Viewing Single Post From: 5.17 I Will Follow You Into The Dark

Viewing Single Post From: 5.17 I Will Follow You Into The Dark
oncetherewasaway	Sep 20 2008, 02:13 AM
McEditor Posts: 1,625 Group: .Grey Girls. Member #23 Joined: October 25, 2006	RECAPS & REVIEWS & RATINGS BUDDYTV 'Grey's Anatomy' Aftergasm: Dr. Who? - Friday, March 13, 2009 Grey's AnatomyLast night's episode of Grey's Anatomy, I thought, was the best one in a long while that we've gotten from Shonda and Co. So much plot development happened, instead of a rehashing of the same old stuff. Izzie's (Katherine Heigl) Crazy Cancer finally has a diagnosis, giving her a five percent chance of survival after chemo. And Derek. Oh boy. If anyone ever had doubts about his mental health, I think last night's episode proved that he is most certainly NOT OK. But I'll get to that in a bit. My favorite part of the episode was probably the least consequential part. It was the introduction of Dr. Jim Nelson, the poor, mousy man who might be a solid surgeon, but just isn't sexy or flashy enough to get noticed by anyone. The fact that nobody even knows that Dr. Nelson exists is just another way in which Seattle Grace is exactly like high school. I didn't really get what the point was to introduce him. Was it to show how self-involved the main characters are? Yeah, I think we all know that. Mark (Eric Dane) seemed to be making progress in becoming more inclusive – he mused to Callie (Sara Ramirez) that just because the man doesn't have creepy, perfect hair like Derek's, doesn't mean that he's any less of a man – but the lesson didn't stick because by the end of the episode, Mark didn't even remember his name anymore. (The funniest part about Dr. Nelson is that the actor who played him wasn't even listed in the official ABC press release for this episode. It's kind of like, the creators of the show forgot about him too.) It bugged me a little bit that Callie found it amusing that Dr. Nelson is so invisible, always playing second fiddle to the Shepherd the Great. I seem to remember that she didn't like being excluded from Izzie and Meredith's cool clique during her unfortunate relationship with George (T.R. Knight). Maybe she was ostracized because of the bad karma she accrued from not noticing other pariah-types. In a way, however, I am glad that the episode didn't turn into an after-school special, kumbaya moment in which the doctors learned to appreciate all of God's creatures, big and small, without regard to their social status. It would have felt forced and clichéd and it would have given the main characters way too much credit. None of them is capable of seeing past their own specific melodrama of the moment to even notice anyone else around. Some people's melodramas are, of course, very serious. Like, Izzie's cancer, Meredith's verbally abusive relationship with Derek, and Cristina's relationship with a mentally unstable war veteran. Although it was disconcerting to me that Cristina (Sandra Oh) lied about how she cut her arm to hide the fact that Owen (Kevin McKidd) was responsible, I don't think that he is abusive. That said, however, if unintentionally hurting her like this isn't a wake-up call that he needs to get treatment for his PTSD, like, yesterday, then we might have a problem. As for MerDer, it was very difficult to watch Derek being verbally and emotionally abusive to Meredith (Ellen Pompeo). We've seen time and time again on Grey's Anatomy that when his life goes to pot, he lashes out at Meredith for no reason. He had no right to call her a whore when she slept with George, he had no right to bitch her out when the clinical trial wasn't going well, and he certainly had no right to call her a lemon in last night's episode. She has come a long way toward becoming whole and healed, and while she is not there completely, at least she has admitted to herself, at Dr. Wyatt's urging, that she needs help. Admitting so was the first healthy thing she did, and it's something that Derek needs to do about himself as well. I'm guessing that we'll never see Dr. Nelson again, but given all the multitude of ways in which the cool doctors at the hospital are broken and unhealthy, maybe Richard (James Pickens Jr.) should consider hiring more people like him. http://www.buddytv.com/articles/greys-anatomy/greys-anatomy-aftergasm-dr-who-26965.aspx Grey's Anatomy: Owen-Cristina News - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 Grey's Anatomy fans may have been caught up with the whole proposal that Derek (Patrick Shepherd) had been so slow in cooking up for his Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and the similarly slow unfolding of Izzie's (Katherine Heigl) true condition. As all these are happening, however, Owen (Kevin McKidd) and Cristina (Sandra Oh) have been cozy, starting with the overt flirting and the slight brushing of hands in the hospital halls. An episode featuring someone from Owen's past, however, showed that Owen has some baggage of his own. A disturbance was seen in the so-far smooth Owen-Cristina waters. Bolstering this claim is a report by Entertainment Weekly that Owen's post-traumatic stress disorder courtesy of his old job will take a turn for the worse as Owen will end up physically hurting Cristina. Don't fret, however, as it is reportedly an