In which all dolls and no poop makes Mr Hubble a full boy.
Previously on Grey’s Anatomy: Derek and Addison used to be married, but she cheated on him and he left both her and New York! Burke is running the hospital while Webber recovers from brain surgery! George is dating Olivia, who used to date Alex (who George punched because he was the ultimate source of the syphilis)! Christina is pregnant by Burke and he doesn’t know and they just broke up! George is in love with Meredith! Meredith and Derek have broken up!
We don’t “say when” because there’s something about the possibility of more. More tequila, more love, more anything – more is better.
It’s the morning after the drinking session the night before, and oh dear. Penises, oestrogen and tequila are all variously to blame for the two hours of vomiting Meredith and Christina are doing this morning, as expressed to a puzzled George and a resigned Izzie. Despite the voiceover, more tequila is apparently not better. Many of the secrets are out of the bag, and everyone knows that Christina was sleeping with Burke, as well as the Dumping of Derek Shepherd. George is trying his best to do “concerned friend” while actually just confirming that Meredith is single now. That’s kind of a creeper move, dude. No one is talking about the pregnancy so I assume that’s still under wraps, but Meredith feels… empty.
Also a creeper move is Derek waiting to ambush her at the hospital. It seems he’s surprised that his big emotional trailer reveal hasn’t made her forgive him for NOT TELLING HER HE WAS MARRIED. Christ. I’m here for the description of Addison Shepherd as leggy and fabulous. Points for accuracy, Meredith! She’s now a “sink with an open drain” – anything he says runs right out. I’m also with Izzie, you also get points for any formation of a metaphor when you’re very hungover.
Burke is enjoying his power as Chief enormously by ruining Derek’s day right as he walks into the hospital – he’s bumping Derek out of his OR later due to an incoming organ donor. I guess if someone has to be bumped, might as well enjoy yourself while you’re doing it! The interns have run off and gotten ready very quickly, because shortly after we’re in the ambulance bay with Bailey, receiving a car crash victim. The guy is DOA, but George and Meredith are given the task of trying to save him. He objects, but Bailey’s clear – he’s not dead until they say he’s dead, and until then, they will do everything they can.
George gets to be awkward with both Meredith and Olivia in the same room, while they work in a (futile) attempt to save an (obviously dead) patient. More victims of the crash are arriving, and the first one we meet is a dude who was already on the liver transplant list before he got in a crash. He’s alive, though, so it’s an improvement on the last one. He’s going straight into surgery with Burke, some doctor whose name I didn’t catch and didn’t bother to rewind to find out, and Izzie, while Karev looks after the son and Izzie gets the mum. It’s a family affair!
Having handed off the emergent cases, Bailey gets handed one more… a creepy-looking guy who appears to have swallowed a load of packages full of drugs. She pulls Meredith from Obviously Dead Guy (who’s now getting yet extensive procedures done, despite George’s wish to call it) onto Bowel Obstruction Guy. At least your patient is still alive, fumes George, and with that… Cue titles!
Webber is proving the adage about doctors making the worst patients 100% true, trying to stop Derek finish examining him. You had brain surgery for your vision, Webber. Let him check your vision! In walks a fabulous woman, mocking Richard’s devotion to his job, and yep, it’s his wife, Adele (played by the wonderful Loretta Devine). She’s supposed to be in the Virgin Islands, because he had brain surgery and didn’t tell his wife. Yep. She is pissed and I really can’t blame her! She found out because Derek called her – partly for revenge (“you called mine”, heh), partly because he’s not willing to discharge Webber unless he has someone to care for him at home.
Enter Addison, and it looks like she and Adele know each other too! Cue a brief moment where Adele assumes Derek and Addison are back together, which he brutally shoots down. He thinks they’re completely over, she points out the lack of divorce, and when asked about counselling, declares “we had adultery, that was enough”. Ouch. Off Addison pops, and Derek (with a kiss on the cheek) completely ignores Adele’s advice to give Addison a chance, in favour of getting out of there and leaving Adele alone to scold a guilty-looking Richard some more.
We get to meet the other members of the car-crash family, starting with the son. He’s having an X-ray, presumably to confirm his spine isn’t damaged, but is mostly pre-occupied with whether his mum’s okay. That’s when we start to get the story, with his mum chiming in with her version of events throughout (oh hi, future Finn’s mum from Glee!). The son says the dad was mad from an argument at breakfast and drives destructively when angry. Someone cut him off on the freeway, and he saw red, chased the other car through traffic at high speed and caused the crash. She claims they had a lovely day, he’s a really safe driver, swerved to avoid something in the road, and the crash came out of nowhere.
