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Grey's Anatomy: Time Has Come Today (season premiere)
(S03E01) Season premieres are always a little bit of a letdown, aren't they? Those cliffhangers that were oh so effective at hooking you in and keeping you wanting more all through the summer end up looking a bit silly in retrospect when things start to play out the next season. The third-season premiere of Grey's Anatomy has elements of that. When we left off last May, Denny was dead, Izzie was a mess, and Meredeth just had prom sex with Derek and needed to choose between him and Finn.Now we're back, and of course, none of those issues get resolved. But at least by the end of this episode you have a feeling that things are going to be pretty interesting over at Seattle Grace this year.
Lots of flashbacks in this episode. We see the party the interns go to at the hospital before their first day three years ago. We see Meredith on a carousel as a child witnessing her mother get dumped by Webber. We also see Derek's reaction right after he finds out that Addison was cheating on him, and the scene where Mer and Der meet at Joe's bar when neither of them knew they'd be working together. The theme? Time. Everyone needs more time, but doesn't get it.
It's the day after the Denny Debacle is over, and everyone's feeling it. It was a good move to have Izzie lying on the floor in her prom dress, refusing to get up. Right now, she can't deal with how she ruined her medical career. All she can do is think of Denny. Everyone comes to her in turn, trying to get her to get up and get out of that dress. But the only one who seems to get what she's doing is Cristina. Somehow, I forgot that she's half-Jewish, and when she comes in to tell Izzie about sitting shiva, "Eating, not sitting on anything higher than a foot, no shaving... wearing dirty clothes..." she realizes that Izzie's doing her own form of shiva.
Everyone's feeling the effects, even Bailey. She deeply regrets not intervening in Denny's care sooner, and her despair is paralleled in how she reacts when she tells the husband of a head trauma victim, who happens to be in quarrantine because they were exposed to the plague, that she didn't make it. Steve Harris plays the husband, and he does a great job of playing the emotions and helplessness involved. But seeing Miranda's regret is a revelation; it shows that the toughness is starting to break down a little, as if becoming a mother is putting tiny cracks in that hard shell of hers.
It's an episode of parallels. An abandoned newborn comes in, and none of the four girls suspected of leaving the baby want to admit to it. Addison relates to Alex that she can understand that moment of panic, when you do something that you can't take back even if it's against your better judgement. Of course, we know why she understands. And we also realize that a) she knows what happened at the prom (she found Mer's underwear) and b) Derek's on the verge of dumping her. All it took was a quarrantine with O'Malley for Derek to realize that. He made a choice last year, but it was wrong. He loves Meredith. Well, duh!
But Meredith has a choice, too. Despite everything, Finn comes by and tells Mer that Der is bad for her, and "if there's a race, if there's a ring, my hat is in." even if she's "dark and twisty." But Derek comes in -- all "McGuilty," as Cristina called it -- and tells Mer he loves her. Jeez. I really hope we settle this soon, because I reeeeeaaaaallly can't take another season of Meredith going back and forth not knowing what she wants and frowning the entire time she tries to decide. Make choice and stick with it, woman!
Finally, there's Callie, the voice of reason. "We're all 17. It's high school with scalpels," she tells Finn while Meredith is talking to Izzie. She knows all of these doctors are emotionally underdeveloped, even her; she's at George's place cooking for him and he hasn't even told her he loves her. When he comes back from the quarrantine, after a heart-to-heart with Shepard, he still can't say it. We all know why, right? She's skinny, blondish, and can't riggin' decide already which mothereffin' guy she wants to be with. I swear she drives me crazy...
*Cough* sorry, where was I? Oh, in the last storyline, Webber ends up choosing the hospital over his wife. But, as usual, Shonda Rhimes and company pack in one too many storylines, and the Webber one gets the short end of the stick. That story is interesting, what with his involvement with Meredith's mother, but it's never given enough space to breathe and be explored. But it's better than not giving Webber anything to do. And we don't see Burke until the very end, where Cristina finally breaks down over what happened to him during the Debacle (hint: he got shot a little).
Nice job overall by Sandra Oh in this episode. She'll be a focus next week, when we finally find out what that role that Diahann Carroll was going to play during her guest stint: Burke's mother! Looking forward to that showdown.
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