Recap: Season 1 Episode 3 – Winning a Battle, Losing the War

In which we see brain death in all its forms, including fully ambulatory.

The ways of residency become the ways of life. #1: always keep score. #2: do whatever you can to outsmart the other guy. And #3: don’t make friends with the enemy.

No previously this week, so we dive right in. The voiceover of Meredith complaining about how the interns see each other way too much. This is cut over footage of the issues this is causing at home, with George and Izzie literally following her around the house while complaining about room sizes, closet space and all of Ellis Grey’s stuff still being in boxes all over the house. I’ll admit I’d probably have a bit of a different reaction to Katherine Heigl in my room at 5am, but to each their own. The sheer inanity of George asking “Meredith, do you want some privacy?” through the solid door of the bathroom she has just barricaded herself into at that ungodly time of the morning is well worth a chuckle, of course.

As is Bailey telling an indignant Shepherd to shut up while waiting to cross the road. She’s trying to put her finger on what she’s forgotten, and thankfully remembers just before Derek meets an untimely end at the hands of Fiends on Two Wheels, aka The Dead Baby Bike Race. For those unaware, this is apparently a goddamn real event that really actually happens.

We cut to the hospital, with Bailey on a classic Bailey rant about idiots throwing themselves downhill on two wheels and killing people. She does spare a moment to tell the Chief it’s race day, causing him to throw out any notion of an early night or balanced surgical board to batten down the hatches and page everybody in the vicinity. Casualties are a-coming! Cue titles!

This episode is all about competition – the race outside, and the interns inside. They’re scrapping over patients, except for George who gets to go be the Chief’s “right hand man” upstairs on the OR floor. Meredith gets a guy with some spokes sticking out of him (Karev naturally does A Sexism and then just yanks them out, leaving her to sew the guy up), while Izzie and Christina fight over a patient who then turns out to be braindead. I see some babysitting, or brainsitting, in their future.

Over to George, who thought he was getting the best gig. It turns out he is actually upstairs to do some babysitting of his own. Webber’s patient – an older, very gay gentleman named Lloyd Mackie – is dying of liver cancer. Without a transplant, he will die, and he’s rapidly running out of time – smoking will, as he puts it, just speed up the process. He’s also an exceptionally talented flirt, which comes with the added bonus of George not knowing how to deal with it and looking suddenly uncomfortable. Muahahahaha.

Back to Christina and Izzie, and Grey’s has decided to wade into the miracle/medicine debate. Medical miracles – they do happen! But that’s why they do all the tests – to be as sure as they can be, so when they call time of death, it really does mean the patient is dead. Christina is approaching this from the point of view of science, but for Izzie, you can see how much this hurts – she wants to cure all of her patients, but instead, she’s been handed one who starts off at the point of death with very little hope of any other outcome. After breaking boundaries last episode, it very much looks like she’s planning to do so again, going on a rant about how he belongs to someone. She wants to track down the patient’s family.

Now that Christina has cottoned on to how many surgeries are involved in an organ harvest and multiple transplants (you can see the cogs turning), so does she.

Back to Meredith and her patient, Stereotypical British Cockney Man! He calls her a “rocking babe”, which from this side of the pond I can say with some assurance is NOT a thing we say. He also does bear a bit of a resemblance to David Tennant. (Note: yes, I know David Tennant is Scottish).He’s leaving given “the frat guy said he could go”, even though, as she puts it, “the frat guy is an ass”. Either way, he’s off in a cloud of testosterone after laying one on Meredith, which is spotted by Shepherd, who enters in a cloud of jealousy and good hair and tries to persuade her to date him. Again.

Izzie and Christina take their John Doe dilemma to Bailey, who immediately recognises that while Izzie is doing this out of idealism, Yang 100% just wants the harvest surgery. She gives them the nod – if they can find the family, and get consent, they can harvest the organs.

George is hiding from Mr Mackie, as he confides in Karev. Alex is just confused that George doesn’t want to hit that, because apparently, everyone thinks George is gay! The main point of this little interaction, other than to establish that George ISN’T gay but may be in love with Meredith, is for George to find out there’s a potential donor! Mr Mackie may be saved yet! Hurray! But only if Izzie can’t somehow talk the donor out of dying, which she can’t – he crashes. She calls Meredith in for help, and they decide to ignore all the rules and resuscitate him. Do you remember last week when we were talking about boundaries? Apparently these two don’t!

George has sensibly not yet told Mr Mackie about the potential liver, but there’s a snag – the donor has an aortic injury. Without surgery he will die before his organs can be donated. They have to go higher than Bailey, so Grey and Yang poke their heads sequentially into the men’s room to bother Dr Burke, who basically tells them to get bent (“this is the men’s room, so either whip one out, or close the door”). Shepherd tells them to get the Chief involved, so they descend on George. The liver is an excellent match for Webber’s VIP patient, and after some dithering from George about pissing off Burke (“ask me something easier”, heh), Webber is on board and asks Burke to do the surgery. As the interns scatter in fear, Alex senses an opportunity, and wangles his way into the OR.

Who’s a try-hard kiss-ass now, eh, Alex?

It’s all good though – a nurse drops in with the news that the John Doe is a real person after all! They’ve found his family, and they’re on their way in. His name is Kevin, and his wife asks if there’s still a chance. Izzie takes a breath, and gives it to her straight – they can hold off until morning, but it’s bad, and if there’s still no change, they’d like to discuss the possibility of organ donation. Elsewhere, Webber is letting Mr Mackie know that they might have found him a liver. He’s crying. Webber comforts him, George backs off to give them both some space. I’ve just got something in my eye, honest.

