Izzie and Meredith are assigned to assist Erica with a heart patient
and Izzie is distraught when she realizes who the man is. "That's the
heart I stole for Denny," she tells Meredith. The fact that the patient
is in Denny's old room makes it even worse. "That's a lot of Denny,"
Meredith admits, but she isn't seeing him walking the hallways, like
Izzie is. Izzie's duty during an experimental procedure -- during which
the patient will be awake -- is to talk the man through the
excruciating pain he's experiencing. Erica selected her because of her
ability to bond with patients, but Izzie is seeing Denny in the O.R.
and can't breathe. "I'm so sorry," she says and runs out.
Meredith reveals that Izzie's connection to Denny Duquette, a name
Erica knows all too well as she was the surgeon who performed the
surgery.
Derek is annoyed with Cristina for her late-night chats with Meredith,
which rob him of sleep, so he has a favor to ask of Mark. "I need you
do have sex with Cristina Yang. Distract her." Mark declares her
"unfun" and "not my type," but Derek reminds him. "You slept with my
wife," and Mark sighs and says, "Yeah, I'll give it a shot." Mark tries
his best, but Cristina laughs when she realizes he's been
unsuccessfully flirting with her all day.
The residents are abuzz when they learn that the winner of the skills
lab will be awarded a solo surgery. George gets stuck with "Stan," a
robotic patient who can talk about his symptoms, much to his
frustration as the robot says things like, "I can't believe you passed
your intern exam!" George is finally triumphant in saving Stan's life
but not sure how to feel when he realizes he's been verbally abused by
Richard, who's been providing Stan's voice, all day.
Lexie is upset to find other interns practicing insert IVs on each
other, but when she realizes that the unclaimed cadavers in the morgue
are often donated for students to learn on, she seizes the opportunity.
"Bow to me, for I am the queen of the interns," she tells her jealous
colleagues. "I have assembled an army of the dead to teach us." But
Alex and Cristina overhear and insist on taking the cadavers for their
own.
Richard wants Owen's input on who should be awarded the solo surgery.
"You don't have any history, any relationship with anyone. That
perspective is rare," he says. Owen asks Callie for her input and after
she rattles off her complicated personal history with all the
residents, he tells her he wanted to know about their medical skills.
Owen tells Richard he finds the residents, "Undisciplined and
inarticulate. I'm not sure I want to stay."
When Miranda finds a room full of corpses that have been opened up,
Lexie tries to explain that they were unclaimed and an outraged Miranda
insists, "We claim them. We owe them respect."
Cristina is convinced that Owen hates her, especially after he chews
her out for trading procedures with Alex on a badly beaten homeless
man. Owen orders them to step away from the patient. "You have no
decency, no respect!" he shouts. He tells Cristina that if she's
practicing medicine just to win competitions, she has no place being
here. In response, she tells him why she became a doctor: when she was
nine years old she sat with her dying father after a car accident and
felt his heart stop. "This is why I'm' here," she says.
Earlier, Owen had overheard Derek telling Mark that Cristina was a
"single malt scotch," but a frustrated Mark pronounced her a "bad
wine." After Cristina leaves, an impressed Owen murmurs, "Single malt
scotch."
Erica is enraged to find out the part Izzie played in Denny's acquiring
the heart intended for her patient and storms into Richard's office.
"My patient lost a heart over this. It is damn well going to be
investigated." Richard tells her not to stir up the past, so instead,
she orders a guilt-ridden Izzie to sit with the patient through another
difficult procedure and face up to her responsibility for his
situation. Izzie commits to talking him through the pain this time,
under Denny's approving eye. After the procedure is a success, she
looks up and Denny is no longer there.
Erica tells Callie she intends to report Izzie to a medical review
board and is shocked when Callie sides with Izzie and Richard. "There
is no gray area here," Erica insists. "You can't kind of side with
Izzie Stevens. And you can't kind of be a lesbian. I don't know you at
all," she says, and walks away.
