I’m gonna miss Cristina.
Sometimes an episode of Grey’s comes on and it’s a bit like a warm tonic on a cold blustery day. It’s light, it’s slick, it’s full of dark humour and poignant patient stories and we are richly rewarded with good writing and good directing. With such a large cast this wonderful combination gets tricky to accomplish week in week out because there are so many balls juggling in the air. This week however the Grey’s crew showed up and nailed it.
Within the light, slick, funny depths 10.15, Throwing It All Away, provided strong story development weaving the cast in and out of plot lines through good writing, smooth directing and clever editing. It was clearly a pivotal episode for a number of characters but what made this episode work so well is that it didn’t feel rushed or crammed full of story. I saw the season move forward but didn’t feel like I’d been in a washing machine to achieve it.
So after well over a year (in Grey’s terms, more in our terms) Arizona has finally found herself again. Whilst it’s a shame that the story was not more evenly spread across the season it was a relief to get some answers to questions posed by fans for many months now. Though it’s probably about time Callie caught a break. Coming to terms with the loss of a leg in such traumatic circumstances is something that few of us will ever have to do. Unlike many of the situations the doctors find themselves in on Grey’s being in a plane crash and having your leg amputated, by your spouse, is one of the more rare occurrences so audience empathy with a character will be significantly harder to achieve. It’s been very difficult to justify some of Arizona’s actions and when coupled with an enormous amount of storyline told off screen much of the empathy the writers want us to feel has had to be more through a leap of faith. Indeed the writers even served up retcon story telling because audience empathy was scarce. However something of the old Arizona appeared in 10.15 within this new Arizona that allowed the viewer to believe that finally the circle is closing. Firstly, it turns out Arizona is a doctor. Who knew? Okay, I’m being sarcastic but over the last two seasons her OR time has been much reduced on screen. Secondly, not only is she a doctor but she used her super magic power on the tiny human patients in robot fashion. Arizona’s “amputated leg” chapter drew to a close this week by showing us that she’s cool with the leg now. She’s cool with people seeing her “stump” (remember, if it walks like a duck, it is a duck), with falling over in the hospital, with being uncomfortable and chaffing. She’s not afraid to talk about it to the point of using it to her advantage with patients and families. I doubt we will ever see the stump or the prosthetic again. They will be a bit like Callie’s own physical heart surgery scars, never shown because the need to see them is no longer there.
And what of Callie and Arizona as a couple? It seems like they’ve turned a corner. Arizona’s final admission that she needs Callie and Sofia allowed us to see that the former Arizona, the one who could never appear vulnerable, opened up her deepest vulnerability. As if to solidify the finality of this mini drama, in an obvious direction change Callie moves from one personal and professional challenge to another as Derek effectively cancels her research. This signals that the fight is no longer internal between Callie and Arizona but will be external. More on that later.
10.15 provided possibly my favourite scene so far of season 10. I think I already said that earlier in the season but the beautiful moment between Cristina and Arizona probably tops anything else. We discover a lot during this quiet pause. In Grey’s Anatomy things move on pretty quickly from tragedy. Whenever possible the writers take us forward without too much dwelling – case in point, not too much mourning of dead characters be they George or Mark or Lexie.... A little maybe, but grief is not a subject the show has handled very well or in too much depth. With one or two exceptions (e.g. Cristina & Arizona and PTSD) Grey's characters don't live in the past. By normal real life standards the fact that there has been so little conversation between the crash survivors about life in the woods would be rather strange, especially given the physical reminders they have. This scene covered all I needed though. I learnt that the victims continue to live with the trauma of the woods, that they share the experience through their dreams. For Arizona we know that she still lives it but that it’s contained and seemingly manageable. For Cristina, knowing that Sandra Oh is leaving the show, we are getting crash closure also so that as the character leaves the show the audience have one more loose end tied, knowing she’s okay after the crash. This is Cristina saying goodbye to Arizona. One other thing we learnt – Arizona’s or more accurately Jessica Capshaw’s scream is legendary and should never ever be heard again on national television.
