Grey's Recap 11/20: In the Midnight Hour

We zoom around sexy shots of Seattle all lit up. Meredith tells us "when you are little, night time is scary because there are monsters hiding under the bed. When you get older, the monsters...are different."

Shots of Christina and Mere frantically working on a patient as Mere continues "frustration, self doubt"

We see Callie lying on the floor with a bloody face "lonliness" Lexie sits on the floor and looks scared "regret"

More shots of the city at night. "and though you may be older and wiser, you still find yourself scared of the dark"

It was a dark and stormy night...

Izzy and ZombieDenny meet up in her bedroom. She still doesn't know what he's there for, but he says it's to have The Sex that they never had before. Shirts fly off.

Ambulance Bay: Dr. Hunt is waiting on an ambulance and has an awkward exchange with Christina. He clearly wants very much to say something profound, presumably about his feelings for her, but he can't speak. She impatiently gives him a chance to speak but then walks off to change into doctor garb.

Grey House: Mere sits on the bathroom floor reading her mother's journals. Die comes in to pee. Mere says she thinks she would have liked her mom if she hadn't been her daughter b/c she was funny and intense like Christina. Die wonders if she should hook up with Lexie as her intern BFF. Mere stammers that this is a bad idea b/c Lexie was raised right with hugs and kitten posters, so they wouldn't be a good match. Mere gets a page from Christina about an appendectomy. As she and Die pass Izzy's room, they hear her moaning passionately. Alex walks out of his room at this point b/c he was also paged, and Meredith finds this startling b/c she'd assumed Izzy was with Alex. She nervously calls out to Derek, worried that her boyfriend has decided to sleep with Izzy, but he sleepily pops out of their room. Alex thinks it's hot that Izzy is loudly pleasuring herself and knocks on Izzy's door. Izzy explains she's not feeling well and won't be going to the hspital. I dont know how I feel about zombie sex. I also don't know how I feel about Grey's ripping of a GH storyline of all things. Why not steal from a non sucky show?

Seattle Grace: Bailey meets her residents and realizes they've all been paged about the appendectomy. Solo Surgery is coming up, and they all know that it's usually an appendectomy (which they seem to be calling an appy for short, and which is much easier to type) Christina and Mere show off that they already know stuff about the patient, so they get to do the appy. Dr. Hunt wheels in a Father who fell out of a window and is a big ol' bloody mess. George is on call, so he gets to go with Dr. Hunt. Bailey sends Alex to help with a woman experiencing abdominal pain. Alex says he's here to help any patient with pains, and then he winks at Bailey. She chuckles this crazy growling chuckle at the group of suck ups she's created.

Intern Skills Lab: The interns have given the Floppy Haired Intern an epidural. Why are all of these well educated people completely out of their ever loving minds? Die shows up and is sad she missed the fun. She says that Death is wrong about Lexie. This sets off Lexie's competitive streak, and she suggests that they take out Floppy's appendix. They'll just do it while he's still numb from the epidural, so they won't need anesthesia. Floppy is against it, so the very, very insane Die offers to be the patient. This is obviously going to go well.

Dr. Hunt's Patient: Mark and Callie walk and talk about the patient. Adult male, sleep walking and walked through a 2nd story plate glass window. Ow! Mark comments it would be difficult to wake up all bruised and bleeding and confused. Callie says it sounds like her life "married, betrayed, gay, abandoned", and then she woke up with no idea how she got there. Callie makes the terrible mistake of saying she's clearly hit bottom b/c what could get worse. Aw, poor Callie, I think she's probably about to find out how worse it can be. Sleepwalker has a cute little daughter. He wakes up and is still in the midst of his night terrors, I guess, b/c he flails all around demanding to see his daughter. She tries to call out to him that she's here and okay, but he's too frantic to focus. In the melee, he knocks Callie to the floor where she lands with a bloodied face. Never say things can't get worse on a medical drama, Callie.

