‘Grey’s Anatomy’: Making amends

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The patients included an environmentalist who broke all her limbs when she was bulldozed out of a tree and a little girl who riddled her dad with 17 bullets to keep him from using her as a punching bag. But the deepest wounds on Thursday night’s “Grey’s Anatomy” were emotional, rather than physical, and healing those would require good old-fashioned apologies (a.k.a. things that are even trickier to pull off than intricate surgery).

Tensions between Meredith and the Chief -- over his affair with her mom, which led to Mer’s neglect and the departure of her father -- finally came to a head in the episode. Mer let the gun-toting girl’s mom have it for failing to protect her daughter, prompting the Chief to let Mer have it for snapping at an abused woman. Go near the family again, he threatened, and the only wedding gift he’d be giving was a big fat suspension. It didn’t take Amy Madigan’s shrink to see that Mer identified with the kid and felt a burning need to stand up for her because she wished someone had done the same during her own tumultuous childhood. It did, however, take the Chief awhile to accept his role in the whole mess. Ultimately, his apology to Meredith was honest, heartfelt and worthy of every one of Mer’s tears. The question now is how Mama Grey’s journals, the ones Meredith packed up to give to the Chief, will affect this new detente. With the season finale a mere two weeks away, it seems likely that things are about to get more complicated.

Especially now that Meredith’s father is back in the picture. A rehabbed Thatcher Grey arrived at Seattle Grace full of apologies but while Meredith thanked him and wished him well, Lexie took things a step further and let Dad right back into her life, even introducing him to boyfriend Sloan over dinner. The Grey gals weren’t the only ones to receive a surprise visit from a ‘rent: Izzie’s free spirit/drama queen of a mom (Sharon Lawrence) also popped in to hit on her daughter’s boyfriend, consult her psychic and, oh yes, see how her kid was doing. Was it any wonder Izzie hadn’t called Mom herself (and was sorry that Bailey had)? The woman’s heart might be in the right place, but poor Izzie’s got enough to deal with without Hurricane Robbie. I was exhausted just watching, and I wasn’t even in the path of destruction. Thank goodness Bailey lied, saying that Izzie’s latest scans showed the cancer was virtually gone. Maybe now Mer-Der’s wedding planner can undergo her latest surgery in peace.

Lying was also an option for Callie, who was still reeling from her dad’s visit last week. (With parents like these, no wonder the ‘Grey’s’ crew is so issue-riddled.) In the interest of getting her relatives to speak to her again -- and regaining access to her trust fund -- Callie considered Cristina and Sloan’s advice to tell them she’d ended things with Arizona. Her girlfriend even said she’d accept the ruse. In the end, though, Callie, done lying to herself, decided she wasn’t about to start deceiving anybody else. Maybe this Arizona-Torres pairing really has a shot at going the distance.

I’m still rooting for the Owen-Cristina coupling as well, even though the guy all but ignored his ex for most of the episode. The way she finally called him on it was typical zingy Yang: “What are you? A choke ‘em and forget ‘em kind of guy?” More like a maybe-he’s-really-starting-to-take-this-therapy-thing-seriously kind of guy. He may be saying “take care now,” but he made it perfectly clear to Cristina those aren’t the three little words he means. To which I say: I.love.it.

What about you -- are you Cristina-Hunt fans? What were your favorite parts of the episode? And what secrets do you think are lurking in Mama Grey’s journals?

-- Shawna Malcom