Grey's Anatomy: Grey Matter

Austin Guzman on "That's Me Trying"...

Original Airdate: 11-4-10

To begin, let me spin you a little yarn: 

Once upon a time, waaaay back in the distant year of Two-Thousand-and-Seven, I found myself faced with a question that I had not seen coming.  At all.

I had spent the past year working as an IT (computers and junk) assistant for a company owned by a pair of famous twins.  I won’t say which famous twins, but I will say that their names rhymed with Shmary-Shmate and Shmashley Shmolsen.  It was a lovely job, paid better than any I’d had before and, even though I hardly knew a thing about computers, I was able to adequately fake my way through fixing a paper-jam in the copy machine.  

One day, while hiding in my cubicle and praying that this wasn’t the day the Internet chose to burn down, I got an e-mail from a buddy of mine.  Turned out he’d recently gotten a call from Elizabeth Klaviter, who was then Head of Research at a TV show called Grey’s Anatomy.  They were looking for a new Writers’ PA and since this buddy knew I wanted to one day be a writer myself, he thought I might be interested. 

Here’s the part of the story where I start to look like the biggest idiot in the history of big idiots:  I was all like, “Um, maybe.  I don’t know.  Let me think about it.”  

IN MY DEFENSE: 

1) The IT Assistant job was SUPER comfy and I had recently been given the opportunity to write for the company’s website, shmaryshmateandshmashley.com.

2) TV shows seemed like risky business.  Weren’t they always getting cancelled for one reason or the other?  I knew my girlfriend liked Grey’s. And the receptionist at work always asked on Friday whether I’d watched it the night before.  But how long could a show really last? 

3) I was a big dumb moron.

To make a long, boring story short: I said, “Well, why not?” and applied for the job.  And I got it.   And once I actually took the time to watch the show I was about to work on, I was all like: “OH, MAN.  THIS SHOW IS GREAT!”  Two years later, I was promoted to Writers’ Assistant and allowed to write and produce a couple of episodes of the webisode series Seattle Grace: On Call.  Now, we find ourselves in Season Seven, and here I’ve gone and written my very first episode of television.   

Turns out: Best decision I’ve ever made.  Ever.  In my life.  For real. 

I tell you this long, semi-braggy story for two reasons:  

REASON #1: to let you know that while this is the first time you’ve seen my name next to “written by,” I’ve actually been here behind the scenes for a while.  In fact, if you happen to check out the Production Staff credit on THIS VERY EPISODE, you’ll see that I’m listed there, too.  I’m more than familiar with what happens here at the Writer’s Blog.  I’ve moderated your comments.  I’ve gotten to know your handles.  I even know that at this point I can expect a whole bunch of comments along the lines of WE DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU OR YOUR DUMB LIFE.  TELL US ABOUT THE EPISODE.    

REASON #2: To illustrate just how life-changing a simple Q&A can be.  “Will you apply for this job?” “Yes, I will.”  BLAM.  Life.  Changed.  

Which is how I oh-so-subtly segue into the portion of the blog you actually came here to read.  You know, the part about the characters and stuff. 

So, like me on that fateful day in 2007, this episode finds each of our characters faced with a question that needs answering.   Richard tries to figure out just what he’s supposed to do now that he’s losing both Arizona AND Callie to the children of Malawi.  The answer he comes to?  Be a big damned passive-aggressive baby.  And you know what?  It might not solve his problem, but it sure as hell makes him feel better.  There are few things I enjoy as much as the Chief being a petty, little jerk.  We almost NEVER see him this way and when that side comes out?  Delightfully bitchy.

Less delightful is Callie’s answer to the question “How do I deal with the fact that I said I’d go to Africa when I really don’t want to.”  Like Richard, she chooses passive-aggression.  And while I’m personally delighted by Callie’s rant about how she’ll spend her time in Africa (blood diamonds, dirt and elephant ivory), Arizona is not in the least bit charmed.  In fact, Callie’s attitude threatens to ruin what is supposed to be the greatest thing Arizona’s ever had the chance to do.  And while it hurts her SO MUCH to do it, she knows that she and Callie are in a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t situation.  If Callie comes to Africa, they’ll come to hate each other.  If Callie stays behind, the relationship will die.  I can’t say that I entirely blame Arizona for walking away.  At the very same time, I also entirely get where Callie is coming from.  And at the very, very same time, I understand why every single Calzona shipper will want to burn me in effigy after tonight’s episode.  Just know that I love you.  And I never meant to hurt you.

Then there’s Derek and Bailey.  Derek spends his day trying to apply for grants, but never really gets past a single sentence in his proposal.  Which is crazy.  He understands what he wants to do, whom he wants to help, and what kind of good a clinical trial like this can do.  So what’s the problem?  Sometimes, it takes someone outside of the situation to be able to see where we’re going wrong, why we’re struggling.  And for Derek, it’s Bailey.  Derek might not be able to see why he’s so stuck on Ellis Grey, early onset Alzheimer’s, and the thirty-two-year-old who can’t recognize her own kid.  But for Bailey – and for the rest of us – that answer is really pretty evident…

And Bailey… I don’t enjoy watching Bailey suffer.  I really don’t.  There’s a moment in the season six finale – I think you know the one I’m talking about.  Outside of the elevators?  When she knows for a fact that there’s nothing she can do for Charles?  And she gets down on the floor with him, takes him into her lap… Jeez Louise.  I can’t take that.  So now, here she is with Mary, searching for an answer as to why this girl died.  And coming up against a pathologist, who seems to be nowhere near invested enough.  Like Dr. Stanley, I hate that Bailey was unable to find the answer she needed today.  But I love that Bailey takes that loss and refuses to accept it.  She’s going to be full of fire moving forward and I can’t wait to see what she does with it. 

Also full of fire?  April Kepner.  When she comes running at Alex after “winning” the trauma lab?  Looking and sounding CRAZILY like Jessie the Cowgirl from the Toy Story movies?  I just hope you dug that as much as I did.  I also hope you dug Alex in the bar at the end when he imitates her scream at Owen. “MOVE OR I’LL RUN YOU DOWN.”  There’s this thing that happens when you write dialogue into a script - you can hear in your head just how you think the actor will say it.  Sometimes you’re right.  Other times you’re completely surprised (and usually pleasantly) by how differently they decide to interpret the words.   With this line, though?  Justin Chambers did EXACTLY what I’d hoped he would.   Except he did it about a billion times funnier.  

Which brings us to Meredith and Cristina. There are sooooo many questions rolling around in the Cristina/Meredith story this week.  Why is Cristina really being so cold to Meredith? Just because of a little thing that Mer said during Seattle Med?  Seems extreme.  Can Cristina actually keep Roy alive long enough to get his new lungs?  Can Cristina ever again be the surgeon she once was? 

And you saw the episode, so you know how that all shook out.  Rightly or wrongly, Cristina blames Meredith for her trauma.  Yes, Cristina can keep Roy alive long enough to get his new lungs and she CAN be a first-rate doctor, even though she realizes that this just isn’t working for her anymore.  It’s too hard, the joy is gone, and even when she succeeds, all she can feel is fear.  Cristina Yang can still be a can be a surgeon.  She simply no longer wants to be one.

Really, though, the most interesting question as far as I’m concerned is one that’s raised toward the end of the episode:

Meredith went through just as much trauma as anyone during the shooting, if not more.  So why is Meredith fine?

That’s a question that is just going to have to wait for an answer.  I’m just a baby writer.  It’s going to take someone with a whole lot more juice than me to crack that nut. 

Speaking of big-ticket writers, I want to thank the staff here in the Grey’s Anatomy writers’ office (past and present) for taking a chance on me way back at the beginning of season four, and then for helping me grow both as a writer and as a person, providing me with greater opportunities than I could have ever hoped for. Shonda, Krista, Hammer, Tony (O Director, My Director), Joan, Debora (oh my God, Debora), Allan, Zoanne, Pete, Jenna, Bill, Stacy, Natalie, Brian, Denise, Darren, Meg, Raamla and Tia.  And, just because I can, I’ll thank my Mom and Dad.   Mostly because I know they’re reading this and I don’t think I’ll hear the end of it come Thanksgiving if I don’t.

