Viewing Single Post From: 5.12 Sympathy for the Devil

Viewing Single Post From: 5.12 Sympathy for the Devil
oncetherewasaway	Sep 20 2008, 11:53 AM
McEditor Posts: 1,625 Group: .Grey Girls. Member #23 Joined: October 25, 2006	PODCAST Podcast —5.12 Sympathy with the Devil January 16, 2009 Hello all and Happy New Year Grey’s fans. After a break for the holiday executive producer Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers are back with a recap of the first two episodes of 2009 and a some tantalizing hints at what’s to come in the next episode “Stairway to Heaven” airing Thursday, January 22. Hi, this is Shonda. And this is Betsy and this is Grey’s Anatomy. Happy winter! Over here it’s certainly, certainly warm here. I hear there is lots and lots of snow everyplace else and very, very cold everywhere else and you have my sympathies but here its about 85 degrees. It is. It was a really, really whoppingly terrifying cold 50 for a while and it pretty much tested all the limits of survival out here. Yeah, cause we don’t really know how to handle that. Now, I grew up you know in suburbs of Chicago so I should really be more comfortable with the cold and the snow but I don’t know what’s happened. I grew up on Long Island and I should be too but that doesn’t change the fact apparently my blood got thin. Anyway, I say embrace the snow enjoy the snow. I say make snow angels and oh snowmen. There you go. There you go. Seattle Grace is in quite a state I would say, given the fact that we have the arrival I would say a special VIP patient who’s unlike any VIP patient we’ve ever had in the history of Seattle Grace. I am very excited about our patient. I think it’s an incredible thing and we should talk a little bit about the processes about getting Eric Stolz. Yeah, you may have noticed that Eric Stolz directed a couple of episodes for us. We always loved him as an actor but we really knew him here as a director. Yeah, he was directing an episode and I marched over to the stage and said how do you feel about playing a serial killer. And since he was in the middle of directing I think he thought I was either crazy or trying to find a way fire him in a weird way. That would be a weird way. And he basically ignored me and then Betsy and I started to stalk him and hunt him down and show up weird places like the editing room and tell him how tell him he should play a serial killer which is a little bit insulting but there is nothing serial killer-like about Eric Stolz. He’s very, very lovely. And in fact that he was very unlike a serial killer that made him interesting. And we wanted to find somebody who was inherently sympathetic and also kind of sexy. And a little bit cute. And just for the record if you want Eric Stolz to do something, Cry. Yes. That’s what I’ve found that puppy dog eyes work really, really well. And I found that could actually start to cry it actually helped. It did. We did good cop bad cop. I was bad cop, you were good cop, then we swapped and so I think overall it was a great thing that we got him even though we manipulated him to a place of no return, we basically tortured the man and threatened him. But I think it paid off immensely because he’s amazing as William Dunn, absolutely mesmerizing and there’s a moment in last weeks episode where you understand what he did. I love that moment which is so great because I love this guy, he’s so funny, he’s witty, he’s so impressive and the reactions between Meredith and Cristina, who by the way are still fighting. Cristina and Meredith, where Cristina it’s a little bit like “see”, and Meredith is stunned, Meredith is just absolutely stunned. He’s so casual and nonchalant about it and yet he’s really sexy in this really odd way. There was a lot of debate in the writer’s room about that. I mean when we talked about what he did everyone wanted it like he accidently killed a bunch of people. No. Or he you know he killed his wife and her lover. And I was like no, he should be a real bad ... we should not have a question about whether he’s a bad man who has done very bad things. I think that was important to me to have a patient in the hospital who no matter what, no matter how charming and how lovely is basically irredeemable. Absolutely and also that’s the only way that Derek’s position can be solid because Derek needs to taking the position that this man is below sympathy, he is somehow or another, he’s somebody who should not be sympathized with because of things he has done to other people. And then we learn from Derek why he feels that way which certainly establishes that, his dad was shot by two guys for his watch, which I also loved. It’s nice to reveal new stuff about our characters even after all this time, to give you snippets and details that tells you a little bit of who they are. And also tells me so much that he’s never revealed it. Yeah, the fact that he’s never revealed it means a lot and I feel that you know that he had a father who had died and you know he has five sisters and this mom but you don’t know anything else how about sort of why his dad died or what happened to him and it really interesting to reveal that kind of thing. Absolutely, and that when he dances it out with Meredith, he’s kinda dancing it out for himself too, just a little bit. And