Grey’s Anatomy – Where are all the grown-ups?

This was just sad. Other than the storyline with Meredith — she’d been told she could have a hard time having a baby, while she fretted about whether she had the Alzheimer’s gene — the rest of the storylines in this episode of Grey’s Anatomy left me yawning.

And cringing.

Shallow and silly. That’s what I thought of the Callie-Arizona-Mark story focusing on the fact that Arizona does not like the soulless haircut on legs, who occasionally shows flashes of humanity. The whole “I don’t like people staring at my boobs” conversation in the OR was embarrassing and made Arizona and Callie seem like immature 16-year-old girls. Having Alex later inform Arizona that, like Mark, he too stares at Arizona’s great boobs and that she should get over it, greatly annoyed me. Arizona and Callie deserve better stories than this.

Also pathetic, Jackson trying to exploit the fact that he’d overheard Teddy saying that she found him physically attractive. Teddy was, for the bulk of the episode, portrayed as a weak-kneed female who was susceptible to a few (faux) longing glances from the buff intern, making her putty in his hands. Teddy was in Iraq for God’s sake. She’s no push-over, or at least she shouldn’t be. It was a relief to see Teddy recover some of her dignity when she refused to succumb to Jackson’s overt shirtless “hey look at my pecs” trick (the opposite of Arizona’s request for men to stop looking at her boobs) and she finally called him on his nonsense.

As for the center for the juvenile refugees — otherwise known as Meredith’s house (how’s the construction of her dream house going, or is it still in candle form?), the scenes with the interns going in and out of the bathroom, showering, shaving and brushing their teeth as though they were in some kind of co-ed college dorm felt very much been there, done that. Back in seasons one and two it seemed fresh with newbie med-school grads Meredith, Cristina, Izzie and George, and occasionally Alex all running into one another in the bathroom or hiding from Meredith’s vicious dog while they ate pizza on the bathroom floor. We’re now in season seven and each of the aforementioned characters has gotten married (three got divorced, one died). At this point, the dorm-like atmosphere has gotten old. And having Mark, who’s someone’s grandfather, burst into Arizona and Callie’s bedroom was just an extension of this immaturity.

Meredith and Derek were the only grown-ups dealing with adult problems (Bailey and the Chief had no big stories this week), while the kids were arguing about putting a chore wheel on the fridge. Derek’s new lease on life seemed to have prompted him to lobby Meredith to not take the test for the Alzheimer’s gene — the disease Meredith’s mother had — even though Meredith was afraid that if she got pregnant, if her “hostile uterus” could carry a baby to term, she could pass the gene onto the child. Derek wanted them to throw caution aside and roll the dice, although it doesn’t seem like the dark and twisty Meredith is totally on board with this “whatever happens, happens” mentality.

Cristina and Owen were trying to move beyond the Animal House lifestyle and did so in this episode only by virtue of the fact that Cristina realized that Owen really loved the loft with the fire pole, so she bought it. But right now, Cristina remains in a fog, though she can recognize other people’s desires (Owen wanting the loft, her patient wanting his worms). She just hasn’t yet figured out how to live her post-shooting life, which I find to be a strong decision by the writers not to have her just magically “snap” out of it like Alex did with the elevator.

Clacked by Meredith O'Brien
on Oct 15, 2010 @ 11:00 EST5EDT