'Grey's Anatomy': Grieving for George O'Malley, and Seattle Grace

We knew the "what" of tonight's "Grey's Anatomy" long before the premiere. George died. Izzie lived. Seattle Grace and Mercy merged, bringing a whole bunch more doctors into our lives. What we didn't know was how -- how everyone would react, how their lives would change, how they held together. Now we know: grief.

The five stages of spoilers are coming right now...

Izzie wakes up as George is declared brain dead on the operating table, and because she's so fragile as she's recovering Alex doesn't want to tell her about George. At first there's a question of whether he'll have to, because Lexie doesn't believe that it's George on the table. Meredith has to face a hostile, incredulous crowd of co-workers and justify the "007" sign he made in her palm. But Callie identifies a Texas-shaped freckle on his hand, and they know it's true. George's mom, who's facing this alone because his brothers are on a fishing trip in Alaska (corrected -- not his dad and brothers. -- Lisa), asks Callie to be the one to decide whether to donate George's organs. Callie wants Izzie to help her decide, because she meant so much to George. And after she gets over the initial shock, they decide to donate everything they can.

Into this cloud of shock and dread come two patients. Clara (Zoe Boyle), a young Australian woman who bears a striking resemblance to "Dead Calm"-era Nicole Kidman, was in a speedboat accident that amputated both of her arms and essentially her leg. She's accompanied by a couple of travel companions who are anything but real friends, but who at least bring her arms to the hospital so they can be reattached. When they desert her in favor of Burning Man and a planned concert in Las Vegas, Cristina assigns Lexie to be Clara's friend and help her get through the unbelievably hard road she has ahead. She also nicknames Clara "ceviche" behind her back, but we'll get to that later.

The other patient is Andy, a teenage boy in severe pain, the cause of which no one can figure out. Doctors keep telling his mother he has "growing pains," but this is so much more. Martha Plimpton is wonderful as his worried, harried, distressed, protective mom, and never ventures into hysteria as she advocates on behalf of her son. Both kid and mom are lucky to have Arizona as their doctor, even if she's hugely frustrated by not being able to figure out what's wrong and is struggling to get Bailey involved, as her grief seems to threaten to envelop her.

And finally, enter the suits. The hospital board is planning to push the Chief out of the way, and offer Derek his job. Derek, being a straight shooter, gives the Chief a heads-up that he needs to put together a plan, one way or another, to address his shaky status. "I told them I'd think about it," Derek says. "I bought you some time."

A week later, everyone's preparing for George's funeral, and dealing with their grief -- or refusing to -- in very different ways. Derek and Meredith are having a lot of sex, which unfortunate people keep walking in on. Alex and Izzie are having none. Cristina and Owen are messing around but not going all the way on the advice of his therapist (Amy Madigan). Lexie's spending a lot of time with Clara, marveling at the postcards her idiot pals keep sending from the road and trying to get her to tell her mother what happened.

George's funeral is surreal; the sight of Amanda, the girl he saved, weeping continually and the sound of the priest reading Ecclesiastes 3.1 are too much for Izzie, who bolts for a quiet spot, followed by Alex, Meredith and Cristina. She's hysterical, but she's not crying -- she's laughing, and then they all start, in a kind of disbelief over everything that's happened to them. Not everyone's got that perspective. The Chief won't talk to Derek about what's going on with his job, except to say that no one appreciates all the things he does right. Bailey's barely speaking to anyone. Lexie feels guilty about the way she cut George out of her life.

Things progress. Ten days in, Izzie gets to go home from the hospital. Clara's putting a brave face on her healing and refusing to tell her mother. Andy's back, sicker than before, but no easier to diagnose. Callie, one of the few who's been crying a lot, decides to fight back when the Chief tells her the attending job that she'd be great for isn't open anymore because Dr. Chang's 401(k) took a hit and he can't retire yet. And boy does she let him have it. You're going to regret this, she says. I am excellent and any other hospital would be thrilled to have me, she shrieks in the hallway, right in front of the hospital board member (Mitch Pileggi) who offered Derek the Chief's job. Not a great example of chiefly leadership, but the guy's been all over the place for so long that I can't really feel sorry for him -- particularly when he refuses to authorize the expensive test Arizona wants to order to find out what's wrong with Andy and basically threatens her job.

George's mom comes to see Owen, trying to puzzle out in her head how George ended up joining the army. He responds in a way that makes it clear he's starting to put himself back together, describing George's skills and telling her how proud George gave her reason to be, because he was a tremendous person. Oh, Kevin McKidd, how you bewitch me. It's almost enough to make me forget "Made of Honor."

Clara has a breakthrough, able to wave her fingers at a departing Lexie, who's thrilled at her progress. But Clara's mortified that this is what her life has become, desperately screaming that they should have let her die and getting so upset that her wounds begin to blled. By the beginning of Hour 2, a.k.a., Day 21, she's better mentally, but gets thrown a new setback: an infection in her small bowel has become an abscess, and she needs surgery. When Cristina answers her question about the surgery and tells her a colostomy bag is a small possibility, she refuses. Which sets Bailey on the warpath against Cristina, railing at her for talking Clara out of the surgery. I'm torn between agreeing with Cristina that she was doing her job and being glad that Bailey's putting her in her place. It's the grief talking, and it's unfair to Cristina, but it's also partly right.

