Viewing Single Post From: 4.04 The Heart of the Matter

Viewing Single Post From: 4.04 The Heart of the Matter
oncetherewasaway	Aug 12 2007, 01:59 AM
McEditor Posts: 1,625 Group: .Grey Girls. Member #23 Joined: October 25, 2006	[size=7]PODCAST[/size] 10.19.07 - Executive Producers Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers look back at the Heart of the Matter and drop hints about what ‘Haunt You Every Day’ is about. That episode airs October 25th at 9pm. Derek realizes that deep down Meredith is still an intern, Callie tries to forgive George and Izzie prepares for a showdown at noon. All that and more in today’s official Grey’s Anatomy podcast hosted by abc.com. Well, last night’s episode saw more than one showdown between our beloved characters. In addition to Izzie’s almost brawl with Callie, Chief Webber went up against Adele when she asked him to convince their niece to undergo radical cancer treatment. Executive producer’s Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers join us now to get to the heart of those matters, plus preview the Halloween episode called ‘Haunt You Every Day.’ That episode airs Thursday, October 25th at 9:00 pm on abc, and is available the next day on abc.com. Hi! Hi! Shonda. Betsy. Grey’s Anatomy. It’s been another lovely week over at…it’s fabulous over here at Grey’s Anatomy. We’ve had a couple of things in that last couple of weeks which have been great. And I to say that episode 4.04 which is entitled ‘The Heart of the Matter’ is probably my favorite episode of the season thus far that you have seen. This is an amazingly but emotional and sort of seminal episode in terms of where we are going. Yeah, I mean there were several things. One, the whole idea that Callie is going to kick Izzie’s ass and that Izzie actually believes that that is going to happen. And then she sort of talks herself into her trailer park fighter mode in the lunchroom…one of my favorite things ever. One of my other favorite things ever, that I just kept pitching, and they kept saying ‘Really, do we have to shoot this? How much do we have to shoot?’ Like all of George running…was George just flying through the hospital on a continuous basis just looking for Izzie…everywhere…crashing into things and flying across that catwalk. And it was just one of my favorite things ever, I love that. And actually, the truth is, we did have moments where we were looking at our production schedule, and people kept saying ‘Why do we need so much running? Why do we need so much running?’ and Shonda was like ‘Trust me. You need all the running because the running sets up the high noon stuff later.’ So it’s just great and T.R was amazing at it. He really threw himself into it. T.R actually came up with the idea of smashing into the cart hitting all sorts of difficult and painful things. Falling down, and then if you go back and look at it, my favorite detail is he smashes into the crash cart, picks something up which has dropped off the cart, he can barely stand…he can barely stand up and he leans over and he puts it back and then he finds out where she is and he goes charging. Yeah, it’s pretty great. We love that. And I really like that the episode starts with Callie basically saying ‘I forgive you’ to George which is the last thing I think he, or anyone would have expected. I think she is furious, I think she’s upset, I think she’s incredibly, incredibly hurt. But I think she is a girl who took vows, and she really believes in it, she was really trying there. And for George to sort of take that in and be like, ‘She forgave me so that’s how it’s going to be,’ and then to get to that point at the end of the episode where she’s, you know, to get to the fight moment where she’s realizing that, you know, Izzie thinks that she’s going to fight her and it’s very, very humiliating. And that amazing speech that she gives Izzie about the idea of ‘you think I’m supposed to forgive you,’ and she calls her a traitorous bitch…which was one of my favorite lines ever and she delivered it exactly the way you hope a line like that is delivered as apposed to if we were on…it really felt real, and hurt, and pissed off…it was just great. And then to get to the end moment where she says to George, ‘you know, you’re right. I don’t forgive you,’ was great, and we talked a lot in the writer’s room about whether she should say ‘I hate you’ or say more to George and the reality of it is all she needs to say is ‘I don’t forgive you.’ Well, and I think what’s great is that in a weird way there is another aspect to this which is…she’s still a little in shock, like she goes to a place where…totally in shock…she says ‘I forgive you.’ And I think we have all been through situations where you actually…you want the reality to be different than it is, so you try to do the right thing and you numb yourself and you do it, and the process of this episode…Yeah, I think everybody says to themselves ‘okay, this thing happened. We can get passed this, we can past this,’ because what you want is for everything to go back to being the way it was. And you realize it never will be. And you think maybe if you close your eyes and hold your breath maybe it will. And the whole episode for me is this process where she is humiliated by Izzie, where this entire thing takes place where it actually pushes her into the reality of actually being angry. Which she needs to be, which is incredibly healthy, which she had to go through. This sort of hideous surreal reality of this bar fight…which is great…which never took place. But it was the process that she needed I think, to get into that place. Yeah. I love that the fight goes from being incredibly funny to incredibly sad. I think that’s what made it interesting. And also I just like to listen to doctor’s talk about ‘if you actually had to have a slug fest or something what would you protect?’ Which I think is very interesting. It’s ‘please protect your face…no, no your hands…protect your hands.’ It’s like ‘fight with your elbows….what should you do’ so. We kind of have an obsession with that. You know we’ve had slap fights last season. We did. We had a slap fight last season, we also had a ‘girl-on-girl’ slam against the locker moment…a little bit…which was awesome. Which I think sets up the expectation that there is going to be a fight when in fact poor Callie was just looking to have an actual conversation. And I love that Izzie tells Alex that she slept with George in the most casual way, because she is so past whatever happened between the two of them. And he’s not. I don’t necessarily know that Alex feels that he is madly in love with Izzie, but I do know that Alex feels like Izzie…if there was ever going to be a ‘one,’ it would have been Izzie. Well, and Alex…it’s that whole thing of ‘was vulnerable’…allowed himself to be vulnerable, got shut down and still hasn’t recovered from that experience. Exactly. My other favorite moment of the episode is the storyline that culminates in Derek telling Meredith that he wants to marry her. Aww. Which….yeah….which was sort of that whole realization that she’s not ready. I mean, she’s not ready on so many levels. And that he understands why she’s not ready. And he completely gets why she’s not ready because she’s still an intern…that he want’s to marry her and have kids with her and grow old with her. That was one of my favorite, favorite moments. Well, yeah. Because Derek is proposing. Derek proposed. I mean, Derek proposed, but Derek also proposed knowing that it is not something she is ready to hear. And I love that he proposes and says ‘see what happens’…you know, she starts to look a little bit like a scared pony…a deer caught in the headlights….yeah…and he’s sort of ‘see what happens’…it’s just lovely. And I love basically what he says at the end. While he’s waiting for her, he might meet somebody who is willing to give him all those things that she’s not. And he can’t guarantee. And she says ‘what if you do’ with kind of all the confidence in the world. I love the expression on her face because she has that sort of flirty…everything’s going to be okay. Well, it’s not just that she’s also a little pissed. Like, ‘don’t you dare talk about another woman’ which I get because with everything they have been through. And he says ‘I don’t know’ which was a very honest answer. But I also think there is this confidence in her face. Well he just basically said ‘I want to marry you for the rest of my life.’ That would do it. Yeah. And he says ‘I don’t know’ which…I’m just telling you guys to prepare you guys for a possible eventuality of…Derek really doesn’t know what he would do. So. You know, you might want to think about that a little bit when you lie in bed at night. When you are avoiding thinking about your own actual life. Exactly. And that Meredith still has a little bit of growing to do in her own way. Meredith still has a little bit of growing to do. And needs a little space to do it. You guys, we are going to get her there…we are going to get her grown up at some point. She really is. She’s just got some stuff she has to deal with. Exactly. And there’s that incredibly emotional storyline of the Chief’s niece coming and the culmination and the end of his relationship as a result of the fact that he try’s to do what is right for the patient. Yeah, and Adele…you know, happens with a lifetime of trying to understand. And I love when she says ‘the one time I ask you to do your job, to save this family and you just can’t do it.’ And it…it’s everything that has ever been wrong with their relationship in the first place. What a heart-breaking situation to be in…I mean, just in terms of what a choice. To be the surgeon who in theory could extend the life, but also have to stand there with your own niece who you love, who is like their child…they never had a child….and have to essentially agree to sign her death warrant, in a strange way. And also how difficult that is for Adele. Exactly. Regardless…incredibly emotional. Very heart-breaking. And then we have Cristina and Lexie. Which…what I loved about this was that Lexie gets a little bit cocky in this episode. She’s chatting it up with Derek and she’s having fun talking to an attending and sort of gives Cristina a little bit of lip about calling her three…which I love. And Cristina kind of gets…I mean, gets her confidence a little bit shaken, or at least the confidence that she feels doctors have shaken by Derek’s siding with Lexie. And then in surgery realizing that, you know what, Lexie is in fact just an intern. She might seem great, she might seem smart but she is just an intern. I don’t know, I kind of love that whole storyline, and in the end, you know, Cristina is back to calling Lexie three. And Lexie’s back to hearing it. Yeah, and Lexie’s back to hearing it and letting it in. Accepting it, basically. One of my favorite things is Edward Herrmann and Meredith. You know what, I was going to bring that up just because, just as a storyline and the fact that you start the episode with Izzie talking about penmanship and it is penmanship that sinks everybody which I think is just…it’s this