EXPLORE All The Shades of Grey

THE SEX SURVEY...............................................................................................

The nurses on on strike - but only from Mark Sloan's surgeries. Chief Richard Webber takes him to the office to meet with the officials to discuss the matter and he is greeted by his ex-wife, Adele. She is back working and she is fiesty as ever. The solution to Sloan's problem is a "Date and Tell" form that asks all hospital employees to disclose all coworkers they've had sexual relations with. As if that doesn't open enough cans of worms, Richard tells his wife that he has "changed" and is "delegating" and has a "chief's intern" to help him. He leaves to quickly offer George O'Malley the new position. George's first task - to hand out all the sex inventory forms. This can only lead to a disaster. He gives one to nurse, Rose, and she tells him awkwardly that she won't be needing it because they haven't gone that far yet. Miranda Bailey is told she is the only one in the hospital who is "exempt" from filling it out (as if that's a prize or something). And might I mention that when Alex Karev turns his in to George (in front of Lexie Grey), George hands it back to him suggesting he may have forgotten someone (casting a glance at Lexie). "Oh Yah" and Alex hands it back completed with a now flabbergasted Lexie, who realizes that he didn't even remember having sex with her. The drama continues. . .

Callie Torres is pulling Mark Sloan into the on-call room every chance she gets. She is also, however, avoiding Erica Hahn and hasn't told her about Mark Sloan. Erica walks up to the message board and with Callie facing the other way says, "It's because of the penis, huh?" Callie doesn't know what to say and sits there flustered until Erica finishes explaining that that's why Preston Burke must have beat her out for the award. Callie, now slightly relieved, is invited to meet with Erica at Joes after work and says she has a "thing" and can't make it. Up walks Sloan hoping the two will defend him to the nurses. "You guys think I'm a nice guy, right?" Erica quickly assures him that they don't and he turns to Callie saying she thinks he's a nice guy and he feels her up from behind. She feels awkward, having not told Erica about him yet. Sloan, still looking for someone to vouch for him to the nurses, confronts Rose to put in a good word. She assures him she doesn't believe he deserves it. He tells her, "I hate women like you. You string guys along acting like sex is some "prize" when really you're afraid that once you give it up, he'll lose interest."

Meanwhile Meredith Grey is distracted - by Derek's tongue - she keeps thinking about it in surgery and can't because she's got to do a surgery with him that day and doesn't know how to stop. Her therapist suggests that she remind herself of the reality that he's with Rose. She'll try it. To complicate things more, Rose approaches George to ask for a "sex survey" as she might need it now (after Sloan's rude comments) with Meredith sitting right there in plain sight. Now she's got to think about that, too. She goes in to practice for the surgery with Derek where he suggests they try to inject the virus in the tumor from both sides (for their case study where they're trying to shrink tumors with viruses). The trick is that they need to be able to inject at the same rate to make sure it's more effective. The lights are dim, Derek is looking into her eyes explaining the procedure, we know what Meredith is thinking about, and you can feel the tension between the two. Meanwhile, their patient is a military man who has a tumor and a boyfriend that his father catches him kissing. The boyfriend is kicked out of the room and left waiting in the lobby. Even when a chance arises, the patient refuses to see his boyfriend before going into surgery. They go into the surgery and Derek and Meredith start the injections fine, but Meredith is going a little to fast. Derek tells her to stop looking at the monitor and look into his eyes so they can get in sync. She looks in his eyes and suddenly the speeds are perfectly in sync. After surgery Derek offers to stay the night with Meredith to monitor the patient. Of course, Rose walks up ready to go home and asks if he's coming. Derek tells her he has to stay, then Meredith tells him it's fine - he should go with Rose. You can see in his eyes that Derek really wants to stay, but even when he says "I'll stay" she says, "No, you should go."

After the patient took a turn for the worse, Derek came back to the hospital to console Meredith. He brought some champagne. He tells her, "We will succeed. . .and when we do we're going to open this champagne and we're going to drink . . .Meredith we will . . . we're going to open this bottle of champagne." And it will be for all the patients they lost along the way. The parallels here are killing me. Derek wants to be with her, Meredith wants to be with him. I was waiting for a kiss at this moment that never came. I'm waiting for their victory together, but not because of the trials, I want it to be a victory of getting together again. Until then, we're all still waiting.

