Grey’s Anatomy – New History – Recap

Friday, November 13, 2009, 01:47 PM | TV
Tags: Grey's Anatomy, New History, Recap

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(Here’s Desi’s recap of last night’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy: New History)

This week Grey’s returns to the tunnel, which I always thought was one of the great plots of the early seasons. It gave the interns somewhere to hide from the rest of Seattle Grace, but tonight it serves as a kind of Underground Railroad for Dr. Stevens’ return. She meets Meredith, pushing in a man in a wheelchair. She tells Meredith that it’s her high school biology teacher and that she needs Mer’s help to get him seen by Derek. He says something about Izzie being pregnant, and Meredith looks at her, stunned: “you’re pregnant?” And no, she’s not, Dr. Singer just thinks she’s in high school again. (Thanks for that, Shonda.) It took me over half the episode to remember that Izzie was pregnant in high school. The Nyquil must really be messing with my memory.

Avery tries to talk to Cristina about their kiss, which goes less well than he’d hoped. At the same time, Owen has gotten her a gift: a cardio god that he met in Iraq. Immediately, Cristina hates Dr. Altman. She’s never heard of her, she isn’t published, and she went to state school. At every teaching moment, Cristina assumes Teddy is asking how to perform a procedure because she doesn’t remember how instead of an opportunity to learn.

And then the skies part and an angel shows up in the form of Loretta Devine, playing Adele, the Chief’s wife. She walks up to Bailey for her aid in finding her husband as Lexie also comes up, saying that one of the Chief’s patients needs emergent surgery. Bailey goes off to find Richard, and as she sends him off to surgery, Adele accuses them of having an affair. I, again, almost laughed myself off my bed at that. Callie steps in to explain that they aren’t having an affair and that they’re just each other’s work husband and work wife. Somehow she buys the explanation and tells Bailey that someone is sleeping with their husband.

In the clinic, Cristina and Meredith attack Izzie with questions about coming back and why she left, when poor Alex walks in… and immediately walks out. Dr. Percy, whom Izzie feels was instrumental in her firing, is on Derek’s service and runs all the tests on her biology teacher. When they all come back normal, she pushes him for a spinal tap that she thinks will show a bleed that the other tests haven’t. He finally relents and when that also comes back normal, she’s faced with the fact that her professor might just be sick.

Lexie goes to Bailey for another problem with Richard’s patient: he’s jaundice. Bailey, Lexie, and Reed do an ultrasound and find that the Chief had nicked the common bile duct, causing the patient to become yellow. They quietly take the patient in to repair the damage, and Richard decides to take a step back from surgery, handing his patients over to Bailey.

After Izzie gets the spinal tap results back, she returns to the clinic to take Singer back to Chehalis, but he’s different: he’s lucid. They discover that he has a buildup of spinal fluid and the tap relieved the pressure, causing him to go back to normal. Derek agrees to perform the surgery necessary to relieve the condition if Richard signs off on it. He initially protests, but gives in when she reminds him that she donated $8 million for the clinic to be built.

Teddy diagnoses an extremely rare condition and allows Cristina to be her first assist on the surgery, and Cristina finally realizes that maybe she is a cardio god despite having lived in the desert for a few years. Owen and Teddy talk outside after her first day, and she tells him she knows she’s a present for his new girlfriend. She also says she thought if Owen and his other girlfriend ever broke up, that he’d call her. Aw.

Meredith goes to Alex and tells him that he really needs to talk to Izzie. She says Izzie is all bright and shiny and that he married her and needs to talk to her. He finally does talk to her, and she accuses him of getting her fired. She says her job was the one thing she had left… but what about him? It seems like your husband would be something you have left, but okay, cancer patient. She says she has forgiven him for a lot, and she’s right, but he walks out anyway. Poor Alex, he’s all dark and twisty now.

As Bailey is going over charts for the Chief’s patients, she tells Callie she’s lost her husband husband and her work husband. She says Derek could be her work husband, and she says the most Bailey-esque thing I’ve heard her say in a long time: “With all that hair? I ain’t lookin’ at that all day.”

Meredith sits with Alex at the bar, telling him she’s sure Izzie will come back, and asks if he wants to keep drinking. He does, so she goes to the bar, where we find the Chief. And where we find my love: JOE. He’s been absent for so long. I missed him. He asks Richard if he’s going home or back to the hospital, and he says he’s going home and asks for another “club soda.” Joe says he’ll need his keys and instead pours him some vodka. Long-time viewers will remember that Richard had something like 13 years of sobriety… but not anymore. We see a montage of the last six seasons, of everything that led him to start drinking again, and he locks eyes with Meredith before he stands up to leave.

I loved this episode. I think it’s one of the best this season because they didn’t focus on just one character, there’s a bar scene, there’s Joe, there’s a montage (as a One Tree Hill watcher, I appreciate a good montage) and there’s an appropriate amount of dark and twisty vs. bright and shiny. I’m still apprehensive about Izzie’s absence but there’s only a couple more episodes of that left and next week is another holiday episode, so get out the Christmas tree and start singing carols.

2 Comments for Grey’s Anatomy – New History – Recap

1

LOVE the episode and LOVE your recap!!! All that McDreamy hair~

Rickey, do you watch Grey’s?

Anne on November 13, 2009 at 9:30 pm
2

I don’t have time for it now, that’s why I let Desi write he opinions on it here. I get my info from her! I’m glad you liked the recap.

Rickey on November 14, 2009 at 4:07 am