Grey's Anatomy: Grey Matter

Debora Cahn on "Not Responsible"...

Original Airdate: 2-24-11

Ms. Debbie Allen directed my episode.  Ms. Debbie Allen.  I have been fortunate to work with a lot of incredibly talented people in my life, and some quite famous, but lord in heaven... Ms. Debbie Allen!  I was interested in show business at a young age.   Theatre mostly -- enough that I spell it theatre instead of theater, which only means I was pretentious as a 13 year old.  In any event, I saw the movie "Fame" when I was impressionable, and Ms. Debbie Allen's infamous line is forever emblazoned in my mind.  So we're trying to have a production meeting and she's asking me a question, and I'm kind of zoned out cause here's what's running in my head:  "You want fame?  Well fame costs.  And right here's where you start paying.  In sweat."  Over and over and over again.  So not only am I star-struck, but I'm acting like a moron, cause I can't answer a simple question, cause I didn't really hear it, all I heard was... you get the idea.  That, and I have no idea what to call her.  I can't call her Debbie.  That's too disrespectful.  To call her Ms. Debbie Allen seems a bit much, even though every time I think of her, that's what I think -- never Debbie -- never Ms. Allen.  Ms. Debbie Allen.  So I end up not calling her anything.  "Hey!  Hi!"  That kind of thing.  So it ends up sounding like I've forgotten her name.  Add to that the fact that what we're talking about is... Kyle's bump.  Poor little Kyle, not only is his mom drifting away, her brain riddled with Alzheimer's, he has a bump on his neck.  There was much debate about Kyle's bump.  If the bump is too big, the parents look not just distracted, but horribly irresponsible -- not what we're going for.  If the bump is too small, how will Meredith see it?  She is, after all, a little compromised in the vision department.  If it's too big, how will we NOT see it in the first scene, where we don't want to see it?  Should he wear a jacket?  A scarf?  Maybe he goes to private school and wears a dorky uniform, with a coat and tie, and in the first scene, tie's on, and in the second scene, he LOOSENS the tie, revealing the medium sized bump.  But what if the dorky uniform is too dorky?  The poor kid has to sing "I Walk the Line" to his mother, we should preserve whatever cool he's got left.  We had easily five separate conversations about the bump.  Meetings.  About the bump.  And here I am thinking "I'm WASTING Ms. Debbie Allen's time, her talent, I shouldn't be giving her a kid with a bump, I should change the character to a child who dances.  A dance prodigy!  And he distracts his mother from her creeping dementia by DANCING!  A subtle combination of ballet and modern dance and krump!"  (Krump -- a word I know because I watch "So You Think You Can Dance" -- a show on which Ms. Debbie Allen is a guest judge!)  I've reworked the character in my head -- in the middle of the production meeting.  It is WAY too late to change the character to a dance prodigy.  The role has been cast, with an adorable young man who can SING.  Not dance.  He was hired for his ability to sing Johnny Cash to his mother.  Not for his krumping.  But there I am, imagining the radical number Ms. Debbie Allen will choreograph for my episode, and I've missed yet ANOTHER question she's asking me.  I'm giving her the blank silence again.  Cause I have no idea what she said.  AGAIN.  She's trying to hard to move the conversation off the bump.  And she can't.  Because she can't get me to answer the simplest question.  I assume it was simple.  I have no idea.  I didn't hear it.  So now, Ms. Debbie Allen thinks I have Asperger's. And we're still on the bump.  I can't tell you anything about the episode.  I can't remember anything about the episode.  All I know is Ms. Debbie Allen directed it.  

 

Stacy McKee on "Golden Hour"...

Original Airdate: 2-17-11

It’s 6:48 am.  And I’m late.  Well, technically I’m on time, but I’m late for me because I really wanted to get here early to fix myself a giant cup of hot hot hot steaming black super hot coffee.  To wake me up.  And help me function.  And also, because it is unseasonably chilly for Los Angeles and I don’t do chilly.  --But First Rehearsal is supposed to be starting at this very moment and I’ve only just now parked my car so I forego the coffee and, instead, book it to Stage 7 to get to the first rehearsal of the very first scene of our eighth day of shooting on my latest episode of Grey’s. 

