'Grey's Anatomy': Izzie gets fired and Hector Elizondo guest stars

October 15, 2009 8:42 PM

Tonight on "Grey's Anatomy": the Mercy West doctors arrive, and the scene is completely Jets vs. Sharks, except with much less singing and dancing.

Tonight's theme is all about invasion, as the influx from Mercy West begins, and on first glance they are quite interesting. One of them is the hot guy from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2!! (Um, not that I've seen that movie. In the theater. On opening weekend. Moving on!) Another is the awesome Nora Zehetner from Brick! And yet another is the extremely amazing Sarah Drew from Everwood and Mad Men! Is it strange that I already like the newbies more than the regular cast, even though they haven't had one lick of dialogue yet?

Back to the matters at hand. The merger gets off to a rocky start when cocky young doctor Reed (Nora Zehetner) refuses to take her stuff out of George's old locker., almost causing a throwdown between her and Izzy. Aw, watching Izzy get feisty in the locker room reminds me of the good old days when I didn't hate her. Due to the sheer volume of cases in the hospital, the Seattle Grace and Mercy West crew are paired up and assigned "zones" to handle the mob scene. The cases are almost secondary this week, used as props to showcase how the new Mercy West gang are one-upping the Seattle Grace crew at every opportunity.

Lexie and Mercy West-er April (Sarah Drew) work together on the case of a burglar injured during the act, leaving him with a broken back. When Lexie is one-upped by the conniving April on the suggested course of treatment, her thieving patient helps her out by stealing April's notebook. In this notebook, Lexie discovers not case notes but self-pep talk notes April uses to bolster her flagging self esteem. Lexie cruelly uses the knowledge to tear April down, but immediately feels bad about her actions. She ends up apologizing to April, if you can call telling a person you dislike them but know you did them wrong and never actually saying the words "I'm sorry" an apology.

Cristina and Mercy West-er Jackson are working together to save a man stabbed by his friend for having a relationship with the friend's 19-year-old daughter. Although Cristina technically saves the patient's life by fixing the stab wound, Jackson gets all of the credit for doing some heroic tackling when the patient is threatened again by his friend. Cristina ends up in a crying fit in Meredith's hospital room over the downward spiral of her career, and how she felt alive when she was working with Burke and holding hearts in her hands every day. Now she feels none of that, she just feels lost. Why doesn't she just go back to cardiothoracic? Hahn isn't there to hold her back any longer.

Alex and Mercy West partner Reed spend the hour fighting over a man with both an adrenal mass and carotid stenosis. Alex and Reed are extremely antagonistic from the start, going so far as to argue about care in front of the patient and his daughter (Kathleen Wilhoite). In turn, the daughter rightfully yells at them and snaps them out of it...for about twenty seconds until they start up again.

Izzy and Mercy West-er Charles (Robert Baker) get paired up on Sarah Freemont, a young woman in desperate need of a kidney transplant and down to her last access point for dialysis. They seem to be getting along swimmingly until Izzy overhears him bragging to his Mercy West friends about her being his "surgical bitch." In the midst of their troubles, Izzy almost kills patient Sarah by ordering a bum procedure and causing her to code. Bailey manages to save the patient, but because of her troubles she will lose her chance at the transplant kidney she's been waiting three years for.

Chief has to get down the the nasty business of firing people, and HR insists he use a specific speech because the last person he fired (the pregnant intern) is suing for wrongful termination. Who's getting the ax? None other than Izzy, who gets chopped for mishandling the kidney transplant patient. Considering she got a total free pass on the LVAD debacle, I can see why she's surprised. Still, she got a total free pass on the LVAD debacle, so it makes sense for her to be "on notice" for her next big mistake. She takes it extremely hard, to the point where she skips town and leaves Alex via a note taped to his locker. I suppose if Meredith and Derek can get married via post it Alex and Izzy can get divorced via a Dear John letter. I do feel horribly sorry for Alex, and Justin Chambers played his reveal scene superbly.

Off in her own world is Callie, whose Dad (Hector Elizondo) shows up wondering why they don't talk anymore. Perhaps because you were a complete jerk last time you were there, Pops? Just a thought. Turns out he's only there to "pray away the gay" from Callie, complete with his priest in tow for support. Callie is disgusted, but Arizona urges her to cut him some slack since her news was so shocking. They sit down to talk, but when her father starts using God to show Callie why her lifestyle is wrong, she perfectly throws everything back in his place by herself using the words of Jesus. Nicely played, Callie. Arizona talks to Callie's father and makes him see that Callie is still the same person, the person he raised. This makes him see the light, and he makes amends with Callie in the end.

Favorite quotes:

"You think you can pray away the gay." - Callie, to her father
"Of course, you were here when that psycho intern cabal was chopping out each other's organs. That must have been scary." - April, to Lexie

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| Comments (34)

34 Comments

I liked Meredith and Cristina's scenes.

Justin Chambers and Chyler Leigh are giving great peformances this season. I like seeing more of Alex and Lexie.

Derek needs more to do.

Callie and Arizona were wonderful tonight. Love their chemistry and love their individual scenes with Callie's dad.