unintentional hit. Regardless, though, Cristina just doesn't seem like the type to let any guy hurt her physically http://www.buddytv.com/articles/greys-anatomy/greys-anatomy-owencristina-new-26898.aspx?pollid=2001598&answer=2005450#poll2001598 Grey's Anatomy: Episode 5.17 "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" Recap - March 12, 2009 Tonight's episode of Grey's Anatomy episode begins with Derek (Patrick Dempsey) wallowing in his own misery in the middle of Meredith's filthy living room, take-out cartons strewn everywhere around him. He has been avoiding going to work and instead eating all of Alex's marshmallow cereal out of the box. He is taking the aneurysm patient's death from last episode very hard, especially since her husband is suing him for malpractice. (Remember how he called Derek a murderer?) Meaning, it's raining and thundering outside, but if Grey's Anatomy were really trying to go for realism, it should be snowing. (We've gotten a really unusual amount of snow in Seattle this year.) Cristina (Sandra Oh) is at the hospital and sees Major McHottie (Kevin McKidd) taking a nap on a gurney in the hallway. She walks up to surprise him, but he wakes up with a start and throws her across the hallway into the shelves of supplies, resulting in a gash on her elbow. She doesn't take the accidental attack personally, aware of his PTSD. Instead, she reminisces to him about how once had a bad dream once and woke up pulling Meredith's hair. However, Major McHottie is spooked and spends the rest of the episode avoiding her, so as to protect her from his uncontrollable, war-learned violence..............there’s more http://www.buddytv.com/articles/greys-anatomy/greys-anatomy-episode-517-i-wi-26930.aspx Grey's Anatomy: How Good Exactly is Seattle Grace Again? - Thursday, March 05, 2009 It isn't actually a new concern on Grey's Anatomy how Seattle Grace had fallen from, well, grace this season. Previously hailed as one of the best teaching hospitals in the country, Seattle Grace has dropped to number 12. If you'll remember, the slip in the rankings was a very serious concern for the Chief (James Pickens Jr.) since it meant the hospital became merely an inferior alternative to higher ranked hospitals when it came to emergencies (and that's not good for these trauma-thirsty surgeons). As we go deeper and deeper into this season, however, we start to notice that the fall in the rankings is not completely without basis. Just recently, we got to know Dr. Campbell, played masterfully by the incomparable Faye Dunaway (“No wire hangers!”). Dr. Campbell was one of the first female surgeons in Seattle Grace, a “dinosaur” to use Cristina's (Sandra Oh) choice words, who refuses to retire. She botched an otherwise routine surgery and it was made crystal clear in the last episode that her prime years are way behind her. Don't Miss .......cont’d http://www.buddytv.com/articles/greys-anatomy/greys-anatomy-how-good-exactly-26772.aspx ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CINEMA BLEND Recap: Grey's Anatomy - I Will Follow You Into The Dark - 2009-03-13 TV Recap: Grey's Anatomy - I Will Follow You Into The Dark Wow... a really dramatic episode this week! The Chief's issues with Bailey finally come to a head. Derek is not dealing well with the loss of another patient and may be leaving the scalpel game. Izzy finally gets a diagnosis for "Patient X" and it's not good. Alex makes a controversial diagnosis that could kill his patient if he's wrong. Oh yeah, and Mer/Der may be off again, but I doubt it. The Chief spends the day pining for Shepherd, being bitchy to to Bailey for specializinging in pediatrics instead of general surgery, and staring at the surgery board fretting over who will perform the surgeries since he's chased away all of his surgeons. Shepherd, for his part, has been sitting on Meredith's couch eating all of Alex's cereal and moping about getting sued for killing the pregnant lady who ran over her husband. He finally drags himself into the hospital to talk to the lawyers about the lawsuit and, when Meredith tracks him down to check on him, shows her the stack of charts for patients that he saved and the one for patients that he saved. The stack of people who died in Shepherd's surgeries is significantly larger, which I guess he never really realized. The Chief tries to get him to pick up some surgeries, but Shepherd just tells him that he's not operating and leaves the hospital. A running background joke is the neurosurgeon who was the acting head of neuro before Shepherd came along. Nobody can quite remember his name, not even me. Instead, he is continuously referred to as "Shadow Shepherd". Sloane has met him several times, but doesn't seem to remember him at all. I suspect he'll be featured more prominently in the next few weeks, though........there’s more http://www.cinemablend.com/television/TV-Recap-Grey-s-Anatomy-I-Will-Follow-You-Into-The-Dark-16132.