ONE LAST LITTLE THING ABOUT ME WHILE I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION:

So, you know how each and every episode of Grey’s is titled after a pop-song?  Well, when it came to titling this episode, things suddenly became super serious for me.  For all I knew, this could be my only shot at titling one of these things and I had to make sure I picked just the right song.  I sorted through CDs, shuffled through my iPod, looking, looking, looking…  and then I found it: “That’s Me Trying.”  Co-written by Ben Folds and Nick Hornby (who are the best), actually about a man trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter (topical), and performed by one of the most entertaining men OF ALL TIME…

William Shatner.

So, I guess I must have been wrong way back in paragraph 8.  THIS was the best decision I’ve ever made.

 

Stacy McKee on "These Arms of Mine"...

Original Airdate: 10-28-10

So here’s a thing you probably don’t know about me. Long before there was a Grey’s I used to curl up in bed with my husband (long before he was my husband) and watch medical shows. Not scripted medical shows – but those documentary shows with real life patients and real life doctors. I was particularly fond of watching surgeries – the more gory and graphic, the better. (Now that I think about it, I was a little obsessed with surgery, not unlike our Grey’s residents – but that’s not the point.)

The point is that, this summer, as I was enjoying my last few days of maternity leave, I found myself searching for a new medical show to watch.  I was hoping I’d find something inspiring.  Or, at the very least, something with a cool surgical idea I could pitch when I went back to work the next week… 

See, at the beginning of every season, it’s our assignment to walk in with ideas for the upcoming year.  Big ideas, little ideas.  Any ideas, really, to jumpstart everyone’s sleepy brains.  And I was coming off of maternity leave.  I hadn’t written an episode of Grey’s since 2009.  My brain was very, very sleepy. 

Enter, Boston Med.

Now, for those of you who missed it, Boston Med was a documentary-style medical show that aired this summer on ABC.  It was pretty great.  So as I was lying there, watching Boston Med online (really quietly so as not to wake the sleeping baby in my lap) I was – as it turns out – totally inspired.  Not by a particular medical case or a patient or a doctor – but by the show itself.  By the entire medical-documentary genre.  I LOVE these shows.  They always suck me in.  They always make me cry.  Why couldn’t I turn an episode of Grey’s into one of these shows?

Turns out, I could.

Luckily, Shonda was totally on board with the idea.  She pretty much let me run with it– which was AWESOME.  And as it turns out… REALLY REALLY HARD.  

I can’t tell you how many times, as I was trying to wrap my brain around how exactly to turn an episode of Grey’s into something that was Not-Grey’s-But-Still-Grey’s-But-Not, I just kicked myself.  I mean, really? I had to pitch THIS episode as my first episode back? I was already feeling totally rusty and I was pretty sure I’d completely forgotten how to string two sentences together – let alone write a whole script -– and here I was trying to come up with a totally new kind of episode??  Was I crazy????

Probably.  But I wrote the thing anyway – all 135 scenes of it (to give you an idea of how crazy that is, a typical Grey’s script is around 48 – 52 scenes.) And so… here we are. 

Seattle Medical: Road to Recovery.

The best part about writing this episode was getting to break our usual Grey’s Anatomy rules. I was able to tell stories in a completely different way.  In fact, it was essential I approach the stories differently.  I had to think like a documentary filmmaker.  And that was seriously fun.

For instance, for the first time in Grey’s Anatomy history, we were able to go home with our patients.  We see where they live, what kind of car they drive, what their living rooms look like.  We never do that. 

I was also able to have patient scenes that did not include any of our Grey’s doctors.  That’s one of the things that really struck me about Boston Med.  The testimonials from the patients and their families were always so compelling – I wanted to mimic that here.  One of my favorite testimonials in this episode is the one Nicole, the arm donor’s wife, gives about her husband getting his tattoo.  It’s somehow so much more emotional having her talk to the camera instead of talking to one of our doctors.  It’s like she’s talking directly to us.

Which is why I love the Meredith and Cristina interviews.  I think Richard probably asked Mer and Cristina to sit down for the cameras, as the face of the Seattle Grace residency program.  And as the resident twisted sisters, Mer and Cristina are bound and determined NOT to reveal anything true or real about themselves.  They plan to put on a show and be all perky and happy and charming and not dark or twisty at all.  Which works for a while, until it all begins to unravel. 

What I love is watching Meredith take on such a maternal role toward Cristina.  She knows that Cristina has been struggling, and she sees Cristina beginning to crack under the pressure of the interview, so she jumps in and tries to help her best friend out.  Mer’s trying to protect Cristina.  But what’s interesting is that, the minute Mer steps in, Cristina can’t go on with the interview.   There’s some residual Mer/Cristina friction that we’re only seeing a tiny little glimpse of here, and this type of episode is the perfect way to bring that to the surface.

Also – I was able to end the stories differently, by using the chyrons.  Take Mary’s story – we don’t see the moment where her husband actually pulls the plug, but we read about it on the bottom of the screen.  I tried to end all of the stories with an interesting final punch like that.  Sometimes with something funny, like how the hospital’s fancy new security measures were ultimately removed.  Sometimes with something moving, like how the arm transplant guy got a tattoo under his tattoo that read, “thank you.”  Or something that just makes us fall in love with one of our people, like when you find out that Lily took Alex Karev to her fourth grade class for show and tell.

By the way, I don’t know about you, but I am now FULLY in love with Alex Karev.  I mean, I kinda already was in love with him, but now I really, really am.   When he’s singing to Lily in the MRI booth??? I mean, COME ON. (Side Note: Justin actually has a really good voice, so he practiced for weeks before we shot this scene to make himself sound more like a guy who wasn’t really a singer, but who was really trying to sing.  Adorable.)  

But the moment that really makes me fall in love with Alex Karev is when he holds the trachea up from its petri dish and says: “Check it out. Home grown trachea.” And then he gives us that little smile.  Love it.  Love seeing Alex get all excited about medicine.  And I love seeing him be there for Lily – even sleeping in the parent cot – because she’s alone and her own parent can’t be there.  Love.  Alex.  Karev.

Another great thing about an episode like this was getting to pick and choose the moments that would actually be caught by the camera crew.  For instance, there’s no way Callie and Arizona would have a heated argument in front of cameras, so we only catch a tiny little bit of it on screen.  But the moment is so much more interesting and tense because what we do see is Callie trying to put a spin on it later.  Even though she’s trying to be diplomatic for the cameras, her real feelings are crystal clear. It’s obvious she’s angry and hurt and upset – and she manages to convey all of it with a smile on her face for the cameras. So, so, so cool.

I did try to preserve a few of our usual Grey’s motifs – like our typical final montage.  I did a Seattle Medical version of it.  Because Cristina cut her interview short in the previous act, I felt that the documentary crew would probably, four weeks later, have asked her to come in and complete the interview.  And at this point, I think Cristina has pulled herself together, steeled herself for the interview, and rehearsed her talking points.  She is ready to rattle off exactly what she thinks they want to hear, and nothing more.  She is not about to lose it in front of the camera again.  She is ready.  And Sandra played it beautifully.  The words are articulate, but hollow.  You can tell she doesn’t actually believe them for a minute.  And there is only the slightest hint of vulnerability when she answers the final question. 

I loved being able to use that interview as the final voice over.  And I loved that the montage was a series of moments the Seattle Medical crew probably filmed as B role, throughout the day, not knowing how or where they would fit into the episode. Some of the moments are so mundane – Derek walking down a hallway or Meredith working in the ER.  And others are just so horrible, like Bailey crying on the gurney.  (By the way, when we shot that scene, even though it’s silent and even though it’s literally just Chandra on a gurney with her head in her hands – when we shot it, there wasn’t a dry eye on set.  THAT’S how amazing Chandra Wilson is.  Just saying.)

The other thing I love about the ending to the episode is that, in that final scene, it’s the only time in the entire episode we hear the off camera interviewer. There’s this flicker that crosses Cristina’s face, before she answers with, “being a hero has its price.” It’s the most honest she has been all episode, probably all season.  I love that it takes a camera crew full of strangers to bring such honesty to the surface, when Cristina has not yet been able to be that honest with her husband, her best friend, or even, really, herself.

