Welcome to Club Bisexual, Dr. Teddy Altman! You Can Hang Your Scrubs in the Back

Way back in Season Six of Grey’s Anatomy — a full ten years ago! — here were the first five things we ever learned about Dr. Theodora Grace Altman:

1. She’s a so-called “Cardio-God.”
2. You wouldn’t know it by looking at the birds on her scrub cap.
3. She wears birds on her scrub cap because they were her best friend’s favorite.
4. Her best friend died in the Twin Towers on 9/11.
5. This is the reason Teddy quit her attending position at Columbia and enlisted in the Army to provide emergency medical treatment to soldiers.

There is not a queer woman I know who hasn’t rooted for Teddy Altman to break up with Owen Hunt for good and just make out with Amelia Shepherd instead. Or in Seasons Six — Eight, ditch Owen Hunt and make out with Cristina Yang instead (catching a pattern here?). Maybe we couldn’t explain it, but something about Teddy, even after all these years, always felt like she should play for the home team. And sure, what we learned about Teddy in last night’s Grey’s Anatomy is actually a flashback. But what made it so moving, and from a storytelling perspective so brilliant, is that this reveal made everything else we’ve ever known about Teddy make more sense.

You see, for the five things we’ve always known about Dr. Teddy Altman, there was a sixth no one told us until now: That best friend who died in when the second tower fell? The one who loved birds? That was Allison. And they were much more than friends.

Over here in 2020, Teddy runs in to Claire, an old friend from New York, at a medical conference in Los Angeles (the world of Grey’s hasn’t yet been affected by the pandemic, so the rest of us should still stay at home). Claire, with her obviously gay haircut, lets us know that she now runs a small private practice with her wife down south. Teddy’s shocked that Claire ever left New York! But Claire couldn’t shake the mourning from after the towers fell; she said it embedded itself into the city’s marrow. She had to leave.

Of course that makes sense to Teddy. Did she not also leave, in her own way? Did she not run away to stitch up wounded soldiers in the field, so she could feel like she was helping, somehow? So she could feel anything other than grief and sadness?

In 2001, Teddy was settling in to her life as an attending surgeon. She wasn’t making a lot of money yet, so her best friend Allison offered Teddy a room in the apartment she shared with her then-girlfriend, Claire. Claire and Teddy were both doctors. At first Allison worried that the two would get too close, but Teddy was straight after all. And in case you forgot this apartment belonged to lesbians, let the Ani DiFranco singing “32 Flavors” in the background remind you. Did I mention that Allison is played by none other than Sherri Saum (that’s The Fosters’ Lena Adams Foster to you). Just for casual MAXIMUM gay points. That’s what Grey’s Anatomy is really going for here. Really looking to give the gays everything that they want.

Which is why, when Claire leaves for her shift, it’s immediately clear that Allison and Teddy’s relationship is more than they’ve said. Allison wraps her arms around Teddy’s stomach, softly pushing her nose into Teddy’s neck while she works on dinner. Then she turns Teddy around. They kiss, and Teddy knows it’s wrong. She knows it, but she can’t stop.

Later, when the two of them are naked together in bed, Allison faces the truth. She tells Teddy that she’s her great love. It’s hard, but she’s ready to say it out in the open and let the consequences fall where they may. She loves Teddy. She loves her more, and more, and more. She declares it — whispering “more” into Teddy’s neck, then her clavicle, her cleavage, her ribcage, and then, finally, she whispers it in between her thighs.

The morning of the attacks, Teddy was the last number Allison called.

That’s how Claire confirmed her suspicions about the affair. Still, she never confronted Teddy about it. Instead, she left the city; let each woman that Allison loved claw their own way through the grief. She was ready to let bygones be bygones — until she found out that Teddy recently named her newborn daughter after Allison.

That’s the straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s been almost 20 years, but Claire forces Teddy to come clean. Teddy weeps and apologizes, saying that 20 years ago she didn’t believe that someone could love two people at the same time, but now — caught yet another love triangle, later in her life — she gets it. Yes, Allison chose Teddy, but that didn’t mean her love with Claire was a lie.

There’s something deliciously satisfying when a show takes a character who’s been presumed straight, but is beloved by LGBT fans, and reveals that this character is bisexual (Jane the Virgin’s Petra Solano comes to mind of course, but also How To Get Away with Murder’s Annalise Keating). What makes last night’s bisexual revelation and secret love story so great isn’t just the fan service, or that it’s a love triangle that mirrors Teddy’s current predicament — it’s that as long as we’ve known Teddy Altman, she hasn’t thought she was good enough.

She’s always been messy in her love life. She’s chased love that was unattainable (I don’t believe that Owen Hunt will ever truly love her back, and her epic love story with Scott Foley’s Henry in Seasons Seven and Eight had an expiration date attached to his health). Time and again, she’s knowingly made romantic decisions that would only cost her pain. The best television “surprises” are the ones that take every puzzle piece we knew, and then re-arranges them in a way that makes perfect sense, but we somehow couldn’t see before. The ones where we didn’t know why, and now we do.

Allison was maybe going to be the love of Teddy’s life. She was absolutely certain that Teddy was the love of hers. Teddy never got to live that life that out loud, so we’ll never know. Instead, Allison died on September 11^th.

And then everything changed.

“Grey’s Anatomy” Celebrates Callie and Arizona’s Epic Love Story in Jessica Capshaw’s Last Episode

If you felt a ripple in the air at approximately 8:55pm last night, I have to tell you that it was me. I gasped so hard, trying to fill my lungs and catch my breath, that I perhaps mistakingly sucked up all the air in North America. I apologize.

Here’s the thing: I have loved Callie Torres and Arizona Robbins’ love story from their first kiss in the dirty bathroom of Joe’s Bar, way back in season 5. Callie, fresh off her heartbreak from Erica Hahn walking into The Parking Lot Of No Return, still in throes of a messy coming out, was crying alone in that bathroom. She was doing that thing that I think all women have done at one point in our lives — heaving out all our tears in one swoop when no one is looking, and then drying our eyes quickly with scratchy brown bathroom paper towels. We do it so that no one will see our vulnerability. We’ve been taught that showing our tears is weakness. And in walked Arizona Robbins — all smiles, and dimples, and infectious, bouncy personality. Her eyes crinkled at the corners in compassion.

That night she told Callie that she was “the talk of the hospital.” Callie scoffed; of course she’s the hot gossip. Her life was a complete mess. But Arizona assured her, the talk is good. She’s respected, and warm, and people really like her. When she was ready, there would be people just dying to sweep her off her feet.

Callie tried to laugh off this new stranger in her life, asking, “Yeah, like who?” That’s when Arizona came in close. She let their breath mingle together. She swept in for the kiss that launched one of the greatest queer love stories on network television. Seven seasons of laughter and dance parties and break ups and divorces and pain, but more than all of that, love. Undying love. It all started right there, underneath the busted out lights of a dirty bar bathroom.

I’ll never forget it, what it felt like the first time I saw them. How many times I rewatched that scene on YouTube, just to remind myself that even at my most vulnerable, my darkest despair, someone might one day see brightness in me.

When Callie left Grey’s Anatomy at the end of season 12, Arizona and Callie had already been divorced for over a year. After all they’d been through (A car crash! A plane crash! Cheating! Yelling and Crying in Shower Stalls!), their relationship had become sour, maybe even toxic. To top it all off, on her way out the door, Callie cornered Arizona into the most painful custody hearing I’ve ever seen. Now that we’re at the finish line — it’s easy to want to forget the worst of their relationship, understandable even. But, that would be a mistake. When they were at their worst, Callie and Arizona were ugly with each other. They were careless and brutal. They had to separate in order to heal back whole. They needed time and distance to become healthy again. Hell, their self-care plan involved putting an entire country between them!

Arizona and Callie wasn’t the kind of love story that you read about in story books. As much as I wanted it to be sometimes, their love wasn’t all pink heart balloons and sweet kisses. It was grown up and messy. But ultimately, it also meant finding their way back to each other. It’s important to remember the full scope of their love, the best and the worst of it. No one promised that grand romances were pretty. As Meredith Grey reminded us in her closing voice over last night, “You need someone who will celebrate your wins, and grieve your losses. You need someone who can forgive you.”

I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s rewind a bit. In her last day living in Seattle, Arizona Robbins has one thing on her mind and that is getting her former mentee down the aisle. Karev wants to say a proper goodbye, but she won’t let him. She grew up saying goodbye to a lot of people moving from army base to army base, and she’s learned that the best thing is to push forward. She won’t cry on his wedding day.

She will, however, wear the gayest blue flannel and steam his suit for him. She’ll also take a kiss from his fiancée for good measure. (The fact that Arizona’s last on camera gay kiss came from Jo Wilson is almost too pitch perfect, I laughed so hard. Alex better watch out! — I’m kidding, I’m kidding.)

No Grey’s Anatomy wedding has ever gone off without a hitch, so you could assume that this episode would have a few snafus along the way. Whew buddy, did those snafus come in spades! First most of the wedding guests went to the wrong location, then the bride and groom snuck off to have quick wedding sex and ended up locked in a shed! Excuse me, LOCKED IN A SHED WITH A DEAD BODY!! Did I mention that the wedding planner almost died from an allergic reaction? They had to cut her out of her Spanx and shove expired Benadryl up her butt! Oh and, TEDDY ALTMAN IS BACK AND SHE IS PREGNANT!!!

The comedic mishaps gave us lots of time to catch up with Arizona and April ahead of their monumental life changes. In the wake of her near-drowning, April quit her job at Grey Sloan Memorial to do more of “God’s work.” She’s now working with patients at local homeless shelters across Seattle. That’s awesome and a fitting closure for her character on the show.

Also biding her time at the wedding, getting drunk with the rest of her intern class, is Intern Hellmouth. I’m almost positive this girl is going to be our new queer character in the wake of Arizona’s absence next year. She dedicates the first round of shots “to Meredith Grey — and the way she’s rocking that dress!”, the second round goes to Meredith’s “hair and the way you could just drown in it!” Hellmouth, is it too early to say that I love you?

It’s apparently not too early for Hellmouth to crash the wedding toasts and drunkenly declare her love for Meredith in front of all her co-workers. Carina DeLuca, who’s been playing intern chaperone all day, stops her at the last minute. Love is precious, Carina reminds her. You don’t want to waste it on someone who can’t love you back. She looks over her shoulder longingly as the camera zooms in on Arizona, smiling at her phone. Trust Carina about this. She knows.

Arizona’s lost in her own world in the back row of the wedding pews. Just her, and those smiles, and that phone. April plops down next to her, worried that she has cursed this failing wedding with all of her “I left someone at the altar and now everything I touch will turn to poo” magic. Arizona comforts her best friend, this wedding is not a catastrophe.

Her biggest worry right now? That whenever she gets a text from Callie, she smiles. She smiles dammit! And she can’t trust her heart to love again. We’ve been building to this moment for almost a month now. Ever since the day Arizona got the entire hospital high and spent all her time waxing poetic about how much she loved Callie. Ever since Arizona told her patient that Callie made the right choice in deciding to amputate her leg. Ever since she broke up with Carina and that heavy thud hung in the air between them. Ever since. Ever since. Ever since.

Now she’s moving to New York. And she’s single! And (EXCUSE ME WHILE I FAINT ALL OVER AGAIN) — Callie is single!! But Callie left her twice, first in the divorce and then when she moved across country with Sofia in hand. No one ever, in the history of her entire life, has hurt her like Callie.

April gets that. She hurt Matthew in unspeakable ways. He found a way to forgive her anyway. They found their way together, despite all of the pain. She wants that for Arizona, she wants her best friend in the entire world to have love and peace. For that to happen, Arizona has to stay open to possibilities. April holds her hands and looks her in the eye; it’s not a catastrophe that Callie is making her smile again. Webber — my favorite Robbins wingman who just happened to eavesdrop in on the conversation — wholeheartedly agrees. With her people by her side encouraging her, Arizona decides it’s time to be brave.

The episode ends Arizona’s story with the slyest, most romantic, slight of hand. You see, it was announced early Thursday that despite a lot of fan hopes, Sara Ramirez would not be making a guest star appearance to sweep Arizona off her feet. That’s fine, it turned out she didn’t need to be there to make my heart melt.

From the first note of the closing montage’s music, tears sprang to my eyes. I would know Sara Ramirez’s rendition of Brandi Carlile’s “The Story” anywhere on the planet. Grey’s Anatomy has always had a specific relationship with music. Particularly in the early seasons, songs became tied to the show in ways that now feel permanent. Does anyone hear The Fray’s “How to Save a Life” and not feel transported to an OR room? That song, along with Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars”, has always belonged to Meredith and Derek. But, “The Story”? That one is ours. That’s the anthem of Callie and Arizona’s love for each other.

Sara Ramirez’s version in particular will always gut me. It’s the song Callie sang at the end of the season seven’s musical episode. It’s the song she sang to newborn baby Sofia, still in an ICU incubator. It’s the song she sang before waking up from her coma and accepting Arizona’s marriage proposal. It’s the song of the strength of their family, a promise that they can overcome whatever life throws at them.

I sat on the very edge of my couch, inches from the tv, pillow clutched in my hand and mouthing along the words, “All of these lines across my face/ Tell you the story of who I am/ So many stories of where I’ve been/ And how I got to wear I am/ But these stories don’t mean anything, if you’ve got no-one to tell them to/ It’s true. I was made for you.”

Sara’s warm voice fills the space as Alex and Jo get married. She croons as, in a surprise ending to the episode, April marries Matthew! All those years after leaving him at the altar for Jackson, they have found their way back to each other. Sofia is their flower girl. Arizona walks April down the aisle, Jackson proudly stands as witness.

Finding your way back to each other — that’s the theme of the night. Sara Ramirez’s voice is lowered just a bit as Meredith’s voice over gets to the part about forgiveness being necessary for love. Arizona looks down at her phone. A text from Callie types across the screen, “I can’t wait to see you!”

Arizona smiles. She looks at Sofia — their daughter — and hugs her shoulders. They are going to be ok.

Earlier in the episode, Zola and Meredith were getting ready for the wedding. Zola told her mom, “ I don’t think love is like candy. I don’t think you could be too greedy for it. And I don’t think you could fill up on it.” Arizona and Callie’s love for each other, their love for their family, it’s not over yet. It will keep multiplying. This is their new chapter.

So no, we didn’t get to see Arizona and Sofia land in New York, Callie waiting for her girls at the airport with her arms wide open. I’d like to imagine that she maybe has flowers for Arizona in one hand and some chocolate for Sofia in the other. Maybe they have one of those big movie kisses where Callie dips her in front of cheering bystanders. Or, maybe their love will take its time finding security again. Maybe they will start dating slow and steady, getting to know each other fresh. With a few special make outs in dirty bar bathrooms for the nostalgia of it.

In some ways, those details ultimately don’t matter. One thing is for sure — as the screen goes to black, Sara Ramirez’s voice sweetly reminds us one last time, “Oh yes it’s true. I was made for you.”

Shondaland Is The New Narnia: Annalise Keating Is Bisexual, Grey’s Anatomy Returns With a Very Special Lesbian Episode

However high your hopes were for queer women on TV this fall, they were not high enough. Let me help you adjust them. Climb up onto this box, and now up onto this ladder, and now onto the top of this building, and get in this helicopter and ride up into the sky and board that high altitude jet through the trap door, and strap yourself into the extraction rocket, and shoot yourself out space. Okay, now your hopes are high enough.

Last night, Shonda Rhimes’ TGIT line-up — Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away With Murder — returned to ABC, and brought with it six lesbian and bisexual characters (one black woman, one Latina woman, two white women, and a pair of heartbreaking teenagers). It also featured nearly a dozen female empowerment narratives and, as usual, made the Bechdel Test look like asking a calculus professor to count to ten. That last thing isn’t surprising. ABC and Disney finally gave in this year and decided to market TGIT for exactly what it is: The most diverse, female-driven night of television in history.

The extensive queerness, though? Well, that was a delightful shock!

---

Grey’s Anatomy

McDreamy who? The season 12 premiere of Grey’s Anatomy makes nary a mention of Derek Shepherd. Instead, it focuses on Bailey fighting for the job of Chief, rightfully getting the job, and smiling out onto the hospital while Mr. Bailey stands behind her saying, “Behold, everything the light touches is yours!” It focuses on Arizona returning to her full Arizona-ness and realizing she’s some kind of mythical legend among the interns; most of them think she’s immortal (and some of them think she’s faking being an amputee for the parking space). It focuses on Amelia and Maggie and Meredith tag-teaming to tear down a literal and metaphorical wall in their house/lives.

Mostly, though, “Sledgehammer” focuses on Callie and two teenage lesbians who hurled themselves in front of a train.

When the teenagers arrive in separate ambulances, Callie notices right away that they have the same hearts drawn onto their arms. So, when Callie begins working on Jess, the one who is conscious, she strokes her hair out of her face and says, “Jess, I’m going to tell you something personal about myself, okay? I like men, romantically sometimes, and I like women, too. It’s a big, big part of my life. Can I ask you something personal about yourself? Do you like girls? Do you like Alia?” The look of relief on Jess’ face when Callie tells her she’s bi is so real and so wonderful. She tells Callie that she doesn’t just like Alia; she loves her.

Callie: What were you two doing out there?
Jess: It’s not that we wanted to die; it’s just that this was the only way we could stay together, forever.
Callie: No, Jess. No, there are so many other ways. Killing yourself solves nothing.
Jess: My parents are sending me away to a camp. They come and get you in the middle of the night and they take you to this place. They change you. They’re going to make me change my mind about Alia.
Alex: No, they won’t. There’s no way. Those places don’t work. They never work.
Jess: Please don’t call them. Please, you can’t call my parents. Please promise me you won’t call them.

Of course her parents have already been called and they’re a real piece of work. Her mom is a nightmare, accosting Alia’s dad when she overhears him talking to Meredith about how his daughter is there because she got hit by a train, and accusing Alia of preying on and contaminating Jess with her lesbianism. “You keep your damn daughter away from our little girl,” is a thing she spits into Alia’s dad’s face. And: “They think they’re in love. With each other. They want to grow up and get married!”

It pushes Callie right over the edge, hearing this mom talk like that. She is halfway up the stairs to prep Jess for surgery, but she whips around and stomps back and tells the mom a thing or two about how sending your kid to conversion camp is child abuse, that it’s torture, and that her horrific homophobia is the reason her daughter literally stepped in front of a train. The mom just screams at Callie then, like she’s the maid or something and this mom is some kind of Upper East Side WASPmonster.

It’s not smart. Nobody picks on Callie Torres.

While Callie is getting Jess ready for surgery, they talk about her relationship with Alia.

Jess: You know, Alia and I, we like to pass notes at school, the kind you fold in a million different ways. I kept them, every single one, in a box under my bed, so I could reread them when I had bad days.
Callie: Bad days?
Jess: Sometimes kids at school, well … people suck, you know? They like to tease us. Throw things. The other day I came home and my mom was in my room. She found my box of notes; she burned them in the fireplace.

During the operation, Alex and Callie talk about how they were bullied when they were teenagers, but they flipped it around and decided they only way to win was to fight back. “I didn’t look like the other girls, I didn’t act like them. I’ll tell you what, though, once you punch your first bully, the rest fall in line pretty quickly,” Callie says.

Maggie, though, had a different experience with bullying. She tells Alex and Callie:

People like you used to call me little maggot, because I was younger than you and smarter, and because of my lisp. They had a field day with my lisp. Little Maggot Pierce. It wasn’t cute when I was begging not to be pantsed in the middle of the quad. Really think about that, my pants were literally pulled off of me in front of other people. Or when I was screaming for help in the janitor’s closet until the police found me the next morning because I was locked inside. Bullies bully because they can, or maybe because they get bullied at home, but people like me, and like this girl on our table, are alone and small and vulnerable. And pushing us around makes you feel better about your sad, pathetic little lives.

It’s a Very Special moment, but it’s a good one. It’s real and the emotional punch lands right in your heart’s eyeball.

