’s episode.  Tony and I really liked writing this one – we loved the scary worms in the brain surgery that our amazing medical researchers Moira and Elizabeth came up with; we liked the idea of Owen’s ex-fiance showing up, imagining who she was, picturing the moment she first saw him again.  And we always like singing, cause we’re really big musical theatre nerds so the idea of Derek writing a song for Addison way back when cracked us up and then the fact that Taye Diggs and Audra McDonald, both Broadway singers, would actually perform said song … well … come on!!  But I’m rambling, which I do when I’m excited and I have a lot to say, so let me calm down and try to be organized here.  Actually, screw it, I’m just going to ramble because it’s late where I am (11:07 – I just watched American Idol and think it’s gonna be a great season although I DO NOT understand how they cut Danny’s friend Jamal, but, oh now I’m rambling and it isn’t even on topic … )

Here’s how the episode came to be.  Life was simple.  Tony and I were scheduled to write it.  We were excited.  We had some ideas.  Some fine ideas.  Like I said, life was simple.  And then Shonda came in the writers’ room one day all excited and talking a mile a minute about an awesome idea she just had.  And when Shonda is all excited with ideas pouring out of her it’s infectious and you find yourself getting all excited and agreeing with her that yes, it would be really cool to have Addison’s brother, Archer get some really bad brain condition that Derek has to fix so he has to come to Seattle Grace. And of course Addison would come and her friend Naomi would have to come and then Sam, Naomi’s ex-husband and one of Derek’s old friends would show up and be like, “I don’t know why I’m here, but I’m here” and how cool would it be to have Derek’s whole past come into the hospital right at the point where he’s ready to move into the future with Meredith and oh, how about a scene where they meet Meredith and it’s all awkward and it’s gonna be awesome and before you know it Shonda has left the room to tell casting and production about the super cool cross over episode we’re doing with Private Practice and we were left in the writer’s room going, WAIT, we’re writing a cross over episode???

I’ll admit, I panicked a little.  Because we had this cool opportunity that you don’t get too often for two shows to kind of meet, and have an impact on one another and I wanted to do it justice.  And I thought that the thing we really can do with this cross over is show another side of Derek, I just wasn’t sure what that side was.  So we started to talk about it.  We always imagined that Derek and Addison met in med school in gross anatomy class and basically fell in love over a cadaver.  I know, romantic, right?  But for them I’m sure it was.  And we decided that Derek and Addison were probably the first of any of their friends to get married and it was probably an amazing wedding and then someone in the room told a story about this wedding they went to once where the guy sang a song he had written for his wife about how they met and fell in love.  Now, ten years later, whenever anyone who was at that wedding sees this couple, they demand that the song be sung.  Hearing this story I suddenly knew that Derek had to be that guy.  Because I love that guy.  And because it tells you so much about this group of friends, who all remember the song.  They all thought Derek and Addison would be together forever and now here they are, ten years later, divorced.  And Naomi is divorced.  And Archer is maybe going to die.  And so they need the song, they want the song, they want to go back ten years, when it was all so hopeful and happy and no one was dying. 

Now here’s the thing – they don’t really want to go back.  Derek and Addison don’t want to go back to being together, that’s not the point.  The point is …. It’s like when you look at a picture of yourself from ten years ago and you can’t believe how much you’ve changed.   And you don’t really want to go back there, because you like your life and everything and you certainly don’t want the bad haircut back or the ugly bridesmaid’s dress, but you look at yourself and your old friends in the picture and you realize you haven’t spoken to that friend in years, that person you used to speak to every day, EVERY DAY, and you suddenly, desperately miss that person and have no idea how you got to the point where you don’t even know where they live.  THAT is the feeling we wanted this episode to have.  So we needed a song that would help give us that feeling. 

A word about the song – Krista Vernoff wrote it.  In like 20 minutes.  I had written a bunch of lyrics about Derek and Addison meeting over the cadaver but it didn’t have music and it didn’t evoke that FEELING of bittersweet nostalgia that I knew it should, so I called Krista and asked her to give it a try because she’s actually a songwriter and she called about 20 minutes later and sang me the song over the phone and I cried. And then the day we shot the scene I cried watching it because the actors were so great and it had been such an amazing week, having Kate Walsh back.   And while at first it was weird seeing Addison with Naomi and Sam because it was like, Wait a minute here. You’ve moved on and made new friends? What about us?  What about the fun we used to have?  But then when I saw the chemistry that the Private Practice people have together I was able to get over myself a little and be like, okay, fine, you can have your new big hit show and your new fabulous friends, I’ll be happy for you, I guess. 

