There are special episodes and there are ordinary episodes. Every once in a while, however, there are episodes that are especially ordinary.
As a team, the residents of Seattle Grace have moved on from previous disruptions. Alex is generally accepted as part of the group and April is finding her way as Chief Resident. Meanwhile, the Chief of Surgery sees a different face as Dr. Webber steps down and leaves the title to Dr. Hunt. A transaction I, for one, have been waiting for quite some time.
But let's start of by saying how grateful I am to have Alex back in everyone's good graces. The guy is tortured and abandoned enough and he, as he stated last week, needs Cristina and Meredith on his side. It's also extremely refreshing to see the team spirit live as vivid as it did many years ago. April and Avery are very much a part of the group, almost making us forget about a certain George and Izzie. Same goes for Hunt, who has earned his stripes in the halls of Seattle Grace. But that there are various factors in making a team is all the more clear when Dr. Bailey makes no secret of her discomfort with the change of leadership.
It's something extremely admirable about the show and its characters. Here's a woman running around with a grumpy face, acting out against a grown man who's trying very hard to come in her good graces. In any other setting that woman would be the bad guy of the story. But somehow Dr. Bailey is exactly the way we love her best. She's utterly loyal to Webber and is rightfully making Hunt work for her respect. I thoroughly enjoyed the story line between the two as it confirms that even though this show is about Meredith, Dr. Bailey could carry it very well. Gotta love that woman.
But the real strong suit of the episodes comes from one of the core relationships on the show. Meredith and Derek. I pointed out last week that I completely understand Derek's displease with Meredith right now and he confirmed what I already stated; Meredith doesn't deal with consequences very well. She has grown, she is trying, but she'll always be the girl that puts her hand on a bomb, asks a shooter to shoot her and steals a baby. I thought it was so powerful and so gripping for these characters to have this talk and point out all the things that were wrong. It was such a real and true conversation, not unlike very many real ones that are held at this precise moment between real couples. The scene took a couple of minutes and it's tough to keep your audience attention for that long but it worked. It worked tremendously. I think it is one of the most rewarding scenes on the show ever. It's unusual for any show to pay this much respect to both its characters and all their flaws and to the audience that has watched and loved them for many years. I'm in awe of Shonda Rhimes and the team that understood these characters and turned their thoughts and feelings into moving images.
It's the difference between a special episode and a normal one. For most shows, these conversations would be held in pivotal sweep episodes. But this was a run-of-the-mill kind of deal. Which makes me love and respect it even more. It's only been three hours but I am loving this season of Grey's Anatomy. If these episodes are any indication of what's to come, we'll be talking award season.
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