The mum is concerned about whether the surgeons know her husband has a bad liver, and how her son is doing. The son is concerned about how his dad was doing, but brutally unsympathetic. As he puts it, “the son of a bitch got what he deserved”. Well, damn. Over in the dad’s surgery, it’s not good. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, which is a poor beginning. Burke’s repaired the heart, and the other surgeon can repair the bowel. The liver, though, is toast. They ask if he has any family, and at that moment we cut to Christina is examining the mum further. She finds evidence of old injuries that the mum tries (and fails) to blame on the crash.
George is still trying and failing to resuscitate dead guy, at a leisurely pace. Bailey’s still not done with him – do they not need these resources for patients who could possibly survive? – and instructs him to do one further procedure, before he’s allowed to call it. Bailey asks him why they’re doing this to the man, and George thinks it’s for the experience, but she says he’s missing something. Working it out is his other task while performing this last attempt at resurrection.
Creepy Impacted Bowel Guy (Mr Hubble) is refusing to tell Meredith what he swallowed, but is insisting on talking about how delicate and porcelain-like her features are. He’s worried whatever it is might offend her, but promises it’s not drugs. The results from the imaging? It’s drugs. Over to yet more imaging, and Scott (Car Crash Son) has come away from the accident mostly fine. Less so, Lea (his mum), whose X-rays get Bailey’s medical opinion of “daaaaamn!”. She is a has a lot of old, poorly healed fractures, and Bailey makes the assessment that she’s likely being abused.
Alex chimes in with the son’s version of the car crash, which Christina notes is different to her patient’s. Lea also has internal bleeding, and needs bed rest (and I won’t repeat the rest of the victim-blaming line Christina comes out with. Bad, Christina). We need cheering up, so here comes Meredith, with a scan full of balloons of drugs in Mr Hubble’s scans. It’s only now, examining them with Alex, Bailey and Izzie, that the truth comes to light (literally). Alex remarks that one of them looks like it has a face, and Bailey finally recognises what she’s seeing – Mr Hubble has ingested the heads of 10 ‘Judy’ dolls (do you think they didn’t want to be sued by Mattel? I think they didn’t want to be sued by Mattel). And that X-ray is creepy as all heck. Thanks for the nightmares!
We’re still on the topic of Judy dolls; who had them, who didn’t, who used to shave and dissect them (not Alex, which is surprising, but Christina, which is not). Christina goes on an epic feminist rant, only to be cut short by Bailey. Mr Hubble needs a psych consult, because who swallows doll heads without being a little disturbed, and also surgery. The OR is exactly where we go next, in fact, just not with Mr Hubble – Car Crash Guy is still on the table and there’s no way to salvage the liver, and no transplant match from UNOS. A family donor is his only hope, and they’ve got six hours to find one.
George is doing something to Really Dead Guy’s heart while talking to Olivia. After the small talk about how hard it is to break it to family members, she decides then is the time to apologise about Alex. OVER AN ALMOST-CERTAINLY DEAD PATIENT. Why?! George is getting increasingly worked up while doing whatever he’s doing – he doesn’t want to talk about this. Ever again. Olivia’s trying to explain the timeline but really, come on, is now the time? She sees he’s getting worked up, and drops it… Only to bring up the syphilis! Props to the actress, because this is funny as scenes go, but even so, this is ridiculous. He gets a page from the Chief just as he’s finishing, and it’s time to call time – of death, and clearly on their relationship, too.
Scott, car crash boy, is doing this rhythmic tapping thing against the sides of his bed, presumably as a stress/emotion thing. Karev notes the behaviour and tries to distract the guy with the story of the ridiculous Judy doll head guy, but seemingly to no avail. Scott is still upset, battling tears. Alex takes a deep breath, and dives in, using his own experiences of being a kid and dealing with an abusive father, and blaming yourself for not stopping it, to try and empathise and calm Scott down. Scott does seem to calm, a little, and asks whether she told him. Alex explains that the x-rays make it obvious, then asks whether Scott is being abused too, which thankfully he isn’t. When asked how to deal with the anger, he suggests thinking about the guy who eats doll heads. Cue, Izzie, with the news about his dad.
