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Viewing Single Post From: 5.07 - Rise Up
oncetherewasaway	Sep 20 2008, 01:02 PM
McEditor Posts: 1,625 Group: .Grey Girls. Member #23 Joined: October 25, 2006	PODCAST Grey's Anatomy Official Podcast: 11/17/08 Published: 11/16/2008 Duration: 27:22 Shonda & Betsy chat about These Ties That Bind as we get ready to plunge into The Midnight Hour (11/20/08 @ 9pm) The interns start a fight club. Death and Die reunite. And Denny is back, kind of. All that and more on the special double sized edition of the official Grey’s Anatomy podcast. Hello everyone and welcome back. We may have been gone for a week but that’s okay because executive producers Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers are here with us to gush about the last two episodes, Rise Up and These Ties That Bind which means a whole lotta talk about a whole lotta things, including Denny, Denny and more Denny. They’ll also hint out what happens in our next episode, In the Midnight Hour, which airs this coming Thursday November 20th at 9 p.m. on ABC and is available the next day at abc.com. Here now are Shonda and Betsy. Hi, hello, it’s Betsy and Shonda and this is Grey’s Anatomy. Grey’s Anatomy. Wow it’s been a little while, it’s been a little while. We haven’t actually done this for a for a couple weeks, have we? We’ve been kinda busy. We’ve been kinda busy, making shows, running around making shows. Occasionally eating lunch. And voting. By the way we voted! We voted! And look what happened! Look what happened! There’s some voting, there’s some change. And democracy occurred in a great ways and places and which is really pretty incredible and there was a better turnout ever than in history of like since Lincoln or something crazy. Which I like to take credit for. So if anybody has stories about meeting cute guys at the polls. Did you meet any cute guys at the polls Shonda? I did, but then after having a long conversation then a woman showed up and it turn out to be his wife. It was awkward. And by the way if there are recounts or revotes in any of your states don’t forget to vote. Vote more. Vote often. As much as you can. So we were busy voting. And you were busy writing like a maniac, so we didn’t have a chance to talk to you about Rise Up, which I think was just a phenomenal episode. Yeah, this is the episode where Erica Hahn faced with her patient who lost a heart to Denny Duquette ends up walking away from the hospital. It’s this horrible moment that you sorta realize with Izzie when the patient shows up, I remember when I first read the script I dawned on me on the same pace it dawned on Izzie who this guy was. This sort of horrible haunting moment of actually facing this horrible thing from the past and also the first time you really, really understand the investment that Hahn had in this guy because she was actually willing to take down the whole hospital in order to defend her patient. The episode called Rise Up for a reason. I love that all these old issues rise up metaphorically and literally Denny is walking down the hallway. And its great to sort of have those moments there and then have it come alive. See Denny again is just pretty great but also slightly creepy. Slightly creepy. What’s he wearing? What’s he wearing? You know, if you watch the show carefully when Denny died he was wearing a hospital gown. When he came back to talk to Meredith in season 3 he was wearing black sweat pants and t-shirt and I think like flipflops or something which he found uncomfortable. I believe that’s correct. And so when he came back this time, he said “Can I change my clothes”? At first I said no. And then he made kind of a charmingly compelling argument for why he should be able to change his clothes. Because he’s the one that pointed out to me he died in a hospital gown it’s not like he’s walking around in the clothes he died in, he obviously changed his clothes after Meredith drowned herself, like where’d he get those clothes. He’s like, “Come on, a guy can change his clothes every once in a while.” And it was very sweet and very compelling and he hugged me when he asked and so I let him change his clothes. On a side note I can add to this is, he wouldn’t even have to ask, he just has to stand there and make Denny eyes at you and the bottom line is you would have put him in a divers suit if he asks for it is my guess. I tried to find a way to get him in a tuxedo because I always thought oh my god!. I really want to see Denny in formal wear. That was your marriage fantasy. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a person, a human being, lovely person not necessarily Denny, not Denny, shares many lovely characteristics, which is he is kind and funny and charming and great to be around and loves his dog. With is a good thing by the way. And I want to clear that I am not in any way stalking him, as you guys can report to the judge later. So this is on record that there is nothing untoward going on. Absolutely not. Well I had to ask that because that was indeed something we talked about. Stalking? Yes, we always talk about stalking. Or formal wear or his clothes? Stalking people in formalwear. His clothes were a big deal. It was very interesting trying to figure out what he would be wearing and we tried to come up with something that felt like it reminded you of his clothes because we’ve only seen him in clothes, actual