'Grey's Anatomy': A face transplant, and Izzie's secret is out

Damn you, Shonda Rhimes! I've spent plenty of time while watching "Grey's Anatomy" raging about Izzie being annoying, cheering for Bailey, wondering if Meredith and Derek were ever going to get their act together, and counting the number of words George gets to speak in any given episode. And now you've made me believe again. I may be a sucker, but this was a great episode.

Belly up to the trailer in the woods, have a beer, and I'll offer up some spoilers...

The face transplant: Number 12 teaching hospital Seattle Grace has scored itself a huge surgery, courtesy of Mark Sloan. The patient is Dave, a 38-year-old who was hit by a drunk driver 12 years ago and suffered major trauma -- he has no nose and no lips, and nine reconstructive surgeries have failed. Everyone is on this case -- most of the attendings, Alex and Izzie, and Lexie -- chosen by Mark for her excellent understanding of the case, demonstrated on rounds. Which of course makes her a target of mockery and hostile recrimination from her fellow interns.

Dave -- who Alex has charmingly nicknamed "Blowhole" is excited and apprehensive about the surgery. And we find out that while he has no family coming to help take care of him, there are three friends from his chatroom on orchids who are coming to help. But when they show up early, he panics, doesn't want them to see him, and sends them away.

But eventually he calms down -- and Sloan makes it very clear that Dave needs a support system for his recovery, or they can't do the surgery. Of course, the friends come back, and instead of looking away or cringing like he feared they would, they embrace him. It's a touching scene, but like I said, I'm a sucker.

And I have to admit, it is a super cool surgery, from the time they take the facial tissue from the donor to the unnerving sight of the face in the basin as Mark prepares to do the transplant. In the end, thank goodness, it all goes well, and for the first time in so many years, Dave gets to look in the mirror and see a complete face. We need a happy ending sometimes on "Grey's," and here we got one.

Izzie: Cristina, who has mysteriously grown a heart like she got her wish from the Wizard, throws herself into full-bore patient care mode for Izzie, moving heaven and earth to get her an appointment with the best oncologist, plowing through stacks of research, and nagging her to get herself some help. But Izzie's clearly still in shock, and she's not ready -- not to tell anyone, not to figure out her options, not to confront her reality. She blows off Cristina's efforts and internalizes her panic, bawling out the dumb and insensitive interns who make a "Blowhole" joke in front of Dave. Her emotions are all over the place, and the ever-observant George can tell something's wrong with his friend.

So can Sloan, who tells Izzie she's behaving inappropriately by yelling at the interns and losing control. He tries to throw her off the case, but she insists on remaining there for pre-op and post-op -- and she's right. She's in a unique position to understand the panic David is feeling, and his impulse to push away the people who care about him. Which is the "Grey's Anatomy" way of showing personal growth for the docs of Seattle Grace.

Izzie and Cristina fight about Izzie's choice to keep her diagnosis a secret -- and the fact that Izzie's not even sure she wants treatment. She knows too much, and is too familiar with how violent surgery can be, she says. It fails all the time, and her chances are so low anyway. But Cristina lays into Izzie with a great speech about believing that by telling her, Izzie wanted Cristina to do something to help.

While almost everyone else is working on the face transplant, Cristina is flying solo for the first time, repairing a hernia for a nice older lady who sweetly asks her doctor to answer some questions to make her feel more comfortable about the surgery (and it turns out to be Mrs. Kim! (Emily Kuroda, and it's nice to see her smile)). But Cristina's too preoccupied with arranging Izzie's appointment to pay too much attention -- and then she's stopped short by her patient on the operating table. All she wants is for her surgeon to tell her everything will be OK, even if this is a silly little procedure to Cristina. Which seems to crack something in Cristina, who assures her patient that it's not a silly operation, and she will get her through it. Then she turns to Alex and Bailey, who are also in the OR, and tells them about Izzie's condition -- like she just had to get it out before she could focus on anything.

After her hernia surgery, Cristina finds Izzie and tells her what she did -- and urges her to fight. Strong performances all around tonight.

Derek: Derek's still hiding at his trailer, and no one's heard from him for days. Meredith doesn't know if they're still together or broken up. So Bailey takes it upon herself to fix the situation, and sends Callie out to the woods to bring Derek back. Callie, noticing that it's early in the day and Derek's already broken out the beer, tries to sympathize and relays a terrible story about a patient she lost. Then proceeds to join Derek. When Bailey hasn't heard back from Callie, she talks Hunt into going out to the woods. Hunt tries the same tack, telling his story -- and it's not about Iraq, surprisingly. He doesn't talk about Iraq. Then he ends up joining Derek and Callie on their long afternoon's journey to cocktail hour.

Finally, Bailey tells the chief why he's missing so many surgeons today -- and he goes out to the woods. He tries the "we've all been there" argument and the "you have to keep showing up for work" argument. And then Derek turns on him, blaming him for sending Meredith out to the trailer in his own interest, not Derek's. The Chief has some of the venom coming, and boy can Patrick Dempsey pack a drunken, self-pitying wallop. But the Chief offers a little tough love too, telling Derek that he's been where he is, and opposed to Derek's few days of drinking, he spent years drinking. You can make your way back, he tells Derek. And you can fix things with Meredith.

When Derek finally brings himself to call Meredith, she shows up and is so in control of herself it seems impossible. "I love you," he says. "I know," she replies. No one's getting encased in carbonite or anything, but it's awesome. He asks if she'd still love him if he weren't a surgeon, and she says no -- because he's one of only about 20 people who can save Izzie, and she couldn't respect someone who could walk away from that. Does this girl know how to persuade, or what? She leaves Izzie's films for him to look at.

And back at the hospital, at last we see what we've either been waiting for or dreading -- or both: Izzie as a patient.

Some other notes:

• I love that Bailey's a nerd -- and her scenarios about killers with hatchets and Shepherd and Callie being roasted on a spit by a serial killer ("that's just where my mind goes") were a fantastic and odd bit of levity.
• It was nice to see a storyline involving the interns where they weren't being treated like idiot cattle. Even though George and Meredith wanted to stay out of the love triangle, it was kind of refreshing to see another group as filled with random dysfunction as our residents. And Meredith and George's good cop/bad cop routine was terrific.

What did you think? Do you like how Izzie's case is being handled? Do you think she'll be the thing that brings Derek back from the brink? And how weird is it to see her and Cristina all grown-up and stable?

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