Joan Rater on "Suicide is Painless"...

Original Airdate: 03-25-10

I spent my twenties planning my death.  It was either that or get a job.  

It wasn’t ever sudden death.  It always started with the phone call from the doctor telling me the blood work from my routine check up showed some horrible, rare disease.   Then I’d imagine my long valiant struggle with the disease, followed by my moving, heroic death.  As friends and family gathered around my deathbed, I’d urge them to laugh, love, live.  Don’t dwell on how sad you’ll be when I’m gone.  Okay, if you must, dwell a little. 

Eventually I got a job.  Got married, had kids, got another job and another, took up jogging, perfected my apple pies, knit stuff, discovered the joy of online shopping – in other words, my life filled up.  And as my life filled, my death fantasies stopped.  Thoughts of death remained, but they were more along the lines of, what’s this bump?  Please don’t let it be cancer.  Once you’ve made a life for yourself that you like, you don’t want to die. 

Until you do.  

In tonight’s episode, Tony and I wrote about two people who want to die.  And their paths to death are totally unlike my death fantasies – these aren’t the depressed musings of a lazy twenty year old, their wish to die is born out of reality.  Living has become too painful.   

The idea for the episode came from Shonda saying to me and Tony, “Let’s do an episode about Owen’s experience in Iraq.”  She felt that at this point in the season, it was time to delve a little deeper into Owen’s past, not only to explore the origins of his PTSD a little bit more, but also to give us a chance to see Teddy and Owen as friends. 

We wanted to show Owen, pre – bad stuff happening to him.  So the initial scene where Owen and Teddy are playing soccer in between casualties was very important to us.  They acted it beautifully, Teddy jumping on his back, them teasing one another …. They look happy.   Carefree.  And then the sound of the helicopter overhead signaling that Bad Things have happened.  Time to go to work.  Owen pauses, taking an extra second before picking up his battle gear. It’s as though he knows intuitively that everything’s about to change.  

This day, the day Dan died, they way Dan died – is something that Owen tries not to think about.  But when he wakes up in the middle of the night and it’s quiet and there’s not surgery or people to distract him and the thoughts start, Owen has to get up, put on the TV, do push ups, to get his mind off that night.  

He couldn’t save Dan.  It finally came down to that.  He couldn’t save his friend and so he had to let him die. He had to watch him die.   And in the end he had to help him die.  Owen carries that knowledge around with him.  Fate put him in an unwinnable situation, and he’s paid for it every day since it happened.  And so when Teddy asks him to help her with a patient who has requested Physician Assisted Suicide, Owen is triggered.  He spends the episode trying to save Teddy and that couple from a similar fate. 

But finally, in the end, Owen is able to offer some comfort to Sean, Kim’s husband.  He’s able to tell Sean that there will be a moment where he’ll know he did the right thing and he needs to hold onto that moment.  That is Owen’s struggle.  To hold onto the belief that he made the right choice out there in the desert. 

By the way, we shot that stuff a few hours away from Los Angeles in the desert.  And we had 3 days to do all that Iraq stuff and we needed all of the three days.  And we needed it not to rain.  The forecast called for rain on the last day of shooting and the rain held off until the last scene on the last day and then it just started POURING.  It’s the scene where Dan is laying there dying and it’s raining!!  The crew put up and tent over Dan and Owen and we finished but the footage had rain in the background, you could barely hear the actor’s lines because of the rain.  Luckily we were able to fix it all in post.  

Physician Assisted Suicide is a relatively new phenomenon in the US.  In fact, the law was passed in the State of Washington just last year.  The government makes patients who are interested in ending their lives jump through a lot of hoops.  In researching all the legalities, what got to me were the real patient stories.  What was surprising was how nothing really changed in the face of what can only be described as the biggest decision of anyone’s life – kids still needed lunches for school, dentist appointments still needed to be made, and couples still fought over the most mundane things.  Sara Gilbert and Derek Cecil really did a great job in making that couple come alive on screen and making us feel the multitude of emotions they were going through, like when Kim tells Cristina that nothing ever changes, you have the same fight, even when you’re dying you have the same fights …