Ultimately, though, Maggie finds her fire and ends up slugging Jess’ mom right in the face. Callie calls Child Protective Services, which sets off the mom in a brand new way. This lady already assumed Maggie wasn’t a doctor because she’s black, and then she launches in on another homophobic tirade, and Maggie just wallops her! When Callie is bandaging Maggie up, she explains how to make a fist so you don’t break your thumb, for the next time Maggie gets into a fisticuffs with a bigot, and Arizona rushes in grinning with glee, talking about, “Is it true?! Did Callie punch a homophobe??” She tries to high five Maggie, but Maggie feels too guilty to celebrate. Everyone else high fives, though.

Jess’ dad bonds with Alia’s dad over how much they love their daughters and how much they don’t give a damn if they’re gay, as long as they’re alive. Jess’ mom doesn’t agree, and finally her husband comes unglued on her: “I don’t care if she’s gay! I care if she’s happy! I care if she’s loved! And that’s what you should care about! What is wrong with you that you don’t?” Jess overhears him yelling, and she knows it’s going to be okay.

At the end of the day, Alia makes it through surgery. Her dad comes to see her and he has a note; it’s from Jess.

“Dear my beautiful Alia,” he reads, and then he smiles at his lesbian daughter. “Oh,” he says, “I like her already.”

Welcome back, early days Grey’s!

---

How to Get Away With Murder

Annalise Keating is bisexual! This is not a drill! I repeat, Viola Davis just became the first black woman to win an Emmy for Best Actress in a Drama for a character who has now revealed herself as bisexual! HOLY CATS, Y’ALL!

The plot of this show is way too intricate and topsy-turvy for me to try to explain the central mystery (and subsequent zillion cover-ups and double-crossings) to you in a comprehensible way, so for brevity’s sake, let me just tell you that Annalise used to have a boring ass husband who was also an asshole who slept with students, and now he is dead. Before him, though, Annalise had a girlfriend! A law school lover! Her name was Eve and she looked like Famke Jansen. Eve returns to Annalise in the season two premiere because Annalise slyly convinces the guy she was sleeping with (and then set up to take the fall for her husband’s murder) to hire her as his defense attorney (because she wants him to be exonerated). (I told you it was complicated!)

At first, Annalise just takes a bite of a literal apple in Eve’s presence and Eve refuses to defend Nate, but then Annalise goes to Eve’s house in the middle of the night, crying about how she ruins everyone, and Eve confesses she’s been thinking about Annalise every single day since college. And so Annalise takes a bite of her metaphorical apple! They make out, do some scissoring, and Eve agrees that she’ll defend Nate after all — which means, among other things, that she’s going to be around a lot this season and probably smooching on Annalise some more.

I’ve always thought Bonnie was in love with Annalise. Now I think it more than ever.

---

Do you think Shonda Rhimes has a Time-Turner? I’m asking because how else could she do so much? And I don’t simply mean “so much” as in “make so many TV shows.” Obviously, that’s remarkable. I mean “so much” as in: How does she tirelessly, repeatedly shatter every boundary most showrunners in Hollywood wouldn’t touch with a 39-and-a-half foot pole? Fuck your token person of color. Fuck your token queer woman. Fuck the subtext. Fuck the tropes. And fuck the idea that Strong Female Characters are the unicorns of televisual Narnia. Shonda Rhimes writes Real Women. They’re not superhuman. They’re strong in the broken places.

Last night changed the way I’m going to think about TV from now on. I am 100 percent officially done forever with eating the scraps networks drops on the floor and try to pass off as acceptable meals. The most anticipated premiere night on broadcast crushed everyone in ratings, dominated social media, featured two black women headlining their own shows, and brought us six fully realized queer women.

When I interviewed Jasika Nicole earlier this year about her time on Scandal, she told me:

I don’t think the movements for racial equality and sexual identity are necessarily the same fights, but I think they tread a lot of the same ground. You’re right that Shonda didn’t just start doing this; she’s been doing it for years. Thank God she’s finally getting the acknowledgment from other people. But you know what? Even if she wasn’t getting the recognition, she’d still be doing it. She’s doing it because she believes in it.

I believe, too! Shondaland feels like Narnia, but y’all, this is real life.

Grey’s Anatomy Episode 1122 Recap: Gone Girl

Show of hands: who thought that a two-hour long Grey’s Anatomy this week would mean 120 minutes of Ghosts of McDreamies Past, Present, and future feeling their feels? Because I certainly did. Instead what we got was basically a filing cabinet full of folders, and inside each folder was a headshot and scrawled note ARIZONA SUPER ANGRY or MEREDITH = GONE GIRL, and the writers are just pulling them out one-by-one and sliding them across the table to us.

They start with Meredith, obviously. After a quick flashback to remind us that McDreamy is indeed McDead, Meredith walks into the break room at Grey-Sloan Memorial where Callie, Maggie, Alex, Webber, and Owen are arguing about coffee. She says “Derek is dead. Derek is dead. DEREK IS DEAD!” and then passes right the hell out.

No sooner than Owen and Webber have her in a hospital bed and hooked up to an IV does Bailey come hustling around the corner, crying. As she’s trying to get herself under control, Owen asks how Amelia is holding up. Webber tells him she’s in surgery. He says, “You know the protocol,” and Owen replies, “Yeah, I know the protocol,” and RIGHT HERE, okay? Right here is such a missed opportunity for growth for Owen. After the shenanigans with Teddy and Cristina and Teddy’s husband Henry, I would have loved to see him damn the torpedoes and go straight to Amelia. But nope. Instead Callie heads down to Amelia’s OR. The dude on her table is none other than Officer Dan, Callie’s boring dude date. Aw man, I thought we dispensed with this guy.

After surgery, Owen meets Amelia in the scrub room. One look at his face and she knows someone is dead. She’s no stranger to the Your Loved One Is Gone face. Owen tells her it’s Derek. She like “Thanks, bro.” Meanwhile Callie tells Edwards, who just loses it and starts sobbing.

Derek’s funeral is about seven seconds long, after which Meredith sees the Post It of Love and thinks about Derek and her mom and the goddamn carousel, and then snatches up her kids and scurries off into the night. Remember that time on Pretty Little Liars when Shana’s funeral was on YouTube, filmed from multiple angles, and with like edits in it and stuff, and then Aria watched it in the computer lab at school and Shana came back to life and looked right at the camera? I just like to bring that up from time-to-time. I think knowing Shana’s out there, doing zombie stuff on the outskirts of Rosewood, it’s a balm. It’s a grief-cleanser.

Anyway. Days pass, weeks pass, months pass. Meredith doesn’t come back, doesn’t answer her phone, doesn’t give anyone any indication she’s all right. Maggie and Callie want to hire a detective, but Webber tells them she’s Ellis Grey’s daughter, and if she’s gone, it’s because she wants to be gone, and there’s nothing they can do about it. So it’s up to everyone to deal with Derek’s death as best they can.

Bailey tells Ben if anything happens to her, not to hook her up to any machines or perform any extraordinary measures. Ben is like “Cool, but no.” He wants every single thing that can be done to be done. Bailey thinks he’s crazy. Ben wants to live, and he doesn’t care if that means he’s hooked up to eleventy tubes and wires for the rest of his life. Bailey tells him that’s fine, but first she needs to make sure there’s an Idris Elba provision in there, because she’s not giving up a chance at that booty on the technicality of being married to a potato. Ben’s response is to sign a living will and give it to her as a Valentine’s Day present? Not as bad as when Ross said Rachel. Not as bad as a Pizza Hut box stuffed with a medium one-topping rectangular pan pizza, five breadsticks with marinara sauce, 10 cinnamon sticks with a sweet icing cup, and an engagement ring. It’s no brief jerky, is what I am saying. But it’s terrible.

Callie deals with her grief by treating Officer Dan, who, despite everyone’s best efforts, loses his leg. Callie hooks him up with one of the bionic legs that she and Derek developed. I know we’ve talked about my feelings about Callie dating a dude, and while I’m still okay with that, I am not okay with her dating Officer Dan. He’s condescending and has the sense of humor of a bagel. He’s not nearly good enough for Callie. Officer Dan tells her he thinks they were meant to meet so that she could save him. She fits him for his bionic leg and there’s this really touching moment where he walks for the first time since losing his leg and she breaks down and I wanted this for Callie and Arizona. I hate to be such a downer, but I feel like this whole episode was a collection of moments that could have been but weren’t.

Arizona’s feelings: Super double plus the angriest. She overhears someone bitching about waiting too long for a neuro consult and shouts her down in the lunchroom. And that’s it. That’s all we get of Arizona. She and Callie aren’t even a single scene together. The only nod we get is a single beat when Callie and Sophia are hanging up Christmas stockings and Callie pulls Arizona’s out of the box and then looks at it like “nah” and just tosses it back in. So, I guess that’s it? Is that the last nail in their coffin? Really, Papi? Really? And Santa wrecked his sleigh and Rudolph flatlined on the way to the ER and two of the elves were chopped in half as the sleigh fell out of the sky and MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Amelia, despite her stone cold reaction to the Death Face, is not handling Derek’s death all that well. She’s making jokes about her dead brother and everyone is super uncomfortable about it. Webber keeps trying to get her to come to a meeting, and Edwards tries to get her to go to a grief counselor. When Webber stops her in the hallway to check in and see if she wants to grab a cup of coffee, every single thing she’s been holding back rushes out of her mouth. She can’t go to a meeting. She can’t go to a get a cup of coffee. If she leaves, people will die, and then their families will be left wondering why everyone leaves, why everyone gets ripped away. Then she walks straight out and scores a baggie full of oxy.

Owen and April come back from Iraq, and Owen heads straight to Amelia’s. She holds up the bag of oxy and tells him she’s got the Derek thing totally handled. She’s saving lives, putting butts in the OR gallery, joke joke joke, she is GREAT. She’s been sober for 1,321 days, and she was fine. It was managed. And then Derek died. Owen is all “you have to feel the pain, you can’t run from it! Which, haha, oh shit, is what I was doing! I was running from the pain too! That’s why I ran to Iraq! WOW!

Let’s pause for a second and just be clear about one thing. If an addict is standing right in front of you clutching a bag of oxy and threatening to take it, maybe not the best time to get introspective and make everything about you? Just food for thought. Something to keep in your back pocket.

Anyway, Amelia is strong as fuck, and she forces herself to give the oxy to Owen so that she can move into the pain of losing her brother, terrifying and awful and impossible as it is. She is amazing. Protect Amelia at all costs.

Owen convinces April to head off to a war zone to practice surgery there. It’s supposed to be for three months but then it’s six and then it’s long enough for Meredith to grow a baby! Told you so! She and Bailey and Zola are God knows where, not answering the phone, and Meredith is all kinds of preggo. She starts bleeding and sweet, darling Zola calls 911. I thought for sure the next scene would be Meredith rocking up into Seattle Grace on a gurney where Arizona would be waiting to safely deliver her wee one, but no to that one as well. They take her to another hospital, and it’s the same one that killed Derek and they try to deliver her baby with a butter knife and a car battery and a head of lettuce. JUST KIDDING.  They wheel her into an emergency C-section, where she delivers a healthy girl named Ellis. Alex is her emergency contact (awwww!) and he comes to the hospital and takes Meredith, Zola, Bailey, and wee Ellis back to the house that Derek built.

You didn’t think we were going to get out of this without a Patient of the Week, did you? Anne is a lady who was pulled out of a house fire and 60% of her body is covered is covered in burns. She’s in the burn unit beside a woman named JJ, who was admitted a few weeks before. Even though she’s in tremendous pain, JJ keeps Anne’s spirits up, even when her husband bails out because having a wife in the burn unit isn’t “what he signed up for.” But then JJ dies, because of course she does, but Anne figures out how to move on, just as we all must. A bit heavy handed with the symbolism this week, but okay. If Anne can move on, we can move on, and we will.

Meredith finally makes it back to Grey-Sloan memorial. Derek’s coat, his books, and his stethoscope are still in his locker, and Meredith takes Derek’s ferry boat scrub cap from his pocket, slides it on, and heads into surgery.

Grey’s Anatomy Episode 1121 Recap: All Doctors Go to Heaven

Editor’s note: If you find the words of this recap comforting, thank Jenn. If you find the photos of this recap irreverent, blame Heather Hogan.

Once upon a time, there was a bar, and in that bar was a girl, and in that girl was a heart darker and twistier than any of us could possibly have imagined.

And then that girl fell in love.

When last we left Grey’s Anatomy, Meredith was clutching the phone, her face lit up with the flashing red and blue lights of the police cruiser in her driveway. We all knew something awful had happened, we just weren’t sure how awful.

This week, Derek is on a boat, looking so fresh-faced and happy that it’s pretty clear the level of awful is pretty high up there. Cut to Meredith herding her kids towards the door, her arms loaded with the detritus of being a mom.

Meredith: Get the lead out, we’re gonna be late. And who can never be late?
Zola: Surgeons!
Meredith: And why can surgeons never be late?
Zola: Foreshadowing!

Back to Derek. He’s heading to the airport to catch his flight to DC, and he takes a super-secret shortcut to get around traffic. The super-secret shortcut is a curvy, hilly road populated by assholes in black sports cars and moms in SUVs. The black car swerves and weaves, tires squealing. It shoots around Derek, and then around the SUV, which immediately flips over. And over. And over. The black car goes careening through the air. Derek jams on his breaks.

When everything comes to a halt, Derek has skidded to a stop on the side of the road, and the other two vehicles are smoking and upside down. Derek immediately starts scrambling for his phone, but when he can’t find it, he jumps out of the car and runs straight over to the SUV. There’s a woman, Sarah, hanging upside down, blood oozing down her face. She is yelling for her daughter, Winnie. Winnie is in the backseat, and she’s fine, so small graces I guess?

Derek asks her if she has a phone. Sarah says yes, but it doesn’t matter because there’s never any signal on this road.

Derek hops down off the SUV and sprints across the street to find the other driver, Charlie, and the passenger, Alana, have been thrown from the car. Alana seems okay—in shock and freaked the hell out, but okay. She scrambles for her phone, but it isn’t working. Derek tells her that she’s in shock and she might want to slow her roll because she probably has injuries she doesn’t even know about yet. He wants to know why she was driving like a bat out of hell. She tells him she wasn’t, that Charlie was.

Charlie is wandering down the street in a daze, and when Derek chases after him, he turns around to reveal that half his skull is bashed in. He can’t remember shit. As Derek is trying to calm him down, he passes out. He’s got about a foot on Derek, so when he goes down, he takes Derek with him. They collapse in the middle of the road.

Somehow, Derek manages to get Charlie off the road, where he’s checking his pupils, but without a proper first aid kid, there’s not much he can do. He runs back to his car, but all he’s got is basically a single Band-Aid. Can I just also say that his car is WAY too clean to belong to a man with two kids under five? I don’t see a single cheerio anywhere. No sippy cups, no Cheetos to get stuck to your butt. Derek grabs a crow bar, then runs over to the SUV. That mom has corporal kids, not invisible ones, so she’s got a legit first aid kid. Derek smashes the windows and grabs it and also helps Winnie climb free. He dispatches her to the other couple with some bandages so that he can get her mom out of the car. Alana is wandering around holding her phone up in the air, desperately seeking a cell signal so she can call for help, but alas, there’s none to be found.

Derek has his crowbar at the ready again, and he smashes out the window of Sarah’s SUV so he can pull her out. Let me tell you about this mom. She’s hardcore. She’s got a dislocated hip and she just full-on lets Derek haul her out of the car and set it right there on the side of the road. Females are strong as hell, basically.

Things are getting a little too calm out here, with the gushing head wounds and the dislocated hips, so it’s an appropriate time for Charlie’s car to explode. Whoosh, it goes, right up in flames. Alana is freaking out about how she’s a good girl, apparently, and good girls don’t kiss Charlie Evans and they don’t get in car wrecks, and all the while she’s bleeding into her mouth. Derek scampers over speedy quick and looks at her stomach to find out that her guts are, you know…rather on the outside of her body. I have never been happier that Heather Anne doesn’t recap this show. She would have passed right the hell out. [Heather Anne note: Yes, I would have.]

Derek uses this time to wrap Alana up with some dry cleaning bags while talking about Meredith, like any of these people give a single solitary shit about some girl they’ve never met. A barren field of fucks is what these people have right now w/r/t Meredith Grey.

Charlie’s blazing car has finally caught the attention of some first responders, and a host of paramedics and fire trucks pull up to load up all Derek’s patients. He hugs Winne, shakes some hands, then hops back in his car.

So up until this point, everything has been fine. I mean, not fine fine, but Grey’s Anatomy fine. What comes next is not.

As Derek is pulling away from the accident scene, his phone buzzes. He stops his car in the middle of the road and starts grappling around for it.

Really? REALLY? No one could get a cell signal for ages and ages, and Sarah, who drives this road every day, says you can never get a signal, and now Derek gets a call? Now that he’s sitting in the middle of the road, which I don’t think Derek would do in the first place?

A truck careens into the side of Derek’s car, as we all knew it would. Two seconds later, Derek is on a backboard, being unloaded in front of a hospital that is not Grey-Sloan Memorial, while a doctor waves his hands and shouts “NOT IT NOT IT!”

Derek can’t talk, but he can hear, and a little thing like loss of verbal skills isn’t going to stop Dr. Derek Shepherd from mansplaining. As the doctors are working on him he’s all “probably multiple fractures, get a CT.” and “you have this, don’t back down,” when two of the surgeons get into an argument about his condition. The woman wants to get a CT, and the dude doctor doesn’t think they have time. The woman acquiesces, and they wheel him into surgery, but not before Winnie sees him and goes over to beg him to “stay not dead.”

“This isn’t right,” Derek tells us. “Check my head.”

“His pressure’s holding,” the lady doctor says. “Maybe we should get the scans.”

“YES!” says Derek.

“NO,” says the dude doctor.

“I’m stable. Guys, I’m stable. Take me to get the head CT.”

Eleven thousand surgeons hustle Derek into the OR as he tells us “I’m going to die because these people aren’t properly trained.”

This whole scene was so strange. Derek was talking (in his head, but still) to these doctors the same way he was talking to Winnie on the side of the road, like he wasn’t about to die. There was no emotion and no passion. It was like his ego was somehow bigger and more important than his own life. I don’t know; the whole thing was just so strange. I felt very disconnected from Derek, even though I was inside his head.

Inside the OR, the surgeons are making mistakes across the board as Derek begs them “check my head!” They finally check his eyes and see that one of his pupils is blown.

“Page neurosurgery,” someone shouts.

“GOOD FUCKING THINKING,” Derek yells.

But alas, the surgeon on call is at a dinner. He calls back to say he’ll be there in 20 minutes, but by then it’ll be too late. It’s too late anyway, because it takes him 90 minutes to get there.

You know what happens when surgeons are late, Zola? People die.

“It’s too late,” Derek tells us. “You’re too late.”

Cut to Meredith opening the doors to the cops, then immediately to her walking into Derek’s hospital room where he’s…fine.

HAHA, PSYCHE! He’s not fine. He’s brain dead. The cops have come to get Meredith and take her to the hospital. That whole scene was just Shonda fucking with us.

Meredith packs up the kids and heads to the hospital in a daze, where she almost immediately demands Derek’s chart and starts telling everyone how badly they fucked up. Everyone wants some kind of absolution but Meredith doesn’t have any to give out. I hope she sues that hospital for eleventy zillion dollars and buys an island and she and Christina go and live on it forever.

Meredith discontinues all life-sustaining care for Derek, and gives him permission to go, right after we’re treated to a heart-wrenching montage of their relationship, starting from that very first night in the bar while “Chasing Life” plays in the background. You guys know how I feel about Derek, and I was inconsolable. I’m crying right now typing this. All your MerDer shippers have my sympathy right now, because ouch. Bring it in for a group hug, yeah?

Final thoughts:

+ Ellen Pompeo deserves a fucking medal for her work in this episode. She was unbelievable.

+ If this is a vehicle for Owen and Amelia to get together, I will burn down the whole world.

+ Meredith is obviously pregnant, right? That’s a thing now, isn’t it?

Next week: buckets of ice cream, and crates of tissues!

Grey’s Anatomy Episode 1120 Recap: On The Wings Of Love

In the grand scheme of things, a tiny airplane crashing in the city just outside of Grey-Sloan Memorial isn’t that big of a deal. I mean, yeah, it’s a plane crash, but did it crash in the middle of a forest, standing half the hospital staff? Was there a lion on board? A live bomb? A flood? A huge pole with two people kabobed on it? Nope. If it weren’t for the fact that this week’s tragedy triggers Arizona and Meredith into a full-blown PTSD state, it would hardly even be worth noticing.

