'Grey's Anatomy' recap: The Un-Firing of Meredith Grey

By Zap2it Partner

September 23, 2011 7:02 AM ET

Bailey's plan for getting the residents to stop trying to kill one another is to force them to work together to save a patient's life -- this is the "Gunther" plan. "Gunther," though, doesn't refer to the patient but rather to the doctor who ultimately rises up and acts as leader to make the group work as a team. At first, it looks like it will be Cristina but then she winds up accidentally sticking Alex with epinephrine meant for the patient and he passes out cold. She has to go care for him (and they find out that he has a heart arrhythmia that caused the fainting, so it was ultimately a good thing to learn) and once she's gone Jackson surprises them all by rising up as the Gunther. This makes Mark finally start to respect him a little bit and look forward to them working together, despite the fact that Jackson is still with Lexie.

Teddy gets totally freaked out when Richard moves up Henry's surgery; she's deliriously happy with him and as it turns out she's totally not a cool doctor wife but rather a regular old mess like the rest of us when a loved one is under the knife. Richard finally has to kick her out of the OR when she starts to melt down, but Henry's surgery goes like a dream, with Bailey actually doing the procedure. She had no interest in observing the surgery with all of the Gunther action going on, but Richard insisted and managed to get her to operate on a mouse and then lead the operation on Henry without even realizing it. It turns out that this is so he can put her name on the clinical trial, so that it can move forward when he's dismissed from his job. Knowing that Meredith messed with the trial to help Adele made him desperately want to help her somehow, and ultimately he decides to tell the Board that he's the one who messed with the trial, and that Meredith was just covering for him. When Derek hears this he is aghast but the Chief won't back down, and when the two of them are alone and able to talk freely, Richard basically rips him a new one, asking when he's going to stop punishing his own wife for making one mistake caused by good intentions.

As it turns out, Meredith didn't sneak out of the hospital -- she just snuck to the basement and hid for four hours while Janet and Derek got increasingly angry (Derek) and freaked out (both). She finally contacts Cristina, who is happy to finally be able to implement some sort of plan to help her best friend. She finally sets aside her grudge against Alex to rope him into helping with said plan: Cristina brings Derek and Janet to an exam room where Alex is checking out Zola for some flimsy reason. Meredith says that she got freaked out that something might be wrong and forgot her phone, so she had no idea they were trying to get in touch with her. Alex then gives Zola a clean bill of health. Derek finally decides to go along and at least pretend to not hate Mere but Janet already set wheels in motion after all the morning's lies and so she has to take Zola away while they are re-evaluated as potential parents. Derek goes so far as to tell Janet that Meredith is the best mother in the world, but Zola still has to eventually leave with them. Derek hasn't fully thawed to his wife yet so he takes off too, and it's left to Alex to literally help hold Meredith up without her husband and daughter.

» Read the full recap at Television Without Pity

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