Grey’s Anatomy – Documentary crew brings new perspective

I went into this episode having been promised that there’d be a huge “twist,” as a documentary team followed around the staff at Seattle Grace, months after the hospital was the scene of a mass shooting.

The twist that was promised, well, it wasn’t what I expected — not at all — but it was still good and by the end of the episode, I was in tears.

Okay, so Arizona and Callie are moving to Africa so Arizona can make use of a coveted grant for which she applied two years ago? That was a huge freakin’ surprise as the two of them have had a rather rough go of it lately. Does this mean they’re going to be absent from Grey’s Anatomy for a while? Or will the next episode jump ahead in time to after the conclusion of Arizona’s project? I was pleased to see that the writers didn’t put wildly immature and inane lines into these characters’ mouths and have them talk about boobs while they were operating on a patient or discussing who’s a better lesbian like they have in the past two episodes.

That major plot development aside, I really appreciated the different perspective that the documentary lens provided. The lens picked up the moments when the Chief was putting on a brave (albeit phony) face, when Cristina quietly withdrew and curled up in a ball onto an empty bed and when Mark spoke bluntly about how it felt to learn that his best friend had been shot. These scenes revealed truths that didn’t feel forced.

Take Avery, for example, who recently had a ridiculously silly shirtless “flirtation” with Teddy, where he was trying to exploit her physical attraction to him for surgical privileges. He was afforded a genuinely authentic moment. We finally saw that, while he’s been acting as though he’s fine and emotionally healed, he’s really not. Just beneath the surface, he’s in pain and misses his friends who were gunned down. His panicked CPR on the patient when he was trapped between two sets of doors during the security lock-down — prompted by Lexi bolting through the security checkpoint when her malfunctioning security card wasn’t accepted for the 47th time — plus his interview afterward, were quietly moving. His response to operating while at gunpoint, wasn’t to drive 100+ miles per hour down the highway and get arrested over and over again. Nor was it to hastily marry anyone. It was to bury his feelings which eventually manifested themselves when he was trapped with a crashing patient.

Then there was the tear-inducing story with Mary, the woman who was supposed to get her colostomy bag removed by Bailey before the shooter went on his rampage. Months later she was back and ready to have Bailey remove the bag so she could get on with her life. Loved that her surgery went smoothly and that Bailey was utterly gleeful, wanted to celebrate the completion of the “textbook” minor procedure. Then the killer moment: The reveal that Mary had slipped into a coma, that her organs were failing and that her husband had to remove her from life support, all of which devastated Bailey. Again, none of it was showy. It was matter-of-fact. Having this captured by a documentary crew made it feel believable and not manipulative. (I hate it when Grey’s manipulates me, as in the season finale where George and Izzie crashed simultaneously.)

The other patients — the man who was getting the double-arm transplant, the widow of the man who’d had her name tattooed on his arm, the girl with the single mom whom Alex took under his wing (and sang Bieber songs to her) — all collectively provided strong moments to this episode. Surprisingly, the other main characters who’ve been the focus of the show recently (Meredith, Derek, Cristina) weren’t allotted a ton of time. But that bit about Cristina saying she did nothing special in saving Derek, as Meredith (in heavy makeup) interrupted her to say she was indeed a hero … that was another tissue moment.

The big cliffhanger: Cristina saying, “Being a hero has its price.” Hmm … can you say “cryptic?”

Clacked by Meredith O'Brien
on Oct 29, 2010 @ 11:00 EST5EDT