by the way, how cute was he. Here’s the thing, he was so willing to go there he danced for hours. And was really funny every the time and was really willing to look goofy and actually in real life is a very good dancer so I think it was not an easy thing to make himself look as goofy as he did but he was so game to do it was charming. He’s done like, he did that movie where he danced and stuff, right? The man has skills, he does have skills so he kind of hid his skills but come on that was really cute. Charmingly. That was hot. That was very sweet. And I also thought, what a good guy, what a good guy to do this for his girlfriend. Right? I think? I think absolutely that’s where the bond between the two of them weirdly enough right now because the relationship with Cristina is so suffering, which is how Izzie’s sort of stepping in a very unique way. That is one of my things we have done, which is that we had Izzie take over because Derek’s mom is coming and try and turn Meredith basically into Izzie. The alarming high ponytail one of our most favorite things ever and Ellen Pompeo popping around with an alarming high ponytail and pink top on was hilarious because she really did look like and she did little pop star moves on set and sort of bounced around sort of kept saying “I should have her own video” because it was hilarious. The scene dark twisty Meredith in pink and a ponytail. And there’s always something really funny about her dealing with William Dunn the serial killer with a poppy pink ponytail. Yes, which I love. I mean the contrast between that ridiculous hairdo and Dunn and his dilemma is fantastic. And I love the scene where Meredith tells him all the details about ... it’s true ... in the state of Washington you have a choice of how you are executed, you can either executed by hanging or executed by lethal injection which we were shocked to find out they still hang people but apparently they have executed 6 people in the past I’d in the last 10 or 15 years in Washington, 3 of them chose hanging. Chose hanging? Chose hanging, if you don’t choose they do lethal injection and so I thought it was just an amazing scene (we got that detail) to have Meredith talk about the difference between dying by hanging and lethal injection so clinically and so dispassionately it was just amazing. Yeah, I think that was absolutely incredible. And I think this whole introduction of this little boy, yeah, and his dilemma Jackson Prescott and this man and how in this framework they’re connected whether they like it or not. The ultimate innocence and the ultimate in corruption. Yeah, I love how horrific it was. Because Bailey you know, what I love is that for Bailey this is her real first foray into peds, in a way that we’re doing it for peds surgeons and everything, she’s lost the original guy she’s been working with, she feels so strongly about this family. To have that converge kind of in a way with that you don’t expect with Meredith’s story was lovely. We had been planning this for a long time and really loved the idea you have a child who is, where William Dunn is definitely bad you have a child who as pure as Jackson Prescott is all good. And how horrific is the idea that somebody this good could die and somebody this bad could live, albeit for a few days, and his organs could be wasted was heartbreaking. And in addition when you think about last weeks episode and the idea that Bailey in essence, when we meet Arizona who is a fabulous character, when Arizona essentially almost kind of accuses her of medical neglect in that the other option was to get the kid on the transplant list. The double weight of the fact that there’s this extra load of shoulda, coulda, woulda, for Bailey that she has to now make up, which is “I hope I was doing the best thing for this kid” and their her favorite patients. And I love Arizona, I love the arrogance of any surgeon who coming into a case and being sort of young and brash and saying things basically “Older doctors like to do this but really you should have done this” and then wheelying away on her little skates. Which is hysterical. We loved! You know those details came from actual peds surgeons. Some of them wear those little wheels on their shoes little bears on their coats and it’s not to seem cute part of it is to bond with the kids but also..... you’ll notice she has a bear on one side of her lab coat and a giraffe on the other side and it’s for doing medical exams. You tell a little kid “Look at the bear, look at the giraffe” and that’s how you do your neuro exams. It’s not about just being cutesy. Good, cause if that was a style choice I think I’d definitely question her. She is definitely cooler outside of her scrubs. And I think eventually, hopefully, we’ll see her outside of her scrubs. Exactly. If you play your cards right which is good. We should mention my favorite thing ever that we got and I feel like the biggest coup in the world was that we got Miss Tyne Daly to come in to play Derek’s mom. And literally like I’d been stomping around saying that Tyne Daly’s was Derek’ mom for years now. She did! I’ve been like “Tyne Daly’s Derek’s mom!” and Tyne Daly, you know doesn’t live in L.A. and it was hard to get her here. She was perfectly willing to do it but it was a thing to