clothes a couple of times, it reminded you of his clothes but it wasn’t his clothes but he also looked good in it. But it also felt a little bit magically which is, you know cashmere always works, if your trying to feel magical at home apparently. By the way think of that for gift giving. If you ever want to actually elevate somebody’s magic, buy cashmere. And he looks yummy but also to some degree it’s the way Izzie’s imagining him or seeing him. Whatever you believe. And you can believe either one. Because she is clearly seeing him and it doesn’t seem like anybody else is seeing him. I always like to talk about this and for the record from now on I’m gonna talk about this from Izzie’s perspective because it just makes it easier to stop, for me to not sit and wonder what he is, as much the fact that Izzie see him makes him real, nobody else sees him which is the problem, that’s an issue. But she see him and so for her those are the clothes that she sees him in, the clothes she imagined him wearing. You do sort of say, “Can he leave the hospital?”, he seems to be hanging around with the operations. You start to feel like you’re not sure. And the progression of the first episode is that he’s just appearing and he’s around and he’s not speaking and it’s very scary, I mean not scary but “What’s going on?” and maybe she just having visions of him or having flashes of him in her head and at the end of the episode he speaks, which we love. And then the next episode after that, These Ties That Bind, he’s speaking and he’s with her and he’s hanging out and she’s really trying to ignore him and try and find a way for him to go away but we never see him outside the hospital until the very end when he’s in her bedroom, which is another step forward. After she burns the sweater. Which is also to crossover to both episodes is I love the entire story with the Indian and the heart because I find it incredibly moving that this guy at a particular moment totally sees and realizes she got a ghost and the ghost is in the room and she’s desperately trying to figure out and answer for what the hell is going on and that time this guy comes with the entire heart and he has the heart taken out and the heart is beating, which there is no medical explanation but there is a medical explanation for, is such a great combination of events. And the progression of Denny basically starting with just seeing, talking, touching you can only hope what else happens I think. The other things that was interesting to me about Rise Up was Lexie and her gathering of corpses, what I loved about it is was great and funny and all of our characters have that great lunchroom scene where they’re working on those corpses and they’re eating salad and they’re talking about stuff and they’re treating the corpses like nothing. And you feel like there nothing, like as an audience member you’re sort of like, “It’s funny, they’re eating salad over the corpses”. Until see poor Ed and Rosie the older couple where the husband won’t stop pumping the heart and she dies and then Bailey finds those corpses just lying about with food dishes on top them and says “ Each one of these people was somebody’s somebody”. And I love that moment that you come to realize the things that you take for granted and I wanted it to be that way for us. I mean at home we don’t normally take corpses for granted, I certainly don’t and I don’t think you do. But if you were a surgeon you would and I thought it was very interesting to take something and make it feel light and funny and really humanize it in that way was lovely. And well then turn around and like the interns we have paid any attention to them and I felt as bad when Bailey yelled at me as when she yelled at the interns because I wasn’t paying attention to the corpses. The whole storyline of Ed and Rosie I find that so incredibly moving and I think for Derek and for Bailey it has different kinds of resonance. For Derek to actually see a couple that has endured this long that loves each other like this. It’s so much about, it’s a marathon not a sprint. It‘s so much about his future and the way he wants to feel. And the tolerance involved of you know Meredith on the phone in the middle of the night with Cristina reading the Harry Potter books, that are her mother’s journals. But I love that because its feels sweet and I love his fix, which is so boy. To go to Mark Sloan. If I could just get her involved with someone else, perhaps I could have my girlfriend all to myself. Just for the record, the worst possible pairing, kind of in the history of television to me, is Cristina and Mark Sloan. Which made it so funny. Which is so great. And she has no idea what he is doing. She is kryptonite to all of his powers. He is not even good at flirting with her really. Cause she’s just not giving him to go on or anything to work from, she’s like a wall for him. And I love the moment that she realizes that he flirting on her and its sort of ridiculous. Also just for the record Ed and Rosie, Rosie is played by Bonnie Barlett, that’s a little bit of a nod to St. Elsewhere, which is a show that I think is phenomenal and we all love over here. She was of course was William Daniels wife and is in real life and did a phenomenal job as did George Cough who has done a bunch of stuff including Private Practice and is a phenomenal actor and I just think it he is a wonderful actor. We’re