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------- EW.COM EW - Commit to It - Mar 13, 2009 Derek's funk over losing a patient and being sued tests Meredith's staying power, while Izzie has to face the reality of her medical situation I cried tonight, and that is how I like it. Grey's Anatomy was back in full, moody force — I'd even go so far as to say the best it's been this season. Every show's got to have highs and lows and middles, of course, but there's been an abnormal amount of dipping below the axis this season. But this great wallow of an episode hit its emotional highs — that's when Grey's is at its best, when its wonderfully sad — with no trick guest stars, no random new docs (except Jim! but I love Jim!)...just our trusty core cast (which is big enough, thanks) and some decent, but not-too-distracting, patient stories. Let us count the downers that elevated tonight's installment: Depressed Derek What do we think about this, Grey's fans? I went into this episode dreading Derek's descent after watching him talk on The View about how awesome it was that he was getting to actually act within actual story lines that did not strictly involve him wooing a crazy commitmentphobe. I thought I liked my McDreamy McSane and McTogether. But I started to turn around on that from the very first scene, when he was moping on the sofa eating cereal out of the box — though, admittedly, my positive feelings sprouted mainly from his wild depression hair. And his casual depression sweater. What I'm saying is Depressed Derek is hot. In fact, he seemed to be taking style cues from a fair number of men I've dated, which helped explain some things. Sick Izzie I felt totally opposite about knowing we were likely to finally diagnose Izzie's terminal whatever this week: Psyched. And in this case, the story line delivered. I'll even go one step farther: It exceeded my expectations. I liked Dying Izzie. Way more than.......cont’d http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20265477,00.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------- LA TIMES 'Grey's Anatomy': Shadows and light - Mar 13 2009 Well, after many long months and one ill-conceived detour into Denny-ville, we finally found out what’s really ailing Izzie on last night’s “Grey’s Anatomy”: The girl’s got cancer -- in her skin, brain, liver, the works. The kind with a measly 5% survival rate. In other words, get thee to that movie career, Katherine Heigl! But if, after all the headline-grabbing buildup, the official diagnosis wound up feeling more than a little anti-climactic, I could still appreciate the way it unfolded. Izzie did her best Dr. House, challenging her unwitting interns to solve Patient X’s medical mystery, and then chose to share the bad news with Cristina, that most unsentimental of “Grey’s” characters, in a dialogue-stripped scene that nonetheless packed a potent emotional wallop. It’s a beautiful thing when Shonda Rhimes decides to dial it down a bit, isn’t it? The normally steady Derek would not be dialing anything down last night. Still reeling from the death of his pregnant patient and the blistering words of her grieving husband, Shepherd was as bruised on the inside as his Sloan-battered exterior suggested. Much of the hype for this episode revolved around Derek’s decision to quit Seattle Grace, but that development was just a warm-up to the drunken devastation he unleashed on Meredith. “You should understand better than anybody else,” he hissed at her about opting to leave. “You wrote the book on quitting, running, hiding!” The guy gave pushing her away every ounce of cruel energy he could muster. Surely, that crack we heard wasn’t just the bat making contact with the diamond ring Derek’s been carrying around in his pocket for weeks; it was poor Mer’s heart shattering. Still, there was no quitting, running or hiding on her part, which just goes to illustrate one of the crazy little ironies of relationships: Just when one of you finally manages to get it together, the other one has to up and fall apart. Meredith’s come a long way, but she could still learn a thing or two from the Chief’s wife about whipping a man out of his funk and back into shape. Nobody messes with Adele Webber. Not even Bailey. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- MSNBC McDreamy turns McUgly on ‘Grey's’ - March. 12, 2009 Derek is sick of surgery, while Izzie is just plain sick The meanest mope: When last we saw Derek, his pregnant patient had died. He fell into a deep depression, camping on the couch without benefit of razor or shower. Meredith’s friends eyeballed him suspiciously as he morphed into a mountain man, but things got even worse when he learned at a deposition that more of his patients die than live. Choosing to see himself as an accomplished serial killer, McDreamy refused to do any more operating and walked out of the hospital. After the Chief spilled the beans to Meredith that Derek had been planning to propose, she discovered he’d moved out and went and found him at his trailer. She tried to talk him into going back to work and revealed that she knew about the ring. He responded by hatefully snubbing her, dumping her, and throwing away the ring right in her face. They are totally going to be together forever! You knew it was coming: Izzie took the interns through the process of diagnosing “Patient X,”...... cont’d http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29664898/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- TV GUIDE ‘Grey’s’ back to its old self - 2009-03-13 Heavy drama hits Seattle Grace Like Lost this week, Grey’s Anatomy also had a two-week break, so I was