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OR Scheduling Board: Lexie, Die and Cute Black Intern discuss that they could do their incredibly ill-advised appendectomy in the day surgery center and avoid being discovered. Mere sees them and asks what they are up to. I just realized that Lexie reminds me a bit of Nadine from General Hospital in that she rambles on and on in a cutesy and aggravating way. Mere just thinks she's weird and goes to her appy surgery.

Alex's Case: How delightful, it's Leslie Grossman (aka Mary Cherry from Popular) and and Joshua Malina (aka Will Bailey from the West Wing). They are a couple, and she has stomach pains. Joshua mocks her and says she thinks she has stomach canceer b/c the internet told her, but she insists she's not a hypochondriac. Alex examines her and says it's probably not her appendix, but he needs a stool sample. She is horrified.

Callie cries out in pain as Mark treats her broken nose. She laments that she had a good nose and that now everything hurts b/c of her crappy year. Mark decides to fix the nose with her knocked out so that when she wakes up, she'll be fixed. She asks if he's still her friend who will have sex with her when she wants it. He sweetly yes yes "I mean, as soon as your face heals" she says she hates him, but he just laughs and says she loves him.

Sleep Walker Patient: Flailing patient is is now calm and Dr. Hunt and McDreamy tend to him while his cute daughter watches. His wife died a few years ago, and that's when the night terrors started. His doctor prescribed clonazepam and that stopped the terrors. He assumes he forgot to take his meds tonight and thus had the terrors again. He apologizes for stressing his daughter. She is clearly having to be the mom in this family and says it's fine.

Supply Closet: Mark catches Lexie gathering supplies for her ill advised intern surgery, but Derek catches them both and Mark has to assure him that he's not hitting on Lexie.

Competent Appendectomy OR: Bailey, Mere and Cristina begin the appendectomy. Mere and Christina ask a lot of questions. Baily has such a masterful knowledge of this simple procedure, it's become something she can do without really thinking about it. I wonder if that will come in handy later?

Horribly Ill Conceived Surgery Plot: Die has gotten her epidural. Lexie proves how ill conceived this is by literally reading from a book about how to do this procedure. Lexie draws on Die's tummy where the incision will be. Everyone leans forward, holding their breath in anticipation, but then Lexie stops at the last second, eliciting groans from everyone. Lexie has found the molecule of sanity left in her silly brain and gives a good speech that they should just demand better educations from their residents. But then Die proves that she's clearly insane and grabs the scalpel and CUTS INTO HER OWN DAMN ABDOMEN and purrs "or you can take out my appendix." Wow, that was totally crazy. If Die survives this, I see a psych consult in her future!

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Horribly Ill-Conceived Surgery: The interns all gasp happily when Die's appendix is totally there in her abdomen, just like they've read about! But then Lexie wonders if the appendix doesn't look inflamed. The others agree. Nervous Short Intern says that this means this is not a routine procedure if it's inflamed. She wants to get a resident, but Die stops her and says she can't have anyone panic and tells Nervous Intern to leave if she can't handle it. Nervous Intern apparently also has a few molecules that aren't crazy in her short frame, so she leaves.

Sleep Walker's Room: Mark asks Daughter where the dad is, but Daughter says he's having tests. She asks if Callie is okay and apologizes that her dad hit her. Mark says it's not Daughter's fault. She says she feels bad that she couldn't get her dad back to bed b/c sometimes she can talk him to sleep. Daughter is clearly carrying around a big ol' bag of Secret Pain. Mark picks up on this and says that she should really try to get some sleep. She agrees because it's perfectly reasonable, but her demeanor suggests that she's been battling a really stressful existence for a long time.

Alex's Patient: Apparently Mary Cherry diagnosed herself with a staff infection (Will Bailey calls it a pimple) and took antibiotics she got online. Apparently she did this without telling Will b/c he's shocked at this news. Alex says she killed all the bacteria in her body: good and bad. To resolve this, they have to re-introduce good bacteria to her body with a fecal transplant. Bleck, is that really a thing? Mary exclaims "Poop? I need a poop transplant?" The gross way this happens is they put a tube through her nose and into her stomach and then pump poop into her, preferably from someone she shares everyday germs with. Will is very tired of dealing with his hypochondriac wife and won't give her any poop until she admits she just had a pimple and not a staff infection. He leaves in disgust as she poutingly calls after him.