I mean, okay. It is a plane crash, so there’s still some carnage, and Jo and Edwards are out of their minds excited for it. They weren’t around for Plane Crash v 1.0, so they’re mostly just so super stoked about the carnage and blood and severed limbs tossed here and there like so much confetti, but they’re the only ones.

Upon hearing about the crash, Meredith books it down to the pit and immediately flashes back to the forest; there’s Cristina with her dislocated shoulder, and there’s Arizona with her destroyed leg. Lexie trapped beneath the plane’s hull. And there’s Derek with his blood-soaked arm. Meredith turns and sprints out of there, demanding to know where Arizona is, and where Arizona is is curled up in a ball in the supply closet. Meredith sits down beside her and they try to convince one another they’re okay. It’s not doing either of them any good.

The framing of this episode is a different beast. Interspersed with scenes from the hospital we have scenes of Meredith and Derek, talking about their past and their future. It’s like, you know how when you start dating someone new, and everything is so fresh and so lovely, and the only thing you want to do is spend all day in bed with them? How you don’t want to go to sleep and miss a single second of their voice? It’s that, and it’s actually nice. Doesn’t bode well for Meredith, but what does, really?

Back at Grey-Sloan, Alex corners Callie and tells her there ought to be a rule against people who were in plane crashes working on patients who were also in plane crashes. Callie agrees. That would be a hell of a chart on Grey’s, right? Like April doesn’t have enough to deak with without cross-referencing everyone’s schedules with their past traumas before she puts them on the schedule. Alex tells Callie they both need to keep an eye on Arizona and make sure she’s okay. Callie initially agrees, but then backpedals and tells Alex that she can’t be that person for Arizona, not anymore. Arizona needs someone she feels safe with, and Callie is not that person.

Alex goes looking for Arizona and finds her with a room full of preggos. I guess the plane crashed into a prenatal yoga class, so everything is going really well there.

Aside from the haul of pregnant ladies, there are two main patients of the week: Kate and Sam. Seems the plane crash was their very first date. Well, not the crash. Before the crash. The crash was sort of the end of their date. Kate is okay, but Sam? Not so much. He had a heart attack in the middle of the flight and sent the pair of them plummeting into that yoga class. Both Sam and Kate are waxing poetic to their doctors about love at first sight, etc. etc. etc. Sam flatlines and gets rushed into the OR, where Meredith and Bailey dive in, hands first.

Derek, by the way, is still missing. Meredith is completely distracted and trying not to freak out. Bailey tells her to slow her roll, but I’m here to tell you, if I had a loved one who worked at that hospital, I’d keep a bell around their neck at all times. You stop jingling, and I’m coming for you with an ambulance, a crowbar, and some shock paddles. Bailey, ever the voice of reason, asks how long Meredith can go without a full-on meltdown. She says six o’clock. Bailey tells her to keep it together until five. When five o’clock rolls around, she can freak out.

Alex finds Maggie, April, and Jo in a room talking about the crash. April and Alex do a quick check in on Meredith and Arizona while Maggie and Jo look on, slightly confused. April, in a commanding use of the understatement, says “They had a bad experience on a plane a while back.”

Maggie feels that shit. Oh man, does she feel that shit. One time, she had to sit on a runway for FOUR HOURS and they weren’t serving drinks and it smelled like boiled feet and then! Just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse, they made them GET OFF THE PLANE. WITHOUT AN APOLOGY.

April looks at Alex and Alex looks at April, and the rock-paper-scissors for who has to tell Maggie about what it means when someone at Grey-Sloan says they had a “bad experience.” This crap should really be a part of intern orientation, truly.

I have come all the way around on Maggie. I love her. She is so adorable. Protect her at all costs.

Sam eventually comes out of surgery, a little worse for the wear. By which I mean unconscious. Kate comes out all right, except for how she’s lost her short term memory. Edwards totally bought into their love at first sight tale, and she is not in for this shit. She hauls Kate up to Sam’s room and berates her until she remembers him. Which she does. Because this episode isn’t about that.

Ultimately, this episode is about family—the kind we find for ourselves. The kind of family we make. We see it in Arizona and Meredith, holding onto one another in this horrifying shared experience. It’s in Bailey helping Meredith find the strength to keep her head above water when all she wants is to run away screaming. And it’s in Arizona finding out—finally—that it wasn’t Callie who took her leg.

It was Alex. As soon as she finds out, she runs for Callie and demands to know why? Why did Callie let her believe that it was her? Callie makes the dearest, saddest face, and tells her that she always knew that Arizona was going to hate her for it, whether she was holding the scalpel or not, and she didn’t want her to hate Alex too. She wanted her to have someone. More than that, I think she needed her to have someone. It’s a certain kind of love when you want someone to be okay, even if you know that you’re not a part of that okay, and especially when you sacrifice your own happiness for their okay. And that’s what Callie has done. I think Arizona knows that.

This shit. This shit is why I can’t let these two go.

Okay, so I need to talk about Owen. Before any of this other hullabaloo, he and Amelia wound up in the Elevator of All Things together. He tries to talk to her and she shuts him down. And then he looks away and says “And…I’m done.” He goes on and on about how he’s not a game to play and so he’s done. After that, he treats Amelia absolutely horribly all day. He’s short with her, he snaps at her, he’s rude and dismissive, and then when she tries to call him on it, he whips out his story about the plane crash. How he feels responsible. How he put them on the plane. How it’s his fault. And like, goddamn, okay. I get that that can’t be easy for him, but he wasn’t there. He wasn’t in the woods. He didn’t drink plane fuel, and he didn’t watch wolves try to eat his sister’s dead body. He didn’t give the order to cut off his wife’s leg.

This is not about Owen. It never was. And and and! He was a jerk to her before any of the plane crash stuff even started! He wanted to end things on his terms. He wanted the last word. Never mind that she was trying to explain to him why she thought their relationship was a bad idea—and whether you agree with her reasoning or not, it was hers—he had to jump in and make it all about him. And then he used his guilt as a way to abdicate responsibility for it! Man, I know I talk a lot of shit about Owen, but this is exactly why. He’s just awful. I cannot stand him.

You’ll never guess who else wants to make this whole day about him. Quick, guess! That’s right, Richard Webber. He was sitting in his car when the plane flew overhead and as he tells the story again and again, it keeps getting worse and worse, like he’s playing that old Telephone game where you say something to the person next to you and they say it to the person next to them and so on and so forth, until the person at the end of the line is like “Haley’s banana has a sister who rides in the rodeo for unicorn?”

And the moral of the game is to not gossip? Well, Richard is playing that game, only all by himself. After she hears the story for the third time, April pulls Richard aside and calls him on it, and he talks some shit about his life flashing before his eyes, yada yada yada, and how the minute you see everything you have, you see everything you have to lose. I’m not sure why that has dictated him standing around talking shit to interns all day and not, oh, I don’t know, checking on the doctors who actually were in the plane crash, or calling Catherine, or something useful, but OKAY. Fine.

Heavens to Betsy, someone get me a cup of tea and a cookie.

Five o’clock rolls around, and Meredith goes to the phone. As she picks it up, she looks out the window to see red and blue lights flashing in her driveway.

Grey’s Anatomy 1119: Knick Knack Paddy Whack

Just in case anyone has forgotten since last week’s Grey’s Anatomy, Derek is terrible. I know it, you know it, Meredith knows it. His kid, who for once in his short life is not invisible, knows it too. He senses that Derek is in the house, and starts crying. Meredith has her issues, but she knows that when your kid wakes up crying, you’ve got a Code Yellow, which calls for an immediate Diaperectomy. But Terrible Derek hasn’t parented a day in his life, and thinks you’re allowed to just turn the baby monitor off and go back to sexy times. No, Derek. You’re terrible.

RIGHT. SO. Derek is home from DC (Still? Again? IDK, I’ve lost all interest in his whereabouts.) but has to make one last trip there to make his presentation to the President’s Council, and then he’s back to Seattle for good. Hooray? Or no. Except how he keeps saying he’ll be right back, like some kind of Tom Hanks Castaway, so I think we all know that it’s not going to be that simple.

Amelia bursts into Derek and Meredith’s house, dressed in yesterday’s clothes with Owen hot on her heels. Meredith and Derek give her A Look, which is a bit rich, coming from these two. She scoops little Bailey out of his high chair, where he’s adorably vacuuming up chunks of cantaloupe, and uses him as a human shield. Good thinking, lady.

I guess when Christina left, she tasked Meredith with keeping up with Terrible Owen’s assholery. I love Christina, but seriously, babe? Meredith’s got enough to keeping track of with Terrible Derek. She can’t possibly keep up with Terrible Owen as well. But that doesn’t stop her from herding Amelia into a corner and reality checking her. Amelia would like Meredith to leave her the hell alone, thank you. Edwards scoots in at that exact moment (girl has got the worst timing in the whole wide world) and starts poking around. Amelia makes a muderface and sends her on her way.

At Grey Sloan Memorial Drama Bomb Warehouse, sweet Amelia is so adrift. She’s in the deep water, and she can’t get her bearings, and the Patient of the Week isn’t going to help at all. It’s a teenager named Marissa who has some severe abnormalities in her spine, but that hasn’t stopped her from becoming the best junior golfer in the country. When Callie, Amelia and Ben express surprise that she’s been able to play through the pain, she sits them all down and tells them if she was a dude, no one would be surprised. She is excellent, and she’s not ashamed of it. Oh, Marissa. I wish you were not the Patient of the Week! Please don’t die!

Callie and Amelia bounce to discuss Marissa’s treatment options. Amelia wants to do one thing, and Callie wants to do something much more aggressive in hopes of further stabilizing Marissa’s spine. Amelia says that the point is to preserve range of motion so she can keep playing golf, and Callie says, I shit you not, “She might have to let that go.” Haha, because Callie is so good at letting things go. The best at it. Her second doctorate is in Dropping It. It’s her favorite hobby.

Terrible Owen lurks in, points at Amelia, and grunts. Callie spits fire from her eyeballs. Looks like they’re going with Amelia’s plan.

WHO IS READY WITH PENIS JOKES? I hope you’ve got plenty, because Jo, April, Edwards, and Bailey catch the incoming trauma of the week, and it’s a dude whose willy has been removed from the rest of his person. His wife walked in on him getting steamy with his sous chef, and whacked it off with a knife. Talk about Kitchen Nightmares ba-dum-ba-bom! Luckily, he keeps his knives properly sharpened, so it’s a clean cut. April does something called the Groin Tourniquet Method which sounds HORRIFYING, while Edwards attends to the guy’s wedding tackle. Apparently they don’t have a doctor who specializes in reattaching penises (peni?) so April suggests calling Catherine Avery. Webber pitches a tantrum because of something that happened with Catherine that I can’t remember, but let’s just assume it was her undermining his authority in some way.

You are such a baby, Webber. All you boys are such big dumb babies.

April tells Edwards to flee with the penis, because Jackson is waiting on it. Edwards puts it in pan and starts hauling ass through the hospital, bobbing and weaving and dodging around all comers. It is the greatest tragedy of my life that she doesn’t trip and send that penis flying through the lobby. Moment of silence for the gifs we’ll never have. (Remember when that happened on One Tree Hill? Remember when that dog ate Dan’s heart transplant?)

Anyway, April isn’t an intern anymore. I’m not even sure if Webber is her boss. She’s going to do what’s best for her patient, and what’s best for her patient is Catherine Avery. She calls her, and Catherine helicopters in. April meets her on the roof, and there is this wonderful, lovely moment between the two of them. It’s so loud and they can’t really speak, and I’m not sure there are even words for what April has been through, so Catherine just cradles April’s face and April nods, her eyes full of tears. Some tremendous chemistry between those two ladies in this scene.

Elsewhere in the hospital, Maggie bumps into Ethan the x-ray tech/radiologist she went on a date with. Dude literally just looks at her and walks off. Um? She turns to the nearest available body, Alex in this instance, and starts demanding to know The Fuck, bro? Alex has no answers. Callie wanders in and exposits to us that she too went out on a crappy date, this one with Officer Dan. He was stupid, and she doesn’t have time for stupid, so there. Welp. I guess we all processed our feelings about that for nothing, eh?

Maggie rocks up into Ethan’s little cubicle and demands to know why he never called her after their date. Ethan tells her—get this—it’s because she talks too much. Apparently she didn’t ask enough questions about his feelings, and he didn’t like it. His other sticking point is that Maggie paid. He says it two times. “You paid. YOU PAID.” Maggie, baby, get out now before you’re married to this guy. Terrible Owen and Terrible Derek are all I can take. Please don’t make us suffer Terrible Ethan too.

O.R. Time!

Arizona, Callie, Bailey, and Meredith are all in the gallery, watching the penis reattachment, discussing how pissed off you have to be to cut off a person’s junk. Arizona is adorably confused about the whole situation. She can’t fathom what the big deal is.

Arizona: It’s just his penis! He doesn’t even need it! It’s not like it’s his leg! That’s some shit, right there, when your spouse cuts off your leg.
Callie: Girl! I was trying to save your actual life!
Arizona: A life without leg is no life at all! And anyway, I only almost killed you once.
Meredith: I almost killed Terrible Derek once.
Everyone: Same, girl. Same.

Bailey and Meredith are about to get into a Strangers On A Train situation when Ben comes bursting in, looking for Callie. Turns out Marissa’s deformity was much more severe than Amelia anticipated, and she’s in danger of being paralyzed. Amelia and Callie holler at one another for a hot second before settling into a game plan. Om nom nom that tension was delicious. Another round for the table. They save Marissa’s life, but she’s never going to play golf again. Marissa’s mom flips out on them. Callie knows they did all they could, but Amelia internalizes everything. She heads straight to Terrible Owen to tell him off for jumping into her and Callie’s initial discussion about treatment plans. She says that if he didn’t have all of these feelings in his pants, he’d have stayed the hell out of it (Owen has never stayed out of anything in his life) and she wouldn’t have ruined this girl’s life.

Okay, somehow Alex and Maggie are in an O.R. together. Maggie is still upset about that crap Ethan said, but Alex, out of the middle of fucking nowhere, has got aaaaall kinds of feelings he wants to share with Maggie. He thinks she’s beautiful and cute and sexy and her hair and her eyes and if Ethan doesn’t get that, then screw him. It would be really nice if it weren’t for, you know, his girlfriend.

Maggie goes to tell Ethan that she maybe shouldn’t have brought quite so much thunder. Ethan is placated. He tells Maggie that next time, he’ll bring the thunder. We’ll all bring our barf bags.

Hey, so, what’s worse than getting your penis cut off? Getting your penis cut off twice! Penis Guy and his wife reconcile — maybe not the kind of decision to make hopped up on morphine, but okay — much to the displeasure of his girlfriend/sous chef. Her best means of retaliation is to just whack the guy’s willy off again. No points for originality, but it doesn’t make a statement, I guess. Edwards grabs a latex glove and chases the woman through the hospital, catching her just before she flushes the penis down the toilet. Catherine, much impressed with Edwards’s surgical skills, quick thinking, and penis retrievable abilities, offers her a spot in her program in Boston. While everyone else thinks it’s great, Edwards is not so sure she wants a career handling penises.

Amelia tells Meredith that since she’s never cried over the body of the person she loves most (uh-oh) and since she’s never clawed her way back from losing the love of her life (oh dear) she should cut her a little slack.

Back at the hospital (What day even is this?) the phone rings. It’s the White House looking for Derek, who never showed up for his meeting.

Next week: Another g-d plane crash!

Grey’s Anatomy Episode 1118 Recap: Field Trip To The Zoo

Sometimes I think about how, when I was in elementary school, my class only ever went on field trips to the state capital and the zoo and one time to this dairy where they show you how they make ice cream, and not ever to a hospital that has known pretty much every plague of the lord god himself, and I feel so very, very sad. But this week on Grey’s Anatomy, someone had the bright idea to unleash a half-dozen ankle-biters on Grey-Sloan Memorial, forgetting a that it’s regularly set upon by bombs and shooters and great hungry lions who feast on the flesh of humans. Stellar planning, Board of Education. Absolutely top notch.

If there’s anything good to be said about this plan, it’s that Webber has been assigned to usher the munchkins through their tour. He was the chief for about a million years, and these guys are just like really small interns.

(Anyone else really scared a spaceship is going to crash into the hospital and take out the whole pack? No? Just me? Okay, cool.)

First, Webber takes the kids to Amelia, who talks about operating on squishy squashy brains. She thinks it’s super cool, so they think it’s super cool, which is basically rule #2 of talking to kids. They can smell bullshit (and fear, for that matter) from 50 miles away. So if you’re going to deal with them, you’ve got to be real. Amelia is awesome at it. So is Derek, who walks up and interrupts the conversation to point out that he too is a surgeon of the squishy squashes, and that he works for his sister, Amelia. She gives him the wary look I’m always wearing when he appears on-screen.

(If you’re wondering, rule #2 of talking to kids is if you’re going to teach them to swear, teach them to do it correctly. )

Anyway, yep. Derek is back and Meredith feels so blessed that her husband has un-abandoned her and her invisible children to live in Seattle and behave like a grown up for once in his fucking life. I’m not sure if she’s really thought this through, or if she’s just adrift on a sea of sexually satisfaction—I’m guessing the latter, okay, I know that face—but even Maggie, who didn’t know Meredith in her darkest and twistiest, tells her she’s creeping everyone out and to knock it off.

In the Elevator of All Things, Stephanie is hitting up Tinder, looking for someone to marrt. Speaking of which, do we know where she lives? In Ellis Grey’s House of Horrors? I should probably check on that. Jo thinks Stephanie ought to go for any old dude, but Stephanie is not willing to bang a bro who still thinks it’s cool to wear his letterman jacket when he’s 32. She is, however, willing to bang to bro who has deemed Grey-Sloan Memorial an appropriate place to lose a herd of fourth graders. Not only does this guy have the sense God gave a turnip, but he’s seventeen literal years old. Oh, Stephanie, honey. No. Unfortunately she doesn’t find this out until she spends the whole day flirting with him. I feel bad for her, but we get to see her being flirty and giggly all day, so it’s not a complete loss.

April and Jackson are back at work. Jackson, my darling little Gretchen Wieners, is bombing with the kids. Not like a literal bomb, what do you think this is, season two? No, he’s working his ass off trying to make fetch happen. The kids knock him back in true Regina fashion. April is back in the ER, explaining to the kids what a trauma is when a police car pulls up and a whole heap of bleeding folks are carried in. Three police officers are injured, along with a fifteen year-old shooter. Weber, Maggie, Hunt, and Callie work on the first officer, Pete, who has two gunshots in his chest. The other, Bret, is in the next room with April, Meredith, and Jo, with bullets in his neck and stomach.

Callie notices that the third officer, Pete’s partner Dan, is bleeding pretty profusely from his leg. He’s not keen on getting treatment so long as his partner is bleeding out all over the place, but Callie uses her Power Voice and tells him to sit his ass down so she can sort him out. His leg is GROSS. He’s got muscle torn all to hell and exposed bone. Callie is mad impressed that he carried his partner in on that leg. Is that what you have to do to get that girl’s attention? Not entirely sure it’s worth it, to be honest.

So because of all the blood and bones and people screaming in the ER (an event absolutely anyone with two brain cells to rub together could have predicted) Stephanie has relocated the field trip to the nursery where Alex and Arizona (HI ARIZONA HI HI!) play Rock Paper Scissors for who operated on the cutest baby. The kids HATE Arizona. I’m not buying it. She’s the tiny human whisperer! Come on! Also, she calls the babies Pop-Tarts. Have you ever heard anything more dear in your whole life? No you haven’t.

Ready for some bad news? Pete and Bret, the wounded officers, are brothers. Ha ha ha GREAT. Their mom arrives at the hospital, where Owen has to tell her that both of her sons have been shot.

One thing that Grey’s has always done really well is juxtaposition the absurd, the things that are so beyond most people’s everyday lives (inoperable brain tumor, bomb in body cavity) with the heart of the human condition. However outlandish the stories, the people are real, and their struggles are the same as ours. That fear when your loved one is hurt, the abject misery at the loss of a relationship, the heart-fluttering magic of a first kiss, we all know those. So while I’ve never walked in this woman’s shoes, I don’t really have to. I’ve lived her fears; they’re the same as mine.

