back when grey's was (somewhat) good...

i have been reminiscing over my favorite over-the-top, jumping-the-shark, yelling-at-the-TV moments from the last 4 seasons. the following are just a few memorable scenes and quotes, listed in order of increasing ridiculosity:


10."do you like jail!?!"
[cristina and izzy steal a body to do an autopsy].
if a patient ever specifically makes a request against a medical procedure, the grey's doctors only find that as direct encouragement to go on with the exact thing. (for further discussion: see #3: prom/denny). nevermind that they did discover the man died of a genetic disease, nevermind that they did eventually get the family's permission, i could have done with a few minutes of seeing izzy and yang behind bars.

9."i hate trout!!!
[addison hates trout/the men go camping].
there really is no excuse to live in a little tiny camping trailer on a huge plot of land when you're a multi-million-dollar earning surgeon, so i'm totally behind Addison on this one. never should have given up that brownstone in manhattan, girl. and those doctors have no more business going fishing and getting all outdoorsy than would paris hilton running for president – your expertise is in the OR, which comes to point all to soon when somebody catches joe's boyfriend with a fishhook in the back of the head.

8."that was mark."
[mcdreamy punches mcsteamy in the face].
sloane shows up in seattle and takes all of 2 seconds to start hitting on meredith, which prompts derek to fly from wherever in the hospital to clock him in the side of the head – only giving sloane further chance to show off and suture his own face and earn his own nickname: "mcsteamy." i'm with george on this one: "choking back some mc-vomit."

7. "i've spent lots of time imagining myself half-naked in a room full of women and the reality is so much better."
[george gets syphilis].
before george became the man-whore of seattle grace (seriously, calculate how many people he's slept with!), he was all sweet and innocent – and slapped with an STD. and somehow the entire intern crew managed to show up and check out his ass when he was getting his antibiotics. poor george.

6. "it looks like santa threw up in here."/"it's what jesus would freakin' do!!!"
[izzy goes christmas overboard].
for the portions of the population who don't enjoy the piney-smell of fir trees, peppermint sweetness of candy canes, twinkling lights in the snow, and bright holiday melodies, i understand why this episode would make you want to poke your eyes out with a pencil. even i – with my tendencies to start the holiday music in mid-september - found izzy to be annoyingly annoying and diminishing of my own christmas spirit. but, at least she got a dose of reality with her overwhelming christmas cheer by doing something she absolutely hated: pretending to be a sick, overweight farmer to help alex study for his boards.

5. "we screw boys like whores on tequila."
[everybody has slept with everybody at least once, maybe even twice].
i cannot look at a tequila shot without having a little voice in the back of my head pipe up and chide, "don't end up like meredith grey….". it would take A LOT of tequila to get me anywhere close to meredith's status, or the status of anyone else on that show, considering they make bad sexual decisions with less abandon and more frequency than a normal person does when sending an e-mail.

4. "i'm bambi, george!"
[izzy resuscitates a deer].
this whole episode was a giant wtf moment. being an animal lover, i certainly wasn't delighted to see the deer in pain, but i wasn't reduced to a sobbing blubbery mess as when doc was put to sleep either. can you really use a portable defibrillator on a deer? and if you do, does the deer really jump up onto all its four legs and walk off into the sunset as though it was never hit by a truck?

3. whose panties are on the bulletin board!?"
[seattle grace throws a prom/izzy cuts denny's wires].
random event: the hospital throws a prom. despie wanting to be DNR, izzy cuts denny's wires in an attempt to get him a new heart (he does) and then spends too much time deciding what prom dress to wear (he dies). meredith puts her dog to sleep, sleeps with derek in a hospital room, loses her underwear, breaks up with mcvet, and manages to look mopey the entire time. everyone else in the episode generally runs around like chickens with their heads cut off.

2. meredith's multiple deaths
[meredith grabs hold of the bomb/meredith falls off a ferry boat]
as her therapist asks (in slightly more kind terms), what the hell is wrong with you that you keep putting yourself in these situations?! only meredith grey could grab ahold of a bomb and prevent it from going off, only to have it kill a member of the bomb squad (whose death is never mentioned again) and then have him reappear in her limbo-like state when she falls off a ferry boat. bomb man, train woman, denny, and doc (which sounds like a companion show to aqua teen hunger force) all magically reappear in meredith's dream to tell her to enjoy her life (i.e., less mopey) before they randomly start gushing blood and re-enacting their deaths. break out the elaine scarry and apply the trauma theory on these storylines.