Nurse's Station: Mere and Christina comment that they haven't seen any interns, and they aren't answering pages. Nervous Intern walks by carrying an armload of candy bars, but she insists she doesn't know where any of the interns are. She has a terrible poker face, and Christina calls her on it, and she takes all her candy. Alex shows up to also comment he's lost his interns. It comes up that Die is in the hospital. This makes Christina realize something fishy is up, and she goes off in a huff. She probably thinks they are operating on dead people again. Mere sits with Alex and asks him what's up with Izzy. Alex says he doesn't know and is sick of people not talking to each other. He leaves to go get some crap. Mere reasonably wrinkles her nose at this odd statement. Then her stupid sister appears behind her. Lexie looks like....well...Lexie basically looks like she just did the stupidest thing she or anyone she's ever met has ever done. And Lexie has met Izzy the heart stealer, so that is saying something. Mere is immediately concerned by the look on Lexie's face, and it doesn't get better when Lexie squeaks out 'you got a minute?'

Skill's Lab: Cristina finds Floppy Haired, or Two, as she calls him, sitting on a gurney and doing charts. She barks at him to come with her and finish some charts on her appy patient. Two scrunches up his face like he's a puppy that got caught chewing a shoe and says as bravely as he can muster "NO!" Christina smiles gently and walks to him, with her hands on her hips, and sounding like a sweet, summer breeze while still managing to be a bit terrifying, she asks him "what do you mean no?" Like she's amused that this idiot thinks that he can defy an order from her. He has to come clean and say he can't go b/c he can't walk b/c of the catheter and the epidural. Christina's smile melts away as she realizes that the hospital is full of very insane interns.

Swoosh across Seattle to Grey House: Izzy and Dennyzombie cuddle in the afterglow. Izzy keeps her eyes closed and says she's going to just keep them closed b/c that way the magic of it all and the anything is possible of it all remains because it's terrible when the sun hits you and you realize it was all a dream. Denny kisses the top of her head and says okay.

Horribly Ill Conceived Surgery: Scared Intern (formally known as Cute Black Intern) is operating on Die, but it's very bloody, and he clearly doesn't know what he's doing. All the other interns have fled by this point, and he keeps impatiently looking at the door, willing real doctors to walk in. Finally Lexie rushes in with Mere and Christina close at her heels. Scared Intern breathes heavily and says he thinks she's dying. Thwump!

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Mere and Christina, who actually had a good resident that actually taught them stuff their first year, jump into action. Die's bp is very low. Lexie suggests calling a crash cart, but Christina barks that there is no crash cart in day patient surgery in the middle of the night, and this procedure should have been finished already, in a real OR with real surgeons. Mere barks at Scared Intern to page the chief and get Bailey and say there is an emergency and say nothing else "and get that crazy look off your face." But Mere, when a person is crazy enough to do this in the first place, they only got crazy to put on their face.

Mark tells Derek that he feels bad for the little girl who has to deal with her dad's night terrors. Derek, as per usual, only cares about himself and that his girlfriend takes in strays. I find it hard to remember why Derek is likeable or why I want him and Mere to even be a couple sometimes. Mark teases that he never thought about Little Grey that way until Derek brought it up. Derek tells him to unplant that seed of thought.

Alex's Patient: Alex has convinced Mary to tell Will that it was just a pimple, but she only says that she knows Will believes it was a pimple. He shouts "No poo for you!" heh. But Alex tells Will that Mary could lie and tell him what he wants to hear, but she's trying to tell him the truth and how she sees it, and he should quit walking away. Mary emotionally tells her husband that she really does think she has stomach cancer, and she thinks every headache is a brain tumor, and she lays awake at night feeling lumps in her breasts, which makes her heart race. She says there are a thousand things that can kill you, and she doesn't see how he can't see that. Will softens as he realizes that his wife is not being annoying on purpose, that she truely has a problem that she finds terrifying and that can't be willed away with logic. Even if her cancer isn't real, her hypochondria is an actual malady that deserves compassion.

