In which a whole bunch of healthcare professionals get syphilis.
Previously on Grey’s Anatomy: Meredith and Derek are in a relationship with “hot” sex; Meredith doesn’t know enough about Derek! Derek and Burke were both promised Richard’s job when he retires! Burke and Christina have also been having hot sex, and now she’s pregnant and getting an abortion! George is a fragile man-baby who went out with a hot nurse because Meredith doesn’t love him back! Meredith’s famous surgeon mother has Alzheimer’s and no one else knows!
“That’s the problem with secrets. Like misery, they love company. They pile up and up until they take over everything. Until you don’t have room for anything else. Until you’re so full of secrets, you feel like you’re going to burst.
Finale time! Following our previously, we learn our theme of the episode appears to be secrets which, yeah, seems accurate – and we’ll be putting up a secret counter this episode just to count ’em as they become relevant because there’s quite a few. For starters – George is naked in the bathroom, with a book helpfully entitled “Rashes, Hives and Skin Eruptions”. He clearly has something wrong with him. Izzie wants into the bathroom, and queries what’s taking so long, before determining that he’s having some “personal time”. He’s naturally indignant – he has a girlfriend now, after all, and she’s definitely not imaginary! – but still. Izzie is amused by the notion and shares it with Meredith in front of George, which just makes him happier (read: more annoyed).
Meredith picks the phone up to the nursing home who are calling in relation to something undisclosed. She gets them to call back, but not before this has awoken Derek who asks who was on the phone. She lies and says it was a wrong number, which gives our first official secret! Secret counter: 1. Derek is also receiving phone calls, but this is one he refuses to pick up, and he’s not giving any information away as to who it is, and that’s probably enough to bump our counter up. Secret counter: 2.
Over in the hospital, Christina is re-emphasising that she doesn’t want to come in for counselling or to discuss her options, she’s made her decision to terminate on the 16th. Burke walks over to discuss that he paged her last night, but she wasn’t on-call. It turns out he paged her because he wanted to see her and doesn’t have her home phone number so it was his only way of getting in touch. PSA: if you’re sleeping with someone regularly, get their phone number so you don’t have to rely on a workplace system to get in touch! She almost tells him something, but bottles it. Secret counter: 3
George is discussing their night with Olivia (red-headed nurse!), who had a really great time – and so, apparently did he, which is nice. However, he is decidedly not feeling okay today, which he downplays as feeling a little “itchy”; she however feels fine. He’s not come out and said whatever it is, but clearly judging from the book earlier and the way he was fully naked and looking down while reading it, he has a STI. He’s on the verge of talking about this further when we get Izzie Interuptus, and Olivia scarpers.
Izzie is happy to find out he really does have a girlfriend, which is nice. She accepts that he wasn’t playing with himself in there (sidenote: why would you do that in your bathroom instead of your bedroom anyway?!), but then asks what he was doing in there for so long. I’ve never seen a man exit a conversation so quickly! Secret counter: 4 Karev is performing the manly task of trimming his nose hair when George enters in a rush and asks him for help – he needs Alex to confirm what STI he has. After a minute of staring at his crotch, Alex confirms it, it’s the syph. Cue titles!
Burke has decided he’s a GUM doctor today, which is… interesting. He’s got Alex and George doing a cystoscopy on an old friend of his. Chatting with his buddy (and said friend’s very pregnant wife) while a camera scope is up his penis heading into his bladder should definitely be more awkward than this! But there is a mass there and they’re going to biopsy it. I’m honestly mostly surprised that Burke has friends. In the first bit of non-genital medicine of the episode, Webber and Bailey are operating while Grey observes, but Webber is having some difficulty suturing. Given he’s complaining about the lights too, we sense something is wrong.
Izzie and Christina are treating a patient whose body shape could be describe fairly accurately as “upside-down canoe” – his abdomen is ballooning out from his body quite unnaturally. His wife and his daughter have been trying to get him to come in, but he refused until now. It’s not that he’s fat, this change in shape came on too quickly. The daughter is singularly unimpressed and seems mostly bothered about how much this is going to cost them – there’s clearly some beef here.