Honestly I hadn’t realized what a great pair they make on screen, Cristina is a great foil to Arizona’s peppy-ness.
I think she also said goodbye to Richard in this episode – and by the way, they stole my line from many previous reviews... "I am still, and will always be, the chief”. Cristina behaves as a peer to all other attendings and is on the board, but faced with “The Chief” she’s way down the pecking order. Nice move Webber.
10.15 was such a wonderful episode for Cristina. I’d be satisfied if she left now. (I don’t need no Burke). There was a complete-ness to the character writing with both Owen, with their comfortable “know each other so well” poignancy and with Shane, where she was teaching him to be the doctor she knows he can be. Through it all we still saw the old Cristina, sharp surgeon shooter but with her edges rounded. It seems to me that the remaining episodes will be a series of ‘goodbyes’ with various characters, probably ending with the biggies towards the season finale, Bailey, Callie, Alex, Derek and Meredith.
I’ve been hard on the interns lately. I feel the writers have taken the long way around to get the audience to like them. I’m wondering if the audience even wants to like them sometimes. This week, however, three of them took steps forward in ‘likability’; perhaps because the writers used them wisely to encourage some Attending self awareness.
Shane has toned right down. I like the passion of this character but he still has a dark edge that I don’t understand. That edge is worth pursuing. Leah – I’m sure there is an audience of hate out for her after filing a complaint against Callie. However I’m of the opinion that this was a good call on her part and needed from the writers. Although I don’t agree at all with her statement “I know what our relationship was, I’m not a child” at all – going on previous relationships she really doesn’t understand what the relationship was – using Leah to force some self –awareness into both Arizona and Callie was a smart move. I still don’t know whether there is a point to keeping this character but she has some spirit. Steph – she had every right to ram a gurney into Jackson’s groin knee and no one could argue with her speech, even though it was a little on the “poor me” side. She's improved this week but she remains a weak link, I can’t see why the writers would keep this character. And finally Jo...selfish, immature, petulant, too much throwing the toys out of her pram. I'm telling it as I see it, and you may see it differently (if you do, then I respect that). I want Alex to be happy so badly, and I felt for him during his panic attack about Jo with Meredith, but unfortunately the more I see of Jo the more I don’t understand how this pairing is supposed to work. I know there are a lot of people out there who can see it working so I welcome some insight from others into this couple. It’s seems certain that Jo is “the one” the writers want to make work. Let’s hope we can get some depth from Jo sooner rather than later.
The potential big ending, finale, cliff hanger story started this week... Derek v Callie. Now this is a court case I can get behind. It’s all very well having a court case of all our doctors against the world but there’s nothing like conflict within the family to stir up the passion and viewing figures and this one is most definitely in the family. The focus moves off of the Callie and Arizona story to the Callie and Derek story and presents the most exciting storyline potential we’ve seen for quite some time. At the beginning of the season Callie integrates her live with the Shepherds, she “rebounds” to them...will the end of the season bring a messy divorce?
Before wrapping up this review it’s worth reminding ourselves of the wonderfulness that is Sarah Drew. Probably the most under-used actor on the show Kepner was given the dark humour story this week in keeping with the theme of the episode of what we leave behind. I’m glad that we now get to regularly see Kepner in action as a doctor/surgeon rather than the brunt of most of Cristina’s jokes.
“The story of our evolution is the story of what we leave behind, what we’ve discarded.” This week we discarded one major storyline and opened up a potential new one. It worked well in helping the audience move forward. There was a lot to like in 10.15. The very best episodes are always heavy on patient stories and this week with the help of many tiny humans we saw a lot of teaching, operating and learning lessons from the patients. We saw Callie and Arizona thriving, Owen and Cristina melting towards one another and we saw Alex being wonderful with the kids.
And we saw the beginning of a big family break up.... *rubs hands together in glee*