Speaking of fights (nice segue, don’t you think?) Meredith and Derek are just now realizing that their lives have irrevocably changed since Derek became Chief.  And faced with the mounting frustrations of his new job, Derek is not his best self.  No, let’s be honest – Derek is kind of a jerk in this episode.  He steals a patient from his wife.  A patient she diagnosed.  A patient she was going to get to do a cool procedure on.  And he did it behind her back.  But here’s what I love – you don’t hate him for it.  Because even jealous and petty, Patrick is so damn charming … oh, and don’t you love how April is all smitten with Derek?  Also we feel like Jackson is really becoming friends with Meredith, so we wanted to give them that Who Down in Whoville speech, he was great too, don’t you think?  Jesse Williams is the actor playing Jackson and he’s not only gorgeous, he’s a really nice guy.

And the Chief is struggling to find his new identity in the hospital.  He’s no longer the Chief, but he’s also not just one of the boys.  And that’s a pretty lonely place to be.  Which prompts him to engage in what can only be described as one of the most uncomfortable attempts at locker room humor in Seattle Grace history.  Like it or not, he’s always gonna be THE CHIEF.  You can take away the title and the office, but that doesn’t change the fact that you can’t say things like “If I wasn’t married I’d hit her, I’d hit her hard.” We were really punchy in the writer’s room when we came up with that line.  We couldn’t stop laughing.  And it was one of those things that you say to yourself; this is either really funny or really stupid.  But I love how Jim Pickens plays it.  And I LOVE when Alex says,  “Um.  Chief.  I think you meant hit that.”

Callie wants a baby.  She wants a baby.  Nothing wrong with that.  Except that as much as she wants one, Arizona doesn’t.  So what do you do?

I have a baby.  Two actually.  One’s thirteen. And the other is seven.  And I HAD to have them.  No one could have stopped me.  I have a friend who has been saying since grade school, I’m never having a baby.  Since grade school.  And she never did have one.  She’s awesome with kids, by the way.  My kids love her.  But as much as I wanted kids, she didn’t.  So what do you do??!!  It’s an awesome conflict, I think, that just landed in the middle of their relationship before they were ready to deal with it.  You’ll see how that plays out in the last few episodes of the season. 

The last few episodes of the season.  Did I just write those words?  It’s weird.  I’d say we’re winding down around here, but we’re really not because we have such a FINALE in store for you, we’re all a little tingly and jumpy.  I hate knowing things and not being able to tell them.  Hate it.  But I can’t tell cause that would ruin it.  

So now I’m gonna go home to my kids, maybe have a glass of wine, play with the dog, scrounge around for some dinner, watch my episode on TV tonight (I’ve already seen it about ten times, but it’s so much more fun to watch it in real time), eat ice cream, do some online shopping.  You know, live.  

Comments

[Amy]

Teddy hasn't just ruined my love for Cristina/Owen, she's ruined my love for Grey's Anatomy.

[Anne]

I think you set out what you intended to do from your notes but I didn't want to watch an episode of MASH - I wanted to watch Grey's Anatomy. There were far too many flashbacks. This is not an episode I enjoyed much. In fact I think I enjoyed about 10 minutes of it.

Chief and Derek talk in the office was good and I enjoyed that.

Napa moment with patients - a worthy moment of lightness.

Callie telling Mark about Arizona and no kids. Mark is a good friend.

Derek and Meredith at the end when he comes home. Glad he apologized and they made up. Oh and thanks for the 2 kisses in this episode and some scenes with them together.

Oh and the moment when that guy told Meredith to be in Whoville - that was cute - great advice.

[Anne]

Oops forgot one other moment I thought was really good - when Mark talked to the chief in the boardroom.

[TJ]

This episode was boring. Too much Owen. Too many flashbacks. Owen is not such the interesting character the writers seem to think he is. I'm sorry but I'm finding this season incredibly disappointing.