So, in the end, I guess it’s good I’m a crazy medical junkie so intent on enjoying my last few days of maternity leave.  Because ordinarily, I never have time to just curl up in bed and watch TV.  Which is how I stumbled across Boston Med.  Which was the inspiration for this entire episode.  Which was, as it turns out, unbelievably fun to write. 

Now I just hope the baby on my lap wasn’t scarred by waking up in the middle of me watching all that gory, gory medical stuff.  Hopefully not.  Maybe she’ll just grow up to be a medical junkie like me.

 

Brian Tanen on "Almost Grown"...

Original Airdate: 10-21-10

For those of you super-fans looking at my name and scratching your heads, you’re not wrong – I’m new. 

Before starting the job, I had actually never missed an episode of the show.  You’d think that having been a Grey’s fan from the start, I could just slide right in and know exactly what I was talking about.  But you’d be wrong.  The show is rife with back-story, and characters, and details.  It’s a delicate balance finding medical stories that are strange and interesting, without being too wacky or impossible.  Watching the other writers break stories, I realized quickly that each episode is its own little puzzle to solve.   And with many of the writers having been there since the beginning, I felt a bit like a kid at Thanksgiving – are you guys sure you want me to sit here with the adults?  Because I’m pretty comfy here at the kiddie table.

Which brings me (in my roundabout way) to this episode.   We really wanted to do an episode where our residents were forced to “grow up” in a way – to be taken from their respective comfort zones, and thrown into the fire.  Shonda pitched a “Residents-take-point-day” – a day where our doctors would take charge of patient care from start to finish, without the guidance of their attendings.  All the responsibility, no safety net.  It’s one thing to want to be a surgeon, but another thing entirely to hold a drill in your hand, and burrow into a person’s skull.  

For Meredith, the challenge wasn’t the least bit daunting.  Mer probably didn’t have much of a childhood, what with Ellis being all career-obsessed, and Thatcher being absent. The idea of “no safety net” doesn’t much bother a person who never really had one to begin with.   I think Mer had to be an adult at a pretty young age, and this is why she’s so strong when life throws her an endless number of curveballs.  In fact, Mer is so sure she’s ready for the day’s challenge, she barely remembers that she has to compete with Jackson for the brain surgery.  He hustles her into believing that he’s a klutz with the surgical drill, and then he kicks her ass during their skills lab competition.  It’s a pretty childish way for Jackson to earn some adult responsibility, and karma turns out to be a bitch when he botches the surgery he stole out from under Meredith.  If you’re noticing that Jackson’s been a little off his game this season, you’re onto us. Something’s up with him.  Stay tuned. 

Alex finds himself on a slam-dunk case featuring his two favorite specialties – plastics and peds.  It should be a no-brainer for him, but he runs into a bit of snag with his thirteen-year-old patient’s mother – who’s suddenly reticent to let her kid have surgery for his gynecomastia (aka “man boobs”).  The tricky part of Alex’s day is “parent management.”  He knows he can rock the medical, but how do you convince a very strong, vocal mom with cold feet? Because sometimes stepping up to the plate isn’t just about excelling at surgery; it’s about standing up for the patient.

For me, Cristina’s reaction to this “residents-take-point-day” is the most interesting and unexpected.  In any other season, Cristina would have relished this kind of responsibility, but in light of her recent trauma, she spends the episode looking like a deer caught in headlights.   I love the scene where the Chief hands out navy blue scrubs, telling the residents that they are attendings for the day.  Sandra Oh played the scene beautifully as though the navy scrubs were a punch to the gut.  With only a look, we know that she is not up for the challenge today.   And though Cristina ends up with a win, we can tell that she’s still a shadow of her former self.

I’d be completely remiss not to mention the superhuman efforts of Chandra Wilson on this episode.  The episode was a little light on Dr. Bailey, and the reason was because she was behind the camera, directing the thing!  Is there anything this lady can’t do?  Aside from being an incredibly talented actress, Chandra is also an accomplished director – this being the third episode of Grey’s that she has directed.   On more than one occasion, I’d walk onto set and find Chandra alone, talking to herself, lining up every camera angle of the upcoming scenes in her head.  She sort of looks like she’s conducting an imaginary orchestra when she does it, and it’s kind of funny and amazing to watch. 

Finally, what’d you all think about the Chief’s cryptic suggestion that things would be “different” around Seattle Grace in the coming weeks?  In the previous week’s episode Chief Webber was scrounging around for money, and suddenly in this one, he’s got a million dollar surplus?  I’m sworn to secrecy, but I can safely say that next week’s episode is a doozy, and completely unlike any other episode of Grey’s Anatomy you’ve seen before…

 

Pete Nowalk on "Can't Fight Biology"...

Original Airdate: 10-14-10

Here’s something not many people know about me.  I’m a good dancer.  Okay, that’s a bit modest.  I’m an amazing dancer.  I went to Juilliard on a scholarship.  I trained with the same teacher as Baryshnikov.  Currently I perform with a Los Angeles troupe that specializes in a combination of hip-hop, jazz, and disco.  I am the head soloist.

That’s a lie.  I lied.  I’m not a dancer.  I just wish I was.  I want to be like one of those kids on So You Think You Can Dance.  I just can’t dance.  Because when I do I resemble Elaine on Seinfeld.  In fact I’d call it flailing more than dancing.  I even punched a girl in the face when I flailed too hard at a club one time.  I blame my parents.  They didn’t pass down dancing genes.  They passed down chicken leg genes.  Yeah, you should see me in a pair of shorts.  Legs only good for one thing – running.  Not dancing.  But oh how I love to bust out my bold moves on the dancefloor...  I digress.

Genes were kind of the theme of this episode.  Well, biology to be more specific, but genes are part of that.   We wanted to explore that age-old question of nature vs. nurture.  What makes us who we are?  Is it our DNA?  Our upbringing?  A combo platter??  

What better way to explore this question than through Meredith.  We’ve known since the pilot that Meredith, like Ellis, might carry the gene for Early Onset Alzheimer’s.  She just hasn’t gotten tested for the gene yet.  I get it.  It’d be terrifying to find out you had an expiration date.  Think about it.  What would you do?  Be like Meredith’s patient Lila and spend the rest of your life travelling and sleeping around?  Ditch your job and pursue the dreams you put on hold?  Or would you stay the same – setting your alarm everyday, exercising routinely, hoping that some amazing doctors will find a cure before D-day comes?  See – expiration dates are a lot of pressure.  It’s so much easier to think you’ve got years left to mess around and sleep late and put off carpe diem-ing until tomorrow.  That’s probably what Meredith’s been thinking for the last six seasons.  But now she wants to have a baby.  She has more than just herself to think about.  And, of course, now she finds out she has a hostile uterus.  MAN ALIVE!!

Meredith Grey doesn’t get many breaks in life.  Maybe it’s because of her upbringing, or maybe it’s something wonky about her DNA, but someone in the world has decided to deal her tons o’ crap.  Personally, it’s what makes me love her. No matter how many crappy things come her way, Meredith keeps on living and fighting and taking risks.  She’s got balls.  Derek reminds her that, expiration date or not, there’s no reason to think about it.  None of us can know what’ll come tomorrow so why not just throw caution to the wind and be.  So those test results?  They’ll stay in the lab, out of sight and out of mind.  I’m relieved.

