- Meredith and Derek find that "happily ever after" isn't as easy as they hoped, Cristina finds interest in a military doctor, and the Chief is surprised to hear that Seattle Grace is no longer ranked as a top-tier teaching hospital.
- The fifth season of "Grey's Anatomy" picked up at Meredith and Derek's happy ending, where Meredith had oh-so-romantically laid out the blueprint of their dream house on a hill in candles, and Derek headed off to tell Nurse Rose that things were over between them and he was getting back with Meredith.
We opened the new season with Meredith standing on the hill as the candles slowly started to blow out, one by one, and she talked about not believing in happy endings. She said the "happily ever after" thing is a fairy tale that never comes true. The "dark and stormy night" stories are the ones that come true, she said. Next, we saw Meredith rushing into the emergency room where she was told that Derek had an accident trying to avoid hitting a bus. Bailey and Sloan were working to save his life as Meredith watched through a window. They finally gave up and Meredith saw Bailey mouth the words, "Time of death..." Meredith screamed hysterically, as expected, then woke up. Yes, it was all a dream. But why?
The doctors were huddled around a computer for word on the new rankings of teaching hospitals around the country. Some hoped Seattle Grace could bump Johns Hopkins for the top spot after a year at No. 2. Others were content with a top-five ranking. They were all thrown for a loop when the ranking came in at No. 12. The chief was upset, the doctors were dejected and Cristina talked about how she's a "double doctor" because she had a Ph.D. in biochemistry. "Double doctors should not be doing their work at second-rate hospitals."
George, meanwhile, struggled over whether to ask the chief about retaking his exam. The chief was upset about being downgraded in the rankings, but also the fact that the hospital lost its "Level 1 trauma center" status. Lexie helped George review what he knew. Oh, and she's in love with him. She said, "I totally adore you," but it was just after he'd walked out of the room.
Meredith told Cristina she kept having the Derek-dying dream and thought it was because she was afraid of the happy ending. She decided she would ask Derek to move in with her. Cristina pondered transferring hospitals. Meredith went on to Cristina about how complicated the situation with Derek was and, for some reason, mentioned how she'd slept with George, which caught Lexie off guard. Lexie asked Cristina for the details, but Cristina rebuffed her, saying not to bother her with anything that isn't medical.
Rose gave Derek the cold shoulder and Sloan told him she had "delayed rage." He said that while Derek broke up with her personally, he still had to break up with her professionally. Dr. Hahn asked the chief what she could to become a better teacher because he'd told her she was a bad teacher, but he said, "Not right now." It was snowing outside and he became angrier when she continued to ask and he explained that all the patients from ice-related accidents would go to Mercy West because it was a Level 1 trauma center and Seattle Grace no longer was. Then Callie and Hahn had an awkward moment where they walked toward each other but didn't speak, and each turned around and walked away.
The doctors were all standing outside in the cold waiting for an emergency patient to roll in, but no ambulances showed up. Just then a woman named Sarabeth, played by Bernadette Peters, haphazardly drove up to the ER with a car full of crash victims, including one really bad one -- the driver of a limo. The three women in the car were going to the "Fire & Ice" ball and their husbands were in another limo. One of the women, Betty, suddenly failed to recall what had happened and where they were.
Callie and Hahn had another awkward moment, and then Hahn explained to Bailey in some detail some medical ailment because she was trying to improve her teaching. "Well, don't try it on me," Bailey said. Later, Bailey heard that a limo with three men had been in an accident and told the three women to "insist" that they be brought to Seattle Grace. The chief praised her for stealing the patients from Mercy West.
One of the husbands had been given a tracheotomy with a pen by an Army doctor, something which Cristina found to be pretty hot. One of the women, Anna, called this man "sweetheart," but it wasn't her husband -- it was Sarabeth's husband. Anna explained the situation to Meredith, saying that she still loved her husband, but that "little pieces of you get chipped away by another person, and you shave little pieces of yourself away so that you'll fit together. Then one day you look up and you don't even know who you are." Not surprisingly, this gives Meredith something to think about.
One of the husbands was "circling the drain," but the chief insisted that they were saving him -- he had something to prove. The patient had an injury that would likely prevent him from walking again, but the Army doctor, Owen, said they could perform a procedure involving freezing him in order to give him a chance. Derek didn't appreciate him giving his patient and his wife false hope, and told Cristina to get him out of there.
Sarabeth was told that her medical insurance was going to expire at midnight and she said, helplessly, that her husband took care of those things. Cristina took Owen to get his leg stitched up, since it had been badly cut in the car accident. He began to staple it himself without anesthesia, which Cristina again found to be pretty hot. Callie then came in and asked him to tell her about the freezing thing. Rose, meanwhile, was taking each chance she had to hit Derek with zingers. First, when he decided to use a different scalpel than the one he'd asked for, she chastised him for changing his mind. Then, when he was working on two patients at once, she said, "That's what you do. You juggle people."