Richard is getting less and less likeable. Email firings are tacky. I thought with the merger storyline they would be addressing how seattle grace is lacking in teaching but no they continue not to teach the residents and the residents still don't teach the interns.

I was exciting about the merger storyline but now not so much. Have no interest in Mercy West characters. Their scenes and drama was ZZZZ to me.

Kelly | October 15, 2009 8:53 PM

People can hate on Mrs. Heigl all they want but that woman can act, seriously. The scene when she was getting fired, it was so emmy-worthy. Having said that, Sandra Oh has deserved that award so many times before as well and her crying scene will certainly be ignored again, most likely but man do I love it when Cristina unravels.

Ritchie | October 15, 2009 9:12 PM

First the newbies:

Lexie's doppelganger: I don't know about her yet. I might hate her, but I might not.

Izzie's dude: Is a tool, but with Alex and Sloan being rehabilitated, the show needs a new cad.

Christina's dude: Cute. I don't have much else yet.

Alex's girl: She's from Heroes, I hope she doesn't bring their bad karma onto Grey's, it has it's own problems.

Callie and Arizona, great.

Meredith and Christina, great.

Izzie: waiting to see how it plays out.

Overall, I think the Mercy West people will shake things up, and that's a good thing, this show needs a shot in the arm, some new blood, and I'm out of medical double entendres.

Siansonea | October 15, 2009 9:12 PM

The episode was nice but if any of these people were my doctors, Alex the ***, Christina the doctor who does not want to be saving your life unless she can play with your heart, Izzie the psycho who so damn emotional and unstable that she got herself fired. I would request to go to any hospital but this one.

Izzie got fired, no duh, Katherine Heigl gets a few weeks off to go film a movie. How crazy is that!

I really do not understand Christina's problem. No Burke, No Hahn so what, this hospital still has a cardio ward. What, you think heart patients dont come to seattle grace anymore. Calm down, your good we know.

Watching Alex be an *** to every character on the show has pretty much stop me from ever feeling sad for him. He hated George, He hated Christina, and even after Alex cheated on her with a nurse in season 2, she stayed by his side when crazy Ava went off the deep end Alex continues to be an *** towards Izzie.

Izzie is seeing Denny, she may have something wrong with her. What does Alex do, he tells her to stop acting crazy and start concentrating on work. Izzie signs a DNR, flatlines and then comes back to life, and then finds out George is dead. What does Alex do, yells at her for signing the DNR and emotionally distanct himself from her cause he is afriad she will break.

I know i am being a little to hard on alex but lets face it he is hard to be around, if i was Izzie, I would run away and take a vacation from that marriage at least once a month. Too much hidden emotions for me to handle in one marriage. What do you think Alex will do when or if Izzie returns, Yell at her some more not even caring why she ran away.

I know most of you will disagree with me about Alex and Izzie but i am sorry, everytime Alex enters a room, he gives me a headache.

P.S. i like the Mercy west residents. Oh and Lexie go back and apologies to that girl for real. Just because she one up you does not justify stealing her journal. She was just thinking about what is best for the patient, not oh how can i show off infront of Derek. I feel for people with low self-esteem.

Lovett U. | October 15, 2009 9:14 PM

I used to really like this show....but I'm at odds. I really do not like the merger storyline at all.

I really do not like that hardly any of the original characters are there anymore...George is gone, Izzie is gone for awhile, and Meredith is in scenes briefly. And now there are a bunch off new people that I could care less about.

I wish they would focus more on the cast members that they do have instead of introducing new characters.

Kerry | October 15, 2009 9:17 PM

Christina can't go back to Cardio because when Hahn left she blackballed Seattle Grace to all of the country's heart surgeons and the Chief could not hire one. The only one they could get was the one with Asparger's Syndrome. I keep hoping that now that T.R. Knight is off the show they will hire back Burke. The only thing preventing this is Heigl, and I guess she's leaving. (Execellent secret and unexpected) I know she is a major character but rehirng Izzie doesn't make sense if you are still firing people.

Don | October 15, 2009 9:23 PM

*sigh* It really was a good episode...but it just made me feel depressed. I'm already over the merger storyline.

Lindlee | October 15, 2009 9:37 PM

i'm really liking the merge. i'm glad nora's back in the spotlight. loved her in Brick. so hopefully we'll see more of her.

my only issue is that i'm keeping track of more people than ever.

lexie is continuing to shine on the show. i'm thinking....once meredith and derek decide to settle down and retire, you think lexie would be the new face of "grey's anatomy"?

i hope izzie comes back soon. i'm one of the few who actually likes katherine.

john t. | October 15, 2009 10:46 PM

Excellent episode! Great TV.
The biggest ***** of the night: Bailey. Bring Dr. Savoy back to kick her ars.***
Alex tipped the scale and his wife was fired. Awesome. O, he is gonna pay for that! Cannot wait***
Owen, from now on, you are not getting any. You deserved..

Fish | October 16, 2009 2:40 AM

Katherine Heigl was awesome last night - the scene with Chief was fantastic. I think Alex got the letter because she thinks he had something to do with it - her reaction when the Chief mentioned Alex had spoken to him about her revealed that.

Penny | October 16, 2009 3:22 AM