Scared Intern finds Bailey and tells her there's an emergency. She's buried her face in a chart and casually asks what kind of emergency. Scared Intern has finally learned to follow orders, so he does what Mere told him and just says "it's an....emergency" But his face is so terrified that it looks like he'd be clammy to the touch, so Bailey snaps her chart shut and gravely follows him.

Sleep Walker: Derek would like to perform a procedure to help with the night terrors b/c he thinks they are caused by seizures in the frontal lobe. Dad says that it's just that he forgot his meds today. Mark gently prods Daughter, and she slowly starts sobbing as tells her father that he really has the night terrors every night, even though he takes the meds, but she is able to put him back to bed and get him to sleep. Aw, that must be so scary and exhausting for her! Dad reaches out to stroke her hair and asks why she didn't tell him this. Tears drip down her face as she says that the doctors said that stress caused his dreams, and she's his stress. Aw, this kid is breaking my heart. She's choking on her sobs. She says he takes such good care of her during the day, that she figured the least she could do is take care of him at night. Mark leans over to Daughter and gently reassures her that they don't think stress caused the terrors, they think it's the epilepsy. She then lets out this little heartbreaking stammering sob and says "so it wasn't my fault?" Poor Father looks at his sad little girl and feels a world of guilt that she was carrying such a burden.

Grey House: Izzy rolls over, but Denny is gone. She starts calling out his name and hurriedly pulls on a robe. Denny is just standing, dressed, in the doorway. She cries and yells at him that she thought he'd left her again. He softly says he's sorry for dying, but this only makes her yell some more that he can't apologize for dying b/c she killed him by convincing him to cut the LVAD. She cries a bit more and says dead people can't apologize, and she's probably just staying in this room and talking to herself and going crazy. He tries to comfort her, but she tells him to shut up and let her think. They sit on the bed for a moment and he tells her he loves her. She tells him she loves him too.

Ill Conceived Surgery: Bailey is scrubbed in and asks what the hell is going on. I have such a big crush on whoever picks the music for this show. Mere calmly explains they are repairing some stitches the interns did that came out. Christina is frustrated and needs more suction. Bailey somehow manages to become more awesome, even though it's impossible to be more awesome than Perfect and Complete Badass. She calmly and soothingly tells Christina that she doesn't need to see and guides her to use touch to find the part they are trying to repair. Bailey tells Mere to do the stitches. Mere asks which kind she should use, but Bailey is letting her little birds fly out of the nest and says either one works, and Mere has to do whatever she feels comfortable with. Mere is a bit nervous to be making this decision on her own, but once she makes the decision, she moves forward confidently and quickly. Lexie meanwhile stands there and silently sobs. That seems about right.

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The Interns all sit in time out in a hallway. Nervous Intern asks if they are going to jail. Scared Intern tells her that she's not b/c she chickened out. George walks up and says he just heard. He says Lexie should have come to him and maybe he could have stopped her. She angrily says this is the only thing she's done for months that's not about getting him to notice her and that she did this, and it wasnt' about him. She leaves in a huff. Nervous Intern tells George that Lexie is in love with him and asks how he missed that. George stares in surprise at this.

Lexie sees the Chief call Mere and Christina into his office.

Grey House: Izzy gets a 911 page and has to go. She asks if Denny is going back to heaven to talk with his dead guy friends about the great last night they had together. He teases that he and his dead guy friends talk about sports. He assures her he's not going anywhere, and she decides to smile and believe this.

Alex's patient: Alex stirs a bowl of poop. Mary apologizes to Will for all her crazy. He takes her hand and says he loves her, crazy and all. He decides it's better for their sex life if he doesn't watch his poop go into his wife's nose. I can't find a single reasonable argument against this very wise choice.