happy to see its return. And boy, did it come back, hard-hitting as ever. Even though we knew Izzie had cancer and Derek was going to quit Seattle Grace, it was still shocking to actually watch. The episode was reminiscent of its first season, with no big guest stars; the focus was mostly on the characters we’ve grown to love. The Meredith/Cristina friendship, now back in full force, is as awesome as ever, the Chief’s resentment of Bailey choosing pediatrics over general surgery hit a low point (in a good way), and Alex becoming a nice guy — while maintaining some bad-boy qualities — just shows how much he’s grown. The injury Cristina sustains thanks to Owen and Cristina wasn’t as awful as the previews wanted us to believe, but it’s clear his post-traumatic stress issues aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Apparently, this isn’t the last violent scene between the two, but right now, it’s another sign that Cristina has grown up since she didn’t bail on him, something she may have done in the past. As Meredith tried to give an increasingly angry and depressed Derek his space, but when she learned that he was planning on proposing (I’m still not sure if I think Chief did the right thing by telling her), she vowed to never give up on him. Even though he went all Derek Jeter on what would’ve been her engagement ring. Finally, as the moronic interns (with the exception of Lexie) finally figured out what Patient X is suffering from: cancer. In the brain, liver and skin. The prognosis is five months, at best, with chemo, and with a five per cent survival rate, is pretty much toast. O’Malley has been a glorified extra this season, so it was a shame that the writers only managed to summon up a few lines for him. George clearly knows something’s up with Izzie, and in another exhibition of growth, he didn’t push her, but quietly informed his former BFF that she could come to him anytime with anything. Instead, Izzie, who clearly didn’t want it to get too real, went to Cristina. As the typical angsty Grey’s music played, Stevens ‘fessed up to Yang about the cancer. While Heigl’s departure rumours are still just rumours, can Izzie beat the odds? Time will tell. http://tvguide.sympatico.msn.ca/Greys+back+to+its+old+self/Watercooler/ReviewsandPreviews/Articles/090313_greys_izzie_cancer_DW.htm?isfa=1 Izzie’s Only Got a Few Episodes to Live. Tops. - March 12, 2009 Poor Izzie! Once again Dead Denny’s Girl bogarted the entire class of interns, forcing them to diagnose the mystery illness of Patient X. It took them forever, but they finally figured it out: She’s got what sounds like stage 40 cancer—with a tumor in her brain and spots on her skin and liver. “The girl’s toast,” one of them giddily told the doomed Dr. Stevens. Another added that she’s got a five percent survival rate. A third suggested the patient take one last butt-kicking vacation. None realized they were talking to the patient herself. Oh, trauma! Meanwhile the men of Seattle Grace continued to fall apart. Sloan couldn’t do surgery because of his battered hand. George barely existed. And The Chief had issues with change. Unwilling to accept that Bailey would dare leave him to specialize in pediatric surgery, Dr. Webber disrespected and mistreated Bailey for almost the entire episode. After he had a full-on hissy fit of the my-hospital-my-patient-you-do-it-my-way variety during surgery, Bailey pulled out the big guns and told his Mommy. (Translation: His wife Adele.) Distraught over the pregnant lady's death, Dr. Shepherd spent three funky days eating and drinking himself into a stupor on the Kappa Kappa Grey frat house couch. Later, after learning his “death rate” (more of his patients have died than survived), he stormed out of the hospital and moved out of Meredith’s house. “I quit,” he told Meredith when she finally trekked up to his trailer to bring him home. “I know there’s a ring,” she replied. Then in an oh-no-he-didn’t moment Shepherd took out the 100-karat ring, tossed it up and batted it out onto the lawn. And with that, drunken McDreamy turned into Dr. McNightmare. Alex Karev was the only guy to have a good night. At the beginning of the episode Izzie told him he would be a rock star MD. By the end of the episode, after he’d saved the life of a band geek and won the respect of the two new surgeons, he’d started to believe it, too. He shared his revelation with Izzie then lectured her about getting back into the swing of things. Instead of telling him, “I can’t because I’m like really, really, dying. Really.” Izzy smiled and smooched. Then dragged “robot” Cristina Yang down into Callie’s old basement apartment and broke the news, “I’ve only got a few episodes to live.” http://www.tvguidemagazine.com/greys-anatomy/izzies-only-got-a-few-episodes-to-live-tops-257.html Recap: "I Will Follow You into the Dark" - Mar 13, 2009 After weeks of debate, Izzie's illness is finally revealed, Meredith catches her first glimpse of the diamond Derek's secretly been toting around for so long and Karev finally rises to the top. While it came as no surprise that Izzie's diagnosis would be grim, it was still a gripping moment when Lexie revealed the news: Patient X has metastatic melanoma and even with chemo and radiation, she likely only has a few months left to live. While the