George has done a blood test on himself to confirm his diagnosis – we also meet a Surly Blood Test Lab Guy who I’m sure (no real spoiler) recurs at some point. Before he can yell “sharing patient information unnecessarily is a HIPAA violation”, not that he should need to, Izzie grabs the results out of his hand. She’s puzzled that he’s treating someone for syphilis considering it’s not surgical. He yanks her into the nurse’s station and (after her exclamation of “YOU HAVE SYPHILIS?!”, closes the door and blinds out of embarrassment.
George doesn’t know how this happened, which Izzie takes as an opportunity to slut-shame Olivia for some reason. He insists she’s not like that, but Izzie dials back on the slut-shame a little by noting that it’s the new millennium – everyone is like that except for apparently George. He’s then offended by not being seen as a stud, which I’m sure everyone at home finds as funny as Izzie and I do. She goes right back into laying into Olivia – “stop sleeping with her unless you want that thing to fall off” – when asked what he should do about telling her. At least he does defend Olivia this time. At the end of the day he has to tell her, whether she gave it to him or not, so she can get tested.
Back in Bailey and Webber’s surgery, he’s handed a retractor and it flies right out of his hand. He recognises there’s something wrong with him, maybe his eyes, and recuses himself from the surgery, asking Bailey to finish. Derek, who is conveniently watching from the gallery, and Meredith are both clearly concerned, as no doubt is Bailey. Also concerned is George, who in radiology is waiting for the results of a scan of Burke’s friend to come through. Karev being the douche he is is winding George up about who gave him the syphilis, but George refuses to tell. When asked if he’s had something like this before, Alex notes that he never talks about his penis with other men, because he is in full-on asshole mode today.
Christina and Izzie have diagnosed their patient and the news is that he has fluid in his abdomen. His breathing difficulties are being caused by that pressing up against his lungs. It’s all secondary to what looks like liver disease. This makes sense to the daughter, who is sat making caustic comments from the end of the bed – the guy admits to “drinking a bit”, which she calls “the understatement of the year”. She’s only here to support her mother, because her father has a history of… something, maybe abuse? Either way, she feels she needs to be there for her mother to protect her in some way.
Burke’s friend’s results are up, and there’s definitely a mass protruding into his bladder, it doesn’t look like a tumour. Karev jokes that it looks like an ovary, which Burke flips out at – given it’s his friend, he wants this taken seriously. That’s when George returns with the results of the biopsy. They’ve done a chromosomal analysis of the tissue, and it actually is an ovary. Which… sure! That does happen, but (I’m pretty sure) it means he was born with it, it’s not a new growth. Burke is a dumbfounded.
Bailey appears to be in a good mood today! Or it might be that she’s too worried about Webber to handhold the interns – she green lights their plan of treatment for our alcoholic patient, and tells them to do one better than scheduling the fluid drain and go ahead and do it themselves instead. See one, do one, teach one – we’ve heard it before and believe me we’re going to hear that a lot over the years. Izzie hasn’t seen one, but Christina has, so Izzie is about to!
Alex and George are heading down the stairs discussing their patient’s ovary (Alex being Alex makes a joke about “metrosexuality” which makes me want to push him down the stairs) when they run into Olivia. Karev makes a remark about being “invisible” when she doesn’t greet him, and when she does it’s hostile, so he’s clearly pissed all woman in the vicinity off at some point. He heads out and Olivia takes the opportunity to basically jump George. Unfortunately, he has to tell her, and no time like the present. Being George, he first manages to imply that he’s breaking up with her, or that she’s a slut or a prostitute, before saying he likes her a lot and then finally breaks mid-kiss to tell her he has syphilis. Awkward.