While Lexie struggles with deciding whether to move in with Mark (those Grey girls have their intimacy issues), Callie, who lives across the hall and is a little too familiar for Lexie's comfort (Does anyone really strip down and change their clothes in the middle of the building hallway?), is starting her new job as an attending at Mercy West. She thinks she's getting away from the Chief, but oh no. He's practicing his speech on the way to meet with the hospital board, runs a red light and ends up injured at Mercy West. And starts asking questions about how good the hospital is. And you can practically see the lightbulb going off.

Cristina and Owen start jointly seeing his therapist, who forces them to understand that until he starts talking about his trauma he can't recover from it. Duh. Clara's abscess is making her really sick, and Lexie starts playing hardball, forcing her to choose between the surgery and telling her mother. Arizona sends Andy to Callie at Mercy West, knowing there'd be no Chief to refuse the tests she thinks he needs, and Callie rightfully calls her on how inappropriate it is.

Izzie, freaked out that Alex won't touch her, tries to talk to him about it on Day 30. She's wishing she had a brain tumor so she could hallucinate George because she misses him all the time. She has this illness, this loss, and no job to distract her from what she's feeling, and she needs Alex to be a husband to her, physically. The old Karev pops out. "You miss George," he snarls. "Nice. Real seductive." Could it be that Alex didn't figure his marriage would last this long?

Derek confronts the Chief about the rumors that he's leaving for Mercy West, and it gets all snarly between them. Which makes Derek a prime target for Arizona, who tells him about her theory that Andy may have a tethered spinal cord that's causing his pain, and gets him to authorize an expensive test solely on the basis of the Chief having refused it. Turns out she's right -- there's a stray "thread" attaching his spinal cord to the tailbone. A little microsurgery and he'll be fine. Nice to see some good news in the midst of all this scary change.

Clara, meanwhile, has sunk into a depression. She won't do her physical therapy, and seems to have given up. Until Lexie tells her not to go out like a sucker -- or ceviche, which is just sick enough to get her laughing and engaged again. Izzie gets some good news too. Her kick-ass oncologist, Dr. Swender, has handed her case over to a third year, because Izzie's cancer has shrunk to the point where it's not enough to interest Swender. With a cancer this aggressive, that's a big success. But it's still living with cancer, which Izzie wasn't expecting. And it's enough to make her mad while watching Amanda mourn helplessly on a bench outside the hospital. She stalks over to this poor shattered girl and quite rightly reads her the riot act for not going out and living her life -- a luxury George doesn't have. No one knows how to live their lives, she says. "But have enough respect for George to figure it out. Because if I see you sitting on this bench again, I will kick your ass from here to Sunday."

And suddenly around Day 40, the fog of grieving seems to start subsiding for some people, and they begin coping. After taking a few steps on her new leg, Clara asks Lexie to call her mom. Cristina and Owen have a breakthrough in therapy -- Owen was in a dream when he choked Cristina, and he was fighting for his life, not hurting her. Then they have ill-advised sex. Lexie starts moving things into Mark's apartment. Izzie confronts Alex until he's forced to admit that he's terrified, because she died in his arms.

But Bailey seems broken. Derek tries to get her to talk, but all she wants to do is remain in control. Her residents aren't her children, she says, and she's got to stop caring so much and giving away at work everything she should be saving for her own son. I'm a huge Chandra Wilson fan, and throughout these two hours she gives a remarkable performance. I love that they chose not to let Bailey lose it -- she seems so much more wrecked inside when she's stoic outside, even when it's just barely contained.

It hits Meredith too -- when the janitor finally cleans out George's locker, she lets it out. And it's always nice to see Meredith healthy enough to be able to cry. It hits Cristina when she's lying in bed with Owen, as if it could finally sink in now that the thing that had preoccupied her is no longer paramount. Nearly a month and a half later, it becomes real to her that George died.

Finally, on Day 40, the Chief addresses the troops, acknowledging the rumors and finally telling people what's up. They're merging with Mercy West, and it's going to be like the Wild West for a little while as people compete for jobs. And he won't look at Derek.

A couple of observations:

• Ellen Pompeo and Chyler Leigh looked beautiful in this ep -- pregnancy and motherhood clearly agree with them, and it was nice to see neither of them looking gaunt.
• I was very proud to see Northwestern, my alma mater, representin' -- there was a diploma in the Chief's office and Cristina mentioned that Owen went there. There's just not enough Big Ten schools in prime time TV.  Go Cats!

And some good quotes:

"My ex-husband died. I have to get a new job, and I'll never see my friends any more. And Arizona keeps bringing me donuts." -- Callie, crying, to Mark.

Cristina: "Alex is afraid of the cancer sex."
Izzie: "I'm not contagious, Cristina."
Cristina: "I know -- I would totally have sex with you."

Lexie to Callie, trying to puzzle out her relationship with Mark: "Are you really gay? Like, how gay are you, on a scale of 1 to Gay?"
Callie, being reassuring: "He doesn't look at my boobs anymore. The first thing he used to look at was my boobs. He doesn't do that any more -- not since he met you. OK?"

"McDreamy. I get it now -- the whole McDreamy thing. I didn't get it before, but now I get it." -- Arizona, after Derek signs off on her expensive test for Andy

What did you think? How much of Zap2It's 12-step "Show Rehab" do you think was accomplished tonight? Was it weird for you to see Meredith seeming to deal more healthily with emotion than Bailey? Do you you think Owen and Cristina stand a fighting chance? Will Alex and Izzie figure out their marriage?


Related:

TV Show Rehab: 12 steps to a better 'Grey's Anatomy'