really, really lucky here sometimes cause we get this quality of performer and every once in a while we get these people we just gigantically admire who we get to work with. This was a couple that we were totally psyched to have here too. Kinda of a nice shout out to them as well. What about the dummy?.... that we actually broke. Let me just say for the record, that dummy, Stan was played by and actual medical simulation dummy called iStan a wildly expensive piece of machinery that did all the things that iStan did and probably did them better and probably would have continued to do them better for some medical school or some medivac training program or some trauma program. But Stan wasn’t really ready for television, he was an awesome piece of equipment but I don’t think he was meant to be used in sort of the brutalizing way that he was used. Which is to redo that procedure 58 times! I think we also drowned him in fake blood because basically Stan bled more than any human being would actually bleed, so we kept adding blood. I’m not assigning any blame should the iStan people be listening to us, maybe we didn’t have anything to do with him drowning in blood. Maybe actually there nothing wrong with him, just perception. And if you guys feel like you might want to buy an iStan I highly recommend it, he’s kind of awesome. There great to have around the house and by the way if you’re alone. I endorse him, I totally totally do. Sit across iStan at dinner. But we totally killed that doll. We did. We killed him. But I thought the story line was hilarious and we had a lot of fun with the idea that Richard was the man behind the curtain. The powerful Oz. Yeah, and we worked on that voice which is actually four voices melded together to make the voice of iStan forever. And I love Owen’s whole figuring it out that it’s Richard, the whole conversation in front of George. And poor George who just quietly throughout the entire episode is just carving away at iStan to make sure that he can actually fix something. And he’s very funny. I have two favorite moments in the episode. One of them is Owen and Cristina, when Owen basically yells at her “did you even bother to find out the patients name” and Cristina closes the door and tells him how her father died. Yep. Cause he says you know “is that all you care about is winning contests?” And she tells him how her father died and she says that’s why she’s good at her job, that’s why she wants to be a heart surgeon and that’s why she wins all the contests. And it’s such a beautiful moment and then she leaves the room and Owen calls her a single malt scotch, which I loved and it’s one of the reason why I love Owen deeply in a deeply stalkery way. I am stalking Owen. Not stalking Denny, I am stalking Owen. So the to do list of stalkeringg I was gonna have to switch out, cause if you’re already stalking him I gotta find somebody else to stalk. God I hate this part. So the other favorite moment of the episode is where Erica and Callie in the end of the episode. When Erica says to her “You can’t kind of help people, you can’t kinda be a lesbian” which is a thing which has been bubbling under the surface ever since she in the last episode when she told her story about leaves and “I’m gay, I’m gay, I’m so, so gay” which I thought was one of the most beautiful I’ve seen Erica Hahn do. And so when we got to this point when she says “You can’t kind of be a lesbian” and Callie says “Yes I can” you understand the fundamental problem is between them. And it’s incredibly painful and I just think for Erica Hahn everything is in black and white and I think the point that you come to at the end of this episode is this is a world of grey .... no pun intended. But I also think in just a fundamental way she went through this enormous change, she figured out something and a lightbulb came on and I think its got to be really terrifying and upsetting that you take this journey and you turn to the person who you took this journey with and they’re basically saying “ I don’t know” “I didn’t take this journey, I’m still back there, you’re all alone” which is really frustrating. And when you finally have that kind of clarity it’s incredibly angering too. Yeah, I really felt bad for Erica in that moment cause it was really heartbreaking for me. I feel incredibly sympathetic towards her with the heart patient and I understand the entire issue and how deeply she felt about it. I think her heart was broken on a number of levels. I mean her faith in the hospital based on Richard. She couldn’t walk through those doors again because every single thing she believed to be true wasn’t. And because I think she has a particular clarity of vision, she know what she thinks about things and she’s surrounded by people who don’t. Who were constantly debating, when she clearly knows right from wrong. And in her head what those rules are. It’s an incredibly sad moment and also in a weird way liberating for her because she actually took a stand as to what she believed and in this world of waffling, when you think of this woman who started the season by being accused of she’s being a terrible teacher, trying to figure out a way to teach, being incredibly frustrated every turn of the way, it just feels as though Seattle Grace would be a very, very difficult place for her to be. And also they’re number 12, and she thinking there’s someplace better. And I love how it