interns were understandably pleased with themselves for having solved the case, Izzie was quick to dampen their spirits, reminding them that today they got to be doctors and that's the only prize they get. My question is: How did the interns (especially Lexie) not catch on to the fact that Patient X was actually Izzie in disguise all this time? Even after Izzie emotionally revealed to the interns that the patient was having inexplicable hallucinations involving her dead ex-fiancé, how did the bells not go off in someone's head? While Izzie was hitting rock bottom, Alex was off rising to the top .....cont’d http://www.tvguide.com/Episode-Recaps/greys-anatomy/Greys-Anatomy-Episode-1003988.aspx Tonight's TV Hot List for Thursday, March 12, 2009 Grey's Anatomy -9 pm/ET ABC What with Derek's meltdown, Bailey's war with the chief and Izzie's very disturbing symptoms, the hot docs seem worse off than the economy. Don't expect smiley faces on Derek or Izzie tonight. (Too bad they never got together: We could have dubbed them "Dizzie.") However, there is hope for Bailey. Paging Adele Webber, stat! On the love front, there's hope for Owen-Cristina and Mark-Lexie. Maybe Callie-Arizona, too. True, Arizona rejected Callie, but she does call her "Calliope." —Paul Droesch http://www.tvguide.com/News/Tonights-TV-Hot-1003926.aspx This from the jungle.....credit to merderfan77 ASK Keck (TV Guide Print) Q: Does TR Knight want Grey's Anatomy because he feels dwarfed by Patrick Dempsey? A: Knight's staying mum, but who wouldn't feel that way? Dempsey's got his own cologne, for goodness sake. But there's another doctor at Seattle Grace who feels so overshadowed by Derek that he is not so affectionately known as "Shadow Sheperd". We'll meet the hospital's No. 2 neurosurgeon , Dr Nelson (played by 49 year old Phil Abrams), on March 12th. ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ spoilers, Part 1 - 2009-03-02 Izzie’s illness revealed! If you’re not a fan of spoilery stuff, especially if your favourite show is Grey’s Anatomy, then avert your eyes. But if you’re down with knowing the details and truth directly from the actors’ mouths, then read on! Izzie’s (Katherine Heigl) strange behaviour is solved by the interns in the March 12 episode, but Justin Chambers, who plays Alex Karev, dropped a serious spoilery bomb on TVGuide.ca. “Izzie has cancer, so I’m there to support her.” Holy. Crap. With all the trials and tribulations that have befallen Izzie lately — the return of Denny Duquette, sex with Denny’s ghost, making crafts for her interns — this probably doesn’t come as a surprise, but to actually hear the word “cancer” from Chambers just confirms what viewers have probably been assuming all along. That means Alex and the gang are going to have their hands full as they help their pal Izzie deal with her upcoming battle. “I would expect Alex to shut down a little bit if something awful happens to Izzie but these are opportunities to see his chivalrous side and his true love for her, so there should be some interesting stuff coming up,” reveals Chambers. http://tvguide.sympatico.msn.ca/TVNews/Articles/090302_greys_spoiler_DW ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ spoilers, Part 2 - 2009-03-03 Heigl and Knight departure rumours put to rest If you’re not a fan of spoilery stuff, especially if your favourite show is Grey’s Anatomy, then avert your eyes. But if you’re down with knowing the details and truth directly from the actors’ mouths, then read on! As reported yesterday, Justin Chambers (Alex Karev) let it slip that his co-star Katherine Heigl’s character, Izzie Stevens, has cancer. So if Heigl intends to leave Grey’s, along with co-star T.R. Knight, then the cancer story seems like the perfect out, right? Well, that isn’t the case. “I haven’t heard that from anybody except the people who are asking me the question,” says Eric Dane (Mark Sloan). “[Creator] Shonda Rhimes never came to us and said that we’d be two light next season, so until that happens, they’re still here.” Patrick Dempsey (Derek Shepherd) looked at it from two points of view, the emotional and the business sides. “It was hard to see the spinoff happen, to lose Kate [Walsh, Addison]; I think she was a great thing for our show,” laments Dempsey. “And it was really sad to lose Isaiah [Washington, Burke]; he was a tremendous character for our show, so you hate to see these characters leave. But on the flip side: “We’re all here for seven years. They’ve got us pretty much locked in, which is a good thing; it’s nice to have job security,” says Dempsey. “Everybody has contracts, so I don’t know how they’re going to get out of it.” “Everybody’s still gonna be here,” confirms James Pickens Jr. (Chief Webber). http://tvguide.sympatico.msn.ca/Greys+Anatomy+spoilers+Part+2/TVNews/Articles/090303_greys_spoilers_heigl_knight_DW.htm?isfa=1 ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ spoilers, Part 3 --2009-03-04 Truth behind Dempsey leaving the show If you’re not a fan of spoilery stuff, especially if your favourite show is Grey’s Anatomy, then avert your eyes. But if you’re down with knowing the details and truth directly from the actors’ mouths, then read on! Soon after the rumours surfaced about Katherine Heigl and T.R. Knight leaving the show, which TVGuide.ca