Anyway, we don’t often talk about how we come up with the stuff for our episodes … so here’s a couple more things.  You know the scene where Addison tells Derek she’s had to make him small and put him in a tiny box just to get through the day?  The idea for that scene came from Shonda and it came before we even knew what the episode was about.  All we knew was that Derek was going to operate on Archer.  We also knew we wanted a moment before Derek went into the OR where he was having a moment of doubt.  So the tiny box scene came out of that discussion. 

What else?  Izzie and the Intern Bowl.  At the beginning of each season we do tons and tons of research.  We research medical stories, but we also spend a lot of time talking to doctors and residents about their training.  How they learn to cut and sew and suture and diagnose and all the other non surgical stuff they have to do. Anyway, in our research we heard about a residency program that had what they called a Surgical Olympics, with events and prizes and we knew it would be a perfect story for us.  And it felt like this was the right place to put it, that it would be Izzie’s idea because she’s been so involved with the interns and she’s at a place where she needs to believe in them.  Because in the last episode she had them run all sorts of tests on her and they came out normal and Izzie really wants to believe she’s fine (even though deep down she knows she’s not, did you see her hands shaking?) so the Intern Bowl is Izzie’s way of proving to herself that the interns don’t suck, that she’s fine, that Denny was wrong.  And instead of proving that, the Intern Bowl showed that Sadie is a fraud.  She cheated and bribed her way through school and basically showed up at Seattle Grace thinking her old friend Meredith would help her get through residency.  But she didn’t take into account the fact that Meredith has changed.  She’s happy and in love and good at being a surgeon.  She’s not the same girl who drank and slept her way through Europe.  It’s a bittersweet moment when Sadie and Meredith stand together at the end, both aware how much they’ve changed.

Which brings me to Owen and Cristina.  Owen clearly has a lot of damage.  He’s seen a lot and been changed by all the trauma he’s lived through.  He is not the same man he was before.  And Beth (his ex fiancée) wants to believe he can be that man.  She wants to believe that if he comes home they can go back to the way they were.  As for Cristina, even though she believes that Owen is dark and damaged, she’s not looking away.  And the fact that she sees him, really sees him, is like a lifeline to him. 

We have spoken to several war veterans about what it’s like to come back. It’s really important to us that we get this right, that we don’t shy away from the difficulty people have who come back from war.  And part of that difficulty is that people who knew them still think of them as the person they were before they left even though fundamentally they may have changed.  And this episode is where Owen’s past comes back to smack him in the face and really make him see how much he’s changed.

Oh, one more thing – Meredith and Derek.  One thing I sort of love about this episode is that although Addison is back in the hospital, Meredith is fine.  She and Derek are solid and it’s not that weird for her to see Addison.  It’s weird for all of Addison’s friends, but I think it shows what a good solid place the Mer/Der relationship is in that she’s not freaking out about Addison, she’s having more of a reaction to seeing Derek with his past.  He had a whole life before her.  I liked exploring the idea that you never really know a person.  On the one hand, that can be scary and make you feel left out, but on the other, it makes life interesting … there’s always more to someone than meets the eye.  And on that note … I think I’ll stop my rambling and go to bed.  After writing this, I’m kind of in the mood to look at old pictures but that usually ends up in me calling old friends.  Old friends who may not appreciate the call because they’re probably sleeping.  On the other hand, they are old friends so they’re more likely to forgive me. 

Bill Harper On "Beat Your Heart Out"...

Original Airdate: 2-5-09

Hi.  First of all, if Grey’s Anatomy just ended -- stop!  Go back, sit down, and watch Private Practice!  I know, you’re probably doing it anyway, but seriously -- it’s going to get SO GOOD and if you miss tonight’s Private, you’ll feel like you’ve missed out.  GO!  Come back here when it’s over! 

Hi.  So, Valentine’s Day is almost here.  Every year, my wife and I do the same thing -- or a version of the same thing.  She’s not a fan of Valentine’s Day, she doesn’t care for the hype.  “It’s needless pressure, it’s invented by the greeting card companies; a gift or gesture on any random day would be more meaningful...”  So every year we agree not to do anything.  Just ignore it.   Honestly, I love this about her.  My wife is smart and sensible and pragmatic and these are qualities I love and depend on, because I have none of them. And it certainly takes the pressure off.  But I’m just not wired that way.  I can’t not do something.  And it’s often just cheesy flowers or chocolates, sometimes it’s something more elaborate, but I end up doing something.  Even though I promise I won’t.  And this upsets her.  Because she did nothing.  Like we agreed!  And now she’s the one who got something and did nothing, even though nothing was what was the only appropriate thing to do.  In short:  every year for Valentine’s Day, I make my wife feel a little crappy.  Romance!