It’s a special episode – for all sorts of reasons, especially because it’s an episode that has Meredith Grey, aka Ellen Pompeo, in all but six of its scenes.  Which is fantastic and cool and unprecedented for this series and… a headache.  The headache being that because Ellen is in every scene, she has the weight of this entire episode resting on her shoulders.  And she wasn’t feeling well when we wrapped last Friday night.  Which could mean bad news for all of us if she fell sick over the weekend (which would be entirely possible since she’s been living on set with the rest of us for over a week now and, let’s face it, set is basically just a Petri dish full of head colds and stomach flus and sore throats waiting to pounce and attack.) So, I’m worried about Ellen and the fate of this entire episode, and that’s giving me a headache – or, maybe the headache is from my lack of coffee but either way – I make it to Stage 7, just in time for First Rehearsal.

We rehearse the scene privately with (basically) just me, Rob (our fearless director) and the cast.  It goes smoothly, with a few minor questions from Rob and Ellen, which I answer (hoping I even make sense as I’m barely coherent before there’s coffee in my system) and then it’s time for an open rehearsal with all of the crew.  We go through the scene again, throw down marks, then Ellen and the other actors head off to get changed and beautified while the stand-ins take their places and I hunker down in a corner with my script to do a quick rewrite of the scene we just rehearsed.  

It’s not a big rewrite, because I don’t do that – I won’t rewrite scenes the day they are shooting; I think it’s bad form – but this is a minor change to a line that clearly wasn’t working because the timing of the scene plays out differently in person than it did in my head when I wrote it. 

That happens sometimes.  It’s one thing to envision a scene in your head, but when it comes to life right in front of you?  It takes on a life of its own.  Sometimes things don’t work.  And sometimes, if you’re lucky, they work so so so well.  Just the other day, we shot the scene where Derek walks in on Bailey in the on-call room, and – obviously – I knew it was going to be funny, but actually seeing the look on Derek’s face and hearing the scream escape Bailey’s mouth?  Possibly one of my favorite moments in all of Grey’s history.  Which is saying a lot, as I have a lot of Grey’s history.  You do realize, don’t you, that this is the very first time in seven seasons Bailey has EVER used an on-call room for anything other than sleeping?  And don’t get me started on the Derek/ Meredith elevator scene we shot that same day… Again.  I knew it was going to be fun to watch – but it was even better than I could have imagined.  And dirtier.  If, you know, you have a dirty mind like me.

But this scene I’m rewriting now is just a little tiny change.  I give the script changes to Nicole, our script supervisor; I swing by hair & makeup to let Ellen know about the changes (since they include some changes to her lines) and while I’m there, I listen carefully to see if I hear any raspiness to her voice or congestion in her head.  Nope.  That’s good.  She seems perfectly healthy.  Someone nearby sneezes, and I shoot them a nasty look.  Then, almost as instantly as I shoot the look, someone else sweeps by with disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer.  Excellent.  I’m confident our leading lady is in good hands.  Ellen and I share a few quick baby photos (her daughter and my daughter are around 6 months apart) and then I hurry off to the writers’ bungalow because I want to make sure Shonda has dailies to watch from the night before. 

I’m about halfway to the bungalow when I get a call that Rob wants to show me a scene up in editing.  The bungalow will just have to wait.  I turn around and head back to editing, by way of craft service, because my head is now pounding and my left eye is starting to twitch which is a sure sign that I need some coffee.  SOON.

So I head past craft service (where a guy with a knife in his head is pouring salsa onto a breakfast burrito) and I make a beeline to the coffee station when – seemingly out of nowhere – appears Linda, our Grey’s Anatomy medical guru.  She’s in a state.  One department says one thing and another says something else, and what she really needs to know is just how much blood DO I want to see on Knife Guy’s shirt which, by the way, should really have been changed into a hospital gown by now.  For the record.  Is what she says.  So I say, sure, he can be wearing a gown in this scene, and less is more, with the blood, please, especially right now, before I’ve had any coffee or even thought about breakfast -- and that’s when I realize, I have, in my decaffeinated fugue state, already walked all the way upstairs to editing, where Rob has his scene cued up and waiting.

So I sit down and watch a rough cut of a scene and as I watch…  I’m a little bit struck by just how different and cool this episode is going to be. 

We’ve been able to be really inventive, to think outside the box.  Take the clock motif that runs throughout the episode, for instance. Once you start looking for the clocks, you kinda can’t stop.  They’re all over the place in this episode.  One of my very favorite examples is when Mer and Teddy are hurrying onto the OR Elevator, and as Meredith pushes the elevator button in the distance, the camera racks focus onto a clock displayed on a monitor in the foreground.  SO COOL.