refuted yesterday, word spread that Patrick Dempsey was the next in line for the exit train. As if. But, after Derek had to deal with the devastating loss of patient Jen [played to heartbreaking perfection by Jennifer Westfeldt], the final straw comes when McDreamy learns at a deposition that more of his patients have died than survived. That sends the depressed surgeon over the edge, and Derek decides to quit Seattle Grace. While some headlines would have you believe that Dempsey was leaving his plum gig as Derek Shepherd, the actor laughs it off. “Derek goes off on a little bit of a soul-searching bender, and then comes out the other side with the help of his fellow surgeons,” reveals Dempsey. “My character does leave, but I’m not leaving. I’d be stupid to leave.” Yeah, no kidding. http://tvguide.sympatico.msn.ca/Greys+Anatomy+spoilers+Part+3/TVNews/Articles/090304_dempsey_leaving_DW.htm?isfa=1 Fifth time lucky? - TV2 Sunday- Mar 10, 2009 Sitting in a Seattle Grace hospital waiting room, which is actually on a studio lot in Los Angeles, Ellen Pompeo (Meredith Grey) takes a break from filming to talk to TV Guide’s Stephanie Holmes about the latest season of TV2's Grey’s Anatomy. As the credits rolled on the final episode of season four, Meredith Grey was standing in a candlelit field waiting for Derek Shepherd (McDreamy) to return to her after both deciding they were going to give their relationship a go. And fans everywhere breathed a sigh of relief, in the hope that this would put an end to the will they/won’t they, do they/don’t they saga that the couple – and viewers – had been through for the previous four years. Also breathing a sigh of relief was Ellen Pompeo, who finally got her way after continually urging producers and writers to forget about the on/off heartache and drama storylines and to simply let the couple be together. “Derek and I are just co-habiting and I think Derek is sort of learning how to deal with Meredith’s relationship with Cristina (Meredith’s friend played by Sandra Oh).” Ellen explains, dressed in her Seattle Grace scrubs and sipping on a giant soda which dwarfs her tiny frame. “He’s figuring out how to fit into her life. Meredith and Derek being separated has caused her to be much closer to Cristina. She agrees to accept Derek and now it’s like Derek has to come into a relationship that has developed while he was off dong whatever.” But while Derek and Meredith enter a new , exciting phase in their relationship, Ellen enters her fifth year of playing the character that sometime frustrates her. “I’m really, really thing to stay as engaged as I can and keep the performances fresh and interesting,” she says. “Because five years for an actor to play the same character, you feel like you’ve forgotten hoe to act , you don’t know what you’re doing any more, you’re just sort of punching a clock, you know?” Did you know? Ellen spent a lot time last year traveling around the United States campaigning for Barack Obama. Another side-effect of five years on television is the publicity and controversy that can sometimes surround a show, its cast and crew. Grey’s Anatomy has had more than its fair share of off-screen drama, including Isaiah Washington’s homophobic comments and subsequent firing, Katherine Heigl declining to be part of the Emmy, and the writing out of Dr. Erica Hahn (Brooke Smith) who was ensconce in the show’s first lesbian love affair storyline. Ellen says that while she and the other cast members try to ignore the controversies as much as possible, they can’t help but take notice and be affected by them. “We spend at lot of time together her so when people’s lives are affected, you feel bad and you wonder why and you thing that things should be handled differently,” she says. “Artists will never understand executive suit decisions. You see things building so you think, ‘Clearly they saw things coming, clearly they read the scripts and they see the episodes’. “You would think that there doesn’t need to be an abrupt end to things because there’s not an abrupt start to things. Things start and build very gradually. Yeah, listen, it’s challenging.” But controversies and frustrations arise, Ellen is still very aware of just how lucky they are to be making a fifth season of the show. “I for one don’t think we can complain, especially at this particular point in the economy,” she explains. “They’re not making as many movies and not as many TV shows. They pull the TV shows of f the air, they don’t give them a chance at all. “So we’re really lucky right now that we’re still going strong and our fans have stuck with us, regardless of what we do. As crazy as we get or as nonsensical as we get, the fans are still there, so that’s amazing. Not a lot of shows can say they have those kind of fans.” http://i487.photobucket.com/albums/rr239/merderfan2008/PDm81.jpg http://i487.photobucket.com/albums/rr239/merderfan2008/PDm82.jpg March spoilers - 2009-03-09 'Grey's Anatomy' Owen copes with post-traumatic stress disorder, which goes from bad to worse when he strikes out a Cristina – physically. Why, oh why does every man she dates have major anger issues? Oh, and Meredith will see that engagement ring, but it will come at a bad time, as things always do for poor old