comes around in the end in next episode in These Ties That Bind for Callie who sort of goes through saying “I’m fine” and gets that moment where she’s been holding it all in and holding it all in and holding it all in and then the guy whose bones she’s been building dies and she just loses it. And the two people that stayed behind are Cristina and Sloan there’s something incredibly moving. And one of my favorite moments is when Cristina says “Why don’t you guys leave we’ve got it from here” and then Sloan says it and then Owen screams “Get out!” to everybody for which some reason, it’s amazing because the penny finally drops and you also see how much Callie did care. You really feel how much Callie cared and how this sort of unresolved quality for Callie I think is she thought she could kind of resolve all the problems by building a mans legs. She could throw herself into her work and everything would be fine, she wouldn’t have to think about it. There’s faith in fixing things and there’s just some things that couldn’t be fixed and that’s tragedy of the relationship for her. How about Death and Die? Death and Die. We named Sadie, we came up with the character, we named Sadie, we talked about in the room, we had millions of discussions about Sadie and it wasn’t until three days later I sat up in the middle of the night and I was like “Their names are Death and Die!” and felt really good about it. Because you have this relationship with somebody which you are a totally different person at a certain point in your life. Totally. And you have these different nicknames, and everybody calls Mer, Mer, like that’s her name. I love that Cristina says “Her name’s not Death! it’s Mer” which is ridiculous. But it’s that thing that you have this whole relationship where you are this whole tequila drinking, bar hopping kind of girl which what Meredith was in those days. Yep. And that’s how Sadie knows her and Sadie knows her as they were Death and Die. See and what I love is that Meredith is a serial best friender. I don’t think Cristina was, so the thing is when Cristina see Sadie show up, it’s a phenomenal affront to Cristina because meets her life and Meredith survives. Which means you go to places, you bond, it doesn’t make the bond any less deep, its just Meredith is a survivalist. That is what she’s always been. And I think on a very basic level it’s just crushing for Cristina. I also I’ve got to say I love this whole whacko thing which is going on with A. how crazy Lexie is, cause Lexie last week stole a bunch of cadavers. And we established last season she steals things. She’s a kleptomaniac, but also the weird thing is she is a wild card, she’s a loose cannon. You think she’s one thing and she’s another. She’s off the rails sometimes, she way more hard core. This whole idea that these interns are in a room cutting each other and practicing stitches which by the way is based on fact. It’s based on stories we were told by some doctors who shall remain nameless. But apparently this is something that in desperation some people do. But what I love about this season is that it’s all about a number 12 teaching hospital because nobody’s teaching. So here we get to episode 7 and 8 and what becomes clear, is that even though Richard is under the impression they’re building up the teaching hospital and this whole idea of the teaching hospital by bringing in .... Everybody is busy being out for themselves that the interns are left to teach themselves. They bring in Dr. Dixon whose a whole other issue. That was actually amazing because when we came up with the character I kept saying wouldn’t it be great if Mary McDonnell could play this character. And I kept saying it’s a heart surgeon with Asperger’s and it will be really interesting because what I loved about the idea was there are many parts of Asperger’s that suggest there is a lot of impairment social interaction but part of that impairment social interaction that makes it possible that you can spend time reading people’s emotional queues also makes it possible for you to focus incredibly well on details and facts and things and such things as rules. Which you can see that kind of person would be a flawless surgeon, maybe not so good with patients or other doctors but a flawless surgeon because part of you learns better because you’re not bothered by all the emotional queues going on in your life that make all the rest of us spend time wondering how people feel about us. Or have we been nice enough or should we be sharing our scalpel with somebody else. It’s the elimination of strategy too, because there’s no strategizing, so she simply about the objective.... following the objective and reaching the objective. And which there’s that whole beautiful speech about hearts, and then you look at her because she’s all in red which I have always noticed that just popped. She’s in this amazing red coat and intense red hat because she loves the color and she loves the ventricles and she love the fact there’s all these explanations. And McDonnell came to the role with a phenomenal level of... I mean she had done all this research and she so wanted to play the character in a true way. And she wanted to make sure she honored the Asperger’s community and she really felt strongly about it. We had lots of discussion about what this character was and what the mannerisms were and one of the things that ended up happening