Sleep Walker: Derek and Dr. Hunt and George do the epilepsy surgery, or whatever it's called. Ah, my favorite part of every episode where the doctors all learn a valuable life lesson that magically mirrors the life lesson that their patients are learning. Dr. Hunt blames the dad for making his kid's life so hard. George, however, believes that maybe the dad assumed he had the kind of relationship where his daughter would talk to him if there was a problem. He says if you really love someone, you talk, right. (Just like Lexie would have done if she really loved George) But Dr. Hunt thinks maybe the daughter tried to talk, but words failed her. "Sometimes words fail" (like how his words fail when he tries to talk to Christina). Ah, even if you are a great surgeon, you really do learn something new every day. Or at least on 26 Thursdays out of the year.

Waiting Area: Mark finds Daughter and sits with her to reveal even more layers of his finally developing character. Honestly, I loved Addison almost a Bailey amount of love and never understood why she would cheat on Derek for the bone head that Mark seemed to be. It's nice that we are finally seeing him as more of a person and not just a cartoon. He tells Daughter that he had a hard time sleeping when he was a kid b/c his parents were sucky and never around. He paints a picture of turning on TVs and lights to feel safe, but still not being able to sleep. She stares at her lap, communicating that he knows exactly what her life has been like. He says it's hard to sleep when you don't feel safe. She looks like she could cry, but also like she is simply too tired to exert the energy it would require. He takes her coffee and says she has to sleep now, and he'll be right here. She resists at first, but is clearly so deeply tired, that she can't put up much of a fight and is soon snoozing on his shoulder.

Chief's Office: Chief is angry because he was taken out of sleep. Mere says she can't believe this happened. Chief is not angry at the way they handled this, though. He sees a lot of maturity in them in the way they didn't panic and handled the operation and especially that they asked for help right away and didn't try to hide it (like the time with the LVAD is his implication). He says covering for each other is sometimes a good thing but sometimes it's hubris, and he's glad they know the difference. Christina smiles proudly and is clearly touched by this compliment. Then dumb ol' Lexie has to bound into the room and tearfully say she can't let them get in trouble for what she did. Mere tries to shush Lexie b/c they really aren't in trouble, but Lexie continues and says people tried to stop her and Christina had told them to shut it down. Suddenly Chief is mad at everyone again and asks if Christina and Mere knew about this. Christina says she did know some, but Mere insists she didn't.

Supply Closet: Mere yells at Christina for having known about this intern insanity. Christina insists she just knew they were doing sutures, and she thought she had handled it and shut it down. Mere yells that apparently she didn't b/c Lexie almost lost her job and Die almost died. Christina snaps that Mere doesn't really care about Lexie and Die did this to herself. Mere snaps back that she cares about her job and doing the right thing. Christina is at a vein popping level of anger and rails at Mere that she didn't do the right thing. The right thing would be to have Christina's back with the chief. The right thing would be to not let only Christina take the fall and be taken out of the running for solo surgery. The right thing would be to admit that all the resident's had interns in there and all of the residents didn't properly monitor their interns. If Sadie had died, it would have been both of their faults, and Mere should have said so.

Stairwell: Alex, George, Christina and Mere have all been waiting for Bailey. She's tired and in no mood to coddle anyone. They want to know what she's going to say to the interns, but she says she's raised her babies, and the interns are their babies. Mere asks what they should say to them, but Bailey repeats that she's done giving speeches because she raised her baby's right, and if they don't know what to say, then they don't need to be here. She walks away, still chastising them that they know what to do.

