From TVGuide: November 9, 2006: Where the Boys Are
Somehow I knew the guys’ camping trip was going to be a disaster. But at least it was a learning experience for everyone. George figured out that Burke’s got a shaky hand and Callie slept with Sloan (thanks to Alex’s big mouth). Alex learned that George has quite a temper. Webber discovered that bartender Joe (Steven W. Bailey) is in a loving relationship with a man named Walter (Jack Yang), which made Webber miss his wife Adele. Walter learned to never again go on a camping trip with straight guys. Burke realized that Derek has no male friends and George is rather nosy. Derek compared Sloan to “cancer — he infects everything” and yearned to start from the very beginning with Meredith. After last week’s promos, I was right there with most of you, thinking Meredith had better not sleep with Sloan. Then I thought: “Nah, she knows better,” so I’m glad I was right. Meredith’s best moment with Sloan was her three rules: “No flirting, no talking about Derek and no giving me the face.” Of course, McSteamy broke all three of the rules. However, what a great way for him to pick up the clue phone, returning to Meredith at the bar and seeing her with Derek. Excellent way to end the episode — Mer and Der introducing themselves to each other and truly starting over. We’ll see how long this lasts.
Just as we were anticipating, Bailey put Cristina on the spot, asking Cristina why she erased her name from the assignment board. Interesting how Cristina never told her why she did it, but good for Bailey for giving Cristina menial tasks like sifting through that little boy’s stool samples and retrieving the Monopoly pieces that he swallowed. It was a crappy job, but someone had to do it. “No surgeries for you!” cried Bailey. My favorite line of Cristina’s was when Meredith told her that she was helping to remove a man’s penis: “That should be me! I should be turning a penis into a vagina. That should be my penis!”
Speaking of the sexual reassignment surgery, Alexandra Billings was wonderful as Donna, the artist formerly known as Daniel. I was really psyched to see Alexandra in this role since, as a former Chicagoan, I have followed her career for more than 20 years. (I met her oh-so-long ago — one of the nicest human beings on the planet.) Alexandra is a transgendered entertainer/actress/singer who used to be known as Shante at the famed Baton Show Lounge in Chicago. She’s been in the business for decades, but this role on Grey’s is beyond huge for her. For more info on Alexandra, go here.
Also awesome was Clare Carey as Vicky, Donna’s wife, and I thought it made the story line even more compelling to have Donna get breast cancer from all the hormones. Vicky wanted her husband Daniel back when given the chance, but it was quite nice to have Vicky come back at the end because Donna was her “best friend.”
One of the biggest reasons that I could never be a doctor was what caused Addison to leave the hospital room and go into the bathroom stall and cry. I wouldn’t be able to give patients tragic news like that. How horrific for a woman to have to deliver a baby knowing that it was dead. Alexandra Holden did a fantastic job as Jamie.
I was very happy to see Kali Rocha back as Sydney, this time as Izzie’s peer counselor. Just when we thought Sydney was a complete nutcase, that final “I lost a kid” scene redeemed her big-time, and I really hope she comes back. And I don’t think Izzie will avoid her next time.
So just when George returned from the camping trip all determined to talk to Callie, boom — his Dad’s there as a heart surgery patient. Some guys never get a break.
From EW: Hooking Up
On ”Grey’s Anatomy,” while most of the men go fishing, Mark throws Meredith a few lines, but Derek returns to reel her in by Gregory Kirschling
We were all wondering how Bailey would deal with her realization late last week that it was Cristina who erased her name off the board, and this week I think we were all expecting the thunder to come down. So in that respect, it was a letdown that Bailey showed her cards right away, admitting so quickly she’d figured Cristina’s trespass out, and also that the best she could do was ban Cristina from all surgeries and send her off to dig through fecal matter. That felt low-impact. Thankfully, this plotline recouped later in two major ways: 1. We saw Cristina half-confess her crime to Meredith, and it looks like she might sell Burke down the river in the coming weeks. (What a villainess! Very promising.) 2. Late in the episode, after Cristina begged to scrub in on a surgery, Bailey gave her one more chance to admit she did the erasing, and Cristina didn’t buckle, and Bailey said, ”Right now, in this second, you chose your own fate.” Long story short: The Nazi didn’t necessarily return this week, but the evidence is there to indicate she might turn up in full force again any day now.
What follows will be a minor tangent. Notice how I made a list in the previous paragraph that consisted of a point 1 and a point 2. It’s not that hard to do. It’s not as hard as movies and TV would sometimes have us believe. One of my strangest pop-culture pet peeves is when fictional characters make a list of reasons that run 1, B, 3 or A, 2, C. What a cheap laugh. This never happens in real life, yet it happens, for instance, in National Lampoon’s Vacation, which is, aside from that tiny annoying thing, one of my favorite movies. I — to borrow some indignation from sis — never, ever thought smart, witty Grey’s would stoop so low. But at the beginning of the episode, Meredith (dear, great Meredith, who’s smarter than that!) made a list of rules that lech-y Mark must live by if they are going to work together, and she numbered it ”1, second, C.” This construction is, I grant you, a little more sophisticated than 1, B, 3 or A, 2, C, but not much. Maybe it bothers you I’m making so much of this, but pet peeves are pet peeves, people, and sometimes it helps to vent about them, okay?
Now then: Meredith and Mark. Even their names have a ring to them that’s all off. Mark made his play on Derek’s girl. They teamed together on a wacky hospital case I was never too excited about, in which a man named Daniel wanted to cut off his penis and become a woman named Donna even if the lady hormones were gonna give him cancer. At the very end of the episode, Mark took Meredith for a drink and tried encouraging her to ”start fresh.” She looked halfway convinced. Apparently every woman wants to sleep with Mark. But then he went to answer his beeper, and Derek, back from his camping trip (which he went on, he said, to get a ”fresh start” — that’s a coincidence!), walked into the bar, and tried to start over with Meredith right then and there. I’ll tell you, friends, for a minute it looked like the whole series was going to go up in a mushroom cloud. Grey’s Armageddon was nigh. Because Derek made his plea, which was a perfectly reasonable plea, and Meredith said, ”You walked away. And now it’s too late!” Whaat? We watched her let him take some time. And how is it too late? Meredith and Mark, as a couple, are nonstarters. This scene felt like it was headed somewhere completely bogus. All of a sudden you just knew that Mark was gonna walk up and Derek was gonna give him a cold stare, and then pout droopy-lidded for a second in Meredith’s direction, and then split, and thus another needless complication for these two would be dragged out over the coming weeks and months.
Hallelujah, that’s not what happened.
Instead, Derek and Meredith started to make out, and Mark walked on by. Save!
That was the fade-out. Quick, what else happened this episode? George and Karev got in a fistfight because Karev was goaded into telling George that Callie slept with Mark. George, during the closest close-ups we’ve yet seen on the show, seemed to realize that Burke’s hand is still messed up, and seems hell-bent on goading him into admitting it. At the hospital, Izzie admitted to the highly cherubic doc Sydney that she still thinks about Denny all the time and she’s not sure she has what it takes to be a surgeon because of that. And Callie and Addison commiserated over how miserable it was to sleep with Mark, and also over a dead baby.
Spoiler Junkie 