Episode 18: Thanks for the Memories

When watching is a show is a person’s part-time job, there are no more dreaded words than “special extended episode.” To make matters worse, this is episode 9 of season 2, and there are 27 episodes in this season alone. Yes, I’m only 1/3 of the way through season 2! But it’s one foot in front of the other with no thought about the destination, so let us trudge on:

In this special extended Thanksgiving episode, Izzie is making dinner, despite the fact that she’s “a baker, not a cook,” because:

Izzie: “We have this one day where we don’t have to cut anyone open. One day we get to be like everybody else. One day we get to be normal. One day where nobody lives and nobody dies on our watch. ”

The truth, however, is that in the hospital, Thanksgiving is a holiday, but only just barely-most residents work part of the day and a select few get to be on call for anywhere between 18 and 30 hours. As a medical student and resident, I was somehow on call five Thanksgivings in a row, and that was in a pre-work hours world where I came in Thanksgiving morning and stayed in the hospital until 5 PM on Black Friday. That was five Thanksgivings of cafeteria turkey and dressing drowning in a grey, jelly-ish goo the cafeteria employees swore was “gravy.” Five Thanksgivings trying not to be angry at the patients who ate too much salt at dinner and developed sudden congestive heart failure.  Five Thanksgivings trying not to be depressed that I couldn’t have a normal holiday like practically every other person in America. Five Thanksgivings away from friends and family. The problem, of course, wasn’t just that I was there. It was that, on those days, I resented my job. It’s no wonder my wife left me. And of all the unrealistic things presented on this show, this is that one that hurts a little bit, even now.

Still, we are left to believe that the surgeons miraculously all have the day off, out of the hospital, which disrupts the usual flow of the show.

Burke comes to Izzie’s Thanksgiving dinner as Cristina’s date. As usual, he has all the charisma of (and the appropriate outfit for) a Roman Catholic priest. 

In that outfit, I'd recommend staying more then 1000 feet from schools and playgrounds.

As they enter the dinner, Burke and Cristina have this exchange:

Cristina: Don’t mention Shepard. Or Addison Montgomery Shepard. And don’t mention anything having to do with syphilis.

Burke: You act like I’ve never been in a social situation before.

Cristina: Yeah, well, you haven’t been. Not with me.

Eventually, it's all too much for Cristina and she sneaks out of the dinner to go and see patients in the ER. Unlikely, but if I were dating Burke, I'd want to be at the hospital, too.

We meet George’s family for the first time, only to find that he doesn’t fit in with their manly culture. They take him hunting to shoot a turkey, and, through a series of mishaps, he first tries to get Cristina to pick him up from the hunting trip (“It’s like Deliverance out here,” He says. “Please come get me.”) and later watches in horror as his rowdy brothers accidentally shoot his father in the backside. Poor George stumbles into dinner, announcing, "Today I committed bird murder and I was forced to touch my dad's ass. I get bonus points for showing up at all." 

Poor George. Again, excellent choice of outfits.

Surprise, surprise, Meredith is on a whine fest, opening the episode with, “Gratitude. Appreciation. Giving thanks. No matter what words you use, it all means the same thing: happy. We’re supposed to be happy. Grateful. For friends. Family. Happy to just be alive. Whether we like it or not.”

She has volunteered to work on Thanksgiving because she thinks she “doesn’t have a whole hell of a lot to be thankful for.” (Jesus, Meredith, you’re a blond, beautiful, financially-stable, soon-to-be surgeon. It takes serious gall not to be thankful for any of that.) Because she’s at work, she gets wrapped up in an implausible, completely irritating plotline about a man in a persistent vegetative state who suddenly regains consciousness. In addition to dragging the audience through this ridiculousness, Meredith reels McDreamy into the drama. He decides to “administer amphetamine to wake the guy up.” (This is not evidence-based or sanctioned by anyone in the medical establishment so far as I can tell). Sure enough, they give the drug and the guy wakes up and starts talking! Moving! He’s been “in a coma” for 16 years! Not believable. Not possible. People can’t move after they’ve been in bed for a week.

This plotline was clearly based on the Terri Schiavo case, but unlike Terri Schiavo (who died in March 2005, six months before this episode aired), it inspires false hope among 1. families with neurologically devastated relatives and 2. right-to-life Republicans who would like to eternally keep all neurologically devastated people alive artificially (using public dollars, of course, while simultaneously cutting half of all Medicare spending). Even though the fictional patient dies by the end of the show, his miraculous wake-up is infuriating. In fact, these people almost NEVER “wake up.” I’ve been asked so many times during my career whether I’ve ever seen “someone in this state recover.” I always answer, “That would be a miracle, and although I’m not saying it’s not possible, I have never seen it during the course of my career.” Still, it happens on TV all the time, giving the public false hope.

Bailey is dealing with a “temp attending” who spends the entire day looking for a male resident nicknamed the “The Nazi.” It’s a nice little take on sexism in surgery, and Bailey, of course, gets the last laugh.

Attending: There’s only one resident I want in my OR. A guy they call the Nazi. You know him?

Bailey: The Nazi?

Attending: Great word of mouth. Stellar rep. Balls the size of Texas.

Bailey: Sounds like an impressive and talented man.

Attending: You know him or not?

Bailey: Never heard of him. (aside, to Grey) Like I said, the stupidity of the human race. Grey. Be thankful for that.

Alex finally admits he failed the boards, albeit only to Meredith. She then takes her turn to complain about her life: 

Meredith: "I feel like one of those people who are so freaking miserable that they can't be around normal people. Like I'll infect the happy people. Like I'm some miserable, diseased, dirty ex-mistress."

Alex: [whistles at Meredith] "A miserable, diseased, dirty ex-mistress? That's hot. I feel better already."

Much of the episode centers around whether McDreamy will continue flirting with Meredith or go back to his hot wife Addison, who at one point in this episode is seen on a ferry wearing a newsboy cap. I have decided not to care about this plotline (save Addison’s hotness) until the angst is over and the situation is decided. Do what you want, McDreamy. I no longer care.

Ferry boats and newsboy caps.

 Meredith returns from the hospital and her day with the vegetative patient and McDreamy to find her friends gathered at her house and the dinner finally prepared. Because she is anorexic, possibly alcoholic, and a whiner, she stands outside the house and looks in the window rather than entering and joining the dinner. It’s an awkward scene, leaving the viewer wondering, “Is she going to stand out there in the rain forever?” (For God’s sake, Meredith, it’s your house.) But no, she’s not, she’s going to a bar where she is going to get picked up by a hot guy who doesn’t work at the hospital. OK, call me stupid, but isn’t this how you ended up in this situation with McDreamy to begin with? Why are you out at a bar on Thanksgiving picking up what is probably ANOTHER married man when you could be at home with your friends eating more calories in one meal than you usually eat in a week?

It’s all too much for me to process. I leave you with her last voice over:

“At the end of the day, the fact that we have the courage to still be standing is reason enough to celebrate."

Yeah, OK, I’ll give you that.