Die's Hospital Room: The Interns all file in behind their Residents. Christina sternly tells Lexie to present the case. Die asks what is going on. I guess she was thankfully unconscious for most of the time the interns were rummaging around inside of her? Lexie explains Die's case. Mere angrily asks Scared Intern to continue. He explains about the complications from the surgerey. Christina prods Lexie to finish. Lexie has a little prepared speech about how mistakes were made that compromised the patient's care and life and reflect badly on the hospital, and it won't happen again. The interns are told they are all on probation until further notice, and Mere admonishes that if they sneeze they are out of here. For some reason they grimace like this is a surprise. I'd be glad to even have a chance to sneeze! George says they've lost the Chief's respect, and that's hard to get back. Alex says that they've lost his respect and can assume they won't be getting it back. Knucklehead Intern whispers that Alex still respects Izzy. Alex pushes Knuckledhead up against the way and says "Izzy was trying to save a life. You almost killed a friend for fun. There is a difference." I can't really argue with that. Izzy, of course, just happens to overhear this exchange.

Bailey checks on Callie and asks how she is. Callie cutely purrs that they've got good drugs here. She asks if she heard right about the interns being crazy. Bailey says she can remember being new to it all and wanting to operate so badly that she'd do anything. Bailey sadly reflects that now she can do her surgeries without even thinking. Like when you drive home and don't really remember how you got there. She doesn't even remember most of them. She says it's so boring that she resents appendectomies. She laughs at herself for resenting an organ. She thinks maybe general surgery isn't for her. Maybe she needs to learn something new, but she's tired. Callie says it's okay to be tired. She says she's tired and she wants something, but she can't name it. Bailey smiles and says that makes two of them.

Meredith starts talking to us again. As she does. She talks about sleep being the easiest thing to do, you just close your eyes. Mark lays Daughter on a bed next to her soundly sleeping father.

Die stirs as Mere comes in and lightly says the surgery was a bad idea. Mere is not amused and says it was a terrible idea. She chastises her as her boss and says she questions if Die should even be a doctor. then she softens and sits on the bed and asks, as her friend, what the hell is going on with her. Die has been surprised at this side of Mere she's never known, and her eyes grow wet with tears and she answers as honestly as she can, "I don't know." But at least she's not denying there is some sort of problem, and that appears to be a relief to her.

Mere continues to tell us that for some sleep seems out of our grasp.

Derek sees Lexie sitting dejected in the hallway and Mark watching her. Mark says that Derek's mom used to see how tired Mark was and make Derek bring him home, so he could sleep. He says that was a good thing. They both watch Lexie looking tired and sad and Mark says "so either you bring her home, or I will." Derek smiles at this as Mark leaves. Aw, Mark is a softy, y'all.

Lovely shots of Seattle at dawn as Meredith says we want it but we don't know how to get it.

Christina is walking home and finds Dr. Hunt waiting for her on the stoop of her building. They stare for a moment, and he manages to say he doesn't know why he came here. I don't know if he means her stoop or Seattle. I don't think he knows either. She asks if he'd like to come in, but he says he doesn't think that would be appropriate. She asks if he wants to go somewhere else, and she gestures towards the city with her body, thinking of a coffee shop. he considers this and says no. So she sits on the stoop next to him silently for a bit. He looks at her and manages to say "I think you are beautiful." and it's so totally sweet and exactly what Christina deserves, and I'm very happy for her.

Meredith continues "but once we face our demons, face our fears..."

Mere comes home to find Lexie sitting sadly and Derek making up a bed on the sofa. She says that Derek brought home a stray, and she smiles beautifully at him, and he smiles back. Aw, that's right, I totally love Derek and Meredith. I forget it sometimes.

meredith continues "and turn to each other for help...."

Alex and Izzy come home. He says he needs sleep b/c he has to be back at work in 6 hours. Izzy sort of tearfully tells Alex that she's a mess, and she knows it's hard for him. He half angrily tells her to stop and that if she can't handle their relationship, that's fine, but she's going to have to break up with him b/c he's not going anywhere. He can handle her mess. Aw all the boys are growing up this week! Well, except George, I guess. He asks if she's joining him in his room. Izzy feels torn and sees Denny standng sadly in the doorway. She whispers to him that she's sorry, but she can't. Denny sadly says it's okay, and he'll be here. Izzy and her crazy eyes goes into Alex's room

as Meredith finishes "night time isn't so scary because we realize we aren't all alone in the dark."

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