I was also able to tell five different patient stories in this episode, when we generally only tell three, maximum.  And not only are there five patients, but somehow they all manage to intersect with Meredith, in a really satisfying way.  Each one makes an impression on her.  Even the story inspired by my 2 year old nephew, who broke his femur late last year and spent six weeks stroller bound with two full leg casts.

And then there’s Meredith.  This is her episode.  An hour in the life of Meredith Grey. 

It’s always been fascinating to me --  How do doctors fit everything they fit into one day?  What would a sliver of their day actually look like?  We don’t see it on our show a lot, but the reality is, doctors DO juggle more than one patient at a time.  And they do make room for their personal lives in between all that multitasking.  We all do, don’t we?  We carry on multiple conversations and handle multiple interactions and tackle multiple to-do-lists all the time…

So what would it look like if we were doing all that, only one of the big things on our to-do-list was “Save Patient’s Life?” 

Meredith’s version of multitasking deals with life and death.  And yet, in so many ways, it’s just another day at the office.  She’s juggling patients and catching misdiagnoses and scrubbing in on emergency surgeries and she’s losing a patient. All in one little hour.  She lives through the ups and the downs of life and death, and then it’s time for her to turn around and do it all over again.  Because that’s what you do if you’re a doctor.  You may go through hell and you may look death in the eye and you may be reminded of your own mortality or failures or insecurities… but then you have to shake it off.  Put it behind you.  And continue on with the rest of your day.  Move forward.  Go treat your next patient.  Because after this hour, comes the next, and the next, and the next…

And this scene, the one we’re watching right now, it encapsulates all of that.  It’s Meredith and Cristina at the nursery, looking at the babies.  Those of you who are die-hard Grey’s fans know that the nursery is the place where Meredith goes when she needs a little comfort.  We haven’t seen it in a while, but this seemed like the absolute perfect moment to bring it back.  Especially in the wake of how Meredith and Derek have been struggling to get pregnant this season.  There was no more appropriate place for Meredith to seek comfort in this episode than here.  Looking at all the cute cute babies.  (Plus, and you may have already figured this out about me, but I have – apparently – become a SUCKER for cute babies myself.)  The scene is perfect.   So perfect, I even (for a moment) forget I still haven’t managed to get back to that damn coffee station.

Rob gets a text.  They are ready to shoot downstairs...  So we bid farewell to David (the editor) only first, I take a quick moment to oooo and ahhhh over his newest baby photos (David’s son and my daughter were both nicknamed Blueberry in utero.  Which means, I’m sure, they have some deep cosmic connection.) And then it’s time to head back down to set to take our seats at video village just in time to begin shooting the scene we rehearsed almost exactly an hour ago.  “Rolling, background and… ACTION!”  First shot, 8:03 am.

And there you have it.  (Approximately) an hour in the life of me making an hour in the life of Meredith Grey.

And all before my morning coffee.

Austin Guzman on "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)"...

Original Airdate: 2-10-11

In last week’s Grey Matter, Mark Wilding told you all about the time he tried (and failed) to be an actor.  In high school, I also tried my hand at acting.   There’s a difference between Mark and myself, though.  I didn’t just try.  I freaking succeeded. 

Which was handy because I loved attention. 

As I quickly discovered, if you auditioned for a play and got a part, people would be FORCED to pay attention to you.  And if you got the lead  (as I did on more than one occasion – brag, brag, brag), they’d have to pay attention to you for as many as TWO WHOLE HOURS.   Once, an elderly couple even came up to me at Hometown Buffet to tell me that they had seen and enjoyed my performance as King Arthur in our school’s production of Camelot.  I was a mother-flippin’ star.

But a person gets older.  Maybe wiser.   He leaves behind dreams of celebrity and pursues a career behind the scenes.  (Though still in a capacity where he will be paid his fair share of attention.  Hey, reader!  Thanks for your time!)

Then one day, while casting actors to play Clinical Trial Patients and their family members for an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, a producer suggests that it would be funny if THE WRITER played one of those family members.

Oh hey there, Former Dreams of Super-stardom.  It’s been a while.  Nice to see you again.