Derek has imprinted on the scent of trauma, and he comes hauling ass down to find out what’s going on. Amelia didn’t page him, okay, and tells him maybe he could skedaddle back to the kiddie table and clip an aneurism like a good boy. Shockingly, Derek agrees. Amelia isn’t sure that he’s ready to take a step back and not be Derek Shepherd, but Derek has decided to lean into the warm embrace of Not Being An Ass Every Second of Every Day.

Pete arrests on the table. It takes fourteen minutes to get him back, and by the time they do, he’s brain dead. Amelia tells Webber and Maggie to prepare the family.

Bret is stable—for the moment. He’s in surgery with April and Meredith. It seems for a while like he’s going to be okay. Callie tells Officer Dan that he’s got minor internal injuries, and that they’re working on the trachea repair. Then, out of nowhere, Bret strokes out on the table. Their mother has lost two sons in one day. I want to say that I can’t imagine, but the thing is, I can. And that’s the power in this writing. We can all imagine.

Bailey and Ben are stuck with the unenviable task of saving the shooter. He’s fifteen and his liver was destroyed in the shooting. Amelia gives exactly no fucks, which, knowing what happened to her dad, isn’t surprising. Everyone else would also be more than happy to let him die on the table but Bailey isn’t having it. She’s the first with a heart-strings story when she needs something from someone, but she’s also quick to remind everyone that they treat patients, not stories. Her patient needs a liver, and she’s going to get him one.

UNOS doesn’t have anything, nor do any of the local hospitals. Bailey rocks up to Meredith and asks her to ask this mom, who just lost two sons, if she’d direct the donation of one of their livers to her patient. You know, the guy who killed them. Go big or go home, I guess. Meredith is understandably outraged and refuses, but Bailey never met a “no” she didn’t want to turn into a “maybe”, so she crashes in to the room and asks the mom herself. The mom takes her “no” and turns it into a “go to hell.”

Officer Dan doesn’t need surgery, but he does need a splint and to ride a desk for a month or two. Given the events of the day, he’s not at all upset about it. He keeps asking Callie about Jarrett, the shooter kid, and I thought it was because he was waiting to hear that Jarrett had died, but it turns out that he and Bret had been trying to help this kid get his life straightened out. Dan tells Meredith that Bret would call this his Moment. Sink or swim. Fight or flight. Dan wants to help him. He says Bret would want to help him too.

Meredith pages Bailey, and they take Dan in to talk to Bret’s mom. She agrees to the transplant.

Okay, right. So. Callie. As she’s wheeling Officer Dan out to his car, he tells her that if today weren’t today, he’d want to take her out. Callie is speechless, and tells him she needs to see him back in ten days for a follow up. “Ten days,” Dan says. “Sounds like a plan. See you in ten days.”

So I have a lot of feelings about this. Officer Dan seems like a nice guy, he really does. And he’s distraught and he’s lost so much, and Callie is right there with her face, looking like she does and being as strong and compassionate and as wonderful as she always is. I’m not surprised that he asks her out, and I’m not surprised that she says yes. She’s already dated at least one person (looking at you, Steak Knives) and I feel like through that, the writers were trying to reassure us that Callie is still very much into women, even though she and Arizona aren’t together anymore (…for now).

So often, bisexuality is treated like something stuck to the bottom of society’s shoe. Straight people think we’re playthings. Gay people are scared of us. And TV makes it worse. Almost unequivocally worse. For every Bo on Lost Girl or Kalinda on The Good Wife, we’ve got dozens of trite bisexual characters who trip over every awful cliche in the Big Book of Queer Storytelling.

There’s the fauxmosexal sweeps weeks bisexual who gets a female love interest for a five-minute ratings stunt, and never mentions it again. (The O.C., Heroes, Bones, Melrose Place, 90210.) There’s the depraved bisexual, like, say, Mandy the terrorist on 24, that handful of literal galaxy-destroying cylons and nuns on BSG and Caprica, all those stalkers and vampires from Smallville who were after Lana, The Morrigan on Lost Girl.. And, of course, the ubiquitous bisexual character who just can’t keep it in her pants no matter how committed to her partner she claims to be. Barbara Kean on Gotham, Tina Kennard and DaddyOf2 or whatever his name was on The L Word, Rose on Jane the Virgin. Bisexual women on TV are threesome gateways and sex maniacs and psychos.

Callie has never been any of those tired storylines, and she has been openly bi for a long, long time.

The thing that makes it really hard with Callie is that she was part of one of the most stable and beloved queer couples in the history of broadcast TV. So there’s the sting of ripping off the Band-Aid and seeing her move on with other people. And then there’s an additional sting because under the Band-Aid is decades-old trope burn. Pretty much every bi woman in TV history has relationships with men and dalliances with women. Everybody knows bi women date men. That’s a given. Arizona was not a dalliance, obviously, and Callie has already hooked up with Steak Knives, so we know she’s still interested in the ladies, but knowing that in your head and feeling it in your bruised, often mistreated TV-loving heart are two different things.

It’s getting better for bi women on TV. We’ve got Kalinda and Bo, like I mentioned above, even though they’re only with us through the rest of this TV season. We lost Brittany S. Pierce this year, too, and she ended up being a great ambassador for the bi community. There’s Brenna on Chasing Life right now, and she’s fantastic, truly. Max and Anne and Eleanor on Black Sails. Oh, Amy on Faking It. A handful of well-rounded bi characters on TV at the same time is more than anyone ever expected, even just ten years ago.

Callie has always been bi, and I don’t think it’s fair to erase that part of her identity. I am still really, really sad about Callie and Arizona, and I’m still hoping for Calzona endgame. The possibility of actual bi representation on network TV does give me a thrill, but seeing Callie accepting a date with a man cracks open a lot of wounds, and I get that too.

I’m going to eat a pie and hope Callie continues to shine as a beacon of authentic and fair bi representation on TV. You want half my pie? We can throw it at Derek. That’ll make everyone feel better.

Grey’s Anatomy Episode 1117 Recap: They Always Come in Threes, Don’t They?

You guys know who sucks? Dr. Owen Hunt sucks. Fact.

After putting his face all over Amelia’s face on last week’s Grey’s Anatomy, he goes ahead and starts this episode by shuffling awkwardly up to her in the scrub room to make inept innuendos. I don’t blame him for wanting to get in there, but come on, Amelia! You’re a superhero! Amelia’s pager goes off, giving her a better time that she’s going to get when she meets up with Owen later. She makes her getaway while Owen heads down to the pit to find that his mother, Evelyn, has been admitted after falling and whacking her noodle in the shower. She’s accompanied by a paramedic named John—a generic name for a generically handsome fellow—whose noodle she herself has been whacking for a good six months now.

Owen, because he is the worst, flies into a rage and grounds his mom immediately. “No WiFi for you,” he shrieks, flapping around the trauma room. “No allowance! Give me your phone, and go straight to your room!”

For a second, it seems like Owen is going to redeem himself. He brings his mom some socks and underoos, but as soon as she starts trying to talk to him about Generic John, he claps his hands over his ears and starts shouting “LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

Owen: He’s using you.
Evelyn: For what? Sex? God bless him.
Owen: I don’t understand why you won’t let me control every aspect of your life. Why will none of the women in my life let me control every aspect of their life? It’s almost like my Straight White Dude Privilege doesn’t extend to all corners of the earth!

After Owen’s tantrum, Evelyn tells Generic John that she thinks it would be best if he left. Generic John has done nothing worthy of face punching, and I actually feel quite sad for him. Even more so when Evelyn cries out in pain and grabs her stomach. She’s got an undiagnosed aneurism in her stomach that has ruptured. Webber hustles her into surgery, and Owen goes out to the waiting room to shoo Generic John away. Generic John refuses to be moved. He just wants to make sure his girlfriend is okay, a thing Owen might take some notes on.

Webber repairs Evelyn’s aneurism because he’s a boss, and Owen finds a tiny shred of human compassion and takes John in to see Evelyn. They hold hands and are generally adorable while Owen lurks creepily just inside the door.

I’ll spare him, this week. Owen lives to see another day.

Guess who is worse that Owen Hunt? Derek Shepherd. Derek Shepherd is worse.

Meredith is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. She knows that Derek didn’t just hop a flight to Seattle because he missed the weather. No matter how much Derek insists that Renee, the woman who answered his phone, was just his research fellow, Meredith was Derek’s intern once, and she knows what kind of shenanigans he gets up to when his wife is on the other coast. Derek makes a big deal about how he came home to fix them, because they’re in trouble. I came home, he says like three times, like that’s somehow supposed to make up for him leaving her alone with two invisible kids to raise on her own so he could make McDreamy eyes at Olivia Wilde’s doppelganger.

He whines about Meredith going to work like an actual grown up, and she tells him to spend the day with his offspring, also like a grown up. Meredith goes to the hospital, where Alex hauls her in for a consult on his patient Danny who is positively yellow with liver failure. Meredith suggests a surgical procedure for the kid, and Alex flips his nut. He thinks it’s about Meredith being upset about Derek, because of course she can’t separate her personal life from her professional life.

Alex, you aren’t on my face-punching list. Yet. Beware.

I’m sorry to tell you that Meredith’s streak has ended. Try as she might, Alex’s patient, Danny, doesn’t make it out of surgery. She’s devastated, and while no one else mentions that she didn’t lose a single patient in all the time Derek was gone, and now that he’s back, she has, I’ll go ahead and do that now. Just for anyone keeping track. Derek is a life ruiner. He ruins lives. Alex follows Meredith out into the rain to do some hugging.

Alex is clear of the punching list for the moment. I will spare him. I will not, however, spare Derek.

We get some flashbacks of him in DC with Renee. She’s just a girl trying to cure autism. Derek tells her that’s a pretty lofty goal for a fellow. It’s a lofty goal for anyone, Derek, and awesome too, so how about you keep your mouth on your own face and let her get to it. But nope. He goes in for the smooch, then jerks away and starts talking shit about “I love my wife. I’m married.” That might have been an important thing to discuss before the kissing, you ass.

Derek swings a big ol’ bat of emotional manipulation at Meredith, striking her square in the face. She tells Derek that while she can live without him, she doesn’t want to. They smile. I vomit over the side of the couch.

HEY QUICK. Guess what’s worse than Derek Sheperd! It’s this lady that Jo has to deal with, who is in the pit with a headache. Except for it’s not a headache. It’s a HUGE FUCKING LEECH, WHAT THE HELL. I literally cannot talk anymore about this. She has a LEECH. IN HER FACE TUBES. A LEECH, YOU GUYS. Nope. One million percent nope.

You know the only thing worse than a leech in your face? An Owen on your face.

And so it begins again. May the circle be unbroken. By and by Lord, by and by.

Grey’s Anatomy Episode 1116 Recap: You Want To F*ck With The Eagles, You Have To Learn To Fly

If last week’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy was a ten-gallon bucket of lettuce, this week’s was an endless smorgasbord of unparalleled deliciousness, starting with this tweet from producer/writer Andy Reaser.

https://twitter.com/AndyReaser/status/578584926737465344

Well. That is either terrifying or AWESOME. Let’s dive in face first, shall we? Because God knows everyone else is.

There is a lot of kissing that needs doing this week at Grey-Sloan Memorial. April is back at work and she wants some sexual healing, something fierce. She sprints up to Jackson talking exactly one hundred miles per minute, then shoves him into a supply closet and attacks his face with her face. Jackson says a dumb thing, as boys are prone to do, and April snatches up her coat and stalks out of the closet.

AMELIA. THERE IS AN OWEN STUCK TO YOUR FACE. Gross. Luckily Owen’s pager goes off and he leaves. I do not want his face near Amelia’s face. Twenty paces between your faces at all times, if you please.

One last bit of kissing: Callie and a very pretty new lady who is wearing an unfortunate bubble gum pink mom-cardigan. It’s their first date (Callie and New Lady, not New Lady and her cardigan) and New Lady has followed Callie back to the hospital after Callie got paged to the trauma that thankfully saved Amelia from Owen’s face. They shuffle about and do that awkward “Okay, well. Right, then. So…” that you do at the end of a first date, and then New Lady just goes for it, swooping in and kissing Callie right on her mouth. GIRL. Get in there.

Then Arizona wanders in and makes the saddest face. It’s like watching someone punch kittens. Complete boner killer. To lighten the mood, Callie just strips right in the middle of the hallway.

Time for the Patients of the Week! A very pretty pregnant woman named Claire and her husband were minding their own business and playing some punk rock music in their living room when a car crashed into their house. The dude is seriously injured, screaming and hollering and dying a time or two, and it doesn’t look good for Meredith’s streak. Callie and Meredith haul him up to surgery.

We’re gonna pause this recap for a hot second so I can issue a retraction and an apology. I said last week that I wasn’t particularly fussed over Maggie. I would like permission at this point to retract that statement and revise my remarks, because in just a second, something is going to happen that made me stand up on my bed and shout “FUCK YOU!” at my television.

In the pit, Ben, Maggie, and a handful of paramedics are bringing in the guy who drove his car willy-nilly into that living room. The doctors and police officers think he’s drunk or high or some shit, because he’s belligerent and talking about shoes and refusing to stay on the backboard, and when Maggie tries to examine him, he hauls off and punches her in the face. What the fuck, bro. NO. That is not okay with me. That is not okay with anyone. I had no idea I cared so much about Maggie until I saw her unconscious on the ground, at which point my level of caring was:

Ben and Bailey haul ass over to make sure Maggie is okay, while Webber holds the guy down. I thought for a second that Webber was holding him down by the throat a’ la I’m going to choke you now for hitting my kid in the face, but no, he’s just holding him down so that the orderlies can fetch some restraints. As they’re strapping him down, a woman comes running into the ER yelling “Martin! Martin!” Webber asks her if her husband is drunk. “No,” she says. “My husband has Alzheimer’s.”

Well. Fuck.

Things aren’t going so well for Meredith. In addition to some woman answering Derek’s phone, her patient is in the weeds. Her patient has a shattered pelvis, some shredded veins, and an orthopedic surgeon who can’t stop thinking about how bamboozled she is that in her ex-wife’s place of business, her ex-wife walked in on her kissing another girl in the big huge hallway, right out in the open! How shocking! Callie rambles on in her Callie way, talking about how she can kiss whomever she pleases. Meredith reminds the room at large that Arizona was kissing whomever she pleased while still in the matrimonial state.

Not to be outdone, Maggie serves up a dose of volcano mouth in the other ER, talking about “ffs, find a responsible caregiver so your husband doesn’t mow down people in their own living room like this is Pretty Little Liars!” She’s not wrong, but she would probably not being saying it, and certainly not so baldly, if she knew that every time Webber does the P in V, his lady-love gets Alzheimer’s. With the memory of how painful it is to stick your head up your own ass fresh in his mind, Ben tries repeatedly to change the subject. Maggie frowns and offers him a glass of water.

Maggie, Jo and Arizona are cleaning Claire’s head wound, talking about how Claire’s husband is in a punk rock band. Arizona says that she used to like punk rock. When Jo laughs in her face, Arizona insists that she used to “rock the heavy eyeliner and had some t-shirts.” Can you even imagine? Arizona in ripped skinny jeans and smudged eyeliner, looking like she just rolled out of bed? Let’s all just sit and ruminate on that for a second, shall we?

Done?

No?

No prob, just let me know when you’re ready.

Now? Good, okay.

One minute Claire is sitting up and talking, and the next she’s seizing. Bailey jumps in, and the four of them hold her steady while pushing whatever meds it is they use to try to stop seizures. Nothing is working. Just as they’re getting ready to put her under to deliver the baby, she flatlines. Arizona shocks the hell out of her, but it’s too late. They call Time of Death. Almost immediately, they move back in, grief on their faces, and start CPR on Claire. As long as they keep her blood moving and oxygen flowing into her lungs, the baby is alive. 

The driver, Martin, has woken up from surgery with full mental capacity. Turns out he had a build-up of fluid in his brain that was causing Alzhiemer’s-like symptoms, but a tiny tear in the sheath around his spinal cord that resulted from the car crash caused the fluid to drain. He’ll need a shunt to stop the pressure from building up again, and then he’ll be fine. His wife will have him back.

I’ve been watching this show for eleven years now, and what follows is one of the most well-acted, well-edited, and heart-wrenching things I’ve seen. Martin’s, reciting I Arise From Dreams of Thee to his wife, overlaid with a team of doctors in trauma gowns trying to rescue a living baby from his dead mother.

Oh lift me from the grass.
I die, I faint, I fail.
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white alas,
My heart beats loud and fast.
Oh press it close to thine again
Where it will break at last.

Jo breaks down into tears and flees from the room. Alex carefully places the baby in an incubator and wheels him away. Callie and Arizona, because they are lovely and perfect, both go to the NICU to check on him. After Alex assures them that he’s fine, Arizona awkwardly shuffles over to Callie, saying, “Hey, so, about earlier…” Callie does a murderface and tells Arizona that she’ll kiss whomever, whenever, wherever SO THERE.

Everyone is super happy for Martin—everyone except the police, who still want to know why there’s a dead woman and a car in her living room. Unable to face living with knowing what he’s done, Martin decides against having the shunt placed. Since he can’t forget this one thing, he’d rather forget everything. What a load of bullshit. His poor wife.

Meredith’s patient, the poor guy, has lost his wife and he doesn’t even know it. He’s got a son in the NICU, and he doesn’t know that either. He’s still unconscious and in terrible shape. He codes, and Meredith rushes into his room to keep him alive. She doesn’t really believe in the streak, I don’t think, but the thing is, it isn’t really even about her. It’s about Jo and about Edwards, and about living day in and day out in this place where death is a constant. They need to believe that someone out there is stronger than death. They need some kind of hope, because it’s all that keeps them from losing it.

You guys remember the hallway of gurneys where Meredith et al used to hang out when they were interns? She’s down there again, lying in the dark and thinking about committing every crime. Just every single one of them all at once. Callie comes down to sleep, and Meredith starts interrogating her.

Meredith: Did you know when Arizona cheated on you before you knew she cheated on you?
Callie: The fuck?
Meredith: Plus also too George. Did you know when he was diddling Izzie?
Callie: Who?
Meredith: Your husband, George.
Callie: …are you proposing to me, or nah?

Maggie and Alex find their way to the Gurney Hall and they all curl up together like a pile of kittens, and I am aching for Cristina right now, but it’s bittersweet finally. She was always too good, and her dreams too big. Meredith has other people now, and they’ll never be Christina, but she’s found a family and they’re tiny and broken, but they love her.

Okay, quick wrap up for April and Jackson. He’s lesbianing all over the place and trying to get April to talk about her feelings, but April literally just wants to stop being treated like a fragile flower. She shouts in Jackson’s face a bit, and that works for him, I guess. He shoves her up against the car and they do some more kissing. Then they climb inside and do some other stuff. I am solidly team whatever their namesmush is.

Waiting for the Elevator Of All Things Big And Small, Arizona tries again to approach Callie about the kissing.

Arizona: I need to talk to you about Heather.
Callie: HEATHER HOGAN?
Arizona: No. Well. Kinda. But No.
Callie: Then I’m not interested.
Arizona: No, but the thing is, that other Heather? The one you were lesbianing with in the hallway? I too have lesbianed with her.
Callie: Ah. Well.
Arizona: After we’d been lesbianing for about ten minutes, she wanted me to get her name tattooed on me.
Callie: Sounds legit.
Arizona: And when I wouldn’t, she, you know. She attacked me with a steak knife. She’s Steak Knives.
Callie: THE Steak Knives?
Arizona: No, Callie, the other Steak Knives.
Callie: Oh fuck.

They giggle and make significant faces at one another and Callie thanks Arizona for helping her sidestep that big ol’ bag of crazy. Goooooood, you guys. I’m still not sure where I come down on End Game for these two, but this whole exchange is so adorable and so fond, and wouldn’t it be so lovely if they could become friends who actually care about one another, instead of wives who can’t stand the sight of one another? Wouldn’t that be so good?

Next week: Derek Shepherd. Ugh.

Where are you guys on Calzona? End Game or adorable besties?

