Of course Derek was going to be livid that Meredith potentially compromised his big Alzheimer’s clinical trial, which he told Meredith was “her” trial. Of course he was. He has a mortal fear that Meredith will succumb to the same disease that plagued her mother. He wants to fix everything, or at least have a remedy should Meredith have Alzheimer’s.
It makes sense that he’d be extremely angry with her.
But Derek’s inability to accept or to at least acknowledge that Meredith had a moral reason for making sure that Adele got the medicine — indicating that she’d be willing to risk her career to save someone she loves — and for him to then question what kind of a mother she’d be was thoroughly obnoxious. If she was willing to do this for Adele, what would Meredith be willing to do should her own daughter’s health be at stake?
Derek has always been the kind of character who climbs up on his high horse and looks down at people. He’s had a history of treating Meredith badly. When Meredith, clearly troubled, almost allowed herself to drown, Derek soon left her because she wouldn’t cave to his pressure to immediately commit to him, even though she pleaded with him to give her more time. This is a man who lied to her previously about the fact that he was married and then dumped her in order to try to repair his marriage. When Meredith tried to get over Derek by seeing other people, he jealously lashed out at her and called her a whore.
He’s not as nice as he thinks he is.
But then, when the couple kissed amid the candlelit outline of their dream house, showrunner Shonda Rhimes said that was that. No more having Meredith and Derek be an on-and-off couple. They were together. Period.
Then, on the day when Meredith and Derek were awarded temporary custody of Zola — something for which Derek had been leading the charge — Derek, steamed at Meredith for messing with the clinical trial, went AWOL. And Meredith took Zola home alone. And Derek had questioned whether Meredith would be a good mother, when he missed out on his daughter’s first night home because he was angry and wanted to pout? Infuriating. (You can make the argument that he didn’t know yet that they’d been given custody, but I think that’s bogus. He wouldn’t have checked in on the baby at the hospital, visited her and noticed she was gone? He wouldn’t have heard about it from others? He wouldn’t have checked his damned voicemail?)
The biggest shock of the finale, which was emotionally volatile as opposed to last season’s finale which was violently volatile, was what happened with Cristina and Owen. On the one hand, Cristina had been crystal clear with Owen that she did not want a child. On the other hand, Owen seemed to harbor the delusion that he’d be able to persuade her that parenthood was in their future. Given Cristina’s vehement opposition to getting pregnant and that she accidentally got pregnant when she was with Burke lo so many years ago, one would think that she would’ve been super-careful about taking precautions so she couldn’t get knocked up. But something went wrong and she wound up pregnant.
It’s one thing, in a hypothetical conversation, to discuss whether you should have a baby. It’s another to actually be pregnant and then have the discussion when the husband really wants the child — Owen was willing to take a leave of absence from work to care for the baby — and the woman does not. There’s no room for compromise. Either you have the baby and make the husband happy and the wife unhappy, or you don’t.
When Cristina showed up at their apartment and told Owen to remember that he loved her, I was convinced that she was going to announce that she’d had an abortion. But I was wrong. She’d only made an appointment for one, to which Owen replied by kicking her out of the house. Let this be a lesson for would-be married couples: Make sure you and your potential spouse are on the same page when it comes to having children before you get married.
The other stories — April Kepner getting the chief resident gig, Alex experiencing social and professional blowback for ratting on Meredith, Teddy realizing she has feelings for Henry — were all okay. Just okay. The whole prepping for mass casualties from a plane crash only to have one survivor was interesting, but none of it seemed to resonate with me as much as the conflict between Meredith and Derek and the fact that Derek could look at the word “crib” written on the floor of the dream house and sanctimoniously put his self-righteous mop of dark hair onto a pillow and sleep in a skeleton of a house, feeling as though he’s better than Meredith.
What did you think about the season finale?
Clacked by Meredith O'Brien 
on May 20, 2011 @ 13:02 EST5EDT
Owen ticked me off even more than Derek. With Derek, I somewhat understand, and I think he’ll come to his senses. He’s mad at Meredith, yes, and he said some horrible, horrible things to her. But I think he’s more upset that he thinks his chance to save his wife from Alzheimer’s is gone. He’s angry at himself, not just her.
With Owen…his inability to respect Christina’s desire to not have a child, and to imply that she’s simply going to “get over” not wanting to be a mother, is infuriating. She has never, ever hid her wishes, but he thinks if he’s pushy enough, she’ll just roll over and do what he wants. And then to say “Hey, have the child, and then you can have nothing to do with it. I’ll take care of it and everything!” adds insult to injury. To say she can have the kid and then never mess with it says a lot about his character and his opinion of his own wife.
I agree, this is stuff they should have known about before they got married. But they married right in the middle of her PTSD, and Owen was an idiot to ask for marriage at that time, anyway. He’s becoming more and more like Burke…pushing Christina to be the way he wants her, instead of accepting her for who she is.
I like Christina…she’s my favorite character. She’s a strong, independent woman who knows what she wants out of life. But she keeps getting in relationships with men who want her to be someone other than who she is.
Yet she still gets into those relationships. Which is the reason she’s my least favorite character :P
I agree completely.
The Owen-Chistina story was interesting. As (a single, mid 30s) someone who loves kids, sees pregnancy and childbirth as a miracle, but doesn’t want to experience it firsthand, I could understand both of them and relate to her. As Jen said, Christina was always honest with Owen and it’s not fair for him to assume that she’ll change her mind to fit what he sees as the ideal marriage situation. One of my own fears about my decision to not have children is that one day I’ll find myself in that situation, with a guy who has been told that I don’t want kids but doesn’t entire believe me and/or assumes that I’ll “come around”.
That said, I was really hoping that Christina would accept the pregnancy. When she walked into the apartment and asked Owen to declare his love for her, I was convinced that she’d changed her mind. But, there’s also the possibility that if she has the baby (who knows what will happen next season) she’ll end up resenting it. Maybe that’s what she fears?
They should have had this figured out before, but there’s a difference between hypothetical scenarios and reality. Maybe they should have considered a vasectomy or tubal ligation. It would have made a great wedding gift.
(Aside: I hate that I’m talking about fictional characters as if they’re real people, in that I’m talking in terms of nuances that haven’t been written yet.)
There was so much stubborn in this episode. Overall I liked it, even if Derek was a sanctimonious asshole.