Grey's Anatomy: Every Time I Think I'm Out, It Pulls Me Back In

Let me say this upfront: I fucking hate this show. I do not when it happened, I do not know how it happened, but watching this show causes me physical pain. I cannot stand it. Let me expound on the things I hated this week:

• I hate the Chief. I HATE him. He has turned into a giant, giant asshole. I don't even recognize this man anymore. He is in love with power and in love with himself. This merger will not be good for the hospital. Where is Adele? Why isn't she talking him out of this madness?
  
• I hate the Mercy West doctors. I hate that impish little one who used to be on Heroes. I hate that brownnose bitch. I hate the guy who exploited Izzie (even if I hate her, I still consider her one of my own, and will attack anyone who attacks her). I hate their ugly orange scrubs. (This is a hospital, not a hazmat area). I hate that fact that I have to learn a whole new set of character names. They fucking suck.
  
• I hate that they put Ellen Pompeo in a bed. It was starting to get fun guessing the things they would hide her behind so we don't see her pregnant belly. The bed is a cop out (although I'm glad Meredith did donate the piece of liver to Thatcher).
  
• I hate that they're trying to cram too much story into one episode. Let's take Callie's storyline, for example. Her dad shows up with a priest to try to get her to go straight again, and she freaks out. Arizona convinces her to talk to him again, and we get a really great scene of them quoting the Bible at each other to prove their points. We also get a scene of Arizona talking to Callie's dad where we learn she comes from a military family and they have a quiet moment of bonding. This story would have been enough to carry an episode, but it was overshadowed by those damn doctors in hazmat suits.
  

I think the thing I hate most about this show, though, is that when I'm about to write it off, it fucking has to go and make me care again. First, Cristina has an epic breakdown in Mer's hospital room where she freaks out about the fact that her career is going nowhere. When Cristina cries, I listen. Sandra Oh, you are a fantastic actress and you deserve an Emmy for what you did in this episode in the worst way possible. The crying, the brutal honesty, the halting speech. Now that is what I call dramatic acting. It kills me, KILLS ME, to see Cristina, fierce, fiery, force of nature Cristina reduced to tears, to a shell of herself.

The good stuff didn't stop there though. Nope, because THIS happened:



I have said terrible, horrible things about Izzie Stevens. I have wished death on her character repeatedly. I have called her bat-shit crazy, She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and bat-shit crazy.
I've gotta tell you though, this broke my heart. She didn't deserve to go out like that. Not after Alex fried a guy's brain back in season 1, not after Cristina lied and lied and lied for Burke, fuck not even after she didn't get fired for cutting the fucking LVAD wire back in Season 2. She's got CANCER and she's still doing her job. She made a mistake, but a mistake no worse than any of the others have before. Everything about this scene worked: the way Izzie's eyes and only her eyes change when she realizes what is about to happen, the way the Chief shuts down on her and goes into his drone "it's budget not performance" speech, and they way she goes all quiet and says meekly "Please don't do this to me. Please don't take this away from me, I don't have anything left. Please." Izzie may still be a crazy bitch, but if you don't feel for her there, you're made of stone.

And it didn't even stop there. In the final scene, Alex goes into Mer's hospital room, where she and Cristina are lying in bed, and tells them while hovering near the door, that Izzie has left him. He's on the verge of tears the entire time, but when Meredith commands Cristina to hug him, he recoils as she approaches. The episode ends there. And then there were three.

So to conclude, fuck you Grey's Anatomy and fuck you Shonda Rhimes, because you now have me invested in this show yet again when I desperately, desperately do not want to be.


I will leave with you some of the better quotes of the night:

"You will never measure up to the people we've lost."--Izzie to the toolish Mercy West attending, referring to George

"I miss Burke. I miss him all day."--Cristina. WOAH.

"She's not a vegetarian, is she? I don't know how much more of this I can take."--Callie's father to Callie about Arizona.

Emmy Breakdown: Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama

So it took me a while to get to this post, and I'm wondering now if it's because subconsciously this is the race I care least about. I think it might be. Let's dive in, shall we? And the nominees are:

• Rose Byrne as Ellen Parsons, Damages
  
• Hope Davis as Mia, In Treatment
  
• Cherry Jones as President Allison Taylor, 24
  
• Sandra Oh as Dr. Cristina Yang, Grey's Anatomy
  
• Dianne Wiest as Dr. Gina Toll, In Treatment
  
• Chandra Wilson as Dr. Miranda Bailey, Grey's Anatomy
  

This is the 5th nomination for Oh, the 4th nomination for Wilson, and the first nomination for the rest in their current roles. So I'm going to be honest here, I don't watch 24 or In Treatment so I'm not going to be able to comment on the performances of those actresses. I remember Davis briefly from Six Degrees and thought she was fine. I saw Cherry Jones play Sr. Aloysius in Doubt (which she won a Tony for, BTW), so I know she can act. And as for Wiest, I always remember her as the evil Queen from the NBC miniseries The 10th Kingdom, so it's hard for me to take her seriously, although I know she's a wonderful actress.

Now as for the other three, we all know I fucking love Damages, but the only reason Byrne is nominated is because the Glenn Close-halo effect forced her up her game as an actress, which is good, but she's not quite all the way there yet. I love, love her though and think she has great potential for next year. Now as for the Grey's ladies, some of are you are not going to agree with what I have to say, and others are going to be in utter disbelief given some comments I made about a certain plot line in the past, but, in all honestly, if anyone from Grey's deserves to win this year, it's Katherine Heigl. I know she's not nominated, but she sold the crap out of a storyline that went from ludicrous to heart wrenching and ludicrous, and was totally deserving of recognition, regardless of how people feel about her personality and comments she's made about the running of the show. Putting that opinion aside, Oh's storyline this season left me a little cold (aside from the episode where she dealt with being choked by Dr. Major Hunt), while Wilson's was also heart wrenching albeit in a different way. Watching her deal with the demise of her marriage was the most realistic plot on an increasingly absurd show, and Chandra Wilson really does deserve an award after all these years for creating a very complex character who I unequivocally love. So....

Who Should Win: Chandra Wilson
Who Will Win: Damned if I know

Check back tomorrow for my take on the Lead Actor - Drama race.