So I felt especially close to Derek as he spends the day trying to plan the perfect proposal.  (Can we just take a second here to say DEREK’S GOING TO PROPOSE. Who would have thought that a drunken tussle on Ellis’s living room rug would lead to this?  Not Meredith, I bet.)  And while Derek’s twisting himself inside out to keep this surprise for Meredith, trying to find exactly the right way to do it, all of his efforts are actually backfiring, sending the wrong signals and sending her into a panic.   

Romance and Panic Attacks.  As this episode began taking shape in the writer’s room, it became clear that these two main factors that would be at work.  Either people were experiencing one or the other, or one was leading directly to the other.    Romance and Panic Attacks.  Which go together, I thought at the time, like peanut butter and clams. 

Start with Cristina and Owen, who have maybe the most romantic day I’ve ever seen. Shonda was very interested in the hotness of the chasteness between these two. We had lots of discussions of the tortured sensuality of the Victorian Era, where a hand placed next to another’s hand could be so electric, so concentrated, that it was actually better than sex.  To go further, to consummate that kind of compressed excitement, would be to risk losing it. And I loved that in Seattle Grace, where people famously steal into on-call rooms between surgeries, these two were living a bodice-ripping romance novel under everyone’s noses.  Cristina doesn’t even have words for what this is. So they choose to long for each other for a while.  And it’s painful, but in that way that you sort of don’t want it to stop.  It’s clear they’re both loving it.

Meanwhile, Mark and Lexie, at the height of their own romance, start to crumble under all the secrecy.   Poor Lexie’s collapsing under the weight of trying to keep her relationship with Mark from Mer and Der, and then lying to Jen about her husband’s surgery, to keep Jen from going hyper-hypertensive.  She’s killing herself trying to protect everyone.  Even at lunch she almost outs herself as a penis-breaker.  I love Mark and Lexie, I have to say.  I admit, I was not so sure at first about this pair, but I think I had the same misgivings Mark did.  I like most what Lexie is forcing Mark to learn about himself.  And when he finally tries, in Derek and Meredith’s bedroom (he really tries!) to come clean to Derek, it’s not just to clear the air, or apologize or confess as much as to share with his best friend this great thing they’ve both found.   Cause it’s the real thing.   When he can’t -- it’s horrible timing -- his disappointment is so clear.   

And then Callie, who’s looking down the barrel of her failed relationships learns that even when he chooses to be OK by herself, it’s just lonely.   And at the moment she feels it hit rock bottom...  Enter  Arizona “actions-speak-louder-than-words-especially-in-the-ladies-room” Robbins.  I love characters who sneak up on us.  What I think I love most about Arizona is that she is genuinely, positively interested in people, in the most selfless way.  We knew this right away, when she made Alex squirm on the plane a few weeks back, with all the questions about his girlfriend.  So it seems perfectly natural that she would just stop in the loo to cheerlead a colleague.  Then....surprise!  Romance!  And she turns Callie’s whole set of expectations upside down.  Which I’m all for.  I want Callie to be happy.  I can’t wait to see where this goes. 

And amidst all this romance, all these panic attacks:  Jen, whose concern for her husband is actually endangering her and her baby’s lives.   Owen’s past catching up with him, just at the wrong moment.  And Dr. Dixon, who suffers a perfect storm of social anxiety:  too much touching, talking and unexpected information at once, causing her to lose control of herself.  But knowing what she needs to cope.  (The treatment she demands from Bailey and Cristina was inspired by the amazing work of Temple Grandin, whose work with livestock led her to amazing insights on how to ease anxiety in people with Autism and Asperger’s.  If you ever feel like being inspired by astonishing humanity and creativity, just Google her name).    Finally, Izzie, spending all day trying to make sense of Denny’s parting message, and clearly expecting the worst.  Only to be left at the end of the day with a clean bill of health.  And Alex.   

It was Izzie’s sense of dread that made me realize something about Romance and Panic.  They seemed at first like an odd combination, until I realized they are remarkably similar experiences.   They share a lot of the same symptoms: rapid hearbeat, breathlessness, sleeplessness, obsessive thoughts, etc.   But more to the point, I think they have the same root cause:  Expectation.  Romance puts us in a state of anticipation that is as good as (sometimes better than) the actual fulfillment.  Look at Owen and Cristina.  And anxiety, panic -- Dixon’s, Bailey’s, Izzie’s -- comes from anticipating the worst outcome -- one that might not ever even occur.  They’re the same kind of scary.  Sort of like falling:  when we dream we’re falling, we call it a nightmare.   But we also call it “falling” in love.  Because we have absolutely no control over the outcome.   

Happy Valentine’s Day, by the way.