Lea (car crash mum) explains that the dad was a drinker, essentially, and that’s what’s done his liver in. He stopped drinking, but his blood type is quite rare (B-, about 2% of the population), so finding a match is difficult. Scott has been tested and is a good match, but hasn’t made his mind up yet, which seems entirely reasonable. Christina is clearly against the son being pressured into giving his dad a liver (or giving him a liver at all). Lea is upset by the idea of losing her husband, which shouldn’t surprise anyone, because domestic abuse is complicated, but Christina doesn’t get that. At all. She pops off at Burke in the hallway, who lectures her about medical ethics (fair) before she storms off (also fair), still angry at him for leaving her.
Meredith is seeking an OR for urgent removal of the dolls from Mr Hubble (props to Patricia doing an impression of the dolls here – “help! Let me out!”), so Burke gives her instructions to bump someone. He retreats to his office, only to find its been invaded by Adele Webber, gathering material for Richard to “obsess over” from home. She’s talking about him being a workaholic a lot this episode, and clearly the way there’s always something, the work never stopping, bothers her. She was hoping the tumour might get him to retire. That gets Burke’s attention (who has been politely zoning her out). That’s what he wants too. She departs, but not before launching a backhanded compliment about how detached and obsessive he is. Ha!
Izzie’s breaking the news about his dad to Scott, bluntly – he won’t survive the surgery without a liver, so Scott has hours in which to decide. Izzie clearly wants him to donate, and is giving him the best version of events, with none of the risks (although the fact that your liver regenerates IS pretty cool). Alex is more realistic. She doesn’t know it yet, but this is hitting home for him, and he knows more or less what Scott is thinking. He’s also right that she is way out of line trying to talk him into it.
Richard is finally leaving the hospital! George is getting very conflicting messaging from Dr and Mrs Webber. They’re bickering about how often Webber should be contacted, how much he should work while in recovery, pretty much everything you’d expect. They stroll past the psych consult for Mr Hubble, who basically gives a giant shrug. Patient’s not talking, he doesn’t know. Could be a sex thing, which Bailey does NOT want to hear.
She also doesn’t want to defend Meredith when Addison wants to take her aside. She’s surmised that Meredith knows about the whole adultery thing. Meredith also doesn’t want to hear any of it – she’s not involved, which seems to cheer Addison up. It doesn’t stop Addison trying to explain that she acted out of desperation, there are two sides. Etc. Meredith walks off out of sheer “done”-ness. I pause to take a screen cap of Addison. We all win.
It’s time for that time-honoured Seattle Grace tradition, discussing your patient’s private medical and personal history in the public cafeteria. HIPAA had been law for nine years, people. The ethics of the son’s donation to an abusive father, who has also just caused a car accident that killed someone, is the topic. If Scott doesn’t donate, will he feel like a murderer? Or is he justified in not wanting to save his father? Karev has prepared a centrepiece of headless dolls on the table, which is amusing. Olivia comes over to see George, who ghosts her(?). Everyone is confused. He insists it’s not the syphilis, and Izzie quickly twigs that it’s because Meredith is single now and he’s still holding… less of a torch and more of a flamethrower for her.
Meredith is obviously still confused, and forces Izzie to say that there’s another girl. Christina thinks he has another girlfriend which, honestly, no. The clarification comes that he likes someone else he hasn’t told, all over George telling her to shut up. He admits that he there is someone else he likes, and that just pisses Meredith off. He’s stringing Olivia along, pretending to be available when he’s not. Yes, yes, Meredith, we see the parallel. Christina chimes in to lecture him on this too, “because oestrogen”. Honestly, he’s lucky they didn’t pick up the headless dolls and beat him with them.
Meredith is trying to figure out why Mr Hubble ate the doll heads, but he’s evasive when questioned, so they go ahead and do his surgery. All of our interns and Bailey are hand-searching his bowel for ‘Judy’ heads, while speculating over the cause. George finds one to pull out, and it turns out Bailey is bit of a collector and can recognise them. She’s going to have to do the last few with just Meredith, though, because George has been assigned to another “dead” patient (organ donor on life support), and the other three have to go get an answer regarding the liver.
It’s Olivia and George, again, over a patient who arrived “dead”, again. He makes a crack about this one’s heart still beating which, George, come on. Speaking of, the dead guy from earlier’s family are inbound, so he’ll have to talk to them later. He’s clearly learned some of Bailey’s lesson, because checks on the donor to make sure she’s actually braindead. While he’s doing that, Olivia is dropping hints about how, if they’re broken up, he should talk to her about it. Fair point. Interrupted, though, because the patient responds to a knuckle to the sternum! Her brain stem is still alive! The harvest team comes down and, despite George’s objections, take her away.