Meredith worried aloud to Izzie that in 40 years, she'd feel dead inside and become a big, fat, lying cheater. Izzie told Meredith that Derek's a good man, then went on to talk about how Alex had changed and become a good man as well.
The chief decided that the No. 12 ranking must have been some kind of clerical error. Hahn told the chief she'd been studying other doctors' methods, but he suggested she ask her students about how they like to learn, and wanted her to start with Cristina, since she was there. Cristina said she learned best by being asked questions rather than just being told what to do, and Hahn got defensive, asking if she was talking about her.
Sarabeth asked her husband about the insurance and told him she learned that all the credit cards had been canceled. He didn't respond and was wheeled away to surgery. Lexie confronted Sloan and said that he was "unnecessarily mean" to George, but Sloan figured out that she wanted George to be her boyfriend, and refused to change his ways. Meredith mentioned to Alex that "Izzie was right" about him having a softer side, and Alex got upset, thinking Izzie had told Meredith that he'd cried.
Derek approached Rose and told her that he couldn't have her in his OR if she continued to act the way she was acting. She played a joke on him and told him that she was carrying his child, then laughed and said he had no right to ask her to leave his OR -- she wouldn't be going anywhere.
Callie asked the chief if they should try freezing the potentially paralyzed patient. George told Lexie to stop defending him and said he knew he was the hospital joke. Meredith went on and on and on about planning her life with Derek, and Cristina told her to shut up. She told Meredith that she and Derek "will not work" and that she was making a mistake by moving in with him. Cristina yelled at Meredith to consider shutting the hell up, then hurried back inside before slipping, falling and having an icicle break off from the roof and lodge itself in her stomach. Cristina then had an odd dream that she was really old and living with Meredith. Owen came and carried her into the ER, calling her a "damsel in distress."
In surgery, Rose was handing Derek a scalpel and cut his hand because she didn't hand it over with the handle first. The chief told Derek that he and Callie were going to go ahead with the freezing, which made Derek angry. He told the chief that he was just trying to prove he was not No. 12, but with that decision, he was acting like No. 12.
Meredith asked Cristina if she was serious about what she said about Meredith and Derek. Cristina said it didn't matter what she said, but Meredith insisted that it did matter. Cristina said nothing and Meredith walked out. Alex snapped at Izzie, saying that although he had a bad night and cried like a girl, "I'm over it." Izzie said nothing and left.
Meredith told Derek she wasn't sure moving in together was a good idea, and Derek said that was fine and he was going to move very slowly. Izzie got mad at Meredith for not being able to mind her own business. Anna finally explained to Sarabeth that the insurance was lost because Sarabeth's husband had lost his job eight months earlier. Sarabeth then realized that Anna had been sleeping with her husband. Sarabeth asked Alex, "Why do men cheat?" He said that maybe he was "low" and turned away from her. "It's not right, but it doesn't mean he doesn't care about you," he said.
Callie panicked during the freezing process when the patient went into some kind of shock. Hahn managed to calm her down and get her back on track.
The chief told Derek that he'd gone soft the past couple of years and let things slide, and that was why the hospital lost its ranking. He said he might have been distracted by the fact that Meredith, Ellis Grey's daughter, was there. Meredith came in and told the chief that they'd lost their patient and he started ripping into her, telling her that she and the rest of the residents "can't do anything."
Sarabeth's husband wrote her a note asking for forgiveness, but she left. They then got news that Betty, the amnesiac friend's, husband, Vincent, died. Anna tried to talk to Sarabeth, but she wasn't having it. After being best friends for 50 years, Sarabeth was unwilling to forgive Anna. Izzie quickly forgave Meredith for teasing Alex.
Owen, who had already yanked Cristina's icicle out, talked to her about making mistakes, and the mistake she'd made earlier that killed a patient. He said that mistakes are how you learn.
Rose apologized to Derek for cutting his hand and said she was a good scrub nurse before he came along, and that she was going into pediatrics.
The chief did some background research on Owen and found out he was a pretty good doctor. He offered him a job, but Owen declined, saying he was due to finish his tour of duty in Iraq. He then planted a big kiss on Cristina.
Anna went in and saw her husband, whose freezing process worked to cure his paralysis, and she kissed him as Meredith and Derek watched.
Lexie asked George about sleeping with Meredith and she suggested that they were more than just roommates. He told her they were just friends and "right now you're probably one of my best friends."
Callie told Hahn that she's not an experimenter, but that when Hahn showed up, she was able to go through with the experiment. They realized neither of them had been with another woman before, but they were willing to give some kind of relationship a shot.
Meredith told Cristina that she needed her approval because she's her person. Cristina finally told Meredith she thought that she and Derek would work.
Izzie came home to find Alex kissing some random woman, and then she had some kind of dream of seeing Denny. Lexie and George were being playful, but still just friendly in their apartment.
The chief pulled everyone together for a meeting, saying everyone had been failing to take initiative, ask tough questions, and failing to take other chances. "We've failed," he said. He said the surgical training protocol was officially changing. "Consider yourself on notice," he said.
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