Cristina’s got her own set of crap to deal with lately.  First up, house-hunting.   Biologically, there are two types of people in the world – those that buy fixer uppers and those that don’t.  (Okay, maybe not biologically, but I’m trying to weave a common thread through this blog so go with me).  I’m not a fixer upper kind of person.  My fridge currently contains a bottle of ketchup and three beers.  I can barely bring myself to grocery shop so how the hell would I ever manage picking out tile for a bathroom?  Cristina’s the same.  Still, she buys the firehouse…for Owen.  This tells us a lot about where she’s at mentally.  She’s lost when it comes to surgery but not with her marriage.  Instead she’s throwing herself in deeper.  It’s what the worm guy said – when you love something you hold on to it.  For Cristina, that’s Owen.  She’s becoming a fixer upper person for him.  So maybe it’s nurture after all.  (Btw, if you want to know more about why someone would eat worms check out Medical Research Meg’s blog: http://abc.go.com/shows/greys-anatomy/medical-case-file)

Let’s pose the nature vs. nurture question for Alex.  Dude is a good Peds surgeon.  This is a little unexpected.  You’d think plastics or trauma surgery would be the specialty he’d thrive in.  He’s tough, he doesn’t get emotional, he’s even a little insensitive sometimes.  But as he showed with our dancer kid, Jake, Alex has a way with kids.  He knew Jake needed to dance for Callie and Arizona, even though he personally couldn’t care less about ballet.  In fact, he probably thinks it’s lame.  But Alex got that dance is what makes Jake Jake.  It’s who he is.  Part of his biology.  Who knows why he ended up this way, especially with parents so different from him, but he is a dancer through and through.  Alex was able to save his leg because of it.  So maybe it’s in Alex’s nature to be a good Peds surgeon.  

Lexie’s Meredith’s sister.  Her biological sister.  They share blood.  So why the hell is Meredith treating April more like a sister than Lexie?  That’s the question running through Lexie’s mind this entire episode.  She doesn’t ask Mer this right away though.  Instead she gets jealous.  And hilarious.  I love watching Lexie be mean.  It’s probably because I’m the youngest child of three.  The youngest always dreams of the day they’ll have the power they never had growing up.  I’ll show you, basically.  That’s what I feel like Lexie’s doing to April in this episode.  She’s had to suffer under Mer and Cristina for years.  Now someone else can suffer.  That would be April.  

Poor April.  She tries so hard.  I don’t blame her.  She just wants to get along.  To belong.  Her best friend just died and now she’s living in this strange house.  A chore wheel is exactly the thing that will bond her to everyone!  What I really like about April in this episode is that somewhere, maybe even if it’s not conscious, she gets that Lexie’s anger isn’t personal, that she’s just the innocent victim.  Luckily, Lexie eventually admits this and confronts Meredith.  Cause who knows what pent up rage can do to you?  Hopefully not make you drive into a Laundromat.  (P.S. if you’re getting to that point, let me suggest talking to the person you’re mad at.  And some therapy.  Therapy never hurts.)  By the way, how awesome was Frances Conroy as the jilted Eleanor in this Laundromat story?  I’m a big fan of Six Feet Under so I was psyched when she agreed to take the part.  And that confession scene gives me the chills.  

Let’s talk about my favorite threesome on our show.  Callie, Arizona, and Mark.  As much as we’ve never stated it before I think it’s always been clear that Arizona and Mark don’t love each other.  They’re as different as two people can be.  For Callie, this bites.  No one likes to be caught between their best friend and significant other.  Usually these situations end up with the best friend getting the boot.  Callie’s not that kind of friend though.  Mark’s been there for her through everything.  So she pushes Arizona to try to be his friend.  The result?  Arizona asks Mark on a date.  What the hell did they talk about on this date?  Callie, I’m guessing.  What else do they have in common?  

Last but not least, Jackson got shirtless.  As you saw, that boy has good genes.  Great genes.  Not a chicken leg gene in sight.  I really have nothing more to say about this except…

You’re welcome.  

Have a great week everyone.

 

 

 

Mark Wilding on "Superfreak"...

Original Airdate: 10-7-10

I think one of the worst things you can tell a writer is write what you know.  Or a close corollary of that – write about your life.  If you put my life on a movie screen, the audience would demand their money back.  They wouldn’t just walk out of the theatre, they’d stampede the ushers in their rush to the exits.  Unless the ushers, bored to death themselves, had already quit their job and gone home.   As much as I really enjoy my job – I feel EXTREMELY fortunate that I get to work with a lot of fun people every day – my life itself is relatively boring. 

It’s divided into spending forever driving on the freeways, going to some event at my kids’ schools where none of the other parents talk to me, playing the occasional frustrating round of golf (Why aren’t I better than this??  I’ve been playing this sport for 40 years for God’s sake!!), having the occasional run-in with a rude department store clerk or bank employee and going out to dinner with my wife.  I like my wife so that part’s less boring.  She’s also kind enough to back me up after I’ve had my run-in with the rude store and/or bank employee.  Although, now that I think of it, she’s probably getting a little bored herself with my long-winded, self-justifying accounts of those run-ins. 

Little bits and pieces of my life do occasionally show up on Grey’s Anatomy.  Derek’s taking up golf.  I lobbied for that.  I also suggested he and Mark hit golf balls off the hospital roof last season.  I didn’t suggest the Derek storyline with his estranged sister – that was Shonda’s idea -- but it was an easy story for me to identify with.  I have a little sister who’s ten years younger than me.  We’re not estranged, far from it in fact, she’s great.  But, like Derek and his sister Amy, our dad died when I was 15 and she was five.  He wasn’t shot.  He had a heart attack.  And ever since then I’ve wanted to protect her from what’s out there in the world.  After all, that’s what older brothers do.  Protect their little sisters.  Because the world doesn’t always make you feel good about yourself.  In fact, more often than not, the world makes you feel like you don’t belong.  Like you’ve missed out on the joke.  Like you’re, yes… a freak.  

Yup, that was the theme of my episode.  Freaks.  Because basically we are all Treemen.  Physically, we may not have the warts but metaphorically we sure as hell do.  Especially when I go to these damn school functions where nobody talks to me.  Nobody!  And, by the way, it’s not like I don’t make the effort – I DO!  I ask the other parents about themselves and their wonderfully accomplished and oh so brilliant children (I’m never this sarcastic with them, I promise) but, even then, even with all the effort I’m putting into the conversation, they start looking around like they want to talk to someone, ANYONE, but me!!  THEY CAN’T LOOK AT ME.  Yes, suddenly I’M A TREEMAN!!  At a PTA Meeting!!! 

By the way, most of you probably already know this -- the Treeman is based on a true story about a guy whose warts have grown so out of control he looks like, well, a tree.  If our depiction of him wasn’t gross enough for you, you can go to YouTube and watch him in his home in the Philippines.  You can also watch the operations to remove all his warts and disturbing-looking growths.  In my episode though, the story is really about his long-suffering wife (played wonderfully by Jolene Kim; kudos also to the angry Treeman in my episode – Art Chudabala -- he was great.  Also extremely patient, it took our make-up department FIVE HOURS every day to put on all those warts and growths).  Emotionally, the story plays on Mark when Mrs. Treeman wonders if love is enough to keep a couple together.  That even though you desperately love someone, you’re at such different points in your life, it just can’t work.  Which is a very sad realization for Mark when it comes to Lexie.  

Meantime, Lexie’s doing her very best to empathize with the Treeman.  After all, she’s been in his shoes.  For the first couple of episodes she was the one everybody in the hospital was staring at.  We never comment on Lexie’s state of mind until the end of the episode but, after being committed, Lexie thinks the world sees her as kind of a freak.  Or as she puts it – “a psycho running naked down the hallway.”  But even her empathy for freaks can’t prevent her from having a thing about warts.  By the way, when we were coming up with the story in the room, one of the writers was so grossed out by even the mention of warts, we had to call them puppies.  Which, yes, made this writer a little bit of a freak.  And yes, this writer has given me permission to use her name.  This writer was Krista Vernoff.  You know how Bailey jumped ten feet back when she saw the spider?  That was Krista every time we mentioned warts.  Sorry.  Puppies… 

The other love story we got to play in the episode was Teddy with the trauma shrink, Andrew Perkins.  Teddy gets to have her freakishness explained to her near the end of the episode.  What’s her problem?  Simple.  She chooses men who aren’t available!  Bam.  Wouldn’t it be great if somebody could do that for us in our every day lives?  Maybe some helpful parent would tell me that the reason the other parents at school functions turn away from me is that I’m boring.  Or that I’m such a brilliant conversationalist they feel they can’t keep up.  Yeah, I like that one.  I’m going with that one for now. 

