Grey’s Anatomy recap: Captain Hook
More babies on the brain this week, which I like — Grey’s Anatomy is growing up with its audience (or at least the audience members who are Meredith and company’s age cohorts), and babies should be on the brain. I suspect that will continue, at least in a thematic sense, until this season’s finale, even though we did get the one actual baby — Mark’s grandson — out of the way in this episode, born in the first few scenes and handed off by the show’s end to adoptive parents. This week, on 18 and Pregnant and the Daughter of a Guy Who Works at Seattle Grace….
The other grown-up theme of the night was job security, namely Teddy’s. Though it should be noted that more than just Kim Raver’s future as an actress was at stake here — no less than Seattle Grace’s heart was in play. Or at least its chief cardiothoracic surgeon, a job that’s been quite the problem for this place. An apparent god named Thomas Evans was in town scoping out the job, though we learned of his awesomeness namely through hearsay so as to not get too attached to him. (I knew he was no threat simply because I had heard nothing of his casting, which, in much-reported Grey’s land, means he can’t be that important. Alas.) We learned that he had great bedside manner when he told an older lady she’d be taking the stairs instead of the elevator in no time, and we learned that he was a wonderfully encouraging teacher when he took Cristina right under his wing. Enough said.
The medical case that would ultimately test Teddy’s staying power: a guy who’d been out fishing with his son and came in with a shark hook through him. (Also an overexposure problem for this show: the fact that ABC shows all the highlights of the medical cases in its promos. By the time I saw this in the actual show, I wasn’t that excited — I was just anxious to get on with it already.) His kid had apparently accidentally let go of the rope and thus the hook grabbed Dad, who was (perhaps understandably) cranky about it. He blamed the kid, and that resonated particularly as Mark cradled his obscenely adorable newborn grandson across the hospital. I mean, time stopped whenever this kid was on the screen. So much so that Sloan was suddenly considering keeping him, and Mark was offering to let her stay with him indefinitely.
This all rattled baby-hungry Callie, of course, and, by extension, anti-baby Arizona. I do appreciate the show’s never-ending supply of strong, independent ladies ambivalent about maternity and marriage. In a world full of movies about women whose entire life goal it is to have a wedding, we can use all of those we can get. Eric Dane got to do some real acting in this storyline, too — a welcome change for him. Nonetheless, Arizona’s point — personal or not — that adoption was the way to go with Sloan was soon proven when Sloan had an alarming meltdown over the baby crying when it turned out he really did just need to be fed.
NEXT: G’bless you, Teddy
Derek was feeling truly undecided about the Teddy-versus-Thomas Evans choice, about which the ex-Chief — who, in keeping to theme, is becoming more and more of a father figure to his successor — delivered this pun-filled bit of non-advice: ”I’m not going to give you the fish. You’ve got a big hook in there. Learn to fish yourself.” In further keeping with the father-kid theme, the doctors debated whether the kid on the boat had tried to kill his father with the hook on purpose, and either way the kid was pretty clear that his father hated him. The less-sunny side of having kids was on display, in any case.
Before we could absorb that too much, though, more pressing matters were at hand: Teddy sneezed during the hook man’s surgery, which did some serious internal damage at a critical moment. She’d lost both the case of the day and, it seemed, even her protégé Cristina. ”I thought Teddy was the love of your life,” Meredith chided Cristina at lunch. ”I love them both,” Cristina answered. ”I’m a cardiothoracic whore. What can I say?” In a cute side story, Meredith noted that new(ish) doc April had been fawning all over Derek of late. ”Don’t worry, that’s not Derek’s thing … anymore,” Cristina assured her. ”I was the lovestruck intern,” Meredith replied.
In the more seriously struggling relationship department, Callie was bemoaning Arizona’s classic stated preference for trips and freedom over kids: ”Arizona wants to go to Spain. She’s picking a suntan over a child.” Then it struck her, finally: Arizona’s brother had died, so perhaps that was why she didn’t want children. It was even more heartbreaking, though, when Callie tried to tell Arizona that she understood, and Arizona snapped, ”I’m not broken. I’m not some psychodrama.” This one’s not going to be solved easily, and it’s killing me. Another relationship code-red: That moment between Teddy and Owen in the elevator when he comforted her about possibly losing her job, then did the maybe-almost-wanting-to-kiss look. I don’t know how much more Cristina-Owen-Teddy triangle my heart can take. Luckily (well, not really, but…) they had to rush to tend to the hook guy instead, who she said was possibly at risk for multi-system organ failure — Derek would have to trust her judgment and allow quick surgery.