bring in Tyne Daly to do this role. And she was incredible. We were lucky too because she just finished doing a play, she got a incredibly busy schedule she’s always doing theater, she’s always working and our timing actually happened seemed to work out well . Literally she flew all night, stepped off the plane, came here came to set and did that first scene. The first scene she shot was the one with Lexie where she holds her face and says “Are you a good girl”. She literally stepped out of her car, stepped onto set, grabbed Lexie’s face and said “Are you a good girl”. I just wanted to burst into applause cause it was perfect. She’s exactly who you want to be Derek’s mom. And she’s exactly who you’ve pictured all these years. And you know that woman raised that man. Like she raises good men. (I mean look at her brother....PP plug...So its sort of nice to know that we have a big ole Daly love fest) But it was great to have her and I felt like the moments that she played with Patrick, you know that moments between the mom and Derek were, that was extraordinarily beautiful at the end. Like that sort of bond that he has with his mother tells you so much about why he’s so good with women and why he can be such an open loving guy. It was great to see. And why he’s such a good man, yeah because when you finally saw the mother and its funny after all these years you’ve sort of waited and wondered. You’ve heard about her and McSteamy talked about the fact you know it was the surrogate home and we knew that from Addison but to actually see this amazingly strong intense woman who use to be a nurse who is the salt of the earth who really raised everyone around her. And the reason I made her a military nurse was I really wanted her to have a background that was strong woman, medical background. You know, tough as nails, had to be tough as nails at your job and yet is the exact opposite of Ellis Grey. The exact emotional opposite of Ellis Grey and that was interesting to me. Like warm where Ellis was cold and yet had basically for all intents and purposes a similar background. Absolutely, I love ???? The other thing we should talk about is Cristina and Owen. Cristina and Owen go out on a date, or at least try to. It doesn’t quite go as planned. We talked about this a lot in the writers room as well. We really had some great battles about this, you know whether or not it was okay for Owen to show up for a date drunk. And I was “It’s absolutely not okay” and that what makes it interesting but then he comes and shows up drunk and he’s ... he’s holding flowers. I mean he’s wearing a beautiful suit and he’s holding flowers and you can tell he was going to make to make it. He was going to try and then Derek’s mom asked him how he’s sleeping at night and that’s what really sends him off to have a few drinks before he goes on a date. A little liquid courage that doesn’t work out at all and then there’s that amazing scene where he climbs in Cristina’s shower and tells her what his best surgery and his worst was which is heartbreaking. Absolutely heartbreaking. Like he could show up for the record, he could show up drunk on a date for me, just putting that out there. Ladies, it’s never okay to go out on a date with a drunk man. This is where a little bit like listening to ‘said the smart person and stupid person’. It’s like goofus and galus (?) To single women. And I’m saying “Boy come on, he brought flowers”. And Kevin McKidd was awesome because A: we had exactly one gorgeous Armani suit. One. Which he put on and then they turned on the shower, and I’m not kidding, he stood there for about 6 hours and doing that scene. Over and over and over again, never complained once and like then they turned around and they on Cristina’s coverage and he still stood in the shower soaking wet and did it again. Like he was incredible. He’s an amazing sport. It was just a powerful, powerful lovely scene and I love Cristina’s face when she steps in the shower with him and then you know it such a different relationship than she had with Burke. It’s very much, he’s a man who really needs to be taken care of. And he is a wounded animal. And Burke was always so healthy and whole and healed and Cristina was the one got to run scared from that, in a weird way it made it safe for her to run scared and now she can’t possibly be the one who runs. No, and the competitive angle with Burke, because there was always a little bit of as soon as she started doing all of his surgeries for him or helping him, there was always this underlying aspect of competition with Burke because they were so much the same way. Well she wanted to be Burke as opposed to you, this is very different, don’t want to be Owen but you want to love him. Oh you sure do, you sure do. Shower, nice suit, whole thing. Yeah, it’s true. It’s a shame that there’s no Owens out there just knocking on my door. There maybe some Owens out there. But there aren’t right now. That’s true. Maybe they’re in motion. Maybe they’re coming! Big ole flock of Owens. There you go, hurry up. You know the other thing from last week I’d like to talk a little bit about is the Chief. Yes! Because that’s honestly personally one of my favorite things is when the leader gives up. (Laughter) It’s one of my favorite things too. And I think