Grey’s Anatomy – Keep your eyes on the road

Good grief, did they have to go there? To that final scene that faded to white?

All that came to my mind as I watched it was how similar it was to the season four finale of Alias, when a couple was going away for the weekend and talking about getting married, then — BAM! — car crash. Of course in the case of Grey’s Anatomy, there were several differences, namely that the driver of the car crashed into something as opposed to what happened in Alias when the happy couple’s car was intentionally struck.

After an entire episode of making Arizona look like a complete jealous jerk who mocked Mark “the Callie Whisperer” and called him a “better woman” than she is because he was having fun throwing the baby shower for Callie, the writers chose to put Arizona, Callie and Callie’s baby in mortal peril with a thunderous auto accident.

Why? Just … why?

With a spy show like Alias, those characters were always getting chased and having car crashes so capping a moment of romantic bliss with automotive violence wasn’t that big of a surprise. But with Grey’s, it seems as though no season is considered complete these days without some main character being thrust into a life-or-death situation (cancer, shootings as there’ve been multiple shootings, ferry boat crashes, etc.) even though the drama of the characters’ current circumstances have provided ample theatrical material with which to deal. Obviously the car accident is simply a set up for next week’s musical episode where the pop tune, “How to Save a Life,” will play a big role. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I was disappointed that Grey’s went here.

The Callie-Arizona-Mark triangle is sufficiently novel and dramatically meaty that they didn’t need to put Callie and Arizona into a severe car crash. With Arizona feeling as though she had to compete with Mark, and Mark aggressively asserting himself into the baby shower — the scene where he insisted on a “scrapbooking station” and a design-your-own-onesie (Meredith’s onesie looked like it’d weigh down a baby’s chest with all that paint!) was adorable — I felt as though the accident was overkill.

Otherwise, the Alzheimer’s stories, which contrasted what Derek and Richard were willing to do to preserve the sanctity of their clinical trials versus what they thought was best for their current patients, was fascinating, with Derek taking the moral and ethical high ground while Richard was, uncharacteristically, driven by emotion and in-the-moment heroism.

I like how, in those moving scenes when Adele was in denial about the fact that she has Alzheimer’s and was critical of anyone who suggested she was ailing, the writers did not have Meredith mention her mother, the woman with whom Adele’s husband had a lengthy love affair, and how Ellis had Alzheimer’s too. It would’ve been so easy for them to inject that awkward, unhappy element into the dialogue, particularly when Adele was waxing poetic about how happy she and Richard finally were in their marriage. I’m glad that they resisted that temptation.

Another story that I found myself liking in spite of myself was the new Teddy-Henry development, even though I kept thinking, “He’s Denny! He’s Denny!” I like Teddy’s character and feel as though she’s woefully under-utilized as of late. As for Henry, he has the same kind of vulnerable Denny-like charm and is unafraid of making his feelings about Teddy be publicly known, even when he knows he might be rejected. However I’m not buying Teddy’s I-don’t-feel-it line. The lady doth protest too much.

Clacked by Meredith O'Brien
on Mar 25, 2011 @ 12:00 EST5EDT