Grey’s Anatomy Recap 1115: Heart Eyes and Earthquakes

After the excitement of the last few weeks on Grey’s Anatomy, this week’s episode was basically just big wads of iceberg lettuce being shoved in our gaping mouths, one fistful right after the other. Little Ruby was darling, of course, and I’m glad she didn’t kill her mom when Owen had her skewer her in the chest with a s’mores kabob, but I’d have probably given more fucks if the tiny human whisperer Arizona had been the one on the job. This episode felt a little like filler, and there wasn’t any queer stuff happening on-screen, so I’ve decided to run the storylines through the Give-A-Fucks-O-Meter to let you know if they’re worth your love.

---

Maggie gets asked out by a boy.

I’m sure Maggie is a lovely person. She’s awkward and adorable, and I assume she took care of good care of Meredith’s invisible children while Meredith was away on her solo weekend of sleeping all the sleeps and drinking all the drinks. But I’m not invested in her at all. I thought maybe she might want to try making out with Arizona, just to see how it felt, but instead she’s agreed to go out on a date with this guy she got trapped with in an elevator.

---

Jo makes this face at Meredith. A lot.

Meredith hasn’t lost a single patient since Derek left to spread his manpain to the east coast, and Jo has got feelings in her pants w/r/t that. Or so she says. She made that face at Amelia a couple of weeks ago, and now she’s making it at Meredith, and I for one have never seen her make that face at Alex, if you know what I’m saying AND I THINK YOU DO. Maybe Jo should just put her face on another girl’s and see what happens.

---

Amelia kisses Owen with her actual mouth.

---

Derek is a cheater cheater pumpkin eater.

Meredith finally puzzles out that sleek bit of technology in her pocket and decides to ring up her husband. A lady answers. Meredith remembers when she was the girl who was getting screwed while getting screwed, and she is tres unpleased. Maybe she should take Addison Montgomery out for a drink and see where the night leads. I don’t know, I’ve heard that’s a thing some people enjoy.

---

Callie smiles.

My tiny, perfect daffodil. It’s like staring into the face of God. Like walking barefoot through a field of dew-covered wild flowers. Why is she like this? No one knows, and knowing wouldn’t lessen the pain.

---

Benjamin Warren! Calls his sister (by her correct gender)!

I’m still super mad at this guy for being such a jerk to her in the first place, and my hand still hurts from the hole I punched in the crust of the earth over it, but I’m really glad that he’s coming around and super duper most glad that this storyline isn’t falling off the face of the earth. Bailey tells Ben to call in and check on his sister after the small earthquake, and Ben tells Bailey to mind her own besswax. (All besswax is Bailey’s besswax, Ben.) Later, Jackson pleads with Ben to understand that this patient he just operated on, she got the body she’s been wanting since she was six years old. “It’s not a choice, it’s a chance,” he says. “And you can’t know that without talking, and listening.” And so Ben does call his sister, and when he tells Bailey about it he says “SISTER” and “SHE” in all caps like that, and Bailey ignores the fact that he’s acting like he deserves a prize for the very basic thing of not violently misgendering his own sister, and tells him to apologize for being a jerk to her, also, and to make some dinner.

---

I don’t know, my little rutabagas. Are there extraneous fucks that I’ve missed? Did you enjoy the episode? Did you punch any faces this week?

Grey’s Anatomy Episode 1114 Recap: Everybody’s Got A Plan Until They Get Punched In The Mouth

Oh, my perfect little petals. My flawless unicorns. We’ve lost many tributes together, haven’t we, in The Shonda Games? Lexie and Mark and George and interns. And interns. And interns interns interns. So often have we set our hopes, only to have them dashed upon the rocks. Well not this time, motherfuckers. Not this time.

Whoops, did I spoil you? I’m sorry. It’s just that your makeup looks great today, and I want to save you the tears so you don’t mess up your mascara. Oh, you’re not wearing makeup? That’s just your natural radiance shining through? Well! You look absolutely fantastic! And your ass is killer in those jeans. Way to go, you!

And way to go this lady, too. Dr. Amelia hands-on-my-hips-like-yeah Shepherd.

Right, okay. When last we left our illustrious cast of surgeons, Dr. GD’s tumor had invaded her optic nerve, and you and I were gnawing our fingernails down to the quick. We pick up this week exactly where we left off. Amelia is staring at Dr. GD’s scans, obviously rocked back onto her heels. She thought she had more time. So did we, pretty lady. So did we. She leaves the MRI room to get the OR prepped, looking = shell-shocked but no less breathtaking than usual, and this is the state she’s in when Owen hustles his dumb ass up to her like a monkey chasing a peanut, yammering about, “Are you nervous? You’re not nervous, are you? Huh? Huh?” Amelia squirts him in the face with a water pistol.

Then—oh, tender little buttercups! Then Amelia walks into the scrub room to get ready. She reaches for a mask, then puts it down, turns around, and wipes her eyes—and she becomes a superhero. Chin up, chest out. Her hero music plays, and if you don’t think she could solve even the mystery of Who Is A? right now, you’re out of your head.

Hold up your head. Enter the arena. Fight until you can’t fight anymore. Never let go. Never give up. Never run. Never surrender. Fight the good fight—even when it seems inevitable that you’re about to go down swinging.

She splashes some dye into Dr. GD’s brain, which will light up in the places where the tumor is. They flip the lights and that thing shines like a glow stick.

Elsewhere in the hospital of broken dreams, Arizona is prepping for the fetal surgery on Bailey’s patient.

“We’ll do some medical things, and then some more medical things with some instruments that look terrifying,” Arizona tells Bailey. Bailey, who spends most of this episode with a pretty severe case of volcano mouth, starts flapping her hands, demanding “We? The hell do you mean, we? You got a rat in your pocket? Where is Geena Davis? I WANT GEENA DAVIS.” The look on Arizona’s face tells me she’s about twelve seconds from sending Bailey into the hallway with a box of animal crackers and a juice box.

You know who isn’t having a juice box? Edwards. She tells Amelia that as long as Amelia isn’t taking breaks, she’s not taking breaks either. The hero worship is kind of cute, but it makes me think of when my son was really little, and wanted to play video games with me but was just terrible at it, so I’d give him a controller that wasn’t hooked up to anything and let him have at it. Someone else can hold Amelia’s retractors, Edwards.

Down in the ER, Arizona learns that Dr. GD is in surgery. She hightails it up to the gallery with her head on swivel and her Arizona radar turned up to eleven. Owen tells her that she’s in surgery. Callie’s perfect eyebrows furrow together. “Fetal surgery? Alone?” she asks, and Mr. Bailey shushes her. He shushes her like some kind of naughty preschooler. That dude was already on my shitlist after his brattiness with his sister two weeks ago. He’s rushing headlong toward the top spot. Get it together, Mr. Bailey.

“She is gonna pull it off though, right?” Callie asks, meaning Arizona.

“Yeah, yeah she will,” Owen answers, meaning Amelia.

Unfortunately, something is wrong in Mudville. Amelia is starting to look like she’s in the wars. Dr. Webber hops up out of his seat, and so help me mother of god, if he’s going to call Derek, I will fistfight—

Oh, wait. No. He’s going down to the OR to see if Amelia wants a sounding board. Amelia turns, and with panic writ large on her face, she quietly asks Dr. Webber to call her brother.

When I was little, I got into super big time trouble at daycare over a sloppy joe. I’m not sure if it’s that I wouldn’t eat the sloppy joe, or the fact that I barfed it up all over the teacher when she insisted that I had to eat it. I suspect it was a little of both. Whatever. When recess time rolled around, my punishment was to sit on the “hot seat,” which was literally a little plastic stove that had been dragged off to one side of the playground, where the bad kids had to sit and watch everyone else play. When my sister came out for her own recess and saw me sitting there, she lost her damn mind. She stomped over to the teacher on her scrawny little legs, demanding I be let up from the hot seat. My teacher, who I guess was a bit of a smartass, asked if Heather was going to take my place, and Heather told her yes, she was. She stomped back to me, shoved me off the hot seat, and sat there for the rest of recess.

Watching Amelia, the little sister in me aches for her, because we will always always always think our big sibling is stronger and better and can save us. Hell, I call my sister if I so much as smudge my nail polish. Amelia doesn’t ask for Dr. Shepherd; she asks for her brother. But the thing is that Amelia Shepherd doesn’t need Derek Shepherd. She doesn’t need a Katniss Everdeen. She doesn’t need saving. She’s a goddamn superhero.

Dr. Webber knows this. He tells Amelia he thinks calling Derek is a great idea, if her main goal of the day is getting Dr. GD all kinds of dead. Amelia stares him down, her mind whirling like mad. Then she turns and barks out “Navigation probe.”

Arizona is elbow deep in Bailey’s patient, whose name I can be bothered with. She’s in the wars too, but she must have superhero posed off-screen, because she’s just as calm as can be. She has Bailey hold the fetus up so she can perform a bit of in utero CPR. It’s successful and frankly pretty gross, so I’m going to leave it at that and not even think about screencapping it, and you’re welcome. You can send your thank yous in the form of cookies, or pictures of Shay Mitchell. Either are most welcome.

Another round of hero music. Amelia is back on track, but Edwards should have taken that juice break. Her eyes glaze over and she nosedives right onto the OR floor like some kind of Mercy West intern.

Show of hands: who thought we were about to get a full on sucker punch in the form of Edwards dying of some sort of brain cloud that Amelia could have fixed if only she wasn’t already in surgery? Fortunately that’s not the case. She literally just passed out from exhaustion. I’m so, so sorry Cristina isn’t here to endlessly ridicule and mock her for it. Remember when she and George retracted that huge tumor for, like, seven or eight days? She would have zero patience for this kind of amateur hour.

Anywhoodle, Meredith scrubs in, because she is well versed in the Ways of Shepherd Surgeons. She has no problem with Amelia having basically no plan for inserting radioactive seeds into Dr. GD’s brain. What she does have a problem with is Amelia stripping off her protective gloves so that she can get a better grip on the seeds and their placement. Up in the Penis Gallery, Owen and Mr. Bailey hyperventilate and exposit that Amelia needs to move faster. Ugh, shut up, Owen and Ben. Shut up your whole faces. Amelia doesn’t need their outrage, or their concern. She’s a big girl. She gets the seeds placed, and Meredith, speaking for all of us, calls her a badass.

Back in the lounge where Arizona and Dr. GD have set up camp, Arizona looks at the empty Board of Babies. All those babies she and Dr. GD saved, and now she’s alone and Dr. GD is on a table with her brain full of radiation. She’s been holding it together pretty well, but then Callie comes in. It’s probably the first time Arizona has felt safe in ages, and she starts tearing up immediately. Callie takes her hand, and Arizona cries and leans into her, letting Callie take some of the weight, just for a little bit. Because that’s the kind of love they share. They lost sight of it for a while, and they didn’t nurture it like they should have, but theirs is the kind of love that says even though this pain is not mine, I will stand in it with you anyway.

Edwards wakes up from her little nap and sprints to the OR. Amelia is barely able to stay on her feet. She leaves Edwards to close and staggers from the OR. She collapses against the wall, plants her butt on the nearest horizontal surface and sobs.

Arizona’s patient is discharged, whole and healthy and still knocked up. Her first fetal solo, and she can’t even enjoy it, because every ounce of her heart is consumed with the knowledge that Dr. GD still hasn’t woken up, and there could be tough decisions—impossible decisions—that need to be made. Arizona doesn’t know how to make them alone, but she’s not alone. She has Callie. She’s always had Callie.

It takes a few days, but Dr. GD wakes up. Arizona and Amelia fly into her room on the wings of angels, only to find that while her motor function and mental faculties are intact, she’s lost her vision entirely. Arizona breaks the rules and cries, and so do I, but I’m out here and they’re in the TV box, so I’m too concerned about Dr. GD kicking my ass.

“You’re missing the point. You’re so thick, Robbins. You’re always just to the left of the point. The point is, I’m going to get to figure it out. Something is going to happen next. The point is, I’m alive.”

We are broken in some way. We’re all wandering around on this bit of rock that’s hurtling around in space, and for each of us, every person you meet, there is something in all of us that, if we sat and thought about it, could drive us to our knees. Those things make us stronger and they make us better. They’re our humanity.

We are all just humans. Some days we fall down during what’s important. And some days, we’re superheroes.

Grey’s Anatomy Episode 1113 Recap: Night Night, Tumor Baby

Previously on Grey’s Anatomy, Arizona was good, Bailey was great, and Dr. Geena Davis was the most greaterest. Simultaneously, Callie had a perfect face.

You know that slow climb up the first, steepest hill of a roller coaster? How the bearings and wheels tick tick tick beneath you like a bomb? And how you spend the whole time (seconds? minutes?) getting yourself ready, because you’re going to tip over that precipice probably before you think you are and it’ll be awesome or horrifying or maybe a little bit of both, but either way what’s about to happen to you isn’t going to stop until the ride is done?

That’s what this episode is. It’s the long climb to the top of Kingda Ka, and you and I are the dummies in the front car. So let’s get started!

It’s a new day at Grey-Sloan Memorial, and Dr. Geena Davis a lot to do. She’s got a corkboard full of babies who need saving, and she’s the person for the job. Dr. Geena Davis and her perky sidekick, Arizona! Hi Arizona! Look at you smiling! What a thing! Arizona reminds Dr. GD that she’s got nine babies to save this very day, plus an MRI to check on the tumor in her brain that’s about to kill her stone dead. So their Friday is off to a good start.

(Since I’m so used to seeing Arizona as Batman, it’s strange to see her as Robin for once, but she and Dr. GD are super adorable together, so let’s roll with it. )

Amelia is already in the MRI room, getting her game face on. Owen comes in to bring her coffee, and she appreciates the caffeine, as every correct person does. But she’s got important business to get on with. Things like “operating” and “saving people’s lives.” She can’t be bothered with Owen’s fragile male ego right now. She thanks him for the coffee and sends him on his way. Well done, Amelia. Petition for Owen to bring drinks to people and then be told he’s bothering them. One million signatures on my desk by Monday.

Owen’s other job is to exposition for us that Amelia is holding a lecture series about Dr. GD’s tumor. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men are asking to video conference in. No pressure, Owen. But there is a good piece of news, and enjoy the taste of it cause that’s the only scrap there is this week. Dr. GD’s tumor hasn’t grown. Yet. Amelia would like Dr. GD to have some localized radiation to make sure that continues to be the case. Dr. GD would like Amelia to get stuffed.

In the auditorium, a herd of interns and residents in powder blue scrubs listen in rapt silence as Amelia weaves a horrifying yarn about the nature of life, and also of tumors. She begins to describe her hypothetical surgery, step by step, but you’d think she was up there reciting E.E. Cummings’ “Since Feeling is First.” Jo is about to fall right out of her chair. She’s more turned on by Amelia talking about tumor babies than Alex could manage with a bottle of champagne, a jumbo pack of AA batteries, and a stack of femslash fan fiction.

I’ll tell you who needs some good femslash fan fiction, and that person is Callie. She’s hit that post-breakup place where you start forgetting all the bad stuff about your relationship, all the shit you broke up over in the first place, and only remember how your girlfriend used to always let you tuck your cold hands under her shirts, and how soft her skin was there, and now you’ve got cold hands all the time and your ex is sitting across the lunchroom laughing with someone else. “She seems happy. Like really happy,” are actual words that come out of Callie’s actual mouth. Alex tells her Arizona hasn’t been coming home at night, which can only mean that Arizona and Dr. GD are in the bone zone. Callie bites her straw and glares and feels like she’s being tested by the Lord.

In the Hallway of Confrontation, Bailey corners Arizona and starts yanking at her heartstrings as only Bailey can do. There is a patient—the wife of a patient Bailey lost six months back—that she wants Dr. GD to take on. Dr. GD has already given her a firm no but Arizona is a puppy who just wants to help people. She sneaky sneaks the patient on Dr. GD’s schedule. It goes exactly as well as you’d imagine. Dr. Geena Davis has exactly zero time for any of Bailey’s shenanigans, being on this pretty tight schedule of Not Dying Yet. She’s a Gryffindor, but she’s not Hermione Granger, therefore she has access to precisely no Time-Turners. She points at the Board of Babies and tells Arizona to pick one for swapsies. The life of one baby for another. Arizona was probably the kid with a set schedule for rotating her stuffed animals into and out of her bed so no one would feel neglected or get their feelings hurt. GD knows damn well she can’t swap one literal baby for another.

Right, okay, so Dr. GD is getting her face radiated, and I’m going to be honest with you, it looks like one of the worst things ever. She’s got this plastic mask thing on that molds to her face and snaps to the table. HAHA NOPE. Absolute sheets of nope raining from the sky. Gallons of nope. Swimming pools of it. Oceans. She muscles through a couple of sessions, but then flips out and starts demanding to be let loose. Not a single person watching blames her. Amelia does, but Amelia is otherworldly, and if she’s going to be hanging out on the mortal plane she might think about cutting those of us who live here a little bit of slack.

She is right, though. Stopping the radiation means Dr. GD’s tumor infiltrates the optic nerve, which has always been the drop dead date.

Amelia is afraid that she’s not just the other Dr. Shepherd—that she’s the wrong Dr. Shepherd. Dr. GD is afraid of dying. Arizona is afraid of losing her mentor and friend. Callie is afraid Arizona is going to get hurt all over again.

We’re all afraid, ’cause Shondaland.

I’ll see you guys on the other side.

Grey’s Anatomy Episode 1112 Recap: This Is Her Song, So Get Off The Stage And Let Her Sing It

Previously on Grey’s Anatomy: Meredith dropped her kids off with her new-new-new half-sister so she could jet off to DC for a weekend of Doing It; Arizona and Callie achieved the quickest divorce in the history of legal proceeding; and Dr. Geena Davis had a tumor the size of a Rockford Peach all up in her brain that was going to kill her sooner rather than later.

Quick note: One of the main plots in this episode was Bailey’s husband finding out that his younger sibling is a trans woman. The name she goes by is Rosalyn, so when we talk about her, even before she comes out to Ben or the other doctors, we’re going to call her Rosalyn and use she/her pronouns

I’m down-to-my-toes thrilled that we start out this episode with a shot of Miranda Bailey (Hi Bailey, hi!) and she’s not even voicing over her own impending demise! What she is doing is keeping a lookout down a hella steep embankment where Mr. Bailey and Mr. Bailey’s sister Rosalyn are breaking a hundred laws and scattering the ashes of Ben’s father in the woods. It was all he wanted for a funeral, Ben tells us. They reminisce a bit about how their dad used to drag them on camping trips.

“We eat what we catch. We sleep where we fall. We whizz with impunity. Just us men,” Ben says, and we get a reaction shot of Rosalyn being very sad indeed.

In a patented little sibling maneuver, Rosalyn preys on Ben’s inability to lose and demands they race to the top of the hill. Ben makes it up but Rosalyn gets lightheaded about halfway up. She pauses, grabs her chest, and then jack-and-jills right back down.

At Seattle Grace Mercy Death, Mer-Bear has returned from her weekend of Doing It with a spring in her step and her invisible children already at day care, courtesy of Maggie.

“How was it?” Meredith asks, looking far too refreshed and happy to have spent the weekend making sex with Derek. You just know he’s the kind of dude who always wants to have really intense sex while staring straight into your eyes the whole entire time until you’ve got to fake a cramp so you can change positions.

“Amazing,” Maggie replies. “Your invisible kids were no trouble at all.” She’s giving Meredith a sisterly glare of doom, but Meredith is absolutely crap at families, and has no idea. She ambles out to the ambulance bay, where Bailey and Mr. Bailey are unloading Rosalyn. Bailey is talking one hundred miles a minute about hypertensive fainting and other medical words, shouting at Meredith like she’s just a wee intern. My toes tingle a little. Original Bailey, everyone! Original Bailey is back! Everyone head into an exam room, and when Mr. Bailey tries to pull Rosalyn’s top off to help her get changed into a gown, Rosalyn shoves him away.

In Ellis Grey’s House of Horrors, Arizona is trying to take a shower, but Jo scampers into the bathroom and starts stripping off her clothes. Sadly it isn’t because she’s trying to put the moves on Arizona, but is because Alex’s shower is on the fritz, and Jo’s late for rounds. Arizona hollers at Alex, but his give-a-shitter hovers around empty on a good day and the best he can do is to tell Jo to put on some pants cause Arizona is checking out her ass.