By the way, where's Alex? He has literally disappeared and become this season's 'George O'Malley'. You might as well run him over with a bus in the finale too. His replacement is already set in place. You guys seem way more interested in Jackson anyway even making him Meredith's new special male friend. Giving Alex one episode next week does not make up for the season long letdown.

[Priya]

I dont like Mark & Teddy together! It doesn't fit! At least, not what I've seen so far. Perhaps, I'm too quick to judge..but then again I've always been a harcore Mark/Callie shipper. It doesnt look like that's going to pan out successfully, does it? Lol Anyway, would've liked to have seen more of Arizona's reaction to Callie admitting that she needed to have a kid. We have to wait a whole other week to find out what happens! Ah!

[Lisa]

In this episode, we have all kinds of men who won't say what they are feeling to the extent that the 3 friends literally put their lives on the line by jumping out of helicopters to avoid saying what they are feeling. THAT was a bit far fetched. The guy with the dying wife, I can believe to an extent. Those emotional situations where they want to be the strong ones, I can believe.
Good to know why Owen is tortured. Sheds new light on why a helicopter triggered the chocking incident. Was he really chocking Cristina or trying to stop his friend;s neck from bleeding. Hmmmm. What happened is different from what he told Cristina when he first came back . . . tsk, tsk, but okay.

Tonight's episode felt like an episode of LOST with the amount of flashbacks and the way the transitions happened, so it felt familiar, at least to me!

I like Teddy and Mark together. Mer and Jackson bonding makes me slightly uncomfortable, should it?

Good work.

[Lisa]

This was an absolutely amazing episode!

Kevin McKidd and Sara Gilbert should get emmys! Seriously, they were amazing!

I truly hope that romantic Teddy is in Owen's past. I truly feel the Owen she fell for was the before Owen and Cristina is in love with the After Owen. I would love to see Owen and Cristina learn to communicate and deal with his PTSD together. I know that is a difficult thing to do but I hope they are able to! I just hope for the remainder of the season it is Cristina/Owen's journey to learn to deal with and live with his PTSD not about his feelings for Teddy cause if it goes that way the "magical soulmate" story you created in S5 will be destroyed and that just breaks my heart. Please the "romantic" part of this triangle be over - it felt like to me that part of Teddy/Owen's relationship was left out in the desert after Owen's traume. I actually like Teddy and Mark together. People might just stop hating Teddy if you have her move on to a different relationship, be JUST a friend to Owen and mentor Cristina. But if you keep implying that Owen still has feelings for Teddy, I will never get past the gagging reflex I get everytime she is on the screen. Chalk it up to your convincing writing in S5 and the superior chemistry between KMK and SO that Cristina a nd Owen are soulmates. Please don't destroy this! They have big enough demons between the two to have plenty of drama forever.

[I was wrong]

I was prepared not to like this episode because I'm not a fan of Teddy and Owen leaves me indifferent.

But.....the parts of the show that didn't show Iraq were really good. You guys might be back on track.

I'll leave a more detailed review tomorrow after I've watched my favorite parts again. "You stole my surgery!"

Thank you for this show and letting us comment about it. Good and bad. I know people usually comment about the writers or actors, but I'd like to thank the behind the scenes people. I just watched the special effects from the season five disk. From wardrobe to editing (Well you are crazy sometimes seeing the delteted stuff) to catering and the others I know nothing about. It's usually 43 minutes of a lot of hard work by a lot of people.

I am usually someone who bitches about the show a little bit. Thanks again for giving us the opportunity to give you feedback. And tomorrow..........I will.

[Sharon]

I think it totally bites that Callie dumped Arizona!!!!!! They are by far a match made in heaven!!!! And for Callie to dump Arizona like she means nothing to her is utter rubbish - Shame on you whoever is responsible for that!!!!!!!

And no doubt we'll see Callie and Mark get together which was by far the most awful pairing ever - I don't even want to watch Grey's anymore!

[Lisa]

The episode was a complete lackluster. But that's not news on Greysland this days.

The episode could have been better if there were more storylines for the other characters. It was a complete reminder of how much characters there are now, and how uninterestin a lot of them are (Teddy and Owen specially). Start getting rid of them, instead of adding more. Too much Owen, and nothing even new. The episode didn't shed any light, I really didn't find a reason to it.