Richard is in his office (with his “best doctor” awards, because that’s a thing?) nursing a headache. Shepherd comes in, concerned after what happened in surgery earlier. Richard explains his symptoms and says his ophthalmologist explained it as ageing, but he’s concerned it could be something else entirely. Not mentioned: if it is just his eyesight going due to age, he can wave goodbye to his career. Shepherd agrees to set up some tests, and they’re going to keep it very quiet. Secret counter: 5
Do you know the story of Typhoid Mary? Well, welcome to the story of Syphilis George! Alex is explaining how syphilis is somehow a good thing (“now they’ll see you as a player”) when he turns up at the cafeteria, only to be met with a new nickname – “syph boy”. Izzie told Christina, but Christina notes that gossip travels FTL anyway at the hospital, confirmed when Meredith asks how he’s feeling. George is mortified, but Alex notes everyone has secrets; at least George’s is out in the open. Asked about his by Christina, Alex offers to share if she will. Izzie insists she has nothing to hide – bank that obvious lie for a later episode – but Meredith agrees that everyone has something to hide.
Burke heads in to tell his friend Bill that the mass isn’t a tumour, but the situation is complicated. He appears to have merged with his twin in utero, and some of his cells belong to his female twin – hence the ovary. Burke has gotten over his discomfort and reassures his friend that he’s no less of a man, it’s a quirk of nature, it’s going to be removed, and he can reassure his wife he’s going to be fine. He never knew the ovary was there, and he won’t miss it when it’s gone. It’s no big deal.
Speaking of manly men (just kidding), we cut to George and a Giant Needle. It’s penicillin time, Dr Syph! Apparently this has to be injected into his butt, and we start with Alex administering it before a total lack of boundaries and privacy lead to first Meredith taking over, then Izzie walking in, then Christina walking in. But at least he has a cute butt… like a baby’s. They have officially broken his spirit and I do actually feel a little bad for him, but it’s still a funny moment.
After all the hilarity, Meredith is finally taking that call from her mother’s home – there’s a family dinner that they’d like her to attend. She promises to try to be there, but I’m predicting right now she won’t make it, not least because she’s still keeping her mother’s condition a secret. Webber’s secret also remains intact, and he’s on his way to get a CT when he’s interrupted by his assistant – something’s come up.
That something? Syphilis! 3 interns, 4 residents and 6 nurses in this one department has syphilis! His assistant Patricia walks the team of HIGHLY TRAINED MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS through the symptoms, potential long-term effects, and how to prevent syphilis (complete with condom and banana), and all I can think is “they all know this, why on earth does it need explaining, just tell them to be more damn careful”. It’s a good opportunity for Webber to go get his MRI while everyone else is busy in this lecture, though, so off he goes to get his brain looked at.
The sheer volume of people having unprotected sex with each other in this hospital is ridiculous! There’s a large line of people getting blood tests for syphilis. Christina is in the line because she’s a responsible human, when she’s comes across Burke. They each determine they’re not having sex with anybody else, and exit the line. I will point out they should probably get an STI screen anyway because it’s a responsible thing to do before you start having unprotected sex with someone, but maybe they already did, who knows? Izzie encounters Christina and jokes that at least neither of them need to be in the line because they’re not getting any and hey, there goes our secret counter again! Secret counter: 6
Time for the fluid drain on their alcoholic patient, and the fluid coming out is bloody. That is a Bad Sign, I expect. The fluid clears up, though, as its draining out. Here’s hoping it’s not that bad of a sign, but I’m unconvinced. Moving away from bad signs and into full-on bad, we get Webber’s MRI results – he has a tumour pressing on his optic nerve. it’s operable, although it’s risky (it is brain surgery after all). Webber still wants this kept under wraps, which… sure, not sure how you’ll manage that given you’ll need to be in recovery and all afterwards. He wants the surgery tonight, so it’s full speed ahead, and it looks like Grey’s in on it.