MerDer. http://tvguide.sympatico.msn.ca/March+spoilers/TVNews/Articles/090309_march_spoilers_AD.htm?isfa=1 ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ spoilers, Part 5 - 2009-03-06 Dissecting the love lives of Callie, Sloan and Lexie If you’re not a fan of spoilery stuff, especially if your favourite show is Grey’s Anatomy, then avert your eyes. But if you’re down with knowing the details and truth directly from the actors’ mouths, then read on! You either love or hate the storyline regarding Callie’s love life. Falling in love, marrying, then eventually divorcing George. Hot sex with Sloan. Falling for, then getting dumped by, Erica Hahn. And now, the kiss between Arizona and Callie. Forced, or harmless experimentation? “[Callie’s story is] continuing this journey of self-exploration — men or women, and finding love again, somewhere. I don’t know if it’ll be at the end of this season,” reveals Sara Ramirez (Callie). “[Callie and Mark are] best buds, I like our friendship, but I’m curious to see how much more we’ll be there for each other, through all this. I like what’s coming up next.” And whether you like it or not, the love story between Sloan (Eric Dane) and Lexie (Chyler Leigh) is going to continue to be explored. “Our relationship is explored further, [but] as far as my pregnancy, it’s not being written in, so at this point, we’re just creatively blocking the obvious bump,” says Leigh, who is due with her third child in May. And to this very second, I still don’t know if Dane was telling the truth or joking about Sloan’s living arrangements: “I live in [Meredith’s] house now, which is cool because I spent the last two years in a hotel room.” Yeah, he was probably joking, but we’ll find out for sure soon enough, I suppose. http://tvguide.sympatico.msn.ca/Greys+Anatomy+spoilers+Part+5/TVNews/Articles/090306_callie_sloan_lexie_love_DW.htm?isfa=1 ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ spoilers, Part 4 - 2009-03-05 Another long-lost sibling for Meredith? If you’re not a fan of spoilery stuff, especially if your favourite show is Grey’s Anatomy, then avert your eyes. But if you’re down with knowing the details and truth directly from the actors’ mouths, then read on! Recently, EW.com uncovered a storyline planned for Meredith that would have yet another MIA half-sibling running around. Sources told the magazine that the kid will be the spawn of Meredith’s mom and the Chief, and rumours of casting a bi-racial actor in his 20s have been reportedly pushed to next season. But Ellen Pompeo (Meredith) and James Pickens Jr. (Chief Webber) don’t know if it’s such a good idea. “We haven’t heard anything about that,” said Pompeo with a laugh. “This is the thing with series television that’s so difficult.” “If there were a brother, and you never know, that may be a Season 6 thing, but how would I not remember my mother being pregnant?” Good point, Ellen, but Shonda Rhimes is a master at making the unbelievable happen. Well, except for Denny ghost sex. http://tvguide.sympatico.msn.ca/Greys+Anatomy+spoilers+Part+4/TVNews/Articles/090305_meredith_sibling_DW.htm?isfa=1 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Grey's Anatomy: I Will Follow You Into the Dark - Mar 13th 2009 (S05E17) "There's no fixing you. You're a lemon." - Derek It's official: I'm an emotional loser. After two weeks without my weekly Medical/High School drama, Grey's is back and even more dramatic than I remember. Has Grey's Anatomy been this good in a while? I always thought that with such a big ensemble cast, the show was bound to have loose ends. With this episode, it seems as though each character is what I remember from the first two seasons. With no big guest stars this week, the characters developed amongst themselves. I appreciate the return of the Meredith/Christina friendship, now back at full strength, but why does it seem like when Meredith solves one thing, another falls apart? She suffers from the Chaos theory. I've never been that keen on either Lexie or Arizona. Somehow, both characters in this episode miraculously become genuine individuals. Arizona just needed to be knocked down a peg and she became human all of the sudden. Her whisper to Alex -- "You Go, Karev" -- maintains that chipper attitude, but it's not as in your face. Lexie, although really a Little Meredith with parallel problems as her older sister, has benefited from not having Sadie around. She is a smart girl who can diagnose problems, unlike all those really idiotic interns. Speaking of Arizona, Callie tends to get these horrible storylines. I don't get why her character gets so messed up. She's a great surgeon and a good person. After the whole George and Hahn situation, she is definitely rebounding and happily not too fast. I still appreciate the time she has with Mark, because it helps focus both characters. I'm still not sure how I feel about Owen's situation. The whole post traumatic stress syndrome is definitely going to get worse before it gets fixed. If anyone watches this season of The Real World, Ryan has had the same PTSS problems and it doesn't go away. I applaud Christina for trying her best to deal with the situation, but she's going to go through a lot. http://www.tvsquad.com/2009/03/13/greys-anatomy-i-will-follow-you-into-the-dark/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- USA TODAY ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ZAP2IT 'Grey's Anatomy': Derek in a tailspin, and Izzie's diagnosis - March 12 These days, the docs of "Grey's Anatomy" are all kinds of broken and messy and troubled. So it's pretty much like any other day at Seattle Grace. Except that with Derek's wallow through his surgical past and Izzie's focus on getting the interns to diagnose "Patient X," coupled with some diagnostic surprises and a real jerk turn by the chief, it turned out to be a pretty good hour of TV. Despite all the ad teasers about Derek hanging up his scrub cap because he's beaten and disillusioned by his surgical career, the star of the episode was Izzie -- i.e., "Patient X." And if Katherine Heigl racks up too many more performances like tonight, I'm going to have to rethink my feelings about her. She starts off walking around being understanding about Derek, who's a disheveled mess sitting on the couch eating the marshmallows out of Derek's cereal, and flashing a beatific smile while openly appreciating her friends. She tells Alex he'll be a rock star surgeon in 10 years. She's amused by Meredith and Cristina's bickering. And she devotes her time to mushing the interns along in trying to diagnose her case. When they do their typical intern shoddy job, she's annoyed and hammers them to go back and find what they missed. And she gives George pretty much his only actual interaction during the entire episode. (George's word count tonight, by the way: 68.) Finally they come up with an answer. Patient X has a metastatic melanoma that has spread to the liver, skin and brain. Her prognosis with chemo and radiation: a few months -- a 5 percent chance of survival. It's affecting watching her hold it together as the diagnosis sinks in, but the best scene is Izzie's conversation with Lexie, as they discuss how to break the news to the patient. Between them, they manage to come up with choosing to face the diagnosis head on and fight. Izzie finds herself on the verge of telling Alex when he comes to her excited about his great day (more on that in a minute), but in the end turns to Cristina -- who not only doesn't like her much but is a robot. We close on the two of them in the boiler room where Hunt took Cristina, and Izzie finally letting it all out. So now the fight -- and judging from the preview of next week, it'll be over whether she fights at all -- is on. Welcome to sweeps. Justinchambers_greysanatomy_s3_240 Meanwhile, we're seeing unexpected growth all over the place -- and not because Cristina showed some compassion. Working on a trauma case with Arizona and Hunt, Alex ends up saving the day -- and the life of a teenage "band nerd" who has epileptic seizures. She keeps crashing in the midst of the seizures, making it doubly dangerous to shock her heart because it could kill her. Alex figures out that the problem is the girl's heart, insisting over Arizona's protests against a cardiac procedure that could kill her if Alex is wrong. But he turns out to be right, and reaps all kinds of impressed praise from both Hunt and Arizona. And it's remarkably sweet, if you can call Alex that, to see him excitedly react to people actually believing in him. But am I really buying him as the future of Seattle Grace? Not yet. ...... there’s more http://blog.zap2it.com/ithappenedlastnight/2009/03/greys-anatomy-derek-in-a-tailspin-and-izzies-diagnosis.html Still watching 'Grey's Anatomy'? If so, here's a clip from Thursday's episode - March 11, 2009 A "Grey's Anatomy" viewer named Kathy e-mailed me a while back to ask if I might be writing about the show any time soon. I do feel vaguely as if I should check in on "Grey's," but other shows have distracted me with their goodness. And around the time I checked out of "Grey's" -- which is when Mary McDonnell began her guest stint -- the increasingly frantic show just didn't seem worth the effort any more. But you never know, I may have to start checking it out again. There's clearly a big Izzie arc coming up (Kristen at Eonline has the full scoop here and here). And Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) is in a big snit about something or other, as you can see in the clip below. I'd like to thank Kathy for writing a recap of the season so far and getting me up to speed on various developments (my favorite line from our e-mail exchange: "I have to say that if there was any evidence of shark-jumping, it was when Derek announced, 'I'm going to have to remove her frontal lobe.' If 'Grey's' can survive that, it can survive anything, even if the patient didn't."). Reading her recap and analysis was entertaining, which is not a claim I've often made for "Grey's" in recent seasons. But you never know. It could get... less annoying. Then again, apparently there is now a character named Arizona. Sigh. What are your thoughts regarding "Grey's Anatomy"? Have you checked out of Seattle Grace Hospital or are you sticking with the backstage-drama-ridden drama? If you quit watching, what prompted that? If you're still watching it, share with the class, if you care to. http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/03/greys-anatomy-derek-izzie-.html -----------------------------------------------------------------------


5.17 I Will Follow You Into The Dark · Episodic Chat