TV Review: Grey's Anatomy Episode 2.18

Sunday, February 19, 2006

From ABC: Someone from Derek and Addison's past arrives in Seattle and shakes things up. Meanwhile, Burke learns about Christina's secret and, after a visit with her mother, Meredith looks into more of her family's dirty laundry.

My Rating: 4 out of 4

Usually after a huge intense episode, such as the ones that Grey's Anatomy has had the last couple of weeks, you have an episode that doesn't quite live up to the episode or episodes before because admit it sometimes it is hard to top a great episode. However, this is something that Grey's Anatomy does each and every week. This episode titled Yesterday was just as good as last week's, but it had a bit of a lighter feel to it. Things weren't as intense, but they were no less emotion filled than last week's episode, or the episode before that. This week, all our major characters had something happening. We even saw the return of Ellis Grey this episode. We also had three cases that were interesting and ranging from the humorous to the heartbreaking. Let's talk about the episode shall we?

Tonight, the episode opens up on Cristina and Burke in their apartment. Yang is probably in the most carefree mood I've ever seen this character in, and she ends up dancing around the room with Burke. you know when things are going so good, the other shoe is about to fall, and that is definitely the case here. The phone rings, and Burke answers. The call is from her landlord, and he tells Burke that Cristina's apartment has flooded. The apartment that Burke didn't know she still even had. Uh oh! This definitely causes some tension between the two throughout the episode. We don't even really know how they resolve it until the end when Burke makes an impassioned speech to confront her, and yes, he even says the l word here! She informs that her apartment is no more, and he leaves the room.

The majority of this episode surrounds a visitor to Seattle Grace Hospital from Addison and Derek's past. He arrives on scene, and he immediately starts making waves by hitting on Meredith. Once Derek punches him, we learn that this is Mark, the man that Addison had the affair with back in New York, and yes he knows all about Meredith. Is this a case of the former best friend wanting to piss off Derek by hitting on his new flame? It is possible. Mark has come to Seattle for one reason and one reason only. He wants Addison back. He even tells her several times during the episode that her husband no longer loves her, and he does. He even pulls the 'I'll be at the bar across the street waiting for you' bit that didn't work at all for Meredith earlier in the season. It doesn't work here for him either because Addison doesn't show up.

However, once he is there he learns from Alex that there is a case of Lionitis in the hospital, and he is immediately interested. He is one of the plastic surgeons in NYC, and this type of case is the type that makes you known in the medical profession. he goes to the parents to ask if he can work on the teenager's face. He is already set for a neurosurgery, so performing the plastic surgery at the same time is possible. The original surgery is quite dangerous though, and once Derek learns what Mark wants to do, he is immediately against it. They go to Webber, get into it verbally, and in the end Webber sides with Mark, even if he doesn't really want to.

Derek goes to the parents to try to change their mind, but the teenager is set on wanting the surgery to correct his face. However, it is not meant to be. He dies on the operating table, and in a touching moment Mark, along with Alex and Cristina, perform the plastic surgery on his dead body. This broke my heart, and it actually made me like Mark. I could actually see what Addison saw in him that made her cheat on Derek. The writers of Grey's Anatomy are really good at making the characters human, with flaws and good points all mixed together to make a full character. This is just another instance of that.

The next case that the staff are working on is a man with a tumor caused by years of smoking. He has a one in four chance of even surviving the operation. While he waits for his surgery, he decides to make video tapes to send to the people in his life for when he dies. Meredith offers to help him, but she wishes she hadn't when she learns these tapes aren't filled with love and heart filled good-byes. Instead, they are all the things this man wished he had said over the years. It is final message to go to those that hurt or wronged him over the years. She helps him make the tapes, and then offers to send them off, but she doesn't really want to. Burke tells her if she said she would do it, she should do it. The man miraculously survives surgery, and even though he survived, he still wants Meredith to mail the tapes so he has his peace.

This leads Meredith to make a decision about her own life. Early in the episode, we see Meredith visiting her mother, and during the visit Ellis Grey lets the cat out of the bag about an affair she had in the past. She doesn't say with who, but Meredith goes to Webber to ask about her father. Once the man lives and asks her to send the tapes anyway, she decides to go and see her father. He left Meredith and her mother nearly twenty years before. She even has to look him up in the phone book. She shows up on his doorstep, and she confronts him on why he left and the affair. He doesn't give her any of the answers she was looking for, and I think my heart hurt just a bit for her.

The last case is of a woman that spontaneously orgasms at will. A bit of humor thrown in to balance the other two cases. All the interns want to see this woman in action, but it is Addison and Izzie's case. They do find the cause of the problem, and by the end of the episode, she is ready to go in for surgery. This case led to a lot of discussion about sex to be had by the interns. As we know, Alex and Izzie's relationship has gotten sexual, but Izzie wants them to just be friends because the relationship didn't work in the past. Friends with benefits possibly? I think so.

This train of discussion also leads to George stepping up and making his play for Meredith. Finally! he first tries the asking her out approach, but she totally ignores him. He goes to Izzie, and she tells him to make her see him. So that night at home, he goes into Meredith's room and he tells her the sweetest line I've heard since Jerry Maguire. Meredith doesn't say a word in response, but she gets him naked. Then the episode ends! These writers are also very good at teasing us aren't they? Thus ends, another episode of Grey's Anatomy!

This show really does keep getting better and better. I've totally fallen in love with this show, and I think it is clear it is my favorite series on air at the moment. Each and every week, we are taken in to these lives, and yes they aggravate and frustrate us, but they do so in such a way that we keep coming back for more. I received a comment earlier this week that I can't seem to find now asking why I thought this series was so good. What exactly does this series have? I don't think it has just one thing. It has what I would call the total package. It has excellent writing, good acting, great characters, and everything put together makes for one great show. This is the series that keeps going and going, and I truly hope it keeps doing so for a long time to come. You can download a preview of next week's episode here, courtesy of greys-fans.com.