Back to fluid drain guy and he’s apparently coded while they were draining his fluid. What the heck, is he not on a monitor or something?! The Ghost of Commercials Past interrupts us as they start the code, and we return to find out that boom, he’s dead. No warning. Izzie is convinced they did something wrong, but Christina is adamant they were fine, and Bailey agrees – it wasn’t their fault, he had no history of heart problems. The problem for Christina and Izzie is there’s no autopsy – the family doesn’t want one. Our interns desperately want to know what killed this guy.
Bailey’s also in on the Special Super Secret Silent Sunset Surgery aka de-tumour Richard Webber. Shepherd is a bit nervous given he’ll ruin Webber’s career if he messes it up. More nervous is Meredith, who needs to know if she needs to be in syph line, but Shepherd is reassuring – he has no time if nothing else to see anyone else, and they’re “practically a condom ad”. We’re all amused as she stipulates that she wants no more glow in the dark ones (please, more glow in the dark ones, that’s hilarious). They do agree on making some rules for their relationship, though. Just as Derek yet again gets a mysterious phone call he refuses to pick up.
Over in Burke’s friend’s surgery, and the gynaecologist takes a moment before announcing a startling discovery. Having an ovary wouldn’t necessarily make Bill sterile, but his vas deferens is blind – in short, not connected to his testes. He’s been shooting blanks his whole life, so his wife being due in five weeks is, ah, a little suspect. George asks the question everyone in the room is thinking – who got his wife pregnant? Of course none of them jump to the “kind” conclusion, which is that Bill and his wife were aware his sperm count was zero, and either harvested sperm or used donor sperm. Burke is uninterested in the opinions of George or Alex afterwards, though – it’s his own moral dilemma as to whether to tell Bill.
Izzie and Christina are trying to talk the family of our dead patient into an autopsy, but the daughter wants this to be over. She’s not interested in knowing why – she already knows, as far as she’s concerned he drank himself to death, and put her and her mother through hell while doing it. The mother is on the side of the autopsy, but the daughter is insistent. She doesn’t care if her father would’ve wanted the autopsy, either. Case closed.
Over in the Bed Corridor, Izzie is trying to talk Christina into performing an autopsy anyway. How very Burke and Hare! Ultimately the threat of being known as the new 007 is enough for Christina, who agrees. Secret counter: 007 The rules of fight club are invoked. The interns are trying to find a way to do it without Bailey being around, and Meredith lets on that she won’t be around during the surgery she definitely can’t talk about – but does give them a time window.
It’s a beautiful night to save eyesight, and the team are assembled for Webber – the gallery is locked and everything. Webber is trying to run everything while strapped to a gurney, because hey, he is the chief still. Doctors do make the worst patients. But they have him covered, and put him out so they can remove the tumour. Izzie and Christina don’t need to put their patient out, because he’s already dead and yes, they have stolen his body. Christina brought a textbook, because it’s been a while since either has done an autopsy. Yes, that is me cackling you can hear in the distance.
Webber’s surgery is over, and they’re talking about his prognosis. There’s a chance his optic nerve is damaged, and if it is, he’ll be permanently blind. This is heavy stuff, people! Bailey asks Meredith to page Izzie and Christina to cover her patients so she can stay with Webber, and that’s where the secrets come back to bite them. Bailey is a human lie detector and takes all of about 2 seconds to work out what they’re doing.
Over to Burke, who is confronting Bill’s wife about the fact that she’s been lying to her husband about their baby. She argues that it’s personal to their relationship, but Burke is having none of it. She’s betrayed his friend, and he thinks he has a right to know. This will blow their life up, and they both know it. He has to draw a line here, and the truth is that as Bill’s doctor, Burke has to tell him he’s sterile and always has been. I broadly agree with this, to be honest; I don’t see how ethically you could make any other decision, although I’m not a doctor.