Alex is roaming the locker room trying to get people to smell him, so it’s unsurprising that Meredith snaps. She has roommates, boy problems, and family problems! Derek intervenes to pull her off Karev before she beats him to death with her “tiny ineffectual fists”. Meredith is a hair away from snapping and confiding in/kissing Derek, but she can’t bring herself to let go, so she walks out while Tegan and Sara sing “I know you’re scared even though you say that you’re not” (yes, that one’s a bit on the nose, isn’t it?). She comes home to find Izzie and George rooting through Ellis’ surgery tapes. No! There will be no unpacking, no surgical tapes, no conversations celebrating the moments of their lives, and she hates Chinese food. For someone who decided that most boundaries weren’t worth it at the end of the last episode, she sure is putting them up now!

The next morning dawns, and Meredith is complaining to Christina about Izzie and George doing things like moving, breathing, and being happy. Christina commiserates and suggests throwing them out, while Alex complains because Yang gets to do a harvest while he’s stuck in the pit cleaning up the “leftovers” – those too stupid or drunk to come get themselves fixed after the bike race yesterday. Throw in a healthy dash of “show me your boobs” and Alex has hit peak Frat Boy.

Christina is taking Kevin’s family through donation – not just the stuff you’d expect, but the tricky stuff too – eyes, skin. Yang doesn’t say it out loud, but somewhere in her brain she’s thinking of whether it would also be helpful to render the donor down into fat after the useful organs are removed. She’s not the right person for this part of the job, yet, but Bailey talks her through it. It’s about talking about the patient as a human, and a loved one, and explaining why everything is useful. Bailey has her back, and sends her back in there to do it right. And Christina’s heart grew three sizes that day (just kidding).

The flirting and the misunderstanding about him being gay earlier have gotten to George, and while Yang is off learning how to actually behave like a human, George is seemingly forgetting how to do so with someone who makes him uncomfortable. After one invitation out too many, he let’s Mr Mackie know that he’s not gay, who has top-notch gaydar and already knows – he’s just been flirting with George because he’s dying, and it’s fun, so he can get away with it. George admits he’s attracted to Meredith, because she is apparently catnip, but then has a full-on no homo moment and refuses to hold Mr Mackie’s hand. Dick move, George-y.

Not-David-Tennant (apparently his name is Viper! Because of course it is) is back in the ER. He looks okay until he suddenly doesn’t – sat patiently waiting until he collapses, blood oozing from his mouth. Meredith checks his wound and sees it’s a swollen mess. Rule #1 of Grey’s Anatomy – never skip the CT! She rides up with Viper in the elevator to the OR, and (aphrodisiac jokes aside), gets to scrub in to the surgery while Alex gets dressed-down for being a tool (yessssssss Bailey).

Our wrap-up begins in earnest – the donor is said goodbye to and the organs are harvested, meanwhile Mackie is out on the table getting his liver. Izzie is hurt by the whole process, seeing the surgeons waiting as vultures, until Christina points out the obvious – every one of them represents a life that will be changed or saved by Kevin, and it’s all a part of the job. Yang has learned to see her patients more as people today; Izzie still needs to recognise that while there’s a place for hope, miracles and faith, medicine is science.

Bailey and Meredith talk to Viper’s friends, whereupon she unleashes a can of completely warranted whoop-ass on them for endangering other people, not least poor Kevin, who was hit by one of the bikers, he wasn’t participating in the race. Viper’s going to live, but as far as Miranda is concerned, none of them are “okay”. After spreading the good news, Meredith is hiding out in the locker room, when Derek comes in to tell her that it’s not about the chase for him. He just likes her. And her tiny ineffectual fists. She still turns him down, but despite it apparently not being about the chase, he’s not giving up.

It’s not about the race, at all. There are no winners or losers. Victories are counted by the number of lives saved.

We finish with some heart-warmers – Meredith talks about how it’s all about saving lives, not the competition. All the while, we see Viper posing for photos with his friends, happy and alive, and George breaking the news to Mackie – he’s going to live – and holding his hand. Finally, Meredith comes home to find Christina, Izzie and George all in her house, eating pizza and watching her mother’s surgical tapes. Rather than kick off, she decides to join them, watching as her mother literally takes a guys face off.

Sum it up

Look, episode 3 is a bit of a hit and miss. Yang learning to be a bit more human was good, but Izzie’s storyline seemed pointless other than to illustrate the fact that she’s the Overly Attached Doctor. Alex seems to be there just to piss me off, while Meredith has learned the same lesson two weeks running, which I can only assume means she hasn’t learned it at all. George’s no homo moment also a low point and really uncharacteristic. Re-treading ground 3 weeks in is a bad sign. Our key theme was supposed to be about how competition isn’t always the best approach to life, but did anyone actually learn that? Thematically felt like a re-tread of the “boundaries” question from last episode. Overall rating: 5/10

Hero of the episode: Christina Yang, taking a pep talk from Bailey and going back in there to face the family and do the things she knows she’s not great at to save a whole bunch of lives.

Zero of the episode: Fuck off, Alex.

Literally Incredible: Even in a mad, bad and dangerous bike race I find it hard to believe bike spokes could impale someone like that from a simple crash, or that Viper could’ve continued on with his sides splitting open for an entire night of partying before coming in the next day, those are the bounds of my credulity.

Did you like this episode? Hate it? Just want to tell me how much my writing sucks? Leave a comment below with your rating and what you thought overall! Alternatively, you can let me know on Twitter!