certainly that something that we’ve experienced. Yeah, I think one of the wonderful things that was for me you know we work extraordinarily hard and sometimes you just want to go lay down and close your door and say “You know what, I’m not coming out, I’m just not coming out, I’m not present, I’m not here I’m done” and I could definitely relate but I also felt what he was also saying was so true to the Chief which was the thing that he’s failed is the thing that he’s worked his entire life for and he’s laying in his OR which was sad and Derek comes into talk to him and there’s that moment when he says he supposed to give me a rousing get me on the horse speech. And Derek says “I’ve got to stitch up a serial killer, I got nothing in me” and you know that these two men are.... I mean I love their bond ... but their both in so much pain which is just lovely and then Bailey shows up at the end with that little adorable break in her voice about the kid not being able to make it and the Chief realizes he’s got to get up off that table because no matter what, he’s still the Chief. And you know what, when Bailey comes in earlier and she’s complaining about Arizona and the Chief says “You know what, you’re no different than anybody, you’ve just got to go out and do it”, what I love about that is that he’s given up, he’s taken the day off but he’s still the Chief. Yep, oh yeah. But he can’t stop doing his job even when he’s not doing his job which is he kind of slaps her and says, “Get on the horse lady”. Yeah and then he ends up taking his own advice which is wonderful. Sometimes you just need a couple hours off, that’s what I think. Yeah, you do. You just need a little bit of a refresher which is sort of what he got by lying in the OR and feeling sorry for himself for a little while. Exactly. Denny and Izzie. Let’s talk about them because there are a couple of things that I thought was lovely which is I love that she spends this episode, you know last episode she said “I don’t know if I can choose between the two of you, you both make me happy” and this episode what she’s really realizing is through watching Meredith with the mom and Cristina and helping Cristina through her date with Owen is the difference between Alex and Denny which is, you know, Denny’s dead. I don’t know if you all knew that but Denny’s dead, he’s pretty darn dead. Definitely, definitely dead. And there are all these things that she’s never, never gonna be able to experience with him and for me I feel like it’s not as innocent as that, like I just want my boyfriend to be alive. I know we all wish our boyfriends be alive, it’s not that as much, to me as underneath it all for Izzie there’s something bubbling for her that stronger that just I’m dating a dead guy, this is alive guy which she know’s there is something inherently wrong with this. She know there’s something wrong with the fact that she spends the majority of her time with someone who is not alive and I love that she sort of can’t get enough of Alex and she doesn’t know what she’s gonna do about it and I love the last moment when you know she says .... Denny says “are you breaking up with me” and she says, “I think so”. I love that. And where it’s headed you will be very surprised to see in the next episode. Absolutely. Things are coming to a head. By the way, things are definitely coming to a head, it must be really troubling to be seeing a ghost for a really long period of time, seeing you ex-boyfriend, dead boyfriend. Yeah, she’s clearly been in denial about it for quite some time because she’s been enjoying herself. I would say there is a very, very great deal of denial but the weird thing is Alex and her growing feelings for Alex are pushing her into the reality which she can’t keep denying, which is really, really important. And I’m saying, you know if a super cute boy showed up in my house and he might be dead or something I might go with it cause he’s super cute. And he’s Denny. I might go with it for a while before I stopping and going what’s wrong with this picture. Okay, I think my vote would have been the drunk guy with the flowers, your vote is maybe the dead guy. Uh huh, super cute dead guy. See we both go different ways. And plus he has perfect scruff even though he’s not alive. And by the way what about that. Dead guys don’t grow scruff I’m pretty sure. If you want them to grow scruff I think they will grow scruff, I kind of think that’s the way it might work. And Alex is I’m sorry, he turning into... he baked her a cake.... to me he’s turning into probably the most amazing man in the history of America. I just want to remind everyone, always love Alex, loved Alex when he gave Izzie a cupcake.... loved Alex when he made her a cake. Just for the record. What I love about him is more than anybody else is that we’re watching him turn into this amazing man, we’ve watched this journey happen. He wasn’t just .... you know Derek is McDreamy and has fairly been dreamy ... Alex we’re watching sort of become the man we want him to be and that’s been a really interesting journey to watch and go on and it will be interesting to see how he fares in the face of Izzie and her dead guy. Love the fact that you know he basically says “you’re going through something” and then he kind of you know kind