was we were trying to figure out the character and she had this red coat and I said she should have a little red hat, kinda like a little girl, wearing a lot of the same clothes.... she has her comfort levels. And so she has her coat and red hat that are adorably sweet but are a little bit strange on a grown woman. When she first make the entrance, the impact because nobody know her and everyone is excited to meet her and this woman walks in looking like Little Red Riding Hood. It’s hysterical but she felt it was oddly comforting to her because it’s sort of like her armor, how come when she operates you’ll notice that her entire head is covered in a thing whereas everyone else just wears their surgical cap, her entire head is covered in like this tent like thing. Which is more isolating and makes her feel safe. So it was really interesting talking to her and figuring out those ideas and how that character was going to work. And I love the moment when she just shames Bailey, cause you rarely see Bailey get shamed like that. It was sort of phenomenal to watch Bailey’s face as Dr. Dixon exits the elevator and says “I don’t think I like this hospital at all”. Intern Fight Club. Intern Fight Club, they got some issues don’t you think. I would say maybe a little bit. I’m a little worried about the injection of Sadie into that bloody world.... I don’t think Sadie’s helping, I’m going to be blunt. I think Die not helping at all. I would say the Die is a little bit of a loose cannon. I’m actually thinking the mixture of Die and Lexie is really potent and horrifying. Exactly. Cause it looks to me like Die will do anything and is fearful of nothing which is both intoxicating to watch and really troubling because this hospital is already on the brink of disaster and yet you entered in this character who clearly has seemingly has no fear of authority, offending people or danger or pain. The moment in which she actually cuts herself and every single guy in the room raises his hand. It was great. And Lexie actually looks pissed. Because Ryan, the actor who plays Ryan ad libs a line that we thought was so great we kept it in the show, which was “Right here!” Also one of my most favorite things about the episode at the very, very end Meredith agrees to tell Derek the story, one of the stories of Death and Die, but they don’t tell us. Which we love, which is great. We talked a lot about it in the writer’s room, what should the story be, what should the story be and I told this story in the writer’s room about what it was and we decided we were never gonna tell the audience. Because it made it juicer to not know and whatever you put in you head what you imagined would probably be more interesting than whatever we said. Probably, but you do have something in your head. Yeah, one day maybe we’ll tell you, yeah, you never know. That’s happened before. There are things that you actually have in the back of you head that you say you’ll never ever tell and you might end up telling. Yeah like, with Meredith and her mom. I save things, when I need them. You may be surprised in ways that you have no idea. It’s always a crapshoot. And my other favorite moment is the kiss between Cristina and Owen in the alley outside the bar. Oh dude. My god. Come on, I mean there’s nothing you can say about that, that’s just ridiculous. What I love about it, it starts out feeling a little bit violent and little bit dangerous in a way that’s maybe not so good. (To Shonda..... this from a woman who’s actually a stalker, is actually pretty good.) In a way that make you a little bit worried about Cristina’s safety. And she’s a tiny little thing and you realize in that alley, he’s a big guy. And she’s a tiny little thing and she’s formidable but not with him somehow. He’s.... he’s Heathcliff, standing on moors and he’s fabulous. That moment to me is like this person who is totally in charge, this woman who is totally directed and focused and totally having to give up control. If anybody else had done that to her, she not only would not have kissed them back she would have kicked the crap out of them when it was over. There’s something about Owen that needs some taking care of. Yup. That she sees in a way that nobody else sees. Owen is like this hurt little bird that needs some taking care of and in a weird way by the time he comes away from that kiss he’s so much weaker than she is and she’s has all the power and so she just walks away. Which I love. We can analyze this to death but come on it’s just hot, yeah it’s just hot. The next episode is called In the Midnight Hour. I love this episode, this is what I’m gonna say about this episode. This episode is so incredibly good and so incredibly haunting that there’s a lot more there than meets the eye and everybody’s gonna get pushed. That’s a really good way of putting it. There’s a lot happens in this episode, a lot more happens than you ever expect. I think this is one of those crucial episodes to watch in real time. You don’t want to actually be behind in this episode. You want to sit and watch it on the television you have in front of you because .... it’s really good. So that’s pretty much it for us. Shonda’s gonna go off to her secret stalking position and I going to go try and find something else to do. This is Shonda, this is Betsy. This is Grey’s Anatomy Edited by oncetherewasaway, Nov 22 2008, 12:54 AM.


5.07 - Rise Up · Episodic Chat