819 Support System opens in flash back, flash back to the best parts of Owen and Cristina and flash back to the night of Owen’s indiscretion. Cristina wants to know. Owen doesn’t think it will help her. I get it. I get Cristina. She’s a person who operates in logic, things have rational explanation, she needs to understand to move on. Understanding how Owen came to cheat is the only way she can deal with it. It’s almost irrelevant that it’s painful. Whatever you might think of Owen’s cheating, the writing and directing of this episode allows the story to develop well. With the combination of flashbacks and dialogue we get to understand something of what happened. Cristina has moved from silence to constant questions, to sobbing and yelling and hysterical laughter. She’s confused and hurt. It’s less clear what Owen’s going through. His explanation is lacking. Indeed he makes no proactive attempt to explain himself. It is only at the end when the hysteria has died down do we really understand what might be going on. Tit for tat. Eye for an eye. You hurt me, I hurt you. Really Shonda? Did all the writers sit around the table in the writers room and say to each other “Owen has to do something bad and then all is equal, we can keep them together, they’ve each hurt each other, end of story”. I hope not. I really do. Deal with the real issue. Love is not enough if you haven’t got the same values or hopes and dreams for the future. Don’t over-dramatise the story with these soap suds. I don’t want perfect characters on this show, we are all flawed. I only ask for believable storylines. Both actors do well within the material presented to them and in all honesty it is very well written and directed but I’m struggling with the cheating.
The overarching theme this episode was support system and this pervaded throughout explicitly.
“Excellence is not an act it’s a habit” so says Chief Sloan who steps up to the plate to stand in for Chief Hunt whilst he has the ‘flu’. It’s possible I might be the only one who absolutely loved this story arc. Yes yes, you all know I love Mark but this story was inspired. It separated itself from all the relationship drama and took us back to the OR, with the very yellow man and the general surgeons. One of my favourite parts of Season 8 has been the maturing of Mark’s character. I don’t think any character has gone through such character growth in a while.
“Sloan turned out to be a good chief” – that's Derek at the end! Mark took it seriously. His failing being his perfectionism, and there are worst failings. This episode provided three of my favourite scenes of Season 8. The first: the OR with Webber and Sloan. Go back and re-watch this scene. Mark is humbled but not humiliated by Richard. The direction is brilliant. As the scene progresses we see the camera change its angle, it starts with Sloan looking down on Webber it finishes with the reverse despite the fact that Eric Dane is a taller man than Jim Pickins jnr. This establishes a balance of power between these two men. A recognition of Webber the Sloan has potential as chief. A recognition of Sloan that Webber, in this moment, makes the right call. The visual representation is excellent. These are the moments when I really love this show.
Sloan proves to be a determined inspirational leader – yes arrogant, cocky and a perfectionist – but also capable. Chief Webber will always be chief to me. But we have to live with Hunt. Sloan offered a nice temporary respite from Chief Miserable. And what of Jackson in this story arc...
“Sloan’s the Chief and I am the chief’s bitch, lucky me”. No Jackson. Lucky us.
The Torres method has worked and Meredith is ready for her boards. It seems that Meredith went into support overload this week. Not only did she rescue Lexie from the claws of desperate and somewhat immature residents (are these people really on the verge of being attendings?), she sets up her own early morning “Grey” method training sessions and coaxes Cristina out of her bubble of self pity and into boards studying. Meredith doing what she does best, delivering in a crisis. And all on top of providing the only support to the very yellow man. My next favourite scene is day care - parents Meredith and Derek enjoying a time out with Zola - who, by the way, looks somewhat disinterested in the fact her parents are visiting. Brilliantly written dialogue. I would have loved to be in the room when they did the read through. It’s exactly how I would imagine such a conversation to go. Half sentences and soft gossipy undertones. She can’t fix this – she can’t fix Cristina and Owen. Meredith honey, I don’t know who or what can. We had a bit of everything Meredith and Derek this episode and it was probably the first episode which showed a good balance of relationship and medical. We saw them as a normal couple and we saw them rocking it at work.
And what of the other residents where are they? All of them had somewhat of a back seat this week, manically studying, panicing and frenzied patient file theft. We’re building up to the big exams and they’re all on edge. Poor Lexie. She can’t get a decent story line and she’s forced into memorising chart after chart. Whatever. I was bored by the whole of this arc. And April. April has no story. Her pregnancy has killed her character. Where the writers worked very hard to integrate the pregnancies of Ellen Pompeo and Jessica Capshaw with Sarah Drew they’ve failed to sustain her character. They couldn’t NOT sustain Meredith. Arizona had an epic story line post pregnancy. April – nothing. I’m disappointed. I like April, potential crushed.
My other favourite moment was watching Bailey’s face as Ben imagines doing dirty things with her. Oh bailey. You go girl. I’m not a massive fan of Ben, but in this scene I so am. As usual for this character Teddy is left in the cold having lacked the development of any sustained relationship outside of her and Cristina. And let’s face it Cristina is no longer in a position to help Teddy through anything. Arizona and Callie, along with Bailey, produce a ladies night that none of them are interested in - well I got the distinct impression Arizona and Callie were interested in their own personal ladies night. What a shame for Teddy. I wonder what the last 5 episodes can provide for her.
I loved this episode. The story development within the episode, the directing and the acting were brilliant. But for a poor ‘resident’ story this would be one of my season favourites. Oh well, still plenty more left.
Great quotes – and they all come from Mark!
"I plant the seed of innovation, I nurture it and voila, you rose. Am I a fantastic leader or what!”
"Rise Shepherd, rise"
“Am I a fantastic leader or what!”
Written by brouhaha aka @pipmaxine