There's no much to say, because it was such a filler episode, nothing happened, except a little MD and the former Chief. Oh how I love the Chief W, even when sometimes I hate him, I can't help but love him. As the Chief (W) he's been subjected to do somethings we don't like, but he has to be strict right? I hope we get to see more about how he's dealing with his alcoholism.

I miss so much the core characters, they're completely lost. Wish we could focus more on Mer, Derek, Alex, Chief W., Cristina (Owenless), Lexie. Seems like Calzona is the only thing you're getting right (balanced storyline and screentime).

Thank God for next week's episode. That was the only exciting thing that I saw today. MerDer having a baby talk. Finally!!! Now there's some movement and a SL the show desperately needs. My heart is singing in joy that finally, finally, we'll get to see more Alex (no need to punish us with no Alex this ep). The promo looks like this will be what used to be classic GRey's, and a good one!

I'm tired of GA: The Next Generation. Hope the final episodes will return to what GA is really about.

[Iris]

Congratulations! You writers finally ruined the last piece of Owen and Cristina's beautiful love story!

You know why I don't like this episode? Because you all made such a big deal about this episode, then turned out everything is still the same, there is zero development between Owen and Cristina's relationship, now you guys convience me that may be you all want to hook up Owen and Teddy.

I have zero idea why you like to drag this triangle SL episode by episode, and make Owen has sort of complicated, yet strong feeling for another woman, you do realzie that it is ruining Owen's character, right? Now you are successeed, I no longer care about Owen anymore.

[lustremoon]

Very sorry to say this, but this one was one of the most boring episode of the season....honestly, the Owen story was interesting but it was just dragged on for too long and mark and teddy>>> ugh, they hv no chemistry and its pretty obvious in the way they act around each other....pls bring back amr and lexie together, they were awesome together...but, Mer/der was cute tonight...overall, nuthing much in this epi...hopefully u guys can come up with something better next wk.

[Maggie]

I DIED laughing when the Chief says, "I'd like to hit her" and Alex says, "I think you meant 'hit that'."

Ahahahahahahah. I laughed again, reading it.

Beautiful episode. Although I didn't find Derek charming. He was a jerk. I did like Meredith forgiving it though, now that she's bright and shiny and not dark and twisty.

[Bella]

This was a tense episode, but I loved it....all except for one thing: was it really necessary to show that charred body in the IED / Iraq scene? Yeh, I know it wasn't real, but was it truly needed?

Otherwise, it was a well-written episode with terrific acting all around.

[Jenna]

I think this was a pretty good episode. I like learning more about Owen and those were some pretty powerful scenes, I'm glad the rain didn't ruin them :) I loved the chief with Derek at the end, trying to help him not feel the need to be a jerk...I miss neuro surgeon god-like Derek, I will admit. I miss him, I'm not so sure about this chief thing...but I must trust the people who have given me the show I've been obsessed with for 6 years!
What else? Arizona and Callie...two of my very favorite characters and man I was feeling for Callie today. I'm the person who has to have kids and even at 22, and even though I don't want them right now? I am the person that has to have a baby or 3 someday. It feels like something I HAVE to do. But oh please don't let it end them...I love them, love love! Not sure about this Teddy and Mark...but I love how Mark is growing :) I knew he had it in him! Missed the main characters some tonight, where was Alex and Christina and Mer and Lexi? Also, is Izzie ever coming back? I'm really annoyed with her for what she did to Alex but I still miss her.
Overall, it was a good episode. I'm intrigued as to where the rest of the season will go. PLEASE don't let anybody die...:( I miss George every single week. I have been watching the earlier seasons lately to get some George. Anyways, thanks for another highlight of the week! :)

[Martha]

I love Owen, but that was way too much. I don't like Teddy. I think that Owen has sort of earned the right to be on a better path - as a healer, not a victim.

The part with Richard and Derek was good and I loved Avery teaching Maredith about Whoville.