1. "oh my god, you have a [fill-in-the-blank-with-exceedingly-rare-medical-mystery] case!?!"
[full gamut of medical calamities]
a man who eats scissors; bomb in a body cavity!; exploding necks; a man who chainsaws off his foot; impaled on a train; impaled on a tree; encased in cement; woman crushed by ferry boat; pregnant man; "his piercing is stuck on my IUD. and we're divorced;" brain tumors; body tumors; spontaneous orgasms; PENIS FISH.

A Eulogy for Grey's Anatomy, the worst show on TV that I still kinda loved.

Hey Grey's Anatomy, remember when you were an actual show that dealt with actual issues, like ferry boat disasters, girls with terminal cancer who just wanted a prom, the ethics of the doctor-patient relationship, how to handle an unexpected pregnancy and syphilis?

And then remember that one night you suddenly became a show about lesbians and ghost sex?

Nothing against the lesbians actually, but.....ghost sex?!?!!
Okay, to be fair the ghost sex hasn't occurred just yet [but if the previews are any indication, it will shortly].

The only way I will forgive this is if it's some elaborate set-up to show that Izzie is already dead [yessssssssssssssssssssssssssss!!!!] and that Alex is the crazy one hallucinating that she's still here. Because as we all know, Alex tends to like his ladies on the crazy side - so maybe, he's actually the crazy one.

Oh! Or, maybe everyone is already dead - because as Meredith's near death experience taught us, the after world looks just like Seattle Grace. Satre-ian twists like that I would expect from a show like Lost [return please!], but hey, maybe Dr. McArmy is the new Henry Gale. At the very least I can hope for a cross-over episode with two very different versions of hell: the 12th ranked teaching hospital in the nation in Seattle, or a tropical island with magical qualities and polar bears.
And since my heathen ways will probably land me in hell, I'm totally choosing the tropical island with magical qualities and polar bears when my time comes.

Even more ominous was Dr. Dixon's declaration that "I don't like this hospital - I don't like this hospital at all" - do the writers even like this hospital they created anymore? Or are they trying to sabatoge themselves? And for godssakes, where the hell was George?!!!

Hell may be other people, or it may just be the people at Seattle Grace.

a human pretzel?!

every week i think grey's cannot top itself: that the medical cases cannot get more outlandish, that the relationships cannot get more convoluted, but the show (atleast on this level) does not disappoint. tonight's episode featured a man caught in a trash compactor impaled on his own femur, a high-functioning autistic surgeon, a haunted heart, and denny's ghost - plus meredith's wild college roommate who willingly sliced open her own back with a scalpel, just to practice stitching. the fact that all of those things can fit into the same 42-minute episode is pretty amazing, and, of course, each of those generates plenty "wtf moments:"

1. trash compactor man. if this homeless man were from detroit, he would be lying next to the woman who had her face and hair ripped off, but because we're in seattle the entire surgical team is going to try to save him. don't doubt my empathy or the fact that all patients should all be treated equally, but trash-compacted man turned out to just be a showcase for callie to process her hahn emotions (which will never be fully processed, but only repressed, so that they can return in various forms - see discussion of denny's ghost).

2. highly-fuctioning autistic surgeon. considering that half the people in my graduate school are probably suffering from some sort level of asperger's syndrome (the jury's still out on me), i fully understand that dr. wilson can be an amazing heart surgeon and still unable to interact with the general population. however, seattle grace is not the general population, so you'd think they would have some sympathy.

3. haunted heart. this plotline was on the borderline of believeable (until the heart magically started beating again), but it was so closely tied to denny's ghost that i found it annoying, as usual.

4. denny's ghost. if denny is real, then is izzie already partly dead? or, was there some ridiculously elaborate trick where he wasn't really dead at all? either way, i am ready for them both to go toward the light. take izzie, take a few spare hearts and scalpels, and go - because this extension of the denny storyline is getting annoying and stretched too thin for even grey's viewers to believe. izzie was finallllly, ever-so-slightly moving foward (and dragging alex along with her), and then denny comes back to pull them into the hospital limbo that he, apparently, still haunts. if "i'm coming for you" truly means "i'm taking you with me," then get on with it shonda rimes! and stop subjecting us to the torturous drawn-out death of their relationship.