The nice thing about having a big cast is that you get to mix and match the characters in a hundred different ways.  You don’t often get to see Derek and Cristina together in a story line – they’re not tremendously fond of each other – but she did save his life.  We hadn’t played any of the fallout from that yet this season.  We got our chance to do so in this episode and it made me wonder why the heck we don’t have these two actors together more often.  Patrick and Sandra were FANTASTIC together.  Of course, the sad part of the story was that despite Derek’s best intentions, Cristina is nowhere near healed.  At this point she might, in fact, be the biggest freak at Seattle Grace.  Her PTSD is crippling.  The question remains --will she ever come back from what happened? 

Finally, there’s the subject of April’s virginity and the fact it makes her feel like a freak.  I’m happy with the way we handled the story.  Callie once called Seattle Grace high school with scalpels.  When the other residents find out about April, they react the way high schoolers might react – with some incredulity and a fair amount of cruelty.  Which is what makes April’s speech at the end so affecting.  Her virginity ISN’T drinks conversation.  And she points out that, after this shooting, they’ve all become freaks in their own way.  It’s how they cope.  Which is why I think I play golf.  It helps me escape, if only for a few hours, the things life throws at me – the long drives to work, the run-ins with store clerks, the indifferent reception by private school parents.  And as frustrating as the sport can be, it’s also really really hard.  Most people can’t play it well.  Most people feel less good about themselves when they’re out on the course.  And I guess that’s what I like about it so much.  Because when that many people feel they can’t do something, you’ve joined the brotherhood of golfing freaks.  And it doesn’t matter how good you are, at some point, anyone who’s every played the game has walked off the 18th hole feeling like a failure.  There’s camaraderie in our ineptness.  And for that, I am profoundly comforted and more than a little grateful…

Bill Harper on "Shock to the System"...

 Original Airdate: 9-30-10

Over the summer, the question I was most often asked about Grey’s was:  “How do you come back from something like that?”   These people weren’t asking me about the show, or the writers, they were asking about the characters.  The characters they know and like as if they were their own friends:  How will they come back from that?   Well, as of last week, Grey’s is back, but for our doctors, I think that question is still valid.  

 If you’ve ever lost someone, or been terribly hurt, I think it’s fair to say that no matter how good a job you’ve done grieving, no matter far you’ve gotten past the pain, you’re never really safe from feeling that loss again. You run across a picture.  A thing they gave you. You hear a song, or someone says a phrase, and suddenly that loss and pain is as present and immediate as if it was happening right now.  It’s a shock, a complete surprise and, like the original event itself, something you can never see coming, never prepare yourself for.  Because a trauma this immense doesn’t heal quickly.  It creates wounds so deep they won’t make themselves known for a long time to come.  And when they do, they blindside you.  

Last week, we saw how our doctors were trying to come back :  From rushing at life to grasping at love, to going mad, to posturing, to hiding from the pain, we saw the ways they were trying, and sometimes failing, to push through and heal.  But they’re not even really healing yet.  They’re coping.  

Cristina and Owen came together through trauma -- they met when he scooped an injured Cristina off the ER bay.  Then she saw Owen through his post-war struggles.   It seems almost inevitable that their wedding would also come out of trauma.   But after being so badly hurt in what is arguably her favorite place in the world – the O.R. --  Cristina barely knows herself now, that’s the reason she would be content to let Owen take the driver’s seat.  She can trust him, he’s the only thing she can count on right now.  But when his plan goes so horribly wrong in the OR --  when lightning strikes the same place twice -- she can no longer trust any of his decisions, or her own…She mistrusts the very impulse to marry him.   Her first, unavoidable instinct is to reverse everything she’s done.  

Alex is coping too, keeping that bullet in his chest like a badge of honor.  But it’s all posturing, the bravado, and the carelessness with which he talks about the health risks…All a front.  Because, though he doesn’t make a lot of noise about it, Alex isn’t a guy who lets himself off the hook very easily.  And Bailey’s right:  that bullet in his chest is a reminder – a constant token of his survivor’s guilt.  When Bailey finally relieves him of that burden, it’s a relief for not just her, but I hope that Alex gets to leave the guilt behind, too.  And maybe he can stop coping and start healing.

Lexie was losing sleep over the trauma, literally, to the extent that her incredibly hardworking mind is overtaxed to the breaking point.  But she’s picking herself up, trying to move on.  Unfortunately, she’s forced to do battle against the stigma of being the one who fell apart.  And sadly, Mark is the biggest casualty in that battle.  He’s got the right intention – he’s trying to protect her, be strong for her, basically, he just wants to love her.  Unfortunately, right now, what Lexie really needs to feel is that she’s the strongest person in her life.   

Callie and Arizona are certainly moving on -- facing the realities of taking It to the Next Level, where you really share your space, where no one is a guest in the place, and you find that you’re creating a whole new place for the pair of you, rather than the two of you.  This is a series of tiny, difficult negotiations that add up to one giant leap for a couple.  Of course, a disagreement about wall color is not life-and-death for their relationship.  It’s a hitch.  But it’s the beginning of a lot of give-and–take between two really strong women, and it will be great fun to watch where that goes.

Finally, Derek and Meredith… 

Derek is still living dangerously, in the OR and out of it.  I like his speech to the Chief about driving.  For one thing, Patrick Dempsey’s own passion for racing comes through pretty clearly in that speech.  But hopefully, it illuminates a little what he’s been after by racking up all these speeding tickets: it’s all about losing and regaining control, especially after his life went so completely out of control in the end of last season.

And Meredith’s going through a similar struggle.  Keeping herself busy by looking after everyone else, trying to make sure Alex is okay, that Cristina’s okay, that Lexie is okay, unable to see that the reason she’s not cleared for surgery is because she’s been refusing to attend to the deepest injury she received that day, the miscarriage.   It’s only when she admits it to Derek, that she can move past it; that she can admit that she has so little control over anything.  I think it’s interesting that at the same moment that Cristina’s marriage is breaking apart as a result of the shooting, Meredith’s is getting stronger, as many great partnerships are strengthened by adversity.  And it’s why Mer tells Cristina, basically, that whatever mistakes she’s made, being with Owen is not one of them.  And that she should stick.   I’m really glad she does.  

 

Krista Vernoff on "With You I'm Born Again"...

 

Original Airdate: 9-23-10

My favorite scene in this episode is the Chief dancing it out in his office. 

I just love it. I love Jim Pickens and I love what I know to be true – that life, even in its darkest hours, has moments of great joy, great lightness.  

While my Dad lay in the hospital dying, I cried harder than I ever have before or since. But I laughed harder too. Darkness requires light.  And the human spirit will always find its way to the surface. 

Rebirth. That was the theme of this episode.  How do you recover from the worst day of your life? How do you go on?  

I know a little something about rebirth because a little more than a year ago, I made the excruciating decision to leave my marriage.  In the early years of Grey’s Anatomy, I waxed poetic on this blog about my marriage – I was a newlywed with all the love and hope and joy that that entails. And then things changed. This year was the darkest and hardest of my life. There were days that Shonda Rhimes was my life raft and there were days when even she couldn’t hold me up… (In case you were wondering? The non-judgemental loyalty that Cristina and Meredith give each other? Where they let each other be as dark and twisty as they want to be and they never ever judge? That’s Shonda. She’s the friend you call to help you bury the body.) 

Recently, I came through the darkness. Emerged from the tunnel. Remembered what unadulterated joy feels like.  Came out, into the light…  And last night I was looking at pictures from this past year, and in some of them, I barely recognize myself. In some of them, I look like the saddest person I’ve ever seen, even though I’m smiling.  And that’s what I tried to put into this episode. All of that.  

I can’t relate to people who’ve survived a shooting. I’ve never experienced the kind of trauma our characters went through.   But I can relate to the concept of Rebirth. I can relate to the idea that in life, stuff happens that we never could have imagined and that somehow, unimaginably, we survive.  

Our people survived, but they will never be the same. 

The highs will be higher. The lows will be lower. Life will be sweeter. Love will be, as Callie might put it, even more awesome. 