So, of course I said, “yes.”  How could I not?  And it’s not like it was going to be super-tough or anything.  The family members in this sequence didn’t have any lines.  I’d just have to sit at a table, pretend to care about the person sitting next to me and NOT look like a big, fat idiot.   I could totally do that.  After all, I was once recognized and praised by my adoring fans while loading up on bread pudding in a buffet line.  

HERE’S THE THING, THOUGH:  There’s a difference between standing onstage in the high school auditorium and being on the set of a television show with a great, big professional TV camera staring you down.  You’re suddenly the most self-conscious you’ve ever been in your entire life.   You can’t stop thinking about the fact that just two days ago you’d gotten the worst haircut a person has ever gotten.  Ever.  You’ve also recently put on ten (but probably more like fifteen) pounds, which will combine with the extra weight the camera adds to make you look like Santa Claus, age 29.  There are bright lights shining in your eyes making it nearly impossible to see, which you can’t really do anyway because you’ve taken off your glasses, knowing that your mom would later complain that she couldn’t see your face if you left them on even though you now realize that ain’t nobody gonna miss your big damned head because of all that extra weight and HOLY HELL WHY WON’T YOUR MOUTH STOP TWITCHING???

This is your moment.  The nation is watching.  You’re sitting across the table from Meredith Grey herself in an honest-to-God consult room at Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital… and you probably look like a big, fat idiot.

The stakes are huge, people.  Which is why I can totally identify with what it must feel like to be a doctor who’s about to perform a heart transplant on a baby who hasn’t been born yet. 

In this week’s episode, Alex and Lucy go head to head over just such a case.  Lucy is so shocked and offended when Alex refers to a brain-dead baby as a “turnip in the cabbage patch” that there is absolutely no way she’s going to let him get near a baby.  It’s a fair position to take if you don’t know Alex Karev.  When you’re just meeting the guy, he comes across as a jerk-ass wrestler with a crappy attitude.  What you don’t know is that once upon a time, Arizona actually gave Alex a speech about the fact that a peds surgeon has to do whatever they can to not picture “tiny coffins” all day, every day.  So you don’t see that what Alex is doing when he calls a baby a “turnip” is distancing himself, playing down the stakes of what he’s about to do, so that he can keep a calm head, not get too emotionally involved, and actually be able to help his patient.  Yeah, it may not be the best tactic.  And even though Arizona was the one who gave Alex the speech way back when, she’s not particularly thrilled with the way he’s chosen to cope, either.   But at least she gets why he’s doing it.  In the end, Alex and Lucy are in the same boat – doing what they think is best for the tiny, tiny patients they’re trying to help. 

Okay, so maybe my situation isn’t really the same as Alex & Lucy’s.  There probably won’t be any tiny coffins involved if I can’t stop my lip from twitching as though I’ve injected it with caffeine.  (At least, I hope not.  That’d be terrible.  And crazily improbable.)

Speaking of caffeine, there’s that whole Callie/Arizona/Mark situation.   While the parent-to-baby ratio is surely going to have some benefits once that baby is born, Callie is quickly realizing that it’s also putting her smack-dab in the middle of a 2 vs. 1 scenario and NOT in the way she might’ve anticipated.  While Arizona and Mark do want what’s best for the baby, they’re kind of forgetting that making the mother miserable isn’t going to help anyone.  Callie’s not being irresponsible or unreasonable in what she’s asking for.  She’s not putting herself or the baby at risk.  SHE JUST WANTS ONE CUP OF COFFEE.  And, in the end, Arizona and Mark know that a little bit of compromise is a small price to pay for a happy home life.   Which is maybe a lesson that Lexie needs to learn, too…

Lexie’s dealing with the P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing) referenced in the episode’s title.   This is actually how we writers referred to Thatcher Grey’s twenty-seven-year-old girlfriend, before we dubbed her “Dani.”  Here’s the thing.  I have a little experience dealing with “Dad’s New Girlfriend,” myself.  I was in college when my dad met the woman who has since become my stepmother.  Sure,  my dad had the good sense to choose someone who was age appropriate, but it’s still a strange thing when you’ve grown up seeing your parent a certain way, then are suddenly forced to see him as someone who goes on dates with a lady you’ve only just this moment met at a barbecue.  I think I handled the situation with a little more grace than Lexie is initially able to muster.  I’m pretty sure I’ve never screamed in my stepmom’s face. For one reason, it’s because like Dani, my stepmom’s actually a lovely person.  But also, as Shonda once put it in the writers’ room when we discussed this episode - when it comes to family, you’ve got to get onboard or you’re going to lose them.  It takes a lecture from Meredith and something like fifteen peanut butter cups from Jackson to get Lexie to figure this point out, but she does come around.  She might not love the idea of Dani, but she loves her father and if not losing her relationship with him means being nice to a tattooed lady, then so be it.