All of these shower shenanigans make Arizona late for work, and late for an MRI with Amelia, who apparently needs even more scans of Dr. Geena Davis’s brain. Arizona bursts into the room bitching about Jo, and Dr. Davis sits up and says, “You live with residents? Get your shit together, Robbins.”

Arizona thought she had her shit together, once upon a time. She had the hottest wife in the known world and an adorable invisible daughter, but Shondaland, you know what I mean? Now she’s no people, and she’s holding it together with spit and duct tape, so maybe everyone could cut her a little bit of slack. Lucky for her, Dr. Davis is in a great mood, or else her tumor has shorted out her laser beam eyeballs, because she immediately wants to know whether or not Jo was hitting on Arizona by climbing into the shower with her.

“Residents gone wild,” Dr. Geena Davis laughs. She looks so beautiful in this entire episode, and I love her more than ever. Arizona needs a people so badly. I really hope that Dr. Davis isn’t acting like one simply because of the peach in her brain.

Grey’s Anatomy Episodes 1109-1111: Are We Out Of The Woods Yet?

Hello, snapbacks and crabapples! Have you recovered from the Grey’s Anatomy midseason finale, or are you still picking pieces of Calzona shrapnel out of your bleeding, broken heart? I have some more sad news, so gird your loins: Gabby, our longtime Grey’s recapper/perfect human person, has one zillion commitments and won’t be able to recap the back half of this season. We will miss you, Gabby!

But I have some fun news, too: There’s going to be lots of lesbian, bi and trans stuff happening in the remainder of season 11, which means you’re gonna want your recaps, and that’s where I come in. My name is Jenn. You may know me as Heather Hogan‘s sister, or you may not know me at all, and that’s okay too. We’ll get to know each other here!

Below are catch-up recaps for episodes 1109, 1110 and 1111. Tomorrow, I’ll bring you a full recap of last night’s episode, “The Great Pretender.”

I’m happy to meet you, and happy to be recapping for The Greatest Website of Our Generation, and happy we have each other to hold onto as Shonda Rhimes continues to rip out our hearts while dancing around and gleefully and waving her magic wand of emotional torture. Shondaland, baby; it hurts so good.

---

Previously at Seattle Grace Mercy Death, Arizona and Callie forgot that they already have one kid they never see, and thought maybe they’d get another one, like a couple of Bette Porters and Tina Kennards. Arizona took a fellowship with Dr. Geena Davis, much to Callie’s displeasure. She wanted a baby and she wanted one RIGHT NOW, and she was NOT KIDDING, not even a LITTLE BIT. Arizona and Callie had some LOUD SHOUTY therapy that my therapist would probably call “unproductive.” We were treated to a montage of those many moons ago when we actually liked Arizona and Callie, and they actually liked each other. It was the last dying, gasping breath as Calzona tried to hang onto their relationship with bloody fingernails, but had to let go.

Bailey continued to be underused. Alex managed to exist in a state of behaving like he is the possessor of all knowledge in the known universe while simultaneously looking like he’s locked in a dungeon of his own stupidity. Derek continued to stagger under the weight of his own manpain. And other people were there as well, doing hospital-type things on a semi-regular basis.

---

Episode 1109: “Where Do We Go From Here”

Where indeed, you guys? Arizona, in a desperate effort to gain control over something after her marriage is left in shambles, has decided to fix Dr. Geena Davis’s inoperable tumor. Dr. Geena is having absolutely none of it. When she finds her scans and records and who knows what all up in the magic room of 3D tumors, she flips her shit and starts screaming at Arizona and Amelia that “THAT’S MY TUMOR. MY TUMOR!” Arizona, who committed about four hundred and seventy-three HIPPA violations obtaining Dr. Geena’s records, laments that she is too pretty for prison — Arizona, sweetheart, I’d like to introduce you to a couple of ladies called Alex Vause and Sophia Burset — so she has to convince Dr. Geena to give her a just one more last chance, lest she end up in Litchfield where, let’s be honest, she wouldn’t last a week.

Now you know as well as I do that the doctor/patient symbolism can get a little heavy handed on this show, but watching Arizona beg Dr. Geena to fight for her life is pretty shattering.

Arizona: If there is even the slightest bit of hope, don’t you want to know that?
Dr. Geena: Can you name the single worst most malignant symptom of terminal cancer? It’s hope…and every time the hope goes, it takes chunks of you with it. Until you only find comfort in the one thing you can count on—that this thing is going to kill you.

Oh Arizona. Oh Dr. Geena. Oh, ladies!

In the OR, April and Meredith are working together on a patient who is in some kind of distress that is not essential to the plot. Jackson, justifiably freaking his shit out about the knowledge that something is very wrong with the bun in April’s oven, is scrambling around trying to figure out how to help. I guess now that Derek is gone, we need another man to start talking down to ladies, so he sends Dr. Ginger into the OR to kick out April.

April is working away like a boss, doing surgery things, and Dr. Ginger comes into her OR and literally says to her “I’m tagging you out.”

Further behaving like a boss, April asks if it’s an order. Dr. Ginger tells her that he’s asking. She replies “Well then, my answer is no.” At that, Dr. Ginger tells that nope, he’s changed his mind and it is an order.

“Fine,” April says, and sadly does not stab Dr. Ginger with a scalpel on her way out of the OR.

April and Jackson are in an impossible situation, one I can’t even fathom, and it’s hard for me to judge how either of them are behaving. It’s so awful.

But Owen. Owen has absolutely no idea what’s going on, or why Jackson wants him to remove April from her OR, and he does it anyway. He stops her doing her from job, talks down to her in front of her colleagues, and removes all of her agency simply because another man told him to. How messed up is that? I miss Cristina, but man oh man am I happy she’s away from this controlling jerkface.

You, sir, are no Weasley, the gold standard to which all gingers are held and judged.

April and Jackson are not okay. They don’t understand why this is happening or what they’re supposed to do now. I wasn’t sold on them together at first, but the way the two of them are handling this storyline is making me root for them pretty hard. Unfortunately for them, this is season 11 and by now we know that Shonda Rhimes bathes in our tears every full moon, and I’m afraid her stores are getting low.

---

Episode 1110: “The Bed’s Too Big Without You”

Arizona is super excited about it being her turn to live in the revolving house of horrors built by Ellis Grey so many deathly moons ago, when gas was cheap and love meant boinking co-workers at all hours of the day, all the time, ever. Oh wait, no, the opposite of that. She absolutely cannot sleep, because Alex and Jo are making that loud sort of good-time love that is annoying as all hell if you’re not the one making it. Luckily for us, she’s being annoyed in some sheer red lingerie. After I have my heart broken, I like to wrap myself up in a variety of blankets, and then maybe fashion a set of jammies out of old chocolate wrappers and kittens, but Arizona’s heartbroken pajama game is next level. Thanks, Arizona.

Callie and Owen meet with a woman, whose name I can’t remember but whose cheekbones would be useful weapons in a street fight, about some transducers (at this point I think they’re just making up words) for their robotic limbs for veterans program. She pins Callie to the chair with her sex-eyes and literally says the words “sexy as hell” and “dying to climb into bed with you” to her. Get in there, lady. Except no, don’t. That’s not for you!

After the lady leaves, Callie turns immediately to Owen and tells him he should go for it. Owen, displaying the same level of awareness that God gave a bushel of corn, thinks Callie is talking about the transducers. Callie displays a level of restraint she’s not typically known for and doesn’t smash Owen in the face with a transducer. “You, idiot,” she says while looking perfect. “She wanted to get all up on Major Hunt for reasons that do not interest me at all.”

“Wow, did you read that wrong,” Owen says, which is the only correct thing he has ever said.

Callie and Owen shimmy across the street to have a drink at Joe’s, making me want to hit my own face with a transducer. Callie’s hair is magnificent. She looks like someone just tumbled her out of bed. Or into bed. I don’t know, whatever. She looks good, is my point. She’s also that sort of wingman you take out with you and who spends the whole night accidentally making everyone fall in love with her. She sees Faith, the lady with the cheekbones and the transducers, and goes over to make an adorable attempt at setting up Owen, who sits in the corner where he belongs. Faith laughs and laughs and tells Callie that no, she is not interested in any part of Owen’s major anything.

“Oh,” Callie says. “Oh.”

Yeah, Callie. Oh.

Callie rambles and rambles and turns bright red, and Faith leans in to her and says, “You’re gorgeous, by the way. Do people just tell you that all the time? Because you are gorgeous.”

Okay, Faith. I rescind my earlier statement. You can maybe get up on that a little. Girl could teach a master class on game and the having thereof.

“I would love to love that,” Callie says. “I’m just not ready.”

Me neither, darling. I’m not either.

---

Episode 1111: “All I Could Do Was Cry”

Nothing good ever comes from getting your own voiceover episode of Grey’s. Either you’re about to hurtle through a windshield, or you’re about to almost die of cancer, or you’ve just been shot in the chest. When “All I Could Do Was Cry” starts with April’s voice, we all know we’re in for a rough go of it. I don’t know about you guys, but I started crying about three minutes in, and didn’t stop.

There is, as always, all manner of hullabaloo happening around Grey Sloan Memorial. Callie, Bailey and Mr. Bailey deal with a patient whose husband has both accidentally shot and accidentally impregnated her. Not at the same time, obviously, but she does deliver a baby while bleeding profusely from the gun wound in her neck, which is gross. Callie catches the baby, and doesn’t smuggle it into her scrubs and make a break for it, so that’s good. That’s a little something we call character growth. You go, Callie. Four for your, Callie. (Wait, come back here with those babies! I didn’t mean four babies!)

Meredith wanders all around—the chapel, the reception desk, wherever—trying to find a babysitter so she can jet off to DC for a weekend with Dr. McManPain. I assume they need to write down their feelings on Post It notes and passive aggressively bait one another. Sounds super great. I’d rather crab-walk up the Washington Monument—not the steps, the actual side of the Monument—but whatever. You do you, Mer. A girl’s got needs, and I suppose a flight to DC is both quicker and cheaper than one to Switzerland. She eventually agrees to leave Zola and little Bailey with her half-sister, Dr. Pierce because she bakes cookies. There are worse criteria for a babysitter, I suppose.

My major Grey’s goal is to bring you all the gay, but this episode is short on that. Frankly, there’s not room for it. Every other ounce of emotional space in this episode is eaten up by the home-fucking-run that Sarah Drew and Jessie Williams collectively knock out of the park. Because April is pregnant, but their baby is sick—terminally so. April and Jackson, confused and heartbroken, make the impossible decision to induce April’s labor early and let the baby die.

Sarah Drew is so unbearably good in this episode, her emotion so raw and authentic that I quite literally had a hard time watching. She’s remarkable in every way and at every turn. She refuses to sign the death certificate for the baby before he’s born, refuses to be induced before choosing a name for her son. They’re only going to have a few minutes with him, she says, and she doesn’t want to spend that time trying to figure out what to call him. Unable to move forward, she leaves her room and actually puts on a gown and goes down to the E.R., where she ends up comforting a woman who lost her fiancé the night before. It’s in this comfort that she finds the strength she needs to go back upstairs and have her labor induced.

Samuel Norbert Avery. Norbert for Avery’s uncle, and Samuel, which means Name of God.

He dies in April’s arms, after squeezing her finger once. I sob for the rest of the night. So do you. Don’t even try to lie to me.

Next time on Grey’s: Just bring tissues and whiskey, okay?

Grey’s Anatomy Recap Episodes 1107-1108: You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone

Oh sweet humans, hello. If you’ve been keeping up with these recaps, you already know that when nothing overtly lezbiqt happens, the Grey’s recaps don’t happen. I mean, do you really wanna sit through me explaining medical procedures by connecting them to the Illuminati and cyborg biker gangs?

So about last week, the gayest part of it occurred at the very end of the scene. We will start there. Cool? Yup.

After an episode dominated by surgeries and doctoring, Callie and Arizona finally had a drama filled moment of Univision proportions. Minus the slapping, of course.

Callie sits with Karev, Pierce and Meredith in the house that Ellis Grey built. They’re drinking beers, and reminiscing about all the ways they’ve all had sex with each other. Nothing says friendship like recounting smash sessions. It’s all raindrops on roses until the doorbell rings. Who could it be?

It’s Arizona. The dreamgirl. She’s standing in the rain waiting to be loved. Can we all run to the door and love her together? Karev lets her in and it’s awkward. Everyone looks from Callie to Arizona and back again.

Karev offers Arizona a bedroom upstairs. Callie and Arizona meet eyes one last time. Arizona walks upstairs alone.

At some point in the series, everyone who’s been a doctor at Grey-Sloan Memorial has lived in that house, now it’s Arizona’s turn.

---

Welcome to this week where just enough gay happened to justify a recap!

We begin in Callie’s Laboratory where trials for her Robo Leg are underway.

She pits two American soldiers against each other in the most epic video game challenge ever. Winner gets the Robo Leg.

The loser has to spend the night patting Dr. Ginger Spice on the head while telling him what a good boy he is. Owen is a needy bitch, y’all.

Flash to the hallway where Dr. Geena Davis is on the move to her next surgery, stuffing chowder banana flavored ice cream into her mouth. Cuz fuck not eating weird shit when you’ve only got six months to live.

 And yet, Arizona decides that today’s the day she’s gonna be all up on Dr. GDs ass. Like a side chick trying to gain some leverage, she’s asking way too many questions about Dr. Geena Davis jr.’s personal bizness. Homegirl just wants to eat her damn chowder ice cream, shit. But Arizona won’t leave well enough alone. 

So, Dr. Dottie Hinson pulls out a switch she found on her way to work and shakes it at Arizona. There’s no time for fun and games, she uses it to shoo Arizona away from the surgery. Arizona needs some time to think about what being a good sub means.

 Dr. GD’s tumor is inoperable anyway which means banana chowder ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, trick.

And we’re back to American Gladiators: Soldiers edition.

 The winner of the challenge straps on the Robo Leg, does a few backflips and some breakdancing. But he’s going too fast, spinning way out of control, and meets the end of a metal pole with his skull.

Shit is crazy. Blood gets errywhere, y’all.

Owen blames Callie’s bloodlust for the soldier’s injury. Owen is a blamer mansplainer.

We find Arizona hiding in a closet somewhere making phone calls to Dr. Geena Davis’s other hospital. She wants to know how serious her brain tumor is even though she knows that Dr. GD has only six months of life left on this earth.

 Goddess help Callie if she finds another lady-friend because Arizona will be callin’ round to her job and her mother’s house, creating fake FB profiles etc trying to get dirt on her.

Classic Side Ho-ery.

And like a clueless abuelita, the other hospital gives Arizona all of Dr. GD’s charts. No red tape. Nothing. Here you go. Thank you. Come again.

 Let the record show that Dr. Geena Davis has a giant brain tumor.

 Big. Grande. Muy Large. Jeezus. Enough with the fucking brain tumor.

Damn is it warm in here or is it just Dr. Ginger Hunt blowing hot man air everywhere? If you said hot man air, you’d be right!

 We’re finally at the part in every episode where Callie gets either scolded or aided by one of the manly men of Grey’s.

 Cue 90s reggae air horn. Champion lover no ease up tonight. Forget banana chowder. Dr. GD wants the D. So she looks around her Fellowship, sees that Graham has a D and jumps on it. Bad Girls Club forever.

Arizona catches them in the act sweating up against the radiator. Hospitals are where all of the sex is happening y’all.

 Unless you’re Callie and Arizona; then you’re not only never having sex but you’re actually having the worst day ever.

Callie sits alone on a chair in the Vestibule of Sadness. The weight of the world’s oppression and Robo Leg injuries weighs heavy on her shoulders. She is hunched over as a river of tears pools at her feet. She may dive in. IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE?

 Arizona’s there. She cares and asks Callie:

 Are you ok?

 Callie pauses her Telemundo-level weeping to answer Arizona.

 I will be.

And there it is. Everyone will be ok. But they’re still wives, and shit is all fucked up. So Arizona wishes upon a gay star and the time-space continuum pauses just for her and in this moment, y’all everything is as it was before.

They sit together, drama-free, for just a second. They’re still wives. They’re still human beings who need love and a break from the shit storm. Arizona reaches out into their hopelessness and asks:

 Could we just pretend that everything between you and I is ok? Just for a little bit? I could use that.

 Arizona, I will play any game of pretend that you need because my heart is yours until the end of time. No, that’s not Callie, that’s me. Callie sucks in a few tears and allows Arizona to take a seat next to her.

 Arizona to Callie: I feel like everything is going wrong and I have no idea what to do about it.

 Callie to Arizona: I feel like every single thing I’m doing is wrong.

Instead of embracing her wife with cariño, Callie pats Arizona on the leg and once again tells her to buck up, she’ll figure it out. Arizona agrees and tells Callie that she too will figure it out.

Arizona gets up to leave and then she does that thing that beautiful brokenhearted fools do. She asks that one question that has the power to level us, strip us of our dignity.

Do you miss me? At all?

 Without hesitation, Callies replies:

 Of course.

Arizona, stoic, dignified, responds:

 Just not enough.

Arizona doesn’t crumble or melt into Callie’s arms. Her response is the epitome of knowing someone so deeply, knowing them in the way where the brutality of their honesty is a secret they keep but you know where their heart is and what they’re thinking, so you know what they want to say to you but never will. You know they’ve already gone before they’ve even left. Arizona is on this level of knowing Callie.

 It’s not enough. Arizona walks away. Callie doesn’t follow.

 No más gay in this episode. Til next week y’all.

 PS – There will be no Owen/Callie sexing. It seems more likely that Dr. Amelia Shephard will be getting that Ginger D soon enough.

---

Ay, tell me things y’all. Uplift my weakening spirit and tell me about the things that keep you going. I want Calzona to survive because I want to believe in marriage and vows and love and shit. What are your thoughts? How do we move forward? And also, just outta curiosity, which chica would you wife up? Does Arizona make your bits tingle or is Callie the Mega Babe Bisexual Badass of yer dreams?

Grey’s Anatomy Episode 1106 Recap: This Could Be Us But You Playin’

Hello, has everyone recovered from the phone sex on Scandal? Yes? Ok, let’s talk about Grey’s then.

Arizona’s shacking it up at the hospital. Do doctors actually do this? Like oh shit, my wife and I are breaking up, what to do…what to do…oh, I’ll just stay in a spare room at the hospital.

Lizz R., is this real? Please someone tell me the truth. Do we need to hold a telethon for Arizona?

Does anyone know if Derrick’s trailer on the hill is still available?

Cue “Brokenhearted” by Brandy feat. Wanya Morris, Arizona’s new theme song.

Did you know that Grey-Sloan Memorial has a wing for wayward lesbians in-between relationships? Instead of Gideon Bibles, each room comes with a dvd box set of The L Word.

Callie catches Arizona getting dressed in her luxury suite at the hospital.

Callie to Arizona: “This is where you’ve been staying? I figured you’d get a hotel.”

Arizona shrugs her off. Hotels are for suckers. Real Gs move in silence like lasagna.

It’s easier for Arizona to shack up in a room at the hospital. Dr. Geena Davis Jr. is such a hardass about where her subs sleep. Especially considering that her dungeon is in the next corridor, the one for wayward dominiatrixes made of ice.

Arizona lays on that ex realness to Callie: “Where I sleep is none of your concern.”

Nope, not anymore. Not after our totally different epiphanies in Nightmare on Therapy Street last episode. Somebody drop in a Kermit drinking tea meme, plz thanks. Callie tells Arizona that she never kicked her out which is passive agressive ex-speak for “You did this to yourself” or as my abuela would say “quién te manda.”

Callie worried all of a sudden about what people think, even though every minute of their marriage has been on blast for the whole hospital to marvel at since day one, asks if Arizona has told anyone.

Real talk, name one person at Grey-Sloan Memorial that really gives a shit about anyone’s personal life anymore. There are just so many plane crashes and extramarital rolls in the sack that people can digest and still feel empathy. Grey’s has run its course. No one has ordered a Calzona in years.

Arizona hasn’t spilled the “we’re splittin up” beans. Callie asks her if she thinks they should tell people.

And this whole scene is just testing my patience. Just because the Great Pumpkin aired last week, doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten what happened two weeks ago. Callie gave all of us an Oscar acceptance speech about why she’s so free now and doesn’t want to be with Arizona. Why isn’t she zooming around the hospital on rollerblades while wearing a bikini doing a shoulder bounce for her freedom?