Remember how I said earlier I bet that Meredith wouldn’t make it to the family dinner at the home? Anyone who put money up against me, your money’s due. She can’t (she has to monitor the chief). The worker at the home compounds Meredith’s misery by saying that Ellis could actually remember who she was today. You can see this information land with Meredith and how it throws her for a loop; this is unexpected.Just then Derek walks over and remarks on the number of secret phone calls, and Meredith finally confides in him about her mother’s Alzheimer’s. He’s there for her, and it’s very sweet. It’s also in outside Webber’s room, and he is waking up! The good news: he can see. The bad news: the first thing he sees is an intimate moment between Derek and Meredith. Guess that cat’s out of the bag! Secret counter: 9
Bailey is doing a Classic Bailey and ranting at Christina and Izzie, not without reason – what they’re doing is irresponsible but also Highly Illegal, and it could have serious consequences for Bailey too! It is a ridiculous thing for them to be doing. However, she’s stopped in her tracks when they show her his oversized heart full of a grainy material. They want to run some tests, which causes the Rage-o-meter to head back to the red zone. But their argument – what could it hurt at this point, at least they’ll get some answers – does hold some sway, for reasons unknown.
Webber’s fully awake and Meredith knows he can see (not least because he calls her by name). He also tells her she’s making a mistake dating an attending. Speaking of mistakes, it turns out Izzie and Christina’s body-snatching adventures had a good outcome. The father might have been an alcoholic, but his heart problem was caused by a blood condition, and the daughter might have it too – she needs testing for it. They get the authorisation for the autopsy signed off retroactively, by virtue of possibly having saved the daughter’s life. And no one is being sued. Hurray?
The problem with secrets is, even when you think you’re in control, you’re not.
To the wrap up of season 1, and many of our secrets have been unveiled. Still a few more to come, though. Burke tells Bill that he’s sterile and he is, understandably, upset. Olivia tells George that she was seeing Alex when they first started dating, and, well… Yeah, Alex indirectly gave George syphilis! Cue punching! They break the fight up, but George did get a good couple in there. Derek and Meredith are heading off for a steak and a bottle of wine, when he sees a hot redhead and immediately apologises. This is a bombshell in more ways than one – introducing Addison Shepherd, the phone call Derek has been refusing to pick up. Derek’s wife. “And you must be the woman who’s been screwing my husband”. AND WE’RE DONE.
Sum it up
Wow. The last minute of this episode really saves it from mediocrity. The basic premise of the episode – that secrets are bad – is a well-established theme in TV, film and life generally, let’s be honest. It doesn’t even go into the grey areas – for example, I think Olivia probably could’ve kept the fact that she was seeing Alex previously a secret without any issues down the line. The patients, other than Bill and Webber, were pretty uneventful. Bill posed more of a medically interesting story with some ethical dilemma thrown in, but ultimately resolved themselves how we’d expect. Christina’s is the Keeper of Secrets at the end of this season, with her relationship with Burke and her pregnancy still fully under wraps. Meredith had the most personal growth here, confiding in Derek and defending her relationship to Webber, except making herself this vulnerable has backfired spectacularly at the end of the episode with the introduction of Addison. Overall rating: 7/10 (without the Addison reveal – 6/10)
Hero of the Episode: Oh god. Absolutely no one. But if I had to pick, Burke, for choosing to do the right thing as a doctor, even though maybe as a friend he would’ve chosen differently.
Zero of the Episode: It’s hard to choose between the interns performing illegal autopsies and the dude lying about being married, but ultimately it HAS to be Derek.
Literally Incredible: Did I mention the whole illegal autopsy thing? It’s a federal crime! Too stupid for anyone to realistically do, even though it makes for good drama.
Season Hero: Tie between Derek Shepherd, Izzie Stevens and Preston Burke with 2 apiece.
Season Zero: The blockhead that is Alex Karev, with 3 votes, (2 more than anyone else)
Now that we’ve completed Season 1 (in a mad scramble), new episode recaps will be dropping regularly every Tuesday and Friday. This project is obviously new, so all constructive criticism welcome in the comments, via Twitter, however you feel like communicating. If you are enjoying this and you have other Grey’s Anatomy friends in your life, I encourage you to share this with them. I hope you enjoyed Season 1! Only [an indeterminate number] left to go!