[Lisa]

Lok, if you guys are trying me to actively dislike Owen, well done.

It was a nice flashback episode, but we get it: Teddy is Owen truu wuuuv and Cristina is just that Asian chick he is bedding in the meantime. Way to go writers. You think we care about Teddy OR Owen as much as we care about Cristina, you are wong.

I'm out this show because I'm not going to be around when you guys break down Cristina again.

As far as I'm concerned, Owen and Teddy can go back to desert.

Bye, Grey's.

[Margie]

Owen is dead to me. Even when Derek was with Addison his real love was Meredith. Owen's all about Teddy, he was thinking about her while telling his girlfriend to go to bed. Loser. I'm over C/O. For good.

[SloanFan]

Never imagined I would say this, but giving up Grey's is painless.

[CQ]

Great episode, very intense. Storylines, acting, music: all good.

Just one thing. I don't get this: "oh, and don’t you love how April is all smitten with Derek?"
What's to love about this?! It's annoying, that's what it is!

[lothiriel]

why oh why no more Mark and Lexie??? Imiss them like hell!!!

[lainiek]

I loved the whole M*A*S*H homage in last night's show. Funny that I didn't even realize that name of the episode was "Suicide is Painless" until this morning. What a great tribute to another fantastic show. I definitely see Owen as a 21st century Hawkeye. All heart and sole and bluster. Makes me thinke Hawkeye too would have suffered when he got home from all the death and horror he saw in Korea. Thank you for blending Owen's plight into Grey's so fluidly this year. He has added a depth that hasn't been there for a while. Wonderful job!

[Carol]

It was a good episode, not great, but good. I guess that's because Owen and Teddy are not my favorite characters. But, geez, doesn't anyone in that hospital have a friend who works somewhere else? Are you going to bring in more characters to open the inbreeding field? What's Lexie to do now...who is left for her to hook-up with?

[Catherine]

When are you going to get that most of the fans hate Teddy and are never going to like her no matter how much you shove her down our throats?

[Savvy]

I truly believe the funniest moment of the series was the "I'd hit her so hard." And Alex correcting him. OMG!!! I nearly wet my pants.

But Joan, I'm not digging April and her dream cicle crush on Derek. Is it wrong that I hope Mer rips some hair out of her head? And you know Derek needs to tell her to back off.

Here's the thing, the Merder fans really never get the payoff. (Besides exam room) So the serious baby talk for them will do what we all know --- Mer will freak and she'll turn into the bobsy twin of Cristina. That's what Shonda apparently thinks friendship is with them. Its the love story between Cris and Mer, right??? THAT IS SO STUPID! And you can quote me on that.

Watching Private Practice last night --- the scene with Addison going nuts trying to calm and soothe Lucas? THATS what I'd like to see with Meredith and Derek. A woman who had a crappy mother LEARNING to parent not so crappy. THAT is a whole lot more interesting than watching April rip scans out of Meredith's hands because she wants to please her crush.

I also don't know who I'm supposed to be rooting for when it comes to Cristina, Teddy and Owen. So, who?

Is this another season when we are burning down the house? What was it Krista said at the beginning ---she wasn't sure any of our couples would be standing at the end of the season? That would be a definate GAME CHANGER right? Except, I don't know if I, as hardcore as I am, can hang another season of OFF AGAIN Mer and Der. OR something stupid happening between April and her 'crush' or Meredith with her newfound WHOville friend.

Meredith shouted, "this is where our kids could play." She declared, "If you don't want babies with me and my crappy DNA just say so." Now in the promo for next week she looks like THOSE statements never happened which is reDONKulous.

This fan would appreciate a Merder baby. I'd love to see Derek give up the coveted job so HE could help make the adjustments with parenthood and Mer's career. And lastly, MEREDITH is NOT a twin to Cristina. They did NOT come from the same BORG mothership. They are friends and most of the time they get each other, but Meredith has always been ahead of the game compared to Cristina. Friends don't always see eye to eye or crave the same things at the EXACT same time. KEEP IT REAL PEOPLE.

Hoping I still call Greys my show at the end of this season.....