That’s the scene I want and instead we get a weird, anxious Callie asking Arizona if they need to send out an E*vite to their divorce party. Nena, go back to your corner, and keep on finding yourself. Callie pushes and gives Arizona one of the most hated lines in any relationship: “Fine, whatever you want.”

Whatever I want? Oh, word? You mean that? What if I want pancakes and a three-way?

Arizona: “I didn’t want any of this.”

Word, me neither. I’m tired too, Arizona. I want this:

But since we can’t have that right now, we get Callie and Dr. Ginger Hunt carving open a woman who’s been carjacked, and releasing her blood into the ether for their Illuminati sacrifice and a boost of Dr. Geena Davis Jr. and Arizona figuring out how to remove the mark of the beast from an unborn infant.

Ay, they should be going for the gold with this neonatal crap. I want mutant babies that have x-ray vision, telekinesis, and pyrotechnics or something. Give me babies like Drew Barrymore in Firestarter.

The name of the baby their working on is Waldo Pfeifer, btw. Waldo. Pfeifer.

Arizona looks half as interested as I am. I really think homegirl is shell-shocked and her heart hurts and she should have taken a sick month or something.

Dr. Dottie Hinson puts the pressure on Arizona to be a good team member. Together, they’re going to play a few hours of Where’s Waldo to practice for this surgery. Normally, Dr. GD Jr. wouldn’t have time for funsies but since Arizona’s back to smoking massive amounts of mary jane before work, Dr. GD wanted to make sure they got some prep time in before the big game.

Fresh from taking a blunt to the head, Arizona shows up with her Where’s Waldo books and Dr. Geena Davis Jr. cancels the play date, and heads off into the sunset. There’s gold out West and a fearless woman with her own horse can stake a claim and make something out of herself. Arizona is told to be a good girl and take care of all the patients. She is left with everything Dr. Dottie Hinson has ever written about neonatal surgery, transhumanism, and how to eat fried worms.

Dr. GD will return in one fortnight to test Arizona’s knowledge of her work.

Let’s take a moment for some Dr. Derrick Shephard appreciation. He delivered the best line of the night and it must be shared.

When explaining to Meredith why he’d orchestrated a dinner involving Dr. New Gray, her half-sister, and Dr. Webber, he said the following:

“Zola needs more Black people in the family because I’m running out of ways to braid her hair and Bailey won’t show me anymore.”

Yes, yes she does. Zola deserves the world. She deserves all the hair styles and all the family members that look like her and every ounce of love possible. Also, Zola is one of the few children on this show that is actually played by a real child and isn’t just a ghost baby referred to in dialogue alone.

Anyway, back to the scraps of gay in this episode.

Arizona complains to Karev how hard it is to find Waldo. He’s as unsympathetic as usual. I think he grunts, scratches himself, and then spits near the book before walking away.

Damn but Callie looks fine and this shade of fuschia lipstick works for her. Get it girl. I’d say more about Callie and the veteran carjacking patient but Callie has very little to do with any of it. The patient has her monologue and Hunt swoops in to save the day because he’s a veteran too. At least this time there weren’t any weird crying/cuddle sessions between Callie and Dr. Ginger Spice.

Dr. Geena Davis Jr. brings Karev into the OR, as an observer. She begins her surgery with a threat to Arizona, cuz like threats keep people calm and focused. I know I learn best and perform well under massive amounts of intimidation and threats on my intelligence and ability. God, can someone please spoon her? Stressed and ready, Arizona slices and dices her way into a pregnant lady to operate on Baby Waldo.

Dr. Geena Davis Jr. is hell bent on Arizona reciting her notes verbatim. Foreshadowing at its finest.

Post-surgery, Arizona confides in Karev that her and Callie are livin la vida splitsville. She says she traded her marriage for the fellowship. The fellowship is all she has and there’s no turning back. No one is ever allowed to turn back. Karev tells Arizona to fight for her right to be a badass neonatal surgeon without taking shit from anyone.

Arizona, hands taped, gloves on, seeks out Dr. Geena Davis for the confrontation to end all confrontations.

And in one of the most basic plot twists of all time, torn directly from the pages of One Life to Live, All My Children and General Hospital, we find out that Dr. Geena Davis has…..

A BRAIN TUMOR.

And only

SIX MONTHS TO LIVE.

Where’s Erica Kane when you need her?

Is there hope for Calzona? Will we ever get Callie on rollerblades? Can she be a carefree Latin@? Will Arizona become the mad baby mutant scientist that Dr. Dottie Hinson wants her to be? Will one of them come down with amnesia and discover they were once conjoined twins?

Thanks for watching. These are the Grey’s of Our Lives.

Grey’s Anatomy Episode 1105 Recap: Is This The End of Calzona?

Camaradas, welcome. We’ve got some serious business to attend to. But first, about last week, I swear I didn’t mean to stand you up but nothing gay happened on Grey’s. All of the gay happened on How to Get Away with Murder.

But this week, holy Melissa Etheridge, we got seconds, thirds, and fourths of the mess that is Callie and Arizona’s relationship.

The episode opens with flashing images of Callie and Arizona from seasons past. They’re shrouded in soft golden light. This is how they prepare us for incoming doom.

We are thrust into the middle of a Calzona therapy session.

Callie’s wearing her best faux-cyborg-femme ensemble, all black and sparkly, with an updo made of steel. Arizona, all dressed up for a Carnival Cruise, is on the defense. They’re both standing which is the ultimate sign of a very difficult processing session.

Baby-obsessed Callie is foaming at the mouth and I think near her taint, as well.

She is furious with Arizona for letting the neonatal fellowship take precedence over baby-making. Arizona argues that her career is like mega important so accepting the fellowship was a no-brainer. Duh, babe.

Callie is a magic 8-ball, y’all. In this argument, she infers Arizona’s intentions through observing her behavior. Instead of listening to what Arizona is actually telling her, Callie tells Arizona all about herself.

Callie is convinced that Arizona hates children, doesn’t want to have any more babies, and probably wishes she could send Sofia to baby boarding school.

P.S. Where the hell is Sofia?

Career v. Family. Fellowship v. Baby. Callie v. Arizona. Ding, ding, ding.

If this is what couples therapy is like, I’m going to need all of you involved in it to start selling tickets because the scandalous abuela in me would sit courtside, eat popcorn, and watch the hell out of you and your boo going through it.

Freak-Out Callie is in red-alert, the end is upon us mode and interrupts Arizona at every turn. Finally, their therapist, who is the lovechild of Judge Judy and Teresa Guidice, intervenes and asks Arizona to finish her thought. They all share looks filled with bitterness and exhaustion. I’m already tired.

---

Cut to Arizona elbows deep inside of a human being performing surgery with Dr. Dottie Hinson. It’s a C-section and probably some other stuff that has to do with blood and almost dying. Arizona hands the baby to Dr. Karev who’s head of pediatrics now and instead of focusing her attention back to the mother, she lingers on the baby for a bit too long.

Dr. Geena Davis, Jr. stomps Arizona with her eyes and reminds her that the mother is her patient, not the baby. Fuck that baby.

Flashback time! Remember when Arizona & Callie were fun, muy sexy, and super in love? Shit, remember when they were at least, likable? No, well here’s a montage of scenes to remind us all why we should give any damns about their relationship.

---

And that will bring us back to their therapy session. It’s dark and hell is hot, y’all. Arizona, glowing, gorgeous, fresh from a horse ride on her favorite nag, shares a few of her favorite things about Callie.

Callie, mi amor, a poem by Arizona Robbins.

I love when you talk to a patient and it’s like they’re the only person in the whole world.

I love…You bite your lip just a teeny bit, it’s barely noticeable, when you study scans and I find it really sexy.

I love when you do the voices to Sofia at night and you make her laugh and I could listen to that sound all day for the rest of my life.

Fin

Work and motherhood. Arizona loves Callie because of things she notices at work and in moments Callie has with their baby. While this is great, I feel like it also screams of how badly they need to go on a date.

Callie once again interrupts Arizona, not just with her words but with her onslaught of never-ending tears. She’d win an Olympic gold medal in weeping if that was a thing you could compete in. Why doesn’t Arizona whisper these sweet nothings into her muffin when they’re not in therapy? Callie needs to know.

And Arizona says: I would but damn if you don’t interrupt me every gotdamn time I try to speak.

Bloop.

Callie’s stunned. Finally, Arizona’s words have sunk into Callie’s consciousness and she’s heard all about herself. It’s too late to turn back. Arizona, unleashed, insists that Callie is always trying to speak for her.

Their therapist jumps in but it’s almost too late. Arizona has broken two of the Ten Processing Commandments.

III. Thou shalt use ‘I’ statements.

IV. Thou shalt not make blame-based statements.

Arizona starts over using the least antagonistic language possible.

Callie pounces, relentless, the Queen of Interruption Island. A new baby is more important than anything else in the whole wide universe. And when your wife tells you that you’re always interrupting her, the best way to respect her honesty and vulnerability is to continue interrupting the shit out of her for the remainder of your very expensive therapy session.

Deep breaths.

---

Flash to Callie and Arizona in surgery with Meredith and the ever foxy Dr. Wilson. Instead of Calzona speaking to each other like surgeons, they’re speaking to each other using passive agressive therapy speak. Callie makes a change in her surgery plan. Arizona suggests they stick to the plan. Something about primary arteries and interpositional grafts and more blood and dying. Their exchange is so awkward. They’re at work. Sniping. Ay, so unprofessional and annoying. I would hate them so much if we were doctoring people together.

Flashback to the plane crash when Arizona lost her leg and more of their fights from back in the day.

I’m on my second Sam Adams Oktoberfest, btw.

---

Back in the never-ending nightmare that is their couples’ therapy sesh, Arizona wails, “It’s not about the leg. It was never about the leg.”

And then we dive into Arizona’s Adventures in Africa and are reminded of Callie leaving her there and Callie being pregnant upon her return with McSexy’s baby. Callie takes a Zack Morris time-out and explains to their therapist that she’s bisexual which means that sometimes she slept with dudes and it’s a thing that freaks Arizona out.

Obviously this really means that Arizona never wanted to have a family with Callie and probs hates Callie for making sex with a man and getting knocked up. The best way to handle arguments with your partner is to assume the worst of them.

And then Arizona goes from chill Spliff Queen to flipping the table and going all Prostitution Whore! in like 3.5 seconds.

It’s great actually. Arizona shouts at Callie and tells her to never imply that she doesn’t love their child. This is the first time this season that Arizona has defended her love of Sofia and made her a top priority. Angry Arizona is so fucking hot, btw. I’m gonna need her to come over to my crib.

With Callie calling all of the shots, especially the ones having to do with making babies, Arizona never gets to make any decisions so that’s why she chose the fellowship.

Arizona to Callie: You make me feel like the most selfish person in the whole world.

Unaffected, like an angry stone gargoyle, Callie drops the C-bomb. As in, #Neverforget that you cheated on me and that’s all I ever needed to know about your decision making skills. Callie then takes a bite out of Arizona’s still beating heart and spits it in her face. She grabs her Professional Bisexual leather jacket and threatens to leave.

---

Cut to Dr. Ginger Spice, Dr. SexyBrain McPrettyEyes, and Callie arguing. So much fun in this episode, btw, holy shit, all of the fun!!!! Callie says the word ‘stupid’ one hundred times and Dr. SexyBrain McPretty Eyes storms out to get his edges done.

More fighting, and then Dr. Hunt comforts Callie and I want to barf but I don’t because in this moment we’re not in therapy with them anymore and all is ok.

---

Back to my favorite podcast, “Bringing Up All The Old Shit,” starring Calzona! In Callie World, she’s the benevolent queen who has done everything for Arizona like taking back her cheating ass and not leaving after the plane crash made her an amputee. Cuz that’s what makes someone a saint.

Wedding Day flashback time!

Everything they’ve done has all been in the name of love and duty. But they’re so resentful, they don’t do what people need to do to keep love vibrant and beating and intentional.

All the ups and downs, car crashes, plane crashes, flash on the screen over their argument. Let’s play the Blame Game, I hate you, more. Let’s play the Blame Game for sure. Finally their therapist offers all of us a way out of this recurring nightmare:

They should take a break.

Holy fucking shit, what a novel idea!

Rules and Conditions of the break:

+30 days

+No talking

+No touching/intimacy

+Share child-rearing duties

+No seeing other people

A break is not an end. Obvs Callies freaks out and hates it and Arizona’s eyes glimmer with hope over the prospect of getting time for her morning blunt. This all takes place during the first six minutes of this episode.

I need a massage.

Callie believes that this whole thing must be a set up. And drops one of her best lines ever:

This feels like a joke or a reality show, The Real Lesbian Housewives MD of Seattle.

Arizona doesn’t laugh ‘cause she’s not blazed. Commence Callie and Arizona moving into other rooms in the house, determined to not share space while sharing a house and a child.

Boundaries are vital.

---

Day One

Callie straight up breaks the rules. I was screaming at her through the teevee but she didn’t hear me, y’all. She tried to chat up Arizona about Sofia, their imaginary child and she tells Arizona she couldn’t sleep. Callie, gurl, stop. Oh my God, it’s one day. Put on a podcast, take a long shower. It’s okay not to speak to Arizona, jeez. Ay, but she breaks the rules and Arizona doesn’t crack.

Arizona is committed to these boundaries. She is a champion of boundaries.

---

Back at Grey-Sloan Memorial, Callie’s chatting up a patient with a fractured arm. She can’t stop talking y’all. It’s a thing. Due to the severity of her injuries, Callie’s gonna have to add screws and plates and some solar panels to fix it up.

Arizona and Dr. Karev talk to parents about putting their baby in a medically-induced coma so that they can perform a procedure that will stretch the baby’s esophagus. The parents are less than excited. Dr. Karev wants to try a different procedure but Arizona won’t let him. It’s all a big metaphor for her not being able to move on or let go and who really cares about this part? Not me.

Arizona’s chit chat with Karev makes her late for rounds with Dr. Geena Davis, Jr. So of course that means that Dr. Geena Davis, Jr. has to pull hard on Arizona’s choke chain to keep her in line. We then learn all about Fetal Aortic Valvuloplasty in which a giant needle  is poked into the uterus from outside of the body and into a baby’s heart. Fucking terrifying.

Arizona, Dr. Suck Up, and Dr. Dottie Hinson are in the OR. They’re sticking needles into pregnant ladies and poppin’ bottles of Rosé. Arizona swears she’s got this. She’s kinda like me when I took AP Spanish. I thought I knew everything until my teacher whipped out the subjunctive. And that’s what Dr. Geena Davis does: she whips out that subjunctive and puts a pause in Arizona’s cockiness.

And now its Arizona’s turn to break the rules. She sends Dr. My Man Took Me To A Wedding And Dumped Me For The Bride Edwards to tell Callie that they need to switch Sofia’s child care schedule. But it’s whatevs because Sofia lives in the land of make-believe. Callie morphs into Ursula the sea witch, sings an a capella version of Poor Unfortunate Souls and sends Arizona a message of hate from their imaginary baby.

Message from Callie on behalf of Sofia to Arizona: Sofia needs you to tuck her in so stop being a basic ass B and get your schedule together.

Callie and Meredith share a moment over a tumor in someone’s leg. Those moments are the ones worth cherishing forever.

---

Back at their no-love shack, Callie tucks in Sofia The Friendly Ghost, from the hallway. Hearing sounds of joy, laughter, and happiness, Callie decides to investigate because if she’s not in a good place, no one is allowed to be in a good place.

Kepner, who is just adorable and bubbly and perfect, is helping Arizona make Jell-o molds. I don’t think there could be a cuter friend date in the world, btw. If death stares could bring about actual death, Kepner and Arizona would be puffs of smoke and ash. Callie hates fun and hates not being able to talk to Arizona, so all this jell-o business brings out her bitch face. Cue the death metal soundtrack this scene so desperately needs.

Callie grabs the wine bottle, swings and exits. This is how I like to leave awkward situations too.

I’ve never been more grateful for a commercial break.

---

Day Ten

Arizona wins a Gold medal in baby-flipping and Dr. Dottie Hinson removes the choke chains from her neck. She gets first dibs on the next surgery and damn, it’s nice to see her smile.

Cut to Callie’s patient. She’s experiencing shooting pains in her arm. Everything is working fine. The arm gets wifi and the solar panels are absorbing all the energy but something’s up but Callie can’t figure out where her pain is coming from.

Embarrassed, Callie runs from the patient into a supply closet. She knocks over some bed pans because she aren’t any vases for her to throw and there’s no one around to slap.  Meredith pops out, puts away her bottle of Jack, and asks Callie if she’s alright. Obvs she’s not alright, Mere.

Callie takes this opportunity to talk and to guilt Meredith into being more compassionate. Chugging straight from the bottle, Meredith tells Callie to lighten up because everyone has problems. You ain’t special. They decide to leave work and go to Señor Frogs where they take body shots off each other and bitch about being Unhappily Married with Children.

We are then gifted with Callie’s best scene and dialogue ever. Forget what I said before; this is the best:

Calliope Torres on Bisexuality in the LGBTQ Community:

There’s a B in there and it doesn’t mean Badass. Okay, it does a little, and it also means Bi.

Clink – Another body shot.

 Meredith admits that Christina was the third rail: dangerous and necessary. She kept Mere going and understood her but now she’s gone. They had the following exchange:

Yo, falling in love is way more complicated than getting excited about somebody’s vagina.

Their exchange about love is hella basic but since taking on gender and sex and anything more complicated than a shot is too much for them, it’s the best way Callie is able to say, “No, Meredith, you’re not a secret lesbo.” However, their Ode to Vaginas song is perfect. Let’s sing it the next time we’re on top of Mt. Feelings, kay?

Callie stumbles. How is she not projectile vomiting from all those damn shots of tequila? Jesus Christ!

Warning! Warning! Don’t go into your wife’s bedroom when you’re on a break and you’ve been taking tequila shots all night.

But there she goes. And hot damn Arizona is gorgeous; her skin glows. She’s got that sweet, hot wife thing going. She’s your friend’s smoking hot wife who bakes cookies and sends you a card on your birthday. DAMB. AY. Callie plops onto Arizona’s bed. She’s a lost, lovesick drunk, puppy dog. God, pull out my heart. Finally, Callie isn’t complaining. She is still quiet. She says more in her eyes and in her silence than in all the yelling and complaining she’s done this entire season.

They kiss. They pull apart.

These wives are not alright.

Flashback to when they were younger and in the easy beginning stages of love, the sneaky make-out sessions, that time one of them purchased a corny neglige but it was hot wearing it anyway.

---

Back to Step Up: Therapy Revolution. Calzona confesses their sins of the flesh to their therapist. Both of them swear it was NBD. Arizona wishes they hadn’t stopped. They broke the rules so they must start over. They objet but then their therapist slips off her chancla and shakes it at them. Terrified, they agree.

---

Back to Day One

Arizona, intent on smothering someone in the name of denying that she has any problems. Won’t leave Dr. Karev alone in the NICU. Her criticism and hovering distracts Karev and causes him to snap a wire connected to a baby. Like this is one of the wires stretching the baby’s esophagus and then it’s gone and they have to start the process over. The parents blame Arizona. Karev puts Arizona in her place, not that I enjoy watching some dude tell a woman anything but Arizona hasn’t given him the space to think. Sometimes, someones gotta tell you off.

---

Day 16

Callie and Meredith are yukking it up over a bloody leg in the OR. They use code words like mature adults to talk about inappropriate things like sex at work.

Anybody want a cheeseburger? And by “cheeseburger,” I mean “the sex.” Meredith points a crooked finger at Callies and says, “Imagine how good that cheeseburger’s gonna taste when your diet’s done.”

Please don’t ever connect cheeseburgers to sex. Ground beef is gross like especially compared to other delicious things that we can put in our mouths.

Other foods:

+Macarons

+Empanadas de queso

+Strawberries

+Anything besides cheeseburgers

In 30 days the spell will be broken and all will be well…

---

Back to their patient with the bloody leg. They cleared out his tumor but removed his hip. His girlfriend is pissed ‘cause like people need hips, you know? Meredith assures her that it will be fine. Then she turns to Callie and says, “Hey New Christina, let’s go get cheeseburgers and by ‘cheeseburgers,’ I mean cooked animal flesh with dairy products on top and not sex.”