Alex pulls a wheelchair up to Scott’s room, and takes him our for some air, while the liver transplant becomes a “we need an answer right now” decision. Lea wants to talk to her son, to talk him into it, but Christina resists. The mum knows why – Christina is judging her for wanting to save her husband. Lea’s not wrong, and Christina proves that abundantly by listing all the things that make her husband a bad person. She says that love has its limits, which is true, but fails to acknowledge the complexity of the situation. No, Christina!
George has decided to get Derek to put on his superhero cape and come save the day – and the decerebrate donor. He challenges the transplant team, and Burke has his back, while Meredith and Christina look on. They, like us, were clearly expecting another pissing contest. Scott is expressing his fears to Alex. What if his dad goes back to hitting his mum; etc. Izzie comes up to them, needing an answer, but Alex waves her off for a moment to respond to Scott’s question about what he did with his anger. He got big, and strong, and beat the crap out of his dad, who then left them. He wishes he hadn’t done it. Izzie’s heard all this, and apologises for interrupting – but it’s decision time.
Scott, Lea and the doctors are gathered. Lea asks Burke when the surgery would be, which is right now. After a few minutes, he finally settles. He’ll donate, but Lea has to tell the truth to the police, and they’re moving out. Enough is enough. She nods, crying. Christina (outside the room, at least), tells Burke Lea is just going to go back to the dad, but Burke says that they don’t know that, and she echoes that it’s not their call. He finally shows that he might care, and checks that she’s okay. She’s not, but says so long as she can scrub in, she’s fine. Lies!
Derek’s done examining the decerebrate donor, and she’s not braindead! Her brain tumour is operable, and he’s going to go do just that. He also asks George to look out for Meredith, which, sure? George immediately gets paged to the OR, because really dead guy from the beginning of the episode’s family are here. He seems to have had a Moment of Growth, though, because he tells the whole, unvarnished truth about liking someone else to Olivia, and they part on decent terms. He’s also solved Bailey’s other task – about why they work so hard on patients with almost no chance of bringing them back. It’s so they can honestly tell the family they did everything they could. I call bullshit.
After that soppy moment, we shift to Derek and Addison in the elevator. He queries what she told Meredith about the adultery. She repeats her line from earlier, about people doing desperate things to attract attention. He’s incredulous that the adultery was about getting his attention, but she explains that at that point she just wanted sex. They got successful, and lazy, and stopped paying attention to each other. She’s trying to apologise to him, but he steals Meredith’s terrible sink metaphor from earlier, and walks off.
Speaking of desperate acts, Mr Hubble is happy that they got all the dolls heads out of him. Meredith lets him know it was a deeply unpleasant experience for the surgeons. He states that he feels empty, which is also how Meredith feels. She asks him again what the satisfaction of eating doll heads is, and he’s considering telling her. She asks if it would be too much information, and he says it might be. On reflection, she’s better off not knowing.
Sometimes all we want is a taste; other times there’s no such thing as enough. The glass is bottomless, and all we want is more.
Wrap-up time! Karev and Izzie are with Scott, who’s awake after surgery. Burke is staring at his now less-congested surgical board (a point of contention earlier, given the “bumping”). Lea is giving a statement to the police about the crash. The doll heads are finally in the biohazard bin. Let us hope it’s also designed to contain demonic beings. Burke and Christina have a long moment of eye contact; he’s clearly regretting the break-up on some level. George and Derek are saving the almost-donor, while Burke watches. He steps away, and Meredith is there, staring intently down at Derek. She’s clearly not without regret herself.
Sum it Up
Okay. The theme for this episode I think was supposed to be about want and desire. Mr Hubble fit into this, sort of, as did the whole break-up regret vibe from all those who have broken up. But really, this episode is more about the sides to every story. No long-form plot developments here other than some discussion of Richard’s lack of home life, and Addison’s attempt to explain herself. We do get more insight into Alex’s past. Main patient stories were ethical dilemmas. How far do you go to “save” a patient that can’t be saved? Should the son donate his liver to an abusive father? Great acting from Romy Rosemont in particular, but this patient story just didn’t grab me, except to want to yell at Christina. The doll head x-rays are going to give me nightmares, but otherwise? Sort of a big “meh”. Overall rating: 6/10
Hero of the Episode: Alex Karev. 100%.
Zero of the Episode: No question; it’s the abusive asshole of a husband.
Literally Incredible: George being tasked with working on the DOA patient. It’s true. they do checks to make sure someone’s dead, but if someone’s dead and has been for 20 minutes, they don’t devote an intern to performing procedures with no chance of working at a very leisurely pace on what is essentially a corpse.
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