And what about Jackson and those peanut butter cups?  It would seem that while Jackson’s at first open to Mark’s offer of trading awesome surgeries for information on Lexie, something changes while he watches her eat that candy and talk and talk and talk… Earlier in the episode, Jackson insists to Mark that he and Lexie aren’t close, but they sure do seem to be a bit closer by the end of the day.  So much so that Jackson is willing to miss out on surgeries that might help him win Chief Resident if it means keeping Lexie’s secrets.  I’ve said it before, but I find Lexie Grey incredibly charming.  And from the look on Jackson’s face at the end of the episode, something tells me he’s starting to as well… 

Meredith, on the other hand, is not as charmed by Lexie today.  And that’s because she’s simply not worried about her dad and his girlfriend.  Dani makes Thatcher happy?  Awesome.  Mazel tov.  If Dani wants to be there to hold Thatcher’s hand while he deals with a kidney stone, then it means that Meredith doesn’t have to do it.  Which is fantastic, because Meredith seriously doesn’t have the time.  Not only is she dealing with all the work that comes with an Alzheimer’s Clinical Trial, but now The Chief’s offering her what could be an even more prestigious Clinical Trial – a Clinical Trial based on Ellis Grey’s research.  

As we put this story together, we always knew that we wanted Meredith to decide to stick with Derek’s Alzheimer’s Trial, but we weren’t always clear on WHY.  We knew it felt right to us, but we weren’t sure what Meredith’s reasons would be.  At a certain point it was pitched that Meredith would decide that the Alzheimer’s trial belonged to her, while the diabetes trial belonged to her mother - Meredith wanted to make a name for herself under her own steam.  And while that may still be partly true, it ultimately didn’t feel completely right.   Further discussion brought us to the real heart of the matter: Richard is offering Meredith the chance to complete Ellis’ work – to ensure her professional legacy.  Derek is offering Meredith the chance to cure her mother’s disease.  Richard suggests that Ellis’s research is Meredith’s birthright.  But what Ellis really left Meredith was first-hand experience of just how terrifying a disease Alzheimer’s can be and the drive to keep others from having to go through that, too.

Okay, so fine.  My problem isn’t really all that high-stakes when compared to curing diseases or whatever.  In fact, my moment has come and gone and chances are you missed it completely.  But, I promise you this: my mom sure didn’t.  And I have a feeling this half-second of screen time is going to follow me around for a while yet. 

Austin’s Mom: “Did you see Austin on Grey’s? No?  Well, here, I have it cued up on my phone…”

Austin’s Mom’s friend: “Which one’s Austin?  The one who looks like Santa Claus, age 29?”

Whatever.  That’s the price you pay when you’re a super-star.

 

Mark Wilding on "Don't Deceive Me (Please Don't Go)"...

Original Airdate: 2-3-11

I've tried acting once in my life.  I managed to snag the lead role in my high school's production of "The Admirable Crichton."  I played an English butler who's treated very poorly by the upper class British family who employs him -- particularly by the family's three daughters.  Eventually the family gets stranded on a desert island.  The three daughters all fall in love with Crichton on the island because he's very take charge and very handy and saves everyone's lives (he's also VERY good-looking).  In the end Crichton has to decide whether or not to signal to a passing ship that the family is stranded.  The daughters beg him not to -- they love their new life AND him -- but Crichton does the right and proper thing and sends up the signal flares even though it means returning to his life as the family's dutiful butler.    

It's a great play and I got the role because I could do a passable English accent and I was tall.  It wasn't because I could actually ACT.  Because I couldn't.  I SUCKED.  I could never get over a case of stage fright.  My performance was wooden.  And I squinted the whole time because my drama teacher didn't want me to wear my glasses.  If I'd been in the audience I would've booed me off the stage.  Or at least asked for my money back.  Which is probably why, today, I really admire actors.  Acting is NOT easy.  It is hard.  We have a dozen wonderful actors on the show -- our regulars.  Week in and week out they bring Grey's to life in fun, surprising ways.  But a lot of times a story line will succeed or fail depending on our guest stars.  I was lucky enough to get FANTASTIC guest stars for this episode and I want to acknowledge each of them.    