Erica has got Callie alone and finally confronts her saying, "I don't, uh, make friends easily. I'm awkward and I'm bad at small talk and I generally don't like people I don't know, but I made friends with you and now you have this 'thing.'" "Are you mad at me for sleeping with Sloan," Callie asks. "I'm not mad that you're sleeping with Sloan," says Erica," I'm mad that you didn't tell me you're sleeping with Sloan. I'm mad at YOU because instead of telling me and admitting that you're one of those girls who goes all 'poofy' when she gets a boyfriend, you disappear with your 'thing.' I don't make friends easily." And she walks away. Callie decides to meet her at Joe's after all. Sloan won't sleep with her right now because he's depressed that all his surgeries have been canceled. Callie admits that when Addison was down, she asked it they were a, uh, um, couple. Evidently Erica feels this is just as awkward when they both start laughing a little about it and go quiet.

Poor Sloan, desperate to find someone to help him get the nurses back on his side, finally gets someone to "defend" him - Dr. Miranda Bailey. She rounds up the nurses and boy, is he in for a treat. She begins, "The boycott has gone far enough. I would like to offer my thoughts on Dr. Sloan. This man is a whore! He has always been a whore and will probably always be a whore! But that's not a secret. He's not keeping it hidden. You all knew who he was before you got involved with him and now you want to be all 'woe is me,' 'he doesn't call me back,' 'he's dating other women.' He's NASTY! but he's a doctor here and a pretty good one, so let us all close our knees and do our job so he can get back to his and help the people who really need it. Disperse." In true Bailey fashion, she has once again taken control and fixed the problem while we all watched and had a good laugh about it. Mark admits to Derek, "The most refined, professional, lady-like doctor in the hospital came to my defense today and the best she could come up with was 'he's a whore' I'm a whore!" Derek replies, "I slept with [Rose] and the whole time I was thinking about Meredith. Who's the bigger whore?"

Meredith explains her day to the therapist, proud and the day was a 'good day.' She is answered with the slap of, "That's a load of crap. It was not a good day . . . the tragic patient dies alone while the love of his life is literally in the next room. . .that's you." If these sessions are going to get anywhere the therapist thinks they need to start making some headway already. "You're telling yourself you're a hero when all you are is alone. He's with Rose. He's with Rose. He's with Rose." "Why do you keep saying that," Meredith asks. " Because if you can't see what's wrong with that statement 'he's with Rose' we're never going to get anywhere. . .do you know why he's not with you. . .you're scared!" "Are you calling me a coward," asks Meredith. "What do you think?" says the therapist. And Meredith storms out. At least someone finally said it to her face. Meredith is spending so much effort trying to 'get over' Derek that she hasn't stopped to consider that maybe she shouldn't 'get over' Derek. We all know it, I hope she knows it, too.

TELLING OFF CHIEF WEBBER......................................................................

Chief Richard Webber posts an article on the board that he's sure will make Cristina Yang upset. We soon see that it is an article about Preston Burke. He's received the Harper Avery Award for his heart surgeries. Cristina is silent. When Dr. Hahn is dangling a heart surgery in front of her, she's distracted. She actually turns down the chance at the surgery to go and harvest hearts in the morgue. An unknowing Erica Hahn commends Cristina for not being afraid to do a little grunt work. Cristina is not looking good. Lexie Grey is with her, as her intern, and tries to talk with no answer. Cristina breaks out singing, "Like a Virgin" and when Lexie starts to join in, she gets a look that could kill. Lexie excuses herself to leave Cristina alone. Later, when Meredith Grey questions Lexie about Cristina to see how she's doing, she asks if she's not talking, or staring off into space. When Lexie says that she's singing, Meredith gets up immediately to go to her - this is worse than she thought. She joins Cristina in the morgue and tells her (while Cristina's still singing), "You're gonna win you own Harper Avery Award.(still singing) . . Burke wouldn't have a career if it wasn't for you . . (still singing) . . the Harper Avery committee may not have known it, but he does. . (no change). . I'm in therapy!" She blurts and Cristina finally raises her head from the cadaver. . ."Cause he's with Rose, I'm way more screwed up that you." Cristina finally speaks, "Thank you. That makes me feel a little better." After Alex Karev is pulled off the surgery, Cristina is called into the heart surgery with Hahn, who is also quite jealous of Burke's award because she was also being considered. She tries to get Cristina to bash him with her, but gets the silent treatment. Hahn actually commends her for her "rising above" and says she should follow Cristina's example. Later, when Cristina is being forced to fill out the "Date and Tell" worksheet for Chief Richard Webber, even though Burke doesn't work there anymore, and she finally loses it. Chief tells her he knows it "must be difficult" and Cristina lets him have it. "No! It's not difficult. It's simple. Burke is not here, he's gone and he's the better for it. He's winning and I'm here where everything is the same. I still live in his apartment, I walk the same halls of this hospital, I wear the same scrubs and even that is not difficult. This is where I am. This is where I choose to be, but, sir, when his hand was shaking, I performed his surgeries. I kept his secrets. I nursed his pride. You know it and I know it. He knows it and yet nowhere in that newspaper article does my name appear. I am the unseen hand to his brilliance and yet while everything's the same, it's very, very different. Now I'm lucky if I get to hold a clamp. Hahn treats me like I was his hand and now I'm a ghost. That's not difficult. It's unbearable! I know everyone is happy for him, but I'm not and I do not wish him well." Couldn't be said any better than that.