I love the Chief dancing. I love the look on Owen's face when Cristina says, "I do." I love that out of darkness comes light. And I also know that sometimes when we think it’s as dark as it could possibly get, it gets darker before the light comes in…

I know some of you are going to hate on me for writing about me and not our characters but the thing is, I am our characters and so are you.   And the other thing is, I can’t say much more about our characters without spoiling stuff that’s coming up. Because we are still telling this story. Traumas aren’t over a month later. Derek still doesn’t even know about Meredith’s miscarriage, for God’s sake! There’s more story here. A lot more. So tune in next week. And kiss all the people you love in the meantime.  

 

Shonda Rhimes on "Sanctuary" and "Death and All His Friends"...

Original Airdate: 5-20-10

When I was a kid and I did something crazy, like climb on the roof or eat detergent to see how it tasted, my mom would say -- in that weary, exasperated, “I’d rather be on the beach” tone that all moms have – she would say, “Shonda, what do you have to say for yourself? WHAT?”

I tell you this because I am quite sure that if you saw the finale and you are reading this blog and you…I don’t know, like babies or Mer/Der or happiness or dancing it out…if you like those things, you are shouting, “Shonda, what do you have to say for yourself? WHAT?”

(I’d like to point out that the dark and twisty among you might not be shouting at all. You might be saying, “I get you, Sister! Solidarity!” Or maybe I’m just desperately hoping that is true.)

My point is, if you are asking what I have to say for myself, my answer is this:

I don’t know what to say for myself.

Honestly, I don’t. So I’m going to ramble for a while and see if I come up with something. 

Ready? Here we go:

When I pitched this finale at the beginning of Season 6 (those of you who know me know that I pitch the end of the season first and we work towards it), when I pitched a gunman shooting up the hospital, it seemed fine.

Really it did.

And then 20 or so episodes later, I started to write it and it did not seem fine. It did not seem fine at all. On an almost daily basis, I would come into work and throw myself down on the sofa in the middle of the office and burst into tears like a…well, like a bitch baby. And I would tell the other Grey’s writers, “I don’t think I can do this. It’s too horrible. People are getting hurt. That man is shooting them.” Buckets of bitch baby tears. And Tony and Hammer and Pete and everyone on the writing staff would murmur encouraging things.  My assistant Miguel would say, “You can do it! It’s going to be great!” in that cheerful Miguel way.  And so I would suck up the bitch baby tears and keep writing.  

But here’s the thing. It hurt to write this finale. It literally hurt me. Because in order to write these episodes, I had to walk in the shoes of Gary Clark.  I had to think like a shooter.  A person who would shoot Reed and Alex and Charles. A person who would shoot Derek.  By the time I finished writing part one, I was sick. And depressed. Because my McDreamy – and I think you all will forgive me for believing he is more mine than anyone else’s because c’mon, I wrote my dream guy saying my dream things which is the reason I am single and the reason he is mine – my McDreamy was lying on my beloved catwalk dying. Mer is screaming and he is dying. And, before you have me shot up with Thorazine and placed in a strait jacket, yes, I DO I know it’s a only TV show, I’m not insane, but dude…it felt too real. It felt WAY too real.

And here’s the thing you need to know: in my first draft of Part 1, Gary Clark shot Bailey.  Bailey.  He shot her. And I wrote it and then I couldn’t sleep, for days and days, I could not sleep and I had to remove it from the script. Bailey getting shot was just too much for me. She’s our anchor. She’s the soul. Mer is the heart but Bailey is the soul and so I had to delete it.  Because there was no way I could go on if Bailey had a bullet wound.  The world would just be too…broken. Derek was devastating enough but both Derek and Bailey…it meant I couldn’t go on. 

And then I got to Part 2. I had shattered a world and now I needed to put it back together. Okay…wait:

Here is where many of you are yelling at me, where those of you who weren’t yelling maybe decide to START yelling. Right here. Right now. You want to know why I didn’t do a happy season finale. Why happy things were not happening to happy people in the happy finale. Why I would do what I did to Meredith. You are hollering, “I hate you and your stupid dark and twisty mind, Shonda Rhimes!” 

(Except for y’all who roll with the dark and twisties. You don’t hate, you relate, right? Y’all are out there, still with me, right? Still got your dancing shoes and tequila bottles raised high in the air in solidarity, right? Crap. Not even you guys?)

I promise you, there was a reason for this.

Meredith is whole and healed. I love the scene where she tells April that it took her forever to find Derek and then it took her forever to realize she wanted to be his wife, have his kids. That’s a changed woman. The very fact that being pregnant makes her happy makes her a changed woman.  And then she lost the baby.  It took my breath away. That wince that Meredith gives before she says she is having a miscarriage, it took away my breath.  Reed dies and Charles dies and it’s sad. But the miscarriage, that’s devastating. For Mer. For the audience. For everyone. But you don’t know how much you wanted something until you have lost it. You don’t know your true feelings until a thing you have is gone for good. And that’s what I wanted for Mer. I wanted her to realize just HOW BADLY she wanted a baby. Because Mer is me in a lot of ways. And I always thought I did not want a baby. Until I did. And then suddenly a baby was everything. I wanted her to be sure. Absolutely sure. See, she is a character who spends her life trying not to repeat the mistakes of her mother.  She is trying to overcome. And so I needed her to be sure. I’ve said that Mer will never have kids but then I started to think of that as a challenge. How do I make Mer TRULY WANT to have kids? And so I told this story. It’s horrible and it’s sad. 

It is also what I refer to as the bill. You eat a delicious meal at a delicious restaurant, you get a bill. You buy the expensive bag online, the bill comes due.  You want in, you gotta pay.  Same with life (or at least life as it plays out in my head). The scales have to be balanced.  It’s the hideous game of fate our characters always play. She gets to keep her Derek but the very thing that makes it okay to keep him, that hideous stressful moment where she believes he’s dead? That’s the very thing that makes her lose the baby. The bill was due. And the collection agents came calling. I hate it but it’s the only way I know to do it – let the universe hand Mer a shiny pony and then kick Mer in the face. You don’t get to have everything. There’s always a price. 

Cristina. This finale, especially the second half, belongs to Cristina. Owen chooses her, did you see that? Owen, faced with life or death, knows what he wants and what he wants is some Cristina Yang. But more importantly, Cristina truly comes into her own as a heart surgeon. She’s had numerous teachers, all kinds of setbacks but she finally had the right teacher, she had Teddy, and when she says to herself “pig or cow, Cristina” as she stands over Derek’s chest cavity…that was her graduation. When she refuses to stop operating with a gun literally pressed to her head, that was her commencement. Another part of her graduation? The girl who always had a hard time giving of herself emotionally gives like crazy in this episode. She is willing to die to save Derek because she loves Meredith so much and she promised Mer that she would do her very best work. Cristina Yang graduated tonight. Toss your caps in her honor.

Poor sweet Alex. He didn’t have much to say tonight. Because he got shot almost immediately.  Which was a difficult choice for me to make. Because I love Alex and he’s so important to the show. You wanna see him TALKING. But he has that incredible moment. Where he’s asking for Izzie. And Lexie’s already said she loves him but it’s so clear that the only person he loves is Isobel Stevens and she’s nowhere to be found.  And poor Mark has to watch all of this happening.  Now, I will tell you guys this: I’m not so sure that Lexie really loves Alex. I think her realization that Gary Clark is the shooter has her feeling guilty, like Alex getting shot might be her fault. I think up until tonight she’s been walking like a duck. After all, Mer did tell her that her heart lives in her vagina. And her relationship with Alex is all about sex. I think she loves Mark Sloan but I think this Gary Clark thing has confused her. So there is hope. For Lexie and Mark, there is hope. It just may take a while.

Callie and Arizona. Are together! Yay! I don’t like them apart. They are so great as a couple, so funny and sweet and emotional, that keeping them apart was not even an option right now. This baby thing, it is hard. It is an impossible situation. But in the end, they were each willing to give a little. And that means they can make it work. No matter what they end up actually deciding on the baby front. When they kiss at the end, that’s the one bright spot we have to hold on to. They love each other. Nothing else matters.

This was one of my favorite, most painful Bailey stories. For a doctor to have to sit by and wait and watch as someone dies, to not be able to do anything, that is the greatest tragedy.  When she pulls Charles onto her lap and tells him he is dying but he won’t die alone…well, there are no words. Because all through the finale, she was doing everything she could until there was nothing more to do. Except sit. And wait.