The first great acting performance for my episode was turned in by Angela Paton.  She played Martha, the woman who came in to get a quadruple bypass.  She also played the hotel proprietor in "Groundhog Day".  She was wonderful in the episode, a perfect foil in the battle between Cristina and Jackson to do her heart grafts.  She went from funny in the first scene to heartbreaking in the pre-op scene where she wonders if she should go through with the heart surgery.  I love it when she got ANGRY at the thought of being a possible burden to her kids.  That wasn't written.  That was the actor really, truly bringing the words to life in a surprising, believable way.  As for the story itself -- when Cristina convinces Martha to have the operation, I think she's doing it from a place of real compassion.  She's not just doing it so she can perform a surgery she hasn't performed before.  In that sense, I think Cristina has grown since the shooting at the hospital.  She's a little more empathetic.  After all, she knows what it is to be really and truly scared now.     

Three more guest actors who were just plain excellent were L. Scott Caldwell, Harrison Page and Hugh Holub.  They played, respectively, Daniel's wife, Daniel, and Victoria's husband.  The scene where a confused, frightened Daniel is demanding to see Victoria required pitch perfect acting and Harrison delivered and then some.  All of the actors' performances combined to create an underlying sadness to the story that I was seeking from the first moment we started discussions about it in the writers' room.

I'm glad that the show is once again tackling Alzheimer's.  It's a theme that we always come back to.  The reason, of course, is that early onset Alzheimer's led to the premature death of Meredith's mother.  The question is will that genetic craps roll be passed on to Meredith?  Will she end up like Ellis?  It's what drives Meredith to get on the trial and, as Alex tells Derek in his very Alex way -- "Your wife is the only person twisted enough to handle this crap."  

The truth is -- in that annoyingly inconvenient thing called real life -- no cure has been found for Alzheimer's.  And as much as we'd like to find one in our show, that's not going to happen.  We're very strict about that on Grey's.  The show never outraces the real world when it comes to medical breakthroughs.  We report what's out there.  We turn medical cases and medical research into stories.  But if it hasn't happened in real life, if a cure hasn't been found, we don't say that it has.  That would be a huge disservice to our audience.  That said, the cool thing is that now Meredith and Derek are back working together on a trial.  And whether they find a cure or not, they're always great to watch.  

The main story line, of course, introduced a guest star who'll be coming back for future episodes.  Rachael Taylor plays Dr. Lucy Fields, who has to handle the "hormone casserole" that Callie's turned in to.  Lucy also has to navigate the treacherous waters of three doctors who think they know it all.  Rachael did a great job with the role.  She was equal parts tough, ironic and empathetic -- just what we pictured for the character.  As for our three doctors and a baby -- that story is huge.  It's tough enough to raise a kid when there are only one or two parents in the picture.  But three parents?  With everyone having different opinions??  Not fun.  These days we always hear that it takes a village.  But what if the folks in that village have never really liked each other?  Arizona is NOT Mark's biggest fan.  She's not going to suddenly think he's a great addition to the family.  Obviously the situation's going to involve a lot of sacrifices for all three of our doctors.  Sadly for Mark, the first thing he has to sacrifice is his relationship with Lexie.  Which makes it twice now that he's dropped the baby bombshell on her -- first with the grandson he wanted to raise and now with baby number two.  If any relationship were toast, it would definitely be Mark and Lexie's.  As much as we, the writers, would like to rescue it (they're SO good together) it may be beyond our powers.  

My final story line didn't involve guest stars.  The Chief's struggle with Twitter pretty much encapsulates how I approach technology.  I fear it.  And once you fear something, be it your neighbor's dog or your iMac or, yes, getting up on stage for the school play, the object of your fear knows it and it acts accordingly.  Which is to say, it comes after you.  It grabs you and shakes you and tries to maul you to death.  Thank God I have two teenage sons.  I constantly call them in to my office at home if I want to, say, forward an email or copy and paste a document.  They mutter to themselves, clearly disappointed in my techno-idiocy, then they click the mouse a couple of times and the impossible task is done.  For me, the cool thing about the story is that it launches Richard into the future.  But to do so, he has to, via Ellis's journals, go back to the past.  In a sense, the journals are his flares, alerting the medical community that they haven't heard the last of Richard Webber.  And believe me, as that story line heats up during the last half of our season, none of you will be wanting your money back...