of ignores it but I don’t know how much longer he’s gonna be able to ignore it. But he she is being understanding about it isn’t he? He’s a good guy, and you know what, his last girlfriend a little bit more crazy even. Yeah. So his probably some crazy threshold relatively high. His mom had bad patches. He knows how to handle the crazy. He does and she’s at least functioning and doing pretty well and kept her sense of humor which is really, really key in those situations. Overall don’t you? Next week, ahhh next week something happens to Mark that could predict, could ever expect. No, it’s unique and it’s and medically accurate and we want to tell you ahead of time its medically accurate because I know you are gonna be watching and TV and you’re gonna say “those two said it was medically accurate, it’s impossible that this is medically accurate” but it is. We do medically accurate. People talked about the fecal transplant that we did, totally medically accurate. We read several journals on it, talked to several doctors about it. We’re shocked and appalled, it took us several years for us to write the story because we couldn’t believe it was medically accurate, totally medically accurate, happens a lot. More than you think, you might find yourself having one one day, so there. You know that , that’s just so horrible I can’t even wrap my brain around it, essentially I’m just gonna jump in here and say “don’t worry too much about the fecal transplant, don’t worry too much” just keep eating food and exercising regularly and having a good life. Just don’t abuse antibiotics. Yeah, don’t take the antibiotics unless you absolutely have to because those super viruses are big. The other thing that happens in next weeks episode which I think is important when we last left lovely William Dunn he was smashing his head against the back of his bed in the place where his head where his skull had been left open. Because Meredith very helpfully told him that was the place. Yeah I think that might have some consequences, ya think, maybe? I think something might happen about that. I think that might actually come to a head. (Laughter) It might go somewhere, somewhere very interesting. Because for us this is a 3 episode arc story which we’ve been working on with Jackson and with William and the Meredith and Cristina fight that we feel very strongly about and there’s something amazing about , first of all it was very startling to me when I saw the first episode in which Meredith and Cristina weren’t talking. I’ve harped on this too exactly. They’re such good friends and they’re so bonded and there’s something startling to have that moment when they’re walking down the hall together altogether and they’re silent and you realize oh my god, they’re still not speaking. Yep. And to watch where it goes and it gets to a point where Meredith say the little mean comment of “you know some of us have natural talent and some of us have practice” which is Cristina’s thing and really hurts her feelings to watch where we’re headed. People do things when they’re arguing they would not ever do when .... and it comes out of the pain of not having that person with you. So Meredith’s striking out, Cristina’s striking out, they’re both being fairly nasty and I think that where it goes is so lovely cause honestly the two of them are a pair. And I really find it hard to watch them apart so you’re gonna get to see what happens with that which is gonna be really interesting and expressive. The thing that comes out of it when two best friends are fighting is because you don’t have your normal resources you do go to others which means relationships start to expand as well. Well I don’t think Meredith might not form such a bond with William Dunn if Cristina and her were talking. You know the bond she forms with William Dunn in the second episode probably wouldn’t happen the way it does if Cristina and her were talking. And I’m not so sure Cristina would be so open to the relationship with Owen if she was still depending on Meredith. If she could have had Meredith to call up and “can you believe this guy got drunk got in my shower” that might have turned out very differently but because it doesn’t happen it’s really interesting. So I think there certainly more meat on that bone for the next episode. To gnaw on .... exactly. We are gonna watch cause it’s a three episode arc and we’re not kidding you about that. It’s a bunch of things which will be coming to fruition next week which are great to watch. Izzie and Denny and what happens with William Dunn and Jackson Prescott and Bailey. Bailey’s our arc over these three episodes is amazing for us, we haven’t seen her face anything like this as a doctor I don’t think ever and it’s really interesting to watch her deal with it and where she goes with it and that little boy who honestly is the cutest little thing I’ve ever seen. And Samantha Mattison is his mom and the whole ‘Make a Wish Thing’, and it heads in a beautiful direction which I really, really love. And next week I’ll tell you a story after you’ve seen the episode, I can’t tell it to you now. Next week I’ll tell you a story. Transcribed by Oncetherewasaway...thanks Terri! Edited by oncetherewasaway, Feb 25 2009, 12:35 AM.


5.12 Sympathy for the Devil · Episodic Chat