little throw in at the beginning when Izzie is giving them the lecture because she never has anything to do with her interns, and then in fact that he couldn’t read the chart…yeah, I just loved. Because of the wrong number was on the chart. Exactly. And I just loved, like, ‘oh, it’s a two not a three,’ okay whatever….but it’s also just this really funny, horrible run up of how easy that would be to do. Yeah. And also, you know, Meredith dealing with Norman all day who is trying really hard to fit in now…what I loved about Norman…I mean, he’s trying to say like ‘oh crap’, he’s trying to say ‘seriously,’ he’s wearing a t-shirt under his scrubs. Yeah, he’s trying to know if it is McSteamy or McSleezy or Mc…..like he’s really trying which I found charming. Absolutely charming. They actually have a really good relationship together. Meredith actually worked better with the poor character than anyone else. Well, Meredith works better with pretty much anybody. She plays really well. She’s plays better than Alex definitely does. Ohhh yeah. I guess there is no real competition in terms of that. But I thought there was something really charming about that whole storyline and the woman comes back and she is a little bit upset to find out that she’s not going to die because she has given up her whole life. So it’s kind of the revelation for her. Yeah. I also like she decided to (inaudible…if anyone knows what that says, please add it in  ). I know! It’s totally arbitrary, it’s great! Is it like a party all the time? Did somebody have something about (??) that was totally awesome. Exactly, it was great. And I loved Mark’s frustration with them, and the moment when he says to Derek, ‘you know, Meredith is still an intern. The only difference between her and that old guy she’s dragging around with her is that she’s not sleeping with the old guy.’ Very, very clean and clear. Absolutely. It’s absolutely the case. So, I think…I think this is a weird turning point in a lot of ways for a lot of the characters. Which is why it feels so pivotal. We had a little football story, which is our tiny little shout out to a show to a network called ‘Friday Night Lights.’ Which we are all a little obsessed with. We carry a little football in for. We think it is pretty awesome. It has this guy, who you might remember as blowing up on our show. But we did our sort of homage to football, since none of us actually…none of us, and I mean literally none of us…know anything about football except for what you see on the show. I hear there is a football involved…that’s pretty much it. Yes, exactly. And they wear outfits, I think, with hats. I don’t think you are supposed to call them outfits. Okay, I rest my case. Outfits with hats sounds like a little suit and a flowered straw hat. And to me, every team is like the napkins…they do, they do wear sweet little outfits…they do…they’re adorable…lots of accessories…they look nice…they accessorize. They all match. Put a little makeup on under their eyes. They all match. It’s nice. They all walk together. And their hats are quite kinky. This is why, interestingly enough, we never developed a sports show, clearly. That’s clearly why they chose to put us on after the super bowl. We would be ridden off the network on a very large rail. Sorry. Right now all over America there are men throwing their car radios out the window. We are sorry. We love football! It’s great. It’s actually awesome. Digging a hole…digging a hole…digging a hole…all I really wanted to say was that we thought Kyle Chandler was cute. That’s really all I wanted to say. I’m just pouring some dirt on top of us now. Okay, that worked out pretty good. That was good. So, that was episode 4.04, ‘The Heart of the Matter.’ A really great episode. Awesome. Next episode, for the first time ever, Grey’s we are doing a Halloween episode. Yes, you know, you have seen Thanksgiving episodes, and Christmas episodes…but you have never actually seen a Halloween episode. We decided if we were going to go for a holiday this year, we thought we would go for Halloween. There’s something kind of great about it, and we felt like gore, and blood went quite well with our hospital, so we are doing some stuff in this episode that is going to be a little bit interesting. It is very interesting, and Halloween does bring out the spooky weird stuff, probably in hospitals and also probably superstitions. I think you will get to see some…you will definitely get to see something I don’t think you have ever quite seen before. Yeah. I think there is something relatively hardcore in there. Meredith does something that I don’t think I have ever seen anybody do. That’s absolutely true, and there is also …I think there are two things…there is a chainsaw involved in the episode. There is a chainsaw involved in the episode and that doesn’t involve Meredith. Those are two different things. Meredith doesn’t wield the chainsaw. We just want to make sure. We know she’s dark and twisty but not chainsaw dark and twisty. Which would qualify as a little bit….That would be a whole different show. A whole different show. It would maybe be on bad football shows. Okay. So anyway…and no one is going to be wearing cute outfits with hats. Although I think scrubs and scrub caps do go, and Lexie…a little bit. You know what, I take that back. Cute outfits and hats. Keep watching. Yeah, there’s a whole reason to tune in, right there. This is Shonda, this is Betsy, Grey’s Anatomy. This post has been edited by jenlou1986 on Nov 8 2007, 05:30 PM


4.04 The Heart of the Matter · SEASON 4