The Mercy Westers really came into their own tonight. Reed died and Charles died and that was awful but April and Jackson joined the tribe tonight. Mer pulled April in when she takes her hand. April lost her best friend and Mer understands that because she has a best friend of her own. And Jackson…he was Cindy Lou tonight. In the face of everything, it’s his quick thinking that saves the day. Sing, Cindy Lou, sing.

Did you see the Chief take back his hospital tonight? Because that’s what he did. He marched into his hospital and he took it back. He poured out the vodka and took control of his hospital. Except now the hospital’s not a hospital anymore. It’s a crime scene. And that’s not a good thing.

What happens next, in the aftermath of the shooting, is anybody’s guess. Well, not really. Because I know. But I can’t tell you. Until then, I suggest you buy the Season 6 DVD. I had to cut a good 18 minutes out of part 2 of the finale. 18 minutes of incredibly juicy goodness. Callie sings, Lexie gets thrown out of an ambulance, Cristina Yang makes the first cut into Derek’s chest, Bailey gives the Bailey aria of a lifetime. And you can only see it in the super-extended version on the DVD. If I ran the network (and I don’t and, in case he is reading this, let me say that I love my boss Steve McPherson deeply because he is strong and powerful and handsome and very smart) but if I did run the network, I would have put those 18 minutes on TV. But I don’t so the only way to enjoy the juicy 18 minute goodness is on the DVD. Okay?

Now, finally, I want to say this. Michael O’Neil who plays Gary Clark is a kind, sweet, gentle man who abhors violence. This was an emotionally difficult role for him to play. He had to step into the mind of a killer. And he did it with complexity and grace. He made Gary Clark three-dimensional. But we were all clear on one thing: the Gary Clarks of the world are the bad guys. Using a gun and shooting up a place makes you a bad person. I was very concerned that we not glorify the violence in the finale. There’s nothing charming about it. That’s why Reed’s death was done so brutally. I wanted it to not be pretty, not be okay. Because a gun is not the way to solve your problems. 

I’ll say it again to make sure you hear me: a gun is not the way to solve your problems. 

Have a good summer. We’ll see you in the fall. And thank you. For watching. Even if you are screaming, “What do you have to say for yourself!?” You make this all possible. The gratitude I feel is kinda boundless.

XO,

Shonda

Zoanne Clack (with Pete Nowalk and Shonda Rhimes) on "Shiny Happy People"...

Original Airdate: 5-13-10

Pete and I wrote this episode.  Two people writing an episode of Grey’s doesn’t happen very often, except with our married writers Tony and Joan.   So the news is…

Pete and I got married and became a writing team!  

Okay, that’s a total lie.  We just got teamed up because it was the end of the season and we were all tired.  It was nice to split the work…

Sorry to interrupt.  Pete here.  I just want to go on record that I would be happy to marry Zoanne.  Cause she’s amazing and awesome and smart and A DOCTOR.  And if I were into the ladies I’d have put a ring on that finger a long time ago.  Just saying.  Okay, shutting up now.  I’m currently trying to break episode 704 – yes, the fourth episode of season 7 – so I need to go.  Back to ZoZo…

The two of us were put in charge of the pre-finale episode.  The episode right before the finale. How do you write the set up episode for the GAME CHANGER?  We thought we’d start by seeing our characters have some fun.  Or at least feign having some fun.  I mean, technically it’s a party, right?  Fun!  Okay, it’s a lame “meet and greet the Chief” party.  It probably shouldn’t even be called a party… more like a work function.  But there’s much juicy info to be gleaned from the party.  For instance, Alex and Lexie are a couple.  A couple couple.  At one point when we were writing they were going to sneak away from the party and upstairs to make whoopie (as it was called on great 70s game shows like “Match Game PM” and “The Newlywed Game”) but that got cut (although it doesn’t mean the sentiment wasn’t still there).  Wonder if that will last considering Mark’s end-of-episode proposition?  

Also?  Cristina agrees to move in with Owen.  Through all the angst, all the PTSD, all the choking – Cristina wants to make this work.  She’s all in.  Until life happens and kills her bliss (more on that later).  What else… Reed wants to play in the big leagues by hitting on Mark.  Who had just hit on Callie.  Who was watching Arizona.  Who was trying not to watch Callie.  Cause Callie still wants so badly to be with Arizona…and that kiss in the elevator pretty much said the same for Arizona – such a bittersweet moment.  Wonder how they’ll figure out this mess.  Stay tuned.

Not at the party? Bailey and Ben.  Oh Ben.  Ben with his smile and charm and clothes…off.  Woohoo!  (I second this Woohoo.   Yes, it’s Pete again.  Back to work.  I swear.)  Mostly it was good to see Bailey having some fun for a change.  But then she catches Ben flirting with some chickadee named Liz.  Oh Ben… do we believe him or not, ladies?  I want to believe him.  I want to believe that his A-game is the only game he’s playing.  I want to believe that Bailey will get her happiness, if such a thing even exists.  

(Shonda here.  Pete was interrupting so I thought I might as well take my turn.  I wanted to say this: when they first pitched me this Ben flirting story, it ended with Bailey finding out that Ben was playing the field, that he thought he and Bailey were not exclusive and so he felt he could flirt with whomever he wanted.  Bailey was heartbroken.  So was I.  Because I love Ben deeply and I’m a single mother and Bailey’s a single mother and we single mothers need to believe that the Bens of the world are out there.  So I marched into Pete and Zo and I said, “BEN IS GOOD.  BEN LOVES BAILEY.  BEN CAN NOT BE A DOG!”  Okay, I hollered it like a crazy person because I’d been up all night worrying that the Bens of the world do not exist.  And because I’m the boss, they said okay.  I’ll stop interrupting now and let you get back to Zo.  Bye.)

When we first started this episode, the theme was “happiness.”  Simple, right?  Who doesn’t think about their own happiness at least once a day?  Well it turns out happiness ain’t so simple.  We read all this research on the topic and the big headline is that we all have to make our own happiness.  Annoying, right?  But the evidence is undeniable.  Statistically, amputees are as happy as lottery winners.  The guy who decided not to play drums for the Beatles says it was the best thing that ever happened to him.  The point?  Good freaking luck finding your own happiness.  It’s this idea that actually became our theme – how we all try to be happy, constantly searching for it, faking it even, just in case it actually decides to show up.  

On to something that made everyone on the set very happy…  

Demi Lovato.

Do you know what a big deal Demi Lovato is?  When the show’s publicist put out a press release that she was going to be a guest star newspapers across the country picked it up the story.  When Demi tweeted about it, it got posted on every blog, entertainment magazine, and internet site out there.  The week before she came to our show, I read about her in not less than two tabloids (we keep them around the office… very important to research our industry daily…ha!) and saw her on American Idol.  So you get it by now.  DEMI’S A BIG DEAL!  And she was AMAZING in this episode.  A complete natural.  What she could say just with her eyes (which was very important for this role) was remarkable.  And it wasn’t an easy role to play, especially considering she was a little starstruck herself.  Apparently she watches Grey’s every week with her mom and to actually be here on the set with McDreamy and the crew was like her own dream come true.  So that’s added pressure.  But she was uber-professional and prepared and all-around awesome.  Big ups to Demi!

Demi’s story gave breath to Alex, both professionally and personally.  Alex knows crazy.  Between his mom, Jane Doe/Ava/Rebecca, and Izzie, he’s had his fair share.  Actually more than his fair share.  Way more than any one man should ever have to deal with in one life.  So he gets Demi’s character from the start.  He uses his gut instinct to save this girl from a life of misdiagnosis.  His gut is also telling him that he should be with a nice, normal girl for a change.  He can do the girlfriend thing, all he has to do is commit to it, make it happen. Just like he saved Demi from being committed herself… 

Now on to the star I personally grew up watching:  Marion Ross.  And by personally I mean she was on my TV every Tuesday on ABC on Happy Days.  I tried so hard not to call her “Mrs. Cunningham” but it was hard.  And she was an absolutely lovely person.  Also lovely?  Alan Mandell, the actor who played Betty’s long lost love Henry.   Cristina wasn’t so enthralled with these love birds.  Because listening to them talk about their tragic, unrequited love – as well as Richard going on about how much he misses Ellis – just made her doubt Owen.   

