'Grey's Anatomy' Season 7, Episode 11

['Grey's Anatomy' - 'Disarm']

'Grey's Anatomy' has gotten good at dealing with large traumatic situations, this time borrowing from the headlines and using college shootings as a tie-in to a hospital shooting. After seven seasons, they've gotten the over-the-top plot lines to push their characters to their personal thresholds and make them stronger. This episode cleared out a lot of plot issues that have been building throughout the beginning half of the season; especially resolving Cristina's limbo.

The college shooting resulted in 26 patients, including several cases that split our main characters into pairs, but left April in the background to deal with fitting the trauma patients. It was just the right amount of April, without her presence turning the episode annoying.

We finally get closure to the "Cristina is broken" story line when she chased the ambulance. The fact that she was willing to immediately crack the supposed killer's chest right there in the ambulance was one of those bad-ass Cristina moments that made me want to forgive the fact that the situation was pretty unlikely. Cristina was on Teddy's side the whole time without any of the hesitation that she's had for weeks, and it was really fitting -- but a little too convenient -- to have the whole cast, including Stark, watch Cristina return to her glory.

Alex is finally becoming the perfect pediatrics doctor. He finally stood his ground against Dr. Stark and, with the help of Callie and Arizona, saved a 15-year-old's leg. Alex also stood out when he told Jackson that no matter what his brother did, he would want his brother saved. He would have been on Teddy's side, helping without hesitation.

It's very nice to watch Callie stand up against Arizona. Callie and Arizona have a realistic lesbian relationship and I appreciate that they have as much relationship trouble as all the other couples, but they stand out now that Derek/Meredith, Owen/Cristina, Mark/Lexie and Teddy/Denny2.0 are all somewhat happy. It's an odd turn of events: When all the other couples were struggling, they were happy.

As for the other characters, it was interesting to see Bailey deal with a "Chuck" and switch to calling him "Charlie" as a reference to Percy when he was about to die. I hope that Chuck's survival, combined with her "cure" for fistulas, will bring Bailey back to her glory days. Teddy still comes off too duty driven, spouting off about oath-taking and marriage to save a patient. I still don't like her story line. Mark did a good job being supportive of Lexie and equally concerned about teenagers and permanent scarring. Finally, Owen does a lot better off acting without Cristina; maybe it's Sandra Oh's better acting skills.

Next week is shaping up to be interesting for Bailey and her nurse love interest, and Callie and Arizona. Will their relationships succeed?

'Grey's Anatomy' airs Thursdays at 9PM ET on ABC.