5. "die and death." meredith's college nickname tells a lot about her past and personality, especially for a person who was "dead once" and continually chooses to be mopey and gloomy. [though, i must admit, in the last few episodes she has exhibited more of the "warm-and-gooey, lives-with-a-boy" characteristics than the mopey ones. not sure how i feel about that]. and, as per usual, the old roommate disappeared halfway through the episode. she will likely pop-up next week after having done something utterly ridiculous (like removing a colleague's perfectly good appendix!!!!)

other random exclamations:

[please drag izzie in front of a bus right now. denny, you are getting annoying].

[the only way i will continue to tolerate you is if you bring back doc].

"little sloane does not enter little grey." good god, that was not necessary.

[plus sloane is going to sleep with callie in .238745 seconds.]

"shut it down." seriously, cristina, if you actually taught your interns shit then you would know how to do a slam-bam pulley stitch too, instead of getting the credit. and making out with mccamo is probably not the best idea, considering he's clearly got some issues going on.

alex is finally going to get turned around and then izzie is going to fuck him over because of her denny-complex.

and flash-forward to next week:

oh yes, have sex with a ghost. that always helps.

stop operating on each other! where is that dummy that yells and bleeds? that's what he's for!

karebare665 (10:08:32 PM): you can't have sex with a ghost
karebare665 (10:08:34 PM): you just can't
karebare665 (10:08:43 PM): not even in the greys universe

musical beds?

as today i did not feel like paying any attention in class whatsoever, i decided to exercise the little brain cells i have left by recounting my grey's knowledge.

we all know - and love - that the show is just s soap opera barely disguised as a medical drama because it is set in a hospital. love triangles, squares, and octagons are veiled behind a once-in-a-lifetime medical mystery.

just to prove how ridiculous this show is, i constructed a chart of all the main characters and their (sexual) relationships.

some surprising (and not so surprising conclusions):

1. only bailey and the chief have managed to not sleep with another member of the (current) staff. (of course, if former staff were included, the chief's relationship with ellis grey would be called into question).

2. surprisingly, george has slept with as many people as alex, even though alex is likely considered to be the bigger "man whore" of the two. (if george hooks up with lexie - which is likely going to happen in about 2 seconds - he will surpass alex for the title of "man whore #1 of seattle grace").

3. there are a lot of attendings on this show. they have an eternal revolving door, because doctor's keep fucking up, leaving for california, or becoming lesbians - all three reasons are enough to get your character written off the show, atleast in the eyes of ABC TV execs.

4. this show has been on 4 seasons (which has only really been like 2 weeks in the skewed timeline of grey's world) which means that these people have spent an awful lot of time having sex to rack up these stats. they wonder why they've sunk to the #12 research hospital? seems pretty obvious to me.

Grey's. Pick your shit up. Seriously.

So the season premiere had promise, but come on guys....pigs?! For realz?! Some tips to make this so far lackluster season better:

1. So Hahn's departure was abrupt and unnecessary and kinda sucky because I like her [she was actually sensible, which meant she kind of filled Addison's place] but I am also sort of relieved to see the Hahn/Callie relationship end. It was starting to get weird and forced, mainly because watching Bailey's whole my-vay-jay-jay-is-like-Africa speech to Callie with my mom was awkward.

2. Izzie + Alex = zzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzz. Yeah I know Alex might want some stability right now since his last lady love went cuckoo and cut her wrists, but come on, its just not like him to agree to "go steady." Let's mix this shit up okay?

3. Meredith + Derek = even more zzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz. I know keeping Meredith and Derek apart was getting annoying, but actually they are even more annoying together. Now they are all schmaltzy and diary-finding and whatnot, and well, boring. Break the fuck up again. Thanks.

4. Bring the therapist back!!

5. Britney Spears guest spot!! [she has experience riding in ambulances, it will be cool].

6. More George! Now that he's gotten over that inexplicable Gizzie hump, he's back to being adorable. So up the George ante - last week he was only in the episode for like 4 seconds. Unacceptable.

7. Give Mark Sloane a character trait that isn't being horny. And give him a story line that doesn't involve sleeping with someone on the staff. Gasp! I know it will be difficult.

8. Dr. McArmy scares the shit out me. Please make him less frightening.

9. Please please do something to that horrible whiny Izzie. Maybe she can see Denny because she herself is close to crossing over to the other side?!!! I can keep the hope alive.

10. Icicle? Please. And that flood was not as disasterous as it could have been. Three words: Natural. fucking. disaster.





But:
I have hope for next week since the promo was Elaine Scarry in television form!!!! [yay]