The burger arrives with a pickle on the side. Callie has a flash of genius. To save their patient, they’ll just cut a pickle in half and connect his hip to it.

Arizona wanders around, alone, lost and confused and probably paranoid in their home and realizes that Callie didn’t come home. Arizona peeks into her room to verify. She tells their therapist that they broke the rules. Not by eating cheeseburgers, but by speaking to each other. Arizona thought Callie might have been nibbling on someone’s else’s cheeseburger or dead. So she made Callie talk to her at work.

Once again, Sofia is used as an excuse for one of their communication issues. If this is why people have kids – to use their existence as a tool of manipulation – then everyone needs to stop right now. Bad parents, bad. Just say you were buggin’ out and jealous and scared. Just say that. Leave your imaginary kid out of it. Arizona admits to checking the hospital records to see if Callie was at work. I mean if my baby momma went missing, I’d look too but still… Callie admits that her and Meredith went out carousing but then went back to the hospital to slice pickles.

And now Callie is alone with their therapist geeking over how jealous Arizona was. I feel you, Callie, but mama, this isn’t the attention you need. I can love you better than she can.

Maybe the break is working. Even though they’ve set fire to the rules and eaten all the cheeseburgers, maybe the break is saving their marriage ‘cause jealousy = solid love forever, right?

---

Day 29

Meredith and Callie are the stars of surgery theatre. The house is packed. their chemistry is electric. Blood and bones never felt so majestic.

Callie is called to the ER. Her patient with the pains in her arm crashed into a tree because she wants to die. In swoops Dr. Derek Shepherd to save Callie. Literally in like every episode this season, Dr. Callie has been saved by a man. What’s good, Grey’s? Finally, she gets to solve one problem but just as she’s about to parallel park all by herself, some man pops up out of nowhere and starts using hand signals to guide her in.

Ay, at least they’re going to save the lady from hitting more trees with her car.

Arizona, back from her jealousy trip, walks up to Dr. Geena Davis and Dr. I’m Derek’s Sister Shepherd thinking she’s down. But she’s not allowed to sit with the Puffs. Instead Dr. Geena Davis sends her off to watch Earth Girls are Easy over and over again until she realizes what she did wrong. Never try to be down with someone else’s clique.

Before she leaves, Dr. G.D. sets up an assist and if Arizona does not make the shot, she’s also going to be forced to watch Transylvania 6-5000. Hope those jell-o molds prepared you. Arizona is dismissed.

Derek and Callie are in the OR burning nerve endings in their patient’s spine. Callie feels guilty. Derek tells her it’s not her fault. There’s no way she could have known about the damage in the spine. Just like in her marriage, Callie’s doing the best she can.

---

And then it’s just Callie and Arizona at home.

They’re both drinking wine. Arizona studies her jell-o molds. Callie stalks her from behind. The tension is thick. Arizona’s neck is sore. This is literally the oldest sex setup on record. “Baby, my neck hurts. Could you rub it for me?” I’ll rub it for you. Callie slides her hands over Arizona’s shoulders. Shit, I felt it. They haven’t touched in 29 days. At first, I was upset with Callie for breaking the rules again but watching it the second time made me more sympathetic. Like damn, yes, touch each other. Maybe if you’d massaged each other more things wouldn’t be so very effed.

Finally: cheeseburger time. But we don’t get even a shred of lettuce or tomato.

They smooch on the bed in the dark and then the scene is over.  You’ve put us through all this and we don’t get to see any soft lady bits? Bastards.

---

Recovering from a night of sexcapades, an exhausted Arizona gets pulled off Dr. Geena Davis’s surgery. She wasn’t ready, y’all. Post surgery: Dr. Dottie Hinson pulls Arizona into an on-call room for a good old fashioned flogging. There are only five fetal surgeons west of the Mississippi River and if Arizona doesn’t get her shit together, she won’t be the sixth.

Arizona has one last chance and she’s off to buy more jell-o and wine. She might not be the chosen one.

---

Day 30 – Mere and Callie might become official beer’n’burger buds.

Now back to Nightmare on Couple’s Therapy Street. What have the duelin’ dykes learned in 30 days of rule breaking?

Arizona: I love you, Calliope. I love you. Life without you terrifies me… I need my anchor. I need you. You’re the only thing I will ever need.

 Callie. Crying like she’s at a wake. This isn’t gonna end we… Damn.

30 days gave Callie the distance to she how she’d lost herself in their relationship. Callie’s tears don’t stop. Can’t stop.

Callie: I finally felt free and by being free, I feel I can see now that constantly trying to fix us is the thing that’s been killing me slowly and I don’t want to do it any more and maybe instead of loving you so hard, I should try loving myself for a while.

And then Callie leaves and that’s it.

¡Los suspiros son aire y van al aire!
¡Las lágrimas son agua y van al mar!
Dime, mujer, cuando el amor se olvida
¿Sabes tú adónde va?
(1868, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer)

How did this episode make you feel? Did you cheer into the night when Callie commanded space and attention for her bisexuality? Were you equally as grossed out by cheeseburgers as a euphemism for sex as I was? Are you glad Callie decided to cut the cord on their relationship? Or did you cry the entire time and still can’t stop shaking? Were you stunned into reverie by how hot Arizona looked this episode? Don’t be afraid or ashamed. We’re here to support you. What did I miss? Let’s talk about the end of Calzona.

Grey’s Anatomy Episode 1103 Recap: All That She Wants Is Another Baby

Put down your goblet of Moscato because we get Callie right away in this episode, like in the first two minutes. She’s the crunchy, fresh out of the oven, cheesy half of a calzona. What more could we want?

Callie’s wearing her very best Professional Bisexual leather jacket. It’s as if she’s walking down the halls of Madison Square Garden, ready for her cage match. Vince McMahon’s voice can be heard shouting throughout the stadium. Callie and Dr. Rowdy Roddy Piper are ready to throw down together.

As they walk down the hall towards greatness, Callie grumbles about being busy and having babies. A light sweat beads across her forehead. Stress lines wreak havoc across her face. It could be appendicitis but it’s Callie’s resting worry face. She needs a half-a-gramme of soma and two days off from life, y’all. Dr. Hunt urges Callie to keep lovin’ and keep fightin’.

Dr. Hunt leads her to a room full of veterans, all amputees. Within 10 seconds, it’s obvious that somehow Callie’s research is going to be used to create bionic limbs for them. Callie, unfazed, in her quest to use the research to create her own secret cyborg biker-gang, is not impressed by the veterans. There will be no new friends in her Ruff Ryders crew.

And before we have time to make up any gay story lines for the other characters, Arizona and Dr. Long Kiss Goodnight stroll aggressively across the lobby together. Dr. Long Kiss is weaving a tale of bravery and honor involving amniotic fluid to a rapt Arizona. Wide-eyed, and hanging on every syllable, Arizona stumbles over herself and her flushed cheeks, unable to answer even the smallest questions regarding procedure.

This is how you get yourself on the road to Fingersmithing your boss.

Dr. Geena Davis, Jr. is having no part of this fan-girl business. She whips off her lab coat, pulls a riding crop from her thigh high boots, and orders Arizona to get on her knees.

With a swift metaphorical backhand, Dr. Geena Davis tells Arizona that she better start carrying a notebook like a good little sub.

– and then they totally checked in with each other to make sure that the boundaries of the role-play had been respected. –

Dr. Geena Davis to Arizona: Everything in utero happens at hyper-speed and the sooner you get up to that speed the better.

Arizona reappears to announce to Dr. Shepherd and Dr. SexyBrain McPrettyEyes that her and Callie are having another baby. Dr. SexyBrain McPrettyEyes doesn’t change the time of the board meeting or gives a fuck. He just sits there with his sexy brain and pretty eyes.

Callie’s cage-match has ended. We see her and Dr. Ginger Spice Hunt speaking with one of the veterans. Callie should be a glob of happiness but since she worships at the Church of Fellowship Baby Stress, she can’t even muster a smile for the hunky All-American veteran. After Dr. Ginger Spice Hunt sings Callie’s praises to the Lord, she pulls him into the hallway and berates him for not singing loud enough to drown out the cries of the baby she doesn’t have yet.

Sidenote: I’m not buying this push-back from Callie. I don’t think she’d really be so adamant about not wanting to work or even investigate working with the veterans but whatevs.

Ten minutes in, ding, dong, Calzona’s here. Piping hot, dripping in drama with a side of extra complaints, and ready to process. They’re both frothing about work. Callie still refuses to add any new members to her post-apocalyptic cyborg biker-gang. Arizona’s mad because Dr. Master is making her wait for gratification. They’re both feeling life so hard. There’s never any time to do the things like hug the daughter they already have. Doctoring is a bitch, y’all.

But in the middle of their mutual venting session, Callie gives her best change of subject hairflip and pounces.

Freak-Out Callie: So is this your way of telling me that you’re canceling our meeting with the surrogacy agency tonight?

Startled, Arizona sparks a leaf and promises that they’ll make it all work. And to remind them/us that Calzona is in fact a loving couple and not two women on the road to an inevitable highly dramatic uncoupling, Arizona asks Callie for a pep talk.

Callie pats Arizona on the bum and says, “Keep your eye on the ball, kid. Swing hard. We’ll get that baby.”

http://youtu.be/8OB28fTKSds

Back in Callie’s Laboratory, Callie’s using an electromygraph to spy on rival biker gangs and see if hunky All-American veteran’s nerves are communicating with his muscles. This test will help the world determine if he can use Callie’s top secret robo-leg. His nerves aren’t doing a damn thing and Callie’s quick to be like ‘Boy, bye. No bionics for you.’

Her bad attitude disrupts Dr. Ginger Hunt’s moon cycle. He pulls her into the hallway and attempts his signature move, the Sleeper Hold. Callie blocks him, steals a chair from the announcers, and slaps him over the back with it. The referees were of course not paying any attention. Callie is Team No New Friends, esp when their nerves don’t work. She screams at Dr. Hunt, “I’m in charge and I’m leaving.”

Side note pt.2: Still not buying this idea that Callie has an exciting problem related to her specialty right in front of her and won’t dive in and try to solve it. I’m not buying this patriarchal bullshit where Dr. Hunt has to coax her into using her brilliance. I get that she’s stressed but like this reminds me of that time in Glee where Finn convinces Santana that it’s ok to be gay. Stop.

Also, mad love to whoever is choosing the music on Grey’s because my baby momma, Jhene Aiko, is getting some play. They used her song ‘Lyin King’ over the next few scenes. (My fave from her new album is Limbo Limbo Limbo and you might already know her from The Worst.)

More hospital stuff happens that doesn’t involve Calzona. Meredith drinks. Karev practices his speech. Dr. Webber dodges Dr. New Gray blah blah blah.

Dr. SexyBrain McPrettyEyes finds Callie in her laboratory and lays down the law of the hospital. He reminds Callie that she’s a distinguished member of the Grey-Sloan Memorial Illuminati and as such, she can’t be engaged in cage matches with Dr. Hunt during work hours. Callie sucks her teeth a little but finally comes around. Together they throw up the Roc symbol while Callie grinds bones for their sacred ritual.

They then discover that Dr. SexyBrain McPrettyEyes is also the Nerve Whisperer. He is the chosen one and will bring Callie’s bionic biker gang to life and save the veterans.

Cut to the nurse’s station where a weary Arizona lounges for a minute, sneaking one second of rest from servitude. Dr. Geena Davis, Jr., sensing weakness, finds Arizona chillen out and unprepared. Arizona offers an excuse, something about Moms being unhelpful to doctors. It’s all bs and Dr. Geena Davis, jr. tells her to pull up her big girl panties and get it the hell together.

Arizona apologizes while engaging in some light self-flagellation. Satisfied, Dr. Geena Davis, Jr., walks off.

And then we’re back again to Dr. Hunt who opens his lion’s mouth and lets out all the feelings re: wars and losing Christina. It’s monologue time for Dr. Ginger Spice Hunt. Callie, who’s been feeling muy heavy metal and reflective, accepts his truth and offers him a spot in the O.R. to watch the Nerve Whisperer work some magic.

Praise Lesbian Jesus, Arizona and Callie actually make it to the Little Shop of Surrogacy together without fighting.

Make-up. Flawless. Skin. Flawless. Posted up on leather chairs. Flawless. Boastin’ bout bionics. Flawless. This rock. Holy mother of domesticity, they’re being cute with each other. It lasts about two seconds. And then they’re both singing, ‘Aye, aye, aye, come me duele.’

Between BDSM at work, biker gang rivalries, and being the only lesbionic members of the Grey-Sloan Memorial Illuminati, the eternal question arises:

The pressure Calzona is putting on themselves to have another baby is stressing me the fuck out. Why do people do this to themselves? In Calzona, the Auto-novela, this would be the part where Arizona says:

Let’s get out of here, my sweet human.

And then she’d lead Callie out into the rain where they’d kiss Love Jones style and promise to focus their energies on healing their relationship with each other. They’d run holding hands to their bomb apartment, snuggle their daughter, Sofia, and sing her to sleep. Together, they’d then take shower, and engage in a long night of super-connected, body-to-body, shared spiritual wavelength intimacy.

But in Shondaland, shrieky Callie puts Arizona in a Cutthroat Kitchen pressure cooker and asks her for the millionth time if they’re going to have another baby.

Just as they’re about to sing-rumble it out ala West Side Story, a potential surrogate walks into the room. Cue dramatic music.

New Game: Every time Callie or Arizona says the word baby, let’s swap it out for the word toaster. Then we’ll pour a little Moscato out on the concrete to pay our respects.

Flash to Callie crying in Ginger Spice’s Arms.

Til next week! Grey’s Anatomy Recaps, only the gay parts plz.

What should Callie name her biker gang? Do you own a Professional Bisexual leather jacket? Will Dr. Geena Davis, Jr., ever crack a smile or a whip? Should Arizona give up her morning blunt? Tell me things. What did you love/hate about this episode, besides the stench of patriarchy?

Grey’s Anatomy Episode 1102 Recap: You Know I Love You, Girl

This is the second recap of the gay parts of the eleventh season of Grey’s Anatomy, aka Shonda Rhimes Night: Act One.

---

We should do one of two things. Either, we play a drinking game where for every full minute we have to wait for Callie and Arizona to appear on screen for the first time, we take shots of watered down Moscato, the pink kind, on ice in one of those goblet wine glasses you can get at Home Goods – cuz that’s for sure what Callie drinks when she gets home at night and is still furious at Arizona for something – or we pretend that everyone on screen is gay and come up with gay storylines for them. Then we can act them out with our friends or for our cats in our living rooms. Actually, that’s the official Grey’s Anatomy Gay Parts drinking game. Who’s down to give it a go next week?

Arizona came to us in under five minutes. All the pre-Arizona time was dedicated to giving Dr. New Grey Pierce a storyline based on her fascination with puzzles. I can’t decide how I feel about this whole Meredith-has-another-sister business. It feels lazy? I know that sometimes family pops up out of nowhere but how many times have you had estranged/unknown sisters who are both doctors just creep up on you? Meredith needs her own Maury Povich episode where everyone who is a half-sister, uncle-brother, great cousin twice removed gets to come on the show and take DNA tests.

Also, take the Quick Fire Challenge. See how many nicknames you can come up with for Dr. Margaret Pierce. She doesn’t remember names in this episode because she’s way too busy ‘bringing the thunder’. Nicknames always help. All of mine will be used in this recap.

Anyway, back to Zona-time. At this point in the episode, Dr. See You At The Crosswords Pierce is working with Rita and Eric Choudhry who are having a baby that is going to be born with heart problems. Enter Arizona who is looking fine as hell this morning. Her skin is glowing. Hair is on point. She doesn’t even look high. But she could be, because during this consult she’s smiling, sleepy-eyed and doesn’t say a word. Exit Arizona.

Dr. 32-Down-is-Cornpone-Pierce is given bad news about the Choudhry’s baby and runs to find Arizona, you know after having a kiki with Dr. Webber who is also her secret Dad. She bursts in on our two favorite fighters, The Dueling Dykes, as they argue behind closed doors over their life issues while eternally at work.

Callie opens the scene asking, “The Fellowship wants an answer tonight?” Oh shit, you already know Arizona got stuck on stupid and hasn’t brought this up to Callie until this exact moment. It’s kinda like when you were a kid and you knew you had a project due for about a month and then didn’t do shit and then Sunday night before the project was actually due, you’d go running to your mom having a full on panic attack and a case of IBS while crying and beg her to make/bake/do the thing you were supposed to do. That’s Arizona, except she’s a pro at lesbian arguments.

Arizona responds, “I’m surprised that you’re surprised by this.” Ohhhhhhhhhh. That’s code for ‘babe, y u trippin’? Which is double code for ‘I wish you’d relax. You shouldn’t be surprised. Why aren’t you on board with me?’ And this is the Arizona we know and love, the one who’s wrapped up in herself, in the cozy glow of good weed, having a hot wife, and being a doctor, that she doesn’t see how anyone could not be on her wavelength.

Real quick: Keeping the majority of Calzona’s conversation within this room while shooting from outside the room, annoyed me. Like if you’re gonna have drama, bring me the drama! Put it on my lap and slap me in the face with it.

But Arizona’s not the only process-and-project professional because Callie shoots back that all of this is ‘out of the blue’ which is a lie because they were talking about this last week with Dr. Dottie Hinson, cougar extraordinaire. Callie’s pushed it out of her mind the way partners in a relationship do when they think a situation’s been resolved but it hasn’t. Like yeah, that fellowship thing came up but at the end of last week’s episode we were all like ‘baby!’ and so I don’t even have to worry ’bout that shit.

Arizona uses the argument that she needs something new and that’s why the fellowship interests her. Something new. That’s why homegirl is always sleeping with someone else, too, right? Arizona is always on the creep for some new booty. Always. And Callie wants this baby. Babies are new. All the time. Whenever you have a baby, it’s new. So like, I don’t get how this is an argument for Arizona. I really think she just wants to bang Dr. Dottie Hinson while singing Batter up. Here that call. The time has come for one and all..

Callie calls bullshit. She knows that with this fellowship and her research, they won’t have time to care for a new baby. This is where telenovela, “I Will Always Have the Last Word” Callie comes out. Cue the dramatic music. Cue the bomb being dropped on Arizona for saying she hasn’t made up her mind yet.

Callie: Oh, see I thought you had, I thought we were having a kid.

Literally another 30-35 minutes passes before Calzona is re-delivered to us again. In this time, I tried to find other things that were gay-ish about this episode. There wasn’t much. In fact, the gayest thing that happened was this Google commercial about koalas.

Which brings us back to the end, you’ve probably drank a lot of Moscato if you’re still playing the Gray’s Anatomy Gay Parts Drinking Game. I hope you’re ok. Arizona saved the Choudhry’s baby from dying. She’s also wearing a pink hospital gown thing and is so damn cute. Who could still be mad at her? Who among you??

And here, at the end, we get a glimpse of the Callie and Arizona we used to know. In this tender moment, once again supervised by Dr. The-Thunder-Has-Been-Broughtn-Pierce, Callie talks to Arizona like she’s her wife, like they are madly in love. She talks to Arizona in that way that would make anyone swoon super hard.

Callie, not verbatim: Baby, take that fellowship and shine like the glorious sun that you are and were destined to be. May the love of what you do be a gift to our entire family. Your happiness will strengthen us. I adore you forever and a day.

Callie tells Arizona to take the fellowship and she means it and it’s beautiful. It gives us all just a little bit of hope. At least for a second, cuz if you know your Shonda TV, that hope doesn’t last very long. But for this episode, we can all breathe a little sigh of relief that Calzona is still a thing. Arizona didn’t bang anybody new on the sneak. Callie didn’t have a major freak out. This didn’t end in an epic Erica Kane slap fight. It ended with the second base of the TV Chaste Gay Kiss, the Non-Christian Full Frontal Breast to Breast Hug.

Til next week! Grey’s Anatomy Recaps, only the gay parts plz.

Do you have any nicknames for Meredith’s new new sister, Dr. Margaret Pierce? Should Arizona take the fellowship? Do you get as much sleep as a koala? Spill all the things.