Grey’s Anatomy: Family Ties

The latest episode finds our doctors tested in various ways.  Alex’s patience, Owen’s judgment, Meredith’s loyalty, and Cristina’s endurance are all tested. Some pass with flying colors; others come up short.

Alex and Izzie are still adjusting to their new marriage and coping with her recovery.  They are living in that ridiculous trailer that Derek used to live in, parked outside of the house he shares with Meredith. As Alex walks out of the front door to go to work, he sees a bear and emits a scream that sounds like he doesn’t have any boy parts.  He thinks they should move back in with Meredith, but Izzie understandably wants to move forward rather than regress, plus they can’t afford to move.  She changes her tune by the end of the episode though, after she confronts the bear herself.  Somehow death by mauling doesn’t sound too enjoyable.

Seattle Grace is merging with Mercy West, and several of the nurses and support staff are losing their jobs.  Many doctors fear they are next on the chopping block.  In an effort to distinguish themselves, they are clamor for surgeries to showcase their skills and remind the powers-that-be of the doctor’s utility. Cristina is having the hardest time getting a surgery, in part because Owen wants to avoid the appearance of favoritism.  He would rather give Izzie a chance to show everyone that she’s not too fragile to resume her duties.  Her first case hits close to home: a cancer patient with a long-term girlfriend.  The man requires high-risk surgery that Owen is reluctant to perform because it is not statistically in the patient’s favor.  Izzie reminds him that she beat the odds and says the patient should have a chance to fight.  Her emotional plea is persuasive, and Owen agrees to perform the procedure if the patient opts for it.  The patient agrees, but unfortunately ends up dying on the operating table.  This was heartbreaking because Izzie really liked the patient and his girlfriend, as they probably reminded her of she and Alex.  Owen is furious that he second-guessed his original opinion, and he questions whether Izzie is fit to return to patient care.  He reminds her that she beat the odds, but that she was an exception and she can’t go around presenting emotional options to patients.

The focal point of the episode was Meredith’s estranged, alcoholic father who needs a liver transplant due to life-threatening cirrhosis.  He was basically an absentee father to Meredith throughout her childhood.  Ironically, he was everything for Lexie that he was not for Meredith: a loving, devoted father.  When he is admitted to the hospital vomiting blood, Lexie immediately gets tested to see if she is a candidate to be a liver donor.  Meredith feels no such obligation and seems ambivalent about the whole thing.  She does have a loving relationship with Lexie however, and doesn’t want to see her hurt.  Because she loves her sister, she agrees to get tested and ultimately decides to give her father a liver transplant.  She makes it clear that she’s doing it for Lexie, but she also leaves the door open for a potential relationship with her Dad in the future, if he desires it.

Now we come to Cristina, who is falling out of favor with this viewer.  She’s super-competitive above all else.  When she can’t get the surgeries she wants, she marches in to the Chief’s office and basically tells him that if she can’t do real surgeries that matter, then he should just cut her. An elderly man wanted a penis pump, and she performed the surgery but apparently that was not glamorous or important enough. I hope the Chief calls her bluff and lets her go, but of course that won’t happen.  She needs to be brought down a peg, and I hope it happens next week. She did not pass her test!

Season 6, Episodes 4: Tainted Obligation (Originally aired October 8 2009)

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