Grey’s Anatomy: Major Hunk, *ahem*, I mean Hunt

Welcome back Grey’s.  I have to say that I forgot just how much I love this show. Okay, Meredith is still whiny and annoying.  And the whole Mer/Der thing is tiresome but the writers still manage to find a way in the end to make it all work and leave me a blubbering mess.

When we last left Seattle Grace, Mer and Der had FINALLY gotten it together.  Izzie and Alex had found themselves romantically involved after Rebecca’s hospitalization, and Dr. Hahn and Callie were testing the Sapphic waters.

Meredith keeps having dreams that Derek is dead so she asks him to move in with her. Then immediately regrets it. Christina wants to learn more from Hahn and become a better surgeon and not at a level two teaching hospital. Alex and Izzie are sharing tender moments and Lexie is hoping that George will notice her beyond being his buddy.

But here we are (months, weeks, years!) later and the doctors are in a panic because they’ve been downgraded in ranking and are now ranked number twelve and downgraded to a trauma two hospital. As a massive storm rages outside, all the major traumas are going to other hospitals which is bad news for our scalpel loving docs.  But when Bailey ushers the interns outside to wait for an impending emergency, a limo appears out of nowhere with three injured socialites and their fatally wounded driver.

The wives at first seem fine.  Sarah Beth and Anna are uninjured but Betty appears to have a concussion.  We soon discover that their husbands (in another limo) have been in a collision as well and they can request that they be sent to Seattle Grace.

When the men arrive, they’re escorted by new resident hottie (did I just type hottie?) Major Hunt (played by Kevin McKidd of Rome fame and last year’s ill fated Journeyman) who’s performed a tracheotomy with a pen. Nifty trick and it seems like Major Hunt is going to shake things up.  He impresses all the docs, especially Christina when he suggests a radical treatment to freeze a patient and then staples his own wounded leg without so much as an ouch.

Sara Beth is worried when she learns that their husband’s insurance expires at midnight and her husbands cancelled all his credit cards.  Then Anna reveals to Meredith that she’s been having an affair with Sara Beth’s husband.

After Meredith advises Anna to tell Sara Beth the truth, Sara Beth is devastated by the betrayal of both her best friend and her husband. When her husband unable to speak due to his injuries writes a letter that Lexie reads (adorably so) and Sara Beth rejects him.

This was the first time I cried but it was definitely a three hanky episode.  When the wives learn that Betty’s husband has died, they go to see her but Betty’s concussion and subsequent surgery hasn’t fixed her memory and she can only recall the same thirty seconds.  Stunned by these losses, Sara Beth decides to forgive and they go off to see their husbands.

Alex feels embarrassed about his over share and even when Izzie says she understands because she expects to see Denny, he tells her it’s not the same and to mind her business.

Lexie and Sloan get into it after Sloan hassles George and Sloan realizes that Lexie has a thing for him. He tells her that he’ll stop being mean to George if she’ll confess her true feelings.  She isn’t down with that and then George begins to think that Lexie is sleeping with Sloan (whew!)

In the one ugh-is-this-a-daytime-drama moment, Christina is impaled by an icicle after she tells Meredith to shut her whiny mouth about Derek because she almost killed someone in surgery. And she’s sick (as we all are) of the constant back and forth. While Christina lays on the ground staring at the icicle, Meredith runs off to get help and Major Hunt swoops in like the hero he is and takes her into the hospital. He advises the Chief that they look at x-rays before moving the icicle and the Chief agrees.

Callie does the experimental freezing process with the Chiefs permission but freaks out when his body temperature drops. Hahn saves the day and talks her through it and the man will walk again.  Having ignored each other since their hookup, they discover that that this is the first time with women for both of them and decide to give it a shot.

The Chief offers Major Hunt a job but he’s got real life saving to do in the field. He still manages to pull the icicle out of Christina and give her a kiss that if reports are true and he actually is on staff, it will make for some interesting romantic entanglements.

Meredith also told Christina she needs her to support her relationship with Derek or it just won’t work and Christina, like a good sidekick, says she’s still Mer’s “person” and she thinks it’ll work out.

As the episode (two packed hours) came to an end, Lexie almost tells George how she feels when he says she’s her best friend. Izzie retreats to a fantasy where she sees Denny when she catches Alex with a half naked woman and Mer and Der pack up his belongings. The Chief tells everyone that things are going to change and for us fans of Gray’s, it looks like this year at Seattle Grace may just be the best one yet.

For another take on this episode, check out Tanya Lane’s review here.

Grey’s Anatomy (Season 5, Episode 1, “Dream A Little Dream of Me”)

Thursdays at 9PM/8C, ABC

Photographs courtesy of abc.go.com