Grey’s Anatomy Review: Warm and Fuzzy is the Way

The doctors of Seattle Grace are many things.  They are brilliant, funny, and competitive.  Two words that don’t come to mind are kind and compassionate.  This week they are undergoing patient sensitivity training in an effort to be a little more warm and fuzzy.  Seattle Grace will be treating a patient that requires extra sensitivity, and any doctor who does not follow the new guidelines will be kicked off the case.

The patient is a morbidly obese man who is suffering from a number of ailments and has not been ambulatory in over a year.  He also has an infection under the folds of his stomach.  During their sensitivity training, Bailey instructed the doctors to control their facial expressions and reflect their patient’s language back to them when explaining things.  Keeping a poker face is pretty difficult when they see the man’s wife: a cute, petite woman who is about a quarter of his size.  Derek uncharacteristically refuses to treat the man, citing his size and liability issues.  He’s having a rough day dealing with a former patient’s husband who is threatening legal action against Seattle Grace for following his deceased wife’s order to “pull the plug.”  Normally Derek wouldn’t refuse to treat a patient, but his current legal situation makes him second guess patient care.  Eventually he relents and a team of doctors try to clear out the obese man’s infection.  It looks pretty gross too.  While they are operating it looks like some white stuff starts oozing out out of his stomach. *gag*

While the rest of the gang is pushed to the limit with their patient, Callie tests her newly-acquired sensitivity in a more enjoyable fashion.  A pretty patient with a banged up knee flirts shamelessly with her.  She pretends that she’s just mirroring her patient’s behavior as they were instructed to do, but it looks like mutual attraction and flirting to me.  I think the writers just want to remind us that Callie isn’t happy and she has options if she and Arizona can not reach an agreement about whether or not to have children.  The patient writes her number on Callie’s hand, and when it won’t wash off she has her millionth heart-to-heart with Arizona about children.  It looks like they are going to break up, finally.  No more Calzona.

Derek mentions to Meredith that Owen didn’t really vouch for Teddy when he had an opportunity to do so, when Derek was deciding whether or not to offer her a permanent contract.  This sets off alarm bells in Meredith’s head, and rightfully so.  If Owen doesn’t try to help Teddy stick around, one has to assume that he doesn’t want her there.  Why wouldn’t he want her there, you may ask?  Because he has residual feelings for her.  Meredith wants to tell Cristina, but Derek angrily discourages her.  His doctors need to be able to trust that his wife won’t be privy to their personal conversations with the Chief.  Meredith didn’t confront Owen, but the disapproving look on her face said it all.  He assumes that Derek told her about their Teddy conversation and lets Derek know he doesn’t appreciate the disclosure.

While Calzona may have met its demise, Alex and Lexie seem to be moving in a positive direction.  His divorce papers have arrived for signing, and Lexie awkwardly congratulates him.  Meredith cautions Alex to either break it off with her sister or get serious, because she is beginning to care for him.  Rather than break it off, it looks like Alex will give it a shot with Little Grey.

Everyone is being super-nice this episode, or at least really getting in touch with their emotions.  It was a great episode, but perhaps the best storyline involved Cristina.  Instead of taking an opportunity to work with Teddy on a 39 year old heart attack victim, she agrees to remain with the woman’s nine-year-old daughter.  She reassures the girl that even if her mother isn’t okay, the girl will be able to live and go on.  Cristina doesn’t usually do well with children, but I guess the sensitivity training and her own personal experience dealing with the loss of a parent give her a different perspective this time around.  When the girl asks Cristina how she can be so sure, Cristina tells her that when she was her age she was in a car accident with her father.  Avery observed the last exchange and asks Cristina when she lost a parent.  She denies speaking from personal experience, but the day’s emotions have taken a toll and opened an old wound.  When Meredith asks her what’s wrong, she tells her to find Owen.  When he arrives she collapses in his arms, grieving the father that died so many years ago.  Cristina always maintains a tough exterior but is really quite vulnerable underneath it all.  Is Owen going to break her heart?  Not if Meredith has anything to say about it!  Another great episode.

Season 6, Episodes 21: How Insensitive (originally aired May 6, 2010)

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Thursdays 9/8c on ABC

Photographs courtesy of ABC and Danny Feld.