Okay, we all know it, Cristina and Owen have a complicated relationship.  In fact it’s what makes us love writing about them.  They love each other, but that doesn’t mean both of them don’t have feelings for other people.  Or that they can just decide to shut those feelings off.  And Cristina gets this.  She believes that Owen loves her, she just isn’t okay if he also loves Teddy.  And watching Henry and Betty reconnect made her think long and hard about whether or not Owen was contemplating looking backwards  – to this woman who had been such an important part of his life so long ago.  Not that Owen would ever stray.  He loves Cristina, he’s just a little tortured.  He’s trying to figure it out and was hoping he would never have to confront his feelings for Teddy, but Cristina (with a little help from Mer) is forcing him to do just that.  So now he has to make a choice.  Cristina or Teddy.  Or will one of them make the choice for him…?  

On to Meredith.  She was in a tough spot in this episode.  She knew something she shouldn’t have known and it forced her to be cryptic with Cristina.  Problem is, Mer and Cristina don’t do cryptic.  They’re our twisted sisters.  Real.  Blunt.  Painfully honest.  And we love em for it.  But in this situation Mer needed to take some lessons from her burn patient Amber, who finally forced her best friend to stop with the positive affirmations and start getting real (time to stop being polite and get real!).  Enough with the happy face, Amber basically says, cause life’s not all happy all the time just because you say it is.  And having to pretend otherwise is just exhausting.   So Mer went to Owen and forced the issue.  Girl’s got balls, there’s no denying that.  Oh, BTW, we don’t in any way advocate texting while driving!  That was a joke.  Don’t do it.  (Yeah.  Ditto.  --Pete)

Okay, that concludes your public service announcement from Grey’s Anatomy.  But before I sign off, here’s a final word on next week’s season finale:  Strap on your seatbelt.  Prepare to have mind blown. Cause it’s gonna take you on the ride of your life… (intrigued yet?)

Bill Harper on "How Insensitive"...

Original Airdate: 5-6-10

When Shonda told me, “I think we should have a 700-pound patient come to Seattle Grace,” the first thing I thought of was Patient Sensitivity.  

We’d already discussed the idea of putting our doctors, infamous for their irreverence and dark humor, their ruthless and clever nicknaming of patients, into a lecture on Patient Sensitivity, and this seemed like the perfect patient to tie it to.  Then, I started researching Bailey’s lecture, looking around for the kinds of things that hospitals actually recommend for doctors to do and say, and I found it really telling that almost every program I could find was aimed toward sensitivity to bariatric – obese -- patients.  That’s partly because obesity is an epidemic in this country – more than one-third of Americans are considered clinically obese – and the medical community is racing to catch up.  And also because, sadly, obesity is often called society’s last acceptable prejudice.  So sensitivity to these patients apparently needs to be taught, stressed and re-stressed.

So we knew, with the arrival of this patient, we would explore patient sensitivity.  And also see what sensitive areas these doctors could have exposed along the way.  

In terms of insensitivity to patients, I think historically it’s been a dead heat between Alex and Cristina.  So it was fun to realize that Alex, who might be the least sensitive person among them, could be the one who actually breaks through Bobby’s armor of jokes and the layers of despair that got him to this point, and helps him to see the good guy inside, the way his wife does. It’s the thing Alex has been learning about himself all season.  And in turn, it helps Alex move forward, saying goodbye to Izzie for good.  How big a step is he taking with Lexie, kissing her like that in front of the whole hospital, taking her hand?  Not sure – but in Alex terms, it looks like a giant step to me.  

And on the other hand...Derek.  Arguably the hospital’s most sensitive doctor, Derek utters perhaps the least compassionate thing in the episode.  It’s shocking, and instantly regrettable. Very Un-Dreamy.  I’ll say I had a hard time with this coming out of his mouth, and I wrote it.  But what Richard tells him is true, the job of Chief can eat away at you, transforming even the most caring surgeon into a callous bureaucrat. And Derek’s clearly having one of the worst days of his Chiefhood yet.  That’s Derek’s continuing struggle, and when Mr. Clark comes back to sue him, Derek spends the whole episode wanting to do what he knows is right, to reach out to a broken man, to help, to heal, but he’s backed into a corner where his only job is to be factual, clinical and unemotional.  Add to that the burden of all this sensitive information he has to control, and he and Meredith are in the same trouble they were in season one.  Only now it’s worse -- their relationship doesn’t just affect their own jobs, it can potentially affect the whole hospital. 

Then there’s Cristina. She has to be forcibly shoved into Patient Sensitivity, only to find this little girl who cracks her open and reveals her most vulnerable spot.  Cristina’s forced to make the girl her patient, because she’s uniquely qualified to see Kelly through what was her most painful experience.  I love the moment in the elevator, when she makes the choice without actually knowing why she’s making it – out of pure gut protective instinct.  And, for my money, Cristina does the kindest, most compassionate thing she could do for a child– she lays it all out honestly and without sugar-coating it.  It’s only when Jackson says it out loud to her, makes her acknowledge the truth, that Cristina’s own dam breaks and she has to let it out.  Surprisingly, she chooses Owen over Meredith, to comfort her.  

This was an interesting twist.  I think it’s unusual for Meredith and Cristina to find solace in someone other than each other.  But here, Cristina needs something from Owen that she has given to him – she’s seen him through his darkest hour, when his pain has come back to haunt him.  He knows what this feels like, and knows what to do – how to just ride it out.  And similarly with Meredith and Derek:  He’s too fed up with parsing his words and being straight jacketed into a person he’s not, Meredith knows the only thing she can say is “I love you.”   She’s smart enough to know that sometimes a guy just needs to shut up.  Or hit something.  Like a few golf balls.  

OK, now we have to talk about Callie and Arizona.  They have become pretty much my favorite couple, the ones I could count on.  I want them to stay together, but it’s unavoidable. Callie finds her own sensitive spot in this episode.  She’s vulnerable  -- not to the come-ons of an attractive patient -- but to the sense of possibility it represents to her.  And that’s something she will never get from Arizona.  Because Arizona simply does not want a kid.  It is, as they say, a dealbreaker.  As much as I hate this break up, I have to say I love this break-up, because it feels like something many of us have been through, when we realize that the one thing you’re not getting in a relationship is just important to you as the hundred things you are getting.  I’m sorry it had to happen.  And if you're as sorry as I am, I'll just say this...keep watching! Anything can happen -- and you might find yourself pleasantly surprised!

A couple of random notes on the process I found interesting along the way...

Jerry Kernion, the actor we were lucky enough to cast as Bobby, was an incredible trooper, withstanding up to four hours of getting into fifty pounds of latex each day to play the role, and then endured that blazing hot suit for hours on the set, smiling and joking the entire time.  And all that latex didn’t hinder his incredibly charming and heartbreaking performance.   Thanks again, Jerry. 

Cristina and Kelly’s card game:  We talked in the writer’s room about how it’s often easier for kids to take in big, important, monumental information when they’re not looking at you -- when they’re concentrating on something else.  So I came up with the idea to have them play Slap Jack, which is a card game I play with my own kids. When I went online to make sure my family wasn’t playing by some insane rules we’d invented ourselves, I was surprised – and a little chilled -- to learn that there’s an alternate name for the game Slap Jack.  It’s also called Heart Attack.

Kelly’s Mom:  Was originally conceived as Kelly’s dad, suffering from a sudden heart attack.  But Shonda thought it would be a good way to get out the information that heart attack symptoms in women present very differently than in men, and often aren’t recognized for what they are.  Some women have been sent home from the ER with an antacid, when they were actually in cardiac arrest.  I know we said it in the episode, but it bears repeating!     

That’s it for me for this week, and for this season – but you’ve got two more incredible nights of Grey’s before we go... and trust me, you don’t want to miss them.  If you’re a Demi Lovato fan, you’ll get a treat next week.  And then the FINALE.... I know, we’ve all said it, but... holy crap, don’t miss the finale.  

Thanks for watching!

Bill