Grey’s Anatomy: Invest in Love

Sparks are flying around Seattle Grace.  The romantic kind and the mean, angry kind.  Things start off at a typically frenetic pace, with both Callie and Arizona being paged out of a peaceful slumber into the ER.  Callie’s patient is a teenaged girl who got high on ‘shrooms and fell off her roof, breaking 50 bones.  Arizona’s patient is a pregnant car accident victim whose unborn child’s brain is hemorrhaging.  She has another long-term patient, a precocious 10 year old that has been at Seattle Grace for seven months, in and out of the hospital for two years.  His parents are wealthy and will do anything to provide their son with the best medical care that money can buy.  The child, named Wallace, has already survived longer than anticipated, and his parents credit Seattle Grace and Arizona with saving him.  They generously donate $25 million to the hospital to continue research for a cure for Wallace’s disease.  He and Arizona share a birthday and she’s grown quite attached to the boy.  Unfortunately, he’s already living on borrowed time, and takes a turn for the worst as his birthday approaches.  Surgery would be risky, but the Chief pushes Arizona to operate to appease the rich parents.  She obliges against her better judgment, but it’s not enough to save Wallace.  She boldly rips the Chief a new one for being more concerned about the hospital’s bottom line than a patient.

Arizona isn’t the only one with an adorable “peeds” patient.  The pregnant accident victim is forced to deliver the baby prematurely, and it doesn’t look good.  Bailey tells Alex that babies that young benefit greatly from human touch, and the lack of touch prevents the baby from thriving.  Alex cradles the baby, shirtless (for skin-to-skin contact) for hours and hours until its mother recovers.  So adorable.  Justin Chambers already has a legion of adoring female fans, and that scene will only increase their number.  The Mercy West doc he’s been doing rounds with is completely smitten by his vulnerability.  First she witnessed him weeping over Izzie last week, and now he’s holding a baby without his shirt on *swoon*

Alex faces stiff competition in the eye candy department from Mercy West transfer Jackson Avery.  He is smoking hot and he has a thing for Cristina.  It must be a Type A thing.  He puts the moves on her at Arizona’s botched surprise party, and she kisses him back for at least 3 full seconds before pulling away and telling him she’s seeing someone.  Owen seemed hot before, but he’s rather lukewarm in comparison.  Maybe Cristina will have more in common with Jackson, who knows?  She defiantly ignored an order from Owen while they operated on the teen with the broken bones, and I think that bold move is what attracted Jackson to her.

I enjoyed this episode because it allowed the more hardened characters (Cristina, Alex) to appear vulnerable and compromised.  I like the way the writers avoid making them one-dimensional and I can’t wait to see if Cristina and Jackson hook up again next week. Stay tuned!

F0r another take on this episode, read Arizona’s Specialty by Allison Toner.

Season 6, Episodes 8: Invest in Love (Originally aired November 5, 2009)

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Thursdays 9/8c on ABC

Photographs courtesy of ABC, Randy Holmes