Cristina's not the only one, though. Miranda Bailey was actually the only one in the hospital given an "exemption" from filling out the sex history and she is not happy about it, either. "Just wanted to drop off the form myself. Any questions you might have?" A shocked Richard, says, "The interns are listed on this form." "I require the energy of youth. Dr. Shepard was just a moment of weakness for both of us." she retorts. "Dr Sloan?" Richard asks reading her form further. "Oh, that was many moments: on call rooms, very HOT!!" "Okay, Dr. Bailey," says Richard, "I get the joke." ( Now you've done it, watch out) Bailey is fuming, "See, this is a joke to you. . . I am a single woman. I've been a single woman for some time now, but the very idea that I could have a sexual encounter, a consentual sexual encounter, is a joke to you. So much so that you would single me out in this entire hospital as the one person who couldn't interest a member of the opposite sex. It's just. . ." "It's harrassment," chimes in a patiently listening Adele. "Shame on you!" Bailey blurts as she walks out the door. Later Bailey admits that her husband, now separated, is on a date tonight. I feel so bad for Miranda Bailey. I hope someone comes around for her.

Even George O'Malley takes a jab at the Chief when he realizes that the position of "chief intern" was just to get back with his wife, Adele. George is always every one else's means to an ends that he doesn't get anything out of. I was glad to see him stand up to the chief. It turns out the chief really is on board with him being "Chief's Intern" and hopefully it will help George more than playing "hall monitor" like he seemed to be doing tonight with the forms.

And all of Chief's hard work to show that he's changed and is delegating and with the awkward forms actually pays off to Adele. They go home together and get a little action for themselves. Chief is quite pleased with himself and it looks like Adele is quite pleased as well. "It's good to know that not everything's changed" she giggles from under the sheets at the end of the show.

IZZIE STEVEN'S SECRET...............................................................................

Last week Izzie Stevens found out that Ava/Rebecca Pope is not really pregnant like she told Alex Karev. She asks Miranda Bailey "If I can't get ahold of my patient, is it okay to give her test results to her friend?" You know Bailey, she shoots down the proposal right away due to patient privacy rules. So here Izzie is stuck. She's already broken hospital rules in the past and we all know what messes that has gotten her. Alex has told her that he and Ava are planning to get an apartment together and she's leaving her husband and everything for him. We all know this is going to end badly and Alex just thinks Izzie is being unsupportive and maybe even jealous.

Meanwhile Alex is trying to prepare for fatherhood. He's helping a heart surgery patient, who due to infection control has been in a plastic chamber for 6 weeks away from her daughters. The girls ask what happens to their mom when they take her heart out. Alex explains, "We'll have her on a heart-lung machine. It's like Snow White. She eats the apple and dies for a while, but she's not really dead, you know. " The small girls freak out that they're mom's going to die, did Snow White die? Thinking he was so smart with his explanation to the kids turns on him and the mom condescendingly says, "It's okay, you don't have kids. You wouldn't know." It's hard on Alex who isn't ready, but is trying so hard now to get ready for his new baby. Then on top of it, he has a slight temperature and is kept out of the surgery. He is able to redeem himself when he saves the mother's life after her lung collapses and although it puts her back into isolation (because of his temp), he is able to get her daughters "clean" to come and see and touch her. That is something she hasn't been able to do in 6 weeks.

Meanwhile, Izzie has run into Alex dozens of times - wanting to tell him - not being able to tell him. She can't get ahold of Ava to give her the results either. During one of the confrontations Alex gets upset saying to Izzie, "You can't pass a baby on the street without stopping. The only fricking baby in the world you're not happy about is mine." And still, she hold her tongue and doesn't tell him. By the end of the day, she's exhausted sitting outside with Miranda Bailey where she is questioned on whether she told the friend or not. She tells her that "even though it killed me" she didn't tell. "You're growing" Bailey tells her. "I wish it would stop" Izzie says.

Good things may come for Izzie from this in her Seattle Grace career, but chances are that it's going to come back to bite her with Alex